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In Reply to: RE: no evidence that the two versions should sound the same posted by fmak on April 16, 2014 at 00:49:51
There is some confusion. I believe we are in agreement as to the substance, namely how the different versions compare.
I believe the different versions sound different. I believe this on the basis of the listening tests that have been reported. Of course it could be that these were mistaken and if there were evidence that the two versions had identical content (object code) then I would have withheld my opinion, as there could be other explanations for why the different versions sounded different. However, Scrith's "evidence" (nearly identical source code) is quite incomplete for the reasons I explained. If he wants to look at details of the object code and how it is laid out in memory he is free to do so, and he might learn something. But until he does, I will pay no attention to Scrith's arguments. I will go with the listening reports, which are probably correct.
What this case illustrates is just how hard it is to understand computer audio. This supports my argument that we will never get consistently good sound by tweaking software. This approach is poor systems engineering, albeit expedient in individual cases. It has been well known since I worked with hybrid (analog plus digital) computers back in 1961 that one needs to have a strict barrier between the digital and the analog worlds for best results. This is primarily a matter of hardware engineering, not software engineering.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Follow Ups:
"This supports my argument that we will never get consistently good sound by tweaking software. This approach is poor systems engineering, albeit expedient in individual cases."
Just curious, what actually is your definition of tweaking?
"Just curious, what actually is your definition of tweaking?"
Tweaking is making changes on a purely experimental basis without any substantive underlying theory. In other words, trial and error. It may involve listening, measurement or some combination thereof.
This is how I started. My uncle had a Dynaco mono block tube amplifier and it didn't sound good. We got a bunch to test equipment and noticed that the square wave response was poor. We then changed various components in the feedback path for ones with different values and observed what we saw on the scope. Eventually by trial and error we thought we had fixed the amplifier as the square wave response was now good and the distortion and power measurements were unchanged. We hooked it up to the speaker and before long we observed that the plates of the output tubes were now becoming brighter and brighter red. Fortunately, we didn't damage the tubes or burn out the speaker. Back to the drawing boards and we tried again, this time after a little investigation of why were were getting oscillations. A proper engineering approach would have included an understanding of poles and zeros and other aspects of electrical engineering. My Uncle was an artist, textile designer, and former art professor. I was a 13 year old kid. Years later I understood what had happened.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"Tweaking is making changes on a purely experimental basis without any substantive underlying theory. In other words, trial and error. It may involve listening, measurement or some combination thereof."
Are you assuming one has no idea what they are doing?
Even the best designer, "tweak" their designs.
The best designers don't begin tweaking until they have reached the end of their technical understanding. The difference is that these people begin with a lot of technical understanding, something which is not so common in these quarters.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"The best designers don't begin tweaking until they have reached the end of their technical understanding. The difference is that these people begin with a lot of technical understanding, something which is not so common in these quarters."
Not everyone is clueless though. :)
Some of the most famous discoveries have happened by accident.
Since this is actually still a pretty new field, experimenting is not the worst thing either. It is still a hobby, and hopefully nobody will get injured from computer tweaking.
Consistency in audio is a function of the combination of too many variables. However, I do all my evaluation listening on the same PC hardware. If you do this, you can weed out software and OSs that don't sound particularly good.
Server 2012R2 with minimal function does sound quite a lot better than other MS OSs with W8.1 x64 following. You should try it with a small ssd in your pc.
Whether the programmer or end user does the tweeking the end results depend on their skills and understanding of the system on which the software is running.
The programmer can only guess what that will be - the end user on the other hand knows exactly what it is.
"Consistency in audio is a function of the combination of too many variables. "
As far as I can tell this has been pretty much an audio truth since long before PC's ever became a part of the system.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
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