[Mxsmanic]

Well, I've learned something new again on this group. I've learned about the
existence of high-end audio, a bizarre world that I had never heard about
before. It seems to be a very small world that presumably appeals to people of
low intelligence and high income (e.g., people working in financial markets).

I don't think that any ordinary consumer would be seduced by anything in this
world, and I presume that professionals would be immune to its charms as well,
so it's really only a source of amusement.

I recall hearing about Monster Cables ages ago, and they seemed overpriced and
excessive at the time to me. Clearly, that market went off the deep end long
ago.

[Mike Rivers]

On 3/20/2012 2:03 AM, Mxsmanic wrote:
Well, I've learned something new again on this group. I've learned about the
existence of high-end audio

Well, there's a rec.audio.high-end newsgroup. Get your butt
over there and quit bugging us here. But I'll warn you -
it's moderated.

http://tinyurl.com/rec-audio-high-end-Moderation



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Luxey]

On Tuesday, 20 March 2012 12:01:51 UTC+1, Mike Rivers wrote:
On 3/20/2012 2:03 AM, Mxsmanic wrote:
Well, I've learned something new again on this group. I've learned about the
existence of high-end audio

Well, there's a rec.audio.high-end newsgroup. Get your butt
over there and quit bugging us here. But I'll warn you -
it's moderated.

http://tinyurl.com/rec-audio-high-end-Moderation



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

No, he did research for best trolling themes. Next from him will be
vinyl vs. CD, digital vs. analog, overcompression and loudness wars,...

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 04:08:47 -0700, Luxey wrote
(in article
24504044.276.1332241727760.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbmf37):

No, he did research for best trolling themes. Next from him will be
vinyl vs. CD, digital vs. analog, overcompression and loudness wars,...
------------------------------snip------------------------------

I'm waiting for somebody to bring up religion.

Can't somebody just yell "HITLER" and get back to real conversations?

--MFW

[Ron Capik[_3_]]

On 3/23/2012 4:57 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 04:08:47 -0700, Luxey wrote
(in article
24504044.276.1332241727760.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbmf37):

No, he did research for best trolling themes. Next from him will be
vinyl vs. CD, digital vs. analog, overcompression and loudness wars,...
------------------------------snip------------------------------

I'm waiting for somebody to bring up religion.

Can't somebody just yell "HITLER" and get back to real conversations?

--MFW

As I understand the law, the thread needs to evolve
to that point, and forcing the point is a violation.
[YMMV]
==

Later...
Ron Capik
--

[Luxey]

петак, 23. март 2012. 20.44.45 UTC+1, Ron Capik је напи�ао/ла:
On 3/23/2012 4:57 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:


As I understand the law, the thread needs to evolve
to that point, and forcing the point is a violation.
[YMMV]

Unfortunately, group was reluctant to accept the only correct answer, the first one from Mike Rivers. This topic does not belong here.

Fortunately, there are some great and sane people here who drove the thread into something interesting and applicable. However, usual suspects are determined for the oposite. Just out of nowhere dithering emerged as side topic, soon enough ...

Is there anybody here interested in runing studio, being hired to record/ mix bands, music, ..., for real, ...

[Trevor]

"Marc Wielage" wrote in message
.com...
Can't somebody just yell "HITLER" ...

You just did.

Trevor.

[Luxey]

On Tuesday, 20 March 2012 07:03:43 UTC+1, Mxsmanic wrote:
Well, I've learned something new again on this group.

I see you did research for best trolling themes. Your next post will be about overcompression and loudness wars, than vinyl vs CD, than ...

[Mxsmanic]

Luxey writes:

I see you did research for best trolling themes.

No, I didn't, but I thought it might be an attractive topic of discussion.

[William Sommerwerck]

"High-end" audio has been around at least 60 years, though it was not called
that. In fact, it arguably extends back to the 30s, with E H Scott making
horribly expensive radio receivers, and Avery Fisher assembling custom
systems.

