Sean Fulop wrote:
And I repeat, we cannot be sure that everything can be measured. No
researcher in sound or signal processing could be taken seriously if he
said otherwise, given the advances in measuring properties of the signal
that are made each week and reported in the journals. Now, on the other
hand, if two outputs produce exactly the same signal down to the 96 kHz
sampled bit, then they are indeed "the same". Comparing two digitized
signals can be done simply, just look at their matrices and see whether
the cells all have the same numbers.

But I don't think this is what people mean when they say there is "no
measurable difference," they are usually talking about staring at some
graph or chart or something that has been computed as a property of the
signals. And there is good reason to try this, since the bit-identity of
two signal waveforms is really not at all correlated with two signals
seeming to "sound the same." Drastically different signals can be
easily made which sound the same, because of the variety of effects to
which the ear is not sensitive.

Seems to me you have it backwards.

Two bit-identical tracks will very likely sound the same.
Tus bit-identity is correlated to aural identity; more
properly, it is *sufficient* for aural identity.

That does not mean that *sounding the same* correlates as well to
bit-identity. The relationship is not reciprocal, for the
reason you state. Aural identity is not sufficient reason
to conclude bit-identity.

--

-S.
Why don't you just admit that you hate music and leave people alone. --
spiffy