Proof that DACs CAN make a difference! - Blind ABX Testing
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- čas přidán 27. 05. 2024
- GoldenSound takes a look at blind testing and whether source gear even makes any difference in the first place!
Full ABX Test Recording: • (Unlisted) Full ABX (F...
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Hearing Thresholds for pure tones above 16Khz: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17927...
Hearing Thresholds for pure tones above 20khz: www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Hearing at Low and Infrasonic Frequencies: www.researchgate.net/publicat...
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00:00 - Intro
02:02 - Why do we need blind tests?
03:49 - Problems with blind testing
08:01 - Designing our test
14:18 - Results
14:45 - Results Discussion
20:11 - Wrap up - Zábava
i trick my brain every day convincing myself that i like people
😂😂 I don't even bother...
The important part is do they pretend to like you back. That is true love.
You dont like me?
Ahahahahahahahahshha
I gave up on that 20 years ago
GoldenHearing
plz comeback metal we miss u
unreal, this guy
How can he afford the Focal speakers in the background at his age?
Comeback plz
@@JordonaterInheritance / trust fund
I'm a mastering engineer and listen to audio in a measured room on a Kii Three rig. Many of my peers in the industry cannot reliably differentiate between a 320kbps .MP3 and a 24bit .wav in ABX conditions on a world class monitoring rig... And I'd argue it doesn't matter at all. The content of the music, the ideas, the melodies and lyrics are what moves us, and much of the audiophile scene has more to do with people gaining a status identity which allows them to feel superior. Most equipment made in mid-pricerange is very low distortion and reliable, and even more so in the DAC market. An Audient soundcard for €100 can pass the audio through the converters more than 50 times before the phase inverten sum is audible. This means that it is almost mathematically perfect. When you pay more you might be getting a different EQ profile or "desirable" distortion. The additional harmonics can enhance some records... But this is something that can be achieved using any DAW using stock plugins. To wrap up: don't have fomo, enjoy your favourite audio files with whatever mainstream reputable brand that encourages you to enjoy as much music as possible.
Most mastering engineers like me cant hear over 18khz, I certainly cant hear over 16.6k. Content that high is not part of the musical range. Im highly sceptical that this content creator can hear above 20k, but taking his word then he is hearing things that most 5 year olds cannot hear.😊
I'm not at all sceptical that he can hear above 20kHz. When I was 18 I could hear over 21kHz. Granted I was the only one in the class that could but I definitely could and I was surprised to see everyone else's hands had gone down when it went past 20kHz.
I agree with you about whether it's particularly relevant though. And he hasn't actually blind tested DACs here.
I wonder since people like you mastering the music cant hear it does that mean he is hearing the noise you haven't filtered out the recording because you didnt know it was there?
Your kii monitors have DSP so any interface/DAC is irrelevant. The ADC is most important for mastering
@@mccririck01yeah I could also hear ~21k when I was 18. Haven't tested in a while but I think I'm down 19-20k now
@@Jordonater lol
I appreciate the skipping timestamp. Shows your respect your audiences time. In an age of clickbait and filler that is very appreciated. Little thing but still. I decided to watch straight though because of that.
I am literally amazed. I didn’t know there are serious reviewers like you who uses ABX test device just for regular DAC reviews. I am impressed.
Well it was the first time.....and bout time!
Well, if manufacturers were obligated to release atleast a small list of measurements with certain parameters, listening tests of eldctronics wouldn't be needed...
Plus, measurements are infinitely more reliable
I would also add the caveat that not everyone has enough listening skills to notice a difference. If we were to talk about wine, I don't think anyone would agree that being discriminating about wine tasting requires training. Same is true in audio.
Impressive! You do great work! Thank you
I spent a week comparing high-end speaker cables and a few very basic ones and for 5 days I believed I heard differences until a friend helped to ABX and mysteriously the differences went away. I wouldn't believe any individual on such specific claims without proven ABX since I didn't believe to hear anything, thought it's all bs and still a thick heavy cable sounded bassier and a thin silver cable more bright😂
I commend you for accepting that the differences you heard were imagined. I've had similar experiences. But unfortunately, many people won't accept that the differences are imagined, so instead they dismiss the blind tests and insist that there must be an audible difference.
