Audiophile or Audio-Fooled? How Good Are Your Ears?

[anthonyTD]

Not a long video, so if you get chance, watch it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEjI5PZa78

[Ammonite Audio]

Arguments around this subject are mostly based on the erroneous belief that we, as human beings, hear things solely in terms of amplitude and frequency. That is simplistic because time and timing are critically important for real music and the nuances that are inherent to real music, eg acoustic cues, interplay between musicians and instruments. This is why people (such as professional musicians) who may be really quite deaf are still able to discern fine musical details, even though a pure tone audiometric test indicates that they cannot. This is also why 'timing' is at the heart of a good music system's performance - something that many systems just don't do very well. Equally, when you start messing around with digital music files, either by data reduction algorithms or indeed DSP, the main casualty is often timing purity. The human auditory system may be relatively insensitive to HF tones, but it is incredibly sensitive to the tiniest aberrations in time - think of such variations a bit like digital 'jitter'. If we were not so sensitive to tiny variations in signal timing, we would not be able to hear and correctly identify the sabre toothed tiger tiptoeing up behind us as we relax outside our cave.

This particular video is deeply flawed because he uses Coldplay's X&Y as one of the tests - perhaps the most hideously compressed and sonically messed up album ever made (IMO), so how anyone is supposed to hear any proper musical cues is beyond me. You could put that album through a digital mangle and it would hardly sound worse than the original CD.

[Jazid]

Not a long video, so if you get chance, watch it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEjI5PZa78Lasted 9.5 minutes. Pretty confused presentation, don't think I learned anything TBH except that studio engineers don't necessarily make good philosophers or scientists, though I don't disagree with his fundamental premise that 320k mp3 sounds just fine.

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

[Boyse6748]

Well, it appears I’m an Audio-Fool.

Wasted more money than I can own up to on high res downloads, / SACD’s / high end DAC’s without ever noticing the difference..... or was I just kidding myself.

At 70 years of age, My frequency threshold is around 12 kHz.... so deaf as a post by comparison to most.

I can only say about the whole issue is...... if the track does it for you.... it a winner.

After all, is it not all about musical enjoyment?

Peter


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[RothwellAudio]

...time and timing are critically important for real music...
Absolutely. I've played with musicians whose sense of timing has been so bad that it's a real chore to play to play with them. I've also played with musicians whose sense of timing makes the whole thing an absolute joy.


This is also why 'timing' is at the heart of a good music system's performance - something that many systems just don't do very well...
With the exception of turntables and tape recorders I've never heard a hi-fi that couldn't play in time. I don't even know how an amplifier or speaker could possibly change a recording's timing.

[anthonyTD]

Good assesment Hugo,:)
And I am with you 100% on the last Sentence! ;)
A...
Arguments around this subject are mostly based on the erroneous belief that we, as human beings, hear things solely in terms of amplitude and frequency. That is simplistic because time and timing are critically important for real music and the nuances that are inherent to real music, eg acoustic cues, interplay between musicians and instruments. This is why people (such as professional musicians) who may be really quite deaf are still able to discern fine musical details, even though a pure tone audiometric test indicates that they cannot. This is also why 'timing' is at the heart of a good music system's performance - something that many systems just don't do very well. Equally, when you start messing around with digital music files, either by data reduction algorithms or indeed DSP, the main casualty is often timing purity. The human auditory system may be relatively insensitive to HF tones, but it is incredibly sensitive to the tiniest aberrations in time - think of such variations a bit like digital 'jitter'. If we were not so sensitive to tiny variations in signal timing, we would not be able to hear and correctly identify the sabre toothed tiger tiptoeing up behind us as we relax outside our cave.

This particular video is deeply flawed because he uses Coldplay's X&Y as one of the tests - perhaps the most hideously compressed and sonically messed up album ever made (IMO), so how anyone is supposed to hear any proper musical cues is beyond me. You could put that album through a digital mangle and it would hardly sound worse than the original CD.

[anthonyTD]

Perceived timing can indeed be affected by diffrent types of circuitry, and equipment, again; it may not show up on test equipment, but it is often detected while listening to the same music on diffrent bits of kit.
Absolutely. I've played with musicians whose sense of timing has been so bad that it's a real chore to play to play with them. I've also played with musicians whose sense of timing makes the whole thing an absolute joy.


With the exception of turntables and tape recorders I've never heard a hi-fi that couldn't play in time. I don't even know how an amplifier or speaker could possibly change a recording's timing.

[Macca]

Absolutely. I've played with musicians whose sense of timing has been so bad that it's a real chore to play to play with them. I've also played with musicians whose sense of timing makes the whole thing an absolute joy.


