I don't think anyone said it was necessarily easy?
FWIW, I found the Q405 to be a perfectly good amp. I'd call it blameless, which is my shorthand for transparent, indistinguishable from a piece of wire with gain.
I did not say everything you inferred, and for good reason, as you ably point out.
It case my position isn't clear, and apparently it isn't, I think there is probably some over confidence on both sides. There are people who claim to hear things that just don't make any sense, and they are probably the most over confident. But there are also people who have firmly made up their minds that we know all there is to know. I am less confident than either extreme. I do find it interesting that Bob Katz reportedly thinks the numbers may be off for what is believed to be audible limits for clock jitter. I guess open minded people may choose to look into the matter in the most unbiased way they can manage. I also think that normal variations in hearing exist and I'm not sure we have a good handle on exactly what they are. In particular, I don't know if the way hearing acuity has been tested so far actually tests everything that is testable, clock jitter perhaps being something that doesn't show up so readily with distortion measurements as they are usually made. Also, I am a little leery about the inference that because some people have to see something to hear a difference can only be explained by there being no difference. That's the easiest and most obvious explanation and by occam's razor probably right, but it doesn't always work out that way. Everyday we are learning more about what goes on inside brains, with fMRI having proven an important and revealing modality. What we find is that a lot of previous assumptions (taken for fact) about what goes on inside people's heads is in fact not what what thought. There is a lot of other research in experimental cognitive psychology and neuroscience that is changing our understanding of how brains work. Given all that, it doesn't seem impossible to me that if hearing certain distortion is learned by while looking, that the looking gets linked up to recognition in the pattern recognition that goes in the brain. We already know this can lead to errors, which