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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was
still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Dec 11, 5:08=A0pm, "Chuck Finley" wrote:
I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space = was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 a= nd 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of = CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added = to the DAC for this? Thanks. Once an MP3 is made, the loss in sound quality is permanent. No way to restore it. That said, most of the time for most listeners, even a 192 kbps MP3 will be indistinguishable from a CD. So you haven't lost as much as you think you have. Also, don't read DAC reviews. They're essentially creative writing exercises. bob |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:08:58 -0800, Chuck Finley wrote
(in article ): I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. OK. 192 and 320 KBPS are considered essentially "transparent", and , as far as I can tell 320 actually is transparent to my ears. 192, OTOH, is essentially transparent ON SPEAKERS, but on headphones, I can hear the artifacts. They are essentially the same artifacts that I hear at 128 KBPS and lower (noise bursts accompanying solo percussive sounds such as piano and acoustic guitar) only much more attenuated and of shorter duration. I use a Logitech Squeezebox Touch to listen to streaming internet radio (the only MP3 I listen to. My CDs are ripped using Apple Lossless Compression (ALCS) on iTunes) and the digital output of that is fed to my 24/192 DAC through a Sonic Frontiers D2D digital up-converter (to 24/96). Basically, the difference between the upsampled and non-upsampled MP3 audio is very subtle. On a direct, blind comparison using the upconverter's bypass switch and a friend doing the switching while I wear headphones in another room, I can hear a difference when he switches but I can't honestly say that one sounds better than the other, just "different", and frankly I can't even tell which is which. But to the main point, the one I think you are asking, no, up-sampling does not eliminate any compression artifacts that might be present. If they're audible before upsampling, they're there after upsampling. The main thing to remember about upsampling is that it adds NO new information to a digital bit stream. It's only advantage (if any) is to move the sampling filter cut-off from 22.05KHz (given 16-bit/44.1 KHz sampling rate) to 48 KHz (assuming we're upconverting to 96 KHz). There is still no information above 22.05 KHz in the reconstructed audio signal. I hope this answers your question. |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:47:12 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ): On Dec 11, 5:08=A0pm, "Chuck Finley" wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Once an MP3 is made, the loss in sound quality is permanent. No way to restore it. That said, most of the time for most listeners, even a 192 kbps MP3 will be indistinguishable from a CD. So you haven't lost as much as you think you have. Also, don't read DAC reviews. They're essentially creative writing exercises. bob I disagree with that. DACs differ quite a bit in their sound. If you don't think they do, then you probably haven't DBT'ed a DAC such as a MSB DAC IV against a Musical Fidelity V-DAC or a dCS Debussy against a Benchmark DAC1 or a Music Streamer II! They all sound quite different. Especially in the treble presentation and soundstaging. |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote:
I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Clever sneaky marketeers forced the whole word with a speech defect, MP3 is by no means is compression, it is reduction. This idiocy let to even further speech defects because now we have to make distinction between compression -which in all kinds of different branches per definition IS lossless and the reduction scheme from MP3. Since MP3 has thrown away data I would not bother to try to make it better again, the quality is gone forever. In MP3 language, puncturing a tire is compressing it. Edmund |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Chuck Finley" wrote in message
... I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Shouldn't be a problem. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities. Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations. but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. No less false. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Up sampling, other than that which happens implicitly in modern DACs in order to facilitate digital filtering, is yet another audiophile myth. |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:35:39 -0800, Edmund wrote
(in article ): On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Clever sneaky marketeers forced the whole word with a speech defect, MP3 is by no means is compression, it is reduction. This idiocy let to even further speech defects because now we have to make distinction between compression -which in all kinds of different branches per definition IS lossless and the reduction scheme from MP3. Since MP3 has thrown away data I would not bother to try to make it better again, the quality is gone forever. In MP3 language, puncturing a tire is compressing it. Edmund While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. I.E., it does allow one to fit a quart of information into the proverbial pint pot. That it does so by throwing as much as more than 90% of the signal away is irrelevant to the definition. It is amazing that MP3 music at 128 or 64 KBPS is even recognizable, though 8^) |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:47:12 -0800, bob wrote (in article ): On Dec 11, 5:08=A0pm, "Chuck Finley" wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Once an MP3 is made, the loss in sound quality is permanent. No way to restore it. That said, most of the time for most listeners, even a 192 kbps MP3 will be indistinguishable from a CD. So you haven't lost as much as you think you have. Also, don't read DAC reviews. They're essentially creative writing exercises. bob I disagree with that. DACs differ quite a bit in their sound. They can, as long as you stay clear of well-done bias-controlled tests. If you don't think they do, then you probably haven't DBT'ed a DAC such as a MSB DAC IV against a Musical Fidelity V-DAC or a dCS Debussy against a Benchmark DAC1 or a Music Streamer II! I was unaware of such serious technical failings in such expensive hardware. They all sound quite different. It is axiomatic that DACs can only sound different if they have serious technical flaws. |
#9
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#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:08:37 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:47:12 -0800, bob wrote (in article ): On Dec 11, 5:08=A0pm, "Chuck Finley" wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Once an MP3 is made, the loss in sound quality is permanent. No way to restore it. That said, most of the time for most listeners, even a 192 kbps MP3 will be indistinguishable from a CD. So you haven't lost as much as you think you have. Also, don't read DAC reviews. They're essentially creative writing exercises. bob I disagree with that. DACs differ quite a bit in their sound. They can, as long as you stay clear of well-done bias-controlled tests. They differ quite a bit when you DO conduct proper bias-controlled tests. I would know, having done so. If you don't think they do, then you probably haven't DBT'ed a DAC such as a MSB DAC IV against a Musical Fidelity V-DAC or a dCS Debussy against a Benchmark DAC1 or a Music Streamer II! I was unaware of such serious technical failings in such expensive hardware. Not all of the DACs I mentioned, above, are expensive. The Musical Fidelity V-DAC, for instance, is only about $300, the Music Streamer II DAC is only about $350. Certainly the MSB and the dCS are quite costly by comparison. The fact that inexpensive DACs are, well, let's be kind and just say "compromised" in their performance, is, basically, my point. They all sound quite different. It is axiomatic that DACs can only sound different if they have serious technical flaws. And surprise, surprise, the $14,000 MSB DAC IV and and the $11,000 dCS Debussy DACs DO sound MUCH better than any of the cheap IC-based DAC boxes (including the $1000 Benchmark DAC1). All of which just reinforces your comments, above. Cheap DACs DO have, compared to the expensive spread, "serious technical flaws". In fact, I have found that the only IC DAC chip that performs substantially better than the "usual suspects" from TI/Burr Brown and Analog Devices and comes anywhere within a country mile of the discrete "Ladder DAC" used by MSB or the discrete "Ring DAC" used by dCS is the ESS 32-bit "SabreDAC". And it still has a long way to go to equal either, sonically. |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote:
