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I hate to break the industry lie but here goes (I will be banished forever more!). This is a massive study done on the subject and well conducted, basically no one cound pick the difference above statistical chance:
"The results of this survey appear to support the notion that high bit-depth music (24-bits) does not provide audible benefits despite the fact that objectively measurable DACs capable of >16-bit resolution are readily available at very reasonable cost these days."

HAVING SAID THAT, IF WE CAN DO 24 BIT/ 96kHZ WHY NOT!!!

The tests needed to be conducted using familiar material and in Surround Sound (Quad or 5.1.) Straight stereo just doesn't have enough musical and spatial resolution to bring out the advantages (granted, very minor) of higher bit rates. Also, remember my premise...I was listening to a self-made mix. I had listened to it at least 10 times during the same day, and many more times during the previous days, so I was extremely familiar with every nuance of an extremely familiar song. If given a test using unfamiliar material, I doubt that I would be able to distinguish between 16 and 24 bit samples. Key point: One must be extremely familiar with the material.

Here's an analogy: I was into scotch during my younger years. A bartender bet that I could not tell the difference between Johnny Walker Black and Chivas Regal. He put two shot glasses in front of me. I took a sip from the first glass and without taking a sip from the second, correctly identified the first one as Chivas. He asked how I could tell. I responded, "Because the Chivas is sickening sweet." Again, extreme familiarity is key.
 
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Here's an analogy: I was into scotch during my younger years. A bartender bet that I could not tell the difference between Johnny Walker Black and Chivas Regal. He put two shot glasses in front of me. I took a sip from the first glass and without taking a sip from the second, correctly identified the first one as Chivas. He asked how I could tell. I responded, "Because the Chivas is sickening sweet." Again, extreme familiarity is key.
Personally, I prefer Chivas, and I’ve tried both, but not as a contest.

I often refer to some of the practices I use in my room build as “overkill.” I don’t believe I will hear the difference between, for example, standard single-ended audio cable and the s-video cable I use for my interconnects, but I still bought a thousand feet of the stuff, it’s easy to work with, and it’s certainly not going to hurt anything. Some of my power cables have been replaced, not because I think I’ll hear any difference, but because I got a bag of short, heavy IEC cables a while back (for free) and, again, it won’t hurt anything. Maybe it’ll help, but I won’t try to fool anyone into thinking I can hear the difference.

I think the reason I do these things is because I want to avoid reliability issues, at least with the parts I can control. I don’t mind going a bit overboard once in a while. Even if I can’t hear the difference, it gives me a little peace of mind, and with the complexity and cost of all the stuff I have in the room, that’s a bit of comfort I can appreciate.
 
I find myself furiously in agreement with Barfle and AR Surround in that you must when listening if possible use stuff you are very familiar with (or at least include that in your selections) and if you can minimize any form of distortion well if its cost achievable then lets do it! This in fact has formed the basis of everything we have done in Involve. I can assure everyone that every chunk of software / hardware and new concepts have all been rigorously time synchronized A/B compared to see if we made things worse or better or neutral. Sometimes we did not hear any improvement but we left it in as we felt there was some theoretical advantage.

So when it comes down to the 16 bit/ 44kHz compared to 24 bit/ 96 kHz debate we naturally favored the higher resolution devices as it was cost effective, is better and it stops negative market connotations- hey I am honest.

I can honestly say I am obsessive in this area and from a young age. I have always ensured in the blind A/B 's that I or my test monkey had no idea which one it is , often I would rotate/ not label and confuse the A/B switch in doing these tests. In the test I did with the Philips CD 204 it was with music I was very familiar with. I listened to the top end, bottom end, in between, on quiet passage, transient stuff and all sorts of material and in the end I could not hear any difference to the high end $10K machine. I repeated this with 2 other victims with the same end result. Not saying that someone could not pick it and I confess I am not good at distortion perception (Bitch is great at it), however I am very perceptive to image matters.

I remember many years ago there was a hifi fad to mark the outside edge of CD's with a green ink marker, hifi nuts were convinced it made a considerable improvement, I tried it out on time sych A/ B and found exactly zero. I think in audio its a badge of honour to say you can hear the subtle difference and there is a feeling of failure if you do not and as such its easier to agree with the group view ........Hey I did a year of psychology before 2 engineering degrees as I was too young at 15 to enter the engineering course and I studied group personality, interesting subject! As for moron reviewers picking up subtle effect at bass frequencies on some CD player or magic cable- forget it they are wankers.

I remember years ago TDK did a challenge to pay a heap of money to anyone who could pick the difference between the original CD source and that recorded on a Nakamichi dragon cassette on Dolby C. Many people rolled up convinced they were taking the money home and the result was - no one got better than statistical chance!!!! Now remember the cassette on Dolby C would have had a SN ratio of 70 dB and distortion of say 1 %. I can confirm this myself as I became frustrated with clicks and pops on vinyl, plus the microphonics -yes the platter feedback is as much as - 15 dB down (I tested it). So I would upon getting a new record immediately enact electrical silence in the house turning off fridges etc, turn off speakers, use record clamp on a heavy platter Technics 120 turntable, SME ARM with an ADC ZLM cartridge and record it on my Nakamichi ZX7 with HIGHCOM noise reduction. I can assure you on A/ B testing I could not tell the difference to the Vinyl - with STAX headphones.

