[theveterans]

Hear the difference

I can hear in sighted conditions the differences between 44.1k/16 vs its 768/32 upsampled version (with HQPlayer). The difference is even stronger when I upsampled the same 44.1k/16 to DSD256.

The better the recording/mastering quality of the original CD, the stronger the difference I found.

I believe that the up-sampling filter play a major role here as I found the difference is not very strong when I used other upsampling software like foobar, roon, etc..

It's pretty normal to hear the difference on the filters and NOS in sighted conditions, including me, as most people from outside of sound science head-fi forum perceives. Though for me, eh they NOS or OS don't sound broken or distorted to me, but I don't claim that whatever perception I observe with sighted listening can be repeated with convincing evidence under DBT volume matched ABX test. Whatever floats for everyone's preference whether they want R2R NOS or reference AKM/ESS DACs or Chord/Schiit DACs that have their own proprietary digital filters, but in sound science forum, you do have to provide sufficient evidence using DBT ABX test to back up the claims. As you can see, I'm more of a centrist that I accept completely that I succumb to psychoacoustics on sighted listening by just switching my DAC to OS or NOS and that manufacturers take advantage of this phenomenon to make money and provide jobs to people in society (the point of view in how ethical is that is all up on individual's beliefs/ideals), but I know pretty well I'm gonna fail a proper DBT ABX volume matched test badly

 

[sunjam]

I have not seen any verified, reliable evidence that anyone can, even under 10 year olds. There is quite lot which indicates that adults can’t though. This paper by Nittono in 2020, “Moreover, the high-cut sounds examined in this study contained a temporal distortion (i.e. blurred onset and offset), which might be detected in the conventional auditory pathway. The lack of the corresponding electrocortical responses suggests that the auditory sensory memory cannot register the characteristics of a high-resolution grade sound (both high-frequency components and sharp onset and offset) …” - Demonstrated the ringing from a linear phase fast roll off filter doesn’t even register in the auditory cortex. Of course, we can’t prove a negative but there is quite a weight of evidence.

How were the ringing artefacts in the article that you butchered measure

Cool, thanks for the paper, It has a lot of information.

e.g. Ultrasonic vibrations of 100 kHz or over applied directly to the skull (i.e. mastoid) are known to produce auditory sensation through bone conduction and resonance12. They are not felt as vibratory or thermal sensations, but rather as normal tones with a lower frequency. Similar to auditory stimulation, they produce brain evoked responses and mismatch detection responses to frequency diference and stimulus omission, suggesting that the common auditory pathway is used for bone-conducted ultrasound and air-conducted normal sound perception.

 

[sunjam]

It's pretty normal to hear the difference on the filters and NOS in sighted conditions, including me, as most people from outside of sound science head-fi forum perceives. Though for me, eh they NOS or OS don't sound broken or distorted to me, but I don't claim that whatever perception I observe with sighted listening can be repeated with convincing evidence under DBT volume matched ABX test. Whatever floats for everyone's preference whether they want R2R NOS or reference AKM/ESS DACs or Chord/Schiit DACs that have their own proprietary digital filters, but in sound science forum, you do have to provide sufficient evidence using DBT ABX test to back up the claims. As you can see, I'm more of a centrist that I accept completely that I succumb to psychoacoustics on sighted listening by just switching my DAC to OS or NOS and that manufacturers take advantage of this phenomenon to make money and provide jobs to people in society (the point of view in how ethical is that is all up on individual's beliefs/ideals), but I know pretty well I'm gonna fail a proper DBT ABX volume matched test badly

I thought sound science is an authentic science subject like Physics, am I correct?

If, in sound science, we are just playing some DBT ABX tests for fun and then claim the result based on that without proper peer review system, it is like "correct but not absolutely".

Sorry, given my background, proper peer review is a must for any recogniized research result. People cannot simply do some DBT ABX tests at home or at his lab and claim the results.

