The judge is still out, a cable, and a car thread have appeared. I'll see if anyone has a Bitchin' Camaro.
My wife is driving a Camaro, but she's not a Dead Milkmen fan, so no Bitchin'.
I remember talking to Charley Hansen a few years ago, and he told me about the Myrtle Blocks. He even sent me a set. Apparently it started with just some other wood, but he experimented with them and believed in them. I tried them under some of my electronics, but I did not get much in terms of results, but I did not test them very seriously. However, I do believe that Charley Hansen heard differences with this tweak, and then went out of his way to supply them to others, at a nominal cost. He should not have to do anything like that for absolutely free, but that will not satisfy many of you. He said I could get something close from a toy store. I find this happens when someone like Hansen offers something even at little profit, that he is accused of attempting to fool the public, I presume because of so much 'profit' selling it to the unwitting customers.
SY used to be VERY difficult on this subject and completely dismissed Dr. Vandenhul when he found that he had made some object that worked to help people's physical problems and sold it at a nominal cost. Like as he lost money in the effort, but SY was always looking for 'audio crooks' and he even accused me of being one, without actually following through on his opinion. It was the same when SY and Wurcer both tried Bybee devices. SY didn't even try to take it apart and 'prove' that is was not as Jack said it was made of, and Scott Wurcer did not bother to analyze the coating on the foil, even though I told him that it should be there. In both cases it was a more subtle mechanism than what it first appeared to be, buried inside a conventional looking shell. SY, being the 'great scientist' he purported to be, didn't bother to take the Bybee device apart. Well, I have seen the inside of what he had, and it is both sophisticated and elegant, and amazingly measures about 0.025 ohms with the paralleling of thousands of virtually nearly invisible devices (without an electron microscope), a major breakthrough. But SY never bothered to find out.
SY used to be VERY difficult on this subject and completely dismissed Dr. Vandenhul when he found that he had made some object that worked to help people's physical problems and sold it at a nominal cost. Like as he lost money in the effort, but SY was always looking for 'audio crooks' and he even accused me of being one, without actually following through on his opinion. It was the same when SY and Wurcer both tried Bybee devices. SY didn't even try to take it apart and 'prove' that is was not as Jack said it was made of, and Scott Wurcer did not bother to analyze the coating on the foil, even though I told him that it should be there. In both cases it was a more subtle mechanism than what it first appeared to be, buried inside a conventional looking shell. SY, being the 'great scientist' he purported to be, didn't bother to take the Bybee device apart. Well, I have seen the inside of what he had, and it is both sophisticated and elegant, and amazingly measures about 0.025 ohms with the paralleling of thousands of virtually nearly invisible devices (without an electron microscope), a major breakthrough. But SY never bothered to find out.
I could ABX files which were supposed to have a difference in THD. The problem was, the THD was very low that it wouldn't make sense if human could perceive it, so my conclusion was that 'it was not the THD being perceived'.
Around 5 years later I 'found out' that what I thought a THD was not really THD, it just sounded like distortion. Mark to me was just suggesting that we shouldn't make a test for THD but for other suspected mechanisms instead, such as IMD.
Sometimes I'm curious too. When an amp is 0.002% (THD), then we change the input coupling cap from ERO MKT 1.5uF to Solen MKP 1.5uF, what will happen to the amp that make it audibly difference (as claimed by many people)? Was it imagination? I don't think so as I could even passed ABX of such test. For anyone curious, this should be a simple test to set up (also with Dan's Goop), I don't understand why some people seemed to be so afraid of.
That's it, many people say "distortion" and do not think about non-linear distortion in fact, and they do not know what it is, just do not understand what they are speaking about. Then, they state that "distortion of -120dB might be audible" and similar nonsense is often declared. Same people are unable to tell -40dB distortion (nonlinear quadratic or cubic distortion) in an ABX DBT, which was shown in several threads. So first, correct terms should be used. Second, some objective evidence other than "I heard it". This discussion will last forever, with no output other than anecdotal stories about audibility of -120dB distortion, that lies far below audibility threshold.
And please do not say "THD" being perceived. THD is a number. You speak about non-linear distortion, system non-linearity, which does not care how you call it. THD, IMD is just a different way how to try to evaluate a non-linearity, one and same non-linearity.
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Yes, through a headphone where it tended to sound high quality (except for some 'mistakes' in the sound). Through my speaker and amp, it didn't sound high quality at all.
