Golden Ears and Meter Readers

[PeteMcK]

http://www.ultrahighendforum.com/upl...goldenears.pdf

"audiophiles’ construct their own universe of meaning
around their equipment; they cultivate a distinctive vocabulary and set of attitudes"

... & so do academics

[kboe]

Im reading this now and I keep asking myself... Why?

[jcx]

Originally Posted by PeteMcK

[url]http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/lounge/
... & so do academics

http://dl.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis/...e/view/218/190

but we do manage to create/advance technology despite philosophic messiness

for more fun you can also search for "post modern" marketing theory

[vacuphile]

PeteMcK and JCX,

Thanks for linking to these two papers. Schmid overlooked Kuhn, but that might be fortunate because he comes to some very interesting conclusions about how two sets of truths can coincide. It only goes to show how good it is that this forum exists.

vac

[kboe]

Discussion is always the cure, never the problem. More talk is always better. I can discuss without accepting an opposing view though. It's what makes discussion, discussion!

[thaumaturge]

Guess you could class me as a meter reader who also listens. Any review is by definition "subjective". But one attribute people often overlook is learned experience. I've said for years (decades actually) that you have to own and listen to a good sound system for at least a year before you even know what one is. I've built three studios from the ground up and at one time had to phase 103 sets of heads a week at a top 40 radio station (back when quality of broadcast sound was an important issue). I've also served as both a Metrology engineer and Senior Metrologist so I've seen and experienced this issue from both sides. I prefer old vinyl over CD's any day. I also know I hear aspects of music that others aren't even aware of. In example I played a used record for my daughter (a product of MP3 culture) and I instantly noticed that the sound quality was horrible. (Squashed record track damaged by repeated play with too heavy a stylus setting). She didn't have a clue what I was talking about until I pulled my own clean copy of the same cut and played it for her. OH... yeah, now I hear the difference!

Some believe CD's are king... I can hear a distinct difference between a factory burned CD and one I cut (burn) myself from a vinyl copy of the same album. I see now that some are paying insane prices for CD players with Tube front ends... To me that's just silly. If it's already crap, a tube front end won't bring it back to life. New vinyl records don't sound as good as old school copies. Yes, it's vinyl, but the sources are all now pretty much digital recording studios. I have friends (no really!) who design and build their own exotic tube amps. I agree they sound great. I've built my own amps and been thrilled by them. Nowadays I'm just as likely to end up listening to a personal MP3 player because I can carry 16 albums in my change pocket. At home I currently use a Nakamichi amp, but am again building my own.

The answer to me is what works for you is valid for you. Everyone is entitled to their own delusions.

Doc

[Wavebourn]

Golden ears and meter readings correlate well, according to my own experience. The problem is, to measure right things. What helped me a lot, my work of design of analog synthesizers and guitar effects. When you deliberately create distortions knowing what you are doing, observing results on oscilloscope and hearing the effects, you train your perceptions to recognize such effects. Like, in order to recognize foreign speech you need to learn how to pronounce it. If you can't pronounce something, you don't hear it. For example, English speakers don't hear difference between hard and soft L because they are not trained to pronounce it. The same way, if you are not trained to create distortions, you can't recognize them when you hear distorted sounds.

[thaumaturge]

Yes. But another issue with digital audio is what ISN'T there. Like instantaneous L-R information that is completely lost when the same A/D is time shared between channels (on ether or both recording / reproduction) . Just TRY to digitize an old Steve Miller album that has lots of echo on it... Like "Baby's calling me home". So far my experience is; Can't be done!

Doc

[jcx]

have you been asleep for 30 years?

audio ADC uses ADC per channel for a few decades now, most often with massive oversampling of 64-256x too

even granting the proposition of having to multiplex a single ADC there is no problem, each channel will have its own anti-alias filter in a proper implementation and be designed and verified that there is no interchannel interaction

I know since I've designed precision strain gage 6 channel amps with just this topology

the time skew would only amount to 3.4 mm air path difference in a 44.1 system, but even that is easily fixed in DSP - I've written the poly phase filter code, followed the signals thru the amp on the 'scope and in the digital data proving the time interpolation alignment

[thaumaturge]

Originally Posted by jcx

have you been asleep for 30 years?

No, just lost interest in CD's about that long ago.

Doc