Put your subs to the test...

[bob katz]

Well, I played with TSMuxer for an hour or so and there are too many unanswered questions for me for the moment. I'll revisit it when I get the energy to cut a Blu-Ray compatible disk. If anyone else cracks "the code", please let me know!

HOWEVER, I am pleased to announce that I have just cut a DVD-A of the shuttle launch with 4 discrete channels of 96 khz/24 bit surround sound and though Sequoia warned me it has too much bandwidth to be played, it will play back on my Pioneer Universal player in gorgeous surround. I've placed the Iso image file for this DVD-A at our website

digido.com register first or log in! Go to Media/Downloads/General

and you will find the 96k Wav files in there as well as the Iso file for the surround DVD-A, which you can cut with Imgburn.exe on the PC, or Disc Utility on the Mac.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by bcgood

Very cool, so I take it you like the DPA pre amps. Did you ever consider the Earthworks 1022's instead?

I love how you calculated how to set the levels. You are truly an engineers, engineer.

I can't take full credit on having calculated the expected SPL. For that I thank Dick Pierce, who is truly an engineer's engineer! That man is so full of esoteric technical knowledge it is amazing. He was able to look up the output of the Saturn 5 rocket at x distance, calculate various losses and the result was we came within 1 dB of full scale!

As for the preamps, these DPA mikes (the 4041's) have amazing specs and are designed to mate perfectly with this preamp which also powers the mike with a high voltage. I am grateful to both Gary Baldassari (DPA rep and spokesperson) and to Mike Morgan for loaning their single units of the 4041 to me.

I don't think you'll find an Earthwork with a 1" diaphragm, which definitely is needed for the lower noise floor combined with the high SPL capability. The Earthworks is, I believe, an electret with a pre-polarized diaphragm, while the DPA is an air-condensor, but I could be wrong about that.

This amazing 1" diaphragm allows the 4041 to have these specs (from DPA):

"The frequency response from 10Hz to 20kHz. The 4041-S is powered via the standard HMA4000 Microphone Amplifier.

...A microphone system that offers a totally transparent audio path with an exceptionally low noise floor of maximum 7dB(A) and a SPL handling capability of 144dB SPL peak.

*Equivalent noise level A-weighted: Max. 7dB(A) re. 20 Pa

*Equiv. noise level ITU-R BS.468-4: Max. 19dB

* Total harmonic distortion (THD): 120dB SPL peak (<0.5% THD)

So I believe it's both the quietest mike in the DPA range with the highest SPL capability. That means the most dynamic range of the DPA range and perhaps more than any other commercially-available mike. And you can hear that by playing the shuttle launch. You can hear the "grass grow" before the liftoff with no perceived hiss or noise, and then the shuttle takes off with no perceived distortion!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it :-).

BK

[bcgood]

Yea, the Earthworks 1022 is an extremely quite pre amp. I wasn't referencing the Earthworks microphones. The DPA 4041's sound much more natural to me than the Earthworks microphones. The 1022 pre amp is a pretty awesome design though with some of the best pre amp specs in the biz plus it sounds very good; that's why I asked because I figured you would like it.

P.S. No, I don't have any affiliation with Earthworks whatsoever!

------------------------------------------------------------------------










• Zero Distortion - less than one part per million

• Lowest Noise of any preamp on the market

• Full Differential (balanced) from XLR in to XLR out – no internal conversion to single-ended

• All Discrete Components; Class A Amplification (No ICs in the signal path)

• No Electrolytic Capacitors in the signal path

• Greater Transparency with minimum signal path and minimum features
• High output level +33dBu

• Very Low Output Impedance will drive long lines without interference or signal loss

• True 48 volt phantom, polarity reverse & clip indicator

• Separate XLR & 1/4” Phone (t-r-s) outputs, each with its own gain/level controls

• 1/4” Phone connector output will drive balanced or unbalanced inputs

[bob katz]

Sorry for getting the Earthworks mike mixed up with the preamp #. That looks like one helluva preamp! Haven't seen much mentioned about its sound as of yet.

BK

[Paul Russell]

This is very cool, but the DVD-A ISO won't download. I get this error.
"Error while downloading file (Mime Type not found)" in both IE and Firefox.

I'll try DL'ing the wavs and put it into Sonar to see if i can get something I can throw into DVD Architect.

[Key]

Yeah I had thought about the bandwidth but I can never remember standards - I always have to double check.

