Personally, if the devices make it to me, I plan to do the same. I know this is far from a DBT, but it will satisfy my curiosity. If anybody wants to know the results of my unscientific tests, I can share them.
NOTE: I performed a similar test with a $200 power cord and heard no difference. It was quickly pointed out that my system isn't "resolving enough detail." OK, I can conceede that. I responded that it would make more sense to spend some money on better speakers than a power cord. So, I have a new pair of FR drivers with another coming soon. Both acquired through trading. I spent the $200 on enough wood to build 2 new sets of high efficiency horns. Maybe the listening test would go better after the new speakers are on line.
I offered to do the high frequency and RF testing because that is an area where I have expertise and access to good equipment. Will it find anything? I don't know. Are the results relevant? I don't know, but many of the claims made earlier were centered on cavity resonators. If it resonates, I can find that!
Several people have offered to do some scientific testing based on their specific areas of expertise. They may or may not mean anything, but we won't know until the tests are done, and you can't blame someone for offering their time to perform the testing.
Want a proper listening test done your way. Set it up.
The people who have the devices can decide what tests are done. If they don't feel comfortable to list a listening test as "conclusive" then so it is. No one can impose on them that they should. Anyone who would like to run conclusive listening tests they can do it themselves.
Let's keep the thread clean. Put politics aside or your posts will be deleted.
exeric, please take note of that. Others too.
I've gone back and read through this thread and compiled what I thought was relevant in the wiki testing page.
That I could summarize this thread in such a short page is indicative of how badly awry this thread has gone.
For the record, I hate nearly all of you.
That I could summarize this thread in such a short page is indicative of how badly awry this thread has gone.
For the record, I hate nearly all of you.
Thanks! That will certainly help as the results come out
Actually, no its not too far awry. It took almost 10% of the current thread length to get to the point of having the devices purchased and the beginning of a protocol. Around 5% is banter including dubious images of models(!) and coke (liquid format).
There has also been a valiant but seemingly futile attempt to bring clarification on scientific method into the discussion so it DOESN'T get sidetracked. Now there is a wiki begging to be done.
Sure, some little sidetracking but generally well behaved I think...
In actual fact, the lack of content on the wiki is more a reflection that we are relying on the good-will of a couple of members to carry the weight. I guess they actually value their time! Meantime, to fill the gaps, conversation continues.
For the record, I hate nearly all of you.
Now you are into the spirit of the thing!
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I've gone back and read through this thread and compiled what I thought was relevant in the wiki testing page.
That I could summarize this thread in such a short page is indicative of how badly awry this thread has gone.
For the record, I hate nearly all of you.
Yep, I was thinking two or three paragraphs would do it.
This is surely heading for a thread closure. What a pity - this bickering is quite an opportunity lost. We have the chance here to do something remarkable: do an electrical analysis and then a listening test independently and then release results together. How hard can it be?
Why can't it run something like this:
now to end September, SY & tubelab do their tests.
October: 2 listening tests, say plante10 and Cal each do their tests, blind but perhaps just with the jump leads.
First week November: all results mailed to one other mod (eg ECC8010) who will post them up.
After that people can draw their own conclusions. If we don't do this, then the argument over "measurements show everything" camp vs "listening is only thing important" camp will just cycle endlessly.
Its tiresome and childish.
Fran
(who now expects censure or ban)
Why can't it run something like this:
now to end September, SY & tubelab do their tests.
October: 2 listening tests, say plante10 and Cal each do their tests, blind but perhaps just with the jump leads.
First week November: all results mailed to one other mod (eg ECC8010) who will post them up.
After that people can draw their own conclusions. If we don't do this, then the argument over "measurements show everything" camp vs "listening is only thing important" camp will just cycle endlessly.
Its tiresome and childish.
Fran
(who now expects censure or ban)
I've gone back and read through this thread and compiled what I thought was relevant in the wiki testing page.
That I could summarize this thread in such a short page is indicative of how badly awry this thread has gone.
For the record, I hate nearly all of you.
I actually don't think its gone awry at all. More its just taken a lot of time to get to the salient points. I thought of a good trick to play on people in the listening test I suggested. Have the two groups of people begin their familiarization on modified and unmodified equipment respectively. When they all come together for the real test then tell both groups that they heard absolutely identical equipment previously. Then tell them to discuss it among themselves and reach a group decision. It would be like watching a western bar fight with bottles being cracked over one anothers heads.
Hey, wait a minute! Maybe that's what is going on with this thread.
