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Dr. AIX

A "Tweaky" Award was presented to the makers of the "Disk Energizer":

http://www.audiophilia.com/wp/?p=12685#

Pushing the button on the Energizer, aligns electrons and protons, to enhance their basic properties, reducing their vibration, and, consequently improving the sound of a CD and any component within a distance of from one to three meters, for a period of 2 hours.

Only $495!! One reviewer could even hear the ivory in the piano keys!! :banana-dance:

:laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:
 
Enhance their basic properties?

Does that mean the protons are protonic and the electronic more electrical?
 
Laugh at such examples of gifted innovation all you want people, but I myself will soon unleash a device of my own creation on the audiophile masses: The Anti-Matter Alignment Tool.

TAMAT will get your negatrons all ordered up.

It will be impervious to the rigours of A-B-X testing, because it will operate outside the known parameters of the universe!

The only known issue is a tendency to cause massive space-time implosions within a few hundred Parsecs of its use. And the ensuing black hole.

Regardless, after activating TAMAT you'll truly be able to hear the angels singing when you listen to that special gospel recording - or the undead groaning in MJ's Thriller like they've never groaned before. In fact your music will transcend life and death itself.

Truly the ultimate audio tweak.

I plan to officially launch TAMAT early in 2014. I expect glorious reviews to ensue. From beyond.

Trust me. It really does work.

I should know. I once owned a piano. It had both white and black keys. And pedals.

If you have any concerns, just drop me a line at AllKnowingSuperiorBeing@hotmail.com
 
Zing said:
^ Someone's been imbibing. :eek:bscene-drinkingdrunk:

Yeah. I've gotta lay off the cheap stuff!

That reminds me... snow's down and shovelled, got some new tunes on the server, and there's a caramel coloured 18 year old calling my name right now.

Single malt 18 year old that is.

Jeff
 
Today the Dr. bitched about bigger and bigger "specs", something I remember from buying my first stereo in the late '70's (only 0.05% Total Harmonic Distortion!!). Unfortunately, it was NAD that got it today. I've never owned any NAD stuff, but they seem to have a good reputation among critics, and I've been considering some of their equipment.

But now, this? (and somebody explain "35-bit" to me, please…)

There is ample justification for higher sample rates and longer word lengths to a point...at least for PCM encoded audio. But can anyone justify a "35-bit 844 kHz" DAC and Digital Preamp? I don't even know how they got those numbers. The product is real and made by NAD...a company whose products I have owned and enjoyed. It's been a while since I had one of their early preamps but I always appreciated the simplicity and sonic purity of their designs.

The M51 doesn't sound like they've continued with the "simple is better" philosophy of their earlier models. Here's how they describe the operation of the unit:

"NAD's technology uses a very powerful processing engine that operates at much higher speed and with much greater accuracy than typical Digital-to-Analogue converters. Running at 108MHz, the M51 resamples the incoming pulse code modulated (PCM) signal and converts it to a pulse width modulation signal (PWM) with a sampling rate of 844kHz. Operating in a differential mode with double precision, the M51 has state-of-the-art specifications for low noise and freedom from distortion. The extreme headroom afforded by the 35-bit architecture allows for a DSP-based volume control that does not reduce resolution. Even with 24-bit high definition signals, the output can be attenuated by 66dB (very, very quiet) before bit truncation begins."

The above description sounds really promising, but remember it was written by the marketing department and not by the technical people at NAD. What they are saying is that they believe they can improve on the quality of the output signal but transforming the digital input stream into an completely different data representation (the Pulse Width Modulation) at a very high sampling rate AND using longer word lengths. They also put tremendous emphasis on the ability to attenuate a digital signal in the digital domain. I don't buy any of it.

If the incoming PCM digital signal is already pristine, highly dynamic (using perhaps 20 bits of the available bits...and that would be a lot!) and properly clocked, then recasting it as a PWM signal at 844 kHz with 35-bits wouldn't "improve" the sound at all. It might change it…but if it were already as clean as it could get, then mucking around with it in this manner wouldn't help. It couldn't because the dynamic range, frequency response and all of the other specifications have already eclipsed the ability of humans to perceive any additional enhancement.

What could you do to improve distilled water with some sort of filtering or modifier…nothing. Same idea.

Just think about the 35-bit specification for starters. As a computer guy (MS in Computer Science CSUN 1992), I can't figure out how or why they thought to use 35-bits. There's a reason why bit lengths have always been powers of 2 (the binary language of digital computers or multiples of 8. We've had 8, 16, 24 and now 32 bits...but 35? This is a fell good number as is 32-bits. The dynamic range of human hearing is not much greater than 130 dB SPL. AND 24-bits gives us the potential for 144 dB, so why bother. Also keep in mind that most recorded music doesn't reach even 10-bits of dynamic range.

The conversion to 844 kHz PWM is bogus too. The knowledge that skilled designers have about PCM is very thorough and deep. Current designs like the Benchmark DAC2 reach well beyond the sonic realities of the recordings that we're buying. So why mess about with PWM and bigger numbers? Because it gives the marketing people, the reviewers and addicted audiophile consumers something to talk about.

Bigger...at least in this case...is most definitely not better.

:think: :think: :think:
 
Pauly, Remember I brought the surround work on the grade school band with the Olympic theme and how the drums starting in the front channels but as the band started to play it appeared that the drums moved to the rear channels.

What you could be hearing is the same masking as my recording demonstrated. The rear surrounds will be having the delayed and reverb drum sound as the strong character standing out.
 
