Re: Phase

Hello Fons,

On 2026-07-05 01:24, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> Nice to hear from you ! Are you still active in the
> audio world these days ?
...

yes, I'm working on a new version of DRC right now, to be released in 
some distant future, as it will be an almost complete rewrite, with 
quite a different approach. I even created from scratch a complete model 
of temporal masking (pure tones only), using available literature data, 
to better evaluate the results.

> Here be dragons. There are so much other variables
> involved when dealing with speakers that I suspect
> it will be near impossible to 'prove' anything...

Not only for speakers, just an example: no matter how you do it, in the 
end you have to listen through some transducer, either headphones or 
speakers. As changing the phase changes the waveform, and transducers 
are non linear, you incur the risk of hearing a different distortion 
behaviour instead of the phase itself, with the transducer acting for 
you as some sort of phase detector.

BTW, that our ear is phase sensitive is obvious, else it wouldn't be 
able to tell the difference between a Dirac delta and white noise. 
Where's the threshold of audibility is the real issue, which, to the 
limits of my knowledge, is still quite unclear. The phase changes 
introduced by any decent modern electronic device is going to be 
inaudible, expecially in the digital world, where it is simply zero, 
unless you decide to add it on purpose. When you exit the (signal, time, 
spectrum, mood of the day and whatever dependent) temporal masking 
window is almost surely going to be audible. In the middle, well, few 
data and a lot of guesswork.

Bye,

-- 
Denis Sbragion