Hi all- just joined this group after reading this thread- sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I just had to comment. There was obviously a lot of passion on this subject, but also a lot of misunderstanding of what was presented, imho. If I may, I would like to recap and have others point out where I missed the boat...
The subject relates to the importance of bit rate and sampling rate. Most all of the posters have heard improvement with increases in one or both of these parameters. Steve has been accused many times of, among other things, telling the other posters they didn't hear what they thought they heard. He repeatedly stated that he didn't say this- and I have to agree. He never called into doubt anyone's perceptions- I clearly remember him saying that he believes you hear a difference. But the replies he got illustrate that no one was really hearing what he was saying.
My bachelor's degree is in psychology and I can tell you what he was trying to get you to understand is very basic science. The mind is a powerful thing and what we perceive is rarely exactly what the reality is- that's why we often get eye-witnesses of an event with different recollections. Everything passes through the filter of our perception which, not unlike a ADC, can introduce some distortions to the original- though the mind has the power to change the original far more than even the most poorly designed ADC, to the point of making the tune unrecognizable.
The simplest example of this is the well-known placebo effect. Given nothing more than a sugar pill, but thinking it is medication, our mind sometimes heals our bodies of significant illness. Because we believe we will get better, we do indeed get healthy. Belief is a powerful thing.
So, when we hear something that sounds subjectively better, it is possible that it is objectively better; but it is also possible that it is not objectively better, but that our perception tells us it is. This could be due to many reasons: expectations can easily color what we perceive; even the slightest increase in volume can make us perceive a recording as better; certain distortions can make us perceive a recording is better, even though by definition distortion is less accurate; even our mood or the time of day can affect our perceptions.
All Steve was saying- and I agree- is that saying dvd-a sounds better than mp3 because I can clearly hear how much better it sounds means absolutely nothing- except to the perceiver. It doesn't mean that I'm denying what you're hearing or that what you're hearing is wrong- just that you can't make any conclusions based on it- other than the obvious "it sounds better to me under these circumstances."
To be able to draw any conclusions, you have to eliminate all the variables other than the one you want to look at: mp3 vs dvd-a. This is basic experimental design- if you have more than one variable(i.e. more than 1 thing that changes), you can't know which variable caused the effect. So, to study mp3 vs. dvd-a, you have to have identical sources, identical playback systems, identical volumes, etc. And because of the placebo effect, we know well that the observer's mind is one of the variables. This is why blind tests became part of the scientific rigor attached to seeking truth- the participant can't know when the variable is changed or it will invalidate the results. This was proven to not even be enough; it was proven that even when the subject was blind, that the experimenter not being blind could unintentionally influence the subject's responses- thus the double-blind experiment became the standard. This is how we can check our perceptions to see how closely they match reality.
Steve never denied that you heard what you heard- just that you could draw any generalizations from this. To me, dvd-a sounds much better than mp3, even at highest bitrate. But even if I had a down-mixed mp3 from a dvd-a to compare, carefully level-matched them, played them on the same system, etc., as long as I knew when I was hearing the dvd-a and when I was hearing the mp3, I could make no valid conclusions about which in truth sounded better. I truly believe the dvd-a would sound better- there's little doubt from my experience that it would. But that's a big part of the problem- am I hearing the difference because I believe it will be there, because I expect it to be there? In this case, probably not, but I still lack any valid reasoning to absolutely conclude that dvd-a sounds better.
But set it up so that I don't know which I'm hearing, the experimenter doesn't know which is playing, and I can choose which one is the dvd-a on a repeated basis (won't go into statistical significance here) and I can make a valid conclusion. But guess what- all I can say is that for this 1 song, on this 1 system, dvd-a sounds better than mp3. To make the more general conclusion that dvd-a sounds better than mp3, the experiment would have to be repeated over and over, using different subjects, different songs, different systems, etc.
So, if you hear more detail in 24/192 than you do in 16/44.1, then you can say that you hear a difference. What you can't say- with any validity, absent a controlled double-blind test- is that 24/192 sounds better than 16/44.1. Even if 20 million others have heard the same difference, there is nothing that can be validly concluded- other than that all these people heard a difference. Why they all heard the same difference is still unknown and cannot be attributed to the superiority of hi-rez. Even though it may be the case, you haven't shown it to be. This is anecdotal evidence, which has been shown to be unreliable and inconclusive. It is not that anyone doubts what you are hearing- just that you can't make any valid generalizations from it.
