[bigshot]

To me, bottom line is that "Hi-Res is useful as it help to better reconstruct the final audio output in reality when compared with CD" (statement 1)

Regardless if someone can hear or cannot hear the difference, statement 1 is still valid.

Inaudible can’t be heard. I believe the highest frequency any human has been recorded as being able to hear was around 22 kHz, and that was a child. Adults generally aren’t able to hear as high. CDs are able to reproduce frequencies you surely can’t hear. And the noise floor of CDs is lower than the ambient room tone in most recordings, and it’s low enough that in order to be able to hear it, you would have to raise the volume to excruciating levels.

Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible in practice? (Even though as Gregorio points out, it doesn’t!)

You may want high sampling and bit rates for theoretical reasons, but you don’t need them to listen to recorded music. Why are you so married to high rate audio? Do you think you might actually be able to hear the difference, or do you just like the idea of having lots of unecessary data in your music?

I’m assuming that you’ve given up the desire for NOS DACs. Those are both theoretically inferior and audibly inferior to oversampling DACs. They should be avoided if you want maximum audible fidelity.

On the other hand, compared to even the cheapest DAC, your headphones are massively inaccurate. Why not focus there where it would make an audible improvement?

 

[BS5711]

I find it astounding that folks like this and our crystal man will argue until the cows come home that they and others like them have figured out something to do with human hearing that science doesn’t yet understand.

However, at the same time they acknowledge the presence of expectation biases and the effects of outside stimuli on perception of sound and how humans can genuinely perceive sound differences that simply don’t exist yet they believe they are above those weaknesses.

If these guys would spend a little more time learning about the limitations, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of the human auditory system and less time entertaining their own crazy theories they would actually learn something useful about audio.

 

[castleofargh]

@sunjam. If you actually wish to fight pseudo-science right now, take down your article, let's delete this thread and move on. It's the obvious, honest thing to do. There is nothing you're arguing against, that is worse than what you yourself have done in that blog.
You think that saying hires is hires, water is wet, magically justifies everything else you falsely asserted, misrepresented, misquoted to land that conclusion?

Let's debunk Pseudo Science Claims together with our critical thinking!

It's so wrong that I'm still on the fence about a possible psychological experiment using us as subjects.


Beside what we already covered, that other forums already told you, you managed to make Monty say "hi-res is useless" 4 times in like the 5 first lines of your blog post including the title. Twice in quotes. But did he say that in the video you immediately link and show a screenshot of? I just checked the video and of course he did not.
That's the level of rigorous debunking work you're doing? Critical thinking, my ass.

You don't even manage to disprove Monty's point about staircases not existing. He clearly speaks about a band limited signal and your frankenstein cherry-picked misrepresentation case clearly does not manage to band limit the signal. We know it because if the signal was properly band limited, it could not show staircases!!!!!!!!!!!
And that was the only real looking argument for using those screenshots in the first place.
Monty's video does not discuss hires, you managed to use the one that doesn't. The original article from the other guy with the DAC measured don't demonstrate anything about hires either, it wasn't even the topic of his post. You and only you built a false case about a false claim you made up, and magically land on the conclusion that hires is hires, without any clear relation to everything written before that. It has the logical consistency of posting a cake recipe, some cosplay pictures and then conclude that hires is hires. Except your stuff is worse because you misquote and misrepresent everything else. I'd rather have the cake and cosplay version.


How's the traffic on your blog? Was it worth it to throw away everything you pretend to care about for the sake of attempting lukewarm polemic? Try adding more spelling or syntax errors in the title next time, it's known to be an effective troll farm method to generate more comments and more traffic.

As for this thread, you have now reached the legendary end of the road, where someone tries to make a case about hires by analogy with TV or camera resolutions. Sample rate and bit depth having nothing to do with pixel numbers, it's a great example of debate failure.

 

[sunjam]

Inaudible can’t be heard. I believe the highest frequency any human has been recorded as being able to hear was around 22 kHz, and that was a child. Adults generally aren’t able to hear as high. CDs are able to reproduce frequencies you surely can’t hear. And the noise floor of CDs is lower than the ambient room tone in most recordings, and it’s low enough that in order to be able to hear it, you would have to raise the volume to excruciating levels.

Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible in practice? (Even though as Gregorio points out, it doesn’t!)