I don't know anything about old technology such as reel-to-reel tape or even LP. From the spectral view I can see that there is information up to above 40kHz. Such is possible only with latest digital and LP. It's hard to see in the spectral view if there is a line somewhere around 45kHz which will tell that the original recording have info above it (truncated), which is possible only with LPs. The dynamics seemed to be mediocre if I compare from memory to the sound of LP, so it might be the lowest quality of LP?
It is an LP, rather good than bad. If you start to investigate any LP in deep, you find it is technically mediocre.
Interestingly there is an info between 20kHz - 40kHz. If you cut everything below 20kHz by a steep HP filter (Chebyshev), and then slow down sampling rate 3x, you transform frequencies from 20kHz - 40kHz to 6.7kHz - 13.3kHz, which is inside audible range. Rests of transients are clearly audible after this transformation. This only says there was some info in the ultrasound band, either transients or more probably cartridge non-linear distortion products.
Interestingly there is an info between 20kHz - 40kHz. If you cut everything below 20kHz by a steep HP filter (Chebyshev), and then slow down sampling rate 3x, you transform frequencies from 20kHz - 40kHz to 6.7kHz - 13.3kHz, which is inside audible range. Rests of transients are clearly audible after this transformation. This only says there was some info in the ultrasound band, either transients or more probably cartridge non-linear distortion products.
I think that the non-linearity is a well defined term. The problem is that when a common audience says "distortion" they in fact mean any difference from the original. This may contain frequency response amplitude/phase change (which is a linear effect, "linear distortion"), creation of new frequencies not present in the original ("nonlinear distortion"), or irregular sounds like speaker mechanical problems.
When the EE educated person says "distortion", he means a nonlinear distortion, i.e. creation of new frequencies not present in the original signal. He does not speak about changes in frequency response, which is a linear effect. Unless same and correct terms are used, there is always a misunderstanding in a written communication. Both camps understand same words in a different way.
When the EE educated person says "distortion", he means a nonlinear distortion, i.e. creation of new frequencies not present in the original signal. He does not speak about changes in frequency response, which is a linear effect. Unless same and correct terms are used, there is always a misunderstanding in a written communication. Both camps understand same words in a different way.
As usual it depends on the conditions, as it depends on the frequency, the order of harmonics that you've mentioned and of course the SPL; there is a region (iirc ~70 dB SPL from the literature) where people (some) were able to detect the 7th/8th well below 0.05% .
Wrt IMD I already mentioned a couple of months ago the results from Benjamin/Gannon who found in their jitter experiments that some/one participant was able to detect IMDs at ~68 dBr , of course under the specific conditions.
As the number of participants in these kind of tests is usually (and was in these cases) quite low, it is quite likely that the usual intersubject spread in the ability holds true for the detection of nonlinear distortions (assumed that sufficient training was done) which means that some humans will do ~20 dB better than the mean (estimate) while otoh a lot will do much worse.
Lower bound are the physiological barriers.
Am I detecting a theme here? It's not the first time you've made an extraordinary claim, then said you haven't the time/inclination to attempt to measure what you may be hearing, what's the point?
Mark - Why not list a set of parts, 3 ready to go products (psu, dac board, output amp - if that's what's needed), that can be bought from eBay or some other source available to all. Then show how to interconnect - a simple schematic and a couple of photos. Then all interested parties can start comparative tests with the exact same hardware setup. Should be easy?
Didn't I recently wrote a post about the difficulties when trying to find causal relationships between measured numbers and multidimensional perceptions?
Albeit short, it should have conveyed the impression that it is not an easy task.....
L-dopa fixed you allright I guess 😀
Btw Rapeman and Shellac are lot more interesting imo.
John,
Stuart isn't here to defend himself, but I know enough of what went on to correct you on a couple of things.
Stuart did not take that Bybee device apart because it belonged to another member here. That member bought a pair and did not hear any difference with them in circuit.
I've spent some time with Stuart and have seen first hand how he sets up experiments, being familiar with this activity myself. His work is in fact impeccable. He properly controls any variables save the one he is testing for.
Knowing Stuart as I do, I can say his work is valid and done very carefully.
-Chris
Stuart isn't here to defend himself, but I know enough of what went on to correct you on a couple of things.
Stuart did not take that Bybee device apart because it belonged to another member here. That member bought a pair and did not hear any difference with them in circuit.
I've spent some time with Stuart and have seen first hand how he sets up experiments, being familiar with this activity myself. His work is in fact impeccable. He properly controls any variables save the one he is testing for.
Please explain to me how a Bybee device can tell electrons from a piece of test equipment, and ones from a music device?
Knowing Stuart as I do, I can say his work is valid and done very carefully.
-Chris
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