opaqueice;338045 Wrote: > Have you ever heard of the Nyquist-Shannon theorem? Or human hearing > thresholds?
Yes, everyone who enjoyed a (digital) electronics education knows most if not all theorems related to audio. However, we're talking about actual reproduction of sound recordings here, not just the theory and everyone knows that the Nyquist-Shannon theorem is not realizable in practice for a number of reasons. The human hearing thresholds are what we are talking about... why would you suggest I don't know about it? I think you probably meant to combine these two statements, meaning that the errors in the practical (so imperfect) implementation of the theorem are not audible for a human and thus, while imperfect, it is good enough for an audiophile? Hmmm.. that still would be a bold statement, so you really should explain yourself more ;-) opaqueice;338045 Wrote: > It's not, actually. Sound is the motion of a finite number of discrete > molecules :-). I see the smiley ;) So, digital becomes analog when bit-depth reaches that amount of molecules? How about sample-rate, how would you eliminate that in the comparison? I don't think your statement will triumph ;-) opaqueice;338045 Wrote: > I agree the difference between live and recorded sound is much larger > than the difference between lossless and 320 MP3. So is the difference > made by moving your stereo speakers. Or switching to a surround sound > setup, or to headphones. All of which goes to show that your point - > that digital is the primary problem - is not correct. Sorry, I must not been clear as that was not my point. My point is that when comparing 320 mp3 to flac, one should take a step back and look at the bigger picture and put the issue at hand in the right perspective. As soon as one (me) gives examples, other factors are left out, complicating the discussion. People here try to reproduce sound on a CD as good as possible but forget that audiophiles are supposed to try to get closer to the actual performance instead of the bits on the CD. My point is that bit-perfect is not perfect and thus should not be the goal of any audiophile. My point is that when anyone accepts a 16 bit, 44 kHz FLAC as his or her ultimate listening experience, the person is actually not an audiophile. I think you will agree to these points or you wouldn't be in this forum. I think anyone who can truly hear the difference between 320-mp3 and 44/16 flac for the majority of popular/modern (non-classical) recordings, is special and will have no problem finding a very well paid job in the music industry. The one person here in the thread that could do it, needed lower-rate mp3's of the same recording first, to discover possible points of difference. When he would only have had the two versions he would probably have failed to notice the difference (that's what he wrote himself). This person would enjoy listening to 320-mp3 just as much as listening to the flac if he would not be aware which version was playing. But I understand that even not being aware which version plays might reduce the pleasure of the experience... the human brain is complex. Getting more into the heat-zone: I read that someone thinks that blind-testing is flawed and "proves" this by stating that a person can't hear a difference between two different recordings. "But the recordings -are- actually different so the method of testing must be flawed". Reading that kept a smile on my face for the rest of the day ;-) That person should stop being a troll or, if he wasn't, he should go into politics because all is upside-down there anyway. For the record: this method of testing isn't flawed. When one doesn't hear the difference under blind testing, it means just that: the person's hearing is flawed more than that of the person that can hear the difference under the same test. Let me finish this post with this: I love digital. When they started this with blunt analog low-pass filters (anti-alias) it was way worse than analog, but I still loved digital anyway. Now, they sample at radio-frequency sample-rates, apply digital low-pass filters, and get a near perfect reproduction of the performance. Next, they crap it up on purpose by downsampling it for distribution to the masses, I buy it, and love it even more. Soon, I'll buy HD audio which is less crapped up from what "they" have and oh how much I will love that. It will almost be like actually being at the performance! ciao! Nick. -- DeVerm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DeVerm's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=18104 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=51021 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