You may want high sampling and bit rates for theoretical reasons, but you don’t need them to listen to recorded music. Why are you so married to high rate audio? Do you think you might actually be able to hear the difference, or do you just like the idea of having lots of unecessary data in your music?

I’m assuming that you’ve given up the desire for NOS DACs. Those are both theoretically inferior and audibly inferior to oversampling DACs. They should be avoided if you want maximum audible fidelity.

On the other hand, compared to even the cheapest DAC, your headphones are massively inaccurate. Why not focus there where it would make an audible improvement?

You are correct. By definition, inaudible mean something can't be heard. However your inaudible may be someone else audible.

I am not arguing if people can hear frequency higher than 22 kHz. We are talking about audible frequency range. i.e. audio signal

"You may want high sampling and bit rates for theoretical reasons, but you don’t need them to listen to recorded music." <== agreed, as I mentioned earlier, you don't need them to listen to music. I just highlighted if you want better music, Hi-Res can help to reconstruct better music in the audible range (you also agreed that it helps theoretically). You just argue that the better music reconstructed by Hi-Res music cannot be heard (even in the audible frequency range).

"Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible in practice? (Even though as Gregorio points out, it doesn’t!)" <== agreed. However, I would use a better statement to describe it "Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible to him in practice"
or a similar one, i.e. "People do care if it reconstructs better in theory if it is audible to them in practice"

"Why are you so married to high rate audio? Do you think you might actually be able to hear the difference, or do you just like the idea of having lots of unecessary data in your music?" <== I don't need to think if I can hear the difference as I do hear the difference.

To be honest, I am quite confused, why you guys love to keep on telling someone what they should hear and what they should not hear?

Isn't hearing a personal experience?

It is fine if you said you cannot hear something as it is a personal experience. That's why I don't think Hi-Res is a must.

But when you cannot hear something, why someone else have to say the same thing that they cannot hear it too even they do really hear it? I really don't understand.

I know what I can hear from my ears. I think I don't need someone to tell me what I should hear and what I should not hear.

As I always said, feel free to enjoy your CD music while other are enjoying their better re-constructed Hi-Res music. Cheeers

 

[71 dB]

As for this thread, you have now reached the legendary end of the road, where someone tries to make a case about hires by analogy with TV or camera resolutions. Sample rate and bit depth having nothing to do with pixel numbers, it's a great example of debate failure.

Even if we try to make the case, digital audio with 44100 Hz sampling is for the ears the same as maybe 8K video for the eyes. Advocating for hi-res audio is like advocating for 20K video resolution...

 

[BS5711]

Advocating for hi-res audio is like advocating for 20K video resolution...

And there is probably a video enthusiasts forum some place where someone is doing just that.

 

[BS5711]

You are correct. By definition, inaudible mean something can't be heard. However your inaudible may be someone else audible.

I am not arguing if people can hear frequency higher than 22 kHz. We are talking about audible frequency range. i.e. audio signal

"You may want high sampling and bit rates for theoretical reasons, but you don’t need them to listen to recorded music." <== agreed, as I mentioned earlier, you don't need them to listen to music. I just highlighted if you want better music, Hi-Res can help to reconstruct better music in the audible range (you also agreed that it helps theoretically). You just argue that the better music reconstructed by Hi-Res music cannot be heard (even in the audible frequency range).

"Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible in practice? (Even though as Gregorio points out, it doesn’t!)" <== agreed. However, I would use a better statement to describe it "Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible to him in practice"
or a similar one, i.e. "People do care if it reconstructs better in theory if it is audible to them in practice"

"Why are you so married to high rate audio? Do you think you might actually be able to hear the difference, or do you just like the idea of having lots of unecessary data in your music?" <== I don't need to think if I can hear the difference as I do hear the difference.

To be honest, I am quite confused, why you guys love to keep on telling someone what they should hear and what they should not hear?

Isn't hearing a personal experience?

It is fine if you said you cannot hear something as it is a personal experience. That's why I don't think Hi-Res is a must.

But when you cannot hear something, why someone else have to say the same thing that they cannot hear it too even they do really hear it? I really don't understand.

I know what I can hear from my ears. I think I don't need someone to tell me what I should hear and what I should not hear.

