ver .9D vs .9H

[SeVeReD]

Last weekend (Aug 3rd) I finally loaded up version H to give it a listen compared to D.  I've spent all my listening time since then going back and forth between the two players; ABCing the songs with the help of my daughter.  In the middle of last week I emailed Peter and hinted that I definitely heard differences and was forming opinions.  Before I let those opinions be known, I urged him to listen again to version D before I lay out what I'm hearing.  I finally got the nerve to email Peter again last night and put those opinions out to him and ask his permission to post.  I urge all of you to please, load up Version D and play it against Version H before reading further.


Ok,,, you've put an evening into comparing D vs H, right?

This is basically what I wrote Peter, with a few addenda.
Hi Peter,
I've been listening to both now since my last message to you.  I've been agonizing over how to approach you on it and going back and listening again and again.  I've had so many conversations in my head with you as I've been listening.... I'm kinda burnt out.   But I keep coming to the same conclusions; I prefer ver. D over H.  I know H can sound "clearer".  It can come forward and wrap around you.  But to me, it sounds like it's being striped down and lost some of that wonderful body that D has.  Low low subwoofer bass is not hitting me with the full bloom and energy I experience with D.  Like phase got out of whack. Upper bass is less tuneful and lacking body compared to D.   Drums, low kick and high, don't have the weight, body, impact that I hear with D.  With H the drums are more papery sounding.
With H images are more pinpoint... but to me that's not always a good thing; H has lost the wholeness and organics that D has.  The pinpoint imaging is more about losing the bloom/decay around the instruments rather than about accurate soundstage.  Mids are less vibrant and less real sounding to me.  Sometimes the upper mids jump out (not much) but don't stay in place like with D.  I don't want to say upper mids are more strident or nasal sounding... that's harsh, but, they are more so than with D.  I think that all comes from a feeling that the music/air is striped off, lost energy.  The air in the room is less vibrant with H than with D.  When things get stripped down it can lead you to think you're hearing more of something else (other/prominent parts for the music stand out),.. but remember, listen again to D, and look for what you're missing.  D is more relaxed and its' soundstage more laid back.  At first blush someone might think that H is louder, more exciting... but, because I know about D, H just makes me a little more edgy... not wanting to sit as long, not being pulled into the music as much.  When listening to vocals and instruments I feel like D holds the notes/voice longer than H (that was also a comment my daughter made to me, not knowing which player, just blind comparing).  Compared to D, vocals with player H are clipped; instruments breath is cut short.

I could go on and on about each type of music/instruments I listened to, but for each one I would say that D just sounds more natural, more robust, more vibrant, more whole, everything in the soundstage where it should be...  H, more clinical, more upfront, piano too clangy, less decay, holes in the soundstage instead of instruments commingling.  I know some might say H is like looking through a cleaner window... but that's not really how I perceive it.  H sounds tilted up in pitch almost... but I think it's that perception of missing some natural, correct, warmth in D.  To me H sounds like a new component needing break in time... heh, doubt that's going to happen with software; hope springs eternal.

Of course this is all written with a bit of hyperbole; most people wouldn't hear these differences on first blush, although without my prompting my daughter began to describe things pretty well; (she was blind through-out and listened to songs 3 times; both of us could pick the two players that were the same in an ABC, no this is not fun :/ hehe).  She didn't always pick D as the best sounding, but she's young, 11, and most of the time she would prefer D and be able to tell me why.  I remember she liked the finger snaps better in one song on H and liked how it would come forward and surround her... couple moments like that.  But don't get me wrong, she nearly always preferred D, as did I, when comparing (I think I was very careful not to give her clues).  I grew up listening to live music; my father supported us as a musician; plays the trombone.  I know when the stereo is moving toward a more real sound and when it is moving toward a more hifi sound... and I prefer D.  I'd post this in the forum to get others reactions, but I wanted you to hear it from me first.  I remember I didn't listen long to g (and didn't need f) and just dismissed g because I didn't need gapless... but it seems to me my body was saying go back to D after hearing g... i dunno.  But I did spend time listening to both D and H, (from bagpipes to Beethoven quartet; from deep bass electronic rock to Monk piano/other jazz)... so I urge you to go all the way back to D and listen again to it against H.

If you pick my brain and ask me questions, I know I can add to this. I'll go back and forth a few more evening too, not my favorite thing to do.   I'd rather just kick it and listen, but I do have strong feelings about your player.  Let me know if you want me to post any of this, I'll look at it tomorrow too and see if I can't make myself be understood better.  Thanks, Dave Robinson

[PeterSt]

Hi Dave,

Yes, you asked me politely whether it was okay to post this, and I even urged you to do it because I think it is *very* valuable.

