Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Harmonics above 20khz

When I read this I couldn't help but think of wine testing, where the testers use some type of food to clear their pallet before testing another wine or where in a fragrance shop, they use a cup of coffee beans to help clear your 'bias' of the first scent. It makes sense in some ways to pause in an A/B test but it also makes sense to switchover quickly as I found, at least, I could hear huge differences between some speakers. Maybe the key is too A/B switch quickly, like most do, to narrow down your choices, then to listen more leisurely/critically on your final selections (I guess that's what most of us did).

Very interesting.

My first reaction was like Peter's - you can't HEAR that stuff, so it doesn't matter if it exists or not. If a note is played in the forest but it's inaudible, it doesn't matter if there is anybody there to hear it.

The brain wave thing is interesting, but I'm not sure it's compelling. Even if your ears are transmitting a signal to your brain at those frequencies (a claim of which I remain dubious), that doesn't necessarily mean that you are PERCEIVING those signals.

Note the bold. No matter if it's theoretically a perfect representation, it's not a CD, and there can always be arguments made (admittedly weak) that it's not showing the sum of differences between formats. To eliminate all doubts is to have actual SACDs and DVD-As versus actual CDs. Otherwise, it's cutting corners, or are we just not as anal about such details as the tweak faithful?

I'm of the opinion that a D/A converter doesn't care where the digital stream is coming from before it sends the analog info along to the amp.

It's a fair opinion, and it's one I share. It simply seems like an unnecessary difference to leave in. I suppose the real point is that it's not SACD/DVD-A versus CD, but higher resolution audio versus lower resolution, and in that case, there's no need to bring those formats into it at all.