Now, that's one hell of an argument, Jan.
So, if I accept that than it's right, and if I don't accept, that also proves it's right?
A few logical holes you fell into there, don't you think?
There is such a thing as experience, you know. If you hear somebody's work often enough, as Richard quite rightly pointed out, you do remember it, like it or not, at least as an association ("that sounds a bit like xxx"). Once you have built a small library in your head, it's hard to swindle you, or flash you blind by some sex case using 50 kilos of auminium, least of all impress you with a wild price tag.
The worst that can happen if you know what's playing is for you to come to the conclusion that this product is not nearly as good as it's expensive. Holds true for audio as for everything else. Ten or so years ago, owners of Jaguar's small model (in reality, a Ford Monedo in drag, but for reasons unknown not as good as the Mondeo), which cost quite a bit more than its class competitors, were not a happy lot, they seemed to spend more time in workshops than at home. And seeing the Jaguar badge didn't seem to help any.
When I sit down to audition anything, anytime, anywhere, while I'm listening prices, looks, badges and specs don't exist for me, at that time they mean nothing to all put together. Only after I hear it do they start to exist, when I try to assess the device's overall score in my head. Would I pay that much for that sound, that sort of thing.
Now, tell me I'm unique. Tell me similar thinking is not present in any decent panel trying to be objective. And it does matter, beacuse if the panel consists of say 10 people, I dissenter can reduce the overall mark for 10/10 to 9/10
Any panel, no matter how you put it together, will always deliver their average judgement. How do I know that my views will correlate mostly with the one dissenter? Who will guarantee that the said panel is truly representative of the market, even if it's only a niche market?
So, feel free to believe whatever you want to believe, but I don't buy that kind of testing as anything but a random test, not representative even of such tests overall, much less of the true state of affairs, except by sheer fluke as in winning the lottery.
I know what comes next - but, so and so wrote papers on that, etc. Fine, let me ask you this - if you saw that somebody has written "female sex organ" on a wall, would you charge that wall, all eady for action?
No?
I didn't thibk so. Even if it was written and possibly even signed.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying such tests are pointless. They are useful as a general guideline, it stands to reason that if a panel of people generally agree that something, it is at the very least worth paying above average attention to. But it's no scientific truth, much less a law.
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IMO, there is something that differentiates James Simons from the rest in that list.
George
And yet, a leaf may wander and fly upwards, sideways or both. Is it defyng the law of gravity?
Of course not. It is demonstrating that the harshness of laws can me modified if the conditions change sufficiently.
Let me say it plainly. When a panel comes to a verdict, that verdict is the average of their views obtained by a test done under one set of circumstances. If I had been there, I may well have agreed with the majority, who knows?
The thing is, I wasn't there, and I don't live under the same circumstances the test was carried under. Therefore, their conclusions may not agree with mine at all, yielding a very different conclusion, and by the same token, if they had conducted the test under my circumstances, again its conclusions may well have been quite different.
In case of gravity, no-one can influence the mass of planet Earth, its rotation speed around its axis and its rotation speed around the Sun, so the general rule is general enough to be a law. However, in audio, there is a number of variables which will change from case to case, such as personal perception of sound, the acoustic properties of the room/hall in which the test is conducted, what preseeds and what comes after the say amp under test, the electrical properties of the cabling used, etc, etc, etc. In fact, so many variables are inevitably there that in my view, no general law can ever be made, there's too much singularity at play.
Essentially, this is what Kangaroo Frank has been saying (aside from wine matters), find first the first singularity and do what you must to favorably change it, then go on to the next until you have reached a reasonable stop, which is the point when removing the next sigularity is too complicated, too costly or both. I would call that a sensible appraoch, wouldn't you? In exactly what way is a panel test essentially different, being a group of singularities?
I know but there`s must be something with the time domain and our brain...
BTW, I haven`t seen global feedback in your deigns...
I used it in some (e.g., Red Light District) and not in others (e.g., The Equal Opportunity).
Not if the test was set up and conducted properly, no. That's the crux of the scientific method. Suppose you set up and conduct a test to find out whether two cables sound different. If the set up and execution was done well, the same result will be obtained by someone 5000 miles and 2 weeks away, when he would do the same test setup and execution.
So if you do your test twice, and you get two different conclusions, your test sucks
Jan
the thing is that we really don't know the factors that separates good from bad and good from very very good, I have often stumbled upon speaker driver that measures virtually the same yet sound so different that it almost unbelievable. human perception is way beyond the numbers. how else will you explain the many many different speaker concepts that in one way or another gives the listener their satisfaction. if there was only one truth then all would strive to find it. The fact is that we have so great physcoacoustic capabilities that we from fragments are able to recreate the more or less the full picture.
In amplifier design there so much more than Numbers and distortion at stake when building.
PSU and Grounding may be a much bigger influence than the numbers of the actual circuit. Those are to my knowledge the main contributors when we talk power amp.
