GSIC AUDIO

[Moose]

Re: For LostAngeles: first impression of Moose protocol

Some quick observations based on about 2 reads:

>You need eleven bit-by-bit identical disks.

We need to have everybody stipulate that there is no such thing as "bit-by-bit identical disks" since there are actually huge error fluctuations (I can't begin to recount how many CDs I have with occasional ticks). Obviously we have to use a little scrutiny here.

Actually, it isn't hard to get bit-by-bit identical disks, even if mass production actually did produce variances as you claim. (My professional experience strongly suggests you're mistaken.)

It's the digital to analog conversion (speakers) that generates the errors you're thinking of. Not the digital read.

I didn't read the rest of your novel. Life's too short.

[Edit: I did, however read -42-'s summary. (Thanks for taking one for the team, btw.) Yes, you definitely have to use disks from the same batch. Easiest way to ensure this is to burn copies of the designated master, then compare them.]

 

[nathan]

But the moment a test disk has been treated with the GSIC, the entire result of the cointoss must stand as it is, or you have to dump all the disks and start over from scratch.

Well, gee, why not write the coin tosses down BEFORE TREATING ANY DISKS?
[long PT-mode diatribe about the pros and cons of doing that to determine if we have an all-heads or all-tails sequence elided]

 

[BPSCG]

Re: pizza and the dummy chip

Now, how about that car-stereo idea?

Two video display monitors, presumably linked to the laptop so both passenger and driver can watch their favorite movies while cruising down the road at 85 mph. Speakers running from door to door. This is why I assume everyone else on the road with me is a homicidal maniac. If a simple cell phone can be distracting...

I missed the headphones; how are you supposed to watch The Return of the King in peace with without sealing out all that traffic noise?

I also don't see any speedometer, pressure gauges, temperature gauges...

COP: "Do you know how fast you were going, sir?"
DRIVER: "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
COP: "I said, do you know how fast you were going, sir?"
DRIVER: "WHAT?"
COP: "I said, DO YOU KNOW HOW FAST YOU WERE GOING, SIR?"
DRIVER: "WHAT KIND OF STUPID QUESTION IS THAT? CAN'T YOU SEE I DON'T HAVE A SPEEDOMETER?"
COP: "Please step out of the car, sir."
DRIVER: "WHAT?"

Saving grace: It's a British car, so the owner will be unlikely to squash any pedestrians on this side of the ocean. Fortunately, nobody in the U.S. would dream of rigging his car out like that...

 

[BPSCG]

And -42-, I like your post about brevity, but shouldn't a post about brevity be, in itself, brief?

I couldn`t make it all out -- that is, the details -- but I got the general idea; and enough of it, too, to be ashamed...

...I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and shuddery reverence for this girl; nowadays whenever she pulled out from the station and got her train fairly started on one of those horizonless transcontinental sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that I was standing in the awful presence of the Mother of the German Language. I was so impressed with this, that sometimes when she began to empty one of these sentences on me I unconsciously took the very attitude of reverence, and stood uncovered; and if words had been water, I had been drowned, sure. She had exactly the German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered, whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain

 

[Moose]

Well, gee, why not write the coin tosses down BEFORE TREATING ANY DISKS?
[long PT-mode diatribe about the pros and cons of doing that to determine if we have an all-heads or all-tails sequence elided]

That's one possibility, but this introduces an additional point of technical failure, an additional accounting step, and another document to secure, all to cover an occurrance that only has 1 in 1024 odds of occurring.

Better, I think, to assume the much more likely scenario that no reflips are needed.

The reflip procedure is really just a contingency case that needs to be addressed for the sake of completeness. Ironically, though, it's nearly always that last 1% that takes 25% of the time to plan out.

 

[Aerich]

The GSIC doesn't actually change the bit sequence of the treated CD. Rather, it aligns the polarity of the microscopic pits in the CD so that they are in uniform alignment with the laser that reads them. The CD player's onboard CPU therefore expends fewer cycles in data validation and error correction, resulting in a cleaner sound, increased S/N ratio, and a wider, fuller, enhanced soundstage.

That's not what the manufacturer claims. They say:

The Intelligent Chip is a "new generation," high-tech device that corrects a particular problem inherent in all commercial CD/DVD/SACD discs, including movies and video games. This problem is produced by slight fluctuations in the master clock(s) when pressing the disc. This "clock fluctuation" problem (jitter) is one reason why consumer digital discs frequently "don't sound quite right," or have a "high-frequency edge."

