That's interesting to hear, Alex. My old battleship Yamaha CD player greatly benefited from the play-pause-wait-play tweak; I had worked out quite a number of little moves over the time using it, to get maximum SQ. One of these was never using the remote, another was having the display always in a certain mode which meant there was no constant update while playing. Though never thoroughly investigated, it was a clear sign that the working of the microprocessor in the controller was causing too much interference ...
see, this is why there'll never be reconciliation: you subjectivists work by exaggeration.
I read many reasonable subjective posts but most of the times there's a "bam!" like your "1%" line.
If engineers pretended to be more ignorant, would that make other people feel better about themselves? Whenever tested, it is found that 16/44.1 is adequate for public distribution although it could be argued that 16/48 would make filtering easier.miragem31 said:
It is unproven that engineers believe what you claim they believe, although I suppose there are a few fools on both sides of most arguments.. However, it is often easier to reject what the other person doesn't believe; it reduces the need for coherent argument based on facts.miragem31 said:
My guess is that we know 96.5% of what we need to know. Sound reproduction has come a long way over the century or so it has been in existence. People keep asserting that there is something vital missing, but tests usually show there is not - merely a few details. People who doubt this might like to hear all their music via an old POTS analogue phone line - then they will understand that boring things like frequency response and distortion actually do tell us something useful.miragem31 said:
There is growing anecdotal evidence that people who complain about good sound reproduction (calling it 'flat' or 'boring') are merely missing their preferred distortions.
If you grew up listening to music on the AM radio of the family car, your tastes may be a little bit skewed. Not as rare as you might think.
ok, so we're back at epistemology 101 again. fine.
but... "great deal"? "profound"? how do you define those? if profound means that we don't have faster than light travel for free, yes. but if you look at the fact that somehow we managed to increase the life span by using medicine, that we have safe cars with better mileage compared to 50 years ago etc etc...
umm... are you serious? research? ring a bell? which basically equals "let's try this and see what happens"?
again.
how do you explain the fact that a lot of serious audiophiles which are also music lovers seem to be happy with RedBook? and I'm talking about folks who spend big bucks as a result of direct experience, not review magazines, internet wisdom or hearsay.
and since we're here... is a CD player not a direct result of "let's see what happens" combined with 'a bit' of science, logic and common sense that helps predict with a degree of accuracy what happens before it happens (and before a lot of time and effort are wasted)? I'd like to see a team of subjectivists/empiricists try to build from scratch (that is disregarding what is already known and proven + working on random experimentation alone) the laser diode, actuator assembly, lens, turntable motor, motor controller, actuator control system etc 😀
have you ever considered a career as an audio reviewer? 😀
it's also a logical fallacy to think that random experiments can get you somewhere.
if you ever come to my town, instead of asking me how to get from A to B or using the GPS, try tossing coins at each junction 😀 yes, there is a greater than 0 probability that within a few thousand years you'll have reached point B (after you'll have traveled the whole world a few times), but there are quicker and less expensive ways 🙂 the fact that some people are stubborn enough to rely on a 'malfunctioning GPS' (THD used as a measure for quality) doesn't prove that 'a working GPS' (better measures) is a stupid idea.
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I'm willing to cut the Subjectivists some slack. After all, we are not building scientific instruments here, we are building music playback systems that are supposed to bring us pleasure. For most folks, that's easy. An iPod and a pair of Beats headphones - or a Bose Wave radio, or big woofer is all they need for it to "sound great!".
We want a little more than that, but we still listen for pleasure, don't we?
I see a subset of the engineering school of audio design - you'll find them here and on other forums - that reject listening as a valid measure. It's like some weird puritanical school of audio that is afraid that actually listening and liking might lead to pleasure. Pleasure is a sin - and we can't have that.
If we go strictly by measurement then we can't be accused of indulging ourselves and committing a sin, can we? If it's bad, it's bad. If it's good, it's good. But we did not purposefully seek the pleasure, and therefore did not sin.
We want a little more than that, but we still listen for pleasure, don't we?