Its modern incarnation began with Macintosh and Marantz products after WWII,
which most people could not afford. $250 power amps and preamps were beyond
the reach of most listeners. (I remember this very well.)

The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a $545
transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s. It was one of the first "good"
transistor amps, not only in having decent sound, but not blowing up. Though
intended as an industrial amplifier, it sold very well to consumers.

What happened since then is too complex to explain in a brief post.

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Tue 2012-Mar-20 08:34, William Sommerwerck writes:
The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a
$545 transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s. It was one of the
first "good" transistor amps, not only in having decent sound, but
not blowing up. Though intended as an industrial amplifier, it sold
very well to consumers.

YEp, and sound reinforcement people liked it as well.

Iirc at least according to urban legend, might be true, its
first and intended application was for use on shake tables.
Iow for those not familiar, put the component or product on
the table and pump low frequency audio through the amplifier to make the surface shake and see what happens.
LEgend has it, being very religious the owenrs of Crown
weren't real happy with their amplifiers being used to power sound reinforcement for rock 'n roll shows.
My favorite Crown dealer in NEw ORleans told a story
repeatedly about calling Crown for service info, etc. and
having to call back because all the staff was in a prayer
meeting.

Them, and a guy used to cut disks back in Iowa where I grew
up had bgw amplifiers he liked as well.

Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet-Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.
#! rnews 2733
Path: ftn!116-901!NOT-FOR-MAIL
From: R

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Webb wrote:
On Tue 2012-Mar-20 08:34, William Sommerwerck writes:
The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a
$545 transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s. It was one of the
first "good" transistor amps, not only in having decent sound, but
not blowing up. Though intended as an industrial amplifier, it sold
very well to consumers.

YEp, and sound reinforcement people liked it as well.

Iirc at least according to urban legend, might be true, its
first and intended application was for use on shake tables.

Yes, we have a bunch of them running shaker tables still, at a customer of
mine.

The things sound godawful, especially into the high efficiency speakers
of the seventies, because they have a lot of crossover distortion. But
they put lot lots of power down to insanely low frequencies.

LEgend has it, being very religious the owenrs of Crown
weren't real happy with their amplifiers being used to power sound reinforcement for rock 'n roll shows.
My favorite Crown dealer in NEw ORleans told a story
repeatedly about calling Crown for service info, etc. and
having to call back because all the staff was in a prayer
meeting.

Crown is still one of the major supporters of HCJB Radio in Ecuador. Their
call sign stands for Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings. The Crown broadcast
division basically started out supporting them.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Tue 2012-Mar-20 13:09, Scott Dorsey writes:
snip

Iirc at least according to urban legend, might be true, its
first and intended application was for use on shake tables.

Yes, we have a bunch of them running shaker tables still, at a
customer of mine.

Wouldn't doubt that.

The things sound godawful, especially into the high efficiency
speakers of the seventies, because they have a lot of crossover
distortion. But they put lot lots of power down to insanely low
frequencies.

Yep, used them for the dreaded voice of the theater
cabinets, then switched them to monitor amp dut when I
bought some qsc power in the mid-eighties for mains. YEah
yeah I'm showing my age again.

LEgend has it, being very religious the owners of Crown
weren't real happy with their amplifiers being used to power sound
reinforcement for rock 'n roll shows.
My favorite Crown dealer in NEw ORleans told a story
repeatedly about calling Crown for service info, etc. and
having to call back because all the staff was in a prayer
meeting.

Crown is still one of the major supporters of HCJB Radio in Ecuador.
Their call sign stands for Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings. The
Crown broadcast division basically started out supporting them.

I'd heard that one too, at leastthe acronym for hcjb. I
wasn't sure how much credence to give it though, as amateur
call signs for Columbia are hk prefixes, iirc hk3. Every
one I've ever worked from down there on 20 meters was an hk3 anyway, and I think boats in columbian waters must since
/hk3.

Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet-Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Scott Dorsey]

Richard Webb wrote:
Their call sign stands for Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings. The
Crown broadcast division basically started out supporting them.