As I always said, feel free to enjoy your CD music while other are enjoying their better re-constructed Hi-Res music. Cheeers

This all seems to boil down to the standard internet audio enthusiasts phrase that they know what they hear and they trust their ears.

Perhaps you might want to put some effort into learning if you should actually trust your ears.

How old are you ? My guess is you are not a five year old with optimal human hearing.

 

[71 dB]

As I always said, feel free to enjoy your CD music while other are enjoying their better re-constructed Hi-Res music. Cheeers

Sound quality is a fraction of my enjoyment of music. Reconstruncting "better" doesn't make any bad music better for me. Since I can't hear beyond 15 kHz or so at my age, 44100 Hz sampling is more than I need, but I can hear the difference between 22050 Hz and 44100 Hz sampling. The former sounds darker. So, I rather use 44100 Hz sampling. The point is, for me the most important thing is that the music itself is to my liking. Not all music in the world is available as hi-res, in fact I believe only a very small fraction of all music is available as hi-res. In that sense hi-res as a format really sucks for me. Even CD is often problematic format for me, because so much of good music is vinyl only, but it is the best compromise (as physical music format) for me between sound quality and availability of music.

 

[71 dB]

And there is probably a video enthusiasts forum some place where someone is doing just that.

Yeah, because you haven't seen Jurassic Park before you have seen it in 20K!

I am someone who thinks 2K is enough for movies at home unless your screen is very large (simulating movie theaters).

 

[sunjam]

@sunjam. If you actually wish to fight pseudo-science right now, take down your article, let's delete this thread and move on. It's the obvious, honest thing to do. There is nothing you're arguing against, that is worse than what you yourself have done in that blog.
You think that saying hires is hires, water is wet, magically justifies everything else you falsely asserted, misrepresented, misquoted to land that conclusion?


It's so wrong that I'm still on the fence about a possible psychological experiment using us as subjects.


Beside what we already covered, that other forums already told you, you managed to make Monty say "hi-res is useless" 4 times in like the 5 first lines of your blog post including the title. Twice in quotes. But did he say that in the video you immediately link and show a screenshot of? I just checked the video and of course he did not.
That's the level of rigorous debunking work you're doing? Critical thinking, my ass.

You don't even manage to disprove Monty's point about staircases not existing. He clearly speaks about a band limited signal and your frankenstein cherry-picked misrepresentation case clearly does not manage to band limit the signal. We know it because if the signal was properly band limited, it could not show staircases!!!!!!!!!!!
And that was the only real looking argument for using those screenshots in the first place.
Monty's video does not discuss hires, you managed to use the one that doesn't. The original article from the other guy with the DAC measured don't demonstrate anything about hires either, it wasn't even the topic of his post. You and only you built a false case about a false claim you made up, and magically land on the conclusion that hires is hires, without any clear relation to everything written before that. It has the logical consistency of posting a cake recipe, some cosplay pictures and then conclude that hires is hires. Except your stuff is worse because you misquote and misrepresent everything else. I'd rather have the cake and cosplay version.


How's the traffic on your blog? Was it worth it to throw away everything you pretend to care about for the sake of attempting lukewarm polemic? Try adding more spelling or syntax errors in the title next time, it's known to be an effective troll farm method to generate more comments and more traffic.

As for this thread, you have now reached the legendary end of the road, where someone tries to make a case about hires by analogy with TV or camera resolutions. Sample rate and bit depth having nothing to do with pixel numbers, it's a great example of debate failure.

Thanks for your reply.

Here is the transcript in the first minute of "the Monty's video":

He said: "Hi I'm Monty Montgomery from Red Hat and Zephyr org, a few months ago I wrote an article on digital audio and why 24 bit 192 kilohertz music downloads don't make sense. In the article I mentioned almost in passing that a digital waveform is not a stair-step and you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog of everything and the entire article that was the number one thing people wrote about."

Based on my communication skill, my understanding of his saying of "24 bit 192 kilohertz music downloads don't make sense" mean "Hi-Res music doesn't make sense". Did I make a mistake here?

What your understanding of his saying of "24 bit 192 kilohertz music downloads don't make sense"? Does it mean "Hi-Res is useless" to you? Or you have a different interpretation of that statement?

