Digital audio myths give me jitters

Now, i'm going to say right out - the subject i'm about to rant on is highly controversial. The field of digital audio is much too polluted with ghost stories, common misconceptions and outright bullshit. I am also going to say right out that by no means i am an expert in that field, and by no means i assume that i can't be wrong. However, i am in such a position of having knowledge and view of things from a number of perspectives.

The following article is a collection of musings based on this article by Roger Nichols and this piece by John Vestman.

With all due respect guys, for the most part this is complete bullshit.

First, let's take a look at Vestman's piece. Leaving jitter issues aside for a moment, this guy seems to genuinely believe that 1-to-1 perfect copy of the file is somehow not identical to the source? Moreover, i would say that in the digital domain there is no such thing as "original file" and "a copy" - they are identical! They are both original! They can't be different because it is the same file, they are effectively the same data, down to the last fucking bit!

I can understand why this shit even comes to their heads. These guys are audio engineers. They are used to analog, they are used to physical, they are used to how things work in real world. They are used to the fact that two pieces of the same hardware can be different, they are used to the fact that two copies of vinyl are not necessarily identical, hell, they are even used to the fact that digital copy from a digital tape might not be the same as the source.

However, guess what, these things, while they might be operating in the digital domain, in fact are analog. The digital tape is analog media, modified to hold digital data. CD's are not analog media. Hard drives are not analog media. They are digital media. And while it is possible for digital copy of analog tape to be different from the original, it is not possible for digital copy of digital media being different from the original. The copy is either identical, or it is not a copy. This is what audio engineers usually don't know, and this is exactly what we, programmers, do know. We programmed the thing, goddammit, we know it is perfect, because in binary world it is either perfect or it does not work.

I might agree that playing the same data from different source (IDE harddrive, FW harddrive, CD) could sound different, but this has nothing to do with the media. It might have something to do with the noise of CD player, or different head position during listening (comb filtering effect), or maybe speakers picking up different noises from wires, but it is certainly not the media itself. No CDR's can have "solid and balanced high-to-mid-to-bottom and wide sparkle", no hard drives are better than the other. I'm sorry, Mr. Vestman, i respect your work and your experience, but this is complete bullshit.


Now, moving to the jitter, error correction et al. Again, audio engineers tend to think analog. They tend to think that these microscopic bumps on the CD are actually representing sound. They don't. They are just numbers. It is true that the recorder jitter might put these bumps in not-so-perfect distance from one another - that's where the pure digital world meets analog reality.


However, that does not mean that once these bumps get read back into the memory, they retain these imperfect distances. There is no such thing as "jitter" inside a computer memory, and this is exactly what happens when the CD gets read. Unlike vinyl, these bumps don't make up the sound themselves, they merely represent 1 or 0. Hence, when the data is read, it is read not giving a flying fuck about jitter, because it is not fed directly to the sound device, it is read into a buffer! And when the data reaches the DAC, it has already been aligned properly - there is no jitter at that point! Same goes for the part II of that article, where Mr. Vestman goes on about moving parts of HDD introducing jitter and sound data being lost due to calculations on the digital data... The jitter part is obvious bullshit, and the part about calculations is... erm... was true, back in the day of 16-bit DAWs, but now that DAWs are 32-48-64 bit resolution, these errors are still there, but they are undetectable even by measuring, let alone by ear. It's hilarious to read a highly technical article from a guy who has no clue about how things work.


There is another thing that gets mentioned - imperfect media and imperfect playback devices. Imperfect media does not introduce jitter, that is complete bullshit and i have already showed that. What it can introduce, however, are errors. Now, read errors are not as common as John Vestman tends to think - quite on the contrary, they only start happening after your CD (DVD, HDD, thumb drive) have been to hell and back. So obviously, these errors happen rarely (with good media of course, if you're a cheapskate - you get what you pay for) and are not that much of a big deal.


