Don't say that in front of a sheeple audience.The least that you would suffer is that you are deaf( politely).
But on the other hand,your experience tells that differences do exist. The most important part missing in all those "comparisons" is the price.
And more often than not ,apples are compared to oranges.
Your example says,that designers and manufacturers know some things better than "critics".
How much more does the prop cap costs against the NP electro?
$ 5 ,10? I do not think that the Magnepans of this world are so foolish to use an inferior component ,instead of "eating"the cost difference and keep the same retail price.Or $ 20 more. If spending $2000 on a component an additional $ 20 is small change.
It is so funny that, always, the most pricey component,sounds better. I do not use the word expensive.There are not expensive or cheap things.Only people with lots and less money.
B.L
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Of course differences exist, but when they do, the explanation is almost invariably obvious. In the case of the Maggies, half an ohm or so in series with the polyprop would bring the performance equal to the much cheaper electrolytic. The PP/resistor combination would certainly have better long-term reliability.
Nope- I would ruin a lot of the mystery and the anonymity of the circuit as it currently stands.
You apparently did not read my entire thread. Yes- they sound different, not necessarily 'better', as you state. Also- they will not know what caps they are listening to at the time. It will be A/B/X as I stated. Oh- and what I'm hearing is not in terms of output level. I never spend over $46 for a part in the xover, so they aren't uber-boutiqus.
I'm not using NPE's for this test, even though I did include them in the system.
Like I said- come and hear for yourself! It's not a disservice to the objective test, as they won't know what they are hearing at the time, and it's just to experience it, and see if a listener can hear it or not.
Later,
Wolf
Can we see a nice close up afterwards? That's a very cool build Wolf. I'm a sucker for these sorts of things.
Will you then be hidden from view to eliminate the bias you'll unintentionally introduce? Or maybe you could have someone else do the switching that doesn't know which cap is attached to any particular switch position. That might be better. Could you break down a bit more clearly how the "scoring" will be done?
I mean we already know that caps can make an audible difference from the Clarity paper. So we should stop arguing that point. The discernible degree seems very small by its content. So it will be nice to see a bit more info done with reasonably practical rigor.
Thanks again Wolf,
Dan
Will you then be hidden from view to eliminate the bias you'll unintentionally introduce? Or maybe you could have someone else do the switching that doesn't know which cap is attached to any particular switch position. That might be better. Could you break down a bit more clearly how the "scoring" will be done?
I mean we already know that caps can make an audible difference from the Clarity paper. So we should stop arguing that point. The discernible degree seems very small by its content. So it will be nice to see a bit more info done with reasonably practical rigor.
Thanks again Wolf,
Dan
I will be posting more in a few months...
I plan on attending the CK-DIY in Kentucky should it happen this year, and that I'm able to go. If that is a go, then I hope to give a demo there as well.
That would be it for the year in regards to possibilities. I have entertained the idea of doing a formal quiz at InDIYana next spring, but it's hard to say if I want to do a formal-3rd one.
As far as flack or bias that I may induce- everyone hears differently, and that has a major effect of having a slightly different perspective from a lot of different people's perceptions. That said- I have not really caught much flack on the PE-TT forum for this progressive test, as a lot of people (I guess) think I do have a clue, whether they can personally hear it or not.
I was actually surprised what I heard, so I was a doubter before this was pursued.
To the terms of the test, there will be 3 blanks on a slip of paper for tests 1, 2, and 3, and they have to write A or B in the blank- simple enough?
I cannot allow another at the helm, as the circuit will exposed and viewable during operation, and only *I* know what 3 tests I will be giving.
So- that's about it for now.
Later,
Wolf
I plan on attending the CK-DIY in Kentucky should it happen this year, and that I'm able to go. If that is a go, then I hope to give a demo there as well.
That would be it for the year in regards to possibilities. I have entertained the idea of doing a formal quiz at InDIYana next spring, but it's hard to say if I want to do a formal-3rd one.
As far as flack or bias that I may induce- everyone hears differently, and that has a major effect of having a slightly different perspective from a lot of different people's perceptions. That said- I have not really caught much flack on the PE-TT forum for this progressive test, as a lot of people (I guess) think I do have a clue, whether they can personally hear it or not.
I was actually surprised what I heard, so I was a doubter before this was pursued.
