I wonder sometimes whether or how some can be happy with the listening experience considering how flawed everything seems to be
My best tweak I have found though is a couple of cans, or wine if I'm feeling posh, lager I find brings out the rythm and bass lines, whereas wine (red of course) provides a more mellow sound.
Okay John,
Let's get back to basic design philosophy. When you are choosing something like a simple selector switch what are you looking at. Why would you choose a silver plated switch over a gold plated one? What would be not only the electrical difference but the long term condition of a silver verses gold contact? I know you said that you used enough pressure to wipe the contact clean after each movement, but what else did you used to make that choice? Shouldn't both have the same sound when the contacts are clean and making intimate contact?
Let's get back to basic design philosophy. When you are choosing something like a simple selector switch what are you looking at. Why would you choose a silver plated switch over a gold plated one? What would be not only the electrical difference but the long term condition of a silver verses gold contact? I know you said that you used enough pressure to wipe the contact clean after each movement, but what else did you used to make that choice? Shouldn't both have the same sound when the contacts are clean and making intimate contact?
Oh, please, DF96, "my words" was just a smile, it was just a matter for me to say "i agree". I dislike smileys.
We are often on the same track.
Yes, completely agreed (including the text I did not quote). I might add that the hearing process involves a lot more regions in your brain than those you query when you ask the listener "can you hear a difference".
For assessing the audibility of gross differences abx has some utility. It is an unnatural process compared to music listening, and about as much fun as blind wine tastings where, to preserve some semblance of objectivity, you spit the stuff out. And if your reputation is riding on results you will feel stress and anxiety for both types of evaluations.
For loudspeakers the differences are usually large and the interaction with the room crucial. So you really need to do heroic things to display and rapidly change presentations (vide Harman's speaker mover).
For other components, unless something is horribly wrong, most listeners are going to have a much harder time with discriminations. But that's not to say they don't exist, or that we will be always and readily able to correlate them with measurements as yet. What bothers me are ones who go on at length about the profound effects of something, and who are thereafter unable to reliably discern the component being in or out of the system when they are not sure what is being presented. Even accounting for stress, if the differences are that audible sighted they ought to survive to some extent in blind tests.
As I've remarked, I have participated in sighted tests where much as I wanted to hear differences I could not. I have decent hearing, no more than the nominal presbycusis at high frequencies for someone my age, and I have been able to identify problems that did turn out to be quantifiable that sometimes had others scratching their heads. I play and write music, have occasionally recorded it in the field, and go to clubs and concert halls when I can afford the cost and time. I wouldn't consider myself a member of the Golden Pinnae brigade, but the powers are not too shabby.
Kindhornman, it is a little more complex than how you ask the question.
IF you do NOT have a sliding switch contact that is SELF CLEANING, then you MUST use gold on gold, usually plated over silver, that is plated on copper. All DRY contacts demand this. The best reference is HOLM, in any of his books, but there are other serious references as well.
The silver switches used in the CTC Blowtorch are NOT silver plated, they are solid coin silver. There is a difference in that you cannot wipe the plating away, because it is not plated in the first place.
IF you do NOT have a sliding switch contact that is SELF CLEANING, then you MUST use gold on gold, usually plated over silver, that is plated on copper. All DRY contacts demand this. The best reference is HOLM, in any of his books, but there are other serious references as well.
The silver switches used in the CTC Blowtorch are NOT silver plated, they are solid coin silver. There is a difference in that you cannot wipe the plating away, because it is not plated in the first place.
You do need to excercise the silver contact, self-cleaning type switches. If they stay in one possition too long, oxides build up.... Just move the contacts back and forth a few times, every so often to keep them clean.
Even an L&N precision standards lab voltage divider used same type switch and it would give bad readings unless the switches were moved and 'cleaned' prior to measurment/use. If a consumer left the switch position in one place for his source selection, he will have issues (if not the sound itself) after a while. Hermitically sealed silver switches help. -RNMarsh
Even an L&N precision standards lab voltage divider used same type switch and it would give bad readings unless the switches were moved and 'cleaned' prior to measurment/use. If a consumer left the switch position in one place for his source selection, he will have issues (if not the sound itself) after a while. Hermitically sealed silver switches help. -RNMarsh
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For low level (uV) Gold, Palladium and Silver mixture wiping contacts are the only type I know of guaranteed by the manufacturer to work at such levels. Might be others but none would guarantee it for me.
John congratulations on the award. I will have to settle for a cover and another Golden ear. Second to you I could due worse.
John congratulations on the award. I will have to settle for a cover and another Golden ear. Second to you I could due worse.
JC, I have spent nearly 20 yrs looking at and attempting to solve the limitations of ABX tests.
The test I propose is similar to the blind A-B test that you have successfully passed and works. It adds a single extra tweak.
It is an ABC test where the 3rd contender could be either A, B or an other. JC, have you any comments on how this changes the validity of your A-B test? Do you think you can produce reliable results on such a test? Can you suggest any improvements?
A, B or C could assigned to 1 or 2 or 3 different items.
An A-B test can come up with results at least as valid as an ABC test but would require twice as long. You would need to do two A-B tests to get the same statistical significance as one ABC test.
Each test, on ONE subject may take half a day so the saving in time is not trivial.
Stress is an extremely valid (if not the most important) criticism of Blind Testing. My tests do everything possible within time constraints to ameliorate this.
But the aim of the test is to find a contender that " involves the listener in the music and makes him happy?". Hence the subject chooses the music, does it alone, long sessions etc.
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One more time,
While some of JC's designs will probably NULL out when Blind Tested against evil 4558, this is of little interest to anyone.
I expect Blowtorch, his most illustrious product, to show enough differences with evil 4558 for certain true golden pinnae to distinguish reliably. We can then ask these people which they prefer.
These results WILL be of interest to us, Stereophile and the AES community.
I'm NOT seeking and do not expect a NULL result for this test.
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This is another important facet of my Blind Listening Tests: That the subject should not know what he is listening too.Jakob2 said:
Unfortunately, at least 1 contender in this sadly hypothetical series is known, Blowtorch. We have some flexibility in choosing an evil 4558 preamp (or NOT) and also the 3rd contender.
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In 2 decades of experience with Blind Listening Tests, scientists come out pretty well. 'Audiophiles' & self-declared Golden Pinnae do badly compared to Joe Public. Jane Public does better than Joe. Its to do with trusting your ears and nothing else.
Kindhornman, as I said earlier, one of the most surprising result for me is that Joe & Jane 'like' the same stuff as what Recording Engineers consider 'accurate'. This applies to all musical genres including both those that have some 'real' paradigm like Dead White Men's Music .. and those like evil pop that don't.
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Poison ? They are in sealed glass bulbs. (our time is insane and paranoid).
Noise ? They present <30 mOhm of resistance.
Or did-you mean noise for mosfets analog switches ? I never noticed any noticeable, in line levels.
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