There is an interesting phrase by Mr. Vestman - "Error correction helps, but when it comes to your master, you want the ultimate... not second-best". Obviously, Mr. Vestman again thinks analog. In the analog world, when you restore a signal that has been damaged, you can never get the original signal back - that's just how it is.


However, in the perfect digital world, it is fucking possible. It is possible to damage your data, then use error correction and get your data back in perfect condition. Obviously, Mr. Vestman has never used WinRAR and its recovery records to recover a broken archive. Yes, i understand that this is slightly different, but if what Mr. Vestman is talking about happened in real life, it would be a disaster because it would not be possible to copy files on CD without fear of them becoming corrupt. If those "error correction codes" were only approximations and not the perfectly recovered original signal, that would work on audio but would totally ruin data CD's. And since data CD's and music CD's are essentially the same media - one must be a fool to think that error correction works flawlessly on data CD's and doesn't work on audio CD's.


In other words, these errors are perfectly recoverable. It is not like noise reduction, the correction process actually restores the original data. Now, it is true that some errors are unrecoverable and lead to guessing and/or read errors, but these usually involve media being damaged or worn out, which is not the fault of the digital system anyway.


A couple of words on jitter. When does it happen? When it is physically possible for jitter to happen? It can happen only at one stage - at the boundaries between analog and digital. When you digitize your signal, you might introduce jitter. When you turn your signal to analog, you might introduce jitter. That's fucking it. There is no jitter in reading the digital data into a digital container. There is no jitter in processing digital data. There is no jitter anywhere other than in the process of converting digital to analog and back.


What can introduce jitter when playing back the CD? Poor DACs in your CD player. That's fucking it. There is no way jitter could be ever introduced in other places or on other steps of the process of playing back the CD, simply because these processes don't involve anything that introduce even the remote possibility of jitter.


So, i am sorry to say that, but even great minds can make mistakes. Mr. Vestman, you're wrong and you're full of shit. Same goes for Roger Nichols. I'm with Ethan W(h)iner on this one.


Some people say that audio engineering is art, and not everything can be scientifically explained and/or verified by tests. I say it's complete bullshit. Audio engineering is as much engineering as it is audio, and you guys should understand that and know your math.


Differences? Great way of determining the differences is the null/summing test. Not practical for audio equipment? Double blind test (although this guy tries to make a point that blind tests are flawed). That's it. Pure science. If you can't reliably hear it - it's not there. If you can't see it on an spectrum analyzer - it's not there. If things null - they are the same.


Regarding the article about blind tests being flawed, i would argue that the guy might not even heard the artifact, he might have discovered that by running the signal through spectrum analyzer - that 1.5Khz tone could be easily spotted. I also might argue that the test conditions were not adequate to perform a good blind test. It should be noted that it has to be done right too. All in all, the guy makes some valid points, but comes to the wrong conclusion. What he should have concluded is not that "double-blind tests suck", but "double-blind tests should be done right". In other words, as any scientific test, the double blind test should be done at the most ideal conditions possible. Basically, the comments to the article say it all.


A lot of people claim they hear a difference between two amplifiers, between two pairs of headphones, between two cables, between two X, between two Y... I'm not saying they can't be different, i'm saying that sometimes it is just not physically possible for the difference to be there, or to be noticed. I agree headphones sound different, but i do not agree that, say, DAWs sound different. Because math is math. If 1+1 is somehow not equal to 2, then your host is doing it wrong. If 1+1 is 2 but you hear something else - then it's something wrong with either your ears, or your listening equipment/environment, or this, or that - there is a gazillion of factors that could influenced your perception. Our ears aren't perfect, and they can be easily fooled - so we should rely on science to prove things instead of just subjective experience.

Equal opportunities

Today i was helping a friend of mine with applying for a job using an online form. Apart from loads of stupid-ass questions, there was this ubiquitous politically correct bullshit about equal opportunities. Now, this "equality" policies are a major problem plaguing modern society.

While these policies pursue a noble goal of giving everyone an equal chance for a job, education or whatever, the truth is that it is complete bullshit and is actually all the same racism, sexism etc. only in different words.

