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CD vs LP doesn't matter because I hear up to 50kHz!

9K views 38 replies 10 participants last post by  lcaillo 
#1 · (Edited)
Well, I can't really hear those high frequencies--but I can perceive them. Everyone can! People argue about CD this vs. LP that all the time when they should really be arguing about the best way to capture and reproduce harmonics. Why? Because harmonics are one of the details where music lives, and we all know the :devil: is in the details! And what are harmonics? Well, they are how we can tell instruments apart.

At this point you may be thinking it makes no difference to CD's because you can still tell an oboe apart from a clarinet or a guitar apart from a fiddle. And you'd be right; except that when you change the conversation to ultimate sound quality, you now want to be able to tell one violin apart from another. So let the discussion begin! Do you think this can of worms holds any water? Why or why not? As source for thought I cite two references:

Reference #1 (paraphrased excerpt):
"A pure note consisting entirely of one frequency will sound boring. The harmonics are missing. Harmonics are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency. The first harmonic is the fundamental frequency, 264Hz for middle C. The second harmonic will be twice this frequency, 528 Hz, which is an octave higher. The third harmonic will be three times the fundamental frequency, 792Hz, and so on. The violin, piano, and guitar all produce sounds by vibrating strings. Playing the same note, say middle C, will produce a tone with a fundamental frequency of 264 cycles per second. Yet all three instruments sound different because they have different harmonics. The amount of each harmonic present is what gives each musical instrument its own unique sound. A well made instrument will sound richer than a poorly made one because it will have better harmonics. An instrument with no harmonics will sound like a tuning fork with only one fundamental frequency present."

Reference #2 (paraphrased excerpt:)
Section X. Significance of the results
"Given the existence of musical-instrument energy above 20 kilohertz, it is natural to ask whether the energy matters to human perception or music recording. The common view is that energy above 20 kHz does not matter, but AES preprint 3207 by Oohashi et al. claims that reproduced sound above 26 kHz "induces activation of alpha-EEG rhythms that persist in the absence of high frequency stimulation, and can affect perception of sound quality."
Oohashi and his colleagues recorded gamelan to a bandwidth of 60 kHz, and played back the recording to listeners through a speaker system with an extra tweeter for the range above 26 kHz. This tweeter was driven by its own amplifier, and the 26 kHz electronic crossover before the amplifier used steep filters. The experimenters found that the listeners' EEGs and their subjective ratings of the sound quality were affected by whether this "ultra-tweeter" was on or off, even though the listeners explicitly denied that the reproduced sound was affected by the ultra-tweeter, and also denied, when presented with the ultrasonics alone, that any sound at all was being played. "
 
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#2 ·
:scratchhead: People are staying away. Did I say something wrong? I didn't mean this as a flame or to troll. I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts. Should I have used the word "discussion" instead of "argument"? Do most/all of you rank this topic up there with snake oil?

Please reply or PM me, as I welcome constructive criticism!
TIA
 
#4 ·
Personally I don't care about the science behind such things. I let my ears tell me what I hear and decide from there. The whole LP vs CD is old and the reality is that most people don't care unless they have invested a huge amount in an LP setup the winner is easy. Plus it was already mentioned in the other thread that channel separation on vinyl as well as bass is mono so you must have a high end table and cartridge to gain from it.
 
#5 ·
Thanks for checking in... I do appreciate the feedback. I'll get the hang of this thread-starting thing one of these days, you'll see. :R

Just to sum up and not leave this thread up in the air... Harmonics grow steadily weaker has they go higher in scale. I think anyone would be hard pressed to hear a difference even if fragile harmonics could be preserved through the whole recording/listening chain. Hey, maybe that could be a selling point for snake-oil cables: "We preserve upper harmonics, so you don't have to!"

Our listening media, systems and rooms--with all their faults--still allow us to tell the difference between similar instruments. Most of the harmonics that make a difference are within our range of hearing, so super-tweeters need not apply. Chalk this can of worms up to Great Audio Myth #_____.
 
#6 ·
Hey, Lou, just catching up. I find this very interesting, not just in how it relates to CD vs vinyl, but in how it could possibly explain other preferences. Amp A vs Amp B, for instance. I have wondered if there might be some "other sense" involved sometimes where an amp or DAC or medium is clearly preferred by certain listeners, or where it is only after extended listening that a difference becomes apparent. The alpha-EEG reference is the first work that I have heard of that looks at possibilities of perception beyond but related to hearing. To someone who has "tuned into" that other dimension of perception, they might very well associate it with their hearing, as it would seem natural to do.