May I ask if there is any proper research paper (i.e. like the one we just saw from Nature) that claims "Hi-Res is useless" or something like "Hi-Res doesn't make sense" based on scientific research?

I am pretty sure there is none (please correct me if I am wrong).

Silmilar, there is none to show "Hi-Res must sound better than CD for music playback".

If there was a conclusion that "Hi-Res is useless", no one would keep on doing research to compare Hi-Res vs CD

Sorry for my ignorance, I thought audio science forum is to promote factual knowledge in audio science instead of any claim like "Hi-Res is useless" or "You must hear the difference between Hi-Res and CD"

I think we should not provide conclusion (as most of these so-called conclusion / claims are just "correct but not absolutely").

We should provide / share / exchange knowledge. Am I correct?

Is there any way for us to fix the issue in audio science forum?

One more question, why the "hi-res is useless" supporters hate other people saying that they can hear the difference? What's wrong? Why these supporters have to, like a brainwash, tell other that "you should not hear the difference"? I really don't get it why.

 

[bigshot]

perpetual motion machine

"You aren't scientific enough."
"We can't know anything because we can't know everything."
"I don't have to do a controlled listening test. I trust my ears, not science."
"I demand that you prove a negative."
"Sound Science is a cabal."
"Some people can hear superaudible frequencies. I see a lot of them saying they can in forums. It must be true."
"We don't understand how digital audio works because we don't understand the psychology of perception."
"Video/Photography/Fine Wine/Race Cars are all valid analogies to digital audio."
"Audible transparency is a myth."
"There are things in digital audio we can't measure."
"Any measurable improvement must be audible as an improvement."
"Your tests are improper. Show me PROPER proof."
"I just make the claim. The burden of proof to prove me wrong is on you."

and the time honored classics...

"It's either your lousy stereo or you're deaf."
"You didn't spend enough on your system to hear that."
"My ears are trained to hear."
"There was a night and day difference... even my wife could hear it!"

 

[BS5711]

In that case, what do you think would be the possible reason why he stated that when he replied to my comment? Can you share with your viewpoint? You know I could be wrong in interpreting someone's message. It would be great if you can give us some insight.

Of course, it would be better if @castleofargh can answer for himself. But, as I said, feel free not to reply as we are living in a free world.


I am too tired in attempting to correct your mis-information every single time you tried to put words into my mouth.

This is what I said: my comment

disclaimer:

I know it is hard to face facts that are not compatible with your beliefs. If putting some words into my mouth would make you feel better, feel free to put whatever you like if you want.
I am not going to correct your on-going mistakes or attempts to put words into my mouth (unless I think I have to if it goes too far). Enjoy.

It seems I misunderstood an aspect of your assertion because I took parts of your blog at face value.

However I asked a question and never put words in your mouth in the slightest, come on, you are to clever for that !!

If you couldn’t understand what I was asking such that you could provide a straightforward response to straighten out the details your comprehension and communication skills are certainly not at the same level as your opinion of yourself.

Please don’t waste your time and more thread real estate with a reply because your opinion doesn’t matter to me and I certainly know mine doesn't matter to you.

 

[theveterans]

I thought sound science is an authentic science subject like Physics, am I correct?

If, in sound science, we are just playing some DBT ABX tests for fun and then claim the result based on that without proper peer review system, it is like "correct but not absolutely".

Sorry, given my background, proper peer review is a must for any recogniized research result. People cannot simply do some DBT ABX tests at home or at his lab and claim the results.

May I ask if there is any proper research paper (i.e. like the one we just saw from Nature) that claims "Hi-Res is useless" or something like "Hi-Res doesn't make sense" based on scientific research?

I am pretty sure there is none (please correct me if I am wrong).

Silmilar, there is none to show "Hi-Res must sound better than CD for music playback".

If there was a conclusion that "Hi-Res is useless", no one would keep on doing research to compare Hi-Res vs CD

Sorry for my ignorance, I thought audio science forum is to promote factual knowledge in audio science instead of any claim like "Hi-Res is useless" or "You must hear the difference between Hi-Res and CD"

I think we should not provide conclusion (as most of these so-called conclusion / claims are just "correct but not absolutely").

