New Sound Drivers Coming In Linux 4.16 Kernel

[pmorph]

evolution is just an effect of natural selection. Natural selection happens when individuals with "bad" traits that can't reproduce because of some reason (die sooner, disliked by the opposite sex, whatever).
So unless people with worse hearing will somehow manage to make more children than those with normal hearing, this won't happen.

Sure, but nothing guarantees that a trait stays around forever if it isn't anymore necessary for survival of a species. It coud just get mutated away over time, maybe in benefit of some other traits.

[rene]

Nice video. It looks like I submitted my first kernel patch to the sound subsystem just in time for it to end up in this pull request.

https://iandouglasscott.com/2018/01/...nd-blaster-e1/
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux...c1e0e42ba35619

You may also find my just released initial Sgi Octane MIPS64 Linux overview interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU_RV8uoTIo

[rene]

Human ear is killed off early-on these days. Majority does not realize that noise damage is a permanent damage.

My left ear is -35dB 3...5kHz range, from shooting without ear mufflers, when I was younger. By the time issue was discovered in a routine check, it was already late.

Now I literally shudder each time I happen to see some dude or gal listening music so loud through their headsets that I can actually clearly hear it from 2 meters away. Happens multiple times a day, usually it's people from pre-teens to 20+. Or idiot car-fags from 18 to 40 with seemingly 1kW bass in their cars booming through half the city.. Deaf as stone wall before hitting 50.

thanks god I never was shooting and I can hear when an audio output amplifier has a wired frequency response ;-)

[profoundWHALE]

This whole 'I can hear the difference between 24-bit and 32-bit' has been debunked by Monty (Xiph) a long time ago.

32-bit is only useful for studio audio because every time you layer an audio effect over another, it introduces a little more noise. At 32-bit, the additional noise is so incredibly low that there is virtually no noise gain after layering hundreds of effects.

192kHz is also only really useful for studios, and I believe the only ones who actually can take advantage of that sample rate are the recording orchestras. The most a person needs is 48kHz because that leaves enough accuracy for the highest frequencies (~20kHz) possible for a human to hear.

THD and SNR are probably the most important things that can be noticed from the modern DAC, and even then, we don't need that much. The brain fills in missing information all the time.

The idiot who is talking about human evolution is living in a fantasy world. When the most you could get out of a recording was 6-bits, of course they would be fine with it because they simply have not heard anything with a higher resolution before. Now we are at the point where you can get impossibly accurate reproduction despite massive compression ratios. Humans can recognize patterns, so when patterns of encoders artifacting were audible, it would be possible to tell when it was a compressed song or an uncompressed song. The same thing is true for new games vs old games. Now that we see the higher clarity, it's hard to go back to where there was much less. Those terrible encoders were more than a decade ago, and today, the weakest links are the actual physical components that reproduce sound.

I have a song that I always thought was poorly mastered because it distorted at the louder areas when a lot of different sounds were going on. It was the same problem in my car, it sounded distorted, regardless of the audio levels coming out of my phone. One day I got a pair of Fostex T50RPs and I noticed a lot of details in the songs that otherwise weren't there. Eventually I came across that (previously) distorted song, but this time, it sounded clear and powerful. Physically, the traditonal (and cheap) speaker cone materials can not retain their shape and rigidity to effectively reproduce sounds that change faster than the materials can move.

That being said, my biggest gripe with these headphones is the lack of bass, so I got 5.0 speakers for about the same price as those headphones and used a $40 amp to power the speakers until I could get a proper home theater audio receiver.

The problem with true HiFi sound chips is that the content is sucky. Most audio is just 48 kHz 24 bit studio material. It's too weak for HiFi experts who expect 32 bits and 192 kHz (nowadays 384 kHz). Also most records are stereo, which is quite weak compared to 7.1.

1) I should have you know that I do in fact, have 24-bit 96kHz WAV music, and I cannot tell the difference between it and when it is re-encoded to 16-bit or 24-bit 48kHz FLAC.

2) The stereo recording of audio is all you need as long as it has been properly mixed. The problem with listening to 7.1 sounds with a pair of headphones that can do 2.0 stereo is that you have to have a really good matrix or surround sound mixer in software. Even a home theatre with 7.1 surround sound isn't perfect because there's no above or below sounds, and if you move your head around, it often falls out of alignment with the other speakers.

[caligula]

The problem with true HiFi sound chips is that the content is sucky. Most audio is just 48 kHz 24 bit studio material. It's too weak for HiFi experts who expect 32 bits and 192 kHz (nowadays 384 kHz). Also most records are stereo, which is quite weak compared to 7.1.

[caligula]

No they are not real. Do you even understand the extreme precision that would be needed in order to create a true 32-bit output of -1.736 to +1.736 volts? That is a span of less than 4 volts that you accurately need to create over 2 billion different levels of. Some of the best 16-bit DACs used in professional equipment ever used was close to 12-bits of performance.

So you think this is fake news?

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/ess-technology-introduces-sabre-pro-series-dacs-setting-new-performance-bar-with-unprecedented-2085982.htm

"This first member of the ESS PRO SABRE series sets a new benchmark in high-end audio by offering the industry's highest dynamic range (DNR) of 140dB. The ES9038PRO also offers impressively low total harmonic distortion plus noise (THD+N) at -122dB in a 32-bit, 8-channel DAC."

[starshipeleven]

No they are not real.

Then what do they represent? Are they just a lie or are they some theoretical max?

[F.Ultra]

P.M.P.O Watts died already. Nobody uses them anymore. The thing with audio hardware is, the numbers will continue to grow and they're actually real. A 32 bit DAC indeed has 32 bit slots for input. A 140 dB SNR in a DAC really is 140 dB. That old 10000W PMPO amplifier OTOH was just a 5W DIN A-weighted amplifier. People think that their ears are golden, when they really aren't. But that doesn't matter, it's business. How businesses work, they need to generate revenue and not only a constant stream, but also annual growth, e.g. 8%.

No they are not real. Do you even understand the extreme precision that would be needed in order to create a true 32-bit output of -1.736 to +1.736 volts? That is a span of less than 4 volts that you accurately need to create over 2 billion different levels of. Some of the best 16-bit DACs used in professional equipment ever used was close to 12-bits of performance.

[dwagner]

The thing with audio hardware is, the numbers will continue to grow and they're actually real. A 32 bit DAC indeed has 32 bit slots for input. A 140 dB SNR in a DAC really is 140 dB.

Sure, but one will hardly find any spot where unavoidable ambient noise, either at recording or playback time, thwarts attempts to get anywhere near such "fidelity" for listening to music. It's great if my amplifier has a < 1dbA noise floor, but what good is this if the white noise from some wind around the house or the pipes of the central heating emit much more noise, already?

[aht0]

Evolution works on a time scale of millions of years, not the decades that separate different levels of audio technology.

Within limited populations some prefered trait may express itself in a span of handful generations.

For example: Czarist Russia had compulsory army service of 25 years. Wanted to skip it? Hard to avoid unless you were clearly physically not 'normal'. Better have some finger or toe missing... or weird enough, extra. Former was achieved by way of an axe and a chopping block, latter was more a matter of genetic luck. And over a time some regions appeared in Russian Empire where a lot of men had 6th digit - they did not qualify for army service, could create families before getting into late middle age and were thus in a 'much prefered' category as prospective husbands.