A simple question - if people are equal, why would anyone ask for that kind of information in the first place? If they truly treated people equally, they just wouldn't care if it's man or woman, black or white, young or old, these things just wouldn't matter. But no, they do, and this is exactly why these "policies" are racist, sexist etc.

Now i'm not sure if it has its place in the Western world, but in some former USSR Asian countries there are policies on how many people of which race should be working for any given business. Again, the idea was to give everyone an opportunity to have a good job and try to eliminate racism or ethnic chauvinism. I assume a variant of these policies is more or less present everywhere - in Europe, in USA, in Australia etc.

Now, for the sake of argument, consider the following - imagine i have a private business. Let's say i am racist and i don't like certain race, for example, black. Let's say, i have a vacancy open, and i look at two candidates - one is a hard working black man, another is a white raging alcoholic and generally a dumb fuck. Who do i choose? Probably white man, because i don't want blacks working for me. No matter how dumb the white guy is, no matter how bright and hard working a black guy is, i would choose white. Is it right? Of course not. However, if i have reached my quota for white people, the policies of the government on equality wouldn't allow me to do that, and i will be forced to do the right thing and offer black man a job. So far so good.

Let's try it the other way around. Let's say i don't have all the racial prejudices. Let's say i have an open vacancy, and i look at two candidates - one is a hard-working white man, another is a black raging alcoholic and generally a dumb fuck. Who do i choose? Probably white man, because i don't want dumb fucks working for me, i want to succeed in my business. However, if i have reached my quota for white people, the policies of the government on equality wouldn't allow me to do that, and i will be forced to offer black man a job. And no matter how dumb is that black man, no matter how bright and hard working is the white man, i am forced to give a job to a dumb alcoholic just because the right guy for the job happens to be white. Which is - ta-da! - racism in its purest form.

The bottom line is - all these policies are just different kind of racism, sexism and all the other "-isms". Moreover, they deprive me of my freedom. How is that? Well, you see, it's my business, and i should decide who is working for me, and who isn't. It's up to me to decide who faces my customers and who represents my company, not some ass-clown in the government who thinks only white can be racist. However, right now government would make me differentiate between black, white, male, female, straight, gay, bisexual, transsexual, overweight, dyslexic - in other words, this policy actually forces me to be racist, sexist and all that. And it doesn't occur to people that i wouldn't care, and i wouldn't want to care about these things, i would just want people to do the job!

Privacy

A lot of talk has been around WikiLeaks concerning what should and what should not be kept secret, about privacy of Powers That Be, about perceived hypocrisy surrounding WikiLeaks (aaah, you ask for openness and you're all secret yourself!)...

Now, lemme tell ya somethin' bout the government. Well, not exactly about the government, but about all of these issues i've mentioned in the first sentence. You see, people keep confusing privacy with secrecy. Privacy is what i do in my backyard, what porn i jack off to, what music i like - this is privacy. If i killed somebody and didn't tell anyone and no-one found out - that's secrecy, not privacy. This is not my private matter, for fucks sake, i killed a man (or a woman)!

Now, does WikiLeaks need secrecy? Of course it does. It is a media outlet. It needs to protect its sources if they wish to remain anonymous, so that the government (or anyone else) couldn't take action against them. Does Julian Assange need privacy? Of course he does - just as i do, you do and everyone else does. But do not confuse privacy with secrecy.

When you are on duty, there's no such thing as privacy. You have your corporate email, CCTV's on site, strict code of conduct, timetable and everything is being monitored from up above - and that's how it's supposed to be. Because you are at work. You're not at home - home is a private place, work isn't.

When someone in the government is on duty - they fall exactly under the same category of "work". They are serving people, and they have to be held accountable for what they do. Everything needs to be transparent. They have no right for privacy while they are on duty. They have their right of privacy when they come back home after a long day and fuck their wives or jack off to horse porn - i have no problem with that, but why people keep confusing privacy and secrecy is beyond me.