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:35:39 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Clever sneaky marketeers forced the whole word with a speech defect, MP3 is by no means is compression, it is reduction. This idiocy let to even further speech defects because now we have to make distinction between compression -which in all kinds of different branches per definition IS lossless and the reduction scheme from MP3. Since MP3 has thrown away data I would not bother to try to make it better again, the quality is gone forever. In MP3 language, puncturing a tire is compressing it. Edmund While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Edmund I.E., it does allow one to fit a quart of information into the proverbial pint pot. That it does so by throwing as much as more than 90% of the signal away is irrelevant to the definition. It is amazing that MP3 music at 128 or 64 KBPS is even recognizable, though 8^) |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Dec 12, 11:07=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
They differ quite a bit when you DO conduct proper bias-controlled tests.= I would know, having done so. Our previous discussions of listening tests have revealed a that you have at best an incomplete understanding of what "bias-controlled test" means. Meanwhile, there have been numerous published reports of well-documented such tests, and all have come to conclusions very different from yours. They've found a few, easily explained exceptions, but by and large humans can't distinguish between DACs without their eyes. And surprise, surprise, the $14,000 MSB DAC IV and =A0and the $11,000 dCS Debussy DACs DO sound MUCH better than any of the cheap IC-based DAC boxe= s (including the $1000 Benchmark DAC1). Yeah, surprise. Lots of people listen with their wallets. bob |
#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On 12/13/2011 7:12 AM, Edmund wrote:
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. Um... it's not exactly "new". The term "compression" for what is essentially data reduction has been in use since at least the 80s, perhaps earlier. So while you have a valid point, it's about three decades too late to fight this linguistic battle. //Walt |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
Walt wrote:
On 12/13/2011 7:12 AM, Edmund wrote: On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. Um... it's not exactly "new". The term "compression" for what is essentially data reduction has been in use since at least the 80s, perhaps earlier. So while you have a valid point, it's about three decades too late to fight this linguistic battle. Try a lot later than that. Data reduction techniques have been used in audio for a long time. And they have been used in music, even "high- quality" music, for some time as well. Strictly speaking, techniques such as dBx and Dolby A, Dolby B and such, are all data-reduction compression techniques. Their purpose is to attempt to fit as much of the "important" data into a naroowed-bandwidth channel, be it a transmission channel or a cassette tape. They all work on the smae principle: they (physically) discard information which, in the eyes of the designer, are deemed "insignificant." And, if you want to play the linguistics game, while still being technically accurate, the human peripheral auditory system imposes HUGE amounts of lossy data compression. While it is possible for the human ear to discern sounds ranging over a power range in excess of 12 orders of magnitude, it CANNOT hear, at the same time, two sounds whose level differs by that: in fact, the instantaneous dynamic range of the peripheral auditory system is FAR less than that, by many orders of magnitude. And it does it, through among other things, masking. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#15
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On 12/13/2011 4:12 AM, Edmund wrote:
That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Edmund So what would you call jpeg? Or mpeg? |
#16
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:12:09 +0000, Walt wrote:
On 12/13/2011 7:12 AM, Edmund wrote: On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. Um... it's not exactly "new". The term "compression" for what is essentially data reduction has been in use since at least the 80s, perhaps earlier. So while you have a valid point, it's about three decades too late to fight this linguistic battle. I mentioned it at the time too. Edmund //Walt |
#17
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:08:37 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): It is axiomatic that DACs can only sound different if they have serious technical flaws. And surprise, surprise, the $14,000 MSB DAC IV and and the $11,000 dCS Debussy DACs DO sound MUCH better than any of the cheap IC-based DAC boxes (including the $1000 Benchmark DAC1). People say things like that, but of course the scientific evidence is AFAIK not present and IME probably not forthcoming. This is a shame, since doing listening tests for the audible flaws of DACs is a very easy thing to do. They have no appreciable time delays and they have electrical inputs and outputs. All of which just reinforces your comments, above. Cheap DACs DO have, compared to the expensive spread, "serious technical flaws". Actually they don't. Not only do many far less expensive DACs lack audible flaws, they even lack audible flaws when cascaded many times. There are many scientifically -done listening tests that show this to be true. DACs are now among the most perfected of all audio components, even when not costly. They are among the easiest to test scientifically, and also among the most often tested by scientific means. Here's just one of many real-world examples: http://www.ethanwiner.com/aes/ |
#18
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"bob" wrote in message
... On Dec 12, 11:07 pm, Audio Empire wrote: They differ quite a bit when you DO conduct proper bias-controlled tests. I would know, having done so. Our previous discussions of listening tests have revealed a that you have at best an incomplete understanding of what "bias-controlled test" means. Meanwhile, there have been numerous published reports of well-documented such tests, and all have come to conclusions very different from yours. They've found a few, easily explained exceptions, but by and large humans can't distinguish between DACs without their eyes. This point needs to be underscored as many have been mislead to think that there is some technical purpose to ultra-high-priced DACs. If one compares the well-known thresholds of hearing for various technical flaws to the measured performance of even inexpensive modern DACs, the probability of audible flaws is put into a proper perspective. At one time sonically-transparent DACs were *not* the rule. For example, the DACs in the first generation CDP 101 could be detected by ear if one used certain non-musical program material during the audition. With 90%+ of commercial CDs, detection was very difficult or impossible. Even though there were subtle differences, the lsight audible changes were not a detraction from listening enjoyment. Thse are the result of scientifically-conducted tests. Audiophile lore is that the CDP 101 sounded *horrible*. I actually don't necesarily doubt this characterization in every case as there is more to CD player sound quality than just DAC quality. With the CDP 101, performance with imperfect CDs (e.g. scratched) could include clearly audible flaws that later technology overcame. In 1983-85 the far more significant issue was serious mastering problems that remain irritating characteristics of those specific discs to this day. No DAC can *fix* a badly-made recording. Fast forward to today, and one can find up to 6 sonically-transparent DACs in SOC chips that sell for less than $15 along with a full-function computer system. |
#19
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:12:44 -0800, Edmund wrote
