Integer is King? - the challenge

[nuffink]

X, Y, Z don't make any (relevant) difference.

BUT: I think I said this in the other thread, for EQ float is working fine. Even the Sawstudio EQs use float (whereas the rest is integer).

So what I'd like to hear is a compressor and/or modulation plugin comparison. Still, thanks alot for your efforts, we can be sure now that float is fine for EQs!

Sorry Christian, you're on a hiding to nothing. As I've said before the only rational response is to pander to their ignorance and take them for the suckers they are.

ChordSpace. Now with integer MIDI.

[JonHodgson]

ChordSpace. Now with integer MIDI.

Oh great, now we'll have threads with people going on about how Chordspace sounded so much better with the original floating point MIDI.

[living sounds]

language, nuffink.

[Kingston]

language, nuffink.

but he's just too damn right, unfortunately for you.

I have a fully integer version of RetroBand coming up to cater for the niche market of your types of people.

rational reasoning, scientific data, objective analysis, double blind shootouts. nothing helps. might as well take the advantage.

[living sounds]

My type of people? I'm the one asking for a blind shootout. Read through the forum if you like, I haven't stated anything definitive about integer vs. float anywhere. Still, I'd very much like to know why my hardware digital stuff sounds better than plugins. And not only to me. I've done blind tests clearly showing the superiority of the gear. Why does ancient 20 (or less) bit stuff still sound a lot better in many cases? Algorithms? Why hasn't anyone come up with a plugin then?

There is bound to be a clear, scientific, objektive reason for it, and I'd like the developers to take care of it. It would be so much easier to use plugins instead of hardware.

[nuffink]

I've done blind tests clearly showing the superiority of the gear.

No you haven't. Why lie?

[living sounds]

Try provoking someone else.

[nuffink]

Try provoking someone else.

Try not bullshitting people who know what they're on about.

[Kingston]

I've done blind tests clearly showing the superiority of the gear.

No you haven't. Why lie?

clinging to the last remaining bits of self deception. he obviously doesn't want to hit the hard floor of reality looming right below.

blankie feels much safer.

[JCJR]

I apologize for persisting on Christian's thread, it is just a small information, not trying to prove points about theoretical A/D/A limitations...

In the old studio days, a lot of the better solid-state line-level gear would run off +/- 18 volt powersupply rails. Some devices would use +/- 24 volts or higher. However, you have to shop carefully to find audio-quality opamps that are happy with much higher than +/- 15 volts, so a lot of the gear that used higher voltages used discrete components.

Gadgets can usually deliver peak-to-peak clean signals within a few volts of the power supply rails, so you could get more headroom out of the gadgets with higher supply voltages.

On the other hand, the components commonly used back then, could in some cases be noisier than the better modern components. So there was bigger motivation to keep the signals as big as practical in pro line-level gear.

All I'm sayin, is even 5 volts peak-to-peak ain't nothin compared to what some of the vintage stuff was happy to kick out.

[Meffy]

Regarding blind testing, it might be good to review the essential differences between single-blind and double-blind testing. I'm not sure everyone involved in the discussion understands how the test protocols ought to work in order to produce reliably valid results.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-blind

Single-blind trials are especially risky in psychology and social science research, where the experimenter has an expectation of what the outcome should be, and may consciously or subconsciously influence the behavior of the subject.

Read the entire article to see (or review) why it is essential to perform double-blind tests if they're intended to convince anyone but yourself. (Not that doing a test with the aim of convincing yourself is entirely unworthy, if done honestly -- might change your mind, who knows? It's happened to me before.)

Has any actual double-blind testing been done yet?

[Christian Budde]

But you can't just swap doubles for ints in a filter and expect it to sound the same.

Please educate me. Why can't I do that? I didn't expect that they sound the same though. I know that there are differences and that more care is necessary (at least a dither/noiseshaper). However they do sound very close although difference can be measured.
Furthermore at least 2 people seemed to hear a difference. This is far from being significant yet.
While educating me, please don't forget to suggest modifications.

Thanks,

Christian

PS: I know that I can't use the harmonic distortion for that type, but it's the only method which came into my mind and I could clearly see differences here.

[Kingston]

Has any actual double-blind testing been done yet?

no but it shouldn't be too hard even with this plugin. the XYZ tab would be always random and only after an ABX session you would get a printout of your actual preferences (the CPU usage would need to be equalised somehow to avoid cheating).

seems rather useless in this case, especially since the changes have been already measured to exist well below 130dB..

[Christian Budde]

Has any actual double-blind testing been done yet?

I used my ABX tool (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test) where only the computer knows exactly what 'X' is. So it's more or less double-blind. I only did it one time with 15 trials (since I'm notorious out of time). 11 times out of 15 times I heard a difference. That may still be coincidence. Plus I couldn't really say what it was that I've heard here...

The best would be if thorkz came around presenting some real double blind results...

[nuffink]

However they do sound very close although difference can be measured.
Furthermore at least 2 people seemed to hear a difference. This is far from being significant yet.

This is completely significant but, I suspect, not in the way you think. Do yourself a favour and read that link that Meffy posted and you'll realise that in pre-empting the outcome you've already invalidated this as a scientific test. You are already showing the experimenter effect.

Not that this is or could be considered in any way scientific.