Nice video GoldenSound!
I don't mean this question to be critical, only inquisitive, however you said you believe if you can hear it you can measure it. Therefore, how does one measure things like imaging, layering or sound stage size for example? I have never seen any measurement on a headphone saying it has xx area of sound stage size. The only way you know of that size (outside of listening for yourself) is by reviewers telling you its big but not as big as the Sony Z1R (if it's closed) or not as big as a HD 800 (if it's an open back) My point is, if this is a quantifiable number then why don't manufacturers put specs or numbers alongside the frequency response numbers telling you this is the imaging rating or this is the sound stage size rating?
These aspects of audible sound from audio systems are a fundamental missing link in audio research.
As are the relative differences between impedance capacitance and inductance of cables. Which tells us what and how? Which is valuable to understand a component or cable?
Some things are part of psychoacoustics, I guess there is just no way to measure them since it depends on the interaction of the sound + how the brain is interpreting it.
Good video, keep up the good work, we need more in this.
Your surprise and joy looks so geniune that I'm more happy that you are happy than the test is a success
well... being so happy could be a proof of bias.
@@net_news Which due to the methodology wouldn't be relevant.
@@Uebelkraehe there are camera cuts so who knows...
Great video.
Love it cam. Very interesting xx
Thank you for doing this.
Interesting video. Thanks for doing the testing. My practical take away from everything I've read about DACs and amps is that I simply get something that does not measure as broken, has the features I need, that I like the looks of and that is within my budget, and do not worry about any differences in sound. Since I can't hear anything above 13 kHz I will continue to ignore the question of reconstruction filters as somebody else's problem.
Great video about importance of blind testing done well I would love to see more of the reviewers try the test too. It should help account for variations in hearing (like your excellent hearing)
great video mate. thank you!
Well done! I knew from the first moment I read your work, as a reviewer, the standard that other reviewers will be judged as risen.
Great work. After watching this, and seeing that you were surprised to learn that you can hear 20k+ I wanted to see if I can as well. I've always noticed that I hear things other people do not, such as an induction burner on high...I did a little test and found that I can hear 19k+ for sure and I'm 40 years old. I've always had super sensitive hearing and cool to see that that's still true.
Cables look like snakes, just saying.
If not snake then why snake-shaped??
That's why they extract oil out of them.
@@Lishtenbird your comment for the win
bird brain…
@@nelsonang snake brain?
He is in the zone.
Now I need to test my own hearing range 😅
You did amazing job preparing this test, Mr. Gold ;)
lol, just quick test showed me 10Hz - 21kHz - need to redo it in a quiet environment :D
A massive thanks to Cameron & Blain for this, it is much appreciated.
Good work to even take a feet like this! Very bold to do so based upon the fan base and that's very apparent based upon the comments
Although I don't really decide what to purchase based on measurements, I'm glad you exist in this hobby 😁
During an ABX test, can't your brain trick you into thinking two things sound the same that otherwise don't?
If you have a bias and are expecting them to sound the same, yes
It can yes, but not in a consistent manner. Your brain can trick you into thinking one file sounds a certain way, but the point is that if you do enough runs, you can then show whether that difference is consistently attributable to one of the devices/files (ie: there is a genuine audible difference you can reliably pick out), or whether it was random and not likely a genuine difference
Yes. That's why blind tests are usually fail.
It set up just to confuse you in to thinking "there is no difference" completely flawed and ridiculous. This is not some kind of medical effect you are trying to find and separate from the placebo effect.
My favorite aspect of this video is witnessing the great friendship you have. Headphones are awesome, but friendship is even better.