I see a subset of the engineering school of audio design - you'll find them here and on other forums - that reject listening as a valid measure. It's like some weird puritanical school of audio that is afraid that actually listening and liking might lead to pleasure. Pleasure is a sin - and we can't have that.
If we go strictly by measurement then we can't be accused of indulging ourselves and committing a sin, can we? If it's bad, it's bad. If it's good, it's good. But we did not purposefully seek the pleasure, and therefore did not sin.miragem3i, have you ever imagined how any product is developed and designed, how the engineers from all disciplines (and production people, machinist, CAD etc) come up with the finished packaged product?
There does seem to be some audiophile nirvana that science cannot even approach. Like others I am beginning to think that distortions are the key, and a neutral system will always sound wrong to many. Just take the bass frequencies, go from a ported long throw woofer to 4x15" OB's, the sound will be very different, same with horn loaded, transmission line etc, all will affect the resultant sound far greater than the electronics, all present the bass differently, which is the correct sound?
I also wonder whether the minute differences in sound that can be easily picked up by the GEB, would require the listening room to be environmentally controlled to avoid the speakers and resultant sound field being affected by air temperature, humidity, pressure etc all variable that have to be accounted for, plus the measured hearing abilities of the listening panel (something that is done on controlled listening tests, a full hearing test including conducted ability).
Whoops that how an engineer would do it, controlled...😀
There does seem to be some audiophile nirvana that science cannot even approach. Like others I am beginning to think that distortions are the key, and a neutral system will always sound wrong to many. Just take the bass frequencies, go from a ported long throw woofer to 4x15" OB's, the sound will be very different, same with horn loaded, transmission line etc, all will affect the resultant sound far greater than the electronics, all present the bass differently, which is the correct sound?
I also wonder whether the minute differences in sound that can be easily picked up by the GEB, would require the listening room to be environmentally controlled to avoid the speakers and resultant sound field being affected by air temperature, humidity, pressure etc all variable that have to be accounted for, plus the measured hearing abilities of the listening panel (something that is done on controlled listening tests, a full hearing test including conducted ability).
Whoops that how an engineer would do it, controlled...😀
Did you mean to say "uncontrolled listening to determine the truth of a technical pronouncement" in the part that I underlined? If not, then I strongly disagree- I have never met an engineer or scientist who would reject the evidence of a well-controlled listening test.
How about the speaker cable installation and the types of it? This one is better then that one. Like pvc vs Teflon ( If I spelled it right)? The Teflon will make your signal more proected and will make it a cleaner sound? Okay How about getting a cable that is natural and doesn't change anything. I have lerrned that changing cables is like messing with a EQ? They all sound different but, for what reason? I am still researching a cable that does not do anything but, let sound wave go from the amp to the speakers with out add or taking away from the music. So how about Solder or binding post get me a break? I have worked for a speaker cable company and what I went thru and how they had to have big buck speakers and equiment to get the best sound it just doesn't work for me. I am a plan simple man and I like to keep it a simple and as few parts as possible in the signal. Again to much hype on cables,solder and binding post. N.S.
sorry, I presumed we werent talking about malfunctioning mechanical hardware ... the act as described, sounds just like 'The Fonz' i'm not sure such revelations belong under the term 'tweaks'
unrelated note on previous posts.
btw high rate DSD is an ironic example, given that most DSD dacs will enact a 50K or so filter rolloff on the same content that doesnt extend above 20khz in general and the following analogue stages very likely cut even more harshly. it seems you are arguing that the 'advance' of DSD256+, which will result in 1 Bit PWM playback at <50khz, with generally higher noise and distortions, is progress?
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I see a subset of the engineering school of audio design - you'll find them here and on other forums - that reject listening as a valid measure. It's like some weird puritanical school of audio that is afraid that actually listening and liking might lead to pleasure. Pleasure is a sin - and we can't have that.
I see the development and engineering side of things as being separate from listening for enjoyment. There's plenty of time to enjoy listening to the kit once it's been developed to a high degree of safety and refinement.