I believe if it is a true DVD-A that the bandwidth limit should be around 9.6Mbps. But I have been told by a friend who does authoring for a living that this drops with burnable media vs pressed media. Your file is around 9.2 so it might be right at the threshold. If you can get someone to author it for you with an MLP encoder it would be less likely to freeze up a player. DVD A/V would probably be the most compatible format - works with both DVD-A and normal DVD players. I am guess the BD5 and BD9 thing would only work with Blu-ray players but the advantage being they don't have to buy an expensive Blu-ray burner or disc.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Paul Russell

This is very cool, but the DVD-A ISO won't download. I get this error.
"Error while downloading file (Mime Type not found)" in both IE and Firefox.

I'll try DL'ing the wavs and put it into Sonar to see if i can get something I can throw into DVD Architect.

The mime error was my fault. It's fixed now. Sorry. I had to register the iso mime type with my downloader utility at our website. (Never turn your back on computers!)

That should beat your efforts with CD Architect. Provided you can play a DVD-A.

BK

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Key

I am guess the BD5 and BD9 thing would only work with Blu-ray players but the advantage being they don't have to buy an expensive Blu-ray burner or disc.

And the Blu-Ray would definitely support the bandwidth. So, I have to learn how to cut an "AVCDH" (whatever the acronym is) disc in a DVD burner that will play on some Blu-Ray players which are "ABCblahblahblah" compatible. See I don't remember all those initials, either!

BK

[trmchenry]

Bob, et al.

I have cracked the code!

Though, there are a few limitation. The biggest of those being that in order to get the full benefits your Blu-ray player has to be hooked up via HDMI, your Blu-ray player has to be set to output LPCM over HDMI and not Bitstream, and finally your receiver has to be able to handle the raw PCM over HDMI.

You can only transfer two channels of LPCM over optical or digital coax.

TrueHD or DTS-HD MA are definitely going to be better options for the surround mix hobbyist in the future once the price of encoders go down.

It is late. I will return tomorrow with a short tutorial so you can all put together your own Blu-ray audio discs.

Edit: Why are all the good disc authoring tools Windows based?

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by trmchenry

Bob, et al.

I have cracked the code!

Though, there are a few limitation. The biggest of those being that in order to get the full benefits your Blu-ray player has to be hooked up via HDMI, your Blu-ray player has to be set to output LPCM over HDMI and not Bitstream, and finally your receiver has to be able to handle the raw PCM over HDMI.

Great research, Henry. My player and receiver are all hooked up that way. The only thing I disagree with is the necessity setting of "LPCM over HDMI" rather than bitstream. It seems to me that if the player is set up to output bitstream, and if there is no encoding on the disc (e.g. Dolby or DTS) then wouldn't the player default to putting out the LPCM over the HDMI? Of course I'm not sure of that, and I'd have to test it myself.

It is late. I will return tomorrow with a short tutorial so you can all put together your own Blu-ray audio discs.

Edit: Why are all the good disc authoring tools Windows based?

That would be fantastic! I'd love to have a Blu-Ray that plays this. And I think a lot of people would be interested in this procedure, for music purposes, in being able to play their surround mixes over Blu-Ray players. I assume that you made an AVCHD disc and so your Blu-Ray player also has to be capable of playing AVCHD?

I think the reason there are currently more windows tools for this is more Windows people tend to be coding geeks, whereas Apple people would rather just use their Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro and get the pro jobs done.

I was able to run tsMuxer on the Mac, though, and it seems I was very close to the steps required to make the Blu-Ray, I just didn't carry it through enough to get to the "full geek" stage!

BK

[trmchenry]

Bob,

After doing some more listening/testing I've realized that my channels are set up wrong.

In order to make a Blu-ray/AVCHD compliant disc we need 3 things.

1. A video stream.
2. An AC-3 stream.
3. A LPCM stream.

These will all be muxed into an m2ts (MPEG-2 Transport Stream)

For video I found something enormously helpful on another forum. It is a black video stream with an extremely small file size ~5 MB for 120 minutes of video. Doom9's Forum - View Single Post - Audio Only AVCHD Disc Authouring

These guys are trying to accomplish exactly what we are, though they are using tracks ripped from a Blu-ray source instead of creating them from scratch like we are. Audio Only AVCHD Disc Authouring - Doom9's Forum

My further need for testing comes into play when it comes to figuring out exactly what tracks are decoded to what speakers in a multitrack wave file. Apparently different programs handle this differently but Blu-ray players should be consistent in their handling of multichannel data.

