it's not about hearing, but listening.Bratislav said:
not golden ears but rather golden mind
it's the processor/cpu not the mic!
john curl said:
As long as you don't know if I'm going A->B, B->A, A->A, or B->B. Otherwise, you can have multiple trials where A and B are randomized and you an pick which one is "better" or "more refulgent" or whatever. Score 8 or 9 out of ten and I'm converted to your point of view.
janneman said:
😀 Ha, Ha ... Well, we're kind of on the same page Jan. But I'd add a bypass switch for those recordings that don't need help. But, I really think tone controls are important, given the state of all too many recordings.
janneman said:
Guys, I've got a stunningly simple answer for you. Since, as a general rule, the people who don't think things like that matter are also the same people who don't think switches and cables matter, then put a graphic equalizer in your tape loop. Everybody's happy. Those who want a simple signal path are happy. Those who don't want to pay for circuitry they'll never use are happy. And those who feel that they want to EQ their signal are happy, assuming that they are willing to go to the trouble and expense to either build or buy an equalizer.
Next problem...
metalman said:
Whether it proves or disproves its existence, it would muzzle a bunch of people who would otherwise mouth off about the 'impossibility' of this, that, or the other thing just because it offends them to think there's more to this than meters.
I've never said that everyone who reports hearing things is 100 percent accurate. In fact, I've got two really good stories about people who pulled real boners along those lines. However, that does not mean that no one can hear.
You'll note that somewhere above I said that I don't currently have anyone near me whose hearing I trust. I didn't say there weren't audiophiles, a few of whom have high end pretensions, near me. I just don't trust their hearing.
I have repeatedly suggested that people listen for themselves, which is all I can do. I've even given detailed suggestions as to what to listen for. Few people seem inclined to make the effort.
Grey
SY said:
SY this is pure nonsense, if you have two different sounding products you can’t just use an Eq on the “not so good sounding product” to make it sound similar to the “better sounding product”
It’s like saying that you can make a SM57 sound like a Neumann or a Schoeps just by using some Eq.
Sorry I really don’t buy that one.
Cheers
Stinius
GRollins said:
Could you elaborate on what that "certain point" might be? Perhaps a % THD for reference.
Au contraire. You assume the thing that is to be proven (that they sound different). You also assume that a Levinson sounds "bad" and an Ayre sounds "good."
My own opinion is that, in a level-matched test with no peeking, they'll both sound good. But that's just an opinion, John says he's willing to be a subject for the test, and experiment overrules both opinion and theory.
SY said:
Ah I see, you mean that every amp sounds the same.
Regarding the amps I did not mention a name, or witch one sounded better than the other.
Cheers
Stinius
bappe said:
Could it be, the GE just lack the ability to fill in.
Acquired merit or a brain disease.
No satisfaction ever.🙁
http://stereophile.com/asweseeit/487awsi/
Color me skeptic, but I find it hard to believe that publication that has made a (very lucrative) living out of 'superior hearing' fallacy is going to shoot themselves in the foot by objectively conducting such test (or even objectively reporting on it).
Color me skeptic, but I find it hard to believe that publication that has made a (very lucrative) living out of 'superior hearing' fallacy is going to shoot themselves in the foot by objectively conducting such test (or even objectively reporting on it).
Gordon Holt:
"Most such tests have utilized "the best" signal sources—master tapes or outstandingly good CDs—rather than ones whose distortion content might reveal differences in how much such content is exaggerated by different products."
Interesting thought.
"Most such tests have utilized "the best" signal sources—master tapes or outstandingly good CDs—rather than ones whose distortion content might reveal differences in how much such content is exaggerated by different products."
Interesting thought.
Ragnwald said:
Even more interesting, J Gordon Holt admits that there are "outstandingly good" Redbook CDs. So whatever happened to the principle of "existence proof"?
What's interesting, is that he was not anticipating any problems whatsoever. After all, the differences he had heard at one point during preliminary listening were great enough for him to describe them as "dramatic." Certainly, any "dramatic" differences would be immediately audible under any conditions of comparison...
But in fact, he was hard put to hear any differences between the amplifiers. That he was able to rack up four successful calls out of five was only because he was listening for the two most conspicuous sonic differences he had heard previously, on program material which he had personally chosen to reveal those differences as obviously as possible.
And he actually admits it.