The difference between corporations and government though is in case of corporations, there is management and all these people who run the show. They can be held accountable for what the corporation does, or can punish their employees for violating corporate rules or doing something illegal. In case of government, the "management" is me, you and any other voter who chose them. The government must be held accountable by us, and people doing shady stuff should be punished by government on our behalf. When corporations (or government) are doing shady stuff in a coordinated fashion - this is called conspiracy.

Diplomatic cables are like corporate email. It is sort of a private conversation, but when the need arises, it can be made public. No one should use corporate email for private stuff, that's why we have private email addresses. If your corporate email exposes some stuff you shouldn't have said or done - well, it's not my problem. You're supposed to do your job, not fucking little boys dressed in girl's clothes. If these cables revealed guys just doing their jobs - no one would ever say a word and i would be all for prosecuting Assange for sharing private information without the need for it.

Now, do we need secrecy? Of course we need some secrets. Some things are meant to be kept secret for a while. The primary point of secrecy is to gain strategic advantage, so your enemies are not aware of what you are up to. So when you did gain it, when all is said and done - why secrecy? No one would be afraid of declassifying secret or top secret information if there was nothing to hide.

The problem is that there is. The mechanism of secrecy is long since being abused to cover up fuck-ups and shady stuff the government does. That is why the government is so outraged at WikiLeaks - because it can expose something that shouldn't have been a secret but been under criminal investigation. Tortures, spying, bribing one government and putting pressure on another, covertly transporting prisoners - the list goes on and on. This has nothing to do with privacy and confidentiality, this is criminal activity hidden by the cloak of secrecy. Do we need that kind of secrecy? I doubt it.

Now, the curious case of WikiLeaks. Some may argue that WikiLeaks got the documents as a result of criminal activity (sharing confidential and top secret government information with third parties). What did WikiLeaks do? Buy this information? No. Sell it to someone? No. What they did was send the data to newspapers and let them do the job they are meant to do. There's certainly nothing criminal in WikiLeaks action.

Some may argue that sharing top secret information is still a crime. OK, valid point, but there must be common sense applied to that. First of all, WikiLeaks' cables and documents disclose information that shouldn't have been secret in the first place. Tell me one reason why people should not know when government is spying on them. Tell me one reason why people should not know that USA is pressuring Germany not to bring a criminal case against CIA agents. Tell me one reason why people should not know that their government killed 15'000 more civilians in Iraq. Are these legitimate secrets? You decide.

Second, whistle blowing is a noble activity. It is OK not to share corporate information with third parties, but what if your corporation (e.g. government) does something it shouldn't do and gets away with it? If you expose this information, who should be prosecuted - you or the government? For me, the answer is obvious.

This brings up a curious question - who is supposed to decide what is good and what isn't? Well, don't we have laws for that? Isn't murder illegal? Isn't bribery illegal? Isn't influencing justice system of a foreign country illegal? Not wrong, but illegal. So why exposing illegal activities is illegal?

Anonymous Strikes Back for WikiLeaks! (Operation Payback)

Been away for a while, missed a lot... But here's a fun video:

Land of the free, home of the brave

...as well as astronomical amounts of bullshit and hypocrisy - USA blocks access to WikiLeaks-related content from within U.S. Air Force networks. Another U.S. "official" advocates for censorship of the press. How is that freedom of speech? How is that democracy? What the fuck is going on?!

Julian Assange bailed out

...only to be taken back to court by Swedish officials appealing the decision of the court. The conditions on which the bail was provided was draconian - about $382'000, passport give up, electronic tag and police report twice a day. However, this didn't stop Sweden from appealing the decision of UK court.

Now that i look at it, the whole rape story isn't even about the USA. The rape case itself wasn't political, and it hardly is now. What happened is that two feminazis got to know that they had sex with the same man. Both had high hopes, both were trying to get attention by being with him, both got dumped. I'm not saying this was a right thing to do for Assange (i do not condone promiscuity), but nevertheless, these ladies had to understand that he is not that kind of guy. With US agents on his tail, constantly on the move - did they think he will actually make an exception for them?

