Yes, all that is said after my post is true and known. Listening to the same Cabasse spaekers in a system that i knew brought a totally different impression.
Don't think it for a second. I was voted down. How disappointing a democracy can be at times. Can you imagine what we might be seeing had these persons put the same time and effort into projects?
given the way some of them think, I'm kinda glad they have been in here and NOT building.
Vis-a-vis democracy, its one system that ensures that a LOT of people are disappointed at times!
Vis-a-vis democracy, its one system that ensures that a LOT of people are disappointed at times!
We'ld all be re-iterating the Standard Design Lexicon as handed down by Great Ones of 30 years ago and off on meaningless chases for the lowest THD or least intrusive lossy compression algorithms. Let me be the first to offer thank to the heavens some chose a different route.
But hey, don't let that stop you. 😉
Some things and some aspects of sound reproduction can be hard to define objectively and hard to setup, but others not so. All of my studies have been done with a reference given that is defined as "perfect reproduction" - this signal is not modified at all. Then comparing the modified test signal to the reference, the subject is asked to decide on the "accuracy" of the "reproduction". Actually, this can get you a long ways towards a "perfect reproduction". And with a reference in place the data tends to be much more reliable.
But as RCW points out, a lot of the tests done, and virtually all of them at Harman, are based on "preference" not on a "reference". Clearly this has the potential for different results, and is the root of my disagreements with some of Floyds conclusions.
I take the position that if a reference can be established then this it has to be considered as ideal and "preference" put aside. If this is not possible, then we must be careful about what we say and do as regards the results of the tests that we setup.
Not at all. A person who knows that rational people will only accept controlled tests as valid evidence, claims that they did many such tests themselves, but cannot produce one single solitary shred of evidence that they have actually done so...well, that's a pure subjectivist. Know anyone like that?
While you're at it, I love to read where a magic wire, cap or made in mom's basement amplifier, was compared against live sounds also: piano, violin, etc.
If you know of any.....
Not a valid comparison. Loudspeaker projects take serious effort and a functional brain. Swapping and then arguing about the "sound" of wires online requires neither. Hence my (our) continued participation 😉
Nope, it just shows that there is (much) more going on outside the audiophile world than those in it realize. Outside the cocoon, in the world of science: Acoustic Imaging
Right under your nose 🙂
So if I understand this correctly John, you listened to the recording, from the source player, through the IC to the preamp, the preamp, through the IC to amp, the amp, through the speaker wires, the loudspeakers, the room....at CES, the loudspeaker/room interaction....at CES, the AC cables, metal purity, dielectric, grain alignment, sunspots, lord knows what else....and through all this, isolated and heard the "sound" of the amplifier.
Wow. That's incredible. Really incredible.
Can you teach me how to do that? Some sort of gating involved?
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Now if we only would know what the reference is 🙂 Without resolving the "circle of confusion" there won't be any reference, only preference.
I know my amplifiers, I design them for a living, and get awards when I design them right. That is why I can hear the 'sound' of an amplifier in an existing system.
Yawn...another typically pointless 'oh yeah? oh yeah?' post. You don't consider comparing the output of a reproduction system to the original data relevant? Or just incapable of not personalizing - contrary to every notion of scientific process and integrity - every post?
"perfect"??
I'd tend to agree with Dr. Geddes here. You need some sort of "anchor" so to speak, to hang your hat on, and that, to me, would be "high fidelity", that is, as close to what the artist(s) intended to convey as one can get, within the limits of the medium.
Seeing as how room interactions have an enormous impact on this "high fidlelity", I cannot fathom why so much emphasis is placed on "cable sound" w_e_t_f that might (or not) be...🙄😕
After all, real live musical events are highly affected by the venue, surely one reproduction venue can greatly influence the quality vs. another, no?
I'd tend to agree with Dr. Geddes here. You need some sort of "anchor" so to speak, to hang your hat on, and that, to me, would be "high fidelity", that is, as close to what the artist(s) intended to convey as one can get, within the limits of the medium.
Seeing as how room interactions have an enormous impact on this "high fidlelity", I cannot fathom why so much emphasis is placed on "cable sound" w_e_t_f that might (or not) be...🙄😕
After all, real live musical events are highly affected by the venue, surely one reproduction venue can greatly influence the quality vs. another, no?
Yes. So are Floyd Toole, Stanley Lipshitz, Tom Nousaine...and, frankly, me. Once again exposing the bad thinking that this sort of sloppy terminology leads to.
live vs. repro
Dunlavy (rip) used to do this in his facility; in fact, he demoed it for me out in Co. Springs, between piano behind a curtain and various pairs of his speakers.
Quite a guy, he spent the better part of an afternoon with myself and family, giving the complete tour of his facility, along with a visit to the sanctum sanctorum where he pursued all manner of exotic ideas and inventions, including quadrature earthquake devices and detectors, etc.
BTW: he didn't believe in cable effects beyond the mundane; however he did acknowledge that he'd 'make a buck' off those wishing for bragging rights re: figure of merit, VSWR, etc. by producing a high $$$ cable set
http://www.verber.com/mark/ce/cables.html
John L.
