Not sure ... I didn't do a DBT to verify the colour - can't trust those eyes, you know - hope the sales chappie didn't scam me, could muck up the listening room decorating scheme, otherwise ...
This whole issue has been hotly contested for aeons and will continue ad infinitum. No one can actually win the debate, even though many believe they can by applying their own infallible sense of logic and sheer perserverance.
I now view most of this debate as great entertainment and take a rather light hearted approach to the seriousness of many of the participants. Having an engineering / science background I have observed some phenomena which cannot be explained fully by current models. My obvious view is that we carry out further experimentation in an effort to further their understanding.
Unfortunately, in the case of audio, many of these phenomena are subjective in nature;.and even though the current conventional scientific methodological validation of subjective phenomena; the 'double blind test' eliminates many variables, it still allows the influence of enough confounding variables to influence results. To me, herein lies the crux of a major problem, which most naysayers will deny.
Having been born into the prime era of tweakery, In my youth I was able to try most gear / tweaks out there (borrowing products that cost real $). Many have turned out to be pure horse ****, and yet some produced audible differences (both +ve and -ve).
In my younger days I developed a bit of a reputation as an 'enfant terrible' among local audio dealers - yes the interconnects, speaker cables, amps and general tweakery items they provided made things sound different, but not necessarilly better: eg I found silver sounds quite different to copper, but thought it rather unbalanced; the cheaper amp in some lineups sounded better than the more expensive models; and one SY will find interesting - ALL of the AC filtering devices I heard actuallly degraded the sound, esp wrt dynamics - despite my high expectations of what I was expecting to hear and the sound scientific principles behind these expectations.
Yes, there are definite diffences between cables, capacitors and resistors, yet I choose to use Blue Jeans interconnects and patio chord speaker cable by choice, not out of economy . Although I admit have ordered some cheap alternative orthodox products for comparison purposes.
One thing I now strongly suspect is that the more one opens the bandwith of a system, the more difficult is to produce an enjoyable coherent sound. As much as I hate to admit it, the most enjoyable system I have heard to date is my current bedroom system, wich consists of a Naim CD plater with Teddyreg into an Exposure XX super amp ( they made great amps then - how stereophile was able to to give the current crap 2012 model a class A rating is beyond comprehension) into Royd Sintra bookshelf speakers.
Since putting this combination together I have spent way over my budget on new music. It doesn't go loud, it doesn't go low and yet it gushes out music. My main system (which i won't go into) outclasses it in many dimensions, but yet doesn't give the same pleasure.
I don't really want to get into any heated debate on these issues; having stated my general position I don't really give a toss what anyone else thinks. Go argue with someone else and my amusement will continue unabated.🙂
I now view most of this debate as great entertainment and take a rather light hearted approach to the seriousness of many of the participants. Having an engineering / science background I have observed some phenomena which cannot be explained fully by current models. My obvious view is that we carry out further experimentation in an effort to further their understanding.
Unfortunately, in the case of audio, many of these phenomena are subjective in nature;.and even though the current conventional scientific methodological validation of subjective phenomena; the 'double blind test' eliminates many variables, it still allows the influence of enough confounding variables to influence results. To me, herein lies the crux of a major problem, which most naysayers will deny.
Having been born into the prime era of tweakery, In my youth I was able to try most gear / tweaks out there (borrowing products that cost real $). Many have turned out to be pure horse ****, and yet some produced audible differences (both +ve and -ve).
In my younger days I developed a bit of a reputation as an 'enfant terrible' among local audio dealers - yes the interconnects, speaker cables, amps and general tweakery items they provided made things sound different, but not necessarilly better: eg I found silver sounds quite different to copper, but thought it rather unbalanced; the cheaper amp in some lineups sounded better than the more expensive models; and one SY will find interesting - ALL of the AC filtering devices I heard actuallly degraded the sound, esp wrt dynamics - despite my high expectations of what I was expecting to hear and the sound scientific principles behind these expectations.
Yes, there are definite diffences between cables, capacitors and resistors, yet I choose to use Blue Jeans interconnects and patio chord speaker cable by choice, not out of economy . Although I admit have ordered some cheap alternative orthodox products for comparison purposes.
One thing I now strongly suspect is that the more one opens the bandwith of a system, the more difficult is to produce an enjoyable coherent sound. As much as I hate to admit it, the most enjoyable system I have heard to date is my current bedroom system, wich consists of a Naim CD plater with Teddyreg into an Exposure XX super amp ( they made great amps then - how stereophile was able to to give the current crap 2012 model a class A rating is beyond comprehension) into Royd Sintra bookshelf speakers.
Since putting this combination together I have spent way over my budget on new music. It doesn't go loud, it doesn't go low and yet it gushes out music. My main system (which i won't go into) outclasses it in many dimensions, but yet doesn't give the same pleasure.
I don't really want to get into any heated debate on these issues; having stated my general position I don't really give a toss what anyone else thinks. Go argue with someone else and my amusement will continue unabated.🙂
There's the key word- expectations.
Unfortunately, I was an adult when voodoo rose in the high end segment, so witnessing its evolution first hand and seeing how it drove much good engineering out of its market segment gave me a rather cynical view. 😀 Not all was wonderful pre-voodoo audio: there were also gassy goofballs then, but they were gassy about different things, many of which actually mattered.
You can't trust anybody that can't see that Einstein was wrong. Lorentz symmetry is impossible.
Yes, we also had similar sorts of cranks back then- Wireless World loved publishing their stuff. Electrons don't exist!