I'd heard that one too, at leastthe acronym for hcjb. I
wasn't sure how much credence to give it though, as amateur
call signs for Columbia are hk prefixes, iirc hk3. Every
one I've ever worked from down there on 20 meters was an hk3 anyway, and I think boats in columbian waters must since
/hk3.

Well, it's no sillier than WSB being Welcome South Brother, or
WGST for the Georgia School of Technology....
--soctt
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a
$545 transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s. It was one of the
first "good" transistor amps, not only in having decent sound, but
not blowing up. Though intended as an industrial amplifier, it sold
very well to consumers.

Iirc at least according to urban legend, might be true, its
first and intended application was for use on shake tables.
Iow for those not familiar, put the component or product on
the table and pump low frequency audio through the amplifier
to make the surface shake and see what happens.

My favorite Crown dealer in New Orleans told a story
repeatedly about calling Crown for service info, etc. and
having to call back because all the staff was in a prayer
meeting.

Probably true. They had a prayer session every morning.

When Barclay went out of business, Crown offered several employees jobs. Not
me, of course. Even if they'd offered it, I wouldn't have taken it.

Crown had a later industrial amp, the M300. We used two bridged pairs to
power Dayton-Wright electrostatics (one of the nastiest loads in the history
of loudspeakers) in a huge, acoustically dead basement. The Crowns drove
them effortlessly and cleanly, to near-earsplitting levels.

[Neil Gould]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a $545
transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s.

1967 would be "...the late '60s, William. By then, transistor amps were not
uncommon in music, but audiophiles were, and some still are, "tube heads"
when it came to selecting their preferred amplifiers.

--
best regards,

Neil

[William Sommerwerck]

"Neil Gould" wrote in message
...
William Sommerwerck wrote:

The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a $545
transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s.

1967 would be "...the late '60s, William. By then, transistor amps were
not
uncommon in music, but audiophiles were, and some still are, "tube heads"
when it came to selecting their preferred amplifiers.

My memory is that it was earlier -- say, 1964 -- but if you're right, thanks
for the correction.

The point, of course, is that the DC-300 was not an inexpensive amplifier,
and it received general acceptance as a "good" amplifier.

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

The point, of course, is that the DC-300 was not an inexpensive amplifier,
and it received general acceptance as a "good" amplifier.

It was a unique and amazing amplifier. I wouldn't say it sounded very good,
but it had so much damn power in that tiny little box that nobody really
cared. On one level, it was not a "good" amplifier, but on another level
it was better than good, it was revolutionary.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...


"High-end" audio has been around at least 60 years, though it was not
called
that. In fact, it arguably extends back to the 30s, with E H Scott making
horribly expensive radio receivers, and Avery Fisher assembling custom
systems.

I've only seen the E.H. Scott stuff in museums and private collections, but
it is a sight to see. Build quality up the ...

Its modern incarnation began with Macintosh and Marantz products after
WWII,
which most people could not afford. $250 power amps and preamps were
beyond
the reach of most listeners. (I remember this very well.)

I think that Mac 075s were under $200 in their day. 275s were under $400 if
memory serves.

You didin't mention the Bozak, JBL and larger EV systems of the day. Two
words: JBL Paragon.

The high end really got going when Crown introduced the DC-300, a $545
transistor power amplifier, in the early 60s. It was one of the first
"good"
transistor amps, not only in having decent sound, but not blowing up.
Though
intended as an industrial amplifier, it sold very well to consumers.

I don't recall it costing that much.

What happened since then is too complex to explain in a brief post.

People got greedy and things got crazy - magic wires, $10,000 speakers with
5 inch woofers, outlandish turntables and cartrdiges that didn't work better
than what Shure and Thorens sold for a few $100.

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

Well, I've learned something new again on this group. I've learned about
the
existence of high-end audio, a bizarre world that I had never heard about
before.

Lucky you!

Sorry to drag you near this can of worms.

It seems to be a very small world that presumably appeals to people of
low intelligence and high income (e.g., people working in financial
markets).