We should provide / share / exchange knowledge. Am I correct?

Is there any way for us to fix the issue in audio science forum?

One more question, why the "hi-res is useless" supporters hate other people saying that they can hear the difference? What's wrong? Why these supporters have to, like a brainwash, tell other that "you should not hear the difference"? I really don't get it why.

Even peer reviewed articles have opposing views (not just on audio, but on medicine i.e. homeopath or allopath, etc.) that show "correct but not absolutely". ABX test is currently the golden standard and a proven empirical data that provides whether the claim is statistically significant as true or not, but even that still falls under "correct but not absolutely" as it is still an empirical data from one person alone. Now with lots of published peer reviewed studies done, there are more evidences that point to not having statistical significance under a properly controlled and a fairly large sample size DBT ABX regarding hi-res vs standard CD.

My stance though is that I'm not in the absolutes i.e. I'm lying to myself that I'm hearing a difference because measurements say otherwise, but I understand the limitations of sighted listening and why I hear differences between DACs hell even cables/interconnects sighted, but have no claims that I can say one DAC/interconnect sounds better or have different sound signature when measurements say otherwise (inaudible) since I don't have empirical data under the golden standard ABX test that proves that my perception is objectively factual

 

[sunjam]

Even peer reviewed articles have opposing views (not just on audio, but on medicine i.e. homeopath or allopath, etc.) that show "correct but not absolutely". ABX test is currently the golden standard and a proven empirical data that provides whether the claim is statistically significant as true or not, but even that still falls under "correct but not absolutely" as it is still an empirical data from one person alone. Now with lots of published peer reviewed studies done, there are more evidences that point to not having statistical significance under a properly controlled and a fairly large sample size DBT ABX regarding hi-res vs standard CD.

My stance though is that I'm not in the absolutes i.e. I'm lying to myself that I'm hearing a difference because measurements say otherwise, but I understand the limitations of sighted listening and why I hear differences between DACs hell even cables/interconnects sighted, but have no claims that I can say one DAC/interconnect sounds better or have different sound signature when measurements say otherwise (inaudible) since I don't have empirical data under the golden standard ABX test that proves that my perception is objectively factual

Thanks a lot for your comment. Probably you noticed that I do really enjoy discussing with you. You make me think and learn. I wish there are more and more people with your mindset and sharp analytical thinking skill. In my mind, you are the role model of a "civilized citizen" in the audio science world.

Back to your comment, I ageed all you said except the red one in the quoted reply above (as I didn't check if it is indeed more or less). I could agree that after I checked if it is indeed more.

However, no matter it is indeed having 'more evidence' or 'less evidence', I think the things I am going to say is still valid.

Counter example check for validity

1. To check if a claim is valid or not, finding a single counter example is good enough.
e.g. let me use the exact words from the Monty's video: "you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog" the claim
The stair-step graph I showed earlier show the above claim is not valid.

In other words, people with analytical skill can k.o. this claim extremetly easily with just the above graph.

He needs to re-work or add more qualifiers to his claim in order to pass this "counter example" check.

If I were him and someone showed me an counter example that can k.o. my claim so easily, I would improve my claim with more qualifiers (if I do really want to distribute the correct information to the pubic. <=== agree?

Why he didn't do anything to clearify his claim? Here are the list of some possible reasons

Reason 1: He truely, wholeheartedly believe that his claim is 100% correct (i.e. absolutely correct) and don't care how other people think? I would believe the chance for this reason is very small as he has a Master's degree and he is a MIT graduate. I bet he should know how the peer review system works in Science / Research area.

or

Reason 2: He did know his claim is not 100% correct. The reason why he didn't clearify his claim is because his real intention is to mislead people into believeing his claim (and that would further help him to support his other claim he made earlier, i.e. "192/24 doesn't make sense" (aka "Hi Res is useless").

or because of something else?? <== Let me know what other reasons you could think of to hep him to explain why he didn't want to clearify his misleading claim?

