Subjectivists vs Objectivists. Again.

[sploo]

Originally posted by Vikash
A few people have mentioned laptops here in negative light. I don't see why tbh unless we're talking about using the cd drives on them. Using something like EAC to extract, followed by lossless encoding would be superior to a disc transport. So I think what we're talking about is soundcards....

Originally posted by janneman
I agree. I can't think of a reason why laptop sound would be bad, as long as you use a decent (outboard) DAC. The digital bit stream from the player is with zero errors anyway, so if the DAC is allright, with low jitter etc, it should sound first class, or, more correct, it would show whatever was in the recording....

Couldn't agree more. There's a huge amount of non-science and BS in the audio world, and CD players are one of the worst (perhaps second only to cables).

I saw a study a few years ago demonstrating that the jitter produced by players was well below what is audible to human ears. When you consider that even cheap CD players can produce a 20-20k signal that is flatter and with massively less distortion than any speaker system, you do begin to question why high-end players cost so much.

Where there are (audible) differences in sound, it's usually due to the designer modifying the frequency response - a little lift in the higher frequencies is quite common.

Another technique I've seen is to use a valve based pre-amp, effectively adding distortion to the output signal.

There's nothing wrong with doing these things, as long as you accept they are techniques being used to modify the recorded material, in a way that the designer believed would make the resulting sound more pleasing. I.e. there's no magic involved.

IRC The magazine 'HiFi World' shows frequency response and distortion data in its CD player reviews.

[poynton]

Originally posted by sploo

IRC The magazine 'HiFi World' shows frequency response and distortion data in its CD player reviews.

HiFi World was a good mag. with good DIY content.

Now it has gone the way of all the others !
Biased reviews, boring repeats or upgrades to previous projects etc.
The bias towards the CD63 DP is typical. (Understandable, I suppose, he got it free!)

This months is no different.
A 'tube clock' review which contains pseudo-technical nonsense, an 'entry-level' amp for 2500, an 'entry-level' turntable for 1500 and part 10 of designing speakers.

Andy

[sploo]

Originally posted by SY
...With due respect to sploo (I think he's generally right here), it isn't the distortion in this case (Al's preamp has vanishingly low distortion), it's more likely the isolation provided by the excellent input transformers. In real-world systems in real-world environments, the benefits of breaking up those grounds are significant.

Good point. Certainly, a noisy transformer stage would be likely to cause (audible) problems.

Originally posted by pinkmouse
...Sploo, if the preamp sounded like a valve, it wouldn't be in my main system.

*LOL* Actually, I've just checked my notes (forgive me... it was a long time ago) and the valve unit was actually a DAC design - but hey, you get a DAC in almost all CD players!

Originally posted by poynton


HiFi World was a good mag. with good DIY content.

Now it has gone the way of all the others !...

That is a great shame. The problem of course, is that big statements sell, and you also need advertisers to fund a mag. Explaining to your readers that these five different cables are all passive components, with resistance, inductance and capacitance, and therefore aren't going to make an audible difference, well, it don't get you advertising!

The Audio Critic is well regarded, though online only. http://www.theaudiocritic.com/

[sploo]

Originally posted by planet10


Maybe as a satire... that is so far off the deep end as to be a hilarious read...

dave

Why? Because they approach things from a scientific point of view; actually measuring frequency responses etc. etc, instead of saying how a particular piece of kit sounds 'delicate with airy mids and a fruity aftertaste'?

They're certainly different to most of the audio press, but I'd place far more weight on a set of calibrated measurements than some bloke testing some product in some unknown environment, who then writes an essay on what he thought he heard on that particular day.

I accept that nothing in the world is black-and-white, and that everyone has an agenda, but I'd definitely lean towards their philosophy over most other mags.

[planet10]

Originally posted by sploo
Why? Because they approach things from a scientific point of view; actually measuring frequency responses etc. etc, instead of saying how a particular piece of kit sounds 'delicate with airy mids and a fruity aftertaste'?

Their science is so biased, limited, & closed minded as to be just as bad as the science of the listen only, full-on snake-oil camp. The analogy of "if the only tool you have is a hammer, then you treat everything like a nail" is highly applicable. They are just as biased but wrap themselves up in a far too limited veil of the apperance of science.

dave

[janneman]

Originally posted by sploo


Why? Because they approach things from a scientific point of view; actually measuring frequency responses etc. etc, instead of saying how a particular piece of kit sounds 'delicate with airy mids and a fruity aftertaste'?