Thanks for this video. It's fantastic that you approached this topic from a scientific perspective. I'm a former cognitive psychologist and well versed in the methodology used in psychological research studies. A couple of thoughts around running something like a psycho-acoustic study or any kind of scientifically sound research study. The number of trials is dependent on the statistical power that you are trying to achieve with the study. Something like 20 trials that you mentioned may or may not be sufficient since it's highly dependent on the effect size. Effect size represents the magnitude of the experimental effect. If the phenomenon is easy to detect then usually the # of subject and trials in the experiment can be low. When the effect size is small, you have to run substantially more subjects and trials. The # of participants, the # of stimuli, trial order of stimuli and the participants demographics (age, gender, etc) used all play a role in crafting a well designed experiment. Please keep making more of these videos!
I appreciate your thoroughness. I've suspected that advances in DAC performance over the last ten years were mainly due to improvements in oversampling and reconstruction filters. Your test seems to confirm that. What's left to compare is the analog section of high-SINAD DACs, but perhaps the science is settled there too. I understand the reasons why, but I'll admit to being a little disappointed that you ended up not actually using two different DACs in your ABX test. Finally, it seems that being unable to hear anything past 13 kHz is a blessing. 😂 Cheers!
Great Video! Where did you get from the testing (switching) device or have you built it yourself? The last months I often thought about blindtesting myself but didn't find a solution for automated switching...
Impressive testing. For single components such as a capacitor, or a cable, I always found it
useful to have one item on the left channel and one on the right channel, and quickly move from one to the other with a balance control. This minimized the time between comparisons. For that everyone can do it without an ABX box.
Great job, great video. So for you hires makes quite the difference I guess :)
Btw, I'm 34 and can still hear 21k as well (according to some app).
Links to buy the ABX switching hardware, please!!!!
wondering when we would get a video like this
After getting a hearing test and my doc saying everything is normal for a 40 year old I decided to pamper myself with a new amp. So I went to a hifi shop and sat with 4 amps at the same table up to the 2000 dollar range, trying them all with the 800s, a headphone I know well. I knew what I was testing, was expecting to hear a difference and be blown away [and make a purchase]. I didn't hear any difference, really. What? One sounded like it might have a roll off in the treble, big whoop. Not exactly worth the money. For kicks the shop worker told me to try the Questyle CMA15, a 3000 dollar amp. Surely I would hear something. Nope. I tried a few headphones, can still hear a difference between them, and maybe that should be enough in this hobby. I felt bad for the shop, the workers looked pretty annoyed when I left.
It wasn't that long ago that DMS (on his channell, I think) was complaining about having a backlog of DACs he was supposed to review except he couldn't hear any differences between them. Such is the state of the industry in the 2020s, there's sod all room for improvement that humans can detect left.
the hd600s would be more source sensitive than the hd800s
@@TheRealPotoroo Wow really, do you remember what video that was?
I had lately after deciding that the DCA Expanse or Stealth did not provide the measurable performance upgrades compared to my Meze Elite that I was looking for become enthused about dishing out on a Holo Audio Bliss KTE as an "upgrade" to my FiiO K9 Pro ESS's internal THX 788+ amp that I was already pretty happy with, whereby I would either experience a revelation about "Class A sound" or be able to "brag" about not being able to hear differences in at-home controlled listening or even when sighted. I before biting the bullet managed to spend quite some time at a shop closely A/Bing under sighted and decently volume-matched conditions a few amps driven by my DAC/amp's line out and concluded that they were through my Meze Elite (which has so far shown the best EQed multi-tone distortion I have ever measured) all, even the albeit technically advertised as neutral McIntosh MHA200, identical in virtually every aspect I could pinpoint from detail to tonality, texture, dynamic impact, transient incisiveness, clarity, bigness, "holography" (which I find can be easily heard with some recordings, even one of Chinese orchestra only published on CZcams), or the precise imaging location of certain sound sources in a reference track, which is to say that any measurable differences between those amps were probably indeed below audible so as to not matter. I am not so easily fooled into absurd subjective perceptions, but do know what extensive EQ and binaural HRTF rendering DSP can do for me.
For more details, see post #9 of "Recommend a high-end DAC and amp stack to a genuinely curious objectivist" on Head-fi (links tend to cause troubles on CZcams).
