Lossless? Really?

I have come to appreciate that this may be the single-most misunderstood element by us hobbiests in all of digital audio.

I believe 0's and 1's remain the same 0's and 1's during processing and transport in the digital domain. It is exceptional IMhO that one would flip.

but these people  going on about it, again imho, think the abstraction of these 0's and 1's is the only thing that matters the sound quality that results from the transport and processing of them. And that where I believe they go wrong in a huge way.

those 0's and 1's do come across, but fundamental is the timing of them and also what other effects in the analog domain, where everything (also digital signal transmission) is happening, are coming with them.

that is where one sees/hears all the differences between different digital gear/implementations.

-

aleg

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sleep tight, as most people do.

I am not disputing that.  As an extreme case if you cut a cable carrying a network signal it would stop - no arguments.  I know when I was involved in networks day-in-day-out that 60% or more of the problems we got were with the cabling.  I know all this.

But that was not the point I was trying to make.  The facts are that if the cabling and hardware are all functioning OK we will get digital messages delivered, if we haven't then we get no delivery.  These systems are designed to produce bit perfect delivery, otherwise our computers and other digital systems would simply not work.  And let me reiterate I am talking about the digital domain.

I tried an illustration using Morse code as an example and all Simon could do was rubbish Morse code.  Another example might be the following:  The final whistle has just blown at Old Trafford and the score is Man U 0 - Millwall 8, a fairly common occurrence I am sure you will agree.  Now we need to get this result to a fan in beautiful Bermondsey, we could phone him (landline or mobile), we could email, we could send a messenger, we could post a letter, etc.  In all cases the message is the same.  It is not what the message looks like it is what the message contains.

This is also common in networking. we can run Ethernet over different systems: UTP, WiFi, Optical, Satellite etc.  If you download a FLAC file from and online company in the USA do you know how those bits got to you?  No of course not, you don't even know in what order they arrived, not only that they won't have used the same route necessarily.

I don't know what else to add, I feel Simon just wants to be awkward, or he is too thick to understand what I am trying to say.  I also am sure that he is just cut and pasting stuff from Wikipedia, I did some searches on fragments of his messages and guess where they pointed to?

I agree.  The problem with digital is that it ain't analog.  In many ways digital is a Godsend, it allows us to record stuff without it degrading as storage of analog does not.  We can send it bit-perfect, everything we do with analog degrades the signal and as analog is not a messaging system we can't get it back.

But we have to convert analog to digital in recording/remastering and then digital analog on our home kit and these two areas are the real issues.  Otherwise 24bit recordings would not sound so much better than 16bit recordings.

Outside of those two conversions things are the same for CD/LP, you need a good amp and speakers etc.

But I am now coming to believe than 24bit audio is finally coming close to delivering what we were promised all those years ago, its only taken them 30 odd years to do it.

The 'trick' if we're to call it that is to understand what some of the greatest minds that have ever lived understand.  You cannot 100% rely on being immune from placebo effect, observer bias, conscious deception, branding influence, price influence etc.

Therefore, baring that in mind, we should always be aware that there is a chance the 'improvement' we hear is may not necessarily be an actual improvement.  Instead it may be the mind deceiving us.

If you were to walk into the Royal Society with an observation that, for example, cables off the ground made a sonic improvement they'd ask to see the methodology of your testing and would not accept your observation without proper double blind test demonstrating the fact.

So, the trick is a rather simple one that anyone here can achieve.  You decouple the mind by performing double blind tests.  The way science has done for centuries and will continue to do until the end of time.

You also do it in a large group of subjects, hundreds preferably thousands. Then submit the findings to an independent board for critical scrutiny. Meanwhile, I know what I like, what I don't like and what I can't tell any difference in. So I'll struggle on

Days Of Future Past in 24/96 (WAV in my case). Now there's a plan for this afternoon. Good call.

If you submitted to a panel of 500 listeners, 490 would declare the Moody Blues to be rubbish.

Well, a scientfic panel can hardly be held accountable for your taste in music.

But the point is valid. The oucomes of hifi upgrades and tweaking are perceptual in any case. The objective truth about whether cables are "directional" or sound best supported on bits of foam is arguably irrelevant. If we think it sounds better, well, it does.

