You could get hold of one of his later ESS-based DAC designs to compare with (say) your Benchmark DAC3? My money (just a couple of dollars) would be on his designs sounding better, but then they're definitely more expensive.
Everybody trusts themselves (with maybe a few exceptions, just for the sake of completeness). That is a really big part of why we have disagreements. In the bigger picture, it doesn't matter how much you trust yourself nearly as much as it matters how much everyone else trusts you.
Okay, could be. But as long as he hears cable lifters there is an issue. He either needs to be able to do it blind and we figure out how it is they work, or he understands there is a difference about what he can do with *proper* blind testing and what he can't. By proper, I mean well suited for use by the top 5% and in such a way that they generally find it a good and useful thing, not something that doesn't work right.
Why should I be concerned about who trusts me about what I have found to be audible & worthwhile?
I generally find that when people have reached a certain level of experience in this hobby, they get it & will listen for themselves & trust what they hear ( after picking up pointers from consensus opinion)
So what if they later find out they were wrong - it's all part of what this hobby is about.
This constant need for certainty about hearing is an impediment to enjoying what is a hobby plus it's also incongruous with how auditory perception works - by best guess principles.
Live with the uncertainty, I say
I generally find that when people have reached a certain level of experience in this hobby, they get it & will listen for themselves & trust what they hear ( after picking up pointers from consensus opinion)
So what if they later find out they were wrong - it's all part of what this hobby is about.
This constant need for certainty about hearing is an impediment to enjoying what is a hobby plus it's also incongruous with how auditory perception works - by best guess principles.
Live with the uncertainty, I say
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It's one of my primary messages on this thread - a little bit of understanding about auditory perception should wake people up to the idea that chasing this 'certainty' is fraught with extreme difficulty & most of the discussions about it here are simplistic.
Sorry if you think that demonstrates I think I'm the only one with the truth but that's what I perceive.
As I said, if you disagree then let's discuss actual points rather than discussing the person - I'm sure Jakob would pitch in & would be welcome in the discussion as I know he gets it.
Sorry if you think that demonstrates I think I'm the only one with the truth but that's what I perceive.
As I said, if you disagree then let's discuss actual points rather than discussing the person - I'm sure Jakob would pitch in & would be welcome in the discussion as I know he gets it.
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Straw-man argument.
In the past, I have said there are people who's minds are already fully made up, and who are thus blocked from being able to think in truth seeking mode. I said there is no point in talking to such people, and all the more so if they freely use debating tactics for the purpose of winning. IMHO, you are a very good fit that that description and so I will follow my own advice and stop talking to you. You may consider yourself on my ignore list. Good day, sir.
In the past, I have said there are people who's minds are already fully made up, and who are thus blocked from being able to think in truth seeking mode. I said there is no point in talking to such people, and all the more so if they freely use debating tactics for the purpose of winning. IMHO, you are a very good fit that that description and so I will follow my own advice and stop talking to you. You may consider yourself on my ignore list. Good day, sir.
Even though you won't see this post, I feel I need to correct a central point you made about me - I'm definitely a truth seeker, wherever it leads - that's my point about understanding auditory perception - why try to shoehorn a perception into some notion of certainty when it isn't built to do that - it's like trying to say we can use our senses as precise measurement devices when we know we can't.
A pity you can't grasp this but I tried my best?
A pity you can't grasp this but I tried my best?
That's one of the reasons why one technique of auditory perception being summary statistics I find so interesting - we don't have to store every aspect of the sound to be able to have a great method of comparing the characteristics of a playback system - it's not a note by note, accurate cross-match but it can be a powerful technique, nonetheless
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Too subtle for me - is this one of those spot the difference quizzes or some emergent image appears if I stare at it long enough? 😕
Ever wonder why we are so sensitive to our mothers voice & recognise every nuance in it, even over a lowly playback system like a phone - summary statistics could be a way to explain this neatly
Ever wonder why we are so sensitive to our mothers voice & recognise every nuance in it, even over a lowly playback system like a phone - summary statistics could be a way to explain this neatly
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Oh, right, doh!
I usually see this tftfy when some smarty pants change has been made to the original post 🙄
I tried and heard most audio in everything ranging from my own diy to others diy and very expensive world known extreme gear. Most of the times, it is raw physics and well known theories, combined with some kind of modern active DSP-solution, that wins me over and let me relax and enjoy music. And almost everytime I have some kind of problem, that prevents me from fully enjoying my music at home or at friends/events - then it is until now, easily explainable with the help of measurements, experience and known theories.
