This assumption sounds reasonable but often doesn't hold.
Why assume that the subjective finding are purely the result of an input via the Vestibulocochlear nerve? If not then maybe you are looking at the wrong data.
I'm sorry you got the impression I was muddled. I'm not sure how a list of: 'audibility, sound quality and all the other things' suggested the first two were joined, but if you did, then perhaps I could have worded it more clearly. Open to suggestions; perhaps the use of an Oxford comma might have made it clearer that it was a list, but then again, the two items you conjoined were indeed separated by a comma so I'm out of ideas.
I see
It seemed as though you were saying that citing measurements in support of an assessment of audibility was a misuse ("subvert"), which (if done sensibly) it is not. This is quite different from the issues surrounding the use of measurements to say what something sounds like or "sounds like".
I think you are overlooking my phrase 'so many people...'
I am trying to remember who (a famous designer, I think?) said he can hear things buried in the noise. So the noise floor isn't a cut-off point. If I ever* remember I will come back to it.
ISTR Rob Watts saying something very much like that.
Westlake?
It's true up to a point. You can hear sounds with an amplitude lower than the total noise level across the audible range. But AIUI you can't hear sounds with a amplitude lower than the noise level in the particular frequency bin (out of the bins into which your ear divides sounds) into which that sound falls. So in the case of 16 bit audio you can resolve a tone down to about -115dB below signal, unlike a measurement device which can resolve it at a much lower level because it can in effect divide the noise floor into an unlimited number of bins .
Correct. He said that, as he was discussing the mathematical calculations that exist inside the FPGA, he could hear signal correlated noise artifacts even when those anomalies were at or near -300dB. He didn't claim he could hear those things, he claimed that that those things bore on the actual analog output at -120dB SNR, after that math was executed inside the FPGA down to a level of precision of -300dB. His next sentence, in one talk, was that obviously we cannot output beyond around 21-21.5 bits right now because the micro-voltages are so low that we physically cannot reproduce that with current manufacturing processes.
You can’t get better for any more money!
I assume you mean -130 dB FS
. But maybe an alternative to "is it audible?" is "does it matter?"
There is a difference between chasing such objectives for their own sake and using equipment, whose designers have pursued such objectives, because it sounds better at recreating music in our homes. Mind you, to come to any sort of conclusion for the latter takes time and, most importantly, listening.I assume you mean -130 dB FS
I don't see any problem with people chasing "the best" as part of their hobby. For me though, by the time a DAC has a noise floor there it's in excess of my definition of "good enough". So it becomes something I can ignore. Heavens, I enjoy listening to 1950s opera; and the noise floor of the tape machines of the time is way higher than that. Indeed the noise floor of pristine vinyl of the very best quality is higher than that. Even 1990s CDs often have obviously higher noise floors than ones produced this side of 2000. This is even obvious on my 2004 CD player as well as my 2018 one. This does not impact my appreciation of the music. Others may disagree of course - it's their hobby.
And to add to your last point above, I am less than impressed by people occasionally throwing rocks at other forums for what they think is their members' ways of pursuing "the best". Is pursuing the best SNR any different in principle from pursuing DACs with 1million+ tap filters? I think not. So if someone throws stones maybe they should be aware that they may also land somewhere closer to home.