@@haelscheirs_haven Thanks for the post I'll check it out. Your experience mirrors somewhat what I experienced. To be honest it was weird because I actually wanted to hear differences but couldn't. Even worse, a lot of amps that people said had a "warm" or smooth signature just sounded the same to me [one of those I demoed was the Wa7 from Woo audio].
edit: Wanted to add that dacs/amps now for me are going to be more about features than anything else.
They think a network switch changes sound quality 😂
Pretty insane as they only send square waves interpreted as 1's and 0's
Who's "they"?
@@andrewgiovannini6613 @3:53
I have a few different DACs around the house and I can tell the difference between them but you, my friend, are a while different level completely ! Great video, thanks for sharing 🙂
The Headphone Show, Wow, this made my day brighter! Thank you!
Sorry to hear your day was full of treble.
interesting results
hearing above 20kHz sine wave is an amazing ability. Still majority of people can hear way above 20kHz (probably up to 80kHz) just not as a pure sine, but as harmonics (the steepness of signal increase of decay). This way we distinguish between recorded and live music. So even if you get older and your ears will work up to 16kHz sine, you will most probably be able to discriminate between these DACs anyway. Sound is so much more then we can measure today.
I think the result is interesting, but my question would be: if you compare two DACs that in the region 20Hz - 25KHz are flat (flat within say 0.1 dB), can you or not hear a difference? My expectation is frequency response is just one aspect of performance, and a steady-state one at that. There's also IMD, and possibly other aspects of transient performance.
Fantastic! Such a refreshingly rigorous and highly controlled methodology!
Only this standard of testing can produce truely meaningful results . Or - as is the case here - reveal a surprising and otherwise hidden conclusion.
This is Gamers Nexus but for the audio world.
And your acknowledgement that a level of trust has to be established is just pure class.
What a contrast to the usual biased, none disclosure ridden, more often than not just plain wrong, woolly thinking nonsense that so plagues the internet.
Bravo!
Hello,
Please tell us which of the two triangles at 16:39 min you prefer!!! Is it the triangle between 21 kHz and 22.05 kHz where there is more energy in the red curve, or is it the aliasing triangle from 22.05 kHz to 23.5 kHz (or sometimes even much higher frequency’s). Preference is for red curve or blue curve???
Great Job. Any chance of a studio, room tour?
Already gave you a thumbs up before even getting to the results because of how thorough and clear your explanation of the whole thing blind ABX testing is.
This confirms something I wondered for a little while, I noticed myself even with just headphones and iems is that if they roll off at upper treble especially if they roll off hard they seem muffled to their sound, but depending on the device if I boost 18khz-22khz even a little they sound more natural. Which I found I can hear 22khz but it is of course it is quiet, I am 21 so it makes me curious what the difference would have been when I was younger. But that has an impact on headphones possibly even on amps and dacs just because of the extended hearing range which can be for some why they prefer brighter tuned devices not just with hearing damage. Also glad there is someone else confirmed who can hear above 20khz so it doesn't make me sound crazy lol.
Edit: I should also note it also makes it easier to tell about recording quality and if it is lossy or how lossy.
Did you find that you can hear a slight static pressure in your ears before a thunderstorm is about to happen? This is something i used to be able to do at 17 years old but have lost the ability to now at 23
It could also be IMD that you're hearing, ie something above 20khz that give audible errors below 20khz.
@@Jordonater Interesting, I never noticed if I could. I do notice something similar to that with any electronics/electrical wiring especially if there is bad wiring with ceiling fans. CRTs drive me insane with that too. Even LCD/IPS/etc panels I could tell they are on even if it was from a few rooms away, these days I have a much harder time with that, thankfully.
@@gurratell7326 That is always possible too but I have also experienced real world scenarios best examples are in my other reply. But another scenario is there is a parking garage near me that uses speakers to scare off bats and birds and out of a group of people I am the only person who can hear the whole audio snippet to the point where the audio clips and loops, everyone else I know it is dead silent to them after halfway through it.
