OK then: a test suggestion for Bybee and other magic dust
Hello to all.
Based on the replies made to the suggestion we investigate or develop methods similar to the ones Acuity ran for Nordost, and see if the Bybees show any blips with similar tests, well... I'd like to stir the pot some more.. even if I do "doubt the bybee", I wanna know for sure.
BTW... before I get constructive, and believe me, I will... some tongue in cheek to make an important point... Please feel free to skip ahead if you're feeling a little roasted...
SIR!
I have no desire to "insult the Audio Engineering Society" by implying they maybe missed out on something... (wow, I didn't know the AES had become a Holy Orthodoxy that needs defending from heretic free thinkers...)...
but I AM going to suggest that we need to take another look at testing with non-linear content, musical and otherwise, and I would like to suggest a few ideas for testing this way. Why? Because it seems clear to many of us that we are still hearing things that don't show up in the most commonly applied tests. Even if the "Holy Audio Orthodoxy" says the earth is flat, some of us somehow still free to suspect otherwise.
Remember THD was king until Matti Ottala showed us all about TIM? Remember how BAD some of those POS transistor amps sounded?
Oh wait, then the doubly blind men showed us we can't possibly tell the difference... and we suddenly couldn't hear any other forms of distortion because we don't have measurements for them... Yeah i know, we just can't hear cables... uh huh.
OK, so here's an actual suggestion to test for audible non linearities:
1) Start with something like bwaslo's audible diff tester. With it's time correction features, that method looks promising indeed.
And you know what? With some additional processing, we might be able to extend its functionality and generate measurable output. How? Well, use a really high resolution storage scope to measure diff-maker's output and apply boatloads of averaging to see/measure/listen to it with huge s/n ratio. ("Averaging?" I can already hear them say: Gadzooks man, if we have much time variance that won't work! well, as stated above, bwaslo already took care of some/much of that, but then add #2 and #3 and you have even mo' resolution)
2) Use a really good D/A. (try Antelope Audio Zodiac+).
reduce jitter and time errors by syncing everything up with a good external clock or syncing to the Zodiac's clock
3) Do NOT use a CD or a hard disk for the signal source! Store a variety of demanding HiRez 192/24 (go to 384/32 when they become available) musical test files on a good Solid State Drive and use that as a source instead of... anything with moving parts - eliminates a bunch of mechanical and jitter/timing variables and makes the tests a LOT more repeatable relative to time.
4) Using #3 above, because the signal may be MUCH more repeatable in time, it may now become possible to select very demanding musical signals... play them hundreds/thousands of times... and measure, store and average the output from the diff-maker... you get much higher test resolution by averaging many hundreds of tests together...if the time sig is repeatable you can go waaay beyond 24 bits...
and non-linear anomalies that affect the audio band may show up more clearly, (even if said anomalies are well beyond the audio band, if they are audible, they may show up more clearly with a good high s/n non linear diff test such as proposed)
So, again, refer to suggestion #3 .... from what I've been able to find, SSD's would exhibit much less of this time variance, also they are a much lighter load on the 'puter's power supply, a non trivial issue when compared to an optical drive or hard drive. And they seem to sound much cleaner than Hard drive... I can hear the differ...(uh-oh, another controversy brewing.)
Other considerations:
5) Maybe reduce power supply and ground plane noise issues by using battery power where practical. Use freshly charged batteries with way overspec'ed current capacity.
6) Test inside and outside a D'Arsonval cage to determine differences. It's entirely possible some of these bybees/cables/terminators/magic devices are simply filtering some RF artifacts, and it would be good to see what happens if we put 'em near a strong rf signal and can hear/test a difference.
7) Check the effect of isolation transformers between DAC outputs and the amps being used for testing. Once upon a time, I thought a DAC I was auditioning sounded really bad, then I found out it was reacting to the class D amp it was driving... when I put a good Jensen isolation transformer in between 'em the DAC sounded very good indeed.
8) To test cables and bybees use a variety of loads, and make sure at least one of them is a real speaker that presents truly nasty low impedances and highly reactive loads.
Test them at very low, middle level and extremely high power ranges. At high volumes some speakers show some really big impedance changes, it'd be interesting to see if any of these magic bullets help at high levels vs low. (Yes, I doubt it also, but test first, then talk trash.) Use earplugs.
9) Use a variety of test amps. Determine their audible diff characteristics.
10) test the cables being used and determine their audible diff characteristics Listen and also look at the differences using a storage scope, run many tests with the same track and average the time signals (if they are not jittery) and measure the output of the diff-maker.
