blueintheface wrote on Mon, 26 June 2006 08:01 |
kraster wrote on Mon, 26 June 2006 12:24 |
Well Pingu did say that his ultimate destination is Cd so SRC is pretty relevant.
Personally I think that recording at the Sample rate of the ultimate destination is the best way. I try to avoid SRC when at all possible. And, in my experience, the benefits of recording at high sample rates are lost/altered when downsampling from a higher rate.
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I guess the irony didn't translate - I agree with you that good SRC is vital, and generally best avoided altogether.
I'm also a fan of blind listening tests.
Been there too many times twiddling a knob that wasn't connected to anything - until it was in the position that just 'felt right'.
People in general seem to have a hard time accepting that psychology plays a huge part in aural perception - and it's so easy to prove.
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You won't find me in that camp, 90% of the misinformation that you hear on the internet is because people trust their ears too much and don't take into consideration sensory inhibition. Basically they don't confirm with the science, what they think their ears are telling them. Our perception can change from day to day and even hour to hour and our senses cross reference each other. For example the olfactory gland (nose) plays a huge part in how good or bad different types of foods taste, take that away with a cold for example and all food tastes bland. The taste buds haven't changed but the nose is clogged so it doesn't do it's normal cross sensory job. ITR, the eyes affect the way the auditory cortex receives audio information. Human elements such as mood, how fresh the ears are or how fatiqued they are, how much coffee you drank that day, how loud or low the music was that you were listening to previous to the test, how much cerumen is present in the ear canal, are you presently happy or pissed off at the boss, fought with the wife that morning, IOW emotion and a host of other physical factors that sway validity and have people coming up with all kinds of stuff that can be easily proven in the blind tests.
I guarantee you that if you don't confirm what your ears hear with blind tests and start performing them, you'll realize in a short time that the ear may be a great device, but the auditory cortex fails at being consistent and to top it all off, on the long term tests, the effectiveness of human memory and recall has a whole lot to be desired. Most blind tests bring up more questions than they answer, but it's the best that we have when you are audibly comparing sample rates, gear etc. and trying to eliminate psychoacoustic and psychosematic factors. The sighted tests always have some amount of expectations, these expectations can lead to imagination. Our brains are not perfect at consistent audio evaluation and when differences are very minute, the mind has a way of having some people hear things that aren't there. It's no surprise to me because I've been there done that and learned that my ears aren't perfect. I'm not afraid to admit it. There is really no such thing as a golden ear, all day, every day, all of the time. The science doesn't change from day to day, the human mind does, it's really that simple, confirm what your ears are telling you with blind, double blind when possible and null testing. You have nothing to lose and only more insight to gain, as to what is "really" happening.