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Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

Some (final) points

1. Calibration: If we call the effect to be evaluated "bottlenecking", the possibly only acceptable way to calibrate the system is to use a bottlenecked signal, hence the effect itself, otherwise you probably would say that the signal used for calibration was not suited. If you know of any other test material with known degradations equivalent to bottlenecking other than bottlenecking itself, go ahead. The next question is, how do you determine those “known degradations”? By biased sighted testing, by non-calibrated blind testing?

2. Qualification and training of listeners: no audiophile is calibrating his system, no audiophile is trained, are you willing to accept all those positive results of all those heavily biased listening tests as conclusive evidence? Brad's test included recording engineers and a mastering facility, and audio engineering students and a custom-designed university audio facility, if that's not trained listeners and room acoustics with sufficient resolution, I don't know. They also included an audiophile with his audiophile system and custom-built listening room, at least that should do, or is Sea Cliff the minimum requirement?

3. Meyer/Moran being circumspect: they are because it's the only way to look at their results: "our tests failed to substantiate the claimed advantages of high-resolution encoding for two-channel audio" and "it is very difficult to use negative results to prove the inaudibility of any given phenomeon or process".

4. The authors showed nothing: by the same token, nobody shows anything, never. All sighted listening tests are biased. Many audio systems have non-flat amplitude response, on and off-axis. The overwhelming majority of loudspeakers is not time aligned. If you want to look for flaws, look at audiophiles, their systems and listening tests.

5. You've got the burden all mixed up: that's merely a matter of opinion. The study was published in 2007, we are now almost 3 years later, to this date no one has shown, in a test that meets both audiophile and non-audiophile requirements, that redbook is not sufficient/transparent. Instead of poking for holes in the Meyer/Moran test, the audiophile community should do its own test, watertight, foolproof, at Sea Cliff, if necessary and get it published. If you think there's a serious flaw in the study, write a comment on the AES forum, Clark is a member, so there is access!

I for one have said more than I wanted to, so I’m stopping at this point. To me the study is just providing an additional reason for not buying hi-rez.

Klaus


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