Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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RE: So IOW, it's just as I suggested?

Posted by 13th Duke of Wymbourne on June 13, 2024 at 14:21:06:
Interesting points, I think THD and IMD are meaningless too for sound quality. I listen to vinyl mostly and that is rife with distortion, so much so that no one ever talks about it (except HFN-RR who measure distortion of cartridges. If you have to ask how much they produce then you don't want to know the answer). The weighting of harmonics was Hiraga's thing and Keith Howard did his own investigation (see link).

But what are these pyschoacoustic tools and would you really want every piece of gear to sound great? Good sound would be a commodity and people would only then choose by features and price. The high-end would disappear (maybe not a bad thing) and so would audio forums (maybe not a good thing). On a related note it struck me that mp3 could be a guiding point. IMHO, mp3 can sound very good considering how much information is thrown away. If we already know what could be thrown away and sound good surely we could steps backwards and figure out what should be enhanced to sound great?

I have wondered too if sound without added artifacts is just bland? The same way I wonder if multi-channel using many 'good' quality channels is better than stereo using two 'high-end' channels. And, of course, the studio engineers who make all our music largely don't prescribe to the things audiophiles think important on the playback side. But the thing that irks most is feedback deniers who cannot explain why it is bad - only that it is. Or if they do explain why it is in a very hand wavy and not all rigorous way. Why is adding the least amount of artifacts to the signal a bad thing?

Non-professional audio is a place where people can make products without a solid technical background and proclaim it good because it sounds good to them. And they mostly have their own theories about things and if people agree and buy into the theories and then buy the products that is fine. As someone with a technical background I do cringe at some of the theories and explanations. Frankly, they can't all be right - vinyl vs digital, solid state vs tubes, box speakers vs panels, hi efficiency etc etc so I'm of the mind that if there isn't a single true way yet all paths have proponents there must be NO true way and none of it really matters. As long as you enjoy what you are hearing.