:text-bump:

Reading this guy's blogs on a daily basis can get a bit trying, but every once in awhile he comes out with (for me) something really interesting. Here he talks about a company/software that can analyze a solo piano recording, and "MIDI-ize" each note (precisely recording the timing and velocity of every single note) and then using that data to replay the piece under much better conditions (great piano, nice hall, Hi-Res recording). He mentions a recording of Rachmaninof playing Rachmaninof put out by Sony that I think I want to track down (in this case the performance was stunning but the recording was poor; this technique allows you to beat that problem:


As I sat in my university office this morning, I bumped around a few websites after doing a search on high-resolution audio. It's still rather disconcerting that so many writers are hanging on to the HRA company line and writing pieces that are confusing at the best and outright incorrect at worst.

However, I did find an interesting comment on the topic of restoration and re-releasing older masters. The writer stated, "the only way to get a real high-resolution audio recording of an older master is to have mechanically-played instruments recreate an original performance and re-record what they produce". This is brilliant...but of course, impossible. Or is it?

I can tell you that it's already been done (at least with piano)...and with tremendous success.

About Zenph Sound Innovations

Zenph creates revolutionary technology that opens new possibilities for music listening and interaction. The company has developed a fundamentally new method of encoding music as performance data rather than audio. This performance data is easily transformed in a number of ways, enabling users of Zenph products – professionals, hobbyists, students, and listeners – to participate in compelling, interactive musical experiences. The company’s re-performance process was called “a technological miracle” by The Wall Street Journal and one of the “Best Ideas of the Year” by The New York Times Magazine. Zenph’s recordings have received multiple GRAMMY nominations, and its Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff album on Sony Masterworks was described by the editor of Stereophile Magazine as “perhaps the finest piano recording I have heard.”

Mechanical musicians? How about a player piano...but not just any player piano but one that has practically infinite dynamic resolution and control over pacing and tempo. After all, piano are made up of a bunch of switches (the keys) and three pedals right? How hard could it be to automate them? Actually, not that hard at all. We've had player pianos...even expression pianos for well over a hundred years!

The innovation that Zenph added was to consider a recorded piece of music not as acoustic sounds but as data. For those of you involved in synthesizers or computer music this might sound familiar. It's called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and it records performances as data rather than the acoustic energy coming from a soundboard or vibrating string. When a pianist hits a middle "C" on the keyboard, a set of data emerges from the mechanism and is delivered to a sound generator or a computer that records it. The information includes the note number, the intensity level (how fast the key was depressed) and the timing of the key press and release.

zenph_gould_back
zenph_gould_back.jpg


Figure 1 - The back of the Zenph Innovations re-performance of Glenn Gould's "Goldberg Variations" [Click to enlarge]

That's really all you need to know. So Zenph came along and analyzed Glenn Gould's debut 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. They figured out the precise timing and the dynamic level of each note, the use of the pedals and the balance of each vertical sonority from the original recording. This is their performance data. And then they sent the performance data back to a computerized version of a player piano using an ultra high-resolution form of MIDI. Presto! When they hit play, the sound coming from the piano is "an exact replication" of the original performance buy Glenn Gould. This is the "new" performance that is needed to re-record in high-resolution audio.

It's brilliant, really. Not only can they (in collaboration with Sony Masterworks) capture the "re-performance" with state-of-the-art equipment (although being SONY they released it using DSD 64) and issue it on CD and in 5.1 surround. The Glenn Gould was given all sorts of awards and put Zenph Innovations on the map.

I'm a friend of Dr. John Walker, the guy that came up with this approach. It turns out the copyrights can be refreshed and the recording of the Bach is heard without Glenn's squeaky piano bench, singing and the occasional subway train that is heard during the sessions. I was so impressed that I make available the Zenph productions on the iTrax website. You should check out the "Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff" in 5.1 surround.

But how far can this idea go? The last time I spoke to John, they had raised some serioius funds and were working on building a mechanical acoustic bass and a set of drums. Then they fell off my radar. When I looked at their website today, everything seems a few years out of date. I don't think John is involved anymore. But the original idea was brilliant and as far as making new piano recordings of older performances, it was very successful.

This isn't a way forward for most classic recordings…but it did amaze a lot of people with Gould, Rachmaninoff and Peterson.


Botch here. I'd be really curious to learn how this software could precisely measure the loudness of every note in, say, a forte chord (of course the explanation probably would fly right over my head, too...)
 
^--- Yeah I read that too, and am very curious. Oh what the hell I've spent a shitload of money today, what's a few $$ more? I ordered the above Gould "re-performance" and also one of Rachmaninoff playing his own compositions - which would be even older originally considering he died in 1943.
 
This is appears to be easy on the piano but when they get to the drums there is so much more to playing them that I feel a program would only be able to recreate the samples supplied. Can a drummer recreate the correct sounds to create the samples and will these samples mix down to a good sound track.

Playing of the bass or other stringed instrument has similar problems with the drums and the samples. Are we as listeners able to hear the difference between sampled drums put together in a performance and one that is played by an artist?

When listening to some of the Soundhound and COF music I was able to hear the little differences between hitting a cymbal with the side of the stick, the wooden tip on the stick, or a plastic tip on the stick.

Now you would need to add the room acoustics for the performance, along with other little things. Movie sound tracks have been convincing because the eyes and ears believe the sound track and it makes sense. These movies sound tracks can have 64 tracks and more to generate some of these effects and sounds to help us feel the movie. Would they be able to show the subtle timing differences between two violins or 20 violins in twenty tracks.
 
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