Similarly I remember the Australian skeptics society made a challenge to water diviners throughout Australia and the world to give $10,000 prize (back in the 80's I think) if anyone could detect which underground parallel water pipe out of 10 possibilities had water flowing in it. Lots of contestants rolled up most saying it would be easy and many had great reputations. The result was no one did better than random chance!! You must be so careful. I must confess I am a massive skeptic on many matters and I make myself unpopular on stuff like homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic and I just know many of the QQ members now hate me!

Vinyl sounds great and I would be the first to agree that it can be as good, if not better than CD in some instances but as mentioned previously it has lots of issues for example:

1 Tangential tracking error distortion (I remember doing the math and working out the theoretical best spot for my tone arm)
2 Self microphonics from stylus within the vinyl (say -20 db)
3 Microphonics from the speaker to platter - - 15dB
4 Cartridge distortion between 1 - 5% refer Cartridge tests

Yet 16 bit distortion at around 0.0015% dominates the above say 1-5% level???

How about speakers (They are by far the worst offender but not for the reasons you have been taught), they typically have distortion between 0.5 - 3%. One common factor I use a lot is psychoaccoustic masking where the quieter sound or noise is masked by the louder sound - for example on cassettes you hear the hiss on quiet passages but not on the loud bits. So human hearing must pick up this 0.0015% is a sea of other distortion of say up to 5% , that's interesting. Having said that I have heard subtle amplifier distortion- I suspect in a band or area different to where the speakers/ cartridge/ cassette were distorting.

Having said that I published elsewhere in QQ our ex Nakamichi dragon electrostatic actually achieve 0.06% distortion across the whole frequency range- but that's not the reason it sounded great.

While I am at it did you know that the whole - you cannot directionalise bass below 80- Hz is bullshit! We did comprehensive tests years ago and found that on band limited pink noise and music with ultra low distortion woofers subjects could directionise right down to 35 Hz. On pure sine wave tone it was different, people had no idea where the woofer was all the way up to 800 Hz. It turns out that we initially for say 15 seconds percieve where the woofer is but then the brain cuts in and fools you to believing the sound is integrated with the music!! So much for the Lucas/ Dolby lie.

Hey back to quad- did you know that when all 4 speakers are putting out sound sinchronised transient in similar (even different) frequency bands the listener cannot pick where the directions of sound is. It turns out the brain can only directionalise one sound at a time! Its one of the holes we crawl under and why discrete is overrated ....now I know you guys hate me.

Nigh Nigh time for me down under
 
Personally, I prefer Chivas, and I’ve tried both, but not as a contest.

I often refer to some of the practices I use in my room build as “overkill.” I don’t believe I will hear the difference between, for example, standard single-ended audio cable and the s-video cable I use for my interconnects, but I still bought a thousand feet of the stuff, it’s easy to work with, and it’s certainly not going to hurt anything. Some of my power cables have been replaced, not because I think I’ll hear any difference, but because I got a bag of short, heavy IEC cables a while back (for free) and, again, it won’t hurt anything. Maybe it’ll help, but I won’t try to fool anyone into thinking I can hear the difference.

I think the reason I do these things is because I want to avoid reliability issues, at least with the parts I can control. I don’t mind going a bit overboard once in a while. Even if I can’t hear the difference, it gives me a little peace of mind, and with the complexity and cost of all the stuff I have in the room, that’s a bit of comfort I can appreciate.
I had an uncle who was an alcoholic because his father had a distillery in Poland and he learned to drink whiskey and vodka at a really young age. (like six or eight) He always told a great joke about the aforementioned subject and connoisseurs of spirits in general.
The end of the joke went like, "It's PISS!!" , "Yes, but WHOSE?"

I do the same kinds of things as @barfle mentioned. Some of them I may have believed would help but in the course of having a quad amped stereo I was able to do experiments on myself and on visitors and concluded our hearing is not nearly as discriminating as we all would hope. In the case of the experiments done on myself I used my favorite music CDs which I am extremely familiar with. I agree with @ar surround about the familiarity angle.

My late great audio buddy used to "slip me the cassette version" at his house , using his very carefully recorded cassettes and I never caught him. The way I knew it was a cassette is eventually he would smirk at me. He would have loved to have a Nakamichi Dragon.
 
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Hey back to quad- did you know that when all 4 speakers are putting out sound sinchronised transient in similar (even different) frequency bands the listener cannot pick where the directions of sound is. It turns out the brain can only directionalise one sound at a time! Its one of the holes we crawl under and why discrete is overrated ....now I know you guys hate me.

Nigh Nigh time for me down under
Back in the middle ages (at least MY middle ages), Audio Magazine (IIRC) sent out one of those slip discs that could play on a record player. It had several "audio illusions" on it. The one I recall most vividly had alternating high and low tones coming in on opposite ears. So for about half a second, your left year would get a high tone and your right ear would get a low tone, then they would switch back and forth. The illusion ended up that you heard a high in one ear, then the low in the other, alternating back and forth, which was NOT what was being played. Especially convincing through headphones, which I believe was what they recommended.
 
