Golden Ears Bundle

[utdgrant]

I've just released five new modules, all completely free-of-charge.

GoldenEarsCover.jpg (127.9 KiB) Viewed 5357 times

They are all associated with the rudiments of digital audio, particularly with respect to bit-depth, quantisation noise and dithering. There is also an ABX Tester module, so you can perform double-blind listening tests by yourself. Do you have Golden Ears? Find out now!

Bit Reducer

TPDF Noise Source

Null Test Differential Amplifier

Bit Depth Attenuator

ABX Tester

The overall bundle hasn't been approved by CA yet. However, it's just a 'container', and the individual modules are available to download now.

There is a comprehensive User Guide, and an introductory YouTube video.


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[ColinP]

Many thanks Grant, you're a star.

Looks great for perceptual testing and education. Plus fans of lo-fi can use the Bit Reducer module as a distortion effect.

Perhaps a matching sample rate reduction module would be an interesting addition?

[utdgrant]

Many thanks Grant, you're a star.

Looks great for perceptual testing and education. Plus fans of lo-fi can use the Bit Reducer module as a distortion effect.

Perhaps a matching sample rate reduction module would be an interesting addition?

I did think about a sample-rate reducer, but that would be a whole different level of DSP. I would have loved to be able to use the ABX Tester with 96 kHz audio vs 48 kHz, but that's just not feasible inside the VM environment. Besides, my hearing brick-walls at 13 kHz, so I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to tell any difference, anyhow.

[utdgrant]

The complete bundle is now available in the store, rather than having to grab the individual modules one-by-one.

[ColinP]

I did think about a sample-rate reducer, but that would be a whole different level of DSP. I would have loved to be able to use the ABX Tester with 96 kHz audio vs 48 kHz, but that's just not feasible inside the VM environment. Besides, my hearing brick-walls at 13 kHz, so I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to tell any difference, anyhow.

I was thinking of something crude and easy to knock up. Not for audiophile discriminations but for educational purposes and for fans of lo-fi.

So just doing integer rate division. Effectively nothing more than a sample and hold that triggers every Nth sample.

So you'd have a knob that gave sample rates of 48k, 24k, 16k, 12k, 9.6k, 8k, ~6.857k, 6k, 5.3'k, 4.8k and so on.

No Nyquist filtering, just raw (and increasingly dirty) output.

People could then add Nyquist filtering of their own to investigate.

[Steve W]

The complete bundle is now available in the store, rather than having to grab the individual modules one-by-one.

I suppose I could have waited a few hours, but I was so inspired by your demo video I couldn't wait and got the singles. Thanks for the modules and the nice explorations as shown in the demo video!

. . . Besides, my hearing brick-walls at 13 kHz, so I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to tell any difference, anyhow.

It was probably about 12 years ago that had the luxury of hearing that high. Now, the only sounds I "hear" above about 2.6K or so are the imaginary sounds my brain produces by trying to amplify what it knows it used to be able to detect from my ears.

I was toying with the idea of using your modules as tools to see if I can save PC audio bandwidth by not wasting valuable CPU resources on sounds that are wasted on me.