Note how far we've come in 11 years - http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pass-labs/10349-measuring-sound-quality-can-done.html ...
Wasn't it Einstein who said that given any problem he'd devote the lion's share of the task to determining the right question(s) to ask? 'Can we measure quality?' is an obvious 'no' but the current thread's title seems more modest in its aspirations....
Does the perception of a hearing experience of lets say Timbral will be same to everyone ?
Regards.
Regards.
Its part of a product design cycle...and all these things are measurable and are measured. The way you describe it is rather silly and condescending.
That´s the point.
Since *amplifiers* are SO good and have been so for a long time, being the most transparent part of the Audio chain, excellent specs (which by the way are measurable and thus easy to prove or disprove) have ceased to be a SELLING point.
"Humble" $1 chipamps are so good that excellent amps with incredible specs and sound may be built around them 😛
Although 0.00001% distortion is measurable and clearly better than 0.0001% , both are INAUDIBLE, same happens with most other parameters.
Which is GOOD 😛
But, Marketing departments get desperate about that, so they resorted to the last ditch decision of inventing meaningless LABELS to try and sell products.
I call them "labels" and not "parameters" because the last imply measurability ... what marketing does NOT want.😉
So Religion (Faith based statements) takes the place of Science.
And "priests" raise their heads everywhere trying to profit from that.
Even if such "profit" is not monetary but the twisted pleasure derived from seeing fine minds wasting time arguing with .... WHO????
Dear Nelson, thanks for bringing some sanity to this sick thread 😀
It is the same stuff any half decent designer specifies (or has specified to him/her) before he/she sets out to do the work.
Small wonder these same design specifications are used by marketing.
The point is that the secondary level engineering is largely not being done on audio systems - that's why so many of them, using "good" components, sound pretty awful. Until one can assemble a system with readily available units, which always performs to a satisfactory level to a person listening, perhaps a few backsides have to be kicked ...
After all, this is where the car industry is now - one can expect a good level of competence every time you try a new model ...
No prejudice; just the opposite belief to you. I submit that they are merely marketing woffle and undefinable. There was a recent thread where people tried to define soundstage. It quickly became apparent that even people who believed in it had quite different ideas about what it meant, so it is not a useful characteristic.yldouright said:
The reason we can use terms like red or green to describe the frequency of light is that most people agree on colour. Not exactly, but close enough for it to be a useful description. Those who disagree, or who cannot see colour at all, are known to be missing retinal receptors. So colour terms like red or green are useful subjective descriptions of phenomena which can be objectively described by giving a frequency spectrum.
Conversely, soundstage is undefined. Therefore it is not useful as a subjective measure.
What evidence would convince you that there are no fairies living at the bottom of my garden? Where does the burden of proof lie?Pano said:
I have a suggestion for an appropriate first step. Rather than put the cart before the horse and void the warranty on a $1700 A/V receiver, let's just simply pick a known DIY amplifier design that's floating around, any of the ones in the solid state forum would probably be perfect, perhaps the Honey Badger.
Use that schematic and suggest whatever changes you can to improve it. If there really is some kind of hidden performance to be had here, then I'd be more than happy to start cutting off void stickers.
Well, the idea was to have you find out for yourself, by listening to your own amplifier, whether you can hear differences when (technically reasonable)
changes are made to the circuit. Do you have one of those DIY amps? If not. maybe you can use another amp that you already have, instead of the Marantz.
I figured this is the idea, but in my now sober state, it seems like it might make for a better thread if more than one person had the ability to try it, having it come from an already published / discussed / bom available design.
If we can reach some kind of consensus that a reasonable change can be expected, the best amplifier I have that I wouldn't mind experimenting with is my old AudioSource AMP1. I've got one of the originals, before they went class D. It really needs to be restored anyway, it's condition is a little sad, but it still works flawlessly, despite having to have coffee hosed out of it on one occasion.
