Tattoo, you and SY are just covering up the fact that you have no answers. Even assuming you didn't understand the questions, if you wanted to answer them you could always have asked for specific clarification. Neither of you did, but found your "wisdom" in twisting it around over 360 degrees in increments.
With which you simply confirmed my inital statement that you have no answers to very basic, simple questions.
What's complicated in the question that if you have virtually same measuered amplifiers, yet found them (either by yourself, or via a panel) that they nevertheless sound different, with one loading the way, how would you decide which one is better sounding?
You speak of panels, yet overlook that those panels do have their pick of the crop in any group of amplifiers, which rather often measure about the same. Pick up any British magazine and check it out. They also provide actual, measured numerical data.
The other aspect is that you speak of trained listeners. That's all very well and fine, but the vast nomner of users or potential users are not trained listeners and will do one of two things: either adopt the panel conclusion, or decide to trust their own ears. Mogazines and panel testing generally exist to tell those undecided people out there what they should buy, i.e. to make their mind up for them. This, in my view and experience, hadly ever works well, because no matter which amp one has, there's the matter of its sysnergy with the rest of the system. Panels can be useful only if assessing whole systems, for example, CD player, amp and speakers.
What H/K did (does) ceratinly gets thumbs up from me, to me it shows they still do care and are still trying to improve their products. But even so, I'll be the first to tell you that in terms of overall sound quality, there are significant variances inside their own portfolio, some are better than others, and not necessarily due to price/investment considerations. After all, they're not in it to make us happy, but to make money, they are a business.
It seems clear to me that I will not get any sort of answer on my simple questions, so I see no point in continuing this discussion. How this makes you guys look to the other members of this forum is something for you to think about.
With which you simply confirmed my inital statement that you have no answers to very basic, simple questions.
What's complicated in the question that if you have virtually same measuered amplifiers, yet found them (either by yourself, or via a panel) that they nevertheless sound different, with one loading the way, how would you decide which one is better sounding?
You speak of panels, yet overlook that those panels do have their pick of the crop in any group of amplifiers, which rather often measure about the same. Pick up any British magazine and check it out. They also provide actual, measured numerical data.
The other aspect is that you speak of trained listeners. That's all very well and fine, but the vast nomner of users or potential users are not trained listeners and will do one of two things: either adopt the panel conclusion, or decide to trust their own ears. Mogazines and panel testing generally exist to tell those undecided people out there what they should buy, i.e. to make their mind up for them. This, in my view and experience, hadly ever works well, because no matter which amp one has, there's the matter of its sysnergy with the rest of the system. Panels can be useful only if assessing whole systems, for example, CD player, amp and speakers.
What H/K did (does) ceratinly gets thumbs up from me, to me it shows they still do care and are still trying to improve their products. But even so, I'll be the first to tell you that in terms of overall sound quality, there are significant variances inside their own portfolio, some are better than others, and not necessarily due to price/investment considerations. After all, they're not in it to make us happy, but to make money, they are a business.
It seems clear to me that I will not get any sort of answer on my simple questions, so I see no point in continuing this discussion. How this makes you guys look to the other members of this forum is something for you to think about.
The point I'm trying to make is that you have to formulate your question is such a way that you can get an answer that is meaningful.
You haven't done that!
Please try to reformulate your question in such a way that we can actually give you a meaningful answer.
Edit: Removed the strawman arguments.
Last edited:
any other fundamental forces you want to invoke? - or are you proposing new Physics?
granting we are working within the Scientific Realism/Rationalism framework?
Fundamental Forces
( gravitational = inertial "force" Equivalence principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
the hypothetical subjective difference test properly controlled? (the big If...)
then we usually attribute differing responses to differences in the physical phenomena/stimulus reaching the subjects and their own internal "state" - the external stimulus may even be restricted to the intended variable, the sound waves reaching their ears, by the experiments design
and we think that audio power amps interactions with the loudspeakers are substantially contained in their output terminal I, V time series
we could guess that some amplifier components do emit sound, have possible acoustic driven mechanical resonances - but these are again physical phenomena that can (and have been) measured, are easily made to be below human perceptual limits with appropriate design, application conditions that are not onerous - say put the amps in another room/equipment closet with adequate sound isolation
granting we are working within the Scientific Realism/Rationalism framework?