(in article ): On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:35:39 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Clever sneaky marketeers forced the whole word with a speech defect, MP3 is by no means is compression, it is reduction. This idiocy let to even further speech defects because now we have to make distinction between compression -which in all kinds of different branches per definition IS lossless and the reduction scheme from MP3. Since MP3 has thrown away data I would not bother to try to make it better again, the quality is gone forever. In MP3 language, puncturing a tire is compressing it. Edmund While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. It's neither new or misleading. the discrimination between "lossy" and "lossless" compression, means exactly what it says. Lossy compression makes files smaller by discarding what someone (or something - such as an algorithm) has decided to be non-essential information. Lossless compression, OTOH means that the file has been made smaller by using a less verbose coding scheme of some type. An example of lossless compression would be the ZIP format on one's PC. If anything were missing on an expanded copy of a ZIP file of say, Photoshop, would mean that Photoshop would not and could not run. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. That's why it's called "lossy compression". In gasses, compression is compression in it's purest form. Nothing is discarded, but the gas has been processed to take up less volume by eliminating the empty space between gas molecules. Often this results in the gas becoming a liquid (like with propane or LNG), but sometimes not. If you merely vent-off a volume of gas to make the remaining take up less space, that's not compression, that's merely reducing the volume (like filling a water bottle and letting the excess run down the drain). Now if you could throw away a certain volume of, say, propane, and still have the same amount energy in what's left as you did before the gas's volume was reduced, then that would be an analogy of digital compression. Remember in audio, we're don't measure the final sound in those terms. We measure the perception of that sound at our ear/brain interface. Remember, the file itself (whether it be a digital audio file or a record groove) is NOT the sound, it is merely a representation of that sound. If much of the original waveform has been discarded to make the digital file representing the audio take up less media storage space, and most of the listening audience doesn't perceive that anything is missing, then whatever compression scheme was used was successful. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. You are talking apples and oranges. Language is a living thing. The day that we can't accommodate new meanings for existing words, is the day that the language starts to die. Might as well go back to Roman-era Latin... Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Understanding context can also help make words easier to understand. |
#20
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:07:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Chuck Finley" wrote in message ... I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Shouldn't be a problem. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities. Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations. Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using IC converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial, high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound better than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly different from one another. These differences manifest themselves mostly as differences in top-end musicality and sound-staging. The better the DAC, the more real the top-end sounds, strings, even percussion such as high-hats, take on a sheen and a realism that one generally only hears live. This is hardly subtle, and in a DBT is jaw-droppingly and statistically apparent. but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. No less false. What is no less false? He's asking if a stand-alone DAC will help MP3 files sound better. The answer, of course, is no. Any compression artifacts audible before up-converting or playing through a mega-buck DAC, will be there after, as well. The damage is done, there is no "fixing" it after the fact. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Up sampling, other than that which happens implicitly in modern DACs in order to facilitate digital filtering, is yet another audiophile myth. This seems to be a common reaction of people who have limited experience in this area. |
#21
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On 12/13/2011 1:20 PM, Dick Pierce wrote:
Strictly speaking, techniques such as dBx and Dolby A, Dolby B and such, are all data-reduction compression techniques. Their purpose is to attempt to fit as much of the "important" data into a naroowed-bandwidth channel, be it a transmission channel or a cassette tape. They all work on the smae principle: they (physically) discard information which, in the eyes of the designer, are deemed "insignificant." I disagree with that. If the ideas behind any of those three systems work perfectly, as they are supposed to, then they do not discard information. The recording media they are used with do of course cover up information with noise, but those three systems do in fact reduce the amount lost. By working perfectly I mean that the encode and decode cycles are the exact inverse of each other. Consider the simplest, dBx. It (the wideband one) is a simple volume changing scheme, with the encode and decode systems being feedback systems that are, if no sounds are out of frequency range of the recording medium, exact inverses. Working properly, so that so that noting between the encoder and decoder overloads, the only thing that happens is that the noise floor at the output goes up and down. If the noise floor of the transmission medium is much larger than half the dynamic range of the input signal, the output should be essentially an exact copy of the input. If the transmission system has a much larger noise than that, then the the output will, at low levels, be a much better copy of the input than if the encode-decode cycle were not used. In practice, of course, none of these are every truly perfectly tuned and effects other than noise level changes will be there to some degree. If badly mistuned, they can be huge. But the idea of these does NOT include "lossy" compression ideas. Doug McDonald |
#22
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#23
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
Doug McDonald wrote:
On 12/13/2011 1:20 PM, Dick Pierce wrote: Strictly speaking, techniques such as dBx and Dolby A, Dolby B and such, are all data-reduction compression techniques. Their purpose is to attempt to fit as much of the "important" data into a naroowed-bandwidth channel, be it a transmission channel or a cassette tape. They all work on the smae principle: they (physically) discard information which, in the eyes of the designer, are deemed "insignificant." I disagree with that. If the ideas behind any of those three systems work perfectly, as they are supposed to, then they do not discard information. The recording media they are used with do of course cover up information with noise, but those three systems do in fact reduce the amount lost. By working perfectly I mean that the encode and decode cycles are the exact inverse of each other. Then if that is true, the input should match exactly the output. The simple fact is that some information in the original is masked by the noise of the process and therefore lost. Consider the simplest, dBx. It (the wideband one) is a simple volume changing scheme, with the encode and decode systems being feedback systems that are, if no sounds are out of frequency range of the recording medium, exact inverses. Yes, and in the process, information is lost. Working properly, so that so that noting between the encoder and decoder overloads, the only thing that happens is that the noise floor at the output goes up and down. If the noise floor of the transmission medium is much larger than half the dynamic range of the input signal, the output should be essentially an exact copy of the input. If the transmission system has a much larger noise than that, then the the output will, at low levels, be a much better copy of the input than if the encode-decode cycle were not used. The broadband dynamic range of the coompact cassette is pretty seriously limited, open reel tape less so, but in either case, they can be significantly less, by not a small margin, then the input signal. SImply consider the noise floor of a pair of good studio microphones, equivalent to maybe on the order of 10-20 dB SPL, with signals in a concert hall situation easily exceeding 90 dB SPL: that's a dynamic range that exceeds magnetic media and FM broadcast: the result is loss of information. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#24
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On 12/13/2011 6:47 PM, Doug McDonald wrote:
Woe is me!!! TYPOS! ERRORS!, so sorry! Fixed below, corrections ALL CAPS Working properly, so that so that NOTHING between the encoder and decoder overloads, the only thing that happens is that the noise floor at the output goes up and down. If the DYNAMIC RANGE of the transmission medium is much larger than half the dynamic range of the input signal (DBX IS 2:1 COMPRESSION) , the output should be essentially an exact copy of the input. If the transmission system has a much larger noise than that, then the the output will, at low levels, be a much better copy of the input than if the encode-decode cycle were not used. Doug |
#25
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
Audio Empire wrote:
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:07:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Chuck Finley" wrote in message ... I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Shouldn't be a problem. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities. Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations. Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using IC converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial, high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound better than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly different from one another. These differences manifest themselves mostly as differences in top-end musicality and sound-staging. The better the DAC, the more real the top-end sounds, strings, even percussion such as high-hats, take on a sheen and a realism that one generally only hears live. Sorry, but this simply defies common sense. All those completely different made integrated DACs (they differ in their high level designs, algorithms, filters, etc) sound the same and measurement show they should. Everyone should expect that they're simply transparent -- if very different designs sounds converge to just the one sound, one would expect the convergence is to some predesigned sound -- and all manufactureres claim that "predesigned sound" is simply being neutral. Measurements of those devices show the same -- that they are just neutral. And then some butique discrete component devices (with all the problems of discrete components like uneven heating) are claimed to all sound different from both all those integrated things as well as from one another. And sound better. Better than completely neutral? This is hardly subtle, and in a DBT is jaw-droppingly and statistically apparent. Sorry, but all published DBTs show otherwise. And in the case of that one test you failed to show that there was anything statistically aparent. We only can go with what you have disclosed about that test, and from what you have disclosed there is no statistical siginificance (as tehre were serious flaws wrt statistics). [...] rgds \SK -- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang -- http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels) |
#26
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:45:05 +0000, Audio Empire wrote:
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:12:44 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:35:39 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. Clever sneaky marketeers forced the whole word with a speech defect, MP3 is by no means is compression, it is reduction. This idiocy let to even further speech defects because now we have to make distinction between compression -which in all kinds of different branches per definition IS lossless and the reduction scheme from MP3. Since MP3 has thrown away data I would not bother to try to make it better again, the quality is gone forever. In MP3 language, puncturing a tire is compressing it. Edmund While you do have a point, MP3 does meet the digital definition of compression. That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. It's neither new or misleading. the discrimination between "lossy" and "lossless" compression, means exactly what it says. I am sure you understand that this addition -lossy vs lossless- is a result of the misleading term "compression" for something that isn't compression but reduction. Lossy compression makes files smaller by discarding what someone (or something - such as an algorithm) has decided to be non-essential information. Lossless compression, OTOH means that the file has been made smaller by using a less verbose coding scheme of some type. An example of lossless compression would be the ZIP format on one's PC. If anything were missing on an expanded copy of a ZIP file of say, Photoshop, would mean that Photoshop would not and could not run. You got it! If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. That's why it's called "lossy compression". In gasses, compression is compression in it's purest form. Nothing is discarded, but the gas has been processed to take up less volume by eliminating the empty space between gas molecules. Often this results in the gas becoming a liquid (like with propane or LNG), but sometimes not. If you merely vent-off a volume of gas to make the remaining take up less space, that's not compression, that's merely reducing the volume (like filling a water bottle and letting the excess run down the drain). Now if you could throw away a certain volume of, say, propane, and still have the same amount energy in what's left as you did before the gas's volume was reduced, then that would be an analogy of digital compression. Indeed and physics say that is simply not possible, neither in gas nor data files. Remember in audio, we're don't measure the final sound in those terms. We measure the perception of that sound at our ear/brain interface. Remember, the file itself (whether it be a digital audio file or a record groove) is NOT the sound, it is merely a representation of that sound. If much of the original waveform has been discarded to make the digital file representing the audio take up less media storage space, and most of the listening audience doesn't perceive that anything is missing, then whatever compression scheme was used was successful. No if the input file is different that the output file, it is not compression. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. You are talking apples and oranges. Language is a living thing. The day that we can't accommodate new meanings for existing words, is the day that the language starts to die. Might as well go back to Roman-era Latin... I do know that language is a living thing, and by all means change the meaning of words to make it more clear for everyone. Do NOT change the meaning of words to make it more complicated or misleading. So let us audio lovers all use the proper terms from now on and hopefully in a few years from now everyone forgot the stupid term Lossy compression which is a contradiction in terminus, and use "reduction" or "lousy compression" for reduction schemes. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Understanding context can also help make words easier to understand. You know very well I do understand the context perfectly. Edmund |
#27
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Dec 13, 7:47=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
snip Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using= IC converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial, high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound be= tter than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly different from one another. You will find that it is much harder to get uniform performance from electronics using discrete parts compared to using integrated circuits. The tolerance requirements are much harder to meet and maintain with discrete components. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that discrete converters will sound different from each other since component tolerances will be much poorer. These differences manifest themselves mostly as differences in top-end musicality and sound-staging. The better the DAC, = the more real the top-end sounds, strings, even percussion such as high-hats, take on a sheen and a realism that one generally only hears live. This is hardly subtle, and in a DBT is jaw-droppingly and statistically apparent. These are audiophile terms that are impossible to measure and have not been demonstrated to actually be reliably perceptible in credible double-blind tests. |
#28
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Chuck Finley" writes:
I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Thanks. My outboard DAC improves all my digital music. It's effects on low resolution MP3's and streaming audio is variable. It definitely adds some 'thickness' to the Internet radio I listen to, making it less objectionable. However on particularly bad MP3 transfers it can magnify it's defects. In sum, I would say, a decent DAC, preferably with variable filters that you can switch in and out would be a pretty good investment if you listen to a lot of MP3's. Terry |
#29
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
bob writes:
On Dec 11, 5:08=A0pm, "Chuck Finley" wrote: I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space = was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 a= nd 192. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of = CD quality or hi-rez music, but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added = to the DAC for this? Thanks. Once an MP3 is made, the loss in sound quality is permanent. No way to restore it. That said, most of the time for most listeners, even a 192 kbps MP3 will be indistinguishable from a CD. So you haven't lost as much as you think you have. 192? Really? The difference to me is huge. I mean, it's not objectionable like more compressed music, but it is deficient. Even 320, while better yet, is still not up to CD quality. However, if you are listening on an IPod or through a mass market stereo, you prolly wouldn't notice much difference, it's true. Terry Also, don't read DAC reviews. They're essentially creative writing exercises. bob |
#30
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Doug McDonald" wrote in message