But then how would we A/B test it, just listening to it? I have to say that I've done lots and lots of comparisons over the years, and have never been able to attribute anything to an amplifier, except the obvious, like wildly underpowered amplifiers driving low impedances at high levels...even with salesman coaching. If I can't prove it to myself by comparing, say, an Acurus A250 to an Anthem MCA2, I don't understand what we're going to accomplish, as the only "improvement" I'd be interested in is "more transparent".
We can do that, so drag it out and burn it in. No A/B testing, you just listen before for a few days, and after for a few days.
Or just compare it to the Maranz. If they sound the same before the mod, they should sound different after.
Oh, I've had that thing for about 15 years, I'm actually fairly well acquainted with it. Incidentally, it's indistinguishable from anything else I have.
But, if we can make it sound better than it does, then it'd have to be better than, say, an Aragon 8008, which is probably the highest build quality amplifier I've had in the house, yet if asked to tell them apart, I'd have to make a grab for the volume control and wait for clipping or non-linearities.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying, I just don't see what we could possibly do to it that's going to somehow set it apart from any of the dozens of solid state amplifiers I've listened to over the last 20 years, unless we break it on purpose so that it takes on a character.
Yeah, it sounds the same as the Marantz, the same as my Yamaha HTR-5960, the same as my Behringer EP2000, the same as my old Anthem and Acurus / Aragon amps, the same as a Parasound I once had, the same as a Pioneer SC75 I had for a couple days, the same as my Onkyo NR-609..
So then we mod it and it sounds "better" than everything else I've had for the last 20 some odd years...which means it goes right into the trash can.
rayma, DrDyna
I am encouraged to see a glimpse of cooperation between you two but may I suggest that DrDyna rate the sound qualities of the amp before and after for the following three criteria:
soundstage
timbral accuracy
PRaT
I know it'll be anathema to you but please humor us. If it makes you feel better, measure the height width and depth from the mental image created by the soundstage. Then give it a rating for stability and resolution.
Identify the timbral accuracy by noting sounds that you haven't heard before, good or bad.
PRaT is harder to do but just listen for any slurring or emphasized accents that have changed in your mind. Note if the music swings or moves you more or less than before.
We know your philosophical predispositions because you stated them openly here. I suggest you do the subjective tests before you measure so they are not influenced by the numbers. Once those subjective impressions are done, compare the measured results and see what changed. This will be how we construct the freamework, make sense to anyone else?
I am encouraged to see a glimpse of cooperation between you two but may I suggest that DrDyna rate the sound qualities of the amp before and after for the following three criteria:
soundstage
timbral accuracy
PRaT
I know it'll be anathema to you but please humor us. If it makes you feel better, measure the height width and depth from the mental image created by the soundstage. Then give it a rating for stability and resolution.
Identify the timbral accuracy by noting sounds that you haven't heard before, good or bad.
PRaT is harder to do but just listen for any slurring or emphasized accents that have changed in your mind. Note if the music swings or moves you more or less than before.
We know your philosophical predispositions because you stated them openly here. I suggest you do the subjective tests before you measure so they are not influenced by the numbers. Once those subjective impressions are done, compare the measured results and see what changed. This will be how we construct the freamework, make sense to anyone else?
The idea is to do more of a scientific test. Keep everything the same, except for a specific circuit change, then see if you can hear any difference before and after,
with incremental progress. I wouldn't be trying to make one amp better than another amp. That's a whole different ball game.
Last edited:
See, that's the problem. If you don't hear anything different because the "suggestions" didn't break something that was already working correctly, then you'll hear about how your mind was made up at the start or that your system sucks or that you're deaf or whatever. The only way to get anything significant is to have someone who makes the extraordinary claim do the listening test. Of course, a null result will only cause excuse-making and bizarre claims about the salutary effects of peeking. 😀 It is only in the world of pseudoscience and fraud that people will take seriously the idea that the person making an extraordinary claim has the burden of proof, rather than people who understand why the claim is ridiculous.
Here's a modification that will make a difference: put a 4 ohm resistor in series with the output. That will cause frequency response and level changes well into the audible range. It's not "voicing an amplifier", since those changes will be different speaker to speaker, but it will give you fodder in case you want to not have to bother with mundane things like design and construction and would rather pursue a career as an internet gasbag.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.