Quite true. George Lucas once said that Audio was a full 1/2 of the experince. That seems generous to me, but I agree with his point.
There is a very real attempt by the "Hi-Fi" driver manufacturers to promote this idea. They have to to justify their above average prices. Without above average pricing they cannot stay in business, so what else are they going to do? They basically are backed into a corner with little to no other options. If what I (we) are saying is correct - that its the system that matters and not the drivers - then any driver manufacturer with above average prices is in serious trouble. I see this every day.
Markus did misread that, because I saw what you meant. Sometimes when you are getting beat over the head and someone offers you a hand you get defensive - its a gut reaction. I've been there.
Markus is quite correct that double blind testing is a necessary condition for validity. It may not be sufficient, but thats a different issue, but it is necessary.
The good movie makers knew this before movies had sound, thats why the piano player was there.
Seems generous because you take in the audio subconciously. Watch a movie without the sound, then without the picture. Which was easier to follow? The dialogue tells the story, the music guides your emotions, the SFX put you in the scene or on the edge of your seat.
I think it's acceptable to have some personal preferences (biases) here and there in audio equipment reviews which are not directly related to the sounds. If only the whole descriptions are clear and thorough, not only in the descriptions of sounds itself but also including the environment, other equipment in used, materials in play... etc. Reviewers' writings should contain all that, instead of just "good" or "bad" sounding. Readers can judge for themselves by all the information (and course add their own set of biases along the way... )
We (usually) don't listen in the dark, why should we in the review sessions? For many, the looks (and brands) of the equipment also contribute a lot of joy. Those also count (for them). If only the 'whole picture' is properly presented, then it is OK to read and you can grab something useful.
After all, all those reviews are only introductions of commercial products, not warranties or technical papers. Even on papers, we should read with doubts and think for ourselves in the first place, let alone those commercial stuff.
I think it's also not fair to compare audio reviews with those for food and drink. Audio reviews should be more like car reviews. How can we get a car review in a condition of 'double blind' control? And apparently nobody wants that. Why do we pursue this in audio?
Human's sensations work together most of the time. We shouldn't separate each of them in an unatural way and say a particular sense is more acurate (or honest) when working alone. It doesn't make sense. Senses are not working like that. And living room is not recording studio.
I don't think high-end audio lost its credibility because of the honesty controls. I can't find a totally honest commercial / marketing activity anywhere, so I don't expect it in audio. The so called Hi End audio collapsed because of the rediculously bad C/P compared with other purchasings. It tends to be a luxury fashion industry but doesn't get a good recognition because of all those obvious flaws people can easily point out. The easy money in the earlier era drew an awful lot of followers and eventually bursted that small market. Those stupid magzines are accomplices for sure. They failed to keep in mind that "the hi-price luxury fashion market is small" and kept publishing and recommending all those things. Being parasites, they were finally buried with thier hosts.
As for myself, I'm lucky to see all these early enough. I didn't buy any of the mainstream commercial items except for the sources which I can not do it myself. Thankfully these digital sources are so cheap by the "helps" of video market😀
We (usually) don't listen in the dark, why should we in the review sessions? For many, the looks (and brands) of the equipment also contribute a lot of joy. Those also count (for them). If only the 'whole picture' is properly presented, then it is OK to read and you can grab something useful.
After all, all those reviews are only introductions of commercial products, not warranties or technical papers. Even on papers, we should read with doubts and think for ourselves in the first place, let alone those commercial stuff.
I think it's also not fair to compare audio reviews with those for food and drink. Audio reviews should be more like car reviews. How can we get a car review in a condition of 'double blind' control? And apparently nobody wants that. Why do we pursue this in audio?
Human's sensations work together most of the time. We shouldn't separate each of them in an unatural way and say a particular sense is more acurate (or honest) when working alone. It doesn't make sense. Senses are not working like that. And living room is not recording studio.
I don't think high-end audio lost its credibility because of the honesty controls. I can't find a totally honest commercial / marketing activity anywhere, so I don't expect it in audio. The so called Hi End audio collapsed because of the rediculously bad C/P compared with other purchasings. It tends to be a luxury fashion industry but doesn't get a good recognition because of all those obvious flaws people can easily point out. The easy money in the earlier era drew an awful lot of followers and eventually bursted that small market. Those stupid magzines are accomplices for sure. They failed to keep in mind that "the hi-price luxury fashion market is small" and kept publishing and recommending all those things. Being parasites, they were finally buried with thier hosts.
As for myself, I'm lucky to see all these early enough. I didn't buy any of the mainstream commercial items except for the sources which I can not do it myself. Thankfully these digital sources are so cheap by the "helps" of video market😀
That's not the point. One person here claimed that sound quality of home theaters in general is inferior because DVD makes use of AC-3 compression. That's just plain wrong and has nothing to do with the fact how many people own a Blu-ray player. If you care about sound quality then you can and will get a Blu-ray player. It's nothing special nor outrageous expensive.