... On 12/13/2011 1:20 PM, Dick Pierce wrote: Strictly speaking, techniques such as dBx and Dolby A, Dolby B and such, are all data-reduction compression techniques. Their purpose is to attempt to fit as much of the "important" data into a naroowed-bandwidth channel, be it a transmission channel or a cassette tape. They all work on the smae principle: they (physically) discard information which, in the eyes of the designer, are deemed "insignificant." I disagree with that. If the ideas behind any of those three systems work perfectly, as they are supposed to, then they do not discard information. I agree with the idea that these methodologies discard information that is less audible in order to better preserve information that is more audible. Their basic principle is as simple as the old adage that "There is no such thing as a free lunch." In fact Dolby A, B, and C do sacrifice elements of technical accuracy that are not so audible such as gain tracking in order to obtain improved noise performance where it is audible. The recording media they are used with do of course cover up information with noise, but those three systems do in fact reduce the amount lost. They reduce the loss of audible accuracy by sacrificing forms of accuracy that are less audible. By working perfectly I mean that the encode and decode cycles are the exact inverse of each other. That is just it. None of the Dolby systems offer perfectly accurate encode and decode cycles. Pick the right technical and audible test material and they fall full flat on their pretty little faces. Consider the simplest, dBx. It (the wideband one) is a simple volume changing scheme, with the encode and decode systems being feedback systems that are, if no sounds are out of frequency range of the recording medium, exact inverses. It doesn't happen that way on the test bench. Working properly, so that so that noting between the encoder and decoder overloads, the only thing that happens is that the noise floor at the output goes up and down. If the noise floor of the transmission medium is much larger than half the dynamic range of the input signal, the output should be essentially an exact copy of the input. If the transmission system has a much larger noise than that, then the the output will, at low levels, be a much better copy of the input than if the encode-decode cycle were not used. There are time constants in the encode and decode process that cause perfect transient reproduction to suffer. Furthermore, the recording medium is itself highly nonlinear, and in general distortion rises rapidly as levels increase. Therefore, any effort to avoid noise by raising recording levels adds more nonlinear distoriton. The thing is that the increase in nonlinear distortion is usually less objectionable to the ear than the noise. In practice, of course, none of these are every truly perfectly tuned and effects other than noise level changes will be there to some degree. If badly mistuned, they can be huge. Even if "perfectly tuned" there are a number of inherent sources of inaccuracy. Look at it this way, there is Dolby A and there is Dolby B. Does Dolby A have any audible advantages over Dobly B? Of course it does, admittedly at a cost in terms of added equipment complexity and more demanding setup. Therefore, Dolby B fails to provide as accurate encode/decode cycle performance as Dolby A, and we have falsified any claim that the encode and decode cycles of Dolby B are just as exact inverses of each other as are the encode and decode cycles of Dolby A. Your argument is falsified by the fact that both Dolby A and B exist! |
#31
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"dave a" wrote in message
... On 12/13/2011 4:12 AM, Edmund wrote: That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Edmund So what would you call jpeg? Or mpeg? Your point is well taken. JPEG and MPEG are examples of lossy compression. L-Z compressed TIFF is an example of lossless compression of images. I don't believe there are any common examples of lossless compression of video, but DV/AVI is far less lossy than MPEG. |
#32
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:07:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Chuck Finley" wrote in message ... I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Shouldn't be a problem. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities. Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations. Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using IC converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial, high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound better than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly different from one another. Reliable proof? The skeptical members of this forum should form a consortium to offer a signficiant cash reward for reliable proof. After all, it worked for the Great James Randi! AFAIK, no cable snake oil artist or reviewer has ever even tried to collect the million dollars. Given that we have "mass produced IC chip based DACs" with upwards of 130 dB worth of dynamic range... Furthermore, it is possible to assemble networks of chip-based DACs with virtually any desired amount of dynamic range, given that dynamic range improves by 3-6 db every time the number of networked chips doubles. We are allowed to network lot of chip-based DACs to equal the great expense of these DACs with discrete proprietary circuitry. Furthermore, the so-called discrete circuit DAC are actually based on custom or off-the-shelf chipd because the only way to get the resistive components of a so-called discrete DAC to track sufficiently well is to put many critical parts on the same chip. |
#33
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:40:51 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "bob" wrote in message ... On Dec 12, 11:07 pm, Audio Empire wrote: They differ quite a bit when you DO conduct proper bias-controlled tests. I would know, having done so. Our previous discussions of listening tests have revealed a that you have at best an incomplete understanding of what "bias-controlled test" means. Meanwhile, there have been numerous published reports of well-documented such tests, and all have come to conclusions very different from yours. They've found a few, easily explained exceptions, but by and large humans can't distinguish between DACs without their eyes. This point needs to be underscored as many have been mislead to think that there is some technical purpose to ultra-high-priced DACs. If one compares the well-known thresholds of hearing for various technical flaws to the measured performance of even inexpensive modern DACs, the probability of audible flaws is put into a proper perspective. At one time sonically-transparent DACs were *not* the rule. For example, the DACs in the first generation CDP 101 could be detected by ear if one used certain non-musical program material during the audition. With 90%+ of commercial CDs, detection was very difficult or impossible. Even though there were subtle differences, the lsight audible changes were not a detraction from listening enjoyment. Thse are the result of scientifically-conducted tests. Audiophile lore is that the CDP 101 sounded *horrible*. I actually don't necesarily doubt this characterization in every case as there is more to CD player sound quality than just DAC quality. With the CDP 101, performance with imperfect CDs (e.g. scratched) could include clearly audible flaws that later technology overcame. It did sound lousy. I auditioned one, at the time, next to the pretty little Philips/Magnavox CD-100, which was only 14-bit. It sounded so much more musical than the Sony, that I bought it instead. I believe that much of CD's early bad reputation came from players like the Sony and the Kyocera which both sounded harsh and distorted, especially in the top end. In 1983-85 the far more significant issue was serious mastering problems that remain irritating characteristics of those specific discs to this day. No DAC can *fix* a badly-made recording. Well, that's certainly true. Fast forward to today, and one can find up to 6 sonically-transparent DACs in SOC chips that sell for less than $15 along with a full-function computer system. Those cheap IC-based DAC chips MIGHT be sonically transparent to the Hoi-Polloi, but they sure don't sound as good, or image as well as a good, discrete component DAC such as those used in the MSB DACIV or the dCS Debussy. This has been noted in DBTs against a number of other DACs using IC-based Burr-Brown (TI), AMD and ESS DAC chips from manufacturers such as Benchmark, Antelope, Musical Fidelity, Music Streamer, Cambridge and Weiss, to name a few and the differences can be measured and easily seen. Look at the 1/3-octave spectrum-with-noise data, or the Intermodulation spectrum plots or the high-resolution jitter spectrum data and contrast the results of the IC-based DACs with those from some of these discrete component units such as the MSB and dCS units mentioned above. Their superiority is as easy to see as it is to hear. I suspect that the DBTs that show all modern DACs to be more-or-less equally transparent were comparing DACs using the more popular mass-produced integrated circuit DAC chips. Like I said in another post, only the ESS 32-bit "SabreDAC" has any real edge here, either sonically or by measurement, and it still doesn't sound or measure as good as the MSB proprietary "Ladder DAC" or the dCS "Ring DAC". This type of "everything sounds the same" argument certainly makes audio cheaper. If everything sounds the same, then there's no reason to buy anything expensive. A $50 CD player sounds exactly like a multiple thousand dollar unit so all one needs to buy is the $50 player. All amplifiers sound exactly alike, so why buy a Krell integrated for $3000 when a $150 TEAC receiver from Costco performs exactly like it? It's tempting to believe this. Too bad that neither of these money-saving assumptions is true..... Take heart, though. A $5 Radio-Shack interconnect DOES sound exactly like a $4000 pair of Nordost Valhallahs and a hank of 14-gauge lamp cord does perform identically to a speaker cable from Oracle costing many hundreds of dollars per foot. Also, the IC processes keep improving and chips like the SabreDAC are closing-in on the cost-is-no-object designs, so there is hope for us financial mortals after all! |
