Some Sound City Guidance

Phil99 · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:10

DRZ said:
Well, from what I have read, EAX is just some fancy reverb effects unit - if thats what you want your sounds to go through, then so be it Maybe games designers use that so they dont have to spend quite so much time making things sound good and thats why it sounds better.

Well, I don't know how exactly it's done but it does indeed sound better for games than other brands of cards to me, but it looks like this thread is more for music reproduction and pure sound quality than gaming, so there's no point discussing it further and taking it off topic

DRZ · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:19

I see where you are coming from, however it is a misunderstanding at the crux of your point.

The first test was a peice of classical music. 6 tracks on the cd, 5 were compressed and one was the uncompressed original. All I asked was for the tracks to be ordered in terms of quality (bit rate). This was only done correctly on two occasions out of the sample (which was about 20)

The second test was using an original file supplied by someone familiar to it. Again, in this instance, only a couple got it correctly (and not, I might add, the supplier of the file!)

The third test was pairs of tracks, a compressed track vs the original. Subjects were asked to tell me of the pairs were different or not. Results were similar to the first two.

The subjects did not know what the bit rates were (or in fact if any compression was used at all, though they no doubt assumed that for themselves) and so werent allowed to be "forced" to make a choice. They were told explicitly only to note a difference if they could hear one and if they werent sure, there wasnt a difference.

Note I was not looking at individual comparisons to make a judgement on whether they could tell a difference or not, I was looking at consistent errors in their results. Simply put, they were totally inconsistent with the results you would expect from someone who could tell the tracks apart at any given bit rate of 128k or greater.

TooNice · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:24

I don't know. This is not what the title of the thread suggest.

It only says Sound City Guidance... But the guide is geared perhaps more to would-be audiophile than people who are looking for getting better sound for their gaming PC.. Which I suspect outnumbers the former.

*Shrug*

DRZ · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:31

TooNice said:
I don't know. This is not what the title of the thread suggest.

It only says Sound City Guidance... But the guide is geared perhaps more to would-be audiophile than people who are looking for getting better sound for their gaming PC.. Which I suspect outnumbers the former.

*Shrug*

It does seem to have gone a bit off topic, I agree.

Anyway, if anyone has a more down-to-earth question, I will gladly try and answer it for you

TooNice · 5 Apr 2006 at 22:40

Well, one last point and I'll leave this alone

I have a better idea of your experiment now. So a quick comment

Test 1: This is a toughie, I won't be surprised that most people would get a whole mess of this one.

Test 2: This is pretty much the same as the Foobar ABX. I personally like that tool, give it a go if you've not.

Test 3: Still tough. I probably would fail high quality lossy tests (e.g. APE vs API).

One should also keep in mind that listening fatigue is also an issue. When you are focussing on looking for difference, it is certainly more tiring. One could say then argue that there is no point in lossless since you probably don't pay enough attention to tell the difference (especially past a point).. but in general, I think that there is not much to gain from settling for anything less. Rip it once, have the freedom to transcode, know you have a perfect backup if you lose your damage your CD, etc.

Personally, I think it is best to start with Test 2. If people fail that one, then it's game over already. However, if someone can cope with Test 2 between lossy and lossless (again, this are the main thing I focus one), I am inclined to say they can hear a difference, even though it might be a tiny detail that won't be noticed unless you look for it. At that stage, they can decide whether it is worth to go lossless or not. In my case, I choose to pay extra space for my music and keep two copies of my collection. I will only need to do this once and it is one aspect I can know for sure is not limiting my system

tom_nieto · 6 Apr 2006 at 00:09

I think we need another DRZ bitrate comparison. I didn't have a blank CD to have the last time, but I'd be really interested to do this test on my system.

The main point that I can draw from this discussion is that a lot of people profess to know what is going on with audio, but aren't always right. I am guilty of that too sometimes, but I'd like to think that I know what sounds good. I get a lot of enjoyment from my computerised music collection which is 192kbps mp3. It's ideal for when I'm listening to background music and surfing the web. It is however quite a different experience listening to a vinyl record or a CD from my CD player. I have little doubt that my AV amp's pre-amp section and DAC are partly to blame for this, but the CD player adds a little more depth and rhythm, it's quite hard to describe without hearing it. At The Drive In sounds good, but actually quite flat and lifeless from the PC, but when it's on my CD player it jumps out and makes me want to party.

What is really funny is that people also love to talk about the merits of this or that encoding but have little or no idea about the equipment that they're playing it on. If you've got a portable mp3 player hooked up to cruddy in ear headphones that you're listening to on the tube you're not going to hear the difference between 64k mp3 or CD quality. If you're listening to a beautifully set up hi-fi you might well hear the difference. The PC environment isn't perfect for listening to music with the hum of equipment etc, but we all do our best.

I'm also struck by how many people see issues like this as black and white, especially when choosing equipment. For example, if it's connected to a PC it must be designed for PC use and branded Creative. A lot of people are willing to drop £200 without a second thought on a PC setup. A little research and thought could offer a much better solution, or not as the case may be. I have no doubt in my mind that PC orientated speaker setups have come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, but there is a lot more flexibility available.

DRZ · 6 Apr 2006 at 01:15

tom_nieto said:
*snip*

That Sir, is an excellent post.

As soon as I am able, I will create another ISO. Two problems - I dont currently have either my CD collection or my copy of Adobe Audition with me, which is a problem. A short car journey is required, which I wont be able to do before Friday probably. However, I will make sure I get it done as soon as I can and will start a new thread here in Sound City. I predict a lot of head-scratching when the results come in

p4radox · 7 Apr 2006 at 17:01

I've quite enjoyed reading this thread, it's all interesting stuff especially as I'm considering building a Hi-Fi kit for my PC at some point. I'd be willing to have a go at the test of bitrates too - although I'm currently only using onboard sound and PC speakers/ and iRiver H120 and some Sony earphones.