Ask S&V

Home Entertainment magazine had an article about lossless audio a few months back. Geoffrey Morrison and one of the writers visited Dolby and DTS screening/critical-listening rooms (that adhered to ITU standards) and the respective companies did blind, random testing between the lossy and lossless soundtracks that were sourced from the same master soundtrack. H.E.M. concluded that even with great equipment, in an acoustically controlled envirement there was a subtle difference between the full bitrate core (1.5 Mbps for DTS and 0.64 Mbps for DD) and the lossless track. In fact, the writer couldn't tell the difference between DD+/DTS-HD and TrueHD/DTS-MA, although Morrison could, and while they both heard a difference between the core and the DD+/DTS-HD tracks, it wasa also subtle, not night nd day. It's nearly impossible for ANYONE to do this at home because the lossy tracks are usually sourced from different masters as the lossless tracks (at the consumer level). Do most homes have an itu-spec thea

That's very interesting. I've never participated in a formal test, but in my informal comparisons, I've always heard a pretty big improvement with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. But now you've got me wondering...I'm going to try to arrange a formal test such as the one Geoff and his writer engaged in. When I do, I'll report my findings on this website.

Yes Scott, I'd love for you guys to do one. If you can even get as elaborate as the flat panel face off, that'd be great. It may not be as interesting as the tv face off, but it just may settle the debate between lossless and lossy codecs once and for all.

As ironic as it might sound, it is true that superior equipment DOES minimize the difference between lossy and lossless soundtracks. One of the issues that wasn't mentioned though, was that you are dealing with differences in SPL level much like the early differences between DD and DTS on Standard DVD's. At a given volume, to my ears anyway, the lossless soundtracks are louder than the lossy ones. I am assuming they negated that difference in their tests. One advantage of the new surround codecs, at least in DTS Master Audio, is the final emergence, however few at this point, of 7.1 soundtracks.

Scott, Is it possible that on HD discs that offer both Dolby TrueHD and the lossy version on one disc, the plain DD soundtrack is an inferior, poorly mastered one--even more so than what is usually found on 480i discs? I have watched a high def disc with the lossless and lossy tracks (I think it was V for Vendetta) and compared them side by side on a superb, calibrated system, and found the difference so STRIKING, it was beyond belief. I thought it was due to the lack of effort placed on the old DD soundtrack, because it was almost unlistenable in comparison. Make sense?

I gave a double blind test to 2 people using the movies 300 (for TrueHD vs DD) and Master and Commander (for DTS-HD MA vs DTS). My results showed that the % correct by my subjects was worse than flipping a coin (it was about 40%). I'm sure if more people did a double blind test, they would realize they can't reliably tell the difference either!

I want to hide my components in a closet! My Tv is about 30ft away, so I was going to purchase about a 50ft HDMI cable? Will this affect my picture and soung alignement? Or do I need something to boost the signal, or will it be ok with a good set of HDMI wires? What kind do you recogmend also? Another question, do I need to vent the closet to allow the components to breathe?

Scott,Can you provide an update on Whole House Digital Interface, and who will be offering this system. I need info on upcoming systems where I can mountplasma tvs or LED flat screens snugly on the wall without all the audio & video wires running all through the walls.Many Thanks