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RE: Thank you. But even "going astray", while that does happen, is not the core of my argument.

64.13.14.96

In Reply to: RE: Thank you. But even "going astray", while that does happen, is not the core of my argument. posted by clarkjohnsen on September 23, 2007 at 11:09:23

I think we are referring to the same thing Clark. By going astray I mean that even though they are recovering the data accurately from the disk that the sound quality of CD players is often dependent upon the media characteristics. That has certainly been my experience and is widely recognized (well, by most folks) and there are plenty of mechanisms to account for it.

However since the test didn't use CD players, they have eliminated this as a variable, whether they believed in it or not. If I understand the test correctly they did a 16/44.1 A/D-D/A pass of the demodulated material from sources with higher sample rates and resolutions and compared the result with that analog input.

Since the outcome was that they were indistinguishable this says a lot to me about how good this process CAN be. If their test was accurate, the 16bit,44KS/s linear CODEC process itself is sufficient, at least for one trip.

As far as the sound of the translation outside of sample rate and resolution goes, as pointed out that would show up as an error term in the tests and since it wasn't recognized was apparently not of significance. This isn't too unlikely, especially a single master clock was probably running the whole shebang.

Perhaps the player problems are worse than we thought. Good job that they are obsolete...

Regards, Rick

Follow Ups:

"They have eliminated [CD playback] as a variable," True; but then they try to tell us... - clarkjohnsen 08:26:14 09/24/07 (5)
...that hi-rez is no better than CD.

But they have eliminated CD from the equation!

So how can they know?

All they have proven is, that with an apparently crappy system and unqualified subjects, "hi-rez" sounds no better than an unspecified "bottleneck" -- a "bottleneck" that bears Lord-knows-what relation to actual CD, apart from the fact that it has the right "numbers".

But all CD players have the right numbers!

The reported experiments simply leave us hanging.

clark
- Having now read it... - rick_m 09:07:04 09/25/07 (1)
  I can see that I wasn't missing much.
  
  The "CD standard" is good enough, at least under best-case conditions. No efforts were spent establishing margins however so the results are of no engineering value. I suspect that it is just barely "good enough". Clearly you are correct, they inappropriately infer that on all CD based system that mastering will be the limiting factor.
  
  I do appreciate the work they've done especially since it vindicates some of the tentative conclusions that I'd drawn from experience. However the notion that all CD chains are blameless is absurd. Fortunately now that we have capable computers we can reduce or eliminate many of the medium and playback problems so their conclusions are actually far more applicable now than they were when we were stuck with "real time" CD players.
  
  Thanks for letting me see it,
  
  Rick
  - "I wasn't missing much." Indeed not. Yet I got challenged for calling it a quick read! nt - clarkjohnsen 10:02:59 09/25/07 (0)
    x
- OK,Ok,ok - rick_m 09:14:13 09/24/07 (2)
  They do appear to be drawing a wider conclusion than their test data supports. Since I don't have access to the damned (at least in this forum) paper I'm forced to rely upon summaries and postings.
  
  If I can summarize the summaries: 16/44 can be good enough. The test was essentially "best case" so indeed it doesn't say that a CD WILL sound good, especially on a given piece of equipment. Although they seem to think it does.
  
  Since this fits my experience I'm not surprised. Even in my modest systems the quality of the mastering, well actually the whole production cycle, is really the biggest variable. The well made ones sound good. And then there are the other 95%. LP's used to have about the same ratio. Reel to reel tapes did better on average.
  
  Again, I'm coming away with the conclusion that 16/44 is barely adequate. So is a 36 Hp Volkswagen, especially if you enjoy observing the fauna and flora while going uphill.
  
  Rick
  - This URL may get you to it. - clarkjohnsen 09:33:57 09/24/07 (1)
    I don't know... the window may close... Let me know and I'll work around it.
    
    clark
    - Meyer & Moran (Open in New Window)
    - Excellent, thanks! nt - rick_m 09:46:55 09/24/07 (0)

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