Okay I understand the dblt of an audio product and that it can truly be done blind as in the product is not viewed and can be changed randomly. That would seem to be required if there is an influence from appearance of a product. I guess you could place all the test units if electronic in identical boxes so they had identical appearances and therefor any peeking should have no influence. With speakers it is a bit harder to do but a curtain can take care of that problem.
Now for a set of TV monitors which you would have to see to compare picture or color quality how do you do a real dbt without having something influencing the outcome, this would seem to be a harder test since you are using visual testing? Do you just cover any exposed part of the unit besides the actual screen itself so you can't see any influencing cabinetry, only the screen shows? How do you have a non influential visual comparative test that passes scientific and statistical testing where vision is required?
Let's say two screens are flat and two are curved, wouldn't that already cause undue influence in a visual test?
Now for a set of TV monitors which you would have to see to compare picture or color quality how do you do a real dbt without having something influencing the outcome, this would seem to be a harder test since you are using visual testing? Do you just cover any exposed part of the unit besides the actual screen itself so you can't see any influencing cabinetry, only the screen shows? How do you have a non influential visual comparative test that passes scientific and statistical testing where vision is required?
Let's say two screens are flat and two are curved, wouldn't that already cause undue influence in a visual test?
some visual side-by-side at the same time comparison for a small enough angular patch not requiring obvious redirecting gaze does seem to be very reliable for some features, still complex higher level "scene" analysis becomes difficult
unlike hearing where serial presentation, memory is used
unlike hearing where serial presentation, memory is used
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It is a sad fact of life in most cases that the technology part of a consumer product does not provide the most incremental $ profit on the end selling price. Semiconductors are a great example. Its been in deflation for 50 years - yep, prices keep going down despite the fact that more bells and whistles keep getting added, and specs keep on improving. We call it Moore's Law, but that's just an excuse for what is a capital intensive, R&D intensive, cash hungry, low margin business (to paraphrase Jack Welch, and more recently McKinsey who got a whole bunch of Semi CEO's round a table to ponder the question 'How do we create profitable growth in the semiconductor industry?). This is the 3rd or 4th such attempt at answering the question in the last 4 or 5 years that I know of.
TV is another example - Samsung and LG battling it out plus a host of Chinese manufacturers - yet TV prices have plunged while specs have gone through the roof. The margins to the manufacturers are in low single digit figures despite billions of $ in manufacturing and R&D investment.
Audio is a classic study case. The industry knows how to make good amplifiers, preamps, CD's - you name it. But why would anyone buy one product over another? Because you did DBT's and found a 50% approval rating? The best DBT's show that for similar power level amplifiers with similar responses you hear no difference (remember the Carver test) so why not pick a brand from a hat of names?
So if for the most part you cannot differentiate products enough on their technical merits to drive most of the incremental $ profit, what does?
Marketing. You sell products on emotional appeal and that's where you can in most cases make a difference. So, we can engineer all we like, do DBT tests, publish AP test results in product brochures and it makes no difference - the other guy that pushes the right consumer emotional buttons, has the glossier product pictures etc wins the day.
So, stop agonizing over ppm distortion, DBT's, 'peeking', or blaming those 'marketers' for being bull sh1tters. For the most part, in consumer electronics, people don't give a sh1t about the technicalities - as long as it looks good, has a good story spun around it, that's what drives the incremental $ profitability. Humans respond to stories and images (i.e. what they think they saw) better than hard facts. Using hard facts takes training, education, practice. Its what STEM's do - but most people are not STEM's - and even STEM's will say 'oh **** it, I'll take that one just because I like the look of it'. Homo sapiens. At one level marvelously competent, logical, analytical and creative, and at another totally base and driven by their gut instinct and emotions. That the part that marketers target. And every single one of us has that part.
Think French Perfume . . . some water, rose petals and a fancy bottle. It doesn't matter how pure the water or the rose petals, its still water 'n rose petals in a glass container. Spin the right a story around it, and its 100 bucks a bottle.
