What are you talking about?
I'm talking, here in this thread, about sound reproduction and if there are audible artefacts or not. If there are no audible artefacts I call a device "transparent". This is a perfectly valid definition.
May I point out to you that I use the term "audible" a lot in this thread. Because that is the ONLY thing that matters to me.
You seem very rigorous in your believe system.
Most "technically good" systems produce obvious, audible artifacts - if you know how to go about it, these characteristics are easy to discern - therefore, these systems are not transparent. Truly worthwhile systems occur when those artifacts are significantly attentuated, or eliminated ...
All right, let's take this example.
Say you have two amps with exactly the same nominal output. One has an FTC THD rating of say 0.05%, and the other say 0.1%. You measure them yourself and verify the data, and it's spot on in both cases.
You sit down to listen, The first, with the low THD, sounds all right, no obvious faults, no nasty events, but it sounds very 2D, you have stage width and heigth.
The second is about the same, but adds the thrid dimesion, depth, so you can actually locate the players on the sound stage, the trumpet being say left of the guitar, a little to the back and a little above the giutar. In short, a fine 3D sound stage, but it still has just below 0.1% THD by FTC rules.
Which of the two would you say is the better amp?
BTW, the above is not an imaginary example, I had just such a situation some months ago, so I can quite very specific manufacturers and models, both from respected names in the audio industry. My friend and I rechecked the situation by using 3 different pairs of loudspeakers, in two different rooms, and every time, we got more or less the same results.
Not true - several posts later, I repeated the question with the specifics. It was addressed to SY.
I don't understand what are "scientific SUBJECTIVE measurements". Forgive me, I am old school, I was taught that scientific measurements were not subjective, but quite the opposite, the idea was that they be objective and easily repeatable by anyone under sthe same conditions.
Not quite so, Pavel.
Try to find and possibly borrow H/K Citation 24 power amp, for example. By what I assume you mean when you say "low distortion" is less than nominally 0.08%/28.3 Vrms/8 Ohms (actually measured at 0.065%) and 0.2% THD FTC into 4 Ohms. Give it a go and you'll hear a hell of a lot presented to you in great detail and with as much ambience as the signal has, with a simulatneous feeling of both authority and ease of operation, as if it has way more power than it really does.
By "authority" I mean that if it's a kickdrum, you know it's a kickdrum, if it's a tympani, you know it's a tympani. No doubt whatsoever, no hesitation. But if it's a violin pizzicato, you also know that's what it is. Symphonic orchestras have that majestic grandeur they need to be convincing. And it's very much a 3D device, locating instruments on the sound stage, original signal permitting, is very easy.
It will dump just over 600W into 2 Ohms in peaks, ref. 1 kHz, Vin=1,1V. Dual mono, with one toroidal transformer with a twin set of secondaries, full wave bridge rectifier and 2x10,000 uF per channel.
I like equipment that doesn't add any audible artefacts to the sound.
It could be that the input signal was 2D and that one amp added artefacts that make the sound 3D. Equally likely is that the input signal was 3D and that one amp made it 2D. Further testing is needed to make sure.
SY and I disagree on this particular point.
I understand the confusion. I'll try to explain.
-An objective measurement is a measurement made with equipment, for instance a volt meter or spectrum analyser.
-A subjective measurement is a measurement made with our senses, our eyes, ears, hands, nose or tongue.
When we want, for example, to measure voltage in a circuit we need to fist define what a volt is. Then we need to have equipment that is capable of actually measuring voltage, with enough accuracy. We also need a proper reference point to measure against. All these things are obvious to most, because if we don't do these things the measurement is useless.
But what is not so obvious to most, is that we need the same kind of rigour for our subjective testing. So we need to define what we're measuring, we need a test set up that can measure what we want with enough accuracy and we need a reference to measure against. If we don't do this our subjective measurement is useless.
If this kind of rigour is met, than we can speak of a "scientific" objective or subjective measurement.
Very amusing, that. All you're describing is how a properly working system should sound, Dejan, it's just that everything else is somewhat defective,
!! And it's not that it has "way more power", just that it's able to fully express its power rating without audibly degrading, unlike most amplifiers ...
I cannot tell from these numbers, Dejan. I would need to have the amplifier on my test bench to have some view on its parameters. This is very, very complex task. Of course I would listen to it as well and would try to find a correlation.
Just yesterday I had a friend here and I gave him a choice between 2 preamps, both "black boxes" for him, without any previous technical description. Just tell me which box sounds better to you. Both measure excellent regarding nonlinear distortions, both have high slew rate, but one of them has really excellent S/N, no question. We have matched volume at better than 0.1dB. He voted for the ultimate S/N, and so do I. S/N of course covers possible power supply issues.
You are misrepresenting an argument that in full leads to a conclusion you dislike. I think you know what you left out, so I will not repeat it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
So do I, but I equally dislike equioment which leaves things out.
In all honesty, I cannot imagine any equipment ADDING 3D to a 2D signal, unless it has some specific electronics in it for just that purpose. This flies in the face of everything I have seen or heard in my life. However, missing out on things which other amps can do is very common.
I would really like to hear from others if perhaps they have some experience of that type. John, Demian, Pavel ...?
So you see, this looks awfully like a smoke screen idea to me, and you completely evaded giving any sort of answer.
For anything to be measurement, AFAIK it has to have some sort of calibration which is repeatable. You could have said "appraisal" and that I could have understood as a complex form of evaluation, but mesurement? Not tonight, Jose, nor any other night,.
For one thing, NO-ONE can guarantee complete repeatability with their own ears, let alone a panel of ears all on their own.
For another, any two panels may reach completely different conlusions under the same circumstances. Therefore, anything ike that is not repetable among different groups.
So, it's not repetable within the sam group, it's not repeatable between several groups, so how is it "measurement"? Better yet, how is it SCIENTIFIC measurement? A panel test yes, but I have seen too many panels deliver different conclusions under the same cnditions, but on two or three occasions. What is your baseline, as in measurements you'd take say 1V as your baseline against which you measure all others?
Sorry, Tattoo, but all this is quite simply nonsense. Electrical measurements are not, because they are repeatable under the same set of conditions, so your measurements should very closely correspond with mine if done under the same conditions and on the same sample.
What do your statistically significant ears tell you?
How statistically significant are your ears?
How big or small part of a big or small panel are they? Because you always stall when you have no straight answer, is the group you are in one with 3, 7 or 12 paneslits, so are your ears statistically significant at 33.3%, at 14.28% or at 8.33%?
Or just drop it, nobody's buying it.
No, thank you, I am not interested in panel assessments. I don't need to be, I am not in it for the commercial effect, so I don't need panels to verfy my own findings. Ultimately, I am the one who will live with whatever is being tested, so the only statistically significant measurement I care about will be my own two ears. They at least have never failed me yet.
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