With the exception of turntables and tape recorders I've never heard a hi-fi that couldn't play in time. I don't even know how an amplifier or speaker could possibly change a recording's timing.

I agree, although you can get a speaker, or a speaker/amp/room combo that can sound 'slow' in the bass, but that isn't the same thing.

Actually changing the 'timing' of the musicians in playback? Sorry but that isn't possible. There seems to be some confusion, both here and on other forums, as to musicians playing in time with each other and 'timing' as related to the transmission of a digital signal during playback. These are not the same thing at all!

[alphaGT]

I had a recent experience that is right in line with this thread.

My band decided to play Skid Row, Little Sister. Just a simple hair metal song, or so I thought. I downloaded an MP3 copy at 320kbs, and studied the bass parts and learned the song. Then at band practice, before we attempt to play this song, we play the CD through the PA system, and wow! I was missing about 3/4 of the bass notes! The bass was walking all around, but on the MP3 all I was hearing was the root notes. I went home and gave a more serious listen to the MP3, and the notes I heard from the CD just weren’t there, so I ordered the CD, and playing it over the same stereo as the MP3, I now here every nuance of bass, the difference is amazing. I suspect the choice of subject matter can make all the difference, I’ve downloaded many other songs in the same way to learn and had not noticed that I was missing any notes, but those songs were simpler compositions. Bottom line, if you are using any form of lossy compression, that means something is missing.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[anthonyTD]

Interesting views, :)
I cant say I agree with the guy in the vid, but it does spark some interesting theories as to how we hear music, and its content, sometimes hearing music played on diffrent types of playback systems ie; MP3, CD, Music Streamers etc, the diffrences heard may not actualy be related to the format, but more to do with how the information is processed by the playback equipment.
Russell's observation is a good one in this instance.
My own personal observations with diffrences in timing have not been individual instruments out of time with the rest of the music, but an over-all slowness, or sometimes a faster presentation.
I think most of this is down to the way diffrent systems portray frequencies within the musical content.
A...

[Pharos]

Other than being the remnants of mystical phantom notions from the eighties, I haven't got a clue what PRaT are.

[Jazid]

I had a recent experience that is right in line with this thread.

My band decided to play Skid Row, Little Sister. Just a simple hair metal song, or so I thought. I downloaded an MP3 copy at 320kbs, and studied the bass parts and learned the song. Then at band practice, before we attempt to play this song, we play the CD through the PA system, and wow! I was missing about 3/4 of the bass notes! The bass was walking all around, but on the MP3 all I was hearing was the root notes. I went home and gave a more serious listen to the MP3, and the notes I heard from the CD just weren’t there, so I ordered the CD, and playing it over the same stereo as the MP3, I now here every nuance of bass, the difference is amazing. I suspect the choice of subject matter can make all the difference, I’ve downloaded many other songs in the same way to learn and had not noticed that I was missing any notes, but those songs were simpler compositions. Bottom line, if you are using any form of lossy compression, that means something is missing.


Sent from my iPad using TapatalkInteresting post, may I ask have you tried to encode the track from your good cd back to 320kb mp3? If you have and the second mp3 shows the same losses then IMHO that would be very interesting. My question arises as the quality of the original mp3 master could have been lacking rather than this being an artifact of the encoding itself?

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

[alphaGT]

Interesting post, may I ask have you tried to encode the track from your good cd back to 320kb mp3? If you have and the second mp3 shows the same losses then IMHO that would be very interesting. My question arises as the quality of the original mp3 master could have been lacking rather than this being an artifact of the encoding itself?

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

An interesting question! I’m not sure I have the ability to change the CD into an MP3, but maybe I do? I’ve just never had the desire to do so, let me look into that. It’s very possible that the MP3 I got from iTunes could be less than advertised.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[legb4rsk]

Could just be the source is different.What if you copied the MP3 onto a cd.What would you hear?

[sq225917]

Over the years I've heard some setups where a band really gel and there's an obvious swing and vibe to a track. I've heard other hifi where this doesn't happen with exactly the same music. I've never been able to pin down why it might be even though the music sounds the same tonally. Simple hifi done well with smaller speakers tends to do the trick better IME and its more than just a spotlit rhythm section.

[Spectral Morn]

Stumbled across that video before, and frankly to state mp3 is good enough, well I disagree. I can easily discern the differences, between mp3 (always could) and other formats. With guys like him, whats the point in having a hifi. Glad he isn't the norm, or I would learn to play an instrument, as his views would destroy any notion of hifidelity.