Having dealt with meditation and hypnosis - OK, we are way out of the audio field now - I can testify that an increase in alpha waves when self-induced definitely feels different, more peaceful, very pleasant. If a listener experienced this while listening to vinyl, or a different amplifier, or a different speaker cable - I know it is a stretch, but we are just brainstorming here - that "pleasant, peaceful" feeling could be perceived as part of the listening experience and lead to an equipment or technology preference. And would be very real and potentially repeatable, for the attuned listener, under the right set of test circumstances.

Edit: Some listeners might have have a tendency to "tune out" that other area of perception altogether, or when doing critical listening. And it might not be conducive to A/B testing. But if a listener is "tuned into" that perception and associates it with the listening experience, then it is as valid to that listener as soundstage or distortion or any other aspect of the listening experience. And someday might even be a measurable system parameter.
 
#13 ·
Hey, Lou, just catching up. I find this very interesting, not just in how it relates to CD vs vinyl, but in how it could possibly explain other preferences. Amp A vs Amp B, for instance. I have wondered if there might be some "other sense" involved sometimes where an amp or DAC or medium is clearly preferred by certain listeners, or where it is only after extended listening that a difference becomes apparent. The alpha-EEG reference is the first work that I have heard of that looks at possibilities of perception beyond but related to hearing. To someone who has "tuned into" that other dimension of perception, they might very well associate it with their hearing, as it would seem natural to do.
Are any marketing people out there listening to this? It's golden! Ad copy: "Our amp doesn't just take you there, it transports you into the next dimension" Sorry Wayne, I couldn't resist. I do think slight differences in harmonic content may affect how listener's perceive Amp A vs. B, especially if one of them produces odd-order vs even-order distortion artifacts. What might otherwise look like an even playing field on paper might in actuality be a stacked deck. If we take brainstorming into the realm of distortion, even-order harmonics are supposedly more pleasing to the ear. Tube advocates' claim that odd-order harmonic distortion is largely to blame for solid state gear's unpleasant "sound." The solid state camp says that tubed gear's introduction of large amounts of distortion (even-order or not), disqualifies it from serious consideration.

Having dealt with meditation and hypnosis - OK, we are way out of the audio field now - I can testify that an increase in alpha waves when self-induced definitely feels different, more peaceful, very pleasant. If a listener experienced this while listening to vinyl, or a different amplifier, or a different speaker cable - I know it is a stretch, but we are just brainstorming here - that "pleasant, peaceful" feeling could be perceived as part of the listening experience and lead to an equipment or technology preference. And would be very real and potentially repeatable, for the attuned listener, under the right set of test circumstances.
Yup, "'pleasant, peaceful' feeling". Wasn't that an Eagles song? :R
I imagine self-induced alpha waves could influence preferences for equipment, media, and even artistic genre. That's an interesting premise that spills over into any habitual, self-gratifying activity like smoking for instance. I think for the purposes of listening we mean to entertain more subliminal notions such as pleasant aroma while auditioning Amp A as opposed to intrusive outdoor noise while listening to Amp B.

Edit: Some listeners might have have a tendency to "tune out" that other area of perception altogether, or when doing critical listening. And it might not be conducive to A/B testing. But if a listener is "tuned into" that perception and associates it with the listening experience, then it is as valid to that listener as soundstage or distortion or any other aspect of the listening experience. And someday might even be a measurable system parameter.
Oh, the possibilities... one could only hope for tighter correlation between what we hear or think we hear, and what can be mesured.
 
#7 ·
Couldn't the extended frequency response also effect the tonality of the instruments or vocals?
 
#10 ·
The only way I can think of to test the theory would be...

Take a tone and digitally chop it off directly at the frequency, and take another tone and leave it alone, and then listen to the 2 tones, and see if there is any audible difference. Feasible?
 
#11 ·
We do that all the time already with filtering. If the overtones that are chopped off were audible in the first place, then tonality is definitely changed. If those overtones that are chopped off by filtering were not audible, then there is no apparent change to the sound, and no change in totality. Overtones are all in our heads, in that it is our brains that associate those frequencies as all part of 1 sound.

Edit: For instance, an additive synthesizer creates its sound by adding components that when combined make up the overtones of the overall sound. The old Hammond organ is the same way, where frequencies are added together to create what we interpret as a sound of a single note, but in reality they are just frequencies with certain relationships. The timing envelope of the sound gives us cues that those different components are all part of the same sound. All those overtones are just separate frequencies until our brain tells us they are part of a single sound.
 