To the terms of the test, there will be 3 blanks on a slip of paper for tests 1, 2, and 3, and they have to write A or B in the blank- simple enough?
I cannot allow another at the helm, as the circuit will exposed and viewable during operation, and only *I* know what 3 tests I will be giving.
So- that's about it for now.
Later,
Wolf
I certainly don't mean to give you flack. Sorry it came across that way.
Just remember that you were indeed biased by your site and thus no scientist is going to give you much weight. They might be motivated to do a more proper test b/c of it.
It's just that you'll bend no beliefs (except perhaps falsely the listeners') if biases aren't removed on either side of the argument. The scientific types will say "his presence and ______ may have biased the results" if it turns out all can easily hear the difference. The other argument this side will have is how did the different caps alter the output. Without graphed results of the various changes, it won't hold any weight to these folks. If no one hears a difference, well the same old arguments of environment, material(if I remember correctly you gave that out on PE's board), and speaker/source not revealing enough or inferior hearing by the judges. One side can reasonably be appeased or none at all. It would stink to go through all that building and demonstrating w/o really effecting anyone's opinion.
Dan
Just remember that you were indeed biased by your site and thus no scientist is going to give you much weight. They might be motivated to do a more proper test b/c of it.
It's just that you'll bend no beliefs (except perhaps falsely the listeners') if biases aren't removed on either side of the argument. The scientific types will say "his presence and ______ may have biased the results" if it turns out all can easily hear the difference. The other argument this side will have is how did the different caps alter the output. Without graphed results of the various changes, it won't hold any weight to these folks. If no one hears a difference, well the same old arguments of environment, material(if I remember correctly you gave that out on PE's board), and speaker/source not revealing enough or inferior hearing by the judges. One side can reasonably be appeased or none at all. It would stink to go through all that building and demonstrating w/o really effecting anyone's opinion.
Dan
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You misread....
You misunderstood me. I didn't think that you were slopping flack at all. I was just stating how I have not caught a lot of backlash for my process in this endeavor, being that I've been thorough, and doing it differently than it has been done before, and that it surprised me.
I suppose it is a chance that opinions will not be swayed, and I can deal with that. The fact initially is- I did this for MYSELF to find out for MYSELF if I can hear differences or not. It may not be DBT for me, but I personally know what stands out as being different that I have heard thus far. Even my untrained family members noticed, as the thread states. What I heard is definitely repeatable in the switched arrangement, as the difference is not present the other way around.
I'm really hoping this bodes well for my current reputation, and I may even request a special consideration for the test environment in Iowa...
Later,
Wolf
You misunderstood me. I didn't think that you were slopping flack at all. I was just stating how I have not caught a lot of backlash for my process in this endeavor, being that I've been thorough, and doing it differently than it has been done before, and that it surprised me.
I suppose it is a chance that opinions will not be swayed, and I can deal with that. The fact initially is- I did this for MYSELF to find out for MYSELF if I can hear differences or not. It may not be DBT for me, but I personally know what stands out as being different that I have heard thus far. Even my untrained family members noticed, as the thread states. What I heard is definitely repeatable in the switched arrangement, as the difference is not present the other way around.
I'm really hoping this bodes well for my current reputation, and I may even request a special consideration for the test environment in Iowa...
Later,
Wolf
A perfect illustration of why DOUBLE blind isn't just a good idea, it's necessary for any subjective listening test to be valid. A poorly controlled demo at an audio get-together can be quite fun, but you need to understand that the results just aren't meaningful.
I agree. I pushed hard to convince Tony Gee (Humbel homemade HIFI) to do a double blind test last year when he agreed to re-evaluate 3 Mundorf caps at my request. However, I lost my battle and he went ahead and did his usual thing.
This was the most dissapointing outcome of my contact with him.
What about the better quality capacitor with, say, a 0.02% dissipation factor in a shunt application where its presumably 'lower' impedance would *decrease* the audio level compared to a capacitor with a 0.3% dissipation factor. Regardless, the lower loss cap still sounds better.
The idea that a cap's ESR is the predominant factor in audibility differences doesn't hold water, since no audio circuit I know of uses a series pass capacitor having its self resonance frequency near 20khz where its ESR would significantly modify its impedance characteristic, barring perhaps truly cheap inductive lytics hence capacitor tolerance variations swamp differences in ESR within the audible range, say 99+% of the time.