So- why bring this back up after all this time? First of all, I want to let Steve know that I was impressed with how he hung in there and kept trying to educate everyone, even though he was met with abuse and many mis-attributions. A good illustration of how our perceptions color reality is the fact that he stated many of his points many times in different ways and a lot of people still seemed to not only misunderstand what he was trying to elucidate, but also twisted his words around and accused him of saying things he never said. It reminds me of the lyric quoted in someone's sig- "a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." How true (and how often sad). Frankly, I was astonished how long Steve hung in there- he was trying to teach something and the students didn't want to hear it and responded with all kinds of nonsense. I would have given up long before…
Secondly, I think this is a topic that is important. I believe we are getting duped by manufacturers who want to sell us our 5th copy of a beloved album, because now it's been remastered into hi-rez! I do not believe there is a significant difference with hi-rez. But that is my belief- and only that. Though I believe there is some research that shows (most, at least) people cannot even distinguish lossy codecs (DD, DTS) from lossless ones, given truly controlled experiments. I remember reading about experiments which showed that only trained listeners (those who were very familiar with the artifacts of mp3) could distinguish 320kbps mp3's from the CD source.
You believe that hi-rez sounds significantly better than redbook and that's fine- I wish you all the enjoyment you can get from whatever floats your musical boat (merrily down the stream). But for me, I want to know that it is objectively better before I spend hard-earned money upgrading my most treasured recordings. Hell, I went to blu-ray for the picture and would have been satisfied with the lossy codecs until I found out that the PS3 I bought won't bitstream DD or DTS over optical! I couldn't live with DPL for BR, so I had to upgrade to an HDMI receiver. Sound is very important to me, but not being a dupe is also important (though I got duped by Sony- not only no discrete surround over optical, they also dropped sacd support- no more sony for me).
To me (an important disclaimer), surround is much more important than hi-rez. DPL fills out stereo sound nicely, but nothing like a discrete mix. I have a number of dvd-a's and sacd's and these get way more play than my cd's (or albums) because the sound is so much better. It's so much more immersive, but it also gives so much more space to place sounds that instruments can be heard better. Favorite albums became like new experiences when heard in a good surround mix. I know I'm preaching to the choir about the wonders of surround, but my fear is that if hi-rez is a boon for the music industry, surround will be neglected (I know they often go hand-in-hand, but more often these days they do not); whereas, if we refuse to jump on the hi-rez bandwagon, we may end up with more surround releases. Give me a DTS 5.1 dvd over a stereo dvd-a or sacd anyday.
Now I could easily be wrong- maybe hi-rez is a significant upgrade. But I want to see some hard evidence before I buy into it. For a couple of years, I bought dvd-a's before I had a player, and I kept buying them because the DD sounded mighty damn fine- FOR ME, ON MY SYTEM- ymmv, of course. When I finally got a dvd-a player, I still loved the sound, but I didn't notice any significant upgrade. Of course, aural memory is notoriously bad and I never even tried to compare different tracks, but I remain dubious of any real difference. So, when I want to watch the bleep-blops (or whatever they're called) while listening to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, I don't worry that I have to listen to DD instead of the dvd-a layer .
Bottom line is- if we enjoy it, that's all that matters. It is about the music. But let's not make our perceptions into the truth- just be satisfied that it sounds better to you. Or if you want the truth, do the research. Personally, I'm not that concerned. There may even be research out there that shows hi-rez is significantly better, but I'm not looking for it. My truth is that the mix is much more important than the codec and lossy still sounds excellent to me, given a good mix. Hell, I have listened to the dvd-a of the Aqualung set more than the br, because its so much easier to plop it into the disc tray and hit play than have to turn on my bigscreen (or memorize the button pushes on my ps3 remote). And you know what? I enjoy the hell out of it.
So, maybe you're convinced that hi-rez sounds better- more power to you; enjoy those delicious vibes. But maybe you're still unconvinced- then do the research to go along with what your ears tell you. And maybe you'll decide to pass on those HD downloads and the music industry will decide it's easier to get our wallets open by opening up their vaults and releasing those surround mixes- or even commissioning some new ones. Ya never know….
Steve- I'm sorry I wasn't around to support you in all this, but kudos on hanging in there and giving it the old college try (and keeping your cool for so long).
Hope I haven't offended anyone- and let me know what I got wrong or missed…
Grayhawk
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