Ah, John, the age old conflict between those who measure, and those who listen. Despite being blessed with five senses it appears many cannot combine them. Shame really.
All the evidence points to poor correlation between measurement, particularly thd, and subjective listening experience. And to compound the difficulties, people are not all the same and definitely hear different things. On this basis, subjectivity is roundly condemned because it is unreliable, but this is a nonsense when a large sample is considered.
My thoughts are that there is really only a correlation between thd and subjective listening when the levels of H2, H3 and H4 are removed from the lumped parameter.
Proof? None. Opinion? You betcha! Evidence? Amps I've designed which have been commercial successes due entirely to these spurious hunches.
Since convincing people one way or the other attracts no kudos, no financial reward, and no membership of any elitist society, it's probably not too important in the scheme of things. In the meantime, people in the know (including those who have been bitten before!) will not buy audio gear without first having a good listen. Funny, that.
Hugh
All the evidence points to poor correlation between measurement, particularly thd, and subjective listening experience. And to compound the difficulties, people are not all the same and definitely hear different things. On this basis, subjectivity is roundly condemned because it is unreliable, but this is a nonsense when a large sample is considered.
My thoughts are that there is really only a correlation between thd and subjective listening when the levels of H2, H3 and H4 are removed from the lumped parameter.
Proof? None. Opinion? You betcha! Evidence? Amps I've designed which have been commercial successes due entirely to these spurious hunches.
Since convincing people one way or the other attracts no kudos, no financial reward, and no membership of any elitist society, it's probably not too important in the scheme of things. In the meantime, people in the know (including those who have been bitten before!) will not buy audio gear without first having a good listen. Funny, that.
Hugh
So what term would you suggest I use for the 60 or so people who value your mods? Hanger-ons? Groupies?
Yes, yes, and yes (assuming you mean "reverberant decay of the sound of an instrument in a room" or "sustain"). I listen to far more live music than hifi.
OK, I presume you heard these effects both in a live situation & in a recording? So now can you show them on one of your plots, please? Something I have asked you for ad-infinitum & you have never answered.
Edit: I've included emphasis so as this request stands out for you & won't be ignored
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Yes, Hugh but if those that measure can't measure everything then they are disabled & it's time that they admitted this!
I fully agree, one would be stupid or in denial to reject a significant body of people & their agreement on what they hear! But it seems some here are able to deny reality in this area at least. I posted a helpline for these individuals but it got lost - here it is again YouTube - The Mental Health Hotline (anime)
You know more about this than I or anyone I know & your excellent amplifiers bear witness to your quest. I have only heard the Naksa but jeez it reveals these traits amazingly well
I agree but some people consider it SO important that they abuse anybody who even dares to mention these factors - as is witnessed in this & other threads I have seen or been involved in.
Actually, only since yesterday afternoon here, and my apologies, I've been living a life (went to a fine show with a couple of other diyAudio folk, Matt the Electrician, everyone should check him out). Since I have no electronic devices on hand that show any differences whatever in these characteristics (I find these qualities to be functions of recording, speakers, EQ, and room), I can't satisfy your demand instantly.
I hereby offer to waive my normal consulting fee if you'll send me two devices where these differences have been demonstrated by ear, no peeking. I will give you measurements and plots, then (again at no fee) point out exactly how the measurements correspond to your demonstrated subjective impressions. I will then return the devices to you.
Fair enough?
Correlation is not causation. Easy to spot the fly in the ointment here
Ah come on now, abraxalito, we were getting along so well
Correlation certainly points to the area where focus should be directed - it does not exclude it from being the causation of what we hear! I think you are nit-picking terminology here? Let's remain civil on here now & not have the police involved So let me get this straight, you have only heard these sonic characteristics since yesterday afternoon when you went to a show? Tell us about this earth shattering experience then - what caused you to hear these things of which we speak? How come you never heard them before?
SO are you saying that you have no equipment which will give you a bit of what you heard in the live event?
I'm dumbfounded
& shocked - you are now saying that you can hear things but you can't plot them - what an admission!
Ah come on now, abraxalito, we were getting along so well
Yeah, you were being so totally reasonable
Correlation certainly points to the area where focus should be directed - it does not exclude it from being the causation of what we hear! I think you are nit-picking terminology here? Let's remain civil on here now & not have the police involved
You've misinterpreted where I was directing my remarks, so I will spell out a little more clearly.