The people who fall for High End audio hype are often very smart people,
well educated (but usually not not in audio) who are generally quick
learners and think they can master other "lesser" professions like audio
quite easily. Being highly arrogant seems to help.

I don't think that any ordinary consumer would be seduced by anything in
this
world, and I presume that professionals would be immune to its charms as
well,
so it's really only a source of amusement.

IME high end audio has some dupes in the realm of audio production. As a
rule, audio production is far more pragmatic.

I recall hearing about Monster Cables ages ago, and they seemed overpriced
and
excessive at the time to me. Clearly, that market went off the deep end
long
ago.

High End cable madness struck in the early 1970s, if memory serves.

[Mxsmanic]

Arny Krueger writes:

Sorry to drag you near this can of worms.

It was entertaining. Some of the equipment I saw looked like a UFO.

The people who fall for High End audio hype are often very smart people,
well educated (but usually not not in audio) who are generally quick
learners and think they can master other "lesser" professions like audio
quite easily. Being highly arrogant seems to help.

I know many such people (minus the arrogance), but none of them would fall for
some of the claims apparently being made for some high-end audio products.
There are basic scientific principles that any technically-minded, reasonably
educated person would be familiar with that conflict with some of these
claims. The notion that cables could be directional seems very suspect, even
to someone who has never been exposed to audio systems before.

High End cable madness struck in the early 1970s, if memory serves.

Some of the pages I visited implied that Monster Cables actually help, but I
am wary, as even those have always seemed unjustifiably extreme to me. The
more recent exaggerations thereof are very difficult to take seriously.

[[email protected]]

On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:03:43 AM UTC-4, Mxsmanic wrote:
I don't think that any ordinary consumer would be seduced by anything in this
world, and I presume that professionals would be immune to its charms as well,
so it's really only a source of amusement.

Full story he

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

--Ethan

[Mxsmanic]

writes:

On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:03:43 AM UTC-4, Mxsmanic wrote:
I don't think that any ordinary consumer would be seduced by anything in this
world, and I presume that professionals would be immune to its charms as well,
so it's really only a source of amusement.

Full story he

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

Very interesting. Much of what is said I already suspected.

Not long ago I got into an argument of sorts on another forum with someone who
insisted that YouTube was dramatically, criminally distorting the sound of the
music he played in a video. After I expressed doubts on the degree of
distortion that YouTube's encoding and compression might cause, he finally
sent me sound files of the original recording and the YouTube recording. I
couldn't hear a difference, but I was flamed in the most arrogant way
imaginable for daring to say so. So I took the files again into Sound Forge
and nulled them in the same way shown in this video. The result was silence
.... which means, objectively, that there was no significant difference between
the YouTube version of the music recording and the original. I even looked at
the waveform resulting from the nulling, and it was essentially flat right
down to individual samples (a maximum amplitude of perhaps 2-4, out of
16,777,216). So obviously this guy was blowing smoke, but I could not convince
him of that.

[[email protected]]

I met someone about 10 years ago whose living room could have been a
showroom for all that snake oil. For basically a CD player, amplifier,
pair of speakers, and connecting cables, he had spent almost $300,000.
And it was all nonsense because his room was so sonically poor,
and the building A/C contributed a ton of uncontrollable noise.
He had even managed to pipe in his own dedicated power supply
so he could avoid the "noisy" standard power from his outlets.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what he thought was the one most
significant change I could do to make my stereo system sound better.
His answer was "replace your power outlets with hospital-grade outlets".
And yes, he had the Shakti stones. That guy was really lost.

Mxsmanic wrote:
: writes:
: On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:03:43 AM UTC-4, Mxsmanic wrote:
: I don't think that any ordinary consumer would be seduced by anything in this
: world, and I presume that professionals would be immune to its charms as well,
: so it's really only a source of amusement.
:
: Full story he
:
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

: Very interesting. Much of what is said I already suspected.