Of course I cannot prove his intention. People can apply their analytical skill to judge themselve

Correct vs "Correct but not absolutely"

claim 1: "you certainly could get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog under some situation"
claim 2: "you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog"

claim 1 is correct (aka "absolutely correct")
claim 2 is "correct but not absolutely" because it is proven that if fails under certain situation.

Misleading or not?

Is claim 1 misleading? No, it states a fact
Is claim 2 misleading? Yes, it is only true under certain situation and the one who made such claim didn't mention the "limitations" of the claim. He has not intention to amend the claim at all.

Pseudo science or not?

Hmm.. it is a good question. Let's see the definition of pseudo science:

Looks like it fits the defintions of Pseudoscience
i.e.
- claim to be both scientific and factual
- incompatible with the scientific method (a simple counter example, i.e. the stairstep graph, show his claim fails)
- lack of openness to evaluation by other experts (i.e. he has no intention to clearify his claim)
- reliance on confirmation bias (the bias is "192/24 doesn't make sense")

In my eyes, I would consider it is a pseudoscience,

Do I in the "absolutes" (extremes)?

Look at the following capture and judge yourself:

p.s.: @theveterans , you know you are not the target audience for the above as you know pretty well what I am talking about. It is just food for thought for other people. Anyone feel free to comment. Cheers

 

[theveterans]

Thanks a lot for your comment. Probably you noticed that I do really enjoy discussing with you. You make me think and learn. I wish there are more and more people with your mindset and sharp analytical thinking skill. In my mind, you are the role model of a "civilized citizen" in the audio science world

Thanks. I assume most people who are into science (not just audio science) have the same mindset of scientific method and an analytical thinking skill (thus why you see so many methods in medicine with peer reviewed journals, allopathic homeopathic being combined and used simultaneously instead of homeopathic being "snake oil/placebo" and allopathic is the only way). I myself don't even have a background on electrical engineering let alone signal processing, however, having a bachelor's in chemistry that requires some decent calculus knowledge all the way up to Laplace and Fourier transforms especially for that quantum mechanics courses did help me translate some of those math concepts to a little bit of signal processing complex of how DACs behave at some degree of mathematical level hence probably why I'm a lot more open to hear multiple opinions from many sides.

Back to your comment, I ageed all you said except the red one in the quoted reply above (as I didn't check if it is indeed more or less). I could agree that after I checked if it is indeed more.

Feel free to disagree as I have not seen every academic journal regarding studies done on effects of different reconstruction filters and high sample rates on audibility.

I kinda did answer these two extremes on a balanced manner where I do hear it sighted, but I didn't have the proper controls to prove what I heard. All that to me is part of psychoacoustics and once I do impose a proper control, my brain ability to tell the differences apart from each other is significantly impaired to failing the DBT volume matched ABX. My opinion (yes opinion) is that combinations of senses *sight and hearing and even feeling/mood* enhances (with the disadvantage of having prone to being tricked where there's no difference at all) our perception of hearing a difference. Some would consider this as just a form of bias which I do not disagree or willing to dispute since we all have biases by nature, and I did mention it's my opinion/belief. That statement/opinion of multiple senses working together to enhance the perception of differences in what we perceive, to my opinion, can be considered as pseudoscience since both extremes are *correct (through anecdotal experience on I hear it, I swear case) but not absolute*

Thanks a lot for your comment. Probably you noticed that I do really enjoy discussing with you. You make me think and learn. I wish there are more and more people with your mindset and sharp analytical thinking skill. In my mind, you are the role model of a "civilized citizen" in the audio science world.

Back to your comment, I ageed all you said except the red one in the quoted reply above (as I didn't check if it is indeed more or less). I could agree that after I checked if it is indeed more.

However, no matter it is indeed having 'more evidence' or 'less evidence', I think the things I am going to say is still valid.

