Computer Music Audio Quality
bramankp -- Tue, 12/27/2011 - 08:51
Published in TAS #219, I'm having some real problems with this article co-authored by Charles Zellig and Jay Clawson.
While most of the article is actually quite good I have a very hard time with the following sentence, "Although JRMC reported an accurate rip for all reading speeds, and are bit-for-bit identicle at all reading speeds, we are still able to detect sonic differences in the resulting files."
Really? Maybe that's not exactly what the authors meant to say but it's the equivalent of saying one can make a copy of a ripped file and somehow the exact copy sounds different. I want to trust what's being presented in the article but this is a sticking point for me. The same bits (*the same bits*) played back from a different position on the hard drive sounds different?
Someone please clear the air on this.
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Hi PhilCC,
I guess Dr. Zeilig is only interested in his own opinion or the one of those who agree with him. That is fine by me.
PhilCC, if you (want to) believe US$ 500 power-cords make a difference on any kind of equipment and you have the money to spend on it, be my guest. It's up to you. But keep in mind that basically all high-end power-chords are made with readily available hospital-grade plugs and (for example) sturdy Belden cable, costing a fraction of what a commercial (!!!) audiophile power-cord will set you back.
But than, it is just me talking. And who am I? Just another nobody offering opinions :-)
Regards,
Peter
Hi thesurfingalien, Peter
I getcha. It's hard to believe the great results Zeilig says he got swapping in upgrade power cords for the computer (BTW, and the external HD). Wait until you read part 4 and you will see what I mean. That's why I really want to try on my laptop. Some people may gasp when they read in part 4 that $1300 power cords sound much better than the $500 ones! I ordered that $25 adapter so I'm close to doing my own experiment. And I'm not too crazy, I wouldn't be looking into power cords if I wasn't already happy with my speakers, amp, and DAC.
The price range of upgrade power cords is kind of amazing isn't it? Some prices go up to the clouds. But that's a subject for another day I suppose, and one that already has well-drawn lines of opinion anyway.
Regards
After all is said and done, more is said than done. - anonymous
Hi PhilCC,
About the price range of power cords... The difference between a US$ 500 and a US$ 1300 one is that, once you bought that latter instead of the former, you can consider yourself being ripped off 2.6 times as bad. I will leave the difference between a stock power-cord and the US$ 500 one for what it is, but you can do the math :-)
Regards,
Peter
It's bling.
Do custom calipers on a Porsche stop a car any better? I mean, braking is braking, and once your car is stopped, do you look back and say "wow, that was such a nice stop because of my custom calipers?" Does a $1200 golf bag haul your clubs any better than a $300 golf bag? For that matter do extra marble and fancier furniture at a hotel make you sleep better? And how about a Louis Vuitton purse - does it hold items better than one from the Gap?
You can upgrade your speakers, amps, and source components and probably see some actual improvement in sound, but I would bet that even some of the parts of upscale audio components are still bling and a plastic front panel would probably sound as nice as the milled aluminum piece.
The point I'm making is that these choices extend beyond mere functionality. There may be functional aspects of such a choice, but by and large people like to adorn their hobbies, and sometimes it's for themselves, and sometimes its for a display for others. I just think it has to be looked at like that, whether it's an add-on, part of something you bought because it would actually sound better, or something entirely different. The $1000 power cord is largely about the fact that it looks cool, or implies a certain financial capability, or shows a dedication to a given set of consumer principles.
I have a Beemer and I used to love driving up to my friends. Now I just wish it would stop popping error codes. Either way, I think if people just see this for what it is, and that is part of our culture of consumerism, and that everyone does it to some extent, it would not be so controversial. Yes, occasionally the audio manufacturers' claims are silly, and other types of products and services have dropped the pretense of not being consumerism, but by and large, that is what it is, and I am fine with it.
You asked for any advice. My advice is to not waste money on replacement power cords. Think about it. How could a power cord possibly have any effect on the sound passing through an audio device? The answer is it can't unless something is broken, which is rare for low-tech components like power cords. I'll further add that if Charles Zeilig is actually promoting this nonsense (I don't get TAS), he has lost what little credibility he had after the last fiasco about FLAC files as discussed in this thread
--Ethan Winer
I do not claim to be a hifi expert. I have a decent system (CJ hybrid preamp, Krell power amp, a modest rDAC converter, JMR (French) speaker). I have only been converted to computer audio for less than a year. I had ripped all my CD collection using dbPowerAmp and MediaMonkey for playback. Through friends' suggestion, I ripped all the songs to FLAC lossless. This changed until i read Chuck Zeilig and Jay Clawson's article in TAS. My initial reaction was... REALLY? But I decided to check this out myself... ripping some CDs to WAV format, lossless. I have done only about 40 CDs. Rather than spending the next 2 weeks or so to finish ripping my collection, I decide to listen to the WAV format files, before I indulge further.
Ths far, my impression is :
- the sound level seems to be a shade louder; (some may interpret this to be a heightened presence - there there);
- music, particularly piano and string sound seems to sustain a bit longer;
- human voice (both genders) has the a more lovely intimacy;
- the overall presentation is more relaxed;
The downside? I am not sure yet. For now, I need to lower the volume a shade.
