[BC] Audio Performance

[Peter Smerdon]

Good point Richard.

Unfortunately today the worst audio quality "restrictors" are hidden 
inside perceptual codecs - and fall apart under dynamic program 
conditions - rather than steady-state tone.
 From that reality grew the now-too-common practice of ignoring 
objective measurement practices, and relying on subjective evaluation.

ISTR that Audio Precision did some work on quantifying codec 
performance, but I didn't see any products or procedures that may 
have come from that.

Anyone have any references on this subject?

... quick straw poll for the radio engineers ....
When was the last time you used your AA51 (or equiv) to measure audio 
device performance - even analog ones?

Cheers,

Peter Smerdon.
0437-422-458.

RichardBJohnson at comcast.net wrote:

>The thing that bothers me is that they don't publish audio 
>specifications for an audio device!
>
>There is some sort of encoding being used on WCRB in my own 
>backyard. It is (was in the past) a concert music station. If 
>Richard L. Kaye (one of the founders) can hear it in heaven, he will 
>vomit. Piano music sounds like an xylophone, voice sounds like it 
>comes from a rubbing voice-coil or a ribbon microphone with a 
>stretched ribbon laying on the pole-pieces. I have heard music from 
>CDs and DVDs I even recorded one myself. They don't sound that bad. 
>What I hear on stations using TCP/IP is absolutely awful across the 
>board, not just on one station that is supposed to have some fidelity.
>
>Now I hear from one of our most respected radio engineers that you 
>can't measure them with tones. If you can't measure them with tones, 
>they are broken --period. All audio signals are made up of tones, 
>low ones, high ones, little ones, big ones, and all kinds of 
>combinations. The idea of measurement with the most basic 
>constituent of an audio signal is to identify and quantify the 
>elements of fidelity. If you can't do that, there is no fidelity.