My personal opinion is that numbers, listening panels and ABX tests are for those who have no sense of direction. Not all are musically gifted and able to hear things like scale, tempo and tone. this is 100% natural like not all people are able to crunch numbers or write novels.
In engineering there's a saying "The greater your knowledge is, the more you perceive that what you truly understand is merely a tiny fraction of the truth.
In audio this is really true as we work in a mixed environment where there are so many unknowns that it makes no sense what so ever to point to static science to nail down the truth. what you can do is use the engineering to point you in a direction of your choosing, you add yourself your know-how and knowledge into the quest for making better reproductive systems.
In amplifier design there so much more than Numbers and distortion at stake when building.
PSU and Grounding may be a much bigger influence than the numbers of the actual circuit. Those are to my knowledge the main contributors when we talk power amp.
My personal opinion is that numbers, listening panels and ABX tests are for those who have no sense of direction. Not all are musically gifted and able to hear things like scale, tempo and tone. this is 100% natural like not all people are able to crunch numbers or write novels.
In engineering there's a saying "The greater your knowledge is, the more you perceive that what you truly understand is merely a tiny fraction of the truth.
In audio this is really true as we work in a mixed environment where there are so many unknowns that it makes no sense what so ever to point to static science to nail down the truth. what you can do is use the engineering to point you in a direction of your choosing, you add yourself your know-how and knowledge into the quest for making better reproductive systems.
But they affect the numbers (noise, distortion, power), so this makes little sense.
SY yes they do.. affect the numbers, but when you run an amp into 1W and see the numbers, then the PSU capability it not revealed, then when you test for power then you already have two variables to sum, then you take the 1000 other parameters and sum that, then you have to reach a verdict, which is better... impossible as logic does not define performance. Only listening can.
Yet those who claim they are, are rarely willing to take the stand.
(unless it has a scent of apples, oranges, or soap)
About blind tests, a little story. A shop, with an "Audio guru" seller in it. It was one of our entertainments, with a friend, to go in his shop, telling him we wanted the best speaker he can sell.
The guy organised a 'blind' seance (his enclosures behind a black curtain). Don't tell a word during the seance: No attempt to bias our choice.
He was just marking rhythm with his feet, moving his head accordingly when the junk he wanted to sell us was playing.
Still, with a subtle air of pain on his face when it was the other.
It was great fun to look at the monkey.
And to listen religiously to all the B.S. he told, before and after. Of course, we were congratulated for our very good listening accuracy and taste, after we chosen the one he wanted...
Or, at the end, totally convinced by his argues for the "good one", if we, nobody's perfect, had chosen the other (more fun added ;-).
"Let-us some time to decide, well be back in some days".
The guy organised a 'blind' seance (his enclosures behind a black curtain). Don't tell a word during the seance: No attempt to bias our choice.
He was just marking rhythm with his feet, moving his head accordingly when the junk he wanted to sell us was playing.
Still, with a subtle air of pain on his face when it was the other.
It was great fun to look at the monkey.
And to listen religiously to all the B.S. he told, before and after. Of course, we were congratulated for our very good listening accuracy and taste, after we chosen the one he wanted...
Or, at the end, totally convinced by his argues for the "good one", if we, nobody's perfect, had chosen the other (more fun added ;-).
"Let-us some time to decide, well be back in some days".
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It turns out though that there are grounding changes which one can do which don't (and cannot) affect the numbers when those numbers are generated with the usual test kit (AP system 2 for example). That's because real sources (DVD players with SMPSUs internally to give one example) tend to be contaminated with CM noise and the AP's designers took pains to prevent such noise from being introduced by their stimulus generator.
dumb and dumber
Lack of even a cursory knowledge of the difference between experimental and experiential testing seems to be rampant here, as does any acknowledgement of rational approaches to either.
Just the same old droning on about validity of opinions and confusion over what's opinion and what is factual.
John L.
Lack of even a cursory knowledge of the difference between experimental and experiential testing seems to be rampant here, as does any acknowledgement of rational approaches to either.
Just the same old droning on about validity of opinions and confusion over what's opinion and what is factual.
John L.
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OK, so by "numbers," you mean "a very limited set of numbers that no engineer would ever consider complete."
Not if the test was set up and conducted properly, no. That's the crux of the scientific method. Suppose you set up and conduct a test to find out whether two cables sound different. If the set up and execution was done well, the same result will be obtained by someone 5000 miles and 2 weeks away, when he would do the same test setup and execution.
So if you do your test twice, and you get two different conclusions, your test sucks
Jan
Jan, I do NOT believe ANY test can be exactly repeated, except for the same panel, gear and room as the first time.
I do NOT believe there are two exactly the same rooms existing on their own, unless specifically made in exactly the same way.
I do NOT believe any two panels are the same, or can ever be.
That's why I taKe any panel test as a general guideline only, NEVER as absolutely conclusive. Sometimes they were a help to me, other times I completely disagreed with their findings.
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