@@zantdoeseverything3523 Thats cool
Cool to have some evidence through blind (as blind as you can get at least) testing in support of what I think I’ve been able to hear in my very unscientific sighted A/B listening while fiddling with the DAC filters in my Q5K lol. Bat frequencies aside, don’t some filters affect frequencies even a little under 20kHz? Would that not just be straight up audible to most people?
Long time viewer, but I subscribed to the channel after seeing this video because I liked the rigorous approach! Conducting truly blind (ABX) tests is painstaking work and I appreciate you taking the time to do it right.
Also: I'm super jealous of your extraordinary hearing. Enjoy it while you can!
Really great video. +1 subscriber. Btw, i don't know what frequency its at but I know I can hear the echolocation call of the micro bats in our area whereas | know my parents are not able to hear them.
13:48 Thank you so much this is perfect now I can see forf my self if my $50 m_audio inface is the same or worse for my needs then a gucci one! And is giving me ideas of how to do a tone wood test which I could record a sample of a open strum on my mahogany guiatar and my Poplar guitar then mix them around to get them to match in my Daw. I'm unable to do better then you have for tone wood but I can try.
2:56 I mean is that bad though? Like how many times to you "taste" food blind folded with you nose pluged and it made to a perfectly smooth and nuratal temp and texure? I get the test though because I do want to know if my $50 M audio interface is no btter then a gucci option or am I missing out so one day I'll need to upgrade?
Interesting - I seem to recall that recently @ErinsAudioCorner did a video on the same topic - demo-ing an ABX Tester in the process - forgot the make/model of the device.
If you ever going to review the fiio m23. Can you please do a blind test of the m23 and a smartphone? I don't have the slightest clue the differences between a smartphone and a dap in sound quality. Thanks
i always though that phase interactions at ultra high frequncy and potentially high frquency binural beat type effects could maybe affect audible ranges and make things like cymbals sound more realistic, but it could well be that alot more people can hear these upper frequencys than we thought
I’ve been able to hear differences between headphone cables, and between USB cables (where I did not expect nor want to hear differences), but I once did a totally not blind test between the Chord Mojo 2 and the DAVE (from its headphone socket), where I desperately wanted to hear a difference, yet wasn’t able to detect any, soooo… was I simply not impressed by the visual difference, *are* they the same, or is the DAVE’s headphone socket simply not better than that of the Mojo 2?
The issue with better dacs is that you need a better source, amp, and speakers / headphones to fully hear it.
Great video! Love the incredible effort you’ve put in! I do think the tests is incomplete though. You’ve shown different oversampling filters can make a difference via the filter rolloff (which you are able to hear). But that’s not all there is to a DAC is it? Things like SINAD, jitter, and distortion are all measurable aspects in a DAC.
I think you should go back and use the blind ABX testing device. Put a 20k low-pass filter on all the test tracks to simulate losing that hearing range. Then test DACs with measurably different SINAD, etc., and see if you can statistically significantly differentiate them.
A discussion about DACs approached thoroughly and in good faith. Well done! I wonder how spacial characteristics of DACs would hold up to this level of scrutiny. I switched from Modius to Bifrost 2, and I feel Bifrost's detail rendering is a bit more separated, a bit more spacially expansive and precise, but I was primed to expect that. I wonder if it's real or placebo.
No, you are Golden Ears, and thank you for this in depth assessment on this controversial topic.
What is about your thoughts on Baach4mac for speakers and headphones?
So, if you're 40 like me, just stick to a budget dac :)
There is nothing wrong with budget dac since they all sounds the same.
I'll be honest, I'm feeling pretty dumb. I thought you were going to be ABX testing two different DACs, but it was just 2 audio files? Do I have that right?
The two files are to test the effect of the oversampling filter in the DAC. By showing that this single factor makes a difference, that shows that DACs make a difference (and oversampling as a standalone factor makes a difference).
The reason to do it this way is because there is no way to do a physical ABX test in a remotely verifiable way. Doing a digital test with shared and verifiable inputs and results was a necessary precursor to sharing physical ABX results in future reviews as this establishes a conclusive difference in a way that does not rely on trust.
