The Black Hole......

The commercial designers here know this, as is obvious by their designs.

Howie, as much as I respect your experience and judgement almost all of the time, you are wrong about this. It may be rare, but I know for a fact some professional audio designers design primarily by listening, and only secondarily by measuring. You may not know anyone like that close up and personal, but that only means you haven't had the eye-opening experience yet.

EDIT: Besides those I know personally there is another guy who may now semi-qualify, he at least looks to be moving closer to that direction. If you would like to listen to his podcast on the subject: Podcast: Beware the measurements! | Darko.Audio
 
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The most recent discussion on that subject starts around: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/354754-cd-playback-dac-9.html#post6217208 (post #89 or so).

The original thread PMA started (it was one of his 'listening tests') can probably be found too if anyone wants to dredge through it.


And once again you forget to point out that you scored the same opamp at two different levels in the table. Please stop using this test as some sort of proof of your golden ear (sub 10k) club membership.
 
C'mon Mk4 - what your live music listening habits? Acoustical, natural instrument ensembles?

Because if you don't do this regularly, your listening impressions of audio gear is as valid as you trying to describe the taste of a Big Mac.

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C'mon Mk4 - what your live music listening habits? Acoustical, natural instrument ensembles?

My living room is full of various musical instruments that we enjoy playing. However, despite knowing how all those things sound, I think you are once again imagining things that are not entirely true. Knowing what gritty distortion sounds like and trying to eliminate it has nothing to do with knowing how real instruments sound, none of them make such awful non-musical artifacts even if they are electric instruments. I wouldn't have any of that kind of junk here, and by that I am thinking of some of the early digital guitar effects boxes that sounded like the awful ADCs, DACs, and clocks they had inside.
 
IMD ?


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My living room is full of various musical instruments that we enjoy playing. However, despite knowing how all those things sound, I think you are once again imagining things that are not entirely true. Knowing what gritty distortion sounds like and trying to eliminate it has nothing to do with knowing how real instruments sound, none of them make such awful non-musical artifacts even if they are electric instruments. I wouldn't have any of that kind of junk here, and by that I am thinking of some of the early digital guitar effects boxes that sounded like the awful ADCs, DACs, and clocks they had inside.

Well, if you are struggling with that level of distorsion I can only pity you. Once you have got away with these severe faults, you can start producing something that can convey the sense and intensity of an orchestra from centre 7th row. If you remember how that sounds...

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Indeed, there is NO baseline. The only way we have learned to communicate quantitatively is through measurements. Sure, if something is heard, you can potentially teach another to hear it...but WHAT IS IT??? Without that knowledge, you cannot design for it, analyze it, or remove it if it is objectionable.

Designing audio by "I think I hear something" is akin to the era in astronomy before telescopes. All was conjecture, and almost all was wrong.

Circuit details and their strengths and weaknesses are what drive the state of the art forward. The commercial designers here know this, as is obvious by their designs. That doesn't stop them or ad agencies from embellishing in order to drive sales, but that part has nothing to do with performance.

Cheers,
Howie

Howie,

That’s all well, good and understood but there are things I’ve come across things that affected the sound of my system and after intense testing/investigation of these anomaly’s the conclusion was the changes were not supposed to make a difference. These things were repeatable and quite noticeable once you knew what to focus on.
I’ve brought the details to attention here in the past and have been met with the same response every subjective observation is met so I’ll just paint with broad strokes.
I don’t have the proper testing equipment (or the training to use it if I did) to corroborate my observations with but I can say I’ve gone to exhausting lengths testing to be sure ‘delusion’ wasn’t the answer to “what is it”.
 
What thermal treatment (and what for) is applicable to a certain alum alloy, isn’t applicable to another alum alloy, let alone to copper.
And we have been on this ‘subject’ more than once.
Use the search function to find what back up data material, anecdotes, advertisement claims has been provided or not. This is what tags the subject as “esoteric”
George
George, are more aluminum or copper mined in Greece? I remember Greek orange juice in tin cans it was tasty, but not esoteric. 😉 https://forum.ngs.ru/preview/forum/...0a1f3d85a97fb26efb348f_152420664225_800px.jpg
 
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