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



## Lumen

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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## Lumen

: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


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## willis7469

Hey Lou! You've blinded me with science!(get that song out of your head now lol). Gotta run. I'll visit later.


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## tonyvdb

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.


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## Lumen

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 #_____.


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## AudiocRaver

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.


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## NBPk402

Couldn't the extended frequency response also effect the tonality of the instruments or vocals?


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## AudiocRaver

ellisr63 said:


> Couldn't the extended frequency response also effect the tonality of the instruments or vocals?


Just speculating, if the extended response is directly associated with hearing, then it would seem like it could affect the perception of tonalities. If it is more of a "nice feeling," then it seems like it would not.


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## NBPk402

AudiocRaver said:


> Just speculating, if the extended response is directly associated with hearing, then it would seem like it could affect the perception of tonalities. If it is more of a "nice feeling," then it seems like it would not.


The reason I said this is every note has overtones (?), and if you chop off a part of it... What happens to the original note. I am thinking it is possible that chopping off the overtone could effect the original tone...maybe tonally. Not sure how you would be able to prove it one way or another though.


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## NBPk402

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?


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## AudiocRaver

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.


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## NBPk402

AudiocRaver said:


> 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.


Thanks for clearing that up for me... It's all just in my head then. :T


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## Lumen

AudiocRaver said:


> 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.



AudiocRaver said:


> 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.



AudiocRaver said:


> 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.


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## Lumen

ellisr63 said:


> The reason I said this is every note has overtones (?), and if you chop off a part of it... What happens to the original note. I am thinking it is possible that chopping off the overtone could effect the original tone...maybe tonally. Not sure how you would be able to prove it one way or another though.





ellisr63 said:


> 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?


I think that "chop" is the operative term here. If we're talking digital brick-wall filtering, that introduces artifacts in and of itself (e.g. ringing, group delay, etc.). May or may not be a fair comparison depending on who you ask. I'm willing to accept the chopped signal as being clean enough for our thought experiment.




AudiocRaver said:


> 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.


I'm no acoustician or physicist, but I would agree our ear-brain mechanisms interpret a note from say, a flute as a single sound. In the case of multiple sounds presented together, I believe throwing away lower magnitude signals in favor of larger ones changes the sound. MP3 technology bases its psycho-acoustic modelling on this type of masking.


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## Lumen

ellisr63 said:


> Couldn't the extended frequency response also effect the tonality of the instruments or vocals?


You said it better than I could. I was trying to convey the difference between 
the same instrument with and without overtones, and
similar instruments (e.g. clarinet & flute) with and without overtones


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## Lumen

This is also an interesting viewpoint: 

View attachment 88690


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## AudiocRaver

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.


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## AudiocRaver

ellisr63 said:


> The reason I said this is every note has overtones (?), and if you chop off a part of it... What happens to the original note. I am thinking it is possible that chopping off the overtone could effect the original tone...maybe tonally. Not sure how you would be able to prove it one way or another though.





ellisr63 said:


> 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?


Please forgive the brevity of my earlier response, it was not very clear.

Yes, what you are saying is correct. If some of the harmonics of a note are removed or reduced, or increased for that matter, it affects the sound of that note, absolutely. The psycho-acoustical brain recognizes it as a change to the original note or tone, recognizes it as the same note but modified.

This is an everyday occurrence in the modern recording studio, when a producer asks, "Can we liven up that guitar a little bit?" and the engineer responds by adding a small peak in the frequency response for that track which increases the amplitude of certain harmonics of that sound and perhaps reduces others, and it is still easily recognized by the brain as the same guitar, but it sounds slightly different. The two sounds if compared side by side, or two individual notes, as you suggest, would be easily told apart.

Our ears and brains are very sensitive to these changes. We hear them all the time and think nothing of them, but if we choose to zoom in on them, or to compare two versions of a note side by side, we can tell extremely subtle differences between them. As the OP suggests, this is a possible explanation for some of the differences that might be discernible between amplifiers or audio components of different kinds. Those subtle differences can result from many different types of design choices within a circuit (although we often forget the almighty and ever present phenomenon of negative feedback, which is present in almost every audio circuit to some degree and in some form, and its way of reducing those differences to infinitesimally small levels). And we do not really know what the limits of our perception of those tiny variations might be.