Again: Yeah, I know, the Bybee is probably bogus, but if we SAY we're gonna be fair, let's actually BE fair, OK?
Methinks the preceding methodology will be much more useful in helping to determine what makes some cables/capacitors/inductors sound different from others... but IF the Bybees also show a blip here, well, wouldn't that just be a real embarrassment to some of us cynics!
In the meantime, please look over these suggestions and see if they hold up to scrutiny. I think they may work very well indeed, but I do not have the equipment, nor the time to do this. Any takers?
Hello to all.
Based on the replies made to the suggestion we investigate or develop methods similar to the ones Acuity ran for Nordost, and see if the Bybees show any blips with similar tests, well... I'd like to stir the pot some more.. even if I do "doubt the bybee", I wanna know for sure.
BTW... before I get constructive, and believe me, I will... some tongue in cheek to make an important point... Please feel free to skip ahead if you're feeling a little roasted...
SIR!
I have no desire to "insult the Audio Engineering Society" by implying they maybe missed out on something... (wow, I didn't know the AES had become a Holy Orthodoxy that needs defending from heretic free thinkers...)...
but I AM going to suggest that we need to take another look at testing with non-linear content, musical and otherwise, and I would like to suggest a few ideas for testing this way. Why? Because it seems clear to many of us that we are still hearing things that don't show up in the most commonly applied tests. Even if the "Holy Audio Orthodoxy" says the earth is flat, some of us somehow still free to suspect otherwise.
Remember THD was king until Matti Ottala showed us all about TIM? Remember how BAD some of those POS transistor amps sounded?
Oh wait, then the doubly blind men showed us we can't possibly tell the difference... and we suddenly couldn't hear any other forms of distortion because we don't have measurements for them... Yeah i know, we just can't hear cables... uh huh.
OK, so here's an actual suggestion to test for audible non linearities:
1) Start with something like bwaslo's audible diff tester. With it's time correction features, that method looks promising indeed.
And you know what? With some additional processing, we might be able to extend its functionality and generate measurable output. How? Well, use a really high resolution storage scope to measure diff-maker's output and apply boatloads of averaging to see/measure/listen to it with huge s/n ratio. ("Averaging?" I can already hear them say: Gadzooks man, if we have much time variance that won't work! well, as stated above, bwaslo already took care of some/much of that, but then add #2 and #3 and you have even mo' resolution)
2) Use a really good D/A. (try Antelope Audio Zodiac+).
reduce jitter and time errors by syncing everything up with a good external clock or syncing to the Zodiac's clock
3) Do NOT use a CD or a hard disk for the signal source! Store a variety of demanding HiRez 192/24 (go to 384/32 when they become available) musical test files on a good Solid State Drive and use that as a source instead of... anything with moving parts - eliminates a bunch of mechanical and jitter/timing variables and makes the tests a LOT more repeatable relative to time.
4) Using #3 above, because the signal may be MUCH more repeatable in time, it may now become possible to select very demanding musical signals... play them hundreds/thousands of times... and measure, store and average the output from the diff-maker... you get much higher test resolution by averaging many hundreds of tests together...if the time sig is repeatable you can go waaay beyond 24 bits...
and non-linear anomalies that affect the audio band may show up more clearly, (even if said anomalies are well beyond the audio band, if they are audible, they may show up more clearly with a good high s/n non linear diff test such as proposed)
So, again, refer to suggestion #3 .... from what I've been able to find, SSD's would exhibit much less of this time variance, also they are a much lighter load on the 'puter's power supply, a non trivial issue when compared to an optical drive or hard drive. And they seem to sound much cleaner than Hard drive... I can hear the differ...(uh-oh, another controversy brewing.)
Other considerations:
5) Maybe reduce power supply and ground plane noise issues by using battery power where practical. Use freshly charged batteries with way overspec'ed current capacity.
6) Test inside and outside a D'Arsonval cage to determine differences. It's entirely possible some of these bybees/cables/terminators/magic devices are simply filtering some RF artifacts, and it would be good to see what happens if we put 'em near a strong rf signal and can hear/test a difference.
7) Check the effect of isolation transformers between DAC outputs and the amps being used for testing. Once upon a time, I thought a DAC I was auditioning sounded really bad, then I found out it was reacting to the class D amp it was driving... when I put a good Jensen isolation transformer in between 'em the DAC sounded very good indeed.
8) To test cables and bybees use a variety of loads, and make sure at least one of them is a real speaker that presents truly nasty low impedances and highly reactive loads.