I shall keep listening to both formats for another week or two.
A side note... I am in the IT business. I offer the following for the audio community to try:
- after ripping the songs to the hard drive, it is better to defrag the entire disk. I used to use SmartDefrag, which was fast. But it did not do a true defrag process... file fragments are still scattered all over the disk. I occassionally heard "clicks" when playing back audio files (a sign of signal intermittently interrupted?). Now I use another free app - MyDefrag 4.3.1 - this is truly a very good program. It does a decent job of putting each file in one piece. The GUI is not inituitive. But the result is - no more "clicks". Be patient - this program runs through 6 stages of defrag process. For my 500GB drive, it takes several hours, particularly when using the Monthly setting. Start the program before bed time...
If readers find this program enhances their music enjoyment, share this with your friends.
Just my 2cents...
It seems highly unlikely that either of these things would make any difference in sound. As we have seen, both WAV and FLAC copies of identical files produce identical audio content (i.e. the difference between the two waveforms is 0). the length of sustain or the "intimacy" of vocals simply cannot be affected by lossless compression. There may be other factors influencing your perception (e.g. where you are sitting when you listen to one as opposed to the other, or simply your own expectations, if you are not listening blind). Try an ABX test with two files - if you cannot reliably tell which file is which, then it's unlikely that you are really hearing more intimate vocals or more relaxed presentation.
Defragmenting your hard drive certainly helps things run smoother, but if you are hearing "clicks" due to fragmentation, there is something wrong with your audio player. Any audio player I've heard of uses buffering to ensure that such things don't have any impact on the sound quality; by the time the information gets to the speakers, fragmentation should be irrelevant as it is already in RAM. I'm not saying you shouldn't defrag - it's a good idea for other reasons - but I'm having a hard time seeing how it would affect sound quality, and if there are audible artifacts they may have another origin.
Look who commented May 9, 2012 on the Charles Zellig Wav-to-Flac-and-back controversy - Chris Connaker, ComputerAudiophile.com founder and well-respected and experienced audiophile, in his article, “Guide To Converting From iTunes To Dedicated Music Server.” He states:
"Despite what others in the high end audio industry have said, namely Charles Zellig and Jay Clawson in The Absolute Sound's computer audio quality series, I believe there is no conceivable way lossless audio file conversion can change the sound of a music file and I have never heard a difference between two identical files. For example when a file is converted from one lossless codec to another and back to the original codec this file is identifiable by what's called an MD5 or SHA-2 checksum. Contrary to what Charles Zellig and Jay Clawson suggest there is no plausible way, all things being equal, for files with identical checksums to sound different. Identical is identical is identical… That statement is of course my opinion based on my education and my research. Given the fact that losses [sic] audio codecs preserve the integrity of music / data files there is no need to re-rip one's music collection or worry about degrading sound quality when switching music servers."
PhilCC
So after reading the two letters in the current issue of TAS addressing the issue - oversimplistically (and incorrectly) labeled "Pro FLAC" and "Anti FLAC" - I think I've come to the conclusion that the entire 4-part series and (limited) followup is actually some kind of ingenious performance art piece rather than a real attempt to grapple with the nuances of digital audio. Editor Robert Harley's response to the first letter, which was sarcastically critical of the series (and raised the point that many folks did here, that in digital files "there is no notion of nuance"), simply accuses the letter-writer of not having listened to FLAC files (an odd, and completely unsupported accusation). But even more bizarre is the "Anti-FLAC" letter, presented as support for the series, from Phil Neufeld. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that Mr. Neufeld is clearly taking the piss -- in the letter he claims to have converted FLAC files to WAV with the "phenomenal" result that "the WAV files [sounded] so much better." Obviously if this is true there is some other problem with his system unrelated to the file format, and the way much of the letter is worded makes it sound like Neufeld knows this and is just joking with the editors of TAS. But what is particularly odd is that while this letter is presented as support for the series, its conclusion is precisely the opposite of Zellig's original (and equally bizarre) conclusion that converting FLAC-WAV results in sound quality degradation, a degradation they claim is progressive over time if you convert FLAC-WAV then back to FLAC then back to WAV, etc.
So if this whole digital audio series is actually a form of performance art, kudos to TAS for pulling it off! But if you really want to get to some kind of accurate claims about digital audio, I'd suggest starting with some double blind testing (not to mention meaningful measurements) so that people can at least begin to take these claims seriously.
Thanks to Charles Zellig and Jay Clawson for authoring that exceptional article "COMPUTER MUSIC AUDIO PLAYBAY" You have enabled me to completely transform my PC audio playback quality for the better. I look forward to reading more in the future.
I recently acquired JRMC and JPLAY and now attempting to implement iZotope RX2 Advanced as a plugin to JRMC. At this point I have added the RX2 plugins to JRMC and enabled them in DSP Studio.......so I have six plugins enabled....declicker,declipper,decrackler,denoiser, hum removal and spectral repair. I don't see the resample, dither, eq and others. The audio with the RX plugins enabled totally messes up. Where do I go from here....PLEASE HELP
I was attempting to implement the trial version but was unsuccessful. I am considering Sony's SOUND FORGE PRO 10 with iZotope features.