@@GoldenSound although this explanation is mathematically correct, I also felt disappointed. I got excited about this ABX device and expected you to invite several random listeners over to have a larger sample. And then it went into comparing the oversampling filter of a ~$4k device by reproducing the filters digitally. With the main difference being way beyond average listener's hearing.
I understand, that your point was to prove if DACs can possibly make any difference at all. But from an entertainment perspective, the physical ABX would be much more fun to watch, especially if multiple listeners express what exactly they hear and how they tell the difference subjectively. Just an idea for pt. 2 ;-)
@@KodigyTech Surely the whole point to a test of this nature is to eliminate any possibility of subjectivity in the results?
Two key points need addresses here:
(1) Just being able to confirm a difference is audible doesn't confirm which unit is "better", simply a difference exists. You MUST them follow through and explain/discuss what the definition of "better" then is.
(2) For statistical testing, you MUST use 25 trials. This has been established by the Audio Engineering Society for 30+ years and the medical field.
Note: I was an Electrical Engineer involved in the very first published "sound of amplifiers" study by Stereo Review in the 1980's and have been involved in dozens of tests since. Unless there is true ABX testing I rage at manufacturer scum bag claims and CZcams charlatans - and I was in manufacturing for 30+ years but now in the high end retail field.
Would love to see such a test with different dacs, with chord upscaler and without, with diffère music, headphones vs speakers etc. To determine what matters and to what degree
You should continue to regularly and consciously listen to these high frequencies because this can prevent, to some extent, the neurons that respond to these frequencies from dying.
Please do more of these with different types of gear! I would be pretty interested in a test like this for cables for example like the blind test with issues you mentioned. It would also be interesting to do this type of test with different price ranges of gear where you would need to guesstimate the price range. Ofcourse with prerequsites like that the test design starts becoming much more complex but audio coverage has been much to personal and verbose with most of the technical elements being used out of context in reviews and marketing for decades IMO. It is obviously not a scientific research that is being done as that would require much more research, planning, time and money but it is a nice middle ground IMO and can help put things into perspective. It is always hard to jump the gap between saying there is a difference between things and truly describing what this difference is. It is kinda like those videos of people trying different bottled water. They usually get the exact brands wrong. But the conclusion for a lot of people therefore seems to be that they are all the same which is simply not true. There is a difference but in order to know which would be which you need to be intimately familiar with each of the types.
Can you hear 20k, or can you hear the diaphragm breakup/distortion that results from playing those frequencies that loud?
Very brave to get into this debate; very interesting result! You could also ask someone who you know _can't_ hear above 20 kHz to do the test; they should confirm that they hear no differences. If they did though, then you'd have to reconsider your conclusion that it's only your range in hearing that makes the difference. Of course, it never ends: you'd then need to get 20 people who can hear above 20 kHz, and 20 people who couldn't, to repeat the test! 😉😱
Yes. Concluding that the differences where only because he can hear above average frequency is not really a real explanation. So he can hear that fine. What about the rest of the spectrum. How he can be sure that he prefered one DAC above other only for the slower roll off filter? how about the bass quality or the voices? those are impacted by the filter pre and post ringing effects too. So if filters are different DACs can sound different. Even as they are flagged as "transparent" and ASR insist ignoring many people that can discern them and precisely identify their sound signatures.
Anecdotally, are least one person whose hearing is lowpassed at 17khz or so (me) heard the recordings during production, and they sounded *exactly* identical to me. I'll be interested in other people's ABX results, but to me, that's two copies of the same sound.
In the US, many years ago traffic light switching involved a JBL type of high frequency bullet driver. And my friend, in his 20's was highly disturbed as he could hear that signal in the approx. 20 KHZ range while in his car. So, GS's hearing can be annoying to him and yet others can't understand why he can be upset hearing a high freq. problem. I remember Sony Trinitron TV's had an easily audible 15KC scanning frequency, always annoying while watching a program. Blessing or Curse?