#34
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:38:30 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:08:37 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): It is axiomatic that DACs can only sound different if they have serious technical flaws. And surprise, surprise, the $14,000 MSB DAC IV and and the $11,000 dCS Debussy DACs DO sound MUCH better than any of the cheap IC-based DAC boxes (including the $1000 Benchmark DAC1). People say things like that, but of course the scientific evidence is AFAIK not present and IME probably not forthcoming. Perform your own DBTs and the measurement data for all these DACs "is out there" Just look at the data. You can see that these designs (and a few more) are superior. This is a shame, since doing listening tests for the audible flaws of DACs is a very easy thing to do. They have no appreciable time delays and they have electrical inputs and outputs. You obviously haven't been paying attention. These DBTs have been performed and I have been on the listening panel as I am about once a month. Friday, I'm going to attend a DBT between a DaVinci 384K DAC against both an MSB DAC IV (with enhanced outboard power supply) and, time permitting, a dCS Debussy All of which just reinforces your comments, above. Cheap DACs DO have, compared to the expensive spread, "serious technical flaws". Actually they don't. Not only do many far less expensive DACs lack audible flaws, they even lack audible flaws when cascaded many times. There are many scientifically -done listening tests that show this to be true. I'm well aware of this. What you seem to be not aware of is the incredible gap that exists between cost-is-no-object designs, and the predictable "sameness" of DACs which use off-the-shelf DAC chips from the likes of Analog Devices, Crystal and TI (Burr-Brown). These devices, such as the AD 1955, the B-B PCM1737 and the Crystal CS4398 are ubiquitous, and are used in almost all stand-alone DACs as well as as in disc players. No wonder there is little or nothing to choose between them. DACs are now among the most perfected of all audio components, even when not costly. They are among the easiest to test scientifically, and also among the most often tested by scientific means. Yes, and such tests show that the cost-is-no-object designs measure significantly better and I can tell you that in DBTs, they sound significantly better too. Especially in the presentation of high-frequencies and sound-staging. These characteristics are easily heard in a DBT. Here's just one of many real-world examples: http://www.ethanwiner.com/aes/ I've seen this before. Let's just say, that the conclusions arrived at are incomplete. You want me to say that all modern DACs are essentially transparent? OK, I agree, they are, given the somewhat narrow and very specific definition of the term. But when you listen to a really GOOD DAC next to one based on IC chip technology (which is most of them), you see the error of this definition. You can daisy-chain a bunch of these DACs and ADCs together, and yes, they alter the sound not at all, but when you finally use a really good DAC in a really good, high-resolution sound system. you hear things revealed in the music that just don't come through with these lesser converters. A sense of space, a life-like smoothness to strings and a splatter-free reproduction of cymbals and snare drums that one simply does not hear through these lesser DACs and one really only encounters in live, unamplified performances. It's like these lesser DACs perform a homogenization on the initial conversion, and then preserve that level of homogenization through all subsequent serial A/D and D/A conversions. That's the best I can do to describe this. To bad I can't take you with me to one of these DAC DBTs, so that you can hear this phenomenon for yourself. You (any of you) would likely be an instant convert. But maybe you're better off believing what you now believe. Because once converted, you would want this level of performance in your own listening environment, and at the price of a new compact car, these things are simply out of reach for the vast majority of us. |
#35
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:25:06 -0800, Edmund wrote
(in article ): On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:45:05 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:12:44 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:35:39 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote: snip It's neither new or misleading. the discrimination between "lossy" and "lossless" compression, means exactly what it says. I am sure you understand that this addition -lossy vs lossless- is a result of the misleading term "compression" for something that isn't compression but reduction. Lossy compression can be said to be "reduction" (the "standard' music compression data rate in MP3 is 128 KBPS is 11:1. That means that more than 90% of the original waveform is actually discarded). But Lossless schemes such as ALCS (Apple Lossless Compression Scheme) and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compression) are not "reductions" as the original waveform is preserved in the round-trip process. Lossy compression makes files smaller by discarding what someone (or something - such as an algorithm) has decided to be non-essential information. Lossless compression, OTOH means that the file has been made smaller by using a less verbose coding scheme of some type. An example of lossless compression would be the ZIP format on one's PC. If anything were missing on an expanded copy of a ZIP file of say, Photoshop, would mean that Photoshop would not and could not run. You got it! Yes, I do "got it." and I see no reason to play at semantic games. "A rose by any other name", and all that. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. That's why it's called "lossy compression". In gasses, compression is compression in it's purest form. Nothing is discarded, but the gas has been processed to take up less volume by eliminating the empty space between gas molecules. Often this results in the gas becoming a liquid (like with propane or LNG), but sometimes not. If you merely vent-off a volume of gas to make the remaining take up less space, that's not compression, that's merely reducing the volume (like filling a water bottle and letting the excess run down the drain). Now if you could throw away a certain volume of, say, propane, and still have the same amount energy in what's left as you did before the gas's volume was reduced, then that would be an analogy of digital compression. Indeed and physics say that is simply not possible, neither in gas nor data files. Well it is possible in data files because we're not dealing with actual matter, we are dealing with information. It's nothing new. Let's say we have two secretaries, both taking dictation of a letter from a single speaker. One takes the dictation long-hand, and the other uses standard stenographer's shorthand. When the final letter is typed-up, both should be identical, but the long-hand dictation might be 5 or 6 pages long while the shorthand version might be two pages. Both say exactly the same thing and nothing has been lost but one form of coding the dictation is far less verbose than the other even though it is represented by far less data. Remember in audio, we're don't measure the final sound in those terms. We measure the perception of that sound at our ear/brain interface. Remember, the file itself (whether it be a digital audio file or a record groove) is NOT the sound, it is merely a representation of that sound. If much of the original waveform has been discarded to make the digital file representing the audio take up less media storage space, and most of the listening audience doesn't perceive that anything is missing, then whatever compression scheme was used was successful. Not if the input file is different that the output file, it is not compression. But compression is useless without a complementary de-compression. It's a round-trip process. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. You are talking apples and oranges. Language is a living thing. The day that we can't accommodate new meanings for existing words, is the day that the language starts to die. Might as well go back to Roman-era Latin... I do know that language is a living thing, and by all means change the meaning of words to make it more clear for everyone. Do NOT change the meaning of words to make it more complicated or misleading. I don't see that anyone has done that. Most people don't care what audio compression scheme is used for their music as long as it works and allows them to fit more music into a finite physical space - such as the fixed memory size on an iPod. Those of us who do care, seem to understand the concepts involved at least well enough to know the difference between lossy and lossless compression schemes. So let us audio lovers all use the proper terms from now on and hopefully in a few years from now everyone forgot the stupid term Lossy compression which is a contradiction in terminus, and use "reduction" or "lousy compression" for reduction schemes. I'm sorry, I simply don't see a problem here. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Understanding context can also help make words easier to understand. You know very well I do understand the context perfectly. That's not my point. My point is that everyone involved with music compression algorithms from those constructing them, to the teenager ripping CDs to iTunes understands from the context what lossy and lossless compression schemes mean. There is simply no need to change the universally accepted nomenclature at this stage of the game. At least that's my opinion on the subject anyway. |
#36
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:57:35 -0800, Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote
(in article ): Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:07:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Chuck Finley" wrote in message ... I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Shouldn't be a problem. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities. Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations. Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using IC converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial, high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound better than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly different from one another. These differences manifest themselves mostly as differences in top-end musicality and sound-staging. The better the DAC, the more real the top-end sounds, strings, even percussion such as high-hats, take on a sheen and a realism that one generally only hears live. Sorry, but this simply defies common sense. All those completely different made integrated DACs (they differ in their high level designs, algorithms, filters, etc) sound the same and measurement show they should. Everyone should expect that they're simply transparent -- if very different designs sounds converge to just the one sound, one would expect the convergence is to some predesigned sound -- and all manufactureres claim that "predesigned sound" is simply being neutral. Measurements of those devices show the same -- that they are just neutral. And then some butique discrete component devices (with all the problems of discrete components like uneven heating) are claimed to all sound different from both all those integrated things as well as from one another. And sound better. Better than completely neutral? This is hardly subtle, and in a DBT is jaw-droppingly and statistically apparent. Sorry, but all published DBTs show otherwise. And in the case of that one test you failed to show that there was anything statistically aparent. We only can go with what you have disclosed about that test, and from what you have disclosed there is no statistical siginificance (as tehre were serious flaws wrt statistics). [...] rgds \SK You realize that this is your opinion and I have mine. Mine is a result of many DBTs between different DACs to which I've been privy. This stuff is so easy to hear, that in a recent DBT between a Benchmark DAC1 and a dCS Debussy, everyone on the listening panel was able to pick out the differences between the two an average of better than 9 out of 10 tries. Everyone agreed that the Debussy was far more musical than the Benchmark - and we came to that conclusion before we even knew what the two DUT even were! The Benchmark, which is based on an IC DAC (a Burr-Brown, IIRC - but I could be misremembering), sounded somewhat dull and homogenous by comparison to the Debussy, lacking in finesse, realism and image specificity. I realize that conventional wisdom says that an IC DAC from AD, Crystal, ESS or Burr-Brown should be "transparent", but if transparent vs non-transparent (according to you that would be the cost-is-no-object discrete designs) yields poorer sound on the former, and richer, fuller and more lifelike sound with the latter, then I'll take the latter every time. |
#37
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:07:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Chuck Finley" wrote in message ... I bought an Escient music server several years ago when hard drive space was still relatively expensive. Most of my music on there is encoded at 320 and 192. Shouldn't be a problem. Reviews of DACs typically discuss how they can improve the sound of CD quality or hi-rez music, Generally, false claims. Audiophile myths. Dreams, not actualities. Blatantly false sales pitches. The results of sighted evaluations. Not exactly true. While I agree that most DACs that are constructed using IC converters sound so much alike that the differences (if any) are trivial, high-end DACs using discrete, proprietary circuitry not only can sound better than the mass-produced IC chip-based DACs, but they sound significantly different from one another. How can these significant differences arise? We already know that the better chip DACs are highly sonically transparent, which is to say that you can pass audio through them many times without causing any reliably-detectible audible difference. If we hypothesize the existance of some more sonically accurate component, then the audible differences that it creates must be even smaller and even less audible. These differences manifest themselves mostly as differences in top-end musicality and sound-staging. The better the DAC, the more real the top-end sounds, strings, even percussion such as high-hats, take on a sheen and a realism that one generally only hears live. This is hardly subtle, and in a DBT is jaw-droppingly and statistically apparent. How can there be more realism than there is in a signal that indistinguishable from the origional signal? but I'm wondering what effect they would have on compressed music. No less false. What is no less false? I'm talking about the audiophile myth that ADC quality can be improved beyond that which we already achieve with reasonably-priced chips that are demonstrably sonically transparent, even when cascaded over more than a dozen repeated conversions. He's asking if a stand-alone DAC will help MP3 files sound better. The answer, of course, is no. Any compression artifacts audible before up-converting or playing through a mega-buck DAC, will be there after, as well. The damage is done, there is no "fixing" it after the fact. On that we can agree. Would some kind of up-sampling device have to be added to the DAC for this? Up sampling, other than that which happens implicitly in modern DACs in order to facilitate digital filtering, is yet another audiophile myth. This seems to be a common reaction of people who have limited experience in this area. The idea that upsampling could possibly make a improvement is a mystical belief that sufficient education in how digital audio works can easily dispel. That's what information theory says, and that is what suitable experiments and listening tests can demonstrate. Once you sample a signal, upsampling can add no more information or relevant detail. It only spreads the same information across more samples. |
#38