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## 3dbinCanada

Its all mastering dependent. I have heard both formats sound excellent and dreadfull with no clear winner at all.


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## Lumen

AudiocRaver said:


> Our ears and brains are very sensitive to these changes. We hear them all the time and think nothing of them, but if we choose to zoom in on them, or to compare two versions of a note side by side, we can tell extremely subtle differences between them. As the OP suggests, this is a possible explanation for some of the differences that might be discernible between amplifiers or audio components of different kinds. Those subtle differences can result from many different types of design choices within a circuit (although we often forget the almighty and ever present phenomenon of negative feedback, which is present in almost every audio circuit to some degree and in some form, and its way of reducing those differences to infinitesimally small levels). And we do not really know what the limits of our perception of those tiny variations might be.


A follow-up to Audio Engineering Society paper No.3207 previously cited correctly asserts that at least one member of each instrument family (strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion) produces energy to 40 kHz or above. It basically discusses the significance of others' work on perception of air- and bone-conducted ultrasound; and points out that even if ultrasound be taken as having no effect on perception of live sound, its presence may still pose a problem to the audio equipment designer and recording engineer.

I find it extremely interesting that *measurable* EEG activity occurred in the presence of ultrasound, regardless of whether or not any change was detected or admitted by tested participants (ref excerpt below). Only a few instruments generate ultrasonic harmonics, and may not be played in the majority of music favored by an individual, but at least one--the crash cymbal--generates significant energy up to 100kHz. How many audio systems realistically reproduce cymbals? How many also annoyingly distort sibilants?

In any case, I'm still not arguing for or against either analog or digital formats. In my experience, analog is more relaxing. Like your premise these studies infer why.

Excerpt:
_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 (electroencephalogram) rhythms that persist in the absence of high frequency stimulation, and can affect perception of sound quality." [4] 
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.* 

Even if we assume that air-conducted ultrasound does not affect direct perception of live sound, it might still affect us indirectly through interfering with the recording process. Every recording engineer knows that speech sibilants ....<snip>.... and muted trumpets can expose problems in recording equipment. If the problems come from energy below 20 kHz, then the recording engineer simply needs better equipment. But if the problems prove to come from the energy beyond 20 kHz, then what's needed is either filtering, which is difficult to carry out without sonically harmful side effects; or wider bandwidth in the entire recording chain, including the storage medium; or a combination of the two. 
On the other hand, if the assumption of the previous paragraph be wrong — if it is determined that sound components beyond 20 kHz do matter to human musical perception and pleasure — then for highest fidelity, the option of filtering would have to be rejected, and recording chains and storage media of wider bandwidth would be needed.
_


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## AudiocRaver

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:


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## 3dbinCanada

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.


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## Lumen

3dbinCanada said:


> 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.


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## 3dbinCanada

Lumen said:


> 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.


That's my thinking too.


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## Kal Rubinson

Oohashi's work has never been replicated by others.


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## AudioPost

Lumen said:


> 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.


Unfortunately, your reference #2 is not actually a reference. That Oohashi "paper" has caused no end of problems over the years. Note that I put the word "paper" in quotes. It was written just like other scientific papers and originally published in a recognised scientific journal. So far so good but the next bit is what's caused all the problems: It was not actually a scientific paper and it was not published as a scientific paper! It was an advert and it was published in the advertisement section of the journal, not the actual scientific paper section! That extra tweeter/amp combo referred to, is the product Oohashi developed and manufactured and was trying to sell. It was an extremely elaborate and clever bit of advertising, so convincing that it's been referenced and quoted countless times as an actual scientific paper, even by other impartial respected scientists and experts, let alone by industry marketing depts with vested interests in their own ultrasonic products.

To address some of the other points: 

1. There is not, AFAIK, data on the >20k content of all instruments but i have seen data for some of them. Violin for example was about 4% of it's total frequency output being above 20k. Some instruments, particularly metallic, struck instruments can have significant ultrasonic content; cymbals, gamelan, etc.

2. Until relatively recently, all studio and music recording mics' frequency response rolled off dramatically at or below 20k. There are now some with higher freq response (as high as 50k in some cases) but they're still not widely used.

