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#1
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interesting discussion of SACD vs. CD
the usual stuff for the first page or so, but then Nika Aldrich
chimes in and it gets interesting. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...6&page=4&pp=30 Therer's also a link to *another* student's CD vs DVD-A vs SACD study http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6491 -- -S "The most appealing intuitive argument for atheism is the mindblowing stupidity of religious fundamentalists." -- Ginger Yellow |
#2
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interesting discussion of SACD vs. CD
Steven Sullivan wrote:
the usual stuff for the first page or so, but then Nika Aldrich chimes in and it gets interesting. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...6&page=4&pp=30 Therer's also a link to *another* student's CD vs DVD-A vs SACD study http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6491 Thanks for the link; it is very interesting. I especially find it illuminating when someone brought out some marketing promo that touted the impulse response of DSD and how that looked "better" than CD and other PCM systems (post #282). As Nika said, that is doctored data and completely bogus. He gave a good explanation of it he http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...&page=10&pp=30 See posts #289 and #290. In particular, this is germane: "The (DSS) system can be said to have EITHER 120dB of dynamic range OR it can be said to have a high frequency response and great impulse response, but not both. If we only look at the region up to 20kHz, filtering off all of the HF noise above 20kHz then the impulse response of DSD will look just like the impulse response of 44.1kS/s in your plot above, and the dynamic range is about the same. If, however, we want to give DSD credit for having a very high frequency response and therefore a very steep transient response then we also have to factor in all of that excess noise that accumulates up in that range. "The graphic you provided is an attempt to say that DSD is the best of all worlds - it has huge dynamic range and great transient response (frequency response). You know this not to be the case. If the graph truly showed the unfiltered transient response the graph would have a lot of noise in it as I stated above. This graph attempts to say, "look, if we filtered out all of that noise (can't we just forget about the noise?), but managed somehow not to filter out the signal, then it would have a transient response like this." Unfortunately this is completely bogus." This should be required reading for those who use impulse response of DSD as the technical reason why it sounds "better". BTW, vinyl has a terrible impulse response. The "Analog" impulse response on some of those diagrams is *NOT* the response from vinyl or tape, but rather some theoretical, computer generated, model. |
#3
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interesting discussion of SACD vs. CD
"chung" wrote in message
... Steven Sullivan wrote: the usual stuff for the first page or so, but then Nika Aldrich chimes in and it gets interesting. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...6&page=4&pp=30 Therer's also a link to *another* student's CD vs DVD-A vs SACD study http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6491 Thanks for the link; it is very interesting. I especially find it illuminating when someone brought out some marketing promo that touted the impulse response of DSD and how that looked "better" than CD and other PCM systems (post #282). As Nika said, that is doctored data and completely bogus. He gave a good explanation of it he http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...&page=10&pp=30 See posts #289 and #290. In particular, this is germane: "The (DSS) system can be said to have EITHER 120dB of dynamic range OR it can be said to have a high frequency response and great impulse response, but not both. If we only look at the region up to 20kHz, filtering off all of the HF noise above 20kHz then the impulse response of DSD will look just like the impulse response of 44.1kS/s in your plot above, and the dynamic range is about the same. If, however, we want to give DSD credit for having a very high frequency response and therefore a very steep transient response then we also have to factor in all of that excess noise that accumulates up in that range. "The graphic you provided is an attempt to say that DSD is the best of all worlds - it has huge dynamic range and great transient response (frequency response). You know this not to be the case. If the graph truly showed the unfiltered transient response the graph would have a lot of noise in it as I stated above. This graph attempts to say, "look, if we filtered out all of that noise (can't we just forget about the noise?), but managed somehow not to filter out the signal, then it would have a transient response like this." Unfortunately this is completely bogus." This should be required