Before responding to your findings, I'd like to do a bit of high-flying first :

People who read this, may think "oh well, this is his speakers and his amps a and his room, and his DAC and I don't even like nos-DACs". Blabla.
IMHO, people thinking like that, won't proceed much on things. BUT, it takes a very special skill to be able to look through all these variables, with one common denomenator only : XXHihgEnd. I think I can do that, and what it needs further is recognizing judgements like yours Dave - in consistency. Maybe difficult to explain, but if you mention a characteristic A and also a characteristic B, I would know they always go together, so if you indeed mention A and B, I'd know you just must be right. Unaccording the speakers and all you use.

What others from above could learn, is that *anyone's* sayings should never be distrusted. But okay, once the person saying it is in the environment of trustees . I mean, you certainly don't hear me say that I'd listen to any one word of x.xxx+ posters on AA, to name one. But it's easy to judge ... for me it is.


Ok, landed again, and what I write below, I already wrote yesterday, so the "yesterday's" in there, are "day before yesterday" by now.
Note that I did *not* listen to 0.9d when I wrote this. But I think I can do without. As an absolute judgement of 0.9h then ...

Paper like drums …
I fully agree with that. At first thought (say, 10 CDs or so) this was my major idea of more natural voicing. The first attack of drums just IMO are rather like that. But at second thoughts (the next 50 CDs …) there body missing from the drums.

I’d say that 0.9h is more accurate, which is from the applied theories in the player, and which I also seem to hear. “Accurate” also comes to my brain as more tinny. So another general remark of myself would be “more tinny sound”.
What I applied with 0.9h opposed to 0.9d is two counteractive directions : one of more accuracy and one of less (mixed two different approaches). Possibly it combines in a strange way.

Like phase got out of wack

Actually this is the most interesting. Why ? well, since many times it occurred to me that the phase was out of order at drum hits. I never experienced that before.
Sidenote : this is dangerous though, because since the latest 0.9h I have been working on absolute phase control, and it well might be so that I “learned” to pay attention to these things. I have been thinking about this just because I noticed the drum hits, and it’s my conclusion that it’s just there, and I’m not disturbed by it because of the “learning to hear it” process. But still dangerous.

organics

Pwew, if only more people would understand that.
A better expression than analogue I think.

Teh pinpoint imaging is more about losing the bloom around the instruments rather than accurate soundstage.

I’m not sure whether your writing can’t be clearly understood by me, but if I try to translate it for myself :

Something like pinpoint imaging does not exist with value (for audio) if it would come to one, say, square (or cubic) inch of space somewhere in front you. An instrument most often expresses the sounds from larger sufaces (like violin), and
a an area of 1 square inch where sound emerges would be far too large to express the instrument
b within 1 square inch the e.g. violin can’t be expressed.
So think of the representation of the instrument in your space (coming from speakers) as many points in space for the one instrument.
When the, say,  30 x 20 x 5 inches needed for that are now expressed as 1x1x1, the instrument is pinpointed the most separate from the others, but it would be no instrument …
It would be the opposite of organic, and it would be better expressed as digital. Not for squary sound, but for perceived “too much accuracy”.
Wrong …
This is not accurate at all. It’s the overshoot of, say, too bloomy.

Sometimes the upper mids jump out (not much) but don't stay in place like with D.

Yesterday I have been listening for a full CD to music with bagpipes. It occurred to me that this may be a better instrument to judge equal tonality than a piano, just because it occurred to me that it wasn’t so much equal al all. This *is* dangerous, because I can imagine that the horn speakers are use are prone to resonating as a response to these nasal squarish sounds, but it is again something of which I thought : this does not fit.
Later I ran a CD of Joe Henry (never heard of him really, but I found him in the CD rack), and by pure coincidence or not, his voice is in the same areas the bagpipes were unequal and it sounded just bad. Mind you, a guy like this comes to you as one with an irritating voice, but since I have the experience from before (with I think London Beat), this just is not so. Something is just wrong.
It is really un-be-lieve-a-ble what mismatches in this area can do to a person’s voice and the recognition of it. When the mismatch has gone, the person sings 1 octave or so lower ! So all what was creating the irritating voice, were over expressed harmonics.

I feel like D holds the notes/voice longer than H

Many, many times I felt like words were abbreviated. That too, did not occur to me before.
Besides that, also many times I could clearly hear the opposite of the bagpipe thing : frequencies are underexposed. Thus, apart from words abbreviated, it occurs to me that parts of words just fail. That too, I did not hear before.

H sounds tilted up in pitch almost

Not almost, I think it is true, incurred by harmonic distortion.

