Comments on Profile Post by Lyander

Which is affected by the filter. I feel brands like chord, Schiit, etc all are on top of their filter game. Then like Apple, it’s mating hardware with software

@Cellist88 I don't equate ultrasonic tone identification with whether or not those same ultrasonics can't bollix stuff going on within the audible band, but I don't feel (tentatively) ascribing all audible differences between DACs to FR and saying the jury's out on time domain stuff mattering sits well with me. Happy to be proven definitively wrong though.

Since this video is of academic interest only - I wanted to point out the causation bias. Just because he can hear to 21k does not mean that this is the explanation for the successful abx testing. These are 2 different observations, linking them together is a huge assumption.

@lithium I am in full agreement, my saying DACs were all about FR was facetious, which tends to be my default mode of expression when I'm incredulous. hpdotcom is an invaluable source of information, but I notice that their editorial direction of late has been strongly in favour of the notion that everything can be distilled into FR. I would love for that to be the case, but I have trouble accepting it is all.

I’m not sure he’s actually testing dac outputs. It appears he’s testing a file upsampled 2 different ways by software. If so, this has nothing to do with two dacs.

@shotgunshane yep, out of the Holo Audio May. I got frazzled juggling conversations but the conflating of digital filters and DACs works well enough in the sense that if filters make a difference, DACs should make a difference. It does take architecture out of the equation however

Well, I thought the whole premise of the video was to test if 2 transparent dacs sound different. Instead it ended up being a test of software filters.

Haha! My brain missed that, goes to show i wasn't fully present. Well that's something worth taking note of.

What does the sultan of ASR have to say about all this?

@JK47 he hasn't heard about it yet. Think he's still recovering from listening to EDM at 120dBA.

(I will say as someone who has lower confidence in their listening skills than they might let on: I don't see how the earlier treble rolloff in FR on the hybrid linear/minimum phase filter on the BTR7 sounds hashier with longer treble decays than the same device's apodizing fast linear phase thing which has pre-ringing but shorter post; fast happens to extend further up in FR).

I don’t really understand his conclusion that it’s all cause of high frequencies at all. The assertion that that is the only difference in the filters isn’t explained. The main benefit of more advanced and longer filters is better transient reconstruction

Disappointed with this one. Glad he could hear the diff, but really wanted to see an actual DAC ABX test. Also the conclusion as to why he heard a difference seems kind of suspect without the proper followup test (if there even is one).

He could potentially rule out the high frequency differences by low passing the original file at like 16k before the upsampling. not that I think there's much content up there anyways

Someone over on discord just pinged me with this video embedded and I just watched it in the background while dealing with other crud. Totally missed that the premise went from "ought transparent DACs make a difference?" to "do different filters sound different? (DUH)".

Really curious that hpdotcom's going all-in on FR.

@SoupRKnowva That’s kind of my thought. Is there really anything up there other than mouse farts (and that wouldn’t that likely get drowned out by stuff lower down)?

I can sorta see that leap and why he made it Lyander. Being able to use the same dac for both is interesting and allowed him to do it all in the computer instead of using an abx box. and I can see the argument that if you can hear the difference between two filters that are both similarly "audibly transparent" according to measurebators that it would follow you could say the same about dacs.

@SoupRKnowva oh I agree and I think my brain gestalting all that together was in part because I was inclined to think the same. I've met some filter deniers over the years.

Now, would the same filter work similarly between different DACs? Hah.

Going to repeat 2 things I've said here before:
1. I suspect there's "other" information in a reconstructed signal that plots like THD+N, FR or CSD plots, or other commonly used plots don't fully capture or illustrate. Different DACs most likely handle this "other" differently, whether intentionally or inadvertently,

... Aaaaaand it's this "x factor" plankton sort of thing that makes it easy for others who have less context for things to look at discussions about the same from a distance and think it's bunk and hogwash. Gotta hear it first to believe it, and not everyone's got that opportunity.

I can see WHY pseudo-objectivism is as appealing a school of thought as it is. It's exasperating, but it's no surprise it's caught on.

2. There's also the question of how each individual hears and processes sound information (ie psychoacoustics). Not just the individual FR of our ears, or musical theory stuff like perfect pitch or rhythm, but also some audiophile things like sibilance, staging, timbre, etc.

Combined with 1, I can believe that some people will hear differences and others won't. And it can change each time.