Counter example check for validity

1. To check if a claim is valid or not, finding a single counter example is good enough.
e.g. let me use the exact words from the Monty's video: "you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog" the claim
The stair-step graph I showed earlier show the above claim is not valid.

In other words, people with analytical skill can k.o. this claim extremetly easily with just the above graph.

He needs to re-work or add more qualifiers to his claim in order to pass this "counter example" check.

If I were him and someone showed me an counter example that can k.o. my claim so easily, I would improve my claim with more qualifiers (if I do really want to distribute the correct information to the pubic. <=== agree?

Why he didn't do anything to clearify his claim? Here are the list of some possible reasons

Reason 1: He truely, wholeheartedly believe that his claim is 100% correct (i.e. absolutely correct) and don't care how other people think? I would believe the chance for this reason is very small as he has a Master's degree and he is a MIT graduate. I bet he should know how the peer review system works in Science / Research area.

or

Reason 2: He did know his claim is not 100% correct. The reason why he didn't clearify his claim is because his real intention is to mislead people into believeing his claim (and that would further help him to support his other claim he made earlier, i.e. "192/24 doesn't make sense" (aka "Hi Res is useless").

or because of something else?? <== Let me know what other reasons you could think of to hep him to explain why he didn't want to clearify his misleading claim?

Of course I cannot prove his intention. People can apply their analytical skill to judge themselve

Correct vs "Correct but not absolutely"

claim 1: "you certainly could get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog under some situation"
claim 2: "you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog"

claim 1 is correct (aka "absolutely correct")
claim 2 is "correct but not absolutely" because it is proven that if fails under certain situation.

Misleading or not?

Is claim 1 misleading? No, it states a fact
Is claim 2 misleading? Yes, it is only true under certain situation and the one who made such claim didn't mention the "limitations" of the claim. He has not intention to amend the claim at all.

Pseudo science or not?

Hmm.. it is a good question. Let's see the definition of pseudo science:


Looks like it fits the defintions of Pseudoscience
i.e.
- claim to be both scientific and factual
- incompatible with the scientific method (a simple counter example, i.e. the stairstep graph, show his claim fails)
- lack of openness to evaluation by other experts (i.e. he has no intention to clearify his claim)
- reliance on confirmation bias (the bias is "192/24 doesn't make sense")

In my eyes, I would consider it is a pseudoscience,

Do I in the "absolutes" (extremes)?

Look at the following capture and judge yourself:



p.s.: @theveterans , you know you are not the target audience for the above as you know pretty well what I am talking about. It is just food for thought for other people. Anyone feel free to comment. Cheers

Let me share my thoughts and feedback on the Monty video:

Case for the stairsteps: NOS and filterless DAC DEFINITELY outputs a stairstep response on the digital domain. This is because of the way NOS DACs process the signal in the digital domain: the zero-order hold sampling.



Even at high sampling rates, a NOS and filterless DAC will still perform the zero order hold sampling unless the original signal was applied and oversampled with a digital filter prior to the DAC conversion. You can see that resulting analog reconstruction is just a Fourier transform of the rectangular function of dirac impulses in time domain

However, due to the mathematical nature of the rectangular dirac pulses, the result is an early treble roll-off which can be mitigated/lessened with feeding the NOS DAC with high sampling input or hi-res

The fact that practical digital-to-analog converters (DAC) do not output a sequence of dirac impulses, xs(t) (that, if ideally low-pass filtered, would result in the unique underlying bandlimited signal before sampling), but instead output a sequence of rectangular pulses, xZOH(t) (a piecewise constant function), means that there is an inherent effect of the ZOH on the effective frequency response of the DAC, resulting in a mild roll-off of gain at the higher frequencies (a 3.9224 dB loss at the Nyquist frequency, corresponding to a gain of sinc(1/2) = 2/π). This drop is a consequence of the hold property of a conventional DAC, and is not due to the sample and hold that might precede a conventional analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

To an audio science guys, this type of digital signal processing is pretty much obsolete and is broken by design (it creates severe aliasing outside of Nyquist because of spectral leakage created by the hold function) since we now have FIR filters or any variation of sinc filters to make linearity/FR as perfect as possible.

