Indeed, I select components for my sound system to my personal taste.
I select components that please my preferences in sound system – neither the preferences of someone else nor to satisfy any measuring instrument.
Is there anything wrong in that?
Do you really believe I should be deprived of the privilege that any teenager drummer has?
May I ask about how do you select components to your sound system?
I bag your pardon, but my last question addresses the core of the differences between us. Should you reply that question I'll be able to point that core.
It was mentioned that some trust their ears. I too, used to trust my ears until recently. After watching the McGurk effect, it appears a portion of our hearing is tied to our sight. In other words, what we see affects what we hear. Oddly enough, this effect happens even if when we are aware of it.
YouTube - Try The McGurk Effect! - Horizon: Is Seeing Believing? - BBC Two
Could this explain why some prefer sighted tests?
YouTube - Try The McGurk Effect! - Horizon: Is Seeing Believing? - BBC Two
Could this explain why some prefer sighted tests?
Here's a somewhat more sophisticated example of the McGurk Effect:
YouTube - Crazy Indian Video... Buffalaxed!
YouTube - Crazy Indian Video... Buffalaxed!
The brain tries to assemble a picture that makes sense
from all the senses, and this sort of thing is not limited
to sight.
One of my favorites is where the listener is presented with
a tone that is rising or falling in pitch. If you add a gated
burst of white noise, the listener will of course continue
to hear the rising or falling tone through the noise.
If you gate the tone out at the same time you gate the
noise in, the listener will still perceive a continuous rising
or falling tone, even though it isn't there.
from all the senses, and this sort of thing is not limited
to sight.
One of my favorites is where the listener is presented with
a tone that is rising or falling in pitch. If you add a gated
burst of white noise, the listener will of course continue
to hear the rising or falling tone through the noise.
If you gate the tone out at the same time you gate the
noise in, the listener will still perceive a continuous rising
or falling tone, even though it isn't there.
This is question avoidance. I may as well go back to ignoring you. If you don't have enough common sense to make a comparison by minimizing variables, there is no further need to discuss this with you.
Curtain before the amps is OK, provided you do not use those lousy switchboxes and nests of shoe-lace signal cables, supported by click-click instant choice.
I use the curtain method, or the method of same boxes for different amps. People are able to tell differences.
We've heard a lot of fairly advanced student instruments in this house in the last few years, most loaned by violin makers and dealers (and a few violas) to students with the expectation that they may buy them. Many are in the $1800 to $3000 range which is a good niche for someone who is advanced or advancing rapidly but will not likely be a professional, at least not for some time. Some are excellent values. We listen for tone quality across all 4 strings of course, loudness, wolf notes, look at physical details such as whether or not the finger board is the right height and angle. Even small differences in the height of the instrument where the chin rest is can have an effect in the ease or difficulty of playing it. Sometimes there are unfortunate but correctable problems such as a poorly shaped bridge or a sound post that needs to be repositioned. Usually these instruments haven't been played on in a long time or maybe never at all and need several hours of playing just to begin to show their potential. It's surprising how quickly some of them come around. This is one area where breaking in is absolutely required.
We also hear a lot of other instruments. Some inexpensive student instruments borrowed from schools. One good source of inexpensive violins in the $600 range is Southwest Strings. Some made in China are surprisinlgy good for that price range. Recently we heard an outstanding viola that wasn't too expensive but I can't remember quite where it came from at the moment. There are some good values coming out of Germany, some reworked here in the US. We've heard a lot of instruments at the other end of the price/performance spectrum incluiding some of the most priceless instruments in the world. They are usually in an entirely separate class of performers.
You should expect noticably more from fiddles in the $5000 to $20,000 range than in the lower price category but often you don't get much. You really need to shop and be selective. Instruments in that range are often most suited for professionals or very rich and serious amateurs.
One thing to consider when buying a string instrument is to save some money for a good bow (stick.) For the money, the $600 carbon fiber bows aren't bad but until you get into a much higher price bracket there are some things you just can't do like arco (the bouncing bow.) There prices for good bows may start at $12,000 and go up to $50,000 or higher. Some are over $100,000.
Judging sound reproducing systems is an entirely different matter. Once upon a time there was a clear goal to reproduce the sound of these and other real musical instruments. That's what was promised and hoped for by eager buyers and ardent manufacturers and assorted tinkerers. But the technology failed to deliver. It has failed so badly in fact that it no longer even pretends to achieve that goal in its advertising. For the high end niche market, it seems to me that the sound of recordings of music may have become a substitute for the real thing judged apart from what it was once proffered to be capable of. For most people they don't know or care. MP3 with ear buds is good enough for them. Me, I'm a dinosaur. I just keep plugging away at trying to build and tweak equipment that actually sounds like real music. I gave up on the mainstream thinking about how to do that a long time ago after I concluded that no amount of perfecting it would achieve those results. It's rewarding when you feel you've made progress on your own. The down side is that when there's a problem there's nobody else to turn to for advice, you're strictly on your own in uncharted waters. If you can't fix it, nobody else can either.
Well, you can't. Simple as that. That's been proven by whole libraries of research reports in the last century or so. Do you really think you can throw all that aside just by saying 'yes I can'?
BTW Do you realize what you say to all the 6 billion people on this planet that, by their very humanity, are subject to the placebo effect, if you say that you can circumvent the placebo effect with 'honesty and integrity'?
jan didden
Oh that's an easy one. Yes, I wholly agree that everybody should select his stuff the way he wants, and that that is none of my business.
I can also disclose that I select my equipment as well on what is probably a combination of reputation, technical performance, how it sounds to me, and the perceived value for money. Maybe more; it's hard to objectively know how one's selection process works in detail.
jan didden
Is the mcGurk effect not a specific example of two senses in conflict & the brains way of dealing with this conflict? Is extrapolating this to a more general rule advised? Is it more about expectation bias? I have seen tests where the same wine has been repackaged into two different labelled bottles & when the subjects were told about price, rarity, etc found the same wine to taste distinctly different. Has there ever been a similar excercise done in audio?
As an example of this I informally did a test with two people where we were changing testing the sonic difference between two devices & didn't switch between them but asked what they heard differently & there was no comment by one person but the other heard differences. Is this not one of the flaws with A/B testing - the tester is expecting to hear a difference?
As an example of this I informally did a test with two people where we were changing testing the sonic difference between two devices & didn't switch between them but asked what they heard differently & there was no comment by one person but the other heard differences. Is this not one of the flaws with A/B testing - the tester is expecting to hear a difference?
You take care of that with the ABX protocoll: the listener can listen to A and B as often as he likes, and then selects 'X' and says whether he thinks it is A or B.
There are other methods too.
Good thinking, but these issue have been dealt with decades ago.
jan didden
I understand your point but I'm not sure it addresses the issue I raised i.e the fact that the listener is being asked to focus in an unnatural way on the sound so as to hear differences (& maybe is expecting to hear differences) - do you think that introducing X solves this expectation & focus?
OK if you tell me these issues have been dealt with already I will look into it
OK if you tell me these issues have been dealt with already I will look into it
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When i close my eyes, i vision shiny polished warheads, accentuated by similar shaped satellite speaker cones, with fancy CNC machined alloy rings.
Says who, one can not truly enjoy a bit of fetishism in full awareness.
Reminds me of TV commercials.
The viewers who embrace the sales flic at first go are OK, but only So-So, guaranteed to hop on the next one that comes along.
The advertising guy's genuine wet dream are the Inner-Honest ones of the target audience.
Each time the ones of integrity watch the commercial, with their Placebo firewall in real-mode and slightly irritated, the message is etched deeper into their subconscious.
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