[Note: none of the above is an excuse for bullsh1t engineering, lies, obsfucation, sub-par quality products etc]
TV is another example - Samsung and LG battling it out plus a host of Chinese manufacturers - yet TV prices have plunged while specs have gone through the roof. The margins to the manufacturers are in low single digit figures despite billions of $ in manufacturing and R&D investment.
Audio is a classic study case. The industry knows how to make good amplifiers, preamps, CD's - you name it. But why would anyone buy one product over another? Because you did DBT's and found a 50% approval rating? The best DBT's show that for similar power level amplifiers with similar responses you hear no difference (remember the Carver test) so why not pick a brand from a hat of names?
So if for the most part you cannot differentiate products enough on their technical merits to drive most of the incremental $ profit, what does?
Marketing. You sell products on emotional appeal and that's where you can in most cases make a difference. So, we can engineer all we like, do DBT tests, publish AP test results in product brochures and it makes no difference - the other guy that pushes the right consumer emotional buttons, has the glossier product pictures etc wins the day.
So, stop agonizing over ppm distortion, DBT's, 'peeking', or blaming those 'marketers' for being bull sh1tters. For the most part, in consumer electronics, people don't give a sh1t about the technicalities - as long as it looks good, has a good story spun around it, that's what drives the incremental $ profitability. Humans respond to stories and images (i.e. what they think they saw) better than hard facts. Using hard facts takes training, education, practice. Its what STEM's do - but most people are not STEM's - and even STEM's will say 'oh **** it, I'll take that one just because I like the look of it'. Homo sapiens. At one level marvelously competent, logical, analytical and creative, and at another totally base and driven by their gut instinct and emotions. That the part that marketers target. And every single one of us has that part.
Think French Perfume . . . some water, rose petals and a fancy bottle. It doesn't matter how pure the water or the rose petals, its still water 'n rose petals in a glass container. Spin the right a story around it, and its 100 bucks a bottle.
[Note: none of the above is an excuse for bullsh1t engineering, lies, obsfucation, sub-par quality products etc]
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During a power struggle at Harman about 13 years ago, a sneaky and defensive sales guy blamed engineering for not providing him with something to sell in the desktop powered speaker space with MSRPs at 100 bucks and below. We came up with a few ideas but in the end the insistence on large margins made it impossible to compete with manufacturers willing to work with lower ones.
All of these things became negligible after the new CEO dismantled the division, having offered to people the alternative of moving to China, which no one wanted to do.
All of these things became negligible after the new CEO dismantled the division, having offered to people the alternative of moving to China, which no one wanted to do.
Bonsai, at least for me, the note at the end of your long rant is my objection and where I take an objectivist role. Namely when something is called superior without substance to back it up. "I like it better" vs "it is better", so to speak. The former may elicit a"why?" from me, but the latter had better bring data.
It doesnt matter all that much to me what the outcome is. Some of F.Toole's work brought out some interesting details and bounds using careful listening tests. I do care if there is a larger body of work which would contradict a DBT. Maybe the DBT was flawed or maybe there are other factors to know about.
I am not interested in the vast majority of uncontrolled street-people type interviews nor consumer magazine articles. I only read those mags for technical updates on what is going on or coming along. I am capable of making my oun decisions.... usually based on tech merits. For example... Stereophile... I go right to the charts and graphs. If I dont like what I see there, I do not read the article. Meanwhile, it has been proven in good DBT that good technical performance such as flat frequency response, the average consumer Does prefer it when they have a chance to hear it. I do care or at least give some weight to what a majority of critical listeners report hearing on a product and if their is a broad consensus agreement. That hold potential for further inquiry.... usually my own. I did notice that many of the things critical listeners had long agreed upon where born out by F.Toole's careful work.
Not everything can be explored in such rigorous fashion, so I do listen to what the broad consensus is over time.
THx-RNMarsh
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The trap that Harman Multimedia sidestepped, for the most part, was competing with others for who had the most features. Probably the best-sounding cheap desktop speakers for which I did the electronics, Duet, has one control for volume, and not even a line-level subwoofer output.
