[ARSCLIST] The value of the noise (was Re: [ARSCLIST] A/B testing: another approach)

[Jon Noring <jon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew wrote:

> Here's a link to an article from the October issue of Stereophile, in
> which an interesting approach to blindfold testing is described:
>
> http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1007awsi/index.html

This article is utterly fascinating. For those here specifically
interested in 78 transfer and restoration, the following two
paragraphs of the article jumped out at me:

"In his keynote address, for example, Peter Craven demonstrated the
improvement in sound quality of a digital transfer a 78rpm disc of a
live electrical recording of an aria from Puccini's La Bohème when
the sample rate was increased from 44.1 to 192kHz. Even 16-bit PCM is
overkill for the 1926 recording's limited dynamic range, and though
the original's bandwidth was surprisingly wide, given its vintage,
44.1kHz sampling would be more than enough to capture everything in
the music, according to conventional information theory. Those same
skeptical pundits would therefore claim that any perceived
improvements must be delusional.

"But of course, as Peter pointed out, with such a recording there is
more to the sound than only the music. Specifically, there is the
surface noise of the original shellac disc. The improvement in sound
quality resulting from the use of a high-sampling-rate transfer
involved this noise appearing to float more free of the music; with
lower sample rates, it sounded more integrated into the music, and
thus degraded it more."

This supports my prior contention that it is important to more
accurately reproduce the noise, especially impulse noise, from 78
transfers, and that high sample rate and bit resolution is necessary
to achieve this, well beyond 44.1k/16bit.

This article also suggests how we may resolve whether 96k/24bit
is sufficient for this purpose, or if we need to consider 192k
sampling.

Jon Noring