But in fact, he was hard put to hear any differences between the amplifiers. That he was able to rack up four successful calls out of five was only because he was listening for the two most conspicuous sonic differences he had heard previously, on program material which he had personally chosen to reveal those differences as obviously as possible.
And he actually admits it.
stinius said:
If that's what I meant, that's what I would have said. But I didn't say that, did I?
John made the comparison of the Levinson with the others, not you. Most good transistor amps, when not clipping, sound pretty much the same to me. If John thinks not, he's made the offer to demonstrate his point, and I congratulate him for having the stones to do that.
Since I don't have a Levinson handy, perhaps he'll agree to let me use an Adcom 555 versus whatever super-amp (Parasound? Ayre?) that he has laying around.
Whatever you do, you MUST put the micro-equalizer on the side of the 'weaker component' such as a Phase Linear, etc, and leave the Levinson, Krell, CTC alone.
john curl said:
In most cases it's not needed. I think the idea was that Carver was matching the clearly audible (and measurable) abberations of a valve amplifier.
john curl said:
No problem. As Scott says, there might not even be a need for any sort of "micro-equalizer."
Steve Dunlap said:
A reasonable question, reasonably asked. The answer is complicated by other factors, however.
Scenario one, the approach I favor, is to design for wide bandwidth and low gain. As I said earlier, I also try to fiddle in as low a distortion as I can manage, but I don't obsess over it. It's not difficult to get to something like .05% or thereabouts. I think the line stage I'm currently working on is coming in at about .07 or .08%, open loop. N.B. this is with the circuit in open air and my bench is directly under the main AC breaker box for the house, so there's a lot of EMF nonsense in the air. (No, I don't bother punching the HI/LO PASS buttons that would filter some of the stuff out. I figure that if I can get decent specs under those conditions, I'm in pretty good shape, overall.)
For a real world circuit, take a look at the GR-25. It's a 25W/ch no-feedback amp I did last year.
Scenario two, the approach favored by those who want to get their THD as low as possible, is to design for high open loop gain, so as to be able to apply plenty of negative feedback. The unavoidable consequence of this, unfortunately, is reduced bandwidth and higher distortion. How reduced? That depends on the design, obviously, but it's not unusual to see an amplifier with 1kHz open loop bandwidth. That means that if you want to get the bandwidth out to 20kHz, you're going to have to apply 26dB of feedback. Want 100kHz bandwidth? You're looking at 40dB of negative feedback. That's before you even begin to worry about distortion figures. Now, assuming that you've designed your circuit such that you have sufficient open loop gain to use that much feedback and still have your target gain for your circuit, you're in pretty good shape. If your open loop bandwidth is lower than 1kHz or if your distortion is higher than whatever you can handle with the available amount of feedback, you need to build in more gain, which in turn leaves you with even more distortion and even narrower bandwidth, so it's a delicate balancing act. If you play your cards right, you can achieve THD down in the .001% range, perhaps lower.
All this begs the question of when to stop. What percentage of distortion can the human ear detect?
Ugh! Major can of worms.
Lots of people have tilted at this particular windmill...and gotten some widely varying answers. There's no one number that satisfies everyone, but a lot of people seem to be sorta semi-satisfied with the idea that THD begins to become a problem above .1%. There are plenty of complicating factors here, though, in that the spectral content of the distortion (odd harmonics or even? low order or higher order?) needs to be considered, the frequencies you intend to play back (a dedicated tweeter amp in a biamp signal could conceivably tolerate higher distortion, as the lowest distortion harmonics would be out of the nominal human hearing range), etc.
Given that I can get wide bandwidth (I like 200kHz, minimum) and distortion comfortably under the .1% level, I'm happier not using feedback as I feel that feedback imposes its own penalties. Others feel that THD takes precedence over everything and that feedback extracts no price other than potential instability, which can be handled without undue difficulty, usually by lowering the bandwidth.
I could, presumably, get my THD down even lower without having to resort to feedback. To date I've not used more than 20dB of feedback in anything. To me that's an upper limit. Ask some of the THD mavens about 20dB of feedback and they'll break out in sweats, not being comfortable with anything less than 40-50dB.
Grey
Peter Daniel said:
Hi Peter, In order to solve this riddle one has to design a test that takes into account how we really hear. I think the Jastreboff model answers a lot of these questions. We respond much more strongly to sounds we have experience with. We learn sounds. Ears work on feedback and increase the gain for sounds with special importance. I thick I can say the audible differences have special importance to audiophiles. But, ya got learn those differences.
check out the links in my signature.
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