Best, Markus
imagination can stop heart beating but, we do not need imagination we can easily replace it with 5.1, 7.1 .........
absolutely, movie essentially is an image(moving) so, any setup is fine for any movies.
''Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects''
From Wikipedia
Olive showed that trained and untrained listeners had the same preferences. See Audio Musings by Sean Olive: Part 1- Do Untrained Listeners Prefer the Same Loudspeakers as Trained Listeners?
Furthermore the subject at hand is sound reproduction. This is a rather global cultural phenomenon. Just look at all the different flags here at diyaudio.com.
Best, Markus
My theater has BlueRay. The picture quality is incredible, but I can't say as I find the audio quality that much different.
But here is a question. On several movies I noted that the center channel was missing - seems to have gotten mixed into the side channels. Is a new audio decoder required for BlueRay to decode the latest audio codecs? If you don't have the newest decoders does it automatically downgrade back to DD or PCM? I've not clear on this and its not obvious from any reading that I have done.
You only show test setup 1 - why? 3 other setups/rooms were tested too. Same results: the additional A/D/A was not perceivable.
That's just speculation. You have to do your own double-blind tests to prove that this is true.
Post 536
There are mandatory audio codecs (Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS Digital Surround) and optional codecs. The primary soundtrack has to use one of the 3 mandatory codecs. An optional second soundtrack may use one of the mandatory codecs or one of the optional codecs. If your receiver doesn't support one of the newer (optional) codecs then it solely depends on your receiver what happens. There's a good chance that you end up with only 2 channels. Good read: A Guide to Home Theater Audio CODECs - Blu-ray Forum
Easiest way to escape this mess is to buy a new receiver. The Emotiva UMC-1 is on my wishlist.
Best, Markus
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I don't have to prove anything. I said the article is something to bear in mind but that it's not conclusive. And it's not. As SY said it's suggestive.
Regarding post 536 and I quote you
"the whole speaker-room-system poses problems that are a magnitude severe than the difference in sample rates..."
My point was the picture I saw of the setup didn't inspire confidence exactly because "speaker-room-system poses problems"
The discussion in the thread
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/128488-aes-objective-subjective-forum-2.html
by some of the more rational posters about the competence of some of the equipment also did not inspire my confidence in the results. So as I said the paper is something to bear in mind but it's not conclusive.
BTW, did you actually read Kunchur's papers?
Regarding post 536 and I quote you
"the whole speaker-room-system poses problems that are a magnitude severe than the difference in sample rates..."
My point was the picture I saw of the setup didn't inspire confidence exactly because "speaker-room-system poses problems"
The discussion in the thread
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/128488-aes-objective-subjective-forum-2.html
by some of the more rational posters about the competence of some of the equipment also did not inspire my confidence in the results. So as I said the paper is something to bear in mind but it's not conclusive.
BTW, did you actually read Kunchur's papers?
Markus
Thanks, that confirms my suspicion. If the reciever recognizes the stream than all is well, but anything can happen if it doesn't. My receiver is at DTS and DD-EX, but not the DD+ and HD stuff. When it see those, it probably just defaults to two channel.
Without even looking I can just guess that your recommended receiver is a megabuck product - that would be just like you! I'll look into a new Panasonic thanks.
You dont like to listen to the music in the movie in the custom room?
Blurays have seven possible audio codecs that the publishers can use, AC-3 is one of the mandatory ones. To hear the new lossless formats you will need a Dolby digital HD decoder (which will probably also decode the new lossless DTS, although Dolby HD will become the standard). And you will need to switch the audio track on the Bluray player (audio button on the remote,which should step thru all the different versions of the Dolby Digital tracks (AC-3, Stereo, HD, (including the other language versions) DTS and PCM tracks. I believe that some movies have a dolby digital or PCM stereo version of the soundtrack as well as the 5.1 version and you may have been listening to that, or your receiver (decoder) is set to downmix the AC-3 (and please dont use the "advanced surround" options on the reciever). And before you get the new decoder, a lot of Bluray movies offer the DTS encoding as well as AC-3, which IMO is of better quality, but you can judge for yourself.
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I think that my issue is more complex because I use a PC as the Blueray player. The audio is simply passed out through SPDIF with the player doing nothing (as far as I can tell). This means that its very hard to say what the receiver will do if it sees a data stream that it doesn't understand.
Emotiva UMC1
$700
HD formats require HDNMI and a receiver capable of decoding them. SPDIF will pass out standard AC3/DTS, not HD.
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