reading for those who use impulse response of DSD as the technical reason why it sounds "better". BTW, vinyl has a terrible impulse response. The "Analog" impulse response on some of those diagrams is *NOT* the response from vinyl or tape, but rather some theoretical, computer generated, model. Your prejudice is showing. By no stretch of the imagination is this the same graph. Just examine them carefully....no analog, different order. It is only the writers opinion (not stated) that this is the same graph doctored Photoshop. All one can say for sure is that both are a picture of an impulse response. I have seen similar charts reproduced elsewhere...for example in the student paper recently cited here that are yet different measurements but show much the same thing. Moreover, to the graph "with noise".....which is worse (aurally)..... a near perfect impulse response with some low level noise, or an impulse response that doesn't appear in nature, and which falls short of accurately capturing the dynamics of the wavefront. Noise is natural...pre-echo and truncated dynamics are not. Finally, to say that if you filter out the noise you get the same impulse response as 44.1/16 or 48/24 is totally misleading...of course a 20k cutoff is a 20k cutoff. Fortunately for us, SACD machines do reproduce frequencies above 20k. CD machines do not. Simple as that. So the better transient response *is* a factor in SACD reproduction. And IMO it is audible and probably along with a lower noise floor in the critical upper bass and midrange is the main reason people's reaction tends to be "it sounds natural and unstrained". |
#4
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interesting discussion of SACD vs. CD
Harry Lavo wrote:
"chung" wrote in message ... Steven Sullivan wrote: the usual stuff for the first page or so, but then Nika Aldrich chimes in and it gets interesting. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...6&page=4&pp=30 Therer's also a link to *another* student's CD vs DVD-A vs SACD study http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6491 Thanks for the link; it is very interesting. I especially find it illuminating when someone brought out some marketing promo that touted the impulse response of DSD and how that looked "better" than CD and other PCM systems (post #282). As Nika said, that is doctored data and completely bogus. He gave a good explanation of it he http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...&page=10&pp=30 See posts #289 and #290. In particular, this is germane: "The (DSS) system can be said to have EITHER 120dB of dynamic range OR it can be said to have a high frequency response and great impulse response, but not both. If we only look at the region up to 20kHz, filtering off all of the HF noise above 20kHz then the impulse response of DSD will look just like the impulse response of 44.1kS/s in your plot above, and the dynamic range is about the same. If, however, we want to give DSD credit for having a very high frequency response and therefore a very steep transient response then we also have to factor in all of that excess noise that accumulates up in that range. "The graphic you provided is an attempt to say that DSD is the best of all worlds - it has huge dynamic range and great transient response (frequency response). You know this not to be the case. If the graph truly showed the unfiltered transient response the graph would have a lot of noise in it as I stated above. This graph attempts to say, "look, if we filtered out all of that noise (can't we just forget about the noise?), but managed somehow not to filter out the signal, then it would have a transient response like this." Unfortunately this is completely bogus." This should be required reading for those who use impulse response of DSD as the technical reason why it sounds "better". BTW, vinyl has a terrible impulse response. The "Analog" impulse response on some of those diagrams is *NOT* the response from vinyl or tape, but rather some theoretical, computer generated, model. Your prejudice is showing. By no stretch of the imagination is this the same graph. Wonder whose prejudice is showing? I did not even referred to any specific graph you might have seen. I was letting you, and others interested in SACD's, know of the weakness in the argument that SACD sounds better because of a "better" impulse response. Just examine them carefully....no analog, different order. It is only the writers opinion (not stated) that this is the same graph doctored Photoshop. More irrelevant stuff, as the writer was commenting on one graph that another poster brought out, not commenting on *your* "same" graph. All one can say for sure is that both are a picture of an impulse response. I have seen similar charts reproduced elsewhere...for example in the student paper recently cited here that are yet different measurements but show much the same thing. Moreover, to the graph "with noise".....which is worse (aurally)..... a near perfect impulse response with some low level noise, or an impulse response that