Fundamental Forces
( gravitational = inertial "force" Equivalence principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
the hypothetical subjective difference test properly controlled? (the big If...)
then we usually attribute differing responses to differences in the physical phenomena/stimulus reaching the subjects and their own internal "state" - the external stimulus may even be restricted to the intended variable, the sound waves reaching their ears, by the experiments design
and we think that audio power amps interactions with the loudspeakers are substantially contained in their output terminal I, V time series
we could guess that some amplifier components do emit sound, have possible acoustic driven mechanical resonances - but these are again physical phenomena that can (and have been) measured, are easily made to be below human perceptual limits with appropriate design, application conditions that are not onerous - say put the amps in another room/equipment closet with adequate sound isolation
Last edited:
No, I am assuming only that they will form their own opinion without any external help.
I live in a town that is a mecca for recording and film. I know several recording "Engineers" non whom have a degree. Most went to a two year coarse in hollywood. Non of the miles of cables they use are anything exceptional. And there are racks of effects patched in with a rats nest of cables. There can be all digital systems with a Mac, all analog or a combination of both. But the places look really cool!
Ouch- reviews like those should be the kiss of death. And Yelp won a lawsuit allowing them to tilt the content of reviews. The whole 'trade school' scam is a real embarrassment and may yet sink the US economy.
HipHop seems to be the only money-making part of the music industry. You would think the '60s and '70's rock stuff would be since that's the age group with the money. but maybe music should be equated with cigarettes- get em young and exploit hard or they may grow out of the addiction or die later.
HipHop seems to be the only money-making part of the music industry. You would think the '60s and '70's rock stuff would be since that's the age group with the money. but maybe music should be equated with cigarettes- get em young and exploit hard or they may grow out of the addiction or die later.
You know the Billboard top 100 is based on airplay and not record sales? back in the day, had it been record sales, there would have been no white bands on it. The RIAA is based on sales. Then there would have been no new top albums for 40 years. Pink floyd has slipped to 2nd, behind Thriller.
I shall put this another way ... it might help ...It seems to be pure nonsense.. If this shall to be true, system must "improve" each album different way, according momentary needs, taste and actual "quality". So something like "built-in " intelligence
But better to say, it must than everything change (distort) according user´s taste.
Okay, every recording comes with its own set of distortions, intrinsic to how it was recorded, the equipment it passed through to finally arrive as the "data" that is stored on some media form - that is something that is fixed, at the moment there are few meaningful ways of undistorting the material - which may change down the track of course, DSP will get better and better in this regard ...
Then, the playback will add its own layer of distortions on top of that fixed entity - unless you believe in 'perfect' systems of course - which will be different in nature, type from that in the recording - so, our poor hearing systems have to deal with 2 layers of dirt, apply 2 different filters to sort out, extract the music from underneath the muck - something that be hard to do, and certainly makes for a bit of a slog - in some circles they call this, "listening fatigue" ...
So, all I'm saying, is that one minimises the muck added to the mix by the playback system misbehaving - that way, your ears have a better chance of 'understanding' and enjoying the music that has been captured - the filtering by the mind is more easily done. IME, this allows even 'terrible' recordings to come to life - the extra sludge contributed by hifi artifacts doesn't have to be dealt with; and your ears "get" what the recording was about ...
BTW, "good sounding" simply means the absence of audible artifacts originating from the playback system - every now and again people will come across such a setup, instantly recognisable as being special ... the trick is to then distill the essence of what is allowing that to happen, and apply it generally ...
Here is only one real solution.. Keep all added changes of original signal at playback as low as possible. So minimize all (measurable) distortions, noise, digital artefacts.. But here is no way to improve, or to "repair" bad recording, only throw it away. If are musically too valuable, simple ignore technical imperfections..
If you will rely on ears, you can only change (distort..) sound according your personal taste. But it has nothing to do with reproduction.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.