3. All the evidence supports an extreme limit of 22k for human hearing, with a practical limit of 20k still being at least 2k higher than 99.9% of the adult population can detect. Despite countless studies/tests spanning decades, there is still no reliable evidence to the contrary (bearing in mind Oohashi does not qualify as _reliable_ evidence).

4. Ultrasonic frequencies can interact and become audible. However, there are very specific conditions required. For example, significant ultrasonic energy can cause distortion in some equipment (amps/speakers) not designed for ultrasonic frequencies. This can cause tones to be generated within the audible hearing spectrum. This effect is called Inter-Modulation Distortion (IMD). Two or more individual frequencies can interact and produce measurable and audible additional tones. This is Frequency Modulation but for it to be audible, both/all the frequencies causing the modulation effect must be within the hearing spectrum. If any of the frequencies are outside the hearing spectrum (ultrasonic), the modulation effect will disappear. What you will hear is indistinguishable from the same sound but with those ultrasonic frequencies removed. If you have access to a square wave generator, there's an extremely simple test you can run yourself to prove this.

5. While vinyl can theoretically contain frequency content up to around 30k, beyond about 16k it's response rolls-off significantly and distortion increases significantly. CD can't contain anything above 22k but there is no roll-off in response or increase in distortion until that point. Between 16k and 22k, CD is orders of magnitude more accurate than vinyl and, if one chooses to accept the evidence, what goes on beyond 22k is irrelevant.

6. Starting from the early 1970's, commercial vinyl presses went digital! IE. The (analogue) pre-masters created by the mastering engineers were stored internally by the vinyl press as digital audio and that is what was pressed. Early models were 13bit/32k but by the end of the 1970's the different commercial press manufacturers utilized different digital audio formats, anywhere from 13bit - 15bit and 32k - 50k. This often overlooked fact makes a bit of a nonsense out of much of the digital vs vinyl debate.

7. Distortion is anything which changes a signal and is inherently neither good nor bad or rather, it can be either good or bad. Even the same type of distortion and be both good or bad, depending entirely on context. Due largely to ignorance, distortion is generally a dirty word amongst audiophiles and this unfortunately usually precludes any meaningful discussion about distortion. To get around this misappropriation of the term, some audiophiles seem forced into illogical, irrational or even straight up lies to support their subjective perceptions of good and bad. "Vinyl has higher resolution or sound quality than digital" for example, and of course, many manufacturers are more than willing to take advantage of this fact in their marketing.

8. A common thread in audiophilia is the inability to differentiate between the contents and the container. This leads to all kinds of logical fallacies, not just between digital and vinyl but also between different formats of digital, CD and so called HD audio being a classic example. In reality, High Definition audio doesn't have even the tiniest bit more definition than CD and in some cases it actually has less but by manipulating the contents of the container and misrepresenting the facts about containers, it's trivial to prove to all but the most well informed that HD audio not only exists but is significantly better.

9. Directly related to #8, is the purpose and functionality of the different containers. The LP is a format specifically designed and suited for critical listening, IE. Where listening to the contents of the LP is the sole activity. You cannot for example, listen to an LP on a car stereo whilst driving or using earbuds whilst jogging or sitting on the train/bus/metro/plane/bike, etc. This difference in use, significantly affects what we put in these different containers. A typical example is the use of heavy compression, which is generally bad when critically listening; in addition to dramatically reducing dynamic range, it also affects frequency response, accuracy of the sound stage, frequency separation (or "detail") and other factors. However, when not critically listening, heavy compression (significantly reducing dynamic range) is a very good thing! It allows us to hear details, entire phrases, sections or instruments which would otherwise completely disappear beneath the ambient noise. This is an important and often overriding concern when creating digital audio content and necessitates compromising the audio quality for the critical listening scenario. HD audio is commonly a critical listening only scenario and so we don't have this concern and don't need to employ any compromise to suit the non-critical listening scenarios. LP is strictly critical listening only and can't technically accept the heavy compression used in digital anyway. All this is about content rather than container, we can just as easily put an uncompromised HD audio mix into the CD format and the result would be indistinguishable from the HD original.

