So, again, why do you fail to mention that you are concerned with the state of ABX testing from over 20 years ago? You DO realise that this flaw has long since been corrected in later research, right? (and ABX still gives similar results, so it's not like the "flaw" ammounted to anything...)
BTW, don't fail to mention that if those old tests were conducted in a way that is now standard, you would now be bitching about "but it wasn't a natural experience of listening to music!"...
But why do you present it in a way as if ABX testing is completelly contrary to human perception, and forget that a) it can't work around the limits of cognition b) humans can utilise short-term memory nonetheless. And you present it in a way that goes too far, to the point of muddling the issue. No, the track segments aren't "definitely, indisputably different", they are just presented sequentially, shifted in time-domain (again, we're not talking about prehistory of audio software... I'm assuming you realise that people DO ABX SHORT SAMPLES; it's funny how you accuse me of rhetoric fallacy based on your outdated, 80's knowledge of the realitites of ABX)
Also you completelly omit the most crucial thing - actually listening to music in everyday life presents the exact same problem that you whine about...but to far, far larger degree. And in case you don't realise - lossy psychoacoustic compression is for listening to music. One could even concievably argue that the fact of modern ABX testing trying to adress, somewhat, the issue you mention is preciselly counterproductive to validity of tests for real life applications.
And you delude yourself about photos because you also can't compare two photos at exactly the same time. You have flawed understanding of current ABX - if it was like you further describe with photo example, one would be prohibited from comparing the same short fragment of both probed tracks, over and over again, as many times as one pleases. Which is obviously not true (but you seem to not know that...)
Saying that your story isn't about "I'm superior Ubermenchs, all problems I've had are just because of primitive underlings" is just arguing about semantics.
Seriously, that's the true problem this development might cause; the only reason why my 8 month old cat hasn't killed and eaten me is because she haven't figured out how to do that...yet.
But what you're saying is irrelevant for audio quality comparison with HTPC that I described.
For starters, nobody I'm aware of keeps their HTPCs in the dumpster. And "circuit quality" in audiphile terms is irrelevant with bit-perfect copies (EAC can take its time to make them...no need for realtime playback; BTW, your listening of that scratched CD probably wasn't bit-perfect, CD players can interpolate quite a lot without us hearing it) and bit-perfect output. This HTPC will output the exact same bitstream as was put on CDs every time. What is "better" in this context?
While I agree with you generally (even if your post has its flaws, pointed out already in other asnwer), why do you think people should be trained in how original sounds before the tests? It would preciselly work against determining whether people can hear the difference.
Also, proper ABX methodology doesn't even attempt to directly compare compressed samples. It only compares one compressed sample to the original and only determines "do you hear a difference?" If you want to test another ecnoding, you make another ABX test. Only comparing the results of both of those tests can somewhat give an answer to "which encoding is better?", which actually means "which is closer to the original?" obviously (original assumed a priori, correctly IMHO, to be the best, the benchmark)
Uhm, if that's what you object to - sorry, it's meanigless.
Humans can't carefully analyse two almost identical sounds at the same time (listening at the same time to both samples would be required to eliminate the "flaw" that you present; but human brain would treat them as single sample)
Also, you're deluding yourself if you think you do it with photos.
Most organised (the kind which Hydrogenaudio is doing...) ABX tests use short samples, with "listen to them how many times as you like before deciding". Typical ABX software also allows to compare even shorter fragments of samples.
There are two things which might have influenced your score:
a) I suppose you are quite familiar with the FLAC of a song? Notice that ABX testing doesn't tell "which one is better", but "can I hear a difference?". Using songs that you are very accustomed to will obviously influence that
b) very cheap audio equipment might actually help in differentiation under some circumstances (laptop audio in this cause would be the suspect). It might apply what is effectivelly a "filter" that could've exposed some artifacts slightly.
How is that "over one thousand bucks Creek Audio CD player" better in sound quality than small, slow, passivelly cooled HTPC with bit-perfect (easily doable with Exact Audio Copy) FLAC copies of your CD collection and with output through bit-perfect digital out (costs ten bucks: http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/ )
(if your "amplifier" has good quality DAC, many of which do nowadays)
So now it's about intentionally "trying" to hate cheap and quite good stuff, to have no other option than to buy expensive one? Please...
And SACD and DVD-A are stillborn because they didn't give anything really new. It's similar to DVD->HD video pains, but much more because CDs are good enough for human hearing apparatus (plus the market wanted shift to something more convenient and portable - web music stores; not to something essentially the same but once again without cheap players, non-portable, delicate and without any way to make a backup)
And before you point out some marvellously sounding SACD or DVD-A that you've heard - that's due to mastering. Many CDs are mastered like crap nowadays, with abundant dynamics compression, and so on...things to which "HD" audio format haven't succumbed yet (it would happen if they were to become popular)
Bullshit, people listened to radio in the background when doing other stuff...pretty much since the radio was widely available. Sure, it didn't have such scale as, say, MP3 players of today, but only because 40 years there was no other way to do so.