Fortunately, these days there are still brave fellows who aren't afraid to speak the truth and expose the massive fraud of Judenphysik, and demonstrate why we didn't land on the Moon and why our spaceships don't actually work and how their photos and data are all faked. Sadly, many have ended up abducted by aliens whose technology wasn't sidetracked by silly things like general relativity; lord knows how they survived the anal probing.
Fortunately, these days there are still brave fellows who aren't afraid to speak the truth and expose the massive fraud of Judenphysik, and demonstrate why we didn't land on the Moon and why our spaceships don't actually work and how their photos and data are all faked. Sadly, many have ended up abducted by aliens whose technology wasn't sidetracked by silly things like general relativity; lord knows how they survived the anal probing.
For a valid test you would need to remember the sound, but forget/not know whether the blocks were in place. This means better audio memory than most humans possess, and much worse eyesight and visual memory than most humans possess. Are you superhuman?fas42 said:
This is the standard wilful misstatement of the 'engineering' view. We have heard it before. If you want to tilt at windmills then fine, but don't confuse it with grown-up discussion.fas42 said:
Now you are just being silly. I dont recall ever saying they sound the same. I have indicated that for fine differences it is very difficult (to the point of being highly improbable) for an individual to be able to reliably and repeatably identfy differences.
Don't feel bad about it. Wine "experts" have been shown to have little more success than a random guess when tested to identify different wines - and even the same wine in a different group. The really interesting (read: hilarious) experiments mess with wine buffs snobbery - the researchers decant cheap wine into expensive looking bottles and vice versa. Guess which wines are then consistently rated as the better?
Snake oil thrives on snobbery.
None of this is news to those whose expertise lies in the field of human perception and the senses. Lots of articles on the matter including from peer reviewed sources.
Heres a thought - Bybee enhanced Topaz risers - the Rock-a-Bye Bybee
I don't think "silly" is the word I'd use.
Your scare quotes on "experts" is apropos. Real experts are actually quite good at blind identification- that's a basic qualification when being tested for certifications like WCTE, MS, or MW.
A little bit of silliness now and again never hurt anyone ... 🙂
Fine differences can be a problem ... but the answer is to stress test - something I have done since year dot. I never use 'good' recordings, I put on savagely demanding ones - these highlight in brilliant relief which option or circumstance is the better ... what you're listening for is not the quality of the good bits - the actual music that was being recorded - but the quality of the remaining, audibly distinctive distortion. The latter changes in tonal qualities quite dramatically for relatively small variations in system parameters - and in the last step of tweaking subjectively vanishes - the system is in the 'zone' ...
This comment lacks basic knowledge/understanding of mechanical engineering.
The beauty of engineering is that areas overlap, some more so than others. Master one area, and the next requires half the effort, the next even less. If one field of engineering expertise holds no magic, the overlapping one will not either.
In reverse, not understanding the basics of one engineering field, subsequently implies one does not really understand the other.
It seems that you desire to misunderstand me - my allusion was to the fact that a structure such as a bridge does not visually signal strongly to a casual observer that it is reacting to forces being applied to it - as compared to parts of a steam engine, or a sail, say.
And so should audio systems audibly behave - if it draws attention to itself, signaling that it's stressed when asked to perform past a certain performance level then there are issues. Also, like the car whose steering wheel starts to vibrate when reaching a certain speed ...
And so should audio systems audibly behave - if it draws attention to itself, signaling that it's stressed when asked to perform past a certain performance level then there are issues. Also, like the car whose steering wheel starts to vibrate when reaching a certain speed ...
Maybe due to you not expressing yourself all that accurately ?
Vague is a typical non-engineering approach.
(a bridge does visually signal strongly, that it is reacting to forces being applied, btw. Just not to casual observers, but those are of zero relevance)
The typical hifi speaker signals strongly, audibly, that virtually no effort is made normally to stabilise it - by virtue of the poor subjective quality of the bass - yet hardly any mention is made of this factor ... a whole lot of 'engineers' seem to have gone to sleep on this one ...
One of the first major steps forward I made nearly 30 years ago was to link the extremely modest bookshelf speaker very strongly to the structure of the house - this made a huge improvement to overall quality, and especially to the impact of the bass. Many systems, even with megalithic speakers, have relatively sloppy, ill-defined bass from lack of attention to this factor ...
One of the first major steps forward I made nearly 30 years ago was to link the extremely modest bookshelf speaker very strongly to the structure of the house - this made a huge improvement to overall quality, and especially to the impact of the bass. Many systems, even with megalithic speakers, have relatively sloppy, ill-defined bass from lack of attention to this factor ...
Clearly not. Nor are they aware of molecular kinetics, which govern what happens when one creates hot air and then waves one's hands.
I see ... the designers may know the value of such things, but there is no point in passing on the benefits of such understanding to the consumer - is that the idea ... ?
Besides just the speaker construction, room dynamics, etc, accurate bass also requires an amplifier that is well matched to the speaker dynamics, meaning adequate dampening factor.
The amplifier 'damping factor' seems to have gone up and down in the 'importance' stakes - I'm not sure what the latest consensus on this is ...
What I found very valuable was an effective means of damping, or transferring away the energy of vibration of the speaker carcase - this is done in a brute force way by the Wilson philosophy, just keep adding mass until the speaker makes the floor boards sag ...
What I found very valuable was an effective means of damping, or transferring away the energy of vibration of the speaker carcase - this is done in a brute force way by the Wilson philosophy, just keep adding mass until the speaker makes the floor boards sag ...
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