Btw, the disbelievers of software being able to change the sound just by being (in)correct must be rolling on the floor by now. :lol:


I will put up a new version that undoes the part of the theoretical less accuracy (“theoretical” because I know it does influence, but because of combinations with other things changed, it is hard to predict the “direction” at the other end (say, the speakers).
I will not undo all, because I *have* to learn what does what.

Btw remember, more accurate should always be better, since I believe that the most accurate will e.g. let bloom the instrument as realistic as possible.

Thus, the above I wrote yesterday. I can now add a few things to it.
Sidenote : the bagpipes I mention are a coincidence, because they weren't mentioned in your original writing to me.

I decided to add the remainder of what I can say in another post.
Peter

[PeterSt]

So, a bit more of it Dave ...

As you (I think) will find out, people not necessarily will agree with you (and thus me). Not because they don't trust your (or my) findings, but because they just don't agree.

I'm not sure whether I wrote it in here, but I can tell you that the 0.9h version to me is the least disturbing of all. "Distrubing" is an important phenomenon, since for a longer period now I (and a few more) are not talking in terms of disturbing anymore, but in terms of "most realistic" only. So, more realistic, less realistic, and if things really go wrong : disturbing again. But it's a process ... an evolution ...

When a voice is not much realistic at all, you might not be disturbed by a too short decay of it. You might not even be able to hear what's sang or said (of course this varies very much per system, and comes in many gradations). Now, with 0.9h it was the very first time that I even could hear the cutoff of voices. But now the question is, why ?

There's two main reasons obviously :
1. Before the voice was too poorly represented in order to be able to hear the cutoff which has been there all the time;
2. Before it did not cutoff.

It seems obvious to choose for 2, if you think about it without further notice. BUT :
Since 0.9h is the least "disturbing" version of them all (well, it was anyway ) I tend to choose for 1.

Now, there's another IMO important thing, and that is the description of "disturbing" as I use it in this context :
This is about being able to play random music / styles, and none of them disturbs. You could also (or even better) say : suddenly you have more well recorded CDs than you thought before.

The latter is for me an absolute means of judgement. I have always said that, and I still do : the more well recorded CDs you seem to have, the better the playback system is.
This is more imortant (and deep) than you might expect, because it is very very easy to tweak an e.g. speaker to let it sound great for one CD. A bit of a pity is it that suddenly it is the only "well recorded CD" you have in your collection. So something is faking ...
Please trust me on the truth of this, and then use it as an absolute measurerement.

If you're pulling one CD after the other, because "this one" does not sound well, you can bet something has gone wrong with the playback.
"Has gone" because for me (and probably most) all is an active process of tweaking. So don't tune one CD only !!

So, 0.9h is the best of them all ... Right.

Assuming that my (and probably others') means of judgement is correct, and that 0.9h *is* the best of them all indeed, above choice 1 must be applicable :

1. Before the voice was too poorly represented in order to be able to hear the cutoff which has been there all the time;

You don't hear me say this is the final truth, but I do say that logically it is the only option to choose for.
Well, now it is very very easy to say that both versions are wrong. In different areas, but just both wrong.

But mind you, why it is so easy to say that ? not because with both something is the matter, but just because of the stupid simple truth that so many things are wrong with audio playback, that the chance that either 0.9d or 0.9h is the most optimum is plain zero. And I say it again : I did not even start with optimizing playback for Engine#3, although this was the kind of first explicit action of mine to this respect (and I said it in the releasenotes). Btw, I did it as an in between the lines job, as a derival of Gapless.


Yesterday I put back one of the "parameters" that should (?) have caused the anomalies. At a glance, IMO that helped. The sound became more crispy / snappy again, and I looked for the punch in drums and did not judge that as wrong. "At a glance", because I stupidly changed more and listened to that overall result only.
What happend is that suddenly I got the hunch - because of the more or less unexpected wrong way of the "parameter" - that a higher priority of Engine#3 *would* make a difference. So I build that in (was pending anyway) and I really think it made a difference.
Beware though, because I listened to a few tracks only with the parameter reverted, and the remainder of the evening I listened to the version with the reverted parameter *and* the high priority.
Btw as said before, it really takes a week or so for me to really judge, so I can't be conclusive right now anyway.

Today I will finish the version with reverted parameter and priority settings for Engine#3. I can already tell you : if this - without priority setting ! - helps towards the sound of 0.9d, but keeps the never-disturbing advantages (my context !) of 0.9h, I can overshoot the parameter in the same direction as just applied, and the sound should be better again ...
On that matter, I better introduce a slider for just that parameter ... hehe.

