Did "Andy's Gang" Call It Correctly?
Examine carefully the waveform "slices" above, three of them, one stacked above the other. The top-most is the original File "B", the one analogplanet readers said sounded warmer and fuller.
The middle one is file "D" while the lower one is file "C". Rather than asking you to determine which two are identical, I will tell you where to look: just past 33.0 is the loudest excursion. Just before that is a smaller one. Look at the bottom of that one and you will see a form that looks roughly like a squeezed version of the continental United States and you can see "Florida". You can see that on both the top and middle waveforms. The bottom one has an extra "Florida". Note that the three files were not precisely aligned so you can see more to the beginning of the top-most file. The magnification of the waveforms was identical for all three files. There were other indicators that "D" was "B" but I'm just giving you that one.
Below is a comment left on the website by "Andy". I don't know who Andy is, but Andy and his gang corroborated what I heard here (yes, I'd seen it too):
"So I have listened to these two samples. I have invited co-workers to listen to them and I have invited guests of our establishment to listen to them. All of us have used the very same computer station, volume, settings etc. and none of the listeners other than myself were introduced to the context of this listening. All of us (admittedly, only 5 people) have said we hear them as being different. All of us have also stated individually, again without prompting or context added, that File C is a brighter/harsher/more revealing version and that File D is warmer/fuller/stuffier sounding. I don’t know what result you are hoping/expecting/predicting but that is what 5 people thought here. I hope you update this at some point with your own ‘tell’ of what you are testing. Do you hear a difference?".
Now unless Andy's ears and those of his friends, and my ears and what I can see in the files are all wrong, I think….well you draw your own conclusion. And yes, I realize a sample of six is not dispository but it's pretty good!
On the other hand if Mr. Distler reveals that "C" on bottom is identical to "B" and that Andy, his gang and I are wrong, I'd like to know how that "hanging chad" appears only on "C".