Now, you could extrapolate from that description to the 'less error correction leads to better sound' thing, but you'd be going way beyond their claim. They don't even mention pits and lands. Frankly, they're being deliberately vague since the best way to market junk like this is to let the customer's imagination do most of the work.

BTW, counter to intuition, the error correction algorithms do the same amount of processing work no matter how many errors are in the raw bitstream read off the disc. But even if one accepts for the sake of argument that CPU or circuit activity could be reduced in this fashion, there's still the problem that so long as the digital output of the error correction stage is the true data (i.e. the error correction worked), you won't have any sonic difference, assuming a competently designed analog section in the CD player which isolates the DAC and its output filters from digital noise.

 

[Aerich]

And rightly so--as a thumbprint, even, can make a difference in the capability of the reader to properly read the 1's and 0's, making an audible difference in at least 1 disk...

It's not very likely for a thumbprint to cause uncorrectable errors, unless there are other problems with the disc.

 

[BPSCG]

Welcome to the forum, aerich!

Now, you could extrapolate from that description to the 'less error correction leads to better sound' thing, but you'd be going way beyond their claim.

I wasn't being serious. I was responding to someone's (Rolfe?) request for a hypothetical woo explanation of how the thing works.

So I made it up - about as fast as I could type it.

For my money, I think it sounds just as plausible as the "clock fluctuation" thingie. Maybe I should freelance as a marketing writer for woo products - might be some big money in it...

Frankly, they're being deliberately vague since the best way to market junk like this is to let the customer's imagination do most of the work.

Gee, ya think?

BTW, counter to intuition, the error correction algorithms do the same amount of processing work no matter how many errors are in the raw bitstream read off the disc. But even if one accepts for the sake of argument that CPU or circuit activity could be reduced in this fashion, there's still the problem that so long as the digital output of the error correction stage is the true data (i.e. the error correction worked), you won't have any sonic difference, assuming a competently designed analog section in the CD player which isolates the DAC and its output filters from digital noise.

Hah! You didn't consider the polarity alignment factor! Donc, Dieu existe!

 

[Gr8wight]

Re: I Get the message

OK. The point is clear.

I shall now cease posting to this forum.

Incidentally, I explained in my essay, posted earlier today, that the article was written for claimants, not the "Rational Logicians" who are on the forum.

PianoTeacher

Even this post is incredibly long. If your plan is to go away, you need say nothing. Just go away.

Not that I think you should go away. Your presence here can be very helpful. Just say what you mean without padding your words with paragraph after paragraph of vanity.

 

[Beer Monkey]

We need to have everybody stipulate that there is no such thing as "bit-by-bit identical disks" since there are actually huge error fluctuations (I can't begin to recount how many CDs I have with occasional ticks). Obviously we have to use a little scrutiny here. Some disks have been re-pressed and actually re-digitized from analogue masters, without your having been aware of it. I cited an example of at least one famous recording earlier; I know of others. I think it might be best to set cutoffs:

I have scanned multiple copies of the same disc with EAC and gotten identical track checksums, even on different PC drives (as long as read offset has been corrected). Plextools scans show no uncorrectible CU errors, and standard, small amounts of correctible C1/C2 errors, on most discs out there.

Null testing also allows comparison of two supposedly identical discs.

'Bit-by-bit' identical is not hard to obtain, and is not hard to verify. Most discs of the same UPC do not exist in multiple versions of different masters (yes, some do), and it is easy to validate that they are truly identical.

 

[alfaniner]

Re: Re: I Get the message

(REianoTeacher)
...Not that I think you should go away. Your presence here can be very helpful. Just say what you mean without padding your words with paragraph after paragraph of vanity.

Agreed. No one's trying to get you (PT) to leave. Just please remember that it is a discussion group and not a lecture hall.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

>You need eleven bit-by-bit identical disks.


We need to have everybody stipulate that there is no such thing as "bit-by-bit identical disks" since there are actually huge error fluctuations (I can't begin to recount how many CDs I have with occasional ticks).

No. What we need, is to have everybody stipulate, that one can be very learned in some area's while remaining quite ignorant in others.

 

[jmercer]

No. What we need, is to have everybody stipulate, that one can be very learned in some area's while remaining quite ignorant in others.

Agreed. Expertise in "A" does NOT necessarily translate to expertise in "B", regardless of what Madison Avenue advertising firms would like us to think.

 

[Sherman Bay]

Ahem, gentlemen.

All this talk about making sure the identical disks are truly, really, no-kidding, bit-by-bit identical is useless. It doesn't matter.

Go to the cutout bins, grab the first 5 copies of Pink Floyd's The Wall and 5 copies of a Lawrence Welk Greatest Hits CDs you find.

