John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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Imo, if the "non golden ears" wouldn´t have forgotten about basic EM stuff (that helps understanding why in a typical audio systems cable can make a difference) and wouldn´t have used seriously flawed "double blind" listening tests, there could have been a chance to sort things out in a reasonable way.

I thought the "golden ears" are usually in a irretrievable marriage breakdown with Ohm and Maxwell (some are trying try to cheat). And that the same "golden ears" population usually reject even the idea of "double blind" listening test, disregarding how carefully designed it is.
 
10nS rms for a high level single tone @17KHz. For music signal, nobody was able to identify a jitter under 20nS rms.

Much lower jitter can be audible at least with OS dacs. However, perceptually all that may be heard is a little bit bright and very slightly distorted sound from the dac. Most people would have no idea of why a dac sounds that way, and why it does not instead sound a bit more smooth and natural.

Obviously, if researchers are looking for the wrong perceptual clues for some other presumed audible effect, they will likely not find anything.

Fortunately, many high end dac designers such as the engineers at Benchmark Media have their own ABX testing room (or otherwise engage in blind testing) and do their own research to find out what is audible to them.
 
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Looks like Jakob2 was referring to the 'non golden ears.' Perhaps hyphenation would have made it more clear.

Not sure what you are trying to defend here, Jakob's statement looks pretty clear to me, and in my book it is flat wrong (at least statistically). EM theory and double blind tests deniers (or ignorants) are usually to be found in the "golden ears" group.
 
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Simple is beautiful, even for "silvery ears".

Whatever fits your bill is good, simple, beautiful, etc... The problem starts when those conclusions are extrapolated, without support, to the rest of the population.

99.99999% of the individual listening evaluation problems would be solved if the evaluator would start his review with “in my opinion...” instead of invoking (implicit or explicit) sweeping generalizations.
 
Whatever fits your bill is good, simple, beautiful, etc... The problem starts when those conclusions are extrapolated, without support, to the rest of the population.
Why to try to kill this dead horse ?
Double blind is not optimal, on my opinion because it requests a too complex process of recognition, including "memory" efforts.
The conclusions that can be drawn are both irrefutable in terms of method and insufficient to discriminate subtle differences. Which, I grant you, are subtle enough not to be so critical. ;-)
No need for any fundamentalism or excessive paranoia. People who like to fool themselves will ... full themselves, anyway. Are we responsible for their fantasies?
If they feel happy this way, it is OK for me, no animals were mistreated.
 
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I could just about stomach when a good system started at £1000 and the recommendation was 10% of budget on cables (for those who can't make their own). But now that it is silly and the whole sales cycle requires it, is there any way to recover to sanity?

No there isn't any way. Competition from too many Me-Too products have driven the price and profit down such that only high volume can keep a store in business. Often that is not enough income.... mobile phone 'protection' covers, device chargers and cords, extra memory, cables and cords, extensions etc. keep the doors open.


-RNM
 
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So hang on, company A builds a test room and claims that they have shown XYZ to be audible so their product is much better on those parameters. But with no published evidence isn't this just marketing fluff?


Microsoft has the lowest noise anechoic chamber in the world. Doesn't mean their expensive tablets have good sound :p
 
Bill, we never know if there is not publicly published data for independent review. However, the government got of out funding that when healthcare and disability and retirement claims got too big to handle. Now there are public/private partnerships where academic publications often look more to me like announcements of work performed rather than exhaustive technical reports. Unfortunately, discussion going too far in the above direction would risk bringing us into restricted topics.
 
In my opinion, your opinion is incorrect. Excuses for peeking are SOP for the "golden ears".


There is no need whatsoever for 'peeking.' There are simply other blind protocols besides ABX used by professional researchers. Foobar ABX happens to be popular because it is the one free online blind protocol that claims some protection against 'peeking,' which by the way isn't even true. One can peek easily enough, trust me.
 
In my opinion, your opinion is incorrect. Excuses for peeking are SOP for the "golden ears".
In my opinion, your opinion is incorrect.

Simple blind is good enough for prevent from peaking. This endless controversy is BORING. Dare I write stupid?
It is a natural process to immediately look at what we hear. I need to discriminate between two 'visually' recognizable sources A and B and to can refine my conclusions knowing which one I am dealing with in order to correlate my successive perceptions.
Making impossible to know witch brand is A and witch is B is large enough to prevent-me from any partiality if any. Especially since partiality or subjectivism is something I fear of.
It is quite amusing to note that "objectivism" becomes a fundamentalist religion for so many people, nowadays, in audio.
And please, could you stop for a moment these references almost insulting to supposed "golden ears ?
 
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There is no need whatsoever for 'peeking.' There are simply other blind protocols besides ABX used by professional researchers. Foobar ABX happens to be popular because it is the one free online blind protocol that claims some protection against 'peeking,' which by the way isn't even true. One can peek easily enough, trust me.

“Double blind” # “Foobar ABX”

“Foobar ABX” < “double blind”

Anoother SOP (beyond excuses to peek) is to invoke proprietary secret research results that only a small number of Illuminati have access to, the ROW must take their word about.
 
In my opinion, your opinion is incorrect.

Simple blind is good enough for prevent from peaking. This endless controversy is BORING. Dare I write stupid?
It is a natural process to immediately look at what we hear. I need to discriminate between two 'visually' recognizable sources A and B and to can refine my conclusions knowing which one I am dealing with in order to correlate my successive perceptions.
Making impossible to know witch brand is A and witch is B is large enough to prevent-me from any partiality if any. Especially since partiality or subjectivism is something I fear of.
It is quite amusing to note that "objectivism" becomes a fundamentalist religion for so many people, nowadays, in audio.
And please, could you stop for a moment these references almost insulting to supposed "golden ears ?

Yes, peeking or clueing are good and reliable.

It was Jakob that started using “golden ears” in this discussion, I only picked up. But since I smell yet another bout of civil war, I give up. Keep peeking, be happy.
 
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