Test them at very low, middle level and extremely high power ranges. At high volumes some speakers show some really big impedance changes, it'd be interesting to see if any of these magic bullets help at high levels vs low. (Yes, I doubt it also, but test first, then talk trash.) Use earplugs.
9) Use a variety of test amps. Determine their audible diff characteristics.
10) test the cables being used and determine their audible diff characteristics Listen and also look at the differences using a storage scope, run many tests with the same track and average the time signals (if they are not jittery) and measure the output of the diff-maker.
Again: Yeah, I know, the Bybee is probably bogus, but if we SAY we're gonna be fair, let's actually BE fair, OK?
Methinks the preceding methodology will be much more useful in helping to determine what makes some cables/capacitors/inductors sound different from others... but IF the Bybees also show a blip here, well, wouldn't that just be a real embarrassment to some of us cynics!
In the meantime, please look over these suggestions and see if they hold up to scrutiny. I think they may work very well indeed, but I do not have the equipment, nor the time to do this. Any takers?
I know this is slightly OT, but do you have proof of these claims? A computer's drive internally caches reads, the operating system software pre-caches reads, and it's very likely the software being used to play a music file off a drive is doing some caching of it's own. None of this changes with a switch from a standard HDD to a SSD. Clearly if there are timing issues with playing from a HDD then files being read would no longer be bit perfect, correct?
Check out the replies from Wavelength, then Chris Connaker at Computer Audiophile. Especially the comment from Chris about the Symposium.
There is far more detail about that from Chris Connaker in a much earlier post, where he details the way the tests were performed using proper procedures.
SandyK
Does SSD sound better than Hard Disk? | Computer Audiophile
I'm slightly hurt by the idea that a computer based source is exotic
Not so much around here- my CDs are all ripped to hard disk, and I use the computer plus PCI card as a primary music source. As soon as I'm finished a version of Jan Didden's mods to my DCX2496, the DACs in that will be my primary source.
Rather amusing one, that is.
How much would someone invest in a system component, before $200 and up worth of QP's is a consideration.
(in the event that they do the wild thing)
The innards of a bybee:
Taken from Here
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Taken from Here
Peterr, many thanks. I see that I bought the wrong brand of resistor as a reference.
Reading a bit further through the Dutch thread I found this link: www.audiocircle.com
where it all seems to stem from. They also did a bit of measuring there.
exeric, Bias is not a problem in the physical testing, unless the tester is intentionally dishonest. But that is controlled for by full disclosure of the testing procedures, which allows others to confirm or refute the results.
You are correct that the listening tests can be easily affected by bias. If the test subjects don't want to hear a difference (even sub consciously) then they won't. However, the believers position is fail safe here. A null result in a listening test can not prove that there is no audible difference, only that it wasn't audible in that test, with those listeners. But if you can find one listener that can reliably detect a difference in a properly blinded test, conducted with familiar gear, over any time period, multiple tries, etc., then it can be said that there is an audible difference. Their pro bias doesn't matter. So, if you are not willing, maybe someone else in the pro camp is willing to step up?
Sheldon
sidetracked?
Sy said
"The claims are made that these devices produce audible effects with conventional media and in conventional applications. Let's not get sidetracked with discussions of exotic sources, exotic applications, and incorrect understandings of signal processing and measurement methods."
Say WHAT?
Sidetracked?
Exotic applications?
Incorrect understandings of signal processing methods?
SY, those are some pretty big and arrogant words, intended to dismiss and discredit. And in the process it brings discredit to you and your impartiality.
Three times you have summarily rejected the idea of testing with alternate methods by attempting to belittle the work and suggestions of others with words like "incorrect understandings of signal processing methods", as if you are the only one who knows about this. Your responses have been hazy, vaporous and downright dismissive.
Then, when pressed a little more, and being presented with a coherent, constructive testing protocol that would probably be much more to the point, suddenly the test proposal is not valid because it's an EXOTIC APPLICATION?
Is this true? Are you actually telling us that discussions about alternate test methods are a form of "sidetracking" this thread? That's poppycock! The bottom line is we DO need a different microscope to detect the differences, or like scientists in the past we will continue to believe there are no microbes.
Are you so afraid that you might be proven wrong that you need to dismiss any form of alternative testing?
Let's review:
EXOTIC?
it's too difficult to use bwaslo's diffmaker?
It's too hard to use a SSD to store and repetitively playback a complex musical signal?
It's too hard to signal average the output from diff-maker to gain s/n and more resolution and perhaps quantify what we can readily hear with the diffmaker sw?
Come on! Who are you kidding?