Big DAC trying to get us to spend $10,000 on metal boxes again. nice try 🙄
Its the capitalists i tell you! 😂
😆
Worked for me! (Jk.... For now)
Go back to Amir
BIG FUSE MUST BE STOPPED
Incredible work. Echos what I've always thought, there might be a difference, somewhere, but the chances are high that you definitely cannot hear it.... Unless you have GoldenEars. I don't know the age demographic of your audience but I'd bet most arent hearing above 15-17 Khz. Also I'd add that even if you could hear it, the fact that you would need to do this kind of ABX test to verify if it was real or not, means that its kind of irrelevant. Awesome video, thanks for putting in the work.
and for audio im definitely skeptical enough to not fail for placebos, again I seems its mostly to protect people's feelings that they did not make a stupid purchase or whatever.
Can you do your same procedure to a 48+ kHz recording so that all the filtering happens above 24k?
Can more people test the REW app 20K tones? I used the exact same settings and at 12 o clock volume on the Balanced output of the SPL PhonitorXE using the HE1000SE I hear the tone on both ears but better on my right one. Changed it to 25K and I can still hear from both ears so I am wondering how accurate it is.
Could be IMD, ie stuff above 20khz will give sounds under 20khz.
and that's why testing with multiple people is important
And multiple sessions every different day. Your listening ability pretty inconsistent.
Ok so the high pass filter felt more open to me though only just but the OG track sounded really nice and full on my $50 M-audio interface and Sennihizer HD 600 headphones.
any idea where can i find frequency range to test my hearing?
I can hear upto 18k and I was still able to hear difference in sound when I was doing diy to reduce the vibration on my iem.
I tired to immitate the resonance chip(Reducing virbation chip) on my IEM with rubber sticker and double sided foam tape and found a difference in sound on most of the iems. If accoriding to the measurement... there shouldn't had been any diference however, IT'S DIFFERENT!!!
So I was wondering,,,, is there's any other reason how we perceive sound...? Rather than eardrum only picking up the sound, our brain may also detects a signal from the virbration on our skin and combines it with the sound signal?? I know it's a super wierd imagination, but with my shallow knowledge, this is only thing I can think of.
Tested iems are Variation, Blessing2, Nova, XSL-One, Sound Rhythm SR5, HD600 and Momentum 3. (No difference in HD600 but yes difference on Momentum 3... weird)
+
One of my partially deaf friend once told me that he used a vibration on the throat to learn how to speak when he was young. We somehow remember the vibration on our skin and sends a signal to our brain...?
great hearing, I lost over 14k, did test couple of years ago. Used to be able to hear 20 - 20k when I was in my 20s/30s
Pretty fun that this video on itty bitty, very likely inaudible differences in DAC sound has Zu speakers in the background.
Over the years ive gone from a SoundBlaster PCI card to a Presonus cheapo to a Motu 896 then 2408, and finally landed on an RME FireFace. I might upgrade to a newer one (FS) at some point, but we're well above diminishing returns at this point.
I still drool at the Holo, but its like a celebrity crush, not a practical candidate to replace who I'm with.
where can you get such a ABX device ?
I got a Moondrop River Ti and it 100% sounded very slightly different to the THX onyx and was more listenable to me. I was shocked and thought it was just placebo however perhaps it was the fact that cirrus logic use very different FILTERS to ESS hence the oversampling difference mentioned in this video. Unfortunately i returned it because it cuts the first 0.5 seconds of songs on foobar which annoys me i wish i could get the replica of that slight change in sound with another dongle as i really dont need desktop level power.
But can the differences be heard between DACS when there are **no** oversampling filters in use?
Very few DACs can actually run NOS. And the ones that do typically have much larger measured differences in other areas as doing R2R well is pretty difficult
Yes. You can oversample and perform analogue filtering (either active or passive). Digital filtering is quite harmful to the sound in my experience. A standard method is a 'third order' low pass filter on 40khz or so. Modern DAC's are very integrated and sound quite poor to me, They perform many tasks making it easy to build in devices, but that comes to a price. It's a bit technical, but the current to voltage conversion is critical and I like it external to the DAC chip.