The issue I have is when unscrupulous people peddle ineffective and high priced junk, making $$ from our human foibles. They should be ashamed.

Now, now Bart, behave yourself!

Anyone for exotic bits of wood to put round your listening room?  Only £200 per block, or a blue magic marker pen at £50 a bargain.

For info, here's a thread on what bit perfect is https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...ition-of-bit-perfect

Jude

For Big Bill, I hope this helps you http://www.audiostream.com/content/draft and this https://discussions.apple.com/...start=0&tstart=0

Jude 

I think I'd better stick to testing the end result with my ears!

ATB from George

Me too, George. The info , is for whoever is interested ...

BigBill, not wanting to be awkward at all, just debating the point that many things - certainly with digital transmission   are  not as black and white as they seem from a simplistic point of view and to that end FLAC and WAV convey lossless PCM in their own encoding way and it's the decoding that can cause audible differences due to side effects... Anyway I think we agreed to differ on some points as after all it's the sound that counts, and if you don't wish to transcode FLAC to WAV as it make no difference to you then clearly don't do it, and I think you'll find I was polite and civil in my remarks and perhaps somewhat unlike some of your comments to mine.... Techno babble indeed .. Jeez, how rude!

By the way I was not rubbishing morse code, as being a licensed amateur radio operator I certainly appreciate it's uses in narrow band communication.

Simon

I suppose bit perfect means that the system employed is not attempting to positively modify [sorry split infinitive, but it scans like that] the musical data. which must be a good thing, but it may still sound like hell on earth!

ATB from George

Recommended by the man with the x-ray eyes ears 

Thanks Jude, that is an interesting read and I got the impression that some of it I had already read - possibly someone on this forum has been cutting and pasting from it (not you I hasten to add).

It's difficult to know where to start in talking about the discussion but as some of the responders point out some pretty amazing claims are made.  If digital engineers are as stupid as they make out then I am really surprised that digital audio works at all.  One other responder took exception to one of the first statements made: All of this can be boiled down to a simple phrase. "All of the problems with digital are analog problems."   I can understand what he means, this is a totally ludicrous statement, some of the problems are analog (continuously variable voltages) but surely not all?  How many great DACs have been produced by purely analog engineers?

Another pointed out that claims made about digital engineers not testing kit they had designed was stupid and you also have to agree with that too.

One other point that was made was about turnaround time in cables and I have to admit that I really jumped when they spoke about this.  The speed at which the bits and bytes flow into our DACS, even at 24/192 is really slow compared to what can be achieved through wires.  Think of FM where our audio signal is modulated onto a high speed carrier wave and then think about TV which is even more extreme.  I will send this link to a friend of mine who works in the microwave region, I am sure he will be interested.

The other thing about the article that was making me mentally shout out was back to my original point: If what they say is true then how do our computers work?  Someone gave us the doom-laden statement that even our hard drives muck up bits now and again.  What?  Do you know what would happen if you loaded a program where just on bit had been flipped?  If you were lucky and it was in a bit of text embedded in the EXE you might see a funny character on the screen (as long as it stayed as a printable character), if not then the program will not work.

But that is the thing about HiFi we need to keep re-evaluating and testing our ideas, which is the same as everything really.

"No such thing as digital" - did they prove this?  NO  I think that the statement shows either a complete misunderstanding of digital, it's like saying there is no such thing as Morse Code, or it shows someone trying to make a cheap jibe.  You choose.

Simon can you prove the following statement you made: "to that end FLAC and WAV convey lossless PCM in their own encoding way and it's the decoding that can cause audible differences due to side effects"?

I don't think you can.

PS But I do transcode FLAC to WAV, it costs me nothing and I get all the benefits of both.  NAIM say that the extra processing unpacking FLAC causes the noise floor to rise and that impacts on fidelity.  I would like to see some evidence of this but it does seem reasonable a statement.

I guess, there are not many articles that are not biased in some way. However, the combination of information and insight from this forum, the two other sources (any many others) are enough for me, to test and decide fir myself (as you have concluded yourself) 

Jude 

Articles that are not biased merely have to rely on proper testing and not opinion that is not backed up by anything that can be repeated.

Ultimately opinions on matters do not hold the weight that properly conducted tests do.