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All equipment was positioned on granite shelves supported by sand-filled steel stands. The processor also fed a pair of Velodyne ULD15-II subwoofers in parallel with the main speakers. System 1 – The signal path was computer server to M2Tech USB-to-SPDIF converter to PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC Mark II (PWD) to BSG qølTM processor to monoblock NuForce Ref 9SE V3 amplifiers to B&W 802 Diamond speakers.

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In addition to these changes in industry practice, we have been told that our results have had a marked positive effect on at least three software companies, and we have received compliments from many manufacturers around the world for the beneficial influence our article has had within the audio industry.

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There is also an indication that some download sites may be reducing FLAC compression ratios for improved sound. We hope that other vendors will follow this practice. We are gratified to see HDtracks change its policies and offer WAV downloads in addition to the normal practice of supplying compressed file formats. Now, some two-and-a-half years later, explanations for our observations are beginning to emerge involving conventional and non-conventional sources of jitter and additional, complex computer operational influences. Some readers took issue with our methodology for quantifying the sonic differences and completely misunderstood the point of our measurement scale.ĭespite theoretical criticisms leveled at our work and despite those who were unable to replicate our findings, many people did successfully reproduce and confirm our results. Some have suggested that such results could be explained by so-called “expectation bias.” We feel this possibility was excluded by strict adherence to the controlled, single-blind testing procedures we used throughout our listening tests. In both cases, we found degradation of audio quality, despite the fact that all files we used were bit-identical. We also found that conversion of WAV to FLAC and back to WAV, particularly at CD-quality resolutions, also sounded different. In particular, we found that FLAC and WAV files did not sound the same. In our earlier articles on computer audio, we obtained some results which were a bit vexing and which we could not explain.

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In Part 3, we use these methods to tackle the question of which is the better music server system, Mac or PC. In Part 2 we provide three examples showing how these new methods can be used to determine the effect of three variables on system SQ: 1) effects of degree of FLAC compression on subsequent playback quality 2) a surprising and inexpensive tweak which improves the sound of any high-quality audio system and, 3) comparison of the effects of different equipment footers on the performance of a digital-to-analog converter. For the first time anywhere, we present data that support this discovery. Among the benefits of this new method are its time-independence from one listening session to the next and a way of independently verifying subjective evaluation. This new method can legitimately be considered objective, or at least quasi-objective, as compared to familiar subjective approaches. In the course of developing these improvements, we have identified what we believe to be an even better way to make sonic judgments.

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In Part 1 of this new three-part series of articles, we introduce further refinements to our method of sonic evaluation. They could then judge for themselves the quantitative significance of our results as modified by their own system quality and perceptual skills. In this way readers could replicate our experiments with their own equipment and subjectively hear what we heard.

This scale was defined as the difference in perceived sound between a CD and a high-resolution download or an SACD, both derived from a common master recording.

Although this method was subjective, it was based on a series of very specific performance criteria (defined in part 1, issue 218) which could be quantified by a sonic measurement scale. We introduced a method by which a reader could replicate a reviewer’s audio testing experiences on his own system.

In a previous four-part series of articles on computer audio we described a variety of factors that influence sound quality (abbreviated as SQ throughout this article) of digital music files (see TAS, December 2011 through March 2012 issues 218, 219, 220, and 221).