For the record, because I and a few others are being promoted as the champions of listening over quantitative lab test, let me say this. I never said that quantitative analysis isn't very important. It is. Once a quantitative analytical test is correlated to sound quality, such as jitter in CD playback, then that becomes a really really good arbiter of the quality of that component. Note that I said "once a quantitative test is correlated to sound quality". There have always been times when we haven't had a good quantitative test for sound quality. Just as with TIM distortion, in the early days of CDs jitter was unknown and it was not realized how important it was to how they sounded.
My point is this: We should try to find a quantitative way to describe what is going on with the QPs. That is really the only way to try to duplicate in other components a "quality" of audio we want to duplicate. However if we find after testing that we still don't have a good quantitative lab test to correlate with something we hear then we should always trust our ears. Listening and lab tests are both very important but in the absense of agreement we all should know which to trust. At least for our own enjoyment of music.
My point is this: We should try to find a quantitative way to describe what is going on with the QPs. That is really the only way to try to duplicate in other components a "quality" of audio we want to duplicate. However if we find after testing that we still don't have a good quantitative lab test to correlate with something we hear then we should always trust our ears. Listening and lab tests are both very important but in the absense of agreement we all should know which to trust. At least for our own enjoyment of music.
I can predict the future! I predicted that this thread would be all noise until some test results are in. Haha! I was right.
Really, I don't see the problem with either electrical tests or controlled listening tests, as long as they are well documented. Both are valid, both are important. So "Where's the Beef?" (not the meat, the complaint)
Really, I don't see the problem with either electrical tests or controlled listening tests, as long as they are well documented. Both are valid, both are important. So "Where's the Beef?" (not the meat, the complaint)
The only problem with this statement being that it starts from a premise that something IS happening...
One way to find out is to carry out a double blind test on a statistically significant population. Single-user is anecdotal opinion at best - sorry guys.
Once it is identified that there is a reliably identified effect (regardless of its nature), further work would be required to identify what the cause of the effect is.
Alternatively, there is no reliably identified effect. This wouldn't mean that the (name of item here) doesn't HAVE an effect, just that the test didn't identify it. Of course, if a series of different tests repeatedly finds that there is no reliably identified effect, the LIKELIHOOD is that there isn't one.
A new can of worms then opens...
Its easy to see why relatively simple tests of electrical and physical properties are preferred at this stage.
I can predict the future! I predicted that this thread would be all noise until some test results are in. Haha! I was right.
Really, I don't see the problem with either electrical tests or controlled listening tests, as long as they are well documented. Both are valid, both are important. So "Where's the Beef?" (not the meat, the complaint)
Yeah, its all pretty well noise at this point. I'll just try to summon the willpower to stay off this thread until your listening test and the electrical test results are in. However I make no promises that my willpower is strong enough.
The problem here is that the act of letting the participants discuss the results invalidates the group decision because it is subject to persuasion by the more 'powerful' members of the group. These kinds of tests are more useful in studying human behavior and group dynamics.
Cheers,
Dave.
The people who have the devices can decide what tests are done. If they don't feel comfortable to list a listening test as "conclusive" then so it is. No one can impose on them that they should. Anyone who would like to run conclusive listening tests they can do it themselves.
Let's keep the thread clean. Put politics aside or your posts will be deleted.
exeric, please take note of that. Others too.
no, but read these posts fast, they will be gone soon
Can these posts not be branched off into a separate thread as was stated before? Why delete them? They are very pertinent to the whole qualitative Vs Quantitative debate & very pertinent to what is going on in this excercise!
LOL! Not easy, is it?
They could be a "Bybee Subjective" thread, sure. I would welcome it.
Let us hope that the subjective side of things stays well controlled, tho. It does not have to, but to convince many of the claims, it would need to.
EDIT There is a thread strictly for listening tests here:http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/173453-bybee-q-p-listening-tests.html#post2301084
Please post listening tests and impressions over there. Controlled and uncontrolled listening tests are welcome, but be sure to identify them as such!
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I know this thread has gone silent until test results are in but... I had a brainwave about a "possible" physics explanation of what the QP does. It probably could deserve a new thread but because it would change what we would test for it also deserves a place here. I'll let others decide if they want to branch it off. I'm Ok either way.
JC put me onto a google search of carbon nanotube resisters that was quite an eye opener. It appears to point to a possible explanation of what is going on. There has never been a "bulk" room temperature superconductor yet devised. Doing the google search, (I'll let you guys do your own), shows that at the microscopic level a carbon nanotube does exhibit what could be considered room temperature superconductivity. This is at tube length of meter^-6. That is each microscopic nanotube exhibits conductance of G = 1 or G = 0. It either completely conducts at one set level with no resistance or it does not conduct at all. So it displays quantized conductance and quantized superconductivity.