Anyway, they got to know each other and oh my God, he wasn't using a condom! Not all the time of course, but who cares (mass media for one doesn't). First these were just urges for Assange to take STD test. I'm no doctor, but i assume if he had any and there was a chance that they got them too - won't these STD's be revealed if they take tests themselves? The charges were dropped almost as soon as they were filed.

Only to be later filed again with a "better" lawyer and a "better" prosecutor (an interesting insight here). Feminazis don't stop, ever. This is getting more and more ridiculous, and i cannot understand why UK court doesn't dismiss all charges without giving the option for Swedes to appeal and doesn't tell Swedes to get the fuck out with its "sex by surprise" charges where all the evidence that the girls made it up is there.

Now, nobody even cares - did the rape take place, did they get pregnant, did they get STD... This whole thing is now purely about three feminazis and one asshole trying to destroy a man with character. I sort of understand that perverted need of using the law against common sense to destroy a man "just because they can". This is a conspiracy, yes, but on a much smaller level than one that includes CIA involvement. This just a case of revenge and has hardly anything to do with USA.

Freedom fighters

I was wondering where are all those countless human rights campaigners? Where is Bono when we need him? Where is Rage Against the Machine? Where are all the rappers? Where is Matthew Bellamy? This is a great opportunity to make loads of money on support for WikiLeaks - come on, make a concert, raise funds, donate them to WikiLeaks, why don't they do that?! There won't be another chance to get publicity and public appeal as this one!

For now, only handful of folks expressed their support for Assange (compared to overwhelming negative reaction of politicians), and - expectedly - among them is Michael Moore. Finally, i was beginning to worry that fat bastard is afraid. Come on, guys! Fox news is broadcasting people that suggest to kill Assange, hello?! Turns out the great hypocrisy of USA is not only in their government, but also in their people and in their freedom fighters as well.

Jews did WTC

No, srsly. Some guy named Gordon Duff thinks that WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are Israeli agents.

Now, some of his points are valid in the way that WikiLeaks really didn't produce anything on certain selected topics. But come on, let's use some common sense. Imagine you are a whistle-blowing organization. Where do you get information from? Anonymous sources. Come on, it's not like Julian hacks US military servers himself (although, given his bio, he possibly could)! What do you do about the information you didn't recieve? Nothing. You can't publish anything on said topic because there is nothing to publish, you have no documents, no proof and no evidence. Nobody cared to provide this information. Strangely, the simple fact that WikiLeaks can't have all information in the world escapes that man.

Another simple point the guy is missing - yes, WikiLeaks published war logs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course these documents couldn't contain all the information there is (we have Wikipedia for that). WikiLeaks are now in the process of publishing 250'000 diplomatic cables. How many of them are there? 250'000. How many did they publish so far? IIRC, about a thousand. That's less than 1% of information. Can you make reasonable conclusions based on 1% of information you are about to receive? Gordon certainly doesn't have a problem with it.

USA to censor Internet

Here we go. Voila. The great hypocrisy of the great country. We are holding a World Press Freedom conference in 2011. We condemn Chinese firewall. We start campaigns for unrestricted Internet access. And yet we are censoring WikiLeaks, harrasing Julian Assange and investigate New York Times. Moreover, we are to censor not only WikiLeaks, but every website that is out there of similar nature! Now this is reeeeeeel bullshit, i tell you. What happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Come on, guys, don't be stupid! I can understand that you were scared when WTC was hit and traded your freedom for false sense of "security" (i will make a post on terrorism later), but this is different! Pull your head out of your asses, can't you see how fucked up is US government?!

More stuff to look up to

Something is Rotten: The Strange Case of Interpol's Red Alert on Assange, and the US Attack on WikiLeaks
Operation Leakspin
Avaaz.org - WikiLeaks: Stop the crackdown