: Not long ago I got into an argument of sorts on another forum with someone who
: insisted that YouTube was dramatically, criminally distorting the sound of the
: music he played in a video. After I expressed doubts on the degree of
: distortion that YouTube's encoding and compression might cause, he finally
: sent me sound files of the original recording and the YouTube recording. I
: couldn't hear a difference, but I was flamed in the most arrogant way
: imaginable for daring to say so. So I took the files again into Sound Forge
: and nulled them in the same way shown in this video. The result was silence
: ... which means, objectively, that there was no significant difference between
: the YouTube version of the music recording and the original. I even looked at
: the waveform resulting from the nulling, and it was essentially flat right
: down to individual samples (a maximum amplitude of perhaps 2-4, out of
: 16,777,216). So obviously this guy was blowing smoke, but I could not convince
: him of that.

[cedricl[_2_]]

On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 9:14:50 PM UTC-7, (unknown) wrote:
I met someone about 10 years ago whose living room could have been a
showroom for all that snake oil. For basically a CD player, amplifier,
pair of speakers, and connecting cables, he had spent almost $300,000.
And it was all nonsense because his room was so sonically poor,
and the building A/C contributed a ton of uncontrollable noise.
He had even managed to pipe in his own dedicated power supply
so he could avoid the "noisy" standard power from his outlets.

Yep, I have a friend who was/is like that. He's calmed down quite a bit after I've told him what matters and what doesn't. He initially didn't even have a grounded AC outlet in his room. I installed one for him. He used to put arrows on his connecting cables so he could install them in the same direction because "that was the way they were burned in". He'd change out the power cables to some upgraded stuff. He had a different set of inter-connects for classical and another for jazz and another for vocals. It was crazy just trying to listen to music at his house. I got a lot of my "high end" stuff from him because he was constantly trading pieces out. I'd get stuff I could never afford at rock bottom prices or for free. In reality, everything he did, did something. It was subtle and you'd have to debate wether the $300 cable was $270 better than the $30 cable. But, I have to admit, things did change, for better or worse, with all the tweaks he did. Unfortunately, he ended up listening to the equipment instead of the music.

[William Sommerwerck]

I met someone about 10 years ago whose living room could have been
a showroom for all that snake oil. For basically a CD player, amplifier,
pair of speakers, and connecting cables, he had spent almost $300K.
And it was all nonsense because his room was so sonically poor,
and the building A/C contributed a ton of uncontrollable noise.
He had even managed to pipe in his own dedicated power supply
so he could avoid the "noisy" standard power from his outlets.

Yep, I have a friend who was/is like that. He's calmed down quite a
bit after I've told him what matters and what doesn't. He initially didn't
even have a grounded AC outlet in his room. I installed one for him.
He used to put arrows on his connecting cables so he could install
them in the same direction because "that was the way they were
burned in". He'd change out the power cables to some upgraded stuff.
He had a different set of inter-connects for classical and another for
jazz and another for vocals. It was crazy just trying to listen to music
at his house. I got a lot of my "high end" stuff from him because he
was constantly trading pieces out. I'd get stuff I could never afford at
rock bottom prices or for free. In reality, everything he did, did
something. It was subtle and you'd have to debate wether the $300
cable was $270 better than the $30 cable. But, I have to admit, things
did change, for better or worse, with all the tweaks he did.
Unfortunately,
he ended up listening to the equipment instead of the music.

The irony is that one buys high-quality equipment because it is
(supposedly) neutral -- rather than "musical" -- so that you can appreciate
the performance, and ignore the hardware.

[William Sommerwerck]

I met someone about 10 years ago whose living room could have been
a showroom for all that snake oil. For basically a CD player, amplifier,
pair of speakers, and connecting cables, he had spent almost $300K.
And it was all nonsense because his room was so sonically poor,
and the building A/C contributed a ton of uncontrollable noise.
He had even managed to pipe in his own dedicated power supply
so he could avoid the "noisy" standard power from his outlets.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what he thought was the one most
significant change I could do to make my stereo system sound better.
His answer was "replace your power outlets with hospital-grade outlets".
And yes, he had the Shakti stones. That guy was really lost.

How unfortunate. For example, for a tenth that prices, he could have had
components that almost certainly more-accurately reproduced the recording.

