Here's my view on it.
There's three things mentioned here at once.
1: Size of Soundfield
2: Frequency Response
3: Coloration
Let's tackle #1 (size of soundfield) first. Size of soundfield can be faked by a vast array of means. . . including #2, frequency response with that touch extra treble that your ears might like, if its "good" treble. So, in combination. . . "the jury's out to lunch" on that one. A bit of exaggeration might actually remove a problem rather than cause a problem. For home audio, it often takes a slight exaggeration here before a large presentation can be believable in a small room.
A soundfield size errata isn't necessarily a coloration whenever soundfield size is able to be different when replaying different tracks.
Its key that effects should be slight.
On #2 (freqency response), there's nothing wrong with pleasing your ears (because human ear response cannot be flat) as long as the means for accommodating human hearing doesn't also make a coloration. . .
#3, coloration, and I think that's the actual problem. If you have a coloration, it can sound like one of these:
You have only one song in your collection, or
All of the songs were recorded in the same location, or
You feel a pressure upon/near the ears at the bone conduction areas no matter what song is played, or
The soundfield size and/or reverb is exactly the same on every track, or
There is a very large frequency response error (including perfect flat if in a home system) that drops out the exact same information on every track, or
There is a harmonic error from self-correcting computer-based audio that erases its own error along with some of your music, doing the same thing to every track.
A severe problem with coloration might also be termed as "masking" because of what it may obscure. Typically, Masking means "dull" or muted audio harmonics that can't be corrected by frequency response alteration. If there's masking, a component or module needs replaced because other correction attempts could make yet more noise.
A weird, experience:
Yesterday I was at Lowes getting metal roofing materials. Today, its finally Tuesday, and the roof gets fixed. This roof was blown out by trying to fit a too-large bass wave into too small of a room, via brute force. Eventually, the too-large-for-room bass waves did get fit into the house with very modest little equipment of a different sort.
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Seduction works better than aggression in some sales situations. This isn't used cars (though sometimes is!) Audio salesmen have been, in my experience, master "coaches." Many are indeed true believers. Never met one yet that had any actual technical knowledge.
Much of the selling is pre-done, what with the industry organs like Stereophile fertilizing the fields with their own seductive manure. The orthopedist who walks into the store has probably already read about the magic properties of wire.
Much of the selling is pre-done, what with the industry organs like Stereophile fertilizing the fields with their own seductive manure. The orthopedist who walks into the store has probably already read about the magic properties of wire.
Pretty simple to me, but hey I am just an audio salesman with all of these unknown biases about what music should sound like
I wish guys like you were closer. My last visit to a high end shop, literally across the street from work, was ~2002 looking at Maggies. The salesdrone refused to demo the model I wanted because he didn't like the 4 ohm tap of a MC240 for low level apartment listening, insisting I package an amp. Trivial hand calcs show the amp capable of breaking my lease. Passed the glass display of Shakti stones and never returned.
For everyone dismissing <1dB frequency response variances caused by wire, hold that thought and let's talk tube amps. Consistency: not just for the blamed.
Come over here, and I'll introduce you to quite a few. The usual tactic is to first identify how thick your wallet is. Questions about your existing equipment are in order. They won't even bother to schedule you for a demo with the expensive stuff if you don't claim you already have something in the same price range. If you meet the wallet thickness requirement, what follows are a few delicate questions if you heard about the amazing sound of the latest XYZ product. If you ever try to play smart and ask about specs and objective reviews, they usually shut down.
I usually have to lie them in the face and play dumb, to get an appointment for the stuff I want to listen to. And no, I have no remorses about.
Regarding the locking jig- a long time ago when resolution and precision of localization in the soundfield was studied it was find that moving the head betters the results a lot (at least for the participants of the studies).
I know it´s hard to remember all the time, but as said before by other posters, our hearing sense works in a very special way. Something that looks quite dramatic when measured with a microphone might not be perceived in this way and vice versa.
That´s why something like psychoacoustics exists beside ´simple engineering´ .
Wishes
I know it´s hard to remember all the time, but as said before by other posters, our hearing sense works in a very special way. Something that looks quite dramatic when measured with a microphone might not be perceived in this way and vice versa.
That´s why something like psychoacoustics exists beside ´simple engineering´ .