I don't have time today, but this could be figured out fairly easily by making eight separate wave files with eight tracks each with only one track being a test tone and the others being silent.

The other thing I can't figure out is how to force the LPCM stream over the AC-3 stream. I didn't test to see if the Blu-ray player will play the AVCHD with no AC-3 track at all. Since I saw it listed under all Blu-ray specs as a required part I always included it.

One thing I did learn during all of this is that the wave spec was updated to support 18 channels. Microsoft has their own speaker mapping planned for each of the 18 channels. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...ultichaud.mspx

Anyway, once you have your required files TsMuxer will create the disc image in just a few minutes.

Select input files in this order video, ac-3, LPCM. Change output to AVCHD. Click on the Split & cut tab and cut the end of the video to the end of your audio. In this case 2.59. Click on the Blu-ray tab and select No Chapters if you only have one track or if you have multiple tracks enter in the starting time of each track. Click Start muxing and in a few minutes you'll have BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders ready to burn.

To burn the disc I used a free program called ImgBurn The Official ImgBurn Website

When you open ImgBurn click Write files/folders to disc and drag both your BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders to the source box. Click the options tab and select data type Mode1/2048, filesystem UDF, UDFrevision 2.50. Click the label tab and set a label for your UDF partition then burn the disc!

You can also set ImgBurn up to write an image file as opposed to directly to disc.

This has been tested working. I just need to learn a bit more about multichannel wave files and how they are handled by different systems/software/players

[Key]

I made one last night when I was bored. I padded it with a black video @ 720 x 480.

Did all this on a PC
I just loaded the audio file into a video editor and rendered a blank uncompressed avi that matched the length of the audio. Then I converted the video to H.264 with ripbot. Imported the video and audio into TSmuxeR and multiplexed it to an AVCHD. I then ran the "MovieObject.bdmv" file through AVCHD patcher. Then I made it into an ISO with Magic ISO maker trial version since it's small enough to work with the limited version.

It worked on my Blu-ray rom drive but I don't have a standalone player to try it out.

[tenor39]

Originally Posted by bcgood

Yea, the Earthworks 1022 is an extremely quite pre amp. I wasn't referencing the Earthworks microphones. The DPA 4041's sound much more natural to me than the Earthworks microphones. The 1022 pre amp is a pretty awesome design though with some of the best pre amp specs in the biz plus it sounds very good; that's why I asked because I figured you would like it.

P.S. No, I don't have any affiliation with Earthworks whatsoever!

------------------------------------------------------------------------



• Zero Distortion - less than one part per million

• Lowest Noise of any preamp on the market

• Full Differential (balanced) from XLR in to XLR out – no internal conversion to single-ended

• All Discrete Components; Class A Amplification (No ICs in the signal path)

• No Electrolytic Capacitors in the signal path

• Greater Transparency with minimum signal path and minimum features
• High output level +33dBu

• Very Low Output Impedance will drive long lines without interference or signal loss

• True 48 volt phantom, polarity reverse & clip indicator

• Separate XLR & 1/4” Phone (t-r-s) outputs, each with its own gain/level controls

• 1/4” Phone connector output will drive balanced or unbalanced inputs



Hey, my friend, the Earthworks pre will not power the 4041 because it requires a 130V and 200V supply. It is, as Bob said, a true condenser mic, with a constant 200V charge to the backplate. There is a 48V version, the 4041SP, that will work with it, but I'd be a bit concerned about the specs of the preamp. Remember the spec wars in Hi-Fi during the '70's? "Zero distortion"? "Lowest noise"? How was this achieved? The only way you claim zero distortion with discrete components is with massive amounts of feedback. I haven't seen a discrete transistor that can match laser trimmed IC's for distortion, but I've been wrong before.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by tenor39

Hey, my friend, the Earthworks pre will not power the 4041 because it requires a 130V and 200V supply. It is, as Bob said, a true condensor mic, with a constant 200V charge to the backplate. There is a 48V version, the 4041SP, that will work with it, but I'd be a bit concerned about the specs of the preamp. Remember the spec wars in Hi-Fi during the '70's? "Zero distortion"? "Lowest noise"? How was this achieved? The only way you claim zero distortion with discrete components is with massive amounts of feedback. I haven't seen a discrete transistor that can match laser trimmed IC's for distortion, but I've been wrong before.

Interesting, I didn't realize those mics couldn't be powered by standard 48 "phantom" power.