If each succeding generation of audio technology had been developed by faux-engineers who believed that the sound was determined by the exact composition and colour of the paxolin or what type of brass screws were used, we would still be at the wax cylinder stage. As it is, the audio subjectivists get to play around the periphery of technologies that were developed solely by 'meter readers' with an eye on those boring measurements of distortion and frequency linearity, but which seem to have turned out as pretty good starting (and end) points.
exactly, nobody is ever talking about truly pushing the technology forward, or inventing new playback or recording systems, its often just bastardization of the technologies developed using the techniques that appear to be held in disdain. as long as its old, must be better. apparently as our tools (generally the same type only better) develop and methodologies strengthened, it somehow becomes more distasteful?
Yes I keep hearing that the older stuff is built better then the new stuff. Over and Over and Over again? N.S.
I'm in the stages of Lego-block "designing" a fully balanced storage & sound reproduction system for a yacht, part analog, with room acoustics measurement, and correction in the digital domain.
That sorta makes it a scientific instrument, and embracing both the old and the new.
(sorta makes me giggle when I read words of individuals trashing a 200k Lyngdorf sound system, while tweaking a chip-pantsey at home)
Lyngdorf worked at Snell? I won my choice of small pair of bookshelf speakers at a company dinner lottery and picked the last one designed by Peter Snell over equivalent KEF, B&W, JBL, Boston Acoustics, and Yamaha. After 30yr. they all had the "sound" that I had associated them with, sort of a cultural or corporate cultural thing.
LOL
during this week's shootout I was thinking that we were comparing signal sources using a relatively cheap amp. the irony being that (AFAIK) all the people present had listening experiences with very expensive systems.
those types do exist but I view them as an insignificant minority. I think you built a nice straw man argument there.I see a subset of the engineering school of audio design - you'll find them here and on other forums - that reject listening as a valid measure. It's like some weird puritanical school of audio that is afraid that actually listening and liking might lead to pleasure. Pleasure is a sin - and we can't have that.
but how about this.
how about the wild theory that some other types get similarly blissful feelings by looking at a video or a 'paper' made by their favorite vendor, telling them that the product they bought "has electrolytes"?
like this one: http://www.ayre.com/pdf/Ayre_MP_White_Paper.pdf
first, the author confuses pre-echo and pre-ringing.
then... how come almost everyone misses that a perfect brick-wall, linear phase filter is the one actually required by Shannon-Nyquist? and that ringing in the reconstruction filter will never happen given the filter is implemented well and the anti-aliasing filtering in the ADC actually works? and, even if it doesn't, you're stuck with it, period, done and over with. and even if what apodizing does is 'fix' some ADC artifact in the DAC, well, just say you think so, not try to come up with some other false explanation.
next: this exclusive advance in digital audio reproduction. come again? Meridian has it. even the $20 WM8741 has it built-in
This type of digital filter is not available in off-the-shelf chips
really?
last, the usual hand-waving: this exclusive advance in digital audio reproduction ... a significant leap forward ... Now a giant step forward has been taken ... we use sophisticated FPGAs ... provides a significant step ahead in digital audio reproduction ... this exclusive advance in digital audio reproduction ... achieving the most natural and realistic sound available ... provides this advanced technology
WOW!
all this in a 4-page pdf. advanced technology? then, how do you call a high-end DSLR? or an airplane? at least Meridian has some decent papers that are written in a scientific format with references and all that. and they don't post self-serving stuff on every audio forum in existence.
people should also note one thing. these explanations are most of the times very seductive. they beg you to believe them. I mean, pre-ringing, everyone knows it's bad for ya! it's something that happens before it actually happens, it can't sound good. the guy doesn't even bother to qualify his opinions as such, he simply tells us that it's that mythical ringing that ruins everything. except it doesn't happen.
now, had it been about the ADC and not the DAC.. buy why don't they just make a better ADC then?
I'm not saying it doesn't sound good. I'd even take their word for it. but if what they're trying to do is come up with a credible explanation, they're failing. and happy customers that want to feel even a tiny bit happier about their purchase aside, I'm not sure anyone believes it.
here here!
I own Danish speakers (and a Danish bicycle!). and I have a gut feeling that I may like existentialism.
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