Of course a simple on-axis measurement, cant tell me that I had an annoying cabinet ressonance. I could hear something was wrong. But I needed to use a stetoscope and a direct comparison between to differen cabinets, before I found the problem.
I think that serious measurements and documented expeiements with a proper conclusion, is sometimes necessary to fully show ones findings. I mostly rely on measurements that I can reproduce over and over again - something reliable and consistent. With thousands of hours of reading, practical experience and of course countless failures - I now find most problems in my own and friends audio systems - which reduces the amount of time used to optain very good results. I am no wizard and surely admit that I still have many things to learn. But I rarely get suprised anymore.
Of course a simple on-axis measurement, cant tell me that I had an annoying cabinet ressonance. I could hear something was wrong. But I needed to use a stetoscope and a direct comparison between to differen cabinets, before I found the problem.
I think that serious measurements and documented expeiements with a proper conclusion, is sometimes necessary to fully show ones findings. I mostly rely on measurements that I can reproduce over and over again - something reliable and consistent. With thousands of hours of reading, practical experience and of course countless failures - I now find most problems in my own and friends audio systems - which reduces the amount of time used to optain very good results. I am no wizard and surely admit that I still have many things to learn. But I rarely get suprised anymore.
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John watkinson suprised me a little Legend Precision Sound Reproducers
He actually told me that he took the basic principles of the human hearing and worked backwards to created this speakers. And me and two friends have to admid that it really works very well and a lot better than most hifi ever produced. But Almost 40.000 euro - damn - that is a lot of money.
Kii3, Beolab 90 and Genuine Audio Neo - is also among my favorites.
He actually told me that he took the basic principles of the human hearing and worked backwards to created this speakers. And me and two friends have to admid that it really works very well and a lot better than most hifi ever produced. But Almost 40.000 euro - damn - that is a lot of money.
Kii3, Beolab 90 and Genuine Audio Neo - is also among my favorites.
Beside serious physical damage to the auditory system, the audiology data wouldn´t tell you much about the perceptual evaluation abilities of a person, as the latter depends strongly on learned abilities/experience.
@ Evenharmonics,
The above cited was your original assertion that triggered my question. Could you cite experimental evidence to back it (wrt to our discussed topics means multidimensional evaluation with complex stimuli - aka music)?
@jakob2 - he doesn't have any evidence because it's a rubbish assertion either made up in the moment (very likely) or based on a severe misunderstanding of echoic memory & it's role in A/B testing.
What we see in this thread is a lot of attacks, unfounded statements & a severe lack of any evidence (claims about anal probing do not count) being presented by the same people who have studiously avoided addressing any research evidence I have introduced & instead seem to want to attack the poster of evidence
What we see in this thread is a lot of attacks, unfounded statements & a severe lack of any evidence (claims about anal probing do not count) being presented by the same people who have studiously avoided addressing any research evidence I have introduced & instead seem to want to attack the poster of evidence
How could i know? A couple of days ago you were talking about tests between two amplifiers.
It´s a mix of different things, some i´d consider as more likely as others - see for example the mains cable thing, in a typical audio system with rca interconnects i wouldn´t rule it out - but anyway you have to remember that there is a distinction between the mere statement "heard a difference after the change" (which might be or might be not correct) and any conclusion about the cause for any effect.
You might have forgotten about it, but the original topic of this thread is about what you consider as sufficient evidence to accept that an audible difference exists although you were convinced that there can´t be a detectable difference.
It´s absolutely a valid point of view to be convinced of the inaudiblity of "effect whatever" (and therefore would not invest time in any experimental efforts), but you should be aware that you nevertheless could be wrong about it.
Everything else would be like claiming infallibility.
You seem to have missed it several times. Positive controls are just differences that listener must detect. Use them on different niveaus allows further evaluation of learning effects.
It obviously gets a bit more difficult if an experimenter does not have a clue what kind of difference might exist, but my advice would be in those cases to go for usage of small differences that are known to be recognised by human listeners as sound quality differences. Use for example small level differences below 0.2 dB.
And why and how would a "small level differences below 0.2 dB" be relevant for a DBX where the hypothesis is "mains cable A sounds different from mains cable B"?
And I thought a positive control has to be directly and unambiguously related to the hypothesis under test. Otherwise, by the same logic, a positive control could be anything that may create a small audible difference (why not a small alteration of the frequency response, or a small change in the damping factor, etc...). With all due respect, this doesn't make any sense.
You need to listen to audio components and see the measurements (try Stereophile magazine) to correlate the two. It's something you need to be exposed to in order to understand what I've stated.
Too much free time on your hands? 🙄
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