You don't have to be able to hear up to 20 kHz to have the ability to perceive the difference between digital reconstruction filters. Many begin to attenuate below 20 kHz. My Topping G5 had a default set filter with a roll-off starting from ~5 kHz and would drop by 0,6 dB at 18 kHz, which right around the limits of my hearing.
It was changed for a different filter with no roll-off below 20 kHz, but significantly worse attenuation at the Nyquist frequency with 44,1 kHz samplerate signals. I can't make any claims regarding the impact of worse aliasing suppression in this, or any other, case. But that also can be a factor worthy of consideration.
Cool experiment. Being almost 40, it might be unsurprising that I can't hear close to 20k. I can barely hear above 15k, which I didn't realize until I was thinking about the Dusk 15k peak and thought to myself... hey, I should see if I can even hear that now. I can hear below 20hz, though, which is neat I suppose. Thanks for sharing the test.
Did Doug get you one of those cool light bars too?
can you drop a link to see how much frequency you can hear?
The original claim of 20-20 was based on testing college kids who wanted drinking money. These same kids were out listening to loud live music, drinking and smoking. Plus we just like that rounded number. We say vision is 20/20. But that’s not “perfect” even for a human.
Anyway the other differences I’ve noticed with source is if there is noise ratio and where that noise to sound ratio occurs. All things which can be found in testing without even involving a person. As far as wires go it’s what they sound like in 10 years that matters. Fresh copper is very forgiving. But you’re going to be running electricity with them for a decade and wire degrades. The more surface area the slower it will degrade. Teflon also helps as does braiding
Over 20k? Man, you have ears from an elf :D i can hear clearly 16,5 kHz, but after that it faint very quickly to "feel", more than a "hear" and anything above 18kHz is silent. Age is a major factor for this condition at 37 i presume.
Great great vid guys!
Most people old enough to have the money to worry about this… no longer can hear any difference!
Get great speakers and headphones and stop worrying about dacs and codecs.
16:31 thanks for this for me a 28 year old with an AC running full blast with an online extended tone test... 14KHZ was autoble but 24khz was feelable.... So yeah I may need to one day get that Gucci gear.
A general comment on digital filters. They have a great impact in the time domain not the frequency response.
0:34 here are my thoughts, unless something is broken or older than dirt, anything is good enough and the bigger thing to sound quality is going to be an eq. here, let me put it this way, I have logitech z5500 speakers, they are near garbage but I used them mostly as a headphone amp, the sound was night and day when I got a quiledex 5k. the dac matters to a point, and then the amp needs to built well, and after that, an eq changes the sound more than anything else unless you get to the point of digital clipping, but that's more for instruments then for normal listening and even then, full digital amps are getting/got to the point you cant tell the difference between it and tube.
Video suggestion: When you listen various songs on Tidal (for example) you hear the difference between a good, very good or a bad production with a good headphone (even if all are flac you listen too). What could be the best headphone to cover that up or maybe you can use a dac to hear less the bad or cheap production? Or a combination...
I have a very old original Schiit Yggdrasil DAC with the firmware upgrade fix, It sounds great but why the F does it sound weird and not as smooth for the first 3 hrs. It is annoying to want to listen to music but wait for 4 hrs. I think the reason for this might be part of why some DACs sound different but measure damn near the same.
You may retain your high frequency hearing longer than you expect! I can still hear above 20kHz at even relatively low volumes and I'm 30. If that's the range in which DACs are potentially providing an audible difference, then I'd honestly rather not hear it at all - you really aren't missing out on anything interesting or fun up there. There's genuinely no upside to being the person that hears the toaster, or the lights, or whatever.
As someone with an additional 30+ years of road-wear over your hearing, you'll be glad to hear that I'm REALLY close, (Hit or miss, but more hits when the tech went back to verify.) to hearing 20K. (As of winter, last year) That said, squealing girls/women when they gather at parties makes me wish for that minute or two that I couldn't... ;-)
I'm glad you got the ears the hear the difference. I'm in the wrong hobby.