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:43:40 +0000, Audio Empire wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:25:06 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:45:05 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:12:44 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:08:09 +0000, Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:35:39 -0800, Edmund wrote (in article ): On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:08:58 +0000, Chuck Finley wrote: snip It's neither new or misleading. the discrimination between "lossy" and "lossless" compression, means exactly what it says. I am sure you understand that this addition -lossy vs lossless- is a result of the misleading term "compression" for something that isn't compression but reduction. Lossy compression can be said to be "reduction" (the "standard' music compression data rate in MP3 is 128 KBPS is 11:1. That means that more than 90% of the original waveform is actually discarded). But Lossless schemes such as ALCS (Apple Lossless Compression Scheme) and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compression) are not "reductions" as the original waveform is preserved in the round-trip process. Lossy compression makes files smaller by discarding what someone (or something - such as an algorithm) has decided to be non-essential information. Lossless compression, OTOH means that the file has been made smaller by using a less verbose coding scheme of some type. An example of lossless compression would be the ZIP format on one's PC. If anything were missing on an expanded copy of a ZIP file of say, Photoshop, would mean that Photoshop would not and could not run. You got it! Yes, I do "got it." and I see no reason to play at semantic games. "A rose by any other name", and all that. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. That's why it's called "lossy compression". In gasses, compression is compression in it's purest form. Nothing is discarded, but the gas has been processed to take up less volume by eliminating the empty space between gas molecules. Often this results in the gas becoming a liquid (like with propane or LNG), but sometimes not. If you merely vent-off a volume of gas to make the remaining take up less space, that's not compression, that's merely reducing the volume (like filling a water bottle and letting the excess run down the drain). Now if you could throw away a certain volume of, say, propane, and still have the same amount energy in what's left as you did before the gas's volume was reduced, then that would be an analogy of digital compression. Indeed and physics say that is simply not possible, neither in gas nor data files. Well it is possible in data files because we're not dealing with actual matter, we are dealing with information. It's nothing new. Let's say we have two secretaries, both taking dictation of a letter from a single speaker. One takes the dictation long-hand, and the other uses standard stenographer's shorthand. When the final letter is typed-up, both should be identical, but the long-hand dictation might be 5 or 6 pages long while the shorthand version might be two pages. Both say exactly the same thing and nothing has been lost but one form of coding the dictation is far less verbose than the other even though it is represented by far less data. Don't stretch it so much, if one can restore the original message it is compression, if something is lost or changed it is not compressed. Remember in audio, we're don't measure the final sound in those terms. We measure the perception of that sound at our ear/brain interface. Remember, the file itself (whether it be a digital audio file or a record groove) is NOT the sound, it is merely a representation of that sound. If much of the original waveform has been discarded to make the digital file representing the audio take up less media storage space, and most of the listening audience doesn't perceive that anything is missing, then whatever compression scheme was used was successful. Not if the input file is different that the output file, it is not compression. But compression is useless without a complementary de-compression. It's a round-trip process. That is -of course- what I meant with the "output" file. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. You are talking apples and oranges. Language is a living thing. The day that we can't accommodate new meanings for existing words, is the day that the language starts to die. Might as well go back to Roman-era Latin... I do know that language is a living thing, and by all means change the meaning of words to make it more clear for everyone. Do NOT change the meaning of words to make it more complicated or misleading. I don't see that anyone has done that. Most people don't care what audio compression scheme is used for their music as long as it works and allows them to fit more music into a finite physical space - such as the fixed memory size on an iPod. Those of us who do care, seem to understand the concepts involved at least well enough to know the difference between lossy and lossless compression schemes. At the time when Compression meant exactly that,: "compressing" and some sneaky developers "sold" there reduction scheme as "compression" and with that, they introduced a misleading and plain wrong term. At the time the claim was made it was inaudible, inaudible by who and played on what? later they improved there reduction scheme, why? Unfortunately, most people didn't realize they where cheated this way and that forced us to introduce another stupid term: "Lossless Compression " which is pleonasm this vs "Lossy ( lousy ) compression" which is a contradiction in terminus. In the mean time more reduction schemes are used and it is getting unclearer every time if a reduction scheme is used or compression. DTS seems to use both versions in which - AFAIK- DTS HD is compression and DTS is reduction, but I am not even sure about that. So let us audio lovers all use the proper terms from now on and hopefully in a few years from now everyone forgot the stupid term Lossy compression which is a contradiction in terminus, and use "reduction" or "lousy compression" for reduction schemes. I'm sorry, I simply don't see a problem here. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Understanding context can also help make words easier to understand. You know very well I do understand the context perfectly. That's not my point. My point is that everyone involved with music compression algorithms from those constructing them, to the teenager ripping CDs to iTunes understands from the context what lossy and lossless compression schemes mean. There is simply no need to change the universally accepted nomenclature at this stage of the game. At least that's my opinion on the subject anyway. My opinion is that the proper term "compression" shouldn't have been compromised in the first place. Now there seems to be reduction schemes used with a certain name ( DTS and others ) and sometimes they use Compression, sometime reduction, that isn't making things easier and in this "High-End" group people using MP3 tells me it is not so clear to each and everyone. Spending multi thousands on your HiFi set and throwing away a part of the recording right at the source doesn't seem so smart to me. I have nothing more to add about this. Edmund |
#39
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:20:52 +0000, dave a wrote:
On 12/13/2011 4:12 AM, Edmund wrote: That IS the speech defect I am talking about! If that IS the new definition that definition is plain wrong and misleading. Never before in no other branch compression ever meant throwing away data or material. If you end up with less data ( or gas in another area ) then you did not "compress" it, then you reduced the data by throwing away data and information. I suggested before not to call the MP3 reduction- "compression" because it isn't. Lets call it what it is and forget this idiotic "Lossy Compression" which is a contradiction in terminus and "lossless compression", compression always was lossless per definition and I mean the right definition not the raped one. Using the proper terms for things makes it easier to understand. Edmund So what would you call jpeg? Or mpeg? I am sure you know they answer. So you don't have to ask. I call it just jpeg and Mpech which means ( pech ) bad luck. Edmund |
#40
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Can mp3 quality be improved?
On Dec 14, 6:37=A0pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Audio Empire" wrote in message ... Reliable proof? The skeptical members of this forum should form a consortium to offer a signficiant cash reward for reliable proof. After all, it worked for the Great James Randi! =A0AFAIK, no cable snake = oil artist or reviewer has ever even tried to collect the million =A0dollars. I do recall reading that various audiophile writers have attempted to test the Great James Randi and collect the million smackers. The problem is that Randi avoided all contact with anyone trying to do a test. Randi is wonderful about publicity but appears to avoid a confrontation that might cost him money or demonstrate that he may be as big a phony as his "magician" targets. Personally, I know I can hear the difference between mass market junk and "audiophile" gear. I do think that the law of diminishing returns exists in the audiophile world. The improvements obtained by spending more money become small, once you have reached a certain price point. I examined and tested the difference between 192 .wma files and a aiff files ripped through iTunes. The difference was quite minor. However, the cost of hard drives is so low that saving space is not worth the potential problems. Besides, ripping CD's through dbpoweramp to FLAC is loads of fun and flexibility. |
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