Untill you do ABX test between vinyl and proper digital recording (at CD specs; it shouldn't contain those "inadible but important" details that you claim are there...) of that same vinyl, you are full of superiotity self-deception crap.
Hint: such tests were also made. Self-proclaimed audophiles can't tell the difference.
PS. Just contemplate this you are relativelly old (since you grew up when vinyls were all the rage, apparently). There's no f#$%^ng way your hearing can be better than teens of today. You can't hear the frequencies they can. You have worse hearing. Nobody can escape that. One might at most train oneself to activelly notice the differences that other ignore (not because they can't really hear it per se). Couple that with bias towards thing from our younger years...and there's you you "audiphilism"
Also, stop with the crap of "music was simply better then". That's also looking at your youth with rose glasses. There's unimaginable amount of great music being created nowadays. It's just way too often swamped with crap...as was always the case (you just don't remember that, you remember only the good stuff)
Yeah, I can support that conclusion - I have tinnitus (though with actually somewhat higher than average frequencies I can hear, last time I checked; plus who knows how my hearing is overall just "different"), and I always preffered slightly higher bitrates/quality settings (and even then I seemed to have "ugh, that part/sound is horrible in lossy" more often). Yes, it was ABXed; I seemed to do somewhat better than average at differentiating.
But then I realised how stupid it is to train myself in noticing differences (semi-regular ABXing would do just that). It's better and cheaper not to be able to hear the difference very often. And with current encoders typical 128kbps AAC or mp3 from LAME with typical VBR preset is fine.
Here's your possible and much simpler explanation for prefering MP3's more and more. There is a large difference between recent LAME and...whatever people were using at the turn of millenium.
If I had a "right" to electricity, nobody could legally shut it off.
A "right" doesn't imply at all that it can't be taken away under some circumstances (as a matter of fact, I've heard US has the biggest population of such people, at least among developed countries)
Slashdot Mirror
It's certainly documenented and available info when for example you want some credit...
Then you don't have a right to remain free. It will be limited for you if you ignore paying (taxes)
So, again, why do you fail to mention that you are concerned with the state of ABX testing from over 20 years ago? You DO realise that this flaw has long since been corrected in later research, right? (and ABX still gives similar results, so it's not like the "flaw" ammounted to anything...)
BTW, don't fail to mention that if those old tests were conducted in a way that is now standard, you would now be bitching about "but it wasn't a natural experience of listening to music!"...
But why do you present it in a way as if ABX testing is completelly contrary to human perception, and forget that a) it can't work around the limits of cognition b) humans can utilise short-term memory nonetheless. And you present it in a way that goes too far, to the point of muddling the issue. No, the track segments aren't "definitely, indisputably different", they are just presented sequentially, shifted in time-domain (again, we're not talking about prehistory of audio software... I'm assuming you realise that people DO ABX SHORT SAMPLES; it's funny how you accuse me of rhetoric fallacy based on your outdated, 80's knowledge of the realitites of ABX)
Also you completelly omit the most crucial thing - actually listening to music in everyday life presents the exact same problem that you whine about...but to far, far larger degree. And in case you don't realise - lossy psychoacoustic compression is for listening to music. One could even concievably argue that the fact of modern ABX testing trying to adress, somewhat, the issue you mention is preciselly counterproductive to validity of tests for real life applications.
And you delude yourself about photos because you also can't compare two photos at exactly the same time. You have flawed understanding of current ABX - if it was like you further describe with photo example, one would be prohibited from comparing the same short fragment of both probed tracks, over and over again, as many times as one pleases. Which is obviously not true (but you seem to not know that...)
And why would you fail to mention that you are concerned with the prehistorics (in technical world ;) ) state of affairs?
But that doesn't really dispute what I wrote.
Saying that your story isn't about "I'm superior Ubermenchs, all problems I've had are just because of primitive underlings" is just arguing about semantics.
Seriously, that's the true problem this development might cause; the only reason why my 8 month old cat hasn't killed and eaten me is because she haven't figured out how to do that...yet.
But what you're saying is irrelevant for audio quality comparison with HTPC that I described.
For starters, nobody I'm aware of keeps their HTPCs in the dumpster. And "circuit quality" in audiphile terms is irrelevant with bit-perfect copies (EAC can take its time to make them...no need for realtime playback; BTW, your listening of that scratched CD probably wasn't bit-perfect, CD players can interpolate quite a lot without us hearing it) and bit-perfect output. This HTPC will output the exact same bitstream as was put on CDs every time. What is "better" in this context?
So I take it that you support complete abolition of prisons? (or any kind of punishment that limits "human rights" for that matter)
We routinelly grant "human rights" only conditionally.
While I agree with you generally (even if your post has its flaws, pointed out already in other asnwer), why do you think people should be trained in how original sounds before the tests? It would preciselly work against determining whether people can hear the difference.