I wish those who doubt the audibility of capacitors would try downgrading to Y5V or Z5U capacitors in the audio path and give the result a serious listen. Even cheap mass market audio gear generally shuns them except in decoupling circuits. If somebody starts in about their tempco being an issue, then they've already conceded the point that caps using different technologies indeed do sound different.
The idea that a cap's ESR is the predominant factor in audibility differences doesn't hold water, since no audio circuit I know of uses a series pass capacitor having its self resonance frequency near 20khz where its ESR would significantly modify its impedance characteristic, barring perhaps truly cheap inductive lytics hence capacitor tolerance variations swamp differences in ESR within the audible range, say 99+% of the time.
I wish those who doubt the audibility of capacitors would try downgrading to Y5V or Z5U capacitors in the audio path and give the result a serious listen. Even cheap mass market audio gear generally shuns them except in decoupling circuits. If somebody starts in about their tempco being an issue, then they've already conceded the point that caps using different technologies indeed do sound different.
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Wolf, will you be showing the FR of the 3 different cap sets going into the challenge in your circuit? As far as keeping a third party from seeing the circuit if allowed to do the switch to avoid 1 introduced bias, you could make a quick cardboard cover to hide it from view. You can also explain to the helper which positions you'd like him or her(unlikely ) to throw the switches and indicate them with a sticky tab.
SY, I get what you are saying; since it was very difficult for CC to show any difference with screened and trained listeners and still didn't get 100% results, it would seem Wolf's family was possibly influenced by outside forces for them to have heard it so readily. Of course the other option is that CC best stuff just isn't much better than the other cap in the test and the caps Wolf is using has a larger deviation from average.
Dan
) to throw the switches and indicate them with a sticky tab.SY, I get what you are saying; since it was very difficult for CC to show any difference with screened and trained listeners and still didn't get 100% results, it would seem Wolf's family was possibly influenced by outside forces for them to have heard it so readily. Of course the other option is that CC best stuff just isn't much better than the other cap in the test and the caps Wolf is using has a larger deviation from average.
Dan
Continuous waveform measurements such as FR and conventional distortion measurements are ineffective in revealing audible capacitor differences. Even a capacitor with 5% dielectric absorption will typically measure reasonably well here. Such a capacitor would sound ok when reproducing sinusoidal waveforms, but that's not what people listen to. They listen to music which is full of transients and this is where many poor quality capacitors show their shortcomings since they transfer a significant amount of the energy they store nonlinearly when handling nonrecurring waveforms. Results are reduced dynamic range, loss of detail, occasionally noticeable distortion and colorations. But they sound good on sine waves and measure ok, so what's the problem, right?
Then the distortion could be isolated with music. See the Liberty Instruments, Inc. Home Page webpage with work i did with Bill Waslo on Distortion Isolation in the Timedomain. With the eception of some really bad ceramics most film caps do just fine although i hear differences in my system. I simply gave up to measure and listen more instead.
It seems to me that no means have yet to be developed to measure subtle sonic differences in caps. B. Waslow's DiffMaker comes close, but in the end, the tester listens for the differences and even at that there's no clear distinction as to which cap under comparison is 'better'.
With my Spectral Waveform Analysis technique linked in an earlier post, I could see all the bits displayed on the screen but had no means of quantifying whether or not the $30 Hoveland cap passed any more music information than the $1 Nichicon cap.
The reason people might want to see a FR graph would be to ensure the test is fair.
Dan
Darn. Not long ago someone posted a link to some great cap tests done by someone in the industry. They were mostly FFT measurements showing the harmonic structure of various caps. There certainly was a difference.
Why can't I find it again?
It seems to me that if each cap has its own harmonic fingerprint, that would lead to how it "sounds" in a circuit. However, the contribution of those harmonics may be beneficial in one circuit, but detrimental in another, or even neutral in a third - thus the difficulty of finding which sounds "best."
Add to that the fact that the distortion may change with different power levels and you run into a real can of worms.
Why can't I find it again?
It seems to me that if each cap has its own harmonic fingerprint, that would lead to how it "sounds" in a circuit. However, the contribution of those harmonics may be beneficial in one circuit, but detrimental in another, or even neutral in a third - thus the difficulty of finding which sounds "best."
Add to that the fact that the distortion may change with different power levels and you run into a real can of worms.
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