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inverted phases on iaudio x5
Chronon:
???
Llorean:
Signal inversion is most likely simply an effect of the amp they chose to use.
Because different hardware has different sound quality, my best guess is the audible difference he's hearing are just aspects of the X5, and if he put an inverted file on it, so that it was not inverted when played back, and performed the same tests he would get identical results to his initial tests.
The only really useful test would be an ABX or other similar blind test.
Correlation doesn't imply causation: "It sounds different" and "The signal is inverted" are two separate things, and a link to them needs to be established first.
Chronon:
I also suspect that they simply used a different kind of amplifier (inverting vs. non-inverting).
I'm pretty sure that no such link can be established between polarity inversion and sound quality. The human ear is not a phase sensitive detector. It detects amplitude at certain frequencies. As such, you can only hear how the phase changes (frequency) not what the value of it is.
I tend to agree with Llorean that z-man has other issues with sound quality on the X5 and that polarity inversion is a red herring. I strongly doubt that inverting the polarity will resolve the sound quality issues that z-man is experiencing.
pabouk:
--- Quote from: z-man on July 18, 2008, 06:31:31 PM ---...this way switching to [MSB first, _right_ aligned] seems to compensate the inversion and gives me the feeling of being much closer to the original.
--- End quote ---
z-man, I think that you probably experienced the placebo effect. Using either one or the other polarity when playing audio should have no impact on the perceived sound unless there is something (strongly asymmetrically in the polarity view) wrong with the analogue signal path which would affect the both polarities anyway. The best way how to more or less reliably tell the difference in perceiving the sound with one or the other polarity is to use the blind ABX test.
petur:
I consulted a friend who is a true audiophile and freak (very expensive and special gear and cables, selected after lots of testing, and a special designed room in his house (even has a tilted ceiling) for listening. He uses special CD players with controlled phase jitter, has special audio-cd copy equipment,... A true freak. He's also a scientist, so not some idiot paying loads of money because somebody says B is better than A.
His reaction was: yes, there is discussion on whether you can hear this inversion or not. Personally, he doesn't hear any difference, so he doesn't care. He did tell me that some expensive equipment has switches for inversion because you never know if the signal didn't get inverted somewhere between the mic and the CD.
And here comes my point: if it is possible that a CD may already contain an inverted signal, you can't really tell if what you hear is the real stuff or is inverted.
I listened to both and didn't hear a difference. I used a bit of a 16bit/44KHz WAV file of a recording I did, just to make sure I got the inversions right ;)
I haven't done a blind test yet
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