I repeat, I'm not disputing Monty's video. I believe in my opinion, Monty assumed that the DACs have built-in digital filters by default (if there isn't one, it's broken by design) and thus 44.1 KHz fully satisfies perfect linearity across the human hearing passband

 

[sunjam]

I repeat, I'm not disputing Monty's video. I believe in my opinion, Monty assumed that the DACs have absolutely pefect built-in digital filters by default (if there isn't one, it's broken by design) and thus 44.1 KHz fully satisfies almost perfect linearity across the human hearing passband

IMO, I would add the above words in red to make the statement as a fact.

Why:
1. absolutely perfect filter is required
2. To my understanding, quantization noise would introduce noise to the final audio output. The "smooth" output is not as sharp as the original signal. It was smeared to a thicker line by dithering to make it looks smooth. <=== please correct me if I am wrong.

ie.

The following simulated the effect of the smearing / dithering:

Original audio signal:

Final audio signal output with smearing (assume the DAC has a perfect filter):

(sorry for my hand drawing. It is supposed to be a perfect smooth sine wave but with a thicker line due to dithering)

A perfect reconstruction of the original audio signal should be like the following:

Food for thought:

1. Is the claim "The analog signal can be reconstructed losslessly, smoothly, and with the exact timing of the original analog signal" valid?

My comment: No, it is not a valid claim to me because the final audio signal from the DAC is not same as the original analog signal (even it looks similar)

2. Would the above two audio signal sounds similar?

My comment: I would not argue if someone said they hear no difference between the two. Meanwhile, I would not be surpried to see someone said "I can hear the difference" too

3. Would the following three sound similar? (Assuming they are all 1k Hz and same amplitude):

My comment: I bet they would sournd similar too.

4. Why one of the claims he said is that "you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog" even if stair-step wound sound similar to a perfect sine wave?

My comment: Looks to me he wanted to use the misleading claim to prove that he is right when he commented about stair-step waveform output. I would change his claim to something like "Under certain rare conditions, the DAC may reconstruct stair-case waveform output but you probably won't hear weird sound even with such wavefrom. So the stair-step is not a big issue for great music reproduction even with CD format".

==============

Agree? Comment?

 

[Ghoostknight]

Why:
1. absolutely perfect filter is required
2. To my understanding, quantization noise would introduce noise to the final audio output. The "smooth" output is not as sharp as the original signal. It was smeared to a thicker line by dithering to make it looks smooth. <=== please correct me if I am wrong.

ie.

The following simulated the effect of the smearing / dithering:

Original audio signal:

Final audio signal output with smearing (assume the DAC has a perfect filter):

(sorry for my hand drawing. It is supposed to be a perfect smooth sine wave but with a thicker line due to dithering)

A perfect reconstruction of the original audio signal should be like the following:

i think you are somewhat right here, but with these kind of questions there is this big question in the room about whether "degrading the signal a bit" is actually still worthwhile todo because of possible cons

i think the thing with dither is you are far more likely to sense any kind of distortion than you are likely to hear a 1-2db noisefloor rise at -94db, so while the dithered signal "looks worse" it actually fixed something that was inherent to the whole digital audio process making the "original signal" less desireable

also how a sine wave looks depends on how far you zoom in .... a -96db noisefloor 0db sinewave could look "perfect" with the right zoom, just as -120db and 0db sinewave would

 

[sunjam]

i think you are somewhat right here, but with these kind of questions there is this big question in the room about whether "degrading the signal a bit" is actually still worthwhile todo because of possible cons

i think the thing with dither is you are far more likely to sense any kind of distortion than you are likely to hear a 1-2db noisefloor rise at -94db, so while the dithered signal "looks worse" it actually fixed something that was inherent to the whole digital audio process making the "original signal" less desireable

Cool, thanks for your comment.