Oh gee, remember when testing for Transient Intermodulation Distortion was too exotic? Oh wait, didn't Matti Ottala get some kind of recognition for his pioneering work?
Oh but THIS testing... now this is too ... uh... exotic!
Yep, better get back to measuring it on the bridge and seeing if there is some added capacitance in there.... Now let's scrape some leads and prove there IS some magnetic content.... Wow, how convincing.
OK, now let's use an infrared sensor to test for ultraviolet! And because our IR sensor is highly sensitive, for sure it'll detect all light spectrums if there are any beyond IR. See? There's nothing there! And now we have proven that ultraviolet does not exist!
The point being that IF there is anything here, it ain't gonna show on your LCR bridge, and probably not with even a really good HF signal analyzer or FFT analyzer. It's much more likely to show using complex waveforms and something like Waslo's differential with additional averaging to boost resolution.
AGAIN, let me remind you that until Ottala showed the way with TIM, people swore by their low THD... and a LOT of gear with really good THD specs sounded like ****!
SO...before proceeding to discredit yourself even more with arrogant and dismissive wording, you may want to broaden the scope of your testing.
Or, you could simply admit you have an agenda and just want to prove that Bybee is evil, and we can all stop wasting our time in reading your posts.
Good luck in proving your point. I'm outta here.
Sy said
"The claims are made that these devices produce audible effects with conventional media and in conventional applications. Let's not get sidetracked with discussions of exotic sources, exotic applications, and incorrect understandings of signal processing and measurement methods."
Say WHAT?
Sidetracked?
Exotic applications?
Incorrect understandings of signal processing methods?
SY, those are some pretty big and arrogant words, intended to dismiss and discredit. And in the process it brings discredit to you and your impartiality.
Three times you have summarily rejected the idea of testing with alternate methods by attempting to belittle the work and suggestions of others with words like "incorrect understandings of signal processing methods", as if you are the only one who knows about this. Your responses have been hazy, vaporous and downright dismissive.
Then, when pressed a little more, and being presented with a coherent, constructive testing protocol that would probably be much more to the point, suddenly the test proposal is not valid because it's an EXOTIC APPLICATION?
Is this true? Are you actually telling us that discussions about alternate test methods are a form of "sidetracking" this thread? That's poppycock! The bottom line is we DO need a different microscope to detect the differences, or like scientists in the past we will continue to believe there are no microbes.
Are you so afraid that you might be proven wrong that you need to dismiss any form of alternative testing?
Let's review:
EXOTIC?
it's too difficult to use bwaslo's diffmaker?
It's too hard to use a SSD to store and repetitively playback a complex musical signal?
It's too hard to signal average the output from diff-maker to gain s/n and more resolution and perhaps quantify what we can readily hear with the diffmaker sw?
Come on! Who are you kidding?
Oh gee, remember when testing for Transient Intermodulation Distortion was too exotic? Oh wait, didn't Matti Ottala get some kind of recognition for his pioneering work?
Oh but THIS testing... now this is too ... uh... exotic!
Yep, better get back to measuring it on the bridge and seeing if there is some added capacitance in there.... Now let's scrape some leads and prove there IS some magnetic content.... Wow, how convincing.
OK, now let's use an infrared sensor to test for ultraviolet! And because our IR sensor is highly sensitive, for sure it'll detect all light spectrums if there are any beyond IR. See? There's nothing there! And now we have proven that ultraviolet does not exist!
The point being that IF there is anything here, it ain't gonna show on your LCR bridge, and probably not with even a really good HF signal analyzer or FFT analyzer. It's much more likely to show using complex waveforms and something like Waslo's differential with additional averaging to boost resolution.
AGAIN, let me remind you that until Ottala showed the way with TIM, people swore by their low THD... and a LOT of gear with really good THD specs sounded like ****!
SO...before proceeding to discredit yourself even more with arrogant and dismissive wording, you may want to broaden the scope of your testing.
Or, you could simply admit you have an agenda and just want to prove that Bybee is evil, and we can all stop wasting our time in reading your posts.
Good luck in proving your point. I'm outta here.
Which bring up another interesting (I think) question.
Say I tell you: "See, I have here this fine $0.50 resistor. If you put it in your system you'll get to Audio Nirwana presto! Honestly".
Would you believe it? Would you try it given a chance?
Next try: "See I have here this fine $855.00 RNE (Random Noise Evaporator); it may look to you like a $ 0.50 resistor, but let me tell you, it's not what it seems, it actually will bring your system to Audio Nirwana levels! Honestly"!
Would you believe it? Would you try it given a chance?
jan didden
Oooooooo! Random noise evaporator!
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
se
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