Testing a few digital cables

[PeterSt]

Is this the first video ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za96T19N3XM&feature=youtu.be
I think it is, but ...

[manisandher]

It's the original CD rip, absolutely 100%. No ADC whatsoever. All I did was change the name. But here it is again in case the name change screwed something up  :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfMjJkNFJ5M1RxSnc

Mani.

[manisandher]

Is this the first video ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za96T19N3XM&feature=youtu.be
I think it is, but ...

No, scroll down towards the bottom of http://canopusdrums.com/en/concept/ to 'RECENT VIDEOS'. It's the first video with Hyuk Jang playing.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Thanks.

Say I have these two albums from The Julia Hülsmann Trio :
- Good Morning Midnight
- The End of a Summer

Would you accidentally have one of these and which you ripped by the same means as the one uploaded ? (assumed you ripped that yourself)
If so, please upload one track (I suggest 09-Riverman from Good Mornign Midnight or 02-Konbanwa from The End of a Summer).
If you have both (in same rip fahsion as your uploaded test track), I'd prefer The End of a Summer album.

Cheers,
Peter

[PeterSt]

The cymbals are a bit too forward in this recording for my liking, but they have great delicacy and colour - I visualise them as being very thin, delicate and golden in colour.

Haha...

The drummer is Heinrich Köbberling. I couldn't find which drums he actually used on this recording, but he endorses Canopus Drums. Have a look at the first video here: http://canopusdrums.com/en/concept/. The cymbals are exactly the way I visualised them when listening to the original CD rip.

Mani.

Well, that is then super smart of you, because I could not get a vision of them at all. I was only highly disturbed of a strange recording method with the drums up front (and yes, later I saw you writing about them being forward) and poor microphones or whatever that made them sound wrongly all over. Also they are not played at all like in the video, so ... smart.
And if you also get some real sense of the sound by means of that video, even more smart ! haha
Mind you, that video is about showcasing the different snare drums. Maybe you can hear the difference between them ?


Anyway, I know you said yourself it wasn't the best, but maybe it doesn't really work out for comparisons if things are not he best. Mind you, this should all be objective comparison, but if things are wrong in the base, it becomes subjective (we can't compare to reality and only can have it sound to our own best taste now).
If you have one of the albums I pointed out, you'll know what I mean (OK, you already did).

Regards,
Peter

[manisandher]

Unfortunately, I don't have rips of either of those albums. But I've attached the rip info for Zahlen Bitte - I'm very confident it's a good/accuarte rip.

But does it even matter how the CD was ripped or how it sounds... for the purposes of this test? I mean, all we need to do is to determine how closely files 2 and 3 match file 1, irrespective of whether we 'like' the sound of file 1.

What am I missing in your thinking?

Mani.

[manisandher]

Anyway, I know you said yourself it wasn't the best, but maybe it doesn't really work out for comparisons if things are not he best. Mind you, this should all be objective comparison, but if things are wrong in the base, it becomes subjective (we can't compare to reality and only can have it sound to our own best taste now).

I totally disagree. We don't have to compare to reality at all. All you have to do is compare to file 1.

If I went to Paris and took a photo of the Mono Lisa with my phone, I could figure out how accurate my photo was compared to the painting. Would you then say to me that that's not a fair comparison because I don't have Mono Lisa (the woman) actually standing in front of me to see what she really looked like? Or that Da Vinci wasn't a very good artist? Or that the materials he used make it difficult to compare? These would be irrelevant... no? The reference would be the painting and nothing else. The reference here is file 1.

But I do agree that the higher the 'qaulity' of file 1, the easier it should be to compare. In which case, I think ECM should be a good choice.

Mani.

[manisandher]

Hey Peter, just send me 02-Konbanwa from The End of a Summer and I'll repeat the 'test'...

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Mani, you did not get my message ...

You seem to be able to compare to anything, no matter how flawed that anything is. I can't even listen to it; I get too disturbed.

Now combine with my personal judgement that 3 sounds better than the original.
READ :
All what is not good to begin with can be improved by fairly random means. Example : Say that the original sounds way too bright. All it takes is a pile of noise (say ADC) to take out some of the brightness and it will "be" better.

What it comes down to (I'm afraid) is that you will sit down and listen to that Imprint album with a slight remark of the drums being a bit forward, while I will shut it down in 30 seconds because everything is wrong with it (note my all so often remarks "does not make sense"). Same counts for the bass. So yes, you too made a remark about that, but apparently you can listen to that because you (I'd say) are less interested in reality. I hear nothing but strange bass sounds and don't know where to go with it.

If you like I can upload a track of The end of a Summer (also ECM). I suppose you will be shocked.
Or not. I don't know ...