Some involved in this thread already seem well informed and I'm sure I've not said anything they don't already know. Maybe some of it will be useful to others and/or initiate a bit of discussion?

G


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## AudiocRaver

Thanks for the informative post. I would like to read more about your point number 6. Could you point me to some reading material about it? Thanks.


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## Lumen

ellisr63 said:


> Thanks for clearing that up for me... It's all just in my head then. :T





Kal Rubinson said:


> Oohashi's work has never been replicated by others.


How unfortunate for me. :sad:
Turns out it's all just in my head, too. :dontknow:


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## Lumen

AudioPost said:


> Unfortunately, your reference #2 is not actually a reference.


Oh, but it is a reference. Turns out just not a good one. Wish I'd known that earlier. :R



AudioPost said:


> 3. All the evidence supports an extreme limit of 22k for human hearing, with a practical limit of 20k still being at least 2k higher than 99.9% of the adult population can detect. Despite countless studies/tests spanning decades, there is still no reliable evidence to the contrary (bearing in mind Oohashi does not qualify as _reliable_ evidence).


Are you certain that's not 99.94% instead?
I had trouble finding any of those studies. Can you post a few links, please?



AudioPost said:


> 5. CD is orders of magnitude more accurate than vinyl and, if one chooses to accept the evidence, what goes on beyond 22k is irrelevant.


How many (scientific) orders of magnitude? The "evidence" available relies on scientific principles discovered to-date. What does the future hold? Are you surmising that sound reproduction has reached a pinnacle and no further improvement is possible? What of the scientific tests and instruments not yet developed that may be able to establish a statistically significant correlation between hearing and subtle acoustic events? The earth is flat, indeed!


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## Kal Rubinson

Lumen said:


> Are you certain that's not 99.94% instead?
> I had trouble finding any of those studies. Can you post a few links, please?


Try any modern human physiology textbook and follow the references.


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## AudiocRaver

Lumen said:


> How many (scientific) orders of magnitude? The "evidence" available relies on scientific principles discovered to-date. What does the future hold? Are you surmising that sound reproduction has reached a pinnacle and no further improvement is possible? What of the scientific tests and instruments not yet developed that may be able to establish a statistically significant correlation between hearing and subtle acoustic events? The earth is flat, indeed!


There are those who seem to embrace limitation. Do not let them slow you or turn you from your chosen path.


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## tesseract

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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## Lumen

AudioPost;1327865
1. We have been able to measure "subtle acoustic events" for many decades and we can measure levels of subtlety way beyond (some or many orders of magnitude!) the ability of the human ear to detect.[/QUOTE said:


> Apparently not subtle enough.
> 
> If it measures bad but sounds good, it is good!
> If it measures good but sounds bad, it is bad!
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Lumen

How about:
If it measures good but sounds bad, you've measured the wrong thing.



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## AudioPost

Lumen said:


> 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


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## Lumen

chashint said:


> 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. 



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## tesseract

AudioPost said:


> If you mean that by increasing the density of digital information we run the risk of degrading accuracy to analogue levels of accuracy then yes, possibly a fair statement. If you mean that analogue is more accurate than digital and that by increasing the density of digital information we would get more accurate digital, then no, your statement is utterly incorrect.


Increasing the density of digital information reduces quantization noise, the bugbear of digital reproduction. The evidence can be seen in Hi Resolution digital (higher than 16/44), which makes the stair steps smaller.... more analog-like wave forms are reproduced. 



> This statement is absolutely correct. The point you appear to be missing though, is that this fact is exactly what makes digital so inherently more accurate than analogue! Analogue attempts to perfectly record a continuously varying signal, which is possible only up to a combination of the physical limitations of electrical, electro-magnetic and mechanical components. Digital audio on the other hand just records data, namely; a relatively few coordinates which allow the original signal to be mathematically recreated perfectly. The fact that we can mathematically perfectly dissect and reconstruct a continuously varying signal is not disputed, except by "flat earthers" ignorant of the undisputed proofs or those deliberately lying about them.
> 
> G


High resolution digital approaches, perhaps exceeds, the capabilities of analog reproduction. 16/44, as the article I linked to points out, is a data lossy medium. All recording mediums can be said to be data lossy, some more than others.


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## Lumen

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.


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## lcaillo

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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