Either way the clip sounds great as is, so it sounds as if the DPA pre's definitely work well with their mics.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Key

I made one last night when I was bored. I padded it with a black video @ 720 x 480.

Did all this on a PC
I just loaded the audio file into a video editor and rendered a blank uncompressed avi that matched the length of the audio. Then I converted the video to H.264 with ripbot. Imported the video and audio into TSmuxeR and multiplexed it to an AVCHD. I then ran the "MovieObject.bdmv" file through AVCHD patcher. Then I made it into an ISO with Magic ISO maker trial version since it's small enough to work with the limited version.

It worked on my Blu-ray rom drive but I don't have a standalone player to try it out.

Don't talk dirty to me :-). Congratulations, Key! I'll check out your iso image and if it works you're a mensch!

[Key]

Cool let me know. If it doesn't work it might be that trmchenry is right and I should have added an AC3 track in addition to the LPCM. That's an easy fix since I actually went out of my way to not add the lossy track.

[trmchenry]

Does anyone have any good resources about the structure of interleaved LPCM tracks?

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Key

Cool let me know. If it doesn't work it might be that trmchenry is right and I should have added an AC3 track in addition to the LPCM. That's an easy fix since I actually went out of my way to not add the lossy track.

Dear Key: I'm sorry to report that after burning the Iso image (using Disc burner on my mac, perhaps that's the reason) my Samsung BD player would not recognize it. It tried dutifully to load it and then said it could not play this disc and spit it out. Perhaps this player will not play AVCHD discs. Apparently only a minority of BD players will. I don't think it has anything to do with the AC3 track and frankly, without a menu structure, I would not recommend having such a track as it might fool the player into trying to play it as the default when what we want is for it to play the linear PCM tracks.

We're in a limbo situation these days with DVD-A being a dead format and Blu-Ray a difficult and expensive format to author. But anyway, those who can play DVD-A will be rewarded with the Iso file which can be downloaded from Digital Domain.

[Key]

I think know what I did wrong and am going to take another swing at it for my own amusement and future reference. I may have patched the index file wrong and made the wrong type of iso - it needs to be UDF 2.50.

The rough guide I am reading says it should be compatible with any standalone player and Blu-Ray Rom provided I make it correctly and it is burned on a DVD-R. It wont work if you use a DVD+R.

[trmchenry]

Give this a try. It has played in three players I've tried so far.

http://www.duneboogie.com/mastering/DISCOVERY.ISO

If it works for you I'm going ahead with my further research.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by trmchenry

Give this a try. It has played in three players I've tried so far.

http://www.duneboogie.com/mastering/DISCOVERY.ISO

If it works for you I'm going ahead with my further research.

Thanks! I'll try to check it out this Monday.

Bob

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by trmchenry

Give this a try. It has played in three players I've tried so far.

http://www.duneboogie.com/mastering/DISCOVERY.ISO

If it works for you I'm going ahead with my further research.

Hi Henry. I checked it out in my Samsung Blu Ray on Monday and I'm sorry to say the audio plays at double speed (chipmunks). This is a tough nut to crack!

Sorry,


Bob

[Tweek Audio]

Give this a try. It has played in three players I've tried so far.

http://www.duneboogie.com/mastering/DISCOVERY.ISO

If it works for you I'm going ahead with my further research.
____________________________________________________________________________

I'm always interested in finding cheap and easy formats to get high quality and SS audio around...

I'll try this in my Play Station 3 and report back...

Matt

[Tweek Audio]

Oh, and re: OP... the launch sounds great Bob! Rarely is there such dynamic, clarity of ambience, and bandwidth all in the same recording.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Tweek Audio

Oh, and re: OP... the launch sounds great Bob! Rarely is there such dynamic, clarity of ambience, and bandwidth all in the same recording.

Must have been the Masterlink :-).


Bob

[BearcatSandor]

Folks,

When trying to download the wav files, i get a 0 byte file. This happens in both firefox and chrome. Other files on that page download just fine. Are those two files broken?

Thanks,

Bearcat

[Brena]

Originally Posted by BearcatSandor

Folks,

When trying to download the wav files, i get a 0 byte file. This happens in both firefox and chrome. Other files on that page download just fine. Are those two files broken?

Thanks,

Bearcat

I get the same issue. Any suggestions?

[777Artin]

me 2

mac's safari

[trmchenry]

Sadly, Bob hasn't been around for a few months. I imagine the links were moved. Try signing up for his site at digido.com and check out the download section.