Some people just can not perceive spatial cue from sonic stereo image so above, below, distant and nearby from sonic stereo image would be incomprehensible to them. Others are so tonally deaf they can not sing.
Let's call it experience culture. How can you share your travelling stories with a person who stayed in his home for his entire life? How much can you talk about literature to someone who doesn't know how to read?
Somewhere in the nineteens I loast my appetite completely for audio other then listening to nice music on my set after several years of utter nonsense about spikes, aluminium and isolation tape wrapped mains cable and so on, proclaimed by sheer idiots arguing that their single perception was prove enough and technical reasoning was insignificant. Those people who listened to world famous musicians from Mediocrelia on cheap or copied media. And truly happy they were to 'belong to the elite with the right stuff'.
The same applies for automobiles, toys and various shining possessions.
What's that thing in #87? A vacuumplayer suitable for the golden records on the Voyager missions to the universe? Send it up too I'd say. And the rest with them!
But that leaves the earth to the members of DIYaudio only! I stop at counting 42 for obvious reasons.
The same applies for automobiles, toys and various shining possessions.
What's that thing in #87? A vacuumplayer suitable for the golden records on the Voyager missions to the universe? Send it up too I'd say. And the rest with them!
But that leaves the earth to the members of DIYaudio only! I stop at counting 42 for obvious reasons.
Begs next question - what ARE the real experts in the field saying?
Feel free to paraphrase for brevity.
Sorry for any inaccuracy about HNC, it was given to me by such a student a very long time ago, '79 I think.
You must have found C&G a walk.
Tubelab, Dayton rocks haven't been to the new venue, since they left Hara behind. Those were the days.
I cannot understand the love of tubes for SQ, the last tube amp I built was in early '70 whilst studying with the BBC, and I've never looked back after building a Nelson Jones class A 10+10.
I agree with you, in my experience, people should have some "training" to perceive nuances that make the difference between a simple SS stereo and a Hi End system based on valves.
Part of the fallacy of the high end of our hobby, is the so-called Golden-Ear individual. When these ego driven individuals actually submit to ABX testing, they tend to fail miserably...case in point is the group of musicians who were tested ABX to decipher the sonic "superiority" of a million $ or so old Stradivarius violin, as it turned out, those golden ears couldn't tell the difference between a Strad & a cheap copy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Rick..........
The first year at Xenia was a muddy mess, but it has improved since and grown even bigger. Last years attendance was somewhere between 24,000 and 27,000 depend on who you believe. I saw winning ticket numbers in the 25000 range posted on Saturday and my ticket number was below 1000. They started giving out free tickets to the general public on Sunday last year, so that could get the attendance numbers up.
This year will all be up to the virus. The fairgrounds are a bit cleaner and in far better shape than Hara, but 25,000 people all eating from the same food vendors could be a recipe for an outbreak.
I already have my tickets, swap spaces, hotel reservations, and a large pile of sellable "stuff," but at 67 years old, I don't want no Corona!
The cheap copy was a well done Chinese knock off. The Chinese do turn out a lot of low and mid grade musical instruments, but also make some very good ones for little money.
At the recommendation of a YouTube "expert" metalhead musician, I invested the exorbitant sum of $37 for a Chinese knock off of a Fender Stratocaster. I liked it much better than the genuine Fender that I had, so I sold that one at the Dayton hamfest two years ago and used the money to buy another Chinese guitar, and a Chinese copy of a Fender "P" bass. I like them all.
I have also done some testing with different OPT's swapped into the same high end system. Granted the testing wasn't perfect due to the approximately one minute needed to swap the OPT connections. All transformers were concealed in cardboard boxes, slid along the floor to hide the size and weight differences. The OPT's ranged from $20 small Edcors, One Electrons, Hammond 1628SEs, Transcendars, and then $120 Electra Prints.
The amplifier was a Tubelab SE running NX-483 tubes (like a 45) making about 2 WPC. The speakers were high sensitivity horns such that the average amplifier power was mere milliwatts. Volume control settings were determined in advance to create and equal reading on a cheap SPL meter with a 400 Hz test tone, with no listeners in place.
There were 5 listeners, 3 of which claimed to be experts.