Somebody wanted a remote. I want front and back separation controls to use SM to decode DQ, EV-4, SQ-B, and EV-U in addition to QS and SQ.
 
Somebody wanted a remote. I want front and back separation controls to use SM to decode DQ, EV-4, SQ-B, and EV-U in addition to QS and SQ.
Perhaps we should have a thread specific to Surround Master future needs and wants?

Looks like there might need to be a Basic version and a Gold version of future incarnations of the SM?
 
Why are you worried? It takes year and years to develop this stuff.
Not worried as such but I've got the encoder, with Animals and SM3 (finally!) on the way but almost everything else is in storage (and may be for a while yet) as we've recently moved. Still, at some time in the near-ish future there will be quite a good deal of fun!
 
Do you mean adjust the power of the matrix decode????
No. The decoding angles. The encodings of these matrix systems are different.

The following diagrams illustrate how the record groove moves the stylus for each system:
:
QS - evenly spaced

qim-rm.gif


EV-4 - more front separation:

qim-ev.gif


DQ - even more front separation:

qim-dq.gif


DS - Wide front, narrow back:

qim-dqd.gif


SQ - standard 4-corners:

qim-sq.gif


EV-U - More F-B separation, less L-R separation:

qim-eu.gif


A variable control with marks for each of these matrix systems, plus ability to adjust for others makes a more useful decoder.

These are the encoded angles. The decoding settings for EV-4 and DQ are different from the encoding settings. They could also be added as additional marks,
 
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No. The decoding angles. The encodings of these matrix systems are different.

The following diagrams illustrate how the record groove moves the stylus for each system:
:
QS - evenly spaced

View attachment 83930

EV-4 - more front separation:

View attachment 83931

DQ - even more front separation:

View attachment 83932

SQ - standard 4-corners:

View attachment 83933

EV-U - More F-B separation, less L-R separation:

View attachment 83934

A variable control with marks for each of these matrix systems, plus ability to adjust for others makes a more useful decoder.
Could a phase blending (a.k.a pre-synth) control help with this a bit?
 
Could a phase blending (a.k.a pre-synth) control help with this a bit?

The problem is that the front and back need different settings. And SQ really needs different front and back treatment.

My passive RM decoder does this perfectly (without separation enhancement of SM):

uq-1-o.gif


Width adjusts front separation, depth adjusts back separation.
 
Midi you seem to be asking for a total redesign (with much added complexity) to the decoder. I don't think that would be practical. Adding a simple pre-synth circuit, even a passive one like you suggested would itself accomplish a lot.

I've long thought that the perfect way to decode asymmetrical encodes such as EV-4 could be done using two separate decoders one for the front the other for the rear. One unit would be tweaked for the front and the other for the rear. In reality QS or Involve decoding works well enough with EV-4 without going to that extreme. A double decoder decode might be an interesting experiment however.
 
Since the SM is dsp software based how about an android app to modify settings and load them into the dsp.

This is done on the Parts Express electronic crossover as well as various mini DSP gadgets.
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...gnal-Processor-for-Home-and-Car-Audio-230-500
You could have preprogrammed setups but also make various functions and coefficients available for those who would like to see if they are talented enough to blow their speakers up. And you ALL know who you are! :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :rolleyes::cool:

Maybe you could hack one of these and sell licensed Involve software for it. Or howbout similarly licensed Involve software for multichannel interfaith cards like the Clarett and/or othe similar windows based interfaithes. (and don't nobody make any fun of my lithp)
https://focusrite.com/en/usb-c-audio-interface/clarett-plus/clarett-plus-8pre
 
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Since the SM is dsp software based how about an android app to modify settings and load them into the dsp.

This is done on the Parts Express electronic crossover as well as various mini DSP gadgets.
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...gnal-Processor-for-Home-and-Car-Audio-230-500
You could have preprogrammed setups but also make various functions and coefficients available for those who would like to see if they are talented enough to blow their speakers up. And you ALL know who you are! :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :rolleyes::cool:

Maybe you could hack one of these and sell licensed Involve software for it. Or howbout similarly licensed Involve software for multichannel interfaith cards like the Clarett and/or othe similar windows based interfaithes. (and don't nobody make any fun of my lithp)
https://focusrite.com/en/usb-c-audio-interface/clarett-plus/clarett-plus-8pre
RE: Dayton Audio DSP
Before I committed to building a more direct analog mpreamp/front end for the SM I took a close look at this product. I just wanted it to do simple 2ch in /2ch out. Adjust over all level with chs linked, adjust balance between chs independently, and control opposite phase / in phase blending blending. I DL'ed the manual I also gpt the demo dektop app. Of course they also make one for phones. Pretty inscrutable at first but it does have nice GUI. For automotive car use & bi-ammping this would be dream. When it gets to the phase blending it is circuitous, at least to me. It seems you can only do so much at once with this & a bunch of menu jiggling needs to be done to achieve this.

If this looka good to anyone, RTFM, and play with the app.
 
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