Thread: SACD better than CD proven!

Posts: 17
Page: 1 2 next

Post by Zammo March 6, 2013 (1 of 17)
Thought I'd get your attention.

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v110/i4/e044301

Not going to pay to download the full article, but the abstract is certainly interesting. I'm sure one of the SACD naysayers will download it and try to shoot it down. I'm over the debate now - most of my SACD's sound excellent and I don't care why.

Post by petrushka1975 March 6, 2013 (2 of 17)
Downloadable for free here

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1208.4611v2.pdf

Post by Zammo March 6, 2013 (3 of 17)
I would thank you if I could understand a word Petrushka! Maybe my SACD's would sound different if I could understand the article though.....

Post by hiredfox March 7, 2013 (4 of 17)
Zammo said:

I'm sure one of the SACD naysayers will download it and try to shoot it down

Are there any? Surely there is no issue to debate anymore.

Post by hiredfox March 7, 2013 (5 of 17)
Zammo said:

I would thank you if I could understand a word Petrushka! Maybe my SACD's would sound different if I could understand the article though.....

Come on old chap, which part did you find difficult?

;-)

Post by petrushka1975 March 7, 2013 (6 of 17)
Zammo said:

I would thank you if I could understand a word Petrushka! Maybe my SACD's would sound different if I could understand the article though.....

This is what the paper says in a nutshell:

- The laws of physics stipulate a certain precision limit that no "linear" sound measuring procedure can exceed. "Linear" is mathematical jargon for "simple".

- The tests they conducted found that humans' hearing ability can breach that limit, implying the human hearing physiology / perception must be nonlinear (eg. more complex than scientists had assumed).

- Therefore, some sound processing alogrithms based on assumptions of human hearining being linear may produce artifiacts detectable by human hearing, even if not measurable by (linear) apparatus.

- This I find very interesting: Humans can detect time distortions much better than frequency distortions. All else being the same, this means you want algorithms to maintain timing integrity at the expense of frequency integrity than vice versa. In other words, some tradeoffs are better than others. Does this make DSD better than PCM perceptually? I don't know. But it may explain some phenomena people have wondered about, eg. why early digital sounded so bad despite measuring so well, or why jitter / timing inaccuracies in the synchronozation of transport and DAC can be such a big deal.

- Also very interesting: Some people, namely conductors and composers, tend to have even better hearing acuity than the average person. Did their innate ability propelled them to choose their profession? (I think not) Or did they become better at hearing doing what they do? (Probably. In other words, you CAN train someone to become a golden ear...)

Post by petrushka1975 March 7, 2013 (7 of 17)
The paper says conducts and composers can have hearing that breach the precision limit by a factor of 10. That's very interesting

Post by hiredfox March 7, 2013 (8 of 17)
petrushka1975 said:

This is what the paper says in a nutshell:

-

..but none of this is new and has been discussed on here many times over the years

Post by DSD March 7, 2013 (9 of 17)
petrushka1975 said:

- Also very interesting: Some people, namely conductors and composers, tend to have even better hearing acuity than the average person. Did their innate ability propelled them to choose their profession? (I think not) Or did they become better at hearing doing what they do? (Probably. In other words, you CAN train someone to become a golden ear...)

I just want to add to this what my Instrumental Ensemble teacher told me, while I showed enough talent to be a composer or arranger, classical conductors have to have "perfect pitch" which he said one is either born with or not, so I couldn't be a conductor.

Post by petrushka1975 March 7, 2013 (10 of 17)
hiredfox said:

..but none of this is new and has been discussed on here many times over the years

These are newly established scientific findings published by someone from a reputable institution in an academic journal. It is based on controlled, repeatable empirical results with respect to a very specific physical law / mathematical bound, as opposed to someone else's anecdotal asserts or observations. So it is not without value.

Page: 1 2 next

Closed