Gravity Jim wrote:A positive null test proves that the files are identical. If you get 100% cancellation when running to files 180° out of phase, then the files are identical and any difference you hear is the result of variances in human perception, which can certainly be enhanced by staying up all night listening for differences.Timeline wrote: I spent all night with both apps and hear a difference. Voodoo? To me, its there. Don't claim to understand it and don't think null is or has ever been the final answer...
If you want to know if there is any physical difference between two audio files, a null test is the final answer.
Ahh, but the Null Test can't tell you which file has greater airspace in the presence, or fatter bass, or more edginess in the solo. Sure, the files are identical, but one has the edgy, fatter, airier presence!
Hey, I know this, because i've been told by people who know people who know a great engineer who did the squawk-squawk track on that Beatles album with the band on the album cover; you know the one. And he said the null test can only go so far; and while it may show what's scientifically identical, everyone knows that even identical twins can have real different personalities.
And while we're at it, there's this piano player who can play one single note that will make you cry, because it's so expressive. And it's crazy to think that a Disklavier can reproduce a note like that, because it's using magnets and rods, and nothing can replace the human finger with the gift of touch. Yep, that guy's finger can play a single note and get a standing ovation for it, because no audience ever heard any note so expressive on a piano.
And I've got this compressor that can make a digital track sound exactly like TUBES, and it gives you all this edgier, fatter, airier presence that no null test can detect, because its dials go to eleven.
And Kennedy was shot by a UFO, and Julia Child's recipes were so good, because they used puppies, and oh man, I'm just getting started!
Except that I'll stop here. Not to worry; I'm just repeating things I've heard when I've tried to convince someone that the null test proves beyond any modicum of doubt that two audio tracks are I-Freaking-Dentical.
Identical, yes, but remember what I said about identical twins. One's often the good one and the other one is the bad one, so even a null test can't tell you which track is the good one and which is the bad one... it takes that piano player with the expressive finger to tell you that. He came from a UFO that shot Kennedy, and he eats puppies, because he's a friend of Julia Childs, and he's got this compressor that's part reverb, and it puts fat airiness back into the presence and makes it edgy, and...
Ok, ok, ok... have your null test! Did I tell you that mine goes to eleven... oh never mind.
Shooshie