For once the industrial design married well with the acoustical, as the fashion at that point was to riff off of UFO/ET lore, and the baffle is curved and avoids diffraction effects for the most part. The rest of the housing has decent rigidity as well due to the shape. Were it not for the high IM due in part to nonlinearities associated with the single driver having a rather large x max for its diameter, the sound is pretty decent and unobjectionable. After a few years at moderate levels the surround on the right channel gives way, usually in the vicinity of the power amp where the temperature is maximum. But otherwise such a deal...
At one point someone claimed that the BOM cost was about 10 dollars, although I think that is a bit of an underestimate---but not by a lot.
When I see the schematic now I have to spend some time to understand how the frequency-dependent compressor actually works And it works hard.
For once the industrial design married well with the acoustical, as the fashion at that point was to riff off of UFO/ET lore, and the baffle is curved and avoids diffraction effects for the most part. The rest of the housing has decent rigidity as well due to the shape. Were it not for the high IM due in part to nonlinearities associated with the single driver having a rather large x max for its diameter, the sound is pretty decent and unobjectionable. After a few years at moderate levels the surround on the right channel gives way, usually in the vicinity of the power amp where the temperature is maximum. But otherwise such a deal...
At one point someone claimed that the BOM cost was about 10 dollars, although I think that is a bit of an underestimate---but not by a lot.
When I see the schematic now I have to spend some time to understand how the frequency-dependent compressor actually works
And it works hard.
In theory it's suppose to be good, and depending on the way the equipment works it might be ok. But I always remove Y to hot caps because of their bad affects. Y to neutral seems to be pretty beneficial.
Why does anyone put it in? My best guess is they're applying things they learned in school without any experience of checking.
Not a rant Derfnofred - just a viewpoint
There ain't no such thing as an 'objectivist'.
Ayn Rand smoked a specific brand of cigarette. Logic should have told her that most brands were similar enough in taste and gave one the same kind of cancer.
Oh, and in her final years, she relied upon social security and govt aid to help her through medical bills from her ill health. From smoking no doubt.
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It is "first order dilemma", why to use Y2 capacitors in audio.
Maybe better grounding is more important.
Or,maybe is more fun hunting fantoms in wires.
http://www.schurter.ch/content/down...le/EMC+for+Dummies_e-News+Final+3.27.2015.pdf
Maybe better grounding is more important.
Or,maybe is more fun hunting fantoms in wires.
http://www.schurter.ch/content/down...le/EMC+for+Dummies_e-News+Final+3.27.2015.pdf
If you learn what is common-mode and differenetial or normal mode on the ac line, then you will know why there are caps from each H and N to ground and from H-N.
Then you will need to know which mode you have in your home/system and proceed to get rid of it. [I already said which it is]
THx-RNMarsh
Then you will need to know which mode you have in your home/system and proceed to get rid of it. [I already said which it is]
THx-RNMarsh
Not a rant Derfnofred - just a viewpoint
There ain't no such thing as an 'objectivist'.
Ayn Rand smoked a specific brand of cigarette. Logic should have told her that most brands were similar enough in taste and gave one the same kind of cancer.
Oh, and in her final years, she relied upon social security and govt aid to help her through medical bills from her ill health. From smoking no doubt.
Cheers! I think we're essentially in agreement.
Not a rant Derfnofred - just a viewpoint
There ain't no such thing as an 'objectivist'.
Ayn Rand smoked a specific brand of cigarette. Logic should have told her that most brands were similar enough in taste and gave one the same kind of cancer.
Oh, and in her final years, she relied upon social security and govt aid to help her through medical bills from her ill health. From smoking no doubt.
She also confided to a few that she couldn't understand why she contracted cancer, given her philosophy. And as well, since she argued against such things as SS, she was morally entitled to them.
I am not making this up.
Exactly. Fine if someone subjectively prefers something, as you say, one might be curious as to the reason, but that's it. The problem is when it is claimed to be objectively superior....
And on the general topic, I still have never seen (apart from duff equipment or installs, which I though we would be beyond...) a system with a power noise or hum problem - not since the 70s anyway.
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