doesn't appear in nature, Impulses like the ones shown on the graph don't occur in nature, Harry. and which falls short of accurately capturing the dynamics of the wavefront. Dynamics of the "wavefront"? What are you talking about? Noise is natural...pre-echo and truncated dynamics are not. Of cousre, you totally missed the point about the pre-echo and "truncated dynamics", whatever that means, not being audible. Finally, to say that if you filter out the noise you get the same impulse response as 44.1/16 or 48/24 is totally misleading...of course a 20k cutoff is a 20k cutoff. Fortunately for us, SACD machines do reproduce frequencies above 20k. CD machines do not. Simple as that. So the better transient response *is* a factor in SACD reproduction. And IMO it is audible and probably along with a lower noise floor in the critical upper bass and midrange is the main reason people's reaction tends to be "it sounds natural and unstrained". If you believe that your ears can "hear" the effect of the impulse response differences, then you have to also believe that they can also hear the (sometimes much) higher supersonic noise of the DSD systems. And of course, how does the limited FR and the much worse impulse response of vinyl somehow conspire to sound "natural and unrestrained" such that you conclude that SACD is close to vinyl? Harry, you complain that people "weave" technical arguments to show that you are wrong, but every time you try to sound technically savvy, you run into problems. We're just trying to help . |
#5
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interesting discussion of SACD vs. CD
chung wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote: the usual stuff for the first page or so, but then Nika Aldrich chimes in and it gets interesting. http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...6&page=4&pp=30 Therer's also a link to *another* student's CD vs DVD-A vs SACD study http://gearslutz.com/board/attachmen...achmentid=6491 Thanks for the link; it is very interesting. I especially find it illuminating when someone brought out some marketing promo that touted the impulse response of DSD and how that looked "better" than CD and other PCM systems (post #282). As Nika said, that is doctored data and completely bogus. He gave a good explanation of it he http://gearslutz.com/board/showthrea...&page=10&pp=30 See posts #289 and #290. In particular, this is germane: "The (DSS) system can be said to have EITHER 120dB of dynamic range OR it can be said to have a high frequency response and great impulse response, but not both. If we only look at the region up to 20kHz, filtering off all of the HF noise above 20kHz then the impulse response of DSD will look just like the impulse response of 44.1kS/s in your plot above, and the dynamic range is about the same. If, however, we want to give DSD credit for having a very high frequency response and therefore a very steep transient response then we also have to factor in all of that excess noise that accumulates up in that range. "The graphic you provided is an attempt to say that DSD is the best of all worlds - it has huge dynamic range and great transient response (frequency response). You know this not to be the case. If the graph truly showed the unfiltered transient response the graph would have a lot of noise in it as I stated above. This graph attempts to say, "look, if we filtered out all of that noise (can't we just forget about the noise?), but managed somehow not to filter out the signal, then it would have a transient response like this." Unfortunately this is completely bogus." This should be required reading for those who use impulse response of DSD as the technical reason why it sounds "better". BTW, vinyl has a terrible impulse response. The "Analog" impulse response on some of those diagrams is *NOT* the response from vinyl or tape, but rather some theoretical, computer generated, model. I also foudn it interesting that Michael Bishop of Telarc was vigorously touting the superior sound of 'hi-rez', meanwhile he's also been found to have applied dynamic range compression to the CD layer of a Telarc SACD -- http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...#entry235 661 -- -S "The most appealing intuitive argument for atheism is the mindblowing stupidity of religious fundamentalists." -- Ginger Yellow |
#6
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interesting discussion of SACD vs. CD
"Harry Lavo" wrote in
: Fortunately for us, SACD machines do reproduce frequencies above 20k. CD machines do not. Simple as that. So the better transient response *is* a factor in SACD reproduction. And IMO it is audible and probably along with a lower noise floor in the critical upper bass and midrange is the main reason people's reaction tends to be "it sounds natural and unstrained". Assuming these people all have amps and speakers able to reproduce frequencies above 20k, and assuming the sacd tested were all recorded with mics with the same unusual abilities. |
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