Wishes
If your going to quible about .1db and not use a head jig, (and not instantaneously A/B) you need to also worry about room effects, changes in the room (moveing a pillow) comb filtering from the 2 speakers, atmospheric temp and humidity changes, changes in ear sensitivity, listening fatigue, hair lenght, changes in ear wax, how many coffees youv had, and probably more.
I was simply complaining about your recommendations when a controlled blind test should be invoked, because this recommendation was only based on the things you (the experimentator) regard as possible/plausible.
Doing it that way garanties quite often that only the experimentators beliefs will be confirmed- especially if discrimination tests without positive controls were recommended.
So, my suggestion is, to avoid this sort of experimentator bias, to test in every case.
If you were looking for specific test suggestions, just remember what i´ve suggested earlier; avoid discrimination tests, use preference tests instead, include positive controls on sufficient sensitivity levels (and negative controls as well), train the participants and do some measurements before and after the test.
Wishes
So all of my customers were idiots. I am amazed that you can judge people without having ever meet them. I doubt any magazine review persuaded anyone, other than giving them a reason to seek something out to listen for themselves.
What I offered a customer was the knowledge of how to make a system sound its best. If I did my part correctly, I had little to do other than let them listen. I am amazed, no "BLOWN AWAY" that you would belittle an educated person into some mindless blob that would follow a magazine article into a store to pull out their wallets so that they could lay out 5-30K on a system that they truly did not hear was special. UNBELIEVABLE! Sy what kind of people do you think make this kind of money, let alone willing to spend it on a hobby? They are not stupid I can promise you that and you know what, they can even hear greatness and decide that they might want to own it without subliminal messages or cooersion of any kind. Do you dream up these scenario's to make your logic work for you?
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I've been suggesting that over and over. Would be nice to actually design and run a test like that. But no one seems interested.
More fun to argue about it, I suppose...
Well I have a dedicated music room that nothing changes in what so ever. There is little furniture in there other than my chair, the audio rack and LP and cd storage. My hair, what is left of it rarely changes too much, my ears are cleaned regularly, no pillows to deal with, it is a conditioned environment, and I do not sufffer from listening fatigue as I have dealt with the issues that cause that long ago. No quick A/B will do anything other than confuse people. A mid-fi salesmens's trick is what a quick A/B is best reserved for
What am I going to have to do to pin you down to being specific? This is still vague handwaving. A specific question was asked, I gave a specific answer. You're still ducking, dodging, and offering platitudes. I want some specific recommendations on answering the specific hypotheses, viz, can the listener distinguish cable A from cable B by ear alone? If so, can the listener still do so when frequency response and level are removed as variables?
Either he can hear it or not. Period. These are good, falsifiable hypotheses. Invoking red herrings like positive controls is irrelevant to the hypotheses at hand. Give me a procedure to answer those specific questions, not name-checks of 18th century philosophers.
I've been suggesting that over and over. Would be nice to actually design and run a test like that. But no one seems interested.
For the cable guys, there's no money in it and they're unlikely to be happy with the results. And the ball is in their court.
There must be a whole world full of fool's in your opinion, if that is the case. Maybe you should let them know that they are insane and not capable of handling their own finances, let alone be trusted to think, see and hear reliably without the aid of a close minded electrical engineer by their sides at all times
If this is the treatment that you received, you have a choice. You can either deal with them or never bother with them again. I would do the later and if there are enough of the former, then they will remain in business. I would doubt that any company with that attitude would last long though, at least in a small market. New York City seems to thrive on this type of salon, but I have never seen or been around others that were like that.
Unfortunately, although I asked around, I was never able to find a practical example of a "positive control" in this matter.
Otherwise, the burden of devising such a test with "proper controls" is on those making extraordinary claims.
Odd, this rationalization never comes up when a tube amp's Zout impact on frequency response is criticized. Ten seconds with pink noise should convince anyone the response variations from a couple inches head movement are several decibels. Is that the new metric for 'blameless'?
SY, treading carefully, part of the wide difference in, let's call it 'intensity of opinion', might be environmental. Visits to family in Ventura aren't complete without the jaw-dropping experience of catching a little local TV or reading the Ojai paper. Finding the equivalent in sheer lunacy is a task north of the 49th. But maybe that's just Cali.
And I guess science has never been proven fallible either. With a closed mind, no new discoveries will ever be found. I guess the status quo is acceptable and comfortable. There would be no need to even try to grasp that anything new might exist or could be possible. Then what would we do if what we think that we know today, might be wrong. Oh dear what would we do..............
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