I wish we have an open-minded, fact based discussion about Hi-Res music. Sometimes, I do feel it but sometimes I do not. To be honest, I feel someone was trying to bully me when I stated the supporting facts to support my view point.

Please make sure to let me know that if I stated something as facts but indeed they are not. I will fix them as I don't want to mis-lead people.

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

"You don't even manage to disprove Monty's point about staircases not existing" <=== I thought I managed to disprove Monty's point about staircases not existing. It is shown in the following graph:

(source: How to pick the best filter setting for your DAC – Addicted To Audio)

Anyone can easily reproduce a similar stair-step audio ouput waveform from a modern DAC with NOS filter.

i.e. feed a perfect 1kHz sine wave digital input to a Topping E30 with filter F-5

Well... to be exact, it was not me who disprove the claim. It was the experiment done by the writer of the original article did that.
=================

"Monty's video does not discuss hires, you managed to use the one that doesn't." <=== Please look at his opening speech again... "Hi I'm Monty Montgomery from Red Hat and Zephyr org, a few months ago I wrote an article on digital audio and why 24 bit 192 kilohertz music downloads don't make sense. In the article I mentioned almost in passing that a digital waveform is not a stair-step and you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog of everything and the entire article that was the number one thing people wrote about..."

Is 192/24 a Hi-Res format?

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

I do know that sometimes it is hard to accept facts especially if these facts are not "compatibile" with one's own belief. Time would make this better. Cheers

 

[gregorio]

By definition, inaudible mean something can't be heard.

Yes, you’ve got it, that is correct!

However your inaudible may be someone else audible.

But he did not state “my inaudible” he just said “inaudible” which as you just correctly stated; by definition means it can’t be heard!

However, I would use a better statement to describe it "Who cares if it reconstructs better in theory if it’s clearly inaudible to him in practice"

That is NOT a better statement, it is a false statement you just made-up, I stated “inaudible”, not “inaudible to me” and I was correct in doing so!

"People do care if it reconstructs better in theory if it is audible to them in practice"

Right but as it is inaudible then it cannot be “audible to them in practice” because as you yourself stated; by definition they can’t hear it!

To be honest, I am quite confused, why you guys love to keep on telling someone what they should hear and what they should not hear?

Human hearing thresholds have been extremely well researched for over 130 years, so we/science knows what is inaudible and therefore by your own assertion “what they should not hear”, unless of course they are not human! Furthermore, some of the artefacts/imperfections implied are too small to even be resolved into sound, so how can anyone or anything hear a sound that doesn’t exist?

Isn't hearing a personal experience?

No, hearing is a physiological process that occurs in the ear and is registered in the auditory cortex of the brain. As this is common to all humans (with functional ears) it is therefore not personal. The “personal experience” comes from how each person’s brain then interprets and responds to what has been heard/sensed.

Again, just more of the same nonsense. Didn’t you read castleofargh’s post?

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

I know what I can hear from my ears. I think I don't need someone to tell me what I should hear and what I should not hear.

Exactly. You presumably have learned from this discussion that what people actually hear has no bearing on anything to these people. They alone will tell you what you and everyone else hears.

I see you've caught on to how pathetic that is.

As I always said, feel free to enjoy your CD music while other are enjoying their better re-constructed Hi-Res music. Cheeers

Back at ya'.

 

[sunjam]

Exactly. You presumably have learned from this discussion that what people actually hear has no bearing on anything to these people. They alone will tell you what you and everyone else hears.

I see you've caught on to how pathetic that is.


Back at ya'.

No, I actually learned that from my discussion in ASR. It was an eye opening experience. Like what I felt when I first read the original article (How to pick the best filter setting for your DAC – Addicted To Audio) I used for my explanation. My feeling was "Wow.... ", of couse, the "wow" I felt during the ASR discussion was quite different from the one when I read the original article.

I don't feel any "Wow" here. Just a bit disappointed.

 

[bigshot]

If these guys would spend a little more time learning about the limitations, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of the human auditory system and less time entertaining their own crazy theories they would actually learn something useful about audio.

That’s assuming 1) they want to learn and 2) this discussion is about audio.

I just spent a half hour composing a carefully worded explanation of what he was mistaken about, and he replied having barely read what I said. He was agreeing with me about things that I hadn’t said.