It doesn't matter if it is AAD, ADD, DDD, DOT or PDQ.

It is not too likely that each CD in a group is from a different pressing, mother, master, stamping house, or vat of polyvinyl soup, but even if they all are different, it doesn't matter.

There could theoretically be a bit or two or a thousand difference between seemingly identical disks, although not likely, but it doesn't matter.

Why not? Because

1. The exremely strong error correction inherent in CD digital data processing corrects 100% most errors that result from pressing flaws, and
2. the disks to treat are chosen randomly.

Any data differences prior to treating will be randomly spread across the treated and untreated spectrum. It is a googol-zillion-to-one chance that all the treated discs are also the ones that detectably "sound better" due to a technical difference. And I suspect Mr. Randi is willing to take that chance.

 

[LostAngeles]

Well, all I have to say is we need to get this protocol hammered out. The sooner we do, the sooner I get that hand-oiled Nubian prince.

 

[Beer Monkey]

All this talk about making sure the identical disks are truly, really, no-kidding, bit-by-bit identical is useless. It doesn't matter.

Go to the cutout bins, grab the first 5 copies of Pink Floyd's The Wall and 5 copies of a Lawrence Welk Greatest Hits CDs you find.

It doesn't matter if it is AAD, ADD, DDD, DOT or PDQ.

It is not too likely that each CD in a group is from a different pressing, mother, master, stamping house, or vat of polyvinyl soup, but even if they all are different, it doesn't matter.

There could theoretically be a bit or two or a thousand difference between seemingly identical disks, although not likely, but it doesn't matter.

Why not? Because

The exremely strong error correction inherent in CD digital data processing corrects 100% most errors that result from pressing flaws, and
the disks to treat are chosen randomly.
Any data differences prior to treating will be randomly spread across the treated and untreated spectrum. It is a googol-zillion-to-one chance that all the treated discs are also the ones that detectably "sound better" due to a technical difference. And I suspect Mr. Randi is willing to take that chance.

I wouldn't go that route, I'd prefer the discs are identical But that's just me.

In 1998, Spence Chrislu secretly remastered Zappa's "You Are What You Is". The UPC, packing, and disc markers do not conclusively indicate this. I've heard the difference, and it is not subtle (thank you, Spence).

I am somewhat of an audiophile (without the hocus pocus bullcrap), and if I were trying to detect something that subtly alters the sound of music, I'd definitely want to be comparing the same source mastering. The jarring difference of two completely different versions could make it difficult to compare.

Lets say you are testing the sensitivity of the human tongue of one drop of tobasco added to 10 lb of food. You don't want to compare 10 lb of turkey gravy to 10 lb of raspberry chocolate cake, and decide which one has the tobasco. You'd want two identical servings of the same food preparation, one with the tobasco.

Spence Chrislu's mastering of YAWYI is raspberry chocolate cake; the old CD is turkey gravy. Really bad turkey gravy.

Frankly, if I were testing the geesick, I'd just want two discs, verified bit-for-bit identical, one treated. Play them for me in random order (ABBABABBABABBABAB, etc). I should be able to pick out the treated disc every time it plays.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Frankly, if I were testing the geesick, I'd just want two discs, verified bit-for-bit identical, one treated. Play them for me in random order (ABBABABBABABBABAB, etc). I should be able to pick out the treated disc every time it plays.

It don't get no simpler than this...

Excellent idea..

It would be as easy as having the testee provide their favorite disk and then Nero'ing two copies for the test..

 

[Blackwell]

Frankly, if I were testing the geesick, I'd just want two discs, verified bit-for-bit identical, one treated. Play them for me in random order (ABBABABBABABBABAB, etc). I should be able to pick out the treated disc every time it plays. [/B]

Sorry, but ABBA discs should be disallowed for this test; NOBODY should have to be subjected to "Dancing Queen."

 

[Aerich]

I wasn't being serious. I was responding to someone's (Rolfe?) request for a hypothetical woo explanation of how the thing works.

Ah, didn't catch that context. I must've been skimming a bit too much when reading through the thread...

 

[Beer Monkey]

It would be as easy as having the testee provide their favorite disk and then Nero'ing two copies for the test..

If the Gee Sickos really claim that their product works on CD-R as well, that makes it even more supernatural. The 'pits' on a store-bought CD are actual physical pits. The 'pits' on a burned CD-R are simply patches of dye that have been turned a darker color. Amazing that this technology can move both kinds of 'pits' around in a pleasing way, even though they are completely different physical constructs. Surely this thing can sharpen razor blades, and cure your asthma too.