[Jonathan[_5_]]

On Mar 21, 7:14*am, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
I met someone about 10 years ago whose living room could have been
a showroom for all that snake oil. *For basically a CD player, amplifier,
pair of speakers, and connecting cables, he had spent almost $300K.
And it was all nonsense because his room was so sonically poor,
and the building A/C contributed a ton of uncontrollable noise.
He had even managed to pipe in his own dedicated power supply
so he could avoid the "noisy" standard power from his outlets.
Out of curiosity, I asked him what he thought was the one most
significant change I could do to make my stereo system sound better.
His answer was "replace your power outlets with hospital-grade outlets"..
And yes, he had the Shakti stones. That guy was really lost.

How unfortunate. For example, for a tenth that prices, he could have had
components that almost certainly more-accurately reproduced the recording..

Maybe even for a hundredth

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:14:50 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

I met someone about 10 years ago whose living room could have been a
showroom for all that snake oil. For basically a CD player, amplifier,
pair of speakers, and connecting cables, he had spent almost $300,000.
And it was all nonsense because his room was so sonically poor,
and the building A/C contributed a ton of uncontrollable noise.
He had even managed to pipe in his own dedicated power supply
so he could avoid the "noisy" standard power from his outlets.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

Gordon Holt of STEREOPHILE told me on several occasions that he felt that
room acoustics were the single biggest factor that could help or hinder sound
quality. Unfortunately, there's no way to package room acoustics and sell
them for $99.95 (more like $995.95) like you can an expensive cable. Holt
was dismayed and unhappy that so few people grasped the importance of the
room itself.

I've also been to some very wealthy homes that had very costly audio and/or
home theater systems, but their acoustical properties were so bad, it was a
pain to listen to -- marble floors, reflective walls, high ceilings, tons of
reverb, weird nodes... just a sonic disaster. But they had all the right
gear. Nobody apparently told them to redecorate... or they just were
determined to keep the room itself the same.

--MFW

[[email protected]]

On Friday, March 23, 2012 5:04:29 AM UTC-4, Marc Wielage wrote:
Unfortunately, there's no way to package room acoustics and sell
them for $99.95 (more like $995.95) like you can an expensive cable.

Well, some expensive cables sell for $5,000 each, and you can buy a room full of great acoustic treatment for the cost on a stereo pair of wires like that.

Holt was dismayed and unhappy that so few people grasped the importance of
the room itself.

I'm dismayed too.

I've also been to some very wealthy homes that had very costly audio and/or
home theater systems, but their acoustical properties were so bad, it was a
pain to listen to -- marble floors, reflective walls, high ceilings, tons of
reverb, weird nodes... just a sonic disaster. But they had all the right
gear. Nobody apparently told them to redecorate... or they just were
determined to keep the room itself the same.

I think it's mainly ignorance, and also being brainwashed by audio salespeople and magazines. Yes, I've been told more than once "I don't want my living room to look like a recording studio" and I understand that. But if someone has $100k invested in "gear" and doesn't have a dedicated room, or doesn't care enough to obtain what their system is capable of, their priorities are really screwed up IMO.

--Ethan

[Anahata]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 02:04:58 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

Not long ago I got into an argument of sorts on another forum with
someone who insisted that YouTube was dramatically, criminally
distorting the sound of the music he played in a video.

My experience of YouTube is that it can distort sound really badly, and
also that different uploaders get quite different results, depending on
(possibly) what video format they use for uploading. After numerous
experiments I came to the conclusion that the only useful advice offered
(in several forums where this has been widely discussed) was that uploads
in HD format (720p or higher) get treated better than lower resolution
uploads.

In my case, the difference was so obvious I didn't need to do any nulling
tests.

I obviously don't know the technical details of your story, but my first
reaction would be to question whether what you get when you download a
YouTube video (for comparison with the "original") is exactly what you
get when you play it in real time.

As for Ethan's "Audio Myths" video, I saw that a couple of weeks ago and
there's a lot of good stuff there, though I'm not sure sure everyone
would agree with his views about the (un)importance of dither.

