{"id":3499,"date":"2014-09-11T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T19:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/?p=3499"},"modified":"2014-09-11T12:41:48","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T19:41:48","slug":"the-results-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/?p=3499","title":{"rendered":"The Results Are In"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many of you are aware, my friend Scott Wilkinson (the Home Theater Geek and editor in charge of AVS Forum) and I concocted a casual test to see if users equipped with high-resolution audio capable playback systems could perceive a difference between a standard resolution, CD spec audio selection and the exact same track in real high-resolution (96 kHz\/24-bits). It was never intended to be a definitive or scientifically rigorous comparison but we felt it was worth doing. One of the reasons is because many HRA doubters point to the Meyer and Moran study that was written up in the AES Journal as proof that human listeners can’t distinguish between a 44.1 kHz\/16-bit down conversion of a “high-resolution source” (they are not alone in reaching this conclusion).<\/p>\n

It surprises me that all of the studies that have done these comparisons start with source recordings that don’t contain any fidelity above that of a compact disc. I’ve written about this previously in a post of two. So Scott asked whether I would be interested in using a few of my tracks (which actually do contain better than CD fidelity) in a non-rigorous test on the AVS Forum. It took a little work to figure how we would prepare the files and present them to the AVS readers, but we figured out a scheme and posted the files. Some of you may have gotten involved and submitted your results.<\/p>\n

Scott collected all of the submissions, did some statistical analysis, prepared some graphs, and came to some preliminary conclusions. And things seem to confirm that when listeners with high-quality playback systems listened to real HD-Audio tracks, they were able to identify them 85% of the time. Here’s a quick summary of the results. You can tune into the Home Theater Geek show later today (9\/11\/2014) and hear an hour-long discussion about our little study.<\/p>\n

The first thing that Scott did was divide listener’s system into two groups. There were those that were considered HRA capable and those that weren’t. People were asked to describe their equipment and provide specs if possible. <\/p>\n

Here’s a graph showing the success rate for HRA and Non-HRA capable systems.<\/p>\n

\"140911_AVS_Respondent_Accuracy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 1 – This is a graph showing the number of correct responses for HRA systems and non-HRA systems. [Click to enlarge]<\/p>\n

The red bars are the non-HRA responses. Notice that the x-axis ranges from “No determination”, meaning the listeners couldn’t tell any difference, to three, which was the number of tracks in the test. The blue bars are those with HRA capable systems. These folks did much better. The non-HRA systems results were around 50%, indicating no ability to tell the difference.<\/p>\n

However, those with good systems (and seemingly good ears) faired much better. They average about 85% correct in the test…statistically significant.<\/p>\n

Here’s another chart showing the success rates for each of the individual tracks.<\/p>\n

\"140911_AVS_Accuracy_Track\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 2 – Accuracy by track. [Click to enlarge]<\/p>\n

This test involved a very limited number of participants and was done by individuals in their own homes. We make no claim that the results are meaningful or answer the question. But it is encouraging that with REAL HD-Audio content, we got results that agreed with the fidelity of the source files.<\/p>\n

I’m seriously looking to do a rigorous test using JBL M2 Studio Reference Model speakers in my studio with my state-of-the-art equipment. I want 500 participants from all sorts of backgrounds. We’ll see what happens then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As many of you are aware, my friend Scott Wilkinson (the Home Theater Geek and editor in charge of AVS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[657,50,40,155,757,172,57,242,168,725,1032,70,640,26,639,651,42,298,251,645,1035,638,637,227,643,733,760,169,276,549,347,659,673,658,660],"class_list":["post-3499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dr_aixs_posts","tag-advanced-resolution","tag-aix-records","tag-analog-vs-digital","tag-apple","tag-audio-quality-guarantee","tag-audio-resolution","tag-audio-specifications","tag-audiophile-mastering","tag-avs-forum","tag-blu-ray-discs","tag-dvd_audio","tag-hd-downloads","tag-hd-music","tag-hd-audio","tag-hi-res-audio","tag-hi-res-audio-logo","tag-high-resolution-audio","tag-high-res-music","tag-high-resolution","tag-high-resolution-audio-experience","tag-highresaudio","tag-hires-audio","tag-hires-music","tag-hra","tag-hra-listening-experience","tag-iphone-6","tag-iphone-6-plus","tag-mark-waldrep","tag-mastering","tag-scott-wilkinson","tag-spectragram","tag-uhd-audio","tag-ultra-hd","tag-ultra-hd-audio","tag-ultra-high-definition-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3504,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions\/3504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}