Ethan Winer et al at the "Audio Myths Workshop" AES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

Watch it.

Bookmark it.

Watch it again.

Take notes.


--Mac

Mac, I was aware of that video but I haven't watched it yet. It's about an hour long. Can't seem to stay still that long although I need the information contained within.

Thanks Macster. I will take the plunge. By the way how you doing these days? It is always good to see you involved.

That is really fascinating. i only understood about 80% of it but its very well done. it shows you can still get great results, with reasonable equipment and abilities.

Thanks Mac

Will watch at home.

Ethan Winer has been a great resource for proper ways to treat rooms acoustically for many years - not even pushing his own product but convincing folks and providing plans on how to DIY treat rooms with real physics-based acoustic treatment principles over the years.

-Scott

I've given workshop talks on the topic of Psychoacoustics and Sound Quality at their bi-annual Noise & Vibration Conference.

The .pdf from the 2007 conference is available here, but unfortunately the .pdf does not contain any of the demonstration sounds. So, it unfortunately loses much of it's impact.

-Scott

Oops forgot the link: http://www.sae.org/events/nvc/workshops/2007sq1.pdf

We did this over many different years, and changed up content each year to make the workshop interesting. If you find the content interesting, there are other years available. Wade Bray, one of the co-author/presenters keeps the master powerpoint on file and would probably send you the powerpoint with the sound examples for a very small fee.

Remember when your audiophile friends colored the vertical edges of their CDs with green permanent magic marker?

No, but I have seen the fake McIntosh amp trick in real life .. at a church ...
The were picking up a hum over the speakers during the service and asked me to look into it.
Behind the stage were a couple amps-
when I asked which amp was for what the response (quietly) was "everything goes through the Kenwood".
I asked why the Mac was there and they said 'as long as it is turned on the sound guy says we sound great'.
I guess he went back and looked for the glow before every service and that was good enough.

THAT is psycho acoustics in a nutshell.

Noice was from the ground plug on the laptop. 69 cent fix ...

Excellent indeed. Very informative. I remember the "magic-marker around the CD" thing rockstar. By the time I bought a CD player the fad was over.

Lot of audio snake-oil out there.

I don't WANT to think mp3s sound as good as wavs but I bet in a double-blind test I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I like vinyls and cassettes but don't claim they sound better. I could probably tell vinyls from CDs but it would be due to the records crackling - not a good thing. I just LIKE them because they're retro and big and I can see them spin around. But better sounding? Doubtful.

Oh yeah- I DID take notes!

Hi Mac,
Thanks for posting the link, as I wasn't aware of this video. Great amounts of info condensed and presented in a very coherent way. Simply riveting, actually.

Jim

Quote:

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I don't WANT to think mp3s sound as good as wavs but I bet in a double-blind test I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

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With my hearing, I have done the double blind test (someone else playing the files back for me) and with some program material (particularly with lots of ride cymbals or long reverb tails on drums), I can hear artifacts - particularly under 192 kbps conversion to .mp3. Above the 192 kbps rate, I simply cannot hear the difference.

So, when I rip my CDs and .wav to .mp3, guess what rate I use? 192 kpbs.

Now, when I listen to 128 kbps stuff in the car using my in-dash CD player that plays .mp3 and .wma files on CD-R, I can't hear those same artifacts - too much road noise that is providing a high noise floor in the listening environment.

Lots of podcasts are done at 128 kbps, and I happily listen to those in the car without ever hearing any artifacts.