Also, proper ABX methodology doesn't even attempt to directly compare compressed samples. It only compares one compressed sample to the original and only determines "do you hear a difference?" If you want to test another ecnoding, you make another ABX test. Only comparing the results of both of those tests can somewhat give an answer to "which encoding is better?", which actually means "which is closer to the original?" obviously (original assumed a priori, correctly IMHO, to be the best, the benchmark)
Uhm, if that's what you object to - sorry, it's meanigless.
Humans can't carefully analyse two almost identical sounds at the same time (listening at the same time to both samples would be required to eliminate the "flaw" that you present; but human brain would treat them as single sample)
Also, you're deluding yourself if you think you do it with photos.
From where did you get that BS?...
Most organised (the kind which Hydrogenaudio is doing...) ABX tests use short samples, with "listen to them how many times as you like before deciding". Typical ABX software also allows to compare even shorter fragments of samples.
There are two things which might have influenced your score:
a) I suppose you are quite familiar with the FLAC of a song? Notice that ABX testing doesn't tell "which one is better", but "can I hear a difference?". Using songs that you are very accustomed to will obviously influence that
b) very cheap audio equipment might actually help in differentiation under some circumstances (laptop audio in this cause would be the suspect). It might apply what is effectivelly a "filter" that could've exposed some artifacts slightly.
I take it you haven't ever heard about crossfeed...
And why do you assume maintaining multichannel separation isn't on a priority list for modern encoders?...
...which doesn't give nearly as solid results.
It...doesn't...matter.
Sure, you can do spectrum analisis if you really want to and know how artifacts of compression look like.
But the music is, y'know, for...listening to it.
How is that "over one thousand bucks Creek Audio CD player" better in sound quality than small, slow, passivelly cooled HTPC with bit-perfect (easily doable with Exact Audio Copy) FLAC copies of your CD collection and with output through bit-perfect digital out (costs ten bucks: http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/ )
(if your "amplifier" has good quality DAC, many of which do nowadays)
I'll explain this effect to you: you just like to think you're superior, some kind of Ubermensch. That's all there is to it.
So now it's about intentionally "trying" to hate cheap and quite good stuff, to have no other option than to buy expensive one? Please...
And SACD and DVD-A are stillborn because they didn't give anything really new. It's similar to DVD->HD video pains, but much more because CDs are good enough for human hearing apparatus (plus the market wanted shift to something more convenient and portable - web music stores; not to something essentially the same but once again without cheap players, non-portable, delicate and without any way to make a backup)
And before you point out some marvellously sounding SACD or DVD-A that you've heard - that's due to mastering. Many CDs are mastered like crap nowadays, with abundant dynamics compression, and so on...things to which "HD" audio format haven't succumbed yet (it would happen if they were to become popular)
Bullshit, people listened to radio in the background when doing other stuff...pretty much since the radio was widely available. Sure, it didn't have such scale as, say, MP3 players of today, but only because 40 years there was no other way to do so.
Untill you do ABX test between vinyl and proper digital recording (at CD specs; it shouldn't contain those "inadible but important" details that you claim are there...) of that same vinyl, you are full of superiotity self-deception crap.
Hint: such tests were also made. Self-proclaimed audophiles can't tell the difference.
PS. Just contemplate this
you are relativelly old (since you grew up when vinyls were all the rage, apparently). There's no f#$%^ng way your hearing can be better than teens of today. You can't hear the frequencies they can. You have worse hearing. Nobody can escape that.
One might at most train oneself to activelly notice the differences that other ignore (not because they can't really hear it per se). Couple that with bias towards thing from our younger years...and there's you you "audiphilism"
Also, stop with the crap of "music was simply better then". That's also looking at your youth with rose glasses. There's unimaginable amount of great music being created nowadays. It's just way too often swamped with crap...as was always the case (you just don't remember that, you remember only the good stuff)
Hydrogenaudio community gives just that, basically.
Yeah, I can support that conclusion - I have tinnitus (though with actually somewhat higher than average frequencies I can hear, last time I checked; plus who knows how my hearing is overall just "different"), and I always preffered slightly higher bitrates/quality settings (and even then I seemed to have "ugh, that part/sound is horrible in lossy" more often). Yes, it was ABXed; I seemed to do somewhat better than average at differentiating.
But then I realised how stupid it is to train myself in noticing differences (semi-regular ABXing would do just that). It's better and cheaper not to be able to hear the difference very often. And with current encoders typical 128kbps AAC or mp3 from LAME with typical VBR preset is fine.
Here's your possible and much simpler explanation for prefering MP3's more and more. There is a large difference between recent LAME and...whatever people were using at the turn of millenium.
If I had a "right" to electricity, nobody could legally shut it off.
A "right" doesn't imply at all that it can't be taken away under some circumstances (as a matter of fact, I've heard US has the biggest population of such people, at least among developed countries)