Hugh was saying that the commercial success of his amps was down to the distortion profile of his amps - that commercial success was evidence that his theory is correct. I'm saying that its not necessarily the case that that distortion profile caused the commercial success. It may be the case, but we'd need further evidence that its causation and not just correlation. He might have changed the PCB colour too, and stepped up the ad budget...
Friends again now?
No, Abrax, this is incorrect. I merely intimated that it was evidence of correlation, that is, that it is worthy of focus, as John aptly put it. Further, I'm not so naive as to make categorical statements, such as red is red, or black is black, but rather I prefer to make empirical observations and then, and this is very significant, say that it's MY opinion, that I have NO PROOF, and that others are free to DISAGREE, as have you.
Incidentally, neither do I draw any correlation between ad budgets and commercial success, though that might well be my naivete, not yours. I feel you enjoy conflict, and seek to attribute motives to people which do not exist. This degenerates the thread into entertainment, nothing more.
I really don't want to go off on a tangent here but I have Hugh's latest Naksa & let me say that it is wonderful & not because of the pcb colour or the advertising campaign (what advertising campaign?) but because it SOUNDS sublime. A review of it will be posted soon but I highly recommend it to anyone in search of superior sound - some of the characteristics of which we are speaking here.
SY can defend himself which he did.
You keep violating forum rules, jkeny:
1- Some threads become repetitive or conflict prone. The moderation team will, at its discretion, close these threads. Starting a new thread to discuss the same topic is prohibited.
2- Insulting, intimidating, bullying, harassing or other disrespectful or antisocial behavior
3- Disruptive behavior of any sort, including Trolling and Threadjacking (Note 1)
For a more in-dept writeup, read the rules:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/site-announcements/167561-diyaudio-rules.html
This childish behaviour needs to stop immediately, the sinbin has quite some free space and there will be no other warning.
My mailbox is open 24/7.
/Hugo
You keep violating forum rules, jkeny:
1- Some threads become repetitive or conflict prone. The moderation team will, at its discretion, close these threads. Starting a new thread to discuss the same topic is prohibited.
2- Insulting, intimidating, bullying, harassing or other disrespectful or antisocial behavior
3- Disruptive behavior of any sort, including Trolling and Threadjacking (Note 1)
For a more in-dept writeup, read the rules:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/site-announcements/167561-diyaudio-rules.html
This childish behaviour needs to stop immediately, the sinbin has quite some free space and there will be no other warning.
My mailbox is open 24/7.
/Hugo
Let me try again to extract a response - you find instrument timbre to be a characteristic of the recording, speakers, EQ & room? SO does it exist or is it's reproduction a mirage? On the one hand you say you heard these in a live event - did they really exist or were they a mirage created at the event? Do you not know that different violins, for instance, have a different sound or timbre or is this a mirage?
I'm sorry that your equipment does not allow to hear these things which you obviously know exist & have heard at live shows!
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Yes, I'm aware of that (all our senses work in the same way - we don't actually experience an object but the emanations from it that our senses are tuned to) but are you saying that instrument timbre is not on the recording, that it comes out of the set-up? That it doesn't exist in a real sense at a live event or that it can't be captured on a recording of that event?
You are being somewhat coy in your answers requiring me to try & drag out what your position is - I'm sorry if this leads to a somewhat repetitive nature of questions but maybe a more full blown elucidation of your whole thinking in this area would be beneficial!
In a sense, yes. A recording is just a single-valued electrical function of time. "Timbre" is how our brain interprets transduced versions of that function, or alternately, the soundfield produced by an instrument.
Maybe. But mostly Timbre is the harmonic make up of the note. That's what allows us to tell a violin from a flute (without peeking). Envelope also has a role.
So to me, timbre exists both in the air and in the recording. It's a solid fact. It's the "harmonic fingerprint" of the sound, the note played. We don't even need to hear it to identify it.
So to me, timbre exists both in the air and in the recording. It's a solid fact. It's the "harmonic fingerprint" of the sound, the note played. We don't even need to hear it to identify it.
In the case of timbre that may be true. But how about 'soundstage'? Is that on the recording? I believe that soundstage is a function of things like speaker directionality versus frequency and phase shift/group delay versus frequency, and possibly compression versus level. These are not things that you can extract from or measure on a recording, but sure as hell they can be measured on say a speaker/set-up. I believe that speakers or setups with different soundstages will show clearly measurable differences in these respects.
jd
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