Boringly repetitive!!
Bring something more to the discussion to warrant being taken seriously
Is this threadbare line of 'argument' really all you guys have??
Dan, those are all fuzzy words (groove, vibe) without clear definition and can be used without consequence because, well, they mean nothing. Sorry. That's a non-starter. Second off, your story sounds nice but isn't exactly consistent with the available evidence, especially around how we adapt to our environment. We "white balance" everything and quite quickly. Plus, as Evenharmonics alluded, we are so socially influenced.
Yes, I trust professionals to (generally, accepting a wide range of ability) to be more attuned to their environment much in the same way I pick up things in my day-to-day work that would go completely missed by people not in my field. On the other hand, people's memories are incredibly fallible, professionals and amateurs alike. Asking someone to recall an impression and compare it against a present impression across even a couple minutes is unreliable, much less days later, especially when the differences are small. This is a fundamental reason why there's a sweet spot for A-B testing track length (~10-15s), and why allowing testee's the ability to revisit a sample before making a decision improves experimental repeatability (especially when you move up to ternary and tetrad experiments where the mental burden becomes substantially higher).
So, yes, I am entirely comfortable throwing out allusions, by professionals and amateurs alike, of their impressions of a system mod done across several days (even hours), unless it's clear that the mod has substantially changed the system's response.
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You know that internet forums are places where some people kill time because they have plenty of disposable ones. IOW, for some, these are entertainment outlets. Like Alfred Pennyworth said in the movie The Dark Knight (2008), " Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
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Longer term testing becomes wildly unreliable very quickly as all the other mental processes start kicking in. Feel free to take your time familiarizing yourself with different configurations, but actual comparisons need to be done within short-term sensory memory.
I have close ties with people doing research on the neurosciences. They always remind me that there is good progress, but we are still a long way from any real understanding of how this stuff works. So, there's lots of good research, and one day it'll probably all come together. But it's all hypotheses under test at the moment, certainly no general solutions, and to be treated with caution when you try and apply the results outside of the narrow confines of the research.
An interesting test would be for all you "golden eared" yo-yo's to take a hearing test and then post the Audiologists readout on the forum. This way we can all check out who to take seriously and who is spouting a crock.
Probably boring, but nevertheless true. Your failure to address and answer this line of 'argument' is more than telling.
Good that you have some exposure to it but I don;t believe that you read the papers I linked to before giving your blanket & seemingly stock reply that you have posted twice now to on of my posts - "Maybe. But those are hypotheses, not proven." & an earlier post "But.. that's your belief, and it's just a hypothesis..."
Sure, we don't know the full workings of auditory perception & the likelihood is that there will never be research which answers directly the sort of issues we have in this hobby - so it will always be speculative. Remember that a lot of what is being investigated is the correlation between visual perception mechanisms (about which a lot is known & more or less accepted) & auditory perception mechanisms - so if some mechanism is 'proven' for visual perception & the same mechanism is shown to operate in auditory perception, it becomes equally 'proven' de facto.
Are we only to talk about what's fully proven in the field of auditory perception & directly related to listening to music playback through our systems?
I'm of the opinion that it's useful, interesting & educational to speculate particularly when backed by some relevant research!
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It's not a line of argument - you need to get real & understand how weak it is.
Bring something of values to the discussion to warrant a reply
Well, first off, I have correct spelling 🙄
More importantly, I have posted links to many auditory research papers - have you read any of them & care to discuss any points?
Sure, absolutely -- we're saying the same thing in different ways. Comparisons need to be done in short term memory, even if one conducts the overall experiment across years for all I care. End of the day the "I listened to the system for months after changing it up before I noticed ____" are bunkum.
Given so few individuals have procedures/setups that can swap equipment across a few seconds, much less doing so (doubly) blinded, the power of the complaints about long term testing are vacuous.
One way to switch while listening for long duration is to let the audio material play on and do the switching back and forth so that the sound is uninterrupted. If there is audible difference, it can easily be heard when switching is done. The switching device will be more complicated than someone swapping things out manually but it's doable.
Which (good luck it seems 🙂 ) does fit to the topic of this thread.
What leads to the qualification that a claim is exceptional? And the next important question will be, if a claim is considered as exceptional for good reasons, what evidence qualifies as sufficiently exceptional?
A plausible argument for exceptionality of a claim could be the existence of contradictionary experimental results but that is often lacking wrt the topics we discuss routinely in these threads.
