So What Am I Hearing...?

[Vinyl]

When a musical passage goes almost motto for a second or two before continuing to the next passage – similar to the tape noise one sometime hears on certain remastered CD’s - my best description is an electronic energy that’s heard/felt captured on recording – it’s pretty much when you feel a presence in a room even though you can’t see it.

If you’ve experienced this – aren’t you glad I brought it up?

Is it my ultra revealing system OR is it that odd/even distortion in my amps? :twisted:
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OT ... this thread doesn’t belong under Misc – there’s nowhere else to put it - its audio related and sure to be informative – if one’s inclined.

We need "General Audio Discussion" section.

 

[Zing]

OT ... this thread doesn’t belong under Misc – there’s nowhere else to put it - its audio related and sure to be informative – if one’s inclined.

We need "General Audio Discussion" section.

You know, I've been meaning to do that. Thanks for the reminder. When you go looking for this, that's where it'll be.

 

[soundhound]

I touched on this (at least I think your referring to this) in the imaging and soundstage thread http://www.theaudioannex.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=517

Microphones pick up the sound of the recording locale, and this sound is called the room tone, and it is nothing more than the ambient sound in the room which our ears usually tune out if we were actually in the recording room, but which microphones pick up. The captured room tone is one of the things which give a sense of presence or life to a recording (same thing with the captured sound of the musicians shuffling about). There is quite a bit of low frequency energy present in most rooms too, and this is taken advantage of when stereo subwoofers are used. Stereo subwoofers recreate the random mixing and phasing of these acoustic low frequency sounds, where a mono sub will reduce these phasing cues to peaks in nulls in the frequency response (these are not caused by your room, but are the result of random phase mixing electronically to mono).

 

[Vinyl]

That’s it!! Room Tone/ Presence describes it beautifully – Thank you.

You know it’s a curse when one has such an ultra revealing system and puts up with this sort of thing :snooty:

Soundhound ... while I have your attention talk me out of Tubed CDP or standalone Tube D/AC

 

[Vinyl]

OT ... this thread doesn’t belong under Misc – there’s nowhere else to put it - its audio related and sure to be informative – if one’s inclined.

We need "General Audio Discussion" section.

You know, I've been meaning to do that. Thanks for the reminder. When you go looking for this, that's where it'll be.

Thank You Zingy!

 

[soundhound]

Soundhound ... while I have your attention talk me out of Tubed CDP or standalone Tube D/AC

I think that you will get the advantage of tubes whether you go with the player or DAC. Actually, tubes are usually only used in the current to voltage conversion (the signal off the actual D/A converter, known as I/V conversion), the subsequent analog filtering, and line output. Usually this is taken care of with one or two dual triode tubes, and is essentially done the same way in a player or DAC. It boils down to your preference. I like the player route personally, but that's not really based on any technical issue one way or the other.

 

[soundhound]

That’s it!! Room Tone/ Presence describes it beautifully – Thank you.

In many recordings, of classical music especially, the engineers record a few minutes of just the room tone with nothing else going on. They then insert this room tone in the "quiet" sections between movements of a symphony for instance. The end of one movement is faded into the room tone for a few seconds and the beginning of the next movement is faded up from the room tone. This way, two takes recorded non-sequentially can be mated with a smooth transition between them.

 

[Vinyl]

On the Vaughan Williams/Marriner recording – ‘The Lark Ascending’ fair amount of Room Tone is used to mimic lark in flight/moving air – is this still Room Tone or another effect?

 

[soundhound]

On the Vaughan Williams/Marriner recording – ‘The Lark Ascending’ fair amount of Room Tone is used to mimic lark in flight/moving air – is this still Room Tone or another effect?

That might be a mechanical wind machine. Vaughan Williams used a wind machine in his Symphonia Antartica (Symphony #7).

 

[Vinyl]

Soundhound... back to tube D/AC’s for a moment – what’s your view on non defeatable D/AC’s that upsample 24/96 – 24/192 without the 44.1 sample option? – some have the option to engage one of the three modes on the fly - this is proving to be not an easy endeavour since I'm come to like the HDCD playback - finding a tube D/AC that incorporates the feature is futile at this time – which beckons the question – With the higher sampling rates employed does the HDCD decoding become moot?

 

[DIYer]

Vinyl, if you can hear the difference between standard 44.1 kHz sample rate vs higher one in a double blind comparison, then perhaps you should to get a higher one.

 

[Vinyl]

DIYer ... the difference is audible – however I’m not convinced that it’s necessarily better – it might have a place with older recordings – the optional sample rates would be fun to engage on the fly for comparisons - you’d have to live with it for awhile to truly scrutinize the main differences between 44.1 and higher sampling rates – my main goal is to inject a little ‘euphoria’ to the sound via tubes – other pluses would be frosting.

 

[DIYer]

DIYer ... the difference is audible

If you heard a difference in a double blind comparison with level matched, then what can I say. :?

 

[soundhound]

The native sampling rate for CDs is 44.1kHz. Changing that sampling rate to any other rate which is not a simple interger (i.e. 88.2kHz) of the native sampling rate will introduce errors. Whether these errors will be audible is another question. The main reason for upsampling is to allow output low pass filters which are of a lower order than would normally be required. The audio marketplace is ruled by marketing, and unfortunately there is little which the end user can do about this. Frankly, I would not reject a DAC simply because it does not allow native 44.1kHz playback. You will have to determine for yourself if the conversion to an odd multiple (i.e. 96kHz) is doing harm to the audio. My feeling is that you will generally not be able to tell without rigorous blind testing.

 

[Vinyl]

DIYer ... the difference is audible

If you heard a difference in a double blind comparison with level matched, then what can I say. :?

I don’t believe blind testing was brought up until you mentioned it - You’re reaching to extremes that would apply to all things audio.

 

[DIYer]

I don’t believe blind testing was brought up until you mentioned it - You’re reaching to extremes that would apply to all things audio.

What blind testing in audio allows is to isolate the test to hearing only. It eliminates other potential distractions which is a good thing if one wants to talk about the sound aspect of say, amp or DAC. I don't see it as extreme to focus on sound only when discussing it. Now if you or someone else want to talk about other aspect of having those equipments, I have no problem with that.

 

[Vinyl]

Latter all ...