First off we did an elimination style match for users to choose better or worse between two OPT's, with the OPT's chosen "randomly." This required a lot of different "random" combinations for me to determine each listener's first two choices. None of the outcomes were revealed to the listeners. The big Hammonds were universally in last place and they obviously sounded different. This may not have been the case if the average power level was higher. There was some disparity among the other results. We broke for lunch, and tried ABX testing after lunch.
There was a high likelihood of a listener identifying X when A was one of their favorites, and B was the Hammond, so the Hammond was eliminated from future testing.
There was a slightly better than 50-50 chance that the listener could correctly identify X when A was one NOT one of their favorites, and B was the $20 Edcor.
There was a bit better chance that the listener could correctly identify X when A was their favorite, and B was the $20 Edcor.
Beyond that, no valid correlation occurred. Among the 3 equal sized transformers two chose the Electra Print as their favorite, and one chose the Transcendar, he also put the Electra Prints in second to last place. One person actually preferred the sound of the $20 Edcor above all of the higher priced and larger OPT's. I tend to like them too in applications where the power is low, and big bass is not needed (2 WPC into FH-3's). There was ample bass in this case since the power was very low.
There are so many variables and personal biases involved in any testing scheme to achieve statistically valid results. Would I have preferred the Chinese guitars if I was a performing musician where brand names and "image" matters? I tend to prefer something that my aging fingers can play, but then I buy my clothes at Walmart, use a cheap phone and drive an ugly old car.
Can I tell the difference in sound between a $2000 genuine Moog model D, and a $200 UK/German/Chinese knock off? NO, and neither can some of the "YouTube world." Has any serious testing been done? ….Hint, look at the schematics, the sound generation circuitry is very similar, the clone just uses modern SMD parts. I'm certainly not a good enough musician to spend $2000, so I got the $200 version.
Around 10 years ago, the teenage girl we hired to babysit my son said she was interested in playing guitar. She had no idea on what to spend her money on, so I offered to take her around to the various pawn shop and music stores in the area to see what was available - for ~ $250.
The pawn shops only had somewhat name brand (think Peavey) in damaged condition, needing service, for the guitar alone. We ended up with some Chinese guitar / amp combo for $175. I was shocked by the quality of both - the amp had a decent sounding switchable distortion, maybe even an actual tube (cant remember). The guitar had good action, a perfectly straight neck, good intonation, good tuning machines, strong pickups with all the usual switching positions, a whammy - and even felt like a 'real' instrument.
I figured that the manufacturers building these figured out they'd better make something actually pretty good, else go bankrupt. So they did.
The pawn shops only had somewhat name brand (think Peavey) in damaged condition, needing service, for the guitar alone. We ended up with some Chinese guitar / amp combo for $175. I was shocked by the quality of both - the amp had a decent sounding switchable distortion, maybe even an actual tube (cant remember). The guitar had good action, a perfectly straight neck, good intonation, good tuning machines, strong pickups with all the usual switching positions, a whammy - and even felt like a 'real' instrument.
I figured that the manufacturers building these figured out they'd better make something actually pretty good, else go bankrupt. So they did.
As a European, I’m often amused by some of the very unfair comments leveled by Americans to products from outside Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction. It goes beyond national pride, sometimes.
Pharos,
No, I didn't find C & G a walk! I think my point was lost in my waffle.
The C & G was HV operational safety, and the course was quite intense, quite a lot of information and practical tasks planned into 5 days.
My point, which I didn't convey well, was that in my youth, and ignorance, I "looked down" on C & G.
Having taken C&G later in life, my opinion was changed, it was one of the most important qualifications that I have gained.
Excellent question.
If we are talking about a field of science, it's the people who have multiple peer reviewed papers in renowned scientific magazines in that field of science. Perceptual testing, more specific audio listening tests, is one such field.
But you have to remember that one experts opinion is just an opinion. What matters is what ALL the experts combined in that specific field are saying.
Your course was obviously different from mine.
Thank you for alleviating my embedded paranoia about my ability, I was known in the apprenticeship ma "A City and Guilds thicko", and concern has never really been eliminated.
I plan to be there on Saturday mask equipped if need be!
I haven’t been to the new place yet either.