That's stupid. Either the employer wasn't clear what the job was, or the employee should be terminated because they accepted a job they have no interest in fulfilling.
Well parking aside your personal quest to find the mythical 5% of true golden ears who actually CAN hear things (and hey tetrachromic vision was poo poo'd until they found a woman who actually had it), things have been done and still are being done (Ed's box of op-amps for example, or the op-amp buffer test you took part in). I am sure we could arrange another test and arrange a protocol and organise something.
But the peekers won't quieten down.
Ref keystroke tracking I have heard of it in a call centre environment, not in many other areas. And certainly not where creative talents are called for.
It is valuable for capacitor selection used in filters, EQ, crossovers.. (with significant AC across capacitor terminals). But practically no value for selection as coupling capacitor ( no AC across capacitors terminals). No AC= no distortions. Facts are what counts, not feelings. Attached picture is preamp output with a few electrolytics coupling caps in signal path. And with music it is the same.
Attachments
Last edited:
Was there ever any result from that?
As far as a quest, I don't care other than it might help end or reduce some of the arguments about what is or is not audible. Maybe it could eventually help relieve you of the burden of relentlessly pointing out something is yet another anecdotal story with no established proof of human audibility, who knows?
What would help is if, rather than a test box that needs posting if we could agree on a way in which Hi-rez files could be generated by a trusted party and sent around. But for that we would first need to come up with an accepted DAC/ADC combo or someone will claim that the test chain wasn't good enough or some such guff. The music might be a challenge so maybe several samples will be needed, so a lot of work, but at least once done its done.
Not sure if Ed's box has started its tour yet. Sure he will update us.
I should also note that no-one has yet come forward to have passed the Sousa test, which is a giant data point as to how far down we can hear.
Not sure if Ed's box has started its tour yet. Sure he will update us.
I should also note that no-one has yet come forward to have passed the Sousa test, which is a giant data point as to how far down we can hear.
Or, if they are audible distortions of some kind or other with particular caps in particular circuits they would have to be more a function of current rather than voltage.
Not that we have evidence for that at this point, but if we had better ABX testing we might be forced to consider it.
Or OTOH, we might be better able to persuade claimants there isn't an audible difference with their particular caps in their particular circuit to anyone else out there who tried to listen for it (assuming better ABX would increase confidence in its reliability by current ABX skeptics, and I think it probably would be more reliable in fact).
(Of course, for us all to make better use of improved ABX we will benefit from wider availability of more accurate DACs, something else we should be trying to improve
)
Last edited:
True, in that case. There could be other cases where large value caps are used to keep voltage low, but current is higher.
In the end though, if people can pass a good, reliable ABX test then it means there is a real effect by some mechanism. Likewise, if people can't pass a reliable test more people should would probably be willing to accept the results. Right now some reasonable people don't trust ABX testing and I think they are right in that there are a few easy to fix things that should be fixed and that should make a difference in test results. More small distortions should give positive test results if looping and one-button-don't-have-to-look A/B switching were implemented.
Last edited:
I would like to see us make as much progress as we can by starting with better ABX and better DACs. For some reason, I don't know why there seems to be less of a problem with ADCs at high sample rates.
So, I would suggest people use the best soundcard they have to record the sound of their circuit with caps they think make it sound different and let's have a listen. With looped ABX more people will learn how to hear whatever is there in the recording. If enough hear something that may be reason to investigate more seriously. Sometimes that is how science works, an observation is made and a cause sought out. Other times science may work from theory towards efforts at experimental verification. Depends.
Unfortunately, I do not think there is a simple quick fix for resolving all disagreements about audibility. When a situation like that exists what we sometimes have to do is just start chipping away at it as we can.
Also, please recall we do have reports from credible people like Howie Hoyt who describe differences that are audible only in long term listening. I agree, my experience with that is about the same.
With better ABX I think we can get a better handle on some of those audible differences using short term testing.
By example, it is well known, now, that polarized tantalum capacitors produce less distortions when DC+signal never goes under 0V.
ABX is too disturbing, ask too much memory efforts to give valuable results on subtle differences. AB is enough on my point of view.
And, if any difference is so difficult to figure out in a consistent way by simple listening tests, who cares about it anyway ? There is so many things that can be improved in any system first ...
Last edited:
I think a start would be not calling it 'ABX' as there are many test protocols. Lets just call it 'Blinded testing' .
Agreed
But if he was peeking it just a report to potentially drive a test (and yes Howie is very credible). But you find long term listening not good and prefer superfast switching?
You said 'ABX' again
You seem to care about blocking capacitors despite no evidence that they actually are audible* for two working capacitors.
*note film types can cause a difference when glommed in by dint of larger loop area and pick up.
This complicates the process a lot. What is a valid experiment that isolates one thing?
Good question. I was starting from the position of a box with N* paths through it and 2N connectors so you have options of say
-passthrough
-Nasty electrolytic
-approved film cap.
The box should screen and if values are large enough then there should be no audible FR change.
I started thinking about switching with relays but then realised that we could easily fall down a rabbit hole of making it so that there isn't some charge time associated with the switch that might be detectable.
*Of course stereo pairs, but I would allow people to chose a different path for each channel in case they wanted to compare that way.
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.