@ Waly,
That is an assertion but where is the evidence for it? The great debate started around in the 1970s (maybe even earlier if you consider von Recklinghausen´s new set of specification to be met) and the topic were always allgedely nonaudible differences because the measured numbers were below the known so-called thresholds of hearing.
It´s imo quite hard to argue that the assertion "somebody can nevertheless detect an audible difference" is "over physics and science" .
As we know that "proof" isn´t possible it would be at least nice to explain what kind of experimental evidence (call it proof if you like it more) you´d would accept as sufficient.
@ DPH,
Why do you think they mean nothing? It´s part of the routinely used vocabulary to describe reactions of listeners to music.
I guess Max Headroom wants to point to the well known fact that categorizational processing plays an important role during the transfer of information to long term storage and to the pattern recognition abilities of our brain as well.
Is that really an undisputable fact/conclusion? Getting used to a certain type of reproduction means to adapt to its inherent features, a sonical change will/might be much more noticeable to a listener that knows that specific sound than it will be to another listener not used to the systems specifics.
There is a lot of contradictionary evidence although it depends obviously on the term "differences are small" .... 🙂
I´d say the reason for the quite diverging sample length considered to be optimal is the lack of real experimental results examining multidimensional perceptual evaluation by using complex stimuli (aka music) .
That is based imo on a somewhat misguided argument based on the short length of the specific auditory memory (echoic memory) .
and why allowing testee's the ability to revisit a sample before making a decision improves experimental repeatability (especially when you move up to ternary and tetrad experiments where the mental burden becomes substantially higher).
Although i do agree to the point of "substantially change of system´s response" we should remember the basis of our discussions consisting of the so-called know thresholds of hearing and the measured numbers of systems (like amplifiers, preamplifiers or CD-players and so on).
My experience (subjectively and more objectively) is different.
@ Evenharmonics,
As usual it depends on the hypothesis/question you want to examine. If differences of practical relevance are the objective of the experiment it is hard to argue why the switching between DUTs has to be "quick" .
That is an assertion but where is the evidence for it? The great debate started around in the 1970s (maybe even earlier if you consider von Recklinghausen´s new set of specification to be met) and the topic were always allgedely nonaudible differences because the measured numbers were below the known so-called thresholds of hearing.
It´s imo quite hard to argue that the assertion "somebody can nevertheless detect an audible difference" is "over physics and science" .
As we know that "proof" isn´t possible it would be at least nice to explain what kind of experimental evidence (call it proof if you like it more) you´d would accept as sufficient.
@ DPH,
Why do you think they mean nothing? It´s part of the routinely used vocabulary to describe reactions of listeners to music.
I guess Max Headroom wants to point to the well known fact that categorizational processing plays an important role during the transfer of information to long term storage and to the pattern recognition abilities of our brain as well.
Is that really an undisputable fact/conclusion? Getting used to a certain type of reproduction means to adapt to its inherent features, a sonical change will/might be much more noticeable to a listener that knows that specific sound than it will be to another listener not used to the systems specifics.
There is a lot of contradictionary evidence although it depends obviously on the term "differences are small" .... 🙂
I´d say the reason for the quite diverging sample length considered to be optimal is the lack of real experimental results examining multidimensional perceptual evaluation by using complex stimuli (aka music) .
That is based imo on a somewhat misguided argument based on the short length of the specific auditory memory (echoic memory) .
and why allowing testee's the ability to revisit a sample before making a decision improves experimental repeatability (especially when you move up to ternary and tetrad experiments where the mental burden becomes substantially higher).
Although i do agree to the point of "substantially change of system´s response" we should remember the basis of our discussions consisting of the so-called know thresholds of hearing and the measured numbers of systems (like amplifiers, preamplifiers or CD-players and so on).
My experience (subjectively and more objectively) is different.
@ Evenharmonics,
As usual it depends on the hypothesis/question you want to examine. If differences of practical relevance are the objective of the experiment it is hard to argue why the switching between DUTs has to be "quick" .
@ Waly Can you show the definitive graph that defines the audibility of sound as defined by " physics and science, as we know it for centuries"?
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I'll chip in since you are acting as if you've never read / seen audibility claims posted on internet about audio cables, DACs, amps & ...etc. For example, a DAC costing over $1000 is said to have more dynamic sound and better imaging than a built-in DAC of a $120 disc player when the measurements of both DACs show that there would be no audible difference to our ears.
If a claimant can identify the component without peaking when compared to another component at matched level. Haven't you ever watched or read about a court case before? This is not a rocket science.
Same question to you - Can you show the definitive graph that defines the audibility of sound as defined by " physics and science, as we know it for centuries"?
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