#12 ·
Thanks for clearing that up for me... It's all just in my head then. :T
 
#17 ·
It is quite amazing all the things the psycho-acoustical brain does for us on a moment-by-moment basis. Pluck a stretched-out string, and the brain can estimate length, tension, material, where along its length it was plucked, what kind of material was used to pluck it with, all from the volume envelope and harmonic structure, which the brain recognizes as basic in nature. Blow on a pipe, and a certain set of harmonics is produced, and the brain can tell material, length, whether it was a flute or a clarinet or a pipe organ from envelope and odd and even harmonic ratios. It can even fill in the missing fundamental for us if the speaker's frequency response is not quite low enough. It can do a pretty good job of recognizing an instrument even if its harmonic structure has been drastically filtered. And it can recognize an instrument that is being simulated, if the simulation is close enough, as produced by a synthesizer. And of course it can sometimes recognize, with experience, subtle differences due to amplifier or speaker design variations. Change the harmonic structure enough, and it sounds like a different instrument or even a new instrument.

The brain's recognition of harmonic structure is very basic to our navigating the world of sound on a moment-by-moment basis, and is certainly very fundamental to our analysis, interpretation, and appreciation of music and audio.
 
#19 ·
Its all mastering dependent. I have heard both formats sound excellent and dreadfull with no clear winner at all.
 
#21 ·
BlueRockinLou:

We are definitely probing into the future here. Imagine having mics, cables, recording consoles, amps, speakers, all with 100 kHz bandwidth. Crazy talk! But who knows someday? And special metering to isolate the "EEG Factor", even future "EEG Wars" where producers maximize and over-compress the effect, followed by pleas to "return to the good old days of a natural, uncompressed EEG band..."

And maybe it is so unpredictable that we are better off with it filtered out. Some of the higher-priced speaker cables have networks to filter out content above 20 kHz - another discussion altogether.

Just when life seemed to be getting simpler.:rolleyesno:
 
#22 ·
Maybe this is a simplistic view on things but I can help but think that the waves formed captured digitally are not limit to 20KHz om the recording side. It stands to reason then that the waveform captured by the recording already contain the effects of waveform shaping caused by the higher order harmonics.

Has any quantified how high the harmonics go for all the particular instruments? If not, then this is sheer speculation and taking a bit of science and running with it with no proof.
 
#23 ·
Maybe this is a simplistic view on things but I can help but think that the waves formed captured digitally are not limit to 20KHz om the recording side. It stands to reason then that the waveform captured by the recording already contain the effects of waveform shaping caused by the higher order harmonics.
A logical assessment, indeed! And since most musical instrument harmonics fall below 20kHz, there's literally nothing to lose by restricting digital sampling to that upper limit.
 
#32 ·
16/44 does not contain as much information as analog. When we increase the density of information with higher resolution, the sound becomes MORE analog-like. Digital is an analog signal that has been given a bath in software.

It is my opinion that analog sources have sharper images and superior soundstaging, simply because there is more information being conveyed to the loudspeakers and listener. Frequency response well past 20 kHz is evidence of this.


http://www.kvart-bolge.com/#!Audiop...-wait-a-minute/c1rr6/553ac80c0cf2836c87f2d045
 
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#36 ·
After all, the story the pseudo-science paints is very convincing and infinitely more readable that a series of equations that that only engineers and math grads can comprehend.
Good point! All too convincing sometimes. I think that's because pseudo-science tries to appeal to common sense and oversimplified aspects of the world we live in. Biasing conductor insulation in a cable is one example.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#35 ·
How about:
If it measures good but sounds bad, you've measured the wrong thing.
Yep, that's much better. As far as sound waves are concerned, we can measure ALL their physical characteristics extremely accurately. We can't measure people's perception of sound waves hardly at all though. So while we may have measured the wrong thing (the sound waves), we currently have nothing else we're able to measure. Maybe one day we'll be able to measure people's brains, their bio-chemical and bio-electrical reactions, their emotions and what they perceive and maybe recreate them without even needing to involve any sound waves in the first place. Until then, all we can do is measure the sound waves themselves and leave judgements about whether they're perceived as good or bad to individual opinion.

G
 
#38 ·
This was meant to be an informative and entertaining thread. When discovered that the thread's premise was questionable, I acknowledged that fact. Unfortunately, some members became extremely disrespectful and argumentative. Scientists embrace the unknown with open minds. That' how technology advances. Thread closed to further discussion.
 
#39 ·
Let me be very clear. It is OK to disagree. It is not OK, however, to deride others, or a group, because one thinks that his/her view is more correct than another's view.

No matter how sure you are of your facts, there is always room for discussion. The discussion should be targeting ideas, not others. Calling others irrational, or referring to a group(e.g. audiophiles) similarly, is not the way we conduct discussions here. Keep to YOUR point and discuss what others say respectfully.

HTS has always required this kind of mutual respect and civil discourse and it is one of the things that set us apart from other forums. There are plenty of places you can go if you want to bicker or demean others. No one will be allowed to do it here.
 
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