Please let me make it clear... I am not against dithering. I love it. It is a wonderful technique to make the final ouput looks smooth.

What I am so against is when someone said "The analog signal can be reconstructed losslessly, smoothly, and with the exact timing of the original analog signal" without any qualifier. Such claim created a lot of illusion for people who want to truely understand what is digital music.

To me such claim is so wrong that I have to classify it as pseudo science claim.

 

[Quazar]

Standard HP desktop computer with built-in headphone output. 16-bit, 44.1 kHz, 10,000 Hz, 0.5 V, sine wave. Analog oscilloscope. No step!

@sunjam
This was the answer to your first post.
I made it just for you...

 

[Ghoostknight]

What I am so against is when someone said "The analog signal can be reconstructed losslessly, smoothly, and with the exact timing of the original analog signal" without any qualifier. Such claim created a lot of illusion for people who want to truely understand what is digital music.

To me such claim is so wrong that I have to classify it as pseudo science claim.

its a claim that is a good generalization of things, but there are always some details left out

"on their audibility thresholds" these kind of claims hold but some should notice that there is clearly more going on then they claim, even if we could say the differences audiophiles talk about are miniscule but still make or break your system depending on how far off you go with how many improvements

 

[sunjam]

Cool, thanks for your comment.

Please let me make it clear... I am not against dithering. I love it. It is a wonderful technique to make the final ouput looks smooth.

What I am so against is when someone said "The analog signal can be reconstructed losslessly, smoothly, and with the exact timing of the original analog signal" without any qualifier. Such claim created a lot of illusion for people who want to truely understand what is digital music.

To me such claim is so wrong that I have to classify it as pseudo science claim.

By the way, I am curious... Is the Monty's video considered as the "bible" in the audio science world?

 

[theveterans]

IMO, I would add the above words in red to make the statement as a fact.

Why:
1. absolutely perfect filter is required
2. To my understanding, quantization noise would introduce noise to the final audio output. The "smooth" output is not as sharp as the original signal. It was smeared to a thicker line by dithering to make it looks smooth. <=== please correct me if I am wrong.

ie.

The following simulated the effect of the smearing / dithering:

Original audio signal:



Final audio signal output with smearing (assume the DAC has a perfect filter):


(sorry for my hand drawing. It is supposed to be a perfect smooth sine wave but with a thicker line due to dithering)

A perfect reconstruction of the original audio signal should be like the following:



Food for thought:

1. Is the claim "The analog signal can be reconstructed losslessly, smoothly, and with the exact timing of the original analog signal" valid?

My comment: No, it is not a valid claim to me because the final audio signal from the DAC is not same as the original analog signal (even it looks similar)

2. Would the above two audio signal sounds similar?

My comment: I would not argue if someone said they hear no difference between the two. Meanwhile, I would not be surpried to see someone said "I can hear the difference" too

3. Would the following three sound similar? (Assuming they are all 1k Hz and same amplitude):






My comment: I bet they would sournd similar too.

4. Why one of the claims he said is that "you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog" even if stair-step wound sound similar to a perfect sine wave?

My comment: Looks to me he wanted to use the misleading claim to prove that he is right when he commented about stair-step waveform output. I would change his claim to something like "Under certain rare conditions, the DAC may reconstruct stair-case waveform output but you probably won't hear weird sound even with such wavefrom. So the stair-step is not a big issue for great music reproduction even with CD format".

==============

Agree? Comment?

I'll get back to you tomorrow cause it's already late night here but it was "Sunny Afternoon" earlier. Just finished jamming on one of my fave Kpop album using basic 44.1 KHz zero hold order sampling sound signature from my Yggdrasil More Is Better on Filterless NOS mode and subjectively is a bliss of an eargasmic stairstep sinusoidal wave sound /sarcasm

P.S. Nice chat though. A nice change of mood from my usual posts from outside of sound science forum