Peter


PS: For those who jump in here, and wonder what's happening with parameters and such : this is just about accurate playback, and no means of DSP at all (will never do that ! ).

[PeterSt]

After some deliberation with myself and others, it seems much more is going on.

I did not try it myself yet, but a few theories coming together imply that I should leave all like it was for 0.9h, but now change absolute phase ...
What I will do is just present the options so you can play with it yourselves.
Since all is already in there, it just needs the controls to add ... Takes some additional time ... might be tomorrow now ...

[Chris V]

Hi guys
Interesting discussion, but neither of you have stated whether you are using upsampling or doubling. I personally think 0.9h sounds better without
Cheers Chris

[Gerner]

After some deliberation with myself and others, it seems much more is going on.

I did not try it myself yet, but a few theories coming together imply that I should leave all like it was for 0.9h, but now change absolute phase ...
What I will do is just present the options so you can play with it yourselves.
Since all is already in there, it just needs the controls to add ... Takes some additional time ... might be tomorrow now ...

Dear participants in this thread 

Well I have now spent hours to verify one or the other versions being "best".

I assume we can agree that it is impossible to be objective as no one of us have the same gear to detect it with, neither we are listening the same way.

There is in my place, with my gear and my ears no way the 9d sounds better in any aspect compared to the 9h.
The spaciousnes and details combined with cutting edge location of each and every instrument, it's timbre, it's harmonics the whole natural way of presenting the musical event is compared to 9d so enourmous superior that it is almost as day and night....

Now this clashes of course of what you hear Dave express and what you Peter almost felt your self convinced about was true.

I beleive that any given version of the XX could work as a tweak to personal preferences because the gear benefits from either the one or the other XX version. Also of course wether we use Vista or XP for that sake. Even the DAC has a bit to say here. NOS or OS.
If I beleive in what I am writing myself, then admitted the 9h is a tweak here.

Another comment on the perception of what is called phase here:

The 9h simply is so much more resolving things and less distorting. It is is offering a much much bigger "room" to contain the music, that it seems there is a phase thing related to it. Like it is reversing the phase to suck instead of blowing. Turns the polarity.
No it does'nt as you can just reverse the speaker cables and you hear it's not related.
 
But here it comes: Go to a live clasical concert. An ensamble of few instruments. Hear the same thing. It could sound like the polarity has reversed on all instruments. It can't naturally be so, but my perception of it is similar to what I find in the 9h and do not find in the 9d.
Why could that be? Because the small group of instruments appearing in a big hall simply sounds like that. It is the same thing with 9h bigger spaciousness that really can contain a musical event without adding blurr or pressing it.
The 9d adds body which is not there. It's "thicker" than reality. It "adds" what I have not found in real life music, where as the 9h leaves the music of unspoken beauty and naturalness.

THIS IS HOW IT SOUNDS HERE WITH ALL MY PREFERENCES AND SUBJECTIVE GEAR AND EARS.

With all due respect. 



Gerner

[PeterSt]

Interesting discussion, but neither of you have stated whether you are using upsampling or doubling. I personally think 0.9h sounds better without

Ah, sorry ... True ... 0.9h somehow can't bear Doubling/Upsampling IMO just the same. I don't know yet why.

[PeterSt]

THIS IS HOW IT SOUNDS HERE WITH ALL MY PREFERENCES AND SUBJECTIVE GEAR AND EARS.

With all due respect. 

Well, the last word about this hasn't been spoken.

I have just met 5 people in one room who were judging XXhighEnd (0.6h) as lacking of punch against a well tuned Linux player. Including me that was 6.
So I suggested to try it with 0.6d, and everybody agreed again; punch was back. And some more things.
The gear we listened to is near equal to my own; the room very different.

I'll build in the "tweaks" so everybody can be satisfied.
Or judge better.

Even more important might be the understanding of what's actually happening here ... 

[Gerner]

THIS IS HOW IT SOUNDS HERE WITH ALL MY PREFERENCES AND SUBJECTIVE GEAR AND EARS.

With all due respect. 

Well, the last word about this hasn't been spoken.

I have just met 5 people in one room who were judging XXhighEnd (0.6h) as lacking of punch against a well tuned Linux player. Including me that was 6.
So I suggested to try it with 0.6d, and everybody agreed again; punch was back. And some more things.
The gear we listened to is near equal to my own; the room very different.

I'll build in the "tweaks" so everybody can be satisfied.
Or judge better.

Even more important might be the understanding of what's actually happening here ... 

That was certainly some old XX versions you tested out. 6d and 6h.

Still I must stick to what I hear here as it is.

Since I quoted my upper remarks, nothing changed here since. 

Gerner