--
Anahata
--/-- http://www.treewind.co.uk
+44 (0)1638 720444

[[email protected]]

On Wednesday, March 21, 2012 9:36:46 AM UTC-4, anahata wrote:
As for Ethan's "Audio Myths" video, I saw that a couple of weeks ago and
there's a lot of good stuff there, though I'm not sure sure everyone
would agree with his views about the (un)importance of dither.

Download and play the files from this Dither article, then email me your guesses as to which are dithered and which are not:

http://www.ethanwiner.com/dither.html

As this short excerpt from my Audio Myths video shows, I do *not* argue against using dither:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl0U_L3tb_M

But it's not nearly as important as some people claim, at least not for most music that's recorded at sensible levels.

--Ethan

[William Sommerwerck]

There are two good reasons for dither.

First, it prevents obvious distortion when a musical note is a
"sub-multiple" of the sampling frequency.

Second, optimized dither makes the output of the DAC -- which is, strictly
speaking, digital -- look like an analog signal with random noise.

[Anahata]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:57:28 -0700, ethanw wrote:

[ dither]

But it's not nearly as important as some people claim, at least not for
most music that's recorded at sensible levels.

Very likely.

However I remember going to a startling demonstration of what dither is
for, at an AES convention here in the UK somewhere around 1980. Some BBC
engineers did a demo rather like the part of your video where you
gradually reduce the number of bits used to digitise sound. They played a
piano recording truncated to only 4 bits, then the same but dithered. The
dither noise was like standing next to a steam engine, but the way the
piano notes decayed smoothly in to the noise compared with the crackling
and buzzes of the undithered version was very memorable.

Audio wasn't all often 16 bit then (The BBC used 12 bit and 14 bit
systems) and the dither/noise was arguably more likely to be audible.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

[Mxsmanic]

anahata writes:

I obviously don't know the technical details of your story, but my first
reaction would be to question whether what you get when you download a
YouTube video (for comparison with the "original") is exactly what you
get when you play it in real time.

I was going by the audio files he gave me, and he claimed that there was a
huge, horrible difference between them. I did the nulling test and found
essentially no difference at all, and I trust the numbers more than I trust
his ear or his ego.

I think YouTube probably adopted the same position that I did. You can't fix
something that isn't broken.

As for Ethan's "Audio Myths" video, I saw that a couple of weeks ago and
there's a lot of good stuff there, though I'm not sure sure everyone
would agree with his views about the (un)importance of dither.

If I understand dither correctly, then his assertion that it isn't important
seems reasonable.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
anahata writes:

I obviously don't know the technical details of your story, but my
first reaction would be to question whether what you get when you
download a YouTube video (for comparison with the "original") is
exactly what you get when you play it in real time.

I was going by the audio files he gave me, and he claimed that there
was a huge, horrible difference between them. I did the nulling test
and found essentially no difference at all, and I trust the numbers
more than I trust his ear or his ego.

I think YouTube probably adopted the same position that I did. You
can't fix something that isn't broken.

As for Ethan's "Audio Myths" video, I saw that a couple of weeks
ago and there's a lot of good stuff there, though I'm not sure sure
everyone would agree with his views about the (un)importance of
dither.

If I understand dither correctly, then his assertion that it isn't
important seems reasonable.

It costs nothing to properly dither the signal. Therefore, there's no reason
not to do it.

The reason that an undithered signal /doesn't/ sound awful, is that musical
tones are rarely at (or close-enough to) sub-multiples of the sampling
frequency, and/or don't last long enough, for correlated quantization error
to be audible.

To hear what this error sounds like, listen to a test CD with an undithered
sweep tone. (I think the Denons are undithered, but I don't remember.)

[Mike Rivers]

On 3/21/2012 3:00 PM, Mxsmanic wrote:

I think YouTube probably adopted the same position that I did. You can't fix
something that isn't broken.