I could spend the rest of my life helping this guy understand how digital audio works, and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference because for someone so interested in hearing, he just plain doesn’t listen. His brain is devoid of actual information and he’s determined to keep it that way.

This is what frustrates me about this forum. We get hung up arguing about extremely basic principles and get nowhere because as much as these stubborn wrongheaded individuals pretend that this is a “debate”, it isn’t that at all. It’s a monologue with pauses for other people to draft comments that elicit the same monologue again in reply.

This isn’t about learning. It’s anti-intellectual blather.

if this was a cooking forum, someone would come in arguing about yeast in bread dough with no concept of what yeast does. And if this was a forum about guitars, they’d be telling us how ebony fingerboards are scientifically superior to birch… they’re going to blather on about whatever this forum is about.

So why do they do this if it isn’t about learning and it isn’t about sound? That is obvious. They march in and make a scene to attract attention to themselves. They probably feel that in the real world, they’re passed by and they’ve become attention starved. They see people here who are knowledgeable and confident who carry on discussions among each other and they want to be a part of that. But they don’t want to participate on their own level, they want to go straight to the top and be the loudest voice in the room. They’re incapable of participating on a peer level and they’re too impatient to learn and work their way up. They don’t want us to help them learn, they want to cosplay as an internet expert.

It’s obvious where these guys are headed from the very beginning. A loud crash is the inevitable conclusion. But there’s no mechanism to quietly take them aside and force them onto a better path. We have to go through a fortnight of a thousand tortures until they finally implode and go away.

This is irritating for us and unhealthy for them, but it seems that there’s no way to avoid it. Once the first silly bluff post is thrown down, out lot is cast and there’s nothing we can do but resign ourselves to the inevitable dumb time suck. I’m done with the crystal guy and I’m done with this guy too, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. We have no choice but to sit and watch them undot every I and uncross every t. When they get beaten down and go away, there will be another very small person making a big deal of themselves to replace them. They create tag teams with other very small people and me too each other.

On the surface it may be about science and audio, but it really isn’t about that at all.

 

[gregorio]

I wish we have an open-minded, fact based discussion about Hi-Res music.

Then why do you keep doing the exact opposite?

(source: How to pick the best filter setting for your DAC – Addicted To Audio)
Anyone can easily reproduce a similar stair-step audio ouput waveform from a modern DAC with NOS filter.
i.e. feed a perfect 1kHz sine wave digital input to a Topping E30 with filter F-5

So, you take the article “How to pick the best filter” but actually do the exact opposite and pick the worst/broken one and then use that as the example of digital to analogue conversion and why hi-res is better. That you applying critical thinking is it? Lol
Using your open-minded, critically thought out, fact based methodology, it would be easy to demonstrate how a pig can fly better than a fighter jet. All you need is a pig and broken fighter jet!

"Monty's video does not discuss hires, you managed to use the one that doesn't." <=== Please look at his opening speech again... "Hi I'm Monty Montgomery from Red Hat and Zephyr org, a few months ago I wrote an article on digital audio and why 24 bit 192 kilohertz music downloads don't make sense. In the article I mentioned almost in passing that a digital waveform is not a stair-step and you certainly don't get a stair-step when you convert from digital back to analog of everything and the entire article that was the number one thing people wrote about..."

Is 192/24 a Hi-Res format?

Yes it is, now please show us where he discusses it! Monty only mentions a DIFFERENT video where he does discuss hi-res but he does not discuss it in the video you posted or in the transcript of the opening!

I do know that sometimes it is hard to accept facts especially if these facts are not "compatibile" to one's own belief.

At last, there’s one assertion you have actually demonstrated! Do you have any more or is that going to be the only one?

Please make sure to let me know that if I stated something as facts but indeed they are not. I will fix them as I don't want to mis-lead people.

You have already been told but you don’t fix them, to the contrary you do the exact opposite and just keep reposting them. So according to your own words, clearly you do “want to mis-lead people”, which anyone with half a brain would have already figured out.

You presumably have learned from this discussion that what people actually hear has no bearing on anything to these people. They alone will tell you what you and everyone else hears.

Perfect, well done indeed. Backing up made-up, false assertions with made-up false assertions. What a brilliant example of critical thought! Even Monty Python would have struggled to come up with anything so absurd. lol

G