Dunlavy (rip) used to do this in his facility; in fact, he demoed it for me out in Co. Springs, between piano behind a curtain and various pairs of his speakers.
Quite a guy, he spent the better part of an afternoon with myself and family, giving the complete tour of his facility, along with a visit to the sanctum sanctorum where he pursued all manner of exotic ideas and inventions, including quadrature earthquake devices and detectors, etc.
BTW: he didn't believe in cable effects beyond the mundane; however he did acknowledge that he'd 'make a buck' off those wishing for bragging rights re: figure of merit, VSWR, etc. by producing a high $$$ cable set
http://www.verber.com/mark/ce/cables.html
John L.
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For me that is the crux of the problem. What is the reference, what is the "anchor?" For a DAC or amp that might be easy to define. Don't change the signal in any objectionable way. But for speakers?
The final result is what? What was heard in the mastering suite? Is that the true reference? What if your system is better than that? Is that wrong? And every mastering suite and engineer is going to be different. How do you account for that?
As you say, the room you are in makes such a big difference - how do you take that into account?
Unless we go the mastering suite and hear the master tapes, we don't really know what was intended. And that of course changes from recording to recording. What IS the standard?
Too may questions, I know.
Edison is usually the first example of that sort but I was thinking more in an academic setting than for product development; to arrive at a set of design criteria the same way Floyd did at the NRC. Might end up being the same but I always found preference testing a population almost uniformly raised on direct forward radiators with direct forward radiators somewhat circular.
@ gedlee,
of course i understand that point, but we all establish a willfully reference point.
What markus76 wrote about the "circle of confusion" is not wrong (but of course is the same situation as in other fields of for example physics) and a bit more complicated as we have to deal with listener preferences because all this work is done for humans listening to reproduction systems in the end.
At every stage of the recording process a lot of wanted and unwanted alteration to the original signal takes place.
The most pure reference i could think of would be a mechanical piano (providing reproducible stimuli) recorded with microphone(s) feeding just an microphone amplifier -> amplifier and loudspeaker.
In this case we could compare (double blind) reality with reproduction.
But even in this purest case, we would have to decide at each part of the recording chain which part to choose.
And we could try to reach highest fidelity, but as long as reproduction is not _perfect_ (means identical signals at least at the ear) then it remains a matter of taste/preference.
@ Markus76,
Toole and Olive have shown that even for big differences as in loudspeakers rating _and_ ranking varies due to bias effects.
That should normally lead to the recommendatin in _every_ loudspeaker/driver thread, to do only dbt (or sbt to make it a bit easy). Funny as it is, this thread is afair the only one, that is flooded with "everything other then dbt is useless" statements. 🙂
But the categorical conclusion that you have drawn from Tooles/Olives studies isn´t justified by the data.
Afair they haven´t investigated if it is possible to learn to deal with these bias effects.
@ AJinFLA,
you don´t have to believe that i´ve done (conducted and participated) a lot of dbts in the last 25 years, because it doesn´t matter. 🙂
What matters are the requirements for scientific testing and you must understand that there are no exceptions.
So no different/special requirements for "cable listening tests" exist. That is just the reason why the experimenter need positive and negative controls regardless what the EUT is. 🙂
Wishes
of course i understand that point, but we all establish a willfully reference point.
What markus76 wrote about the "circle of confusion" is not wrong (but of course is the same situation as in other fields of for example physics) and a bit more complicated as we have to deal with listener preferences because all this work is done for humans listening to reproduction systems in the end.
At every stage of the recording process a lot of wanted and unwanted alteration to the original signal takes place.
The most pure reference i could think of would be a mechanical piano (providing reproducible stimuli) recorded with microphone(s) feeding just an microphone amplifier -> amplifier and loudspeaker.
In this case we could compare (double blind) reality with reproduction.
But even in this purest case, we would have to decide at each part of the recording chain which part to choose.
And we could try to reach highest fidelity, but as long as reproduction is not _perfect_ (means identical signals at least at the ear) then it remains a matter of taste/preference.
@ Markus76,
Toole and Olive have shown that even for big differences as in loudspeakers rating _and_ ranking varies due to bias effects.
That should normally lead to the recommendatin in _every_ loudspeaker/driver thread, to do only dbt (or sbt to make it a bit easy). Funny as it is, this thread is afair the only one, that is flooded with "everything other then dbt is useless" statements. 🙂
But the categorical conclusion that you have drawn from Tooles/Olives studies isn´t justified by the data.
Afair they haven´t investigated if it is possible to learn to deal with these bias effects.
@ AJinFLA,
you don´t have to believe that i´ve done (conducted and participated) a lot of dbts in the last 25 years, because it doesn´t matter. 🙂
What matters are the requirements for scientific testing and you must understand that there are no exceptions.
So no different/special requirements for "cable listening tests" exist. That is just the reason why the experimenter need positive and negative controls regardless what the EUT is. 🙂
Wishes
Excellent! So Jakob,
What positive control do we use for (TG54) wire tests?
How did you eliminate the switch box from contaminating your results?
How, as a (non-adversary) administrator, did you eliminate your subjectivist desperation for a positive result from adversely affecting the test results?
How did Sturm?
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