But a lot of people try to do just that.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

Mxsmanic wrote:

Not long ago I got into an argument of sorts on another forum with someone who
insisted that YouTube was dramatically, criminally distorting the sound of the
music he played in a video. After I expressed doubts on the degree of
distortion that YouTube's encoding and compression might cause, he finally
sent me sound files of the original recording and the YouTube recording. I
couldn't hear a difference, but I was flamed in the most arrogant way
imaginable for daring to say so. So I took the files again into Sound Forge
and nulled them in the same way shown in this video. The result was silence
... which means, objectively, that there was no significant difference between
the YouTube version of the music recording and the original. I even looked at
the waveform resulting from the nulling, and it was essentially flat right
down to individual samples (a maximum amplitude of perhaps 2-4, out of
16,777,216). So obviously this guy was blowing smoke, but I could not convince
him of that.

I suggest you actually try this instead of just pretending to have done
so. Take an uncompressed file like a .wav, put it into a video container
file and upload it. What comes back won't be anything like what you sent
up.

What's interesting is that the same thing is apt to happen to the video
as well as to the audio. Youtube uses perceptual encoding for both, so
for they audio they basically throw away anything that the algorithm thinks
won't be audible. What gets thrown away is between 70% and 90% of the
actual data stream going up if you're sending up uncompressed audio.

It's worse if you send up a typical MP3 file that has already been through
a perceptual encoding stage because the artifacts are made much worse by
transcoding.

The only way to get an absolute copy as you describe is to upload a data file
in the precise format that Youtube uses for internal representation, so that
no encoding or transcoding is required. This format is documented (and in
fact, Final Cut Pro has a specific setting for generating youtube files).
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mxsmanic]

Scott Dorsey writes:

I suggest you actually try this instead of just pretending to have done
so.

I actually tried it.

Take an uncompressed file like a .wav, put it into a video container
file and upload it. What comes back won't be anything like what you sent
up.

I was comparing the files he sent me, which he said were the original and the
YouTube versions. If they were truly what he told me they were, there was no
significant degradation in the YouTube audio.

What's interesting is that the same thing is apt to happen to the video
as well as to the audio. Youtube uses perceptual encoding for both, so
for they audio they basically throw away anything that the algorithm thinks
won't be audible. What gets thrown away is between 70% and 90% of the
actual data stream going up if you're sending up uncompressed audio.

That's how all lossy compression for audio and video generally works these
days. Otherwise YouTube would not be able to compressed video by nearly 500 to
1 with so few artifacts.

The only way to get an absolute copy as you describe is to upload a data file
in the precise format that Youtube uses for internal representation, so that
no encoding or transcoding is required. This format is documented (and in
fact, Final Cut Pro has a specific setting for generating youtube files).

As I've said, he sent me the files directly; YouTube was not involved (at
least at my end).

[Scott Dorsey]

Mxsmanic wrote:
Scott Dorsey writes:

I suggest you actually try this instead of just pretending to have done
so.

I actually tried it.

Take an uncompressed file like a .wav, put it into a video container
file and upload it. What comes back won't be anything like what you sent
up.

I was comparing the files he sent me, which he said were the original and the
YouTube versions. If they were truly what he told me they were, there was no
significant degradation in the YouTube audio.

No. Try it yourself, with your own file. Start out with uncompressed
clean audio so you know where you're beginning. Then when you get it
back, subtract it from the original. It's going to take you some time
to get the two lined up perfectly so they subtract at all, but you'll
find that at no point do they subtract reasonably well.

The difference file is quite enlightening to listen to.

What's interesting is that the same thing is apt to happen to the video
as well as to the audio. Youtube uses perceptual encoding for both, so
for they audio they basically throw away anything that the algorithm thinks
won't be audible. What gets thrown away is between 70% and 90% of the
actual data stream going up if you're sending up uncompressed audio.

That's how all lossy compression for audio and video generally works these
days. Otherwise YouTube would not be able to compressed video by nearly 500 to
1 with so few artifacts.

Yes. That's the problem, lossy compression degrading the audio quality.
You don't get something for nothing.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."