They're certainly different to most of the audio press, but I'd place far more weight on a set of calibrated measurements than some bloke testing some product in some unknown environment, who then writes an essay on what he thought he heard on that particular day.

I accept that nothing in the world is black-and-white, and that everyone has an agenda, but I'd definitely lean towards their philosophy over most other mags.

Couldn't have said it better!

Jan Didden

[sploo]

Originally posted by planet10


Their science is so biased, limited, & closed minded as to be just as bad as the science of the listen only, full-on snake-oil camp. The analogy of "if the only tool you have is a hammer, then you treat everything like a nail" is highly applicable. They are just as biased but wrap themselves up in a far too limited veil of the apperance of science.

dave

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I have a scientific background, and work in an electronic engineering environment, and their measurement based approach matches what I see every day.

Over the years, I've read more and more papers on human perception (and its fallability) and papers on rigorous blind testing, that have shown so many audiophile (phool?) myths to be just that.

If I tell you that a speaker has 'great bass', you have no idea of my perception of great bass. It could be that I've spent my life listening to small bookshelf speakers. If you usually run towers with a sub, you're going to have a very different perception of what 'great bass' means. If I tell you that the -3dB point is 25Hz in room, it's far more clear (assuming I give a brief description of the room).

I fully accept that overzealous science is just as bad as overzealous audio 'quackery', but I'd prefer an argument backed up with data, rather than one based on someone's perception.

I do agree that boiling it all down to science makes things a little dry (no pun intended), but I doubt NASA designed the shuttle based on what 'sounds' right, and I wouldn't buy gear based on the same level of review.

[sploo]

Originally posted by janneman


Couldn't have said it better!

Jan Didden

Thanks Jan. BTW I nearly understood most of your talk on feedback.

[planet10]

Originally posted by sploo
I have a scientific background

As do i

Over the years, I've read more and more papers on human perception (and its fallability)

Fallibility as well as the unkanny ability to also be able to pick out things that can be measured but had never been before.

and papers on rigorous blind testing, that have shown so many audiophile (phool?) myths to be just that.

I've yet to see a paper with rigorous blind tests. I'd like to see some. Certainly all the ABX tests being touted are useless because the method is statistically & methologically flawed.

If I tell you that a speaker has 'great bass', you have no idea of my perception of great bass. It could be that I've spent my life listening to small bookshelf speakers. If you usually run towers with a sub, you're going to have a very different perception of what 'great bass' means. If I tell you that the -3dB point is 25Hz in room, it's far more clear (assuming I give a brief description of the room).

I'll agree with you. When most people talk good bass, they are referring to 50-150 Hz.

I fully accept that overzealous science is just as bad as overzealous audio 'quackery', but I'd prefer an argument backed up with data, rather than one based on someone's perception.

2 ends of a spectrum. Far right vrs far left. Incomplete or irrevent data can be as mis-leading as someone's hand waving.

I like to be somewhere in the middle, but i do know that in the end all that is important is that a person can sit down and be imotionally drawn into the musical experience.

but I doubt NASA designed the shuttle based on what 'sounds' right, and I wouldn't buy gear based on the same level of review.

But you can be sure that they explored ideas and intuition and then developed ways of exploring that... otherwise we would still be on the ground. That is analogous to hearing something and then digging in to see how to detect that with measures (or find it was illusion). There is no question that our current measurement technology is very primitive (and in a lot of cases seen thru rose-coloured glasses -- ie our ear-brain works in the time domain, but we mostly test in the frequency domain)

dave

[SY]

I've yet to see a paper with rigorous blind tests. I'd like to see some.

Start with Lipshitz and Vanderkooy, move on to Toole, and throw in some Olive to make a perfect Canadian martini of rigorous and well-controlled testing, included the PROPER statement of hypothesis (which is where your usual argument falls down- you like to restate the hypothesis and then triumphantly show that their tests don't answer the restated hypo).

I wish I had been able to get to England to give my talk on this; it's a very common mistake and usually made by pretty smart people. Ah, well, one more reason you'll have to figure out a way to get down here for next year's Burning Amp meeting.