I'm not saying what is in the QP are carbon nanotubes. What I'm saying is that the ceramic material, not the BE resistor, is acting like a superconductor at the molecular level. It of course does not exhibit superconductivity at room temperature in the bulk. But that does not mean it is impossible for quantized conductivity to occur within it that depends on the energy level that triggers it. It would be analogous to the stimulated emission of photons in lasers.
The audio behavior I have heard from the QP tells me QPs remove low noise from the signal, just as Bybee describes. Notes emerge more out of silence. I'm not copying PR. It just happens to be what I've heard. (I'm not as gullible as some of you might think I am.) But what that would mean is you have to divide a very low signal level from the low grass of noise it sits on.
I think the only explanation of the BE .025 ohm resister in parallel with ceramic device is to let the high energy, high level signal bypass the ceramic device. That way the ceramic device can better handle the chore it needs to do - separate the low level noise riding on the low level signal. If you think of size of the signal in terms of energy level most of the high energy signal will go right through the BE resister. What doesn't get through, i.e. the remnants of the high level signal all the way down to a signal that started out low level will go through the ceramic device. At that point you have a device that can be seen as something that exhibits tunneling bahavior. In the nanotubes the electrons are described as acting ballistically rather than wavelike when it is conducting. That could also be described as tunneling behavior.
It seems to me that as long as there is more energy in a low level signal than in the noise riding on it this kind of imperfect superconductivity in the bulk can be made to work for you. That is, the low level signal energy channeled to the ceramic is strong enough to trigger the ballistic tunneling effect while the noise energy is not strong enough to do the same. The low level signal gets through the ceramic and the noise does not. The high level signal goes through the BE resistor.
This is just speculation on my part so please don't take this as gospel but I know enough physics that it at least makes some sense. And it would also square with what I've heard through my system. It would also square with the fact that while room temperature superconductors do not exist in the bulk we now know that quantized superconductivity can be stimulated at the molecular level.
How this might effect our lab testing I'll leave for later...
JC put me onto a google search of carbon nanotube resisters that was quite an eye opener. It appears to point to a possible explanation of what is going on. There has never been a "bulk" room temperature superconductor yet devised. Doing the google search, (I'll let you guys do your own), shows that at the microscopic level a carbon nanotube does exhibit what could be considered room temperature superconductivity. This is at tube length of meter^-6. That is each microscopic nanotube exhibits conductance of G = 1 or G = 0. It either completely conducts at one set level with no resistance or it does not conduct at all. So it displays quantized conductance and quantized superconductivity.
I'm not saying what is in the QP are carbon nanotubes. What I'm saying is that the ceramic material, not the BE resistor, is acting like a superconductor at the molecular level. It of course does not exhibit superconductivity at room temperature in the bulk. But that does not mean it is impossible for quantized conductivity to occur within it that depends on the energy level that triggers it. It would be analogous to the stimulated emission of photons in lasers.
The audio behavior I have heard from the QP tells me QPs remove low noise from the signal, just as Bybee describes. Notes emerge more out of silence. I'm not copying PR. It just happens to be what I've heard. (I'm not as gullible as some of you might think I am.) But what that would mean is you have to divide a very low signal level from the low grass of noise it sits on.
I think the only explanation of the BE .025 ohm resister in parallel with ceramic device is to let the high energy, high level signal bypass the ceramic device. That way the ceramic device can better handle the chore it needs to do - separate the low level noise riding on the low level signal. If you think of size of the signal in terms of energy level most of the high energy signal will go right through the BE resister. What doesn't get through, i.e. the remnants of the high level signal all the way down to a signal that started out low level will go through the ceramic device. At that point you have a device that can be seen as something that exhibits tunneling bahavior. In the nanotubes the electrons are described as acting ballistically rather than wavelike when it is conducting. That could also be described as tunneling behavior.
It seems to me that as long as there is more energy in a low level signal than in the noise riding on it this kind of imperfect superconductivity in the bulk can be made to work for you. That is, the low level signal energy channeled to the ceramic is strong enough to trigger the ballistic tunneling effect while the noise energy is not strong enough to do the same. The low level signal gets through the ceramic and the noise does not. The high level signal goes through the BE resistor.
This is just speculation on my part so please don't take this as gospel but I know enough physics that it at least makes some sense. And it would also square with what I've heard through my system. It would also square with the fact that while room temperature superconductors do not exist in the bulk we now know that quantized superconductivity can be stimulated at the molecular level.
How this might effect our lab testing I'll leave for later...
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