The comparison with the Mona Lisa goes different IMHO :
You hand me your iPhone and show me the Mona Lisa as well the Last Supper and ask me which is the better painting (without me knowing either original).
This does not make sense.

Peter

[PeterSt]

Hey Peter, just send me 02-Konbanwa from The End of a Summer and I'll repeat the 'test'...

Ah, OK. Haha.
Coming up ...

[PeterSt]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B82Qx9VwoovtUGExZWNrVEZfbDA

There it is.

Btw Mani, I was not really suggesting to repeat the test with a better example, but I sure will contribute again and if I again choose for #3 to be the better one, so be it !
But in my view strange things need to happen, because this one (The End of a Summer - Konbanwa) does not disturb me to begin with and although anything undoubtedly can be improved, it should not happen by means of an additional ADC process. I am confident we agree about that.
Obviously it bugs me that I chose #3 while it should have been #1 (which I even knew in advance, but that distance I can take (if that's English)).

Thanks,
Peter

[manisandher]

The comparison with the Mona Lisa goes different IMHO :
You hand me your iPhone and show me the Mona Lisa as well the Last Supper and ask me which is the better painting (without me knowing either original).
This does not make sense.

Nah, totally wrong. I take you to the Louvre and then put my iPhone photo next to the painting and ask you how closely it matches the painting. You say, "I can't do it. I don't like her smile... it disturbs me too much - it's too false. Ciska never smiles like that." I would then slap you across the face (nicely) and say, "Get a grip of yourself. Whether you like the smile or not is totally irrelevant to this exercise."

But if you really can't even listen to file 1, then I agree, it's not going work.

Mani.

[manisandher]

There it is.

Thanks. Will repeat test a little later on.

But in my view strange things need to happen, because this one (The End of a Summer - Konbanwa) does not disturb me to begin with and although anything undoubtedly can be improved, it should not happen by means of an additional ADC process.

[Italics mine.]

OK, this is the 2nd time you've mentioned an ADC in this thread. There is no ADC, because there is no 'A' to convert - it's 'D' all the way from the NAS drive to the SD card in the digital capturing device.

I hope this is absolutely clear.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

I would then slap you across the face (nicely) and say, "Get a grip of yourself. Whether you like the smile or not is totally irrelevant to this exercise."

I agree. But it is you who introduces the smile example to get your right.
What it is really about is that you NFC your iPhone next to a printer (OK, no NFC on iPhones ), print it, put it to the wall, and ask me what I think about the painting.
My answer : nothing, because this is not a painting.
You could also ask me abot the picture. Then I might say : this is not a picture because it is a painting.
Ok, you say, then what about the composition. My response could be : without the real lighting as applied in the Louvre - hard to tell.

Moral : we force ourselves into the subjective because it doesn't start out with reality.

So we're both in Paris now ...
we walk down those stairs and, go to the left (if my memory serves me well) and you ask me what I think of this painting. My response should be : superb in my view. No clue how such a thing is done, but then my skills are elsewhere. Btw, I don't like paintings. I don't have any in my home, except for one made by the grilfriend of a college when we were 20, which she made of the Notre Dame, and which painting I lent and never gave back. I love that painting just because it is a painting.
I have many photo's of the Notre Dame as well, but none of them ended up on the wall.

Did I make sense a bit ?

Let's put an end to this because we both made out points, I'd say. But it reminds me of this :
People in countries not accessible to audio auditions (like from amplifiers or speakers) seriously ask for YouTube recordings, judge by means of that and next buy (or not). They do it like this because it won't go otherwise.
I can not imagine this. You ?
Still it is reality and thus makes sense to them.
We are all different and reside in different contexts.

Peter

[manisandher]

Obviously it bugs me that I chose #3 while it should have been #1 (which I even knew in advance, but that distance I can take (if that's English)).

Hey Peter, I never asked anyone which of the 3 files they preferred. All I asked was which of files 2 or 3 sounds closest to file 1. Nothing more, nothing less. I really thought that that was the beauty of the test - much less subjective than the regular listening tests.

But what you hear in file 3, I do too. It is different from file 1. What is interesting for me is, why? So, here are areas that might be contributing to the differences between file 1 and file 3:

1. the hardware (right from NAS drive to Mach II USB output)
2. W10 14393
3. XX configuration
4. the USB-to-spdif converter
5. the BNC cable
6. Tascam spdif receiver
7. Tacam SD card hardware

4-7 would seem the obvious culprits (quite a lot to go wrong), BUT... they were identical setups for file 2 and file 3. So if there is a flavour being added by 4-7, that flavour should be present in both file 2 and file 3, but not in file 1. I can't hear any such thing. To my ears, file 2 and file 3 are as different from each other as they are from file 1.

I still suspect it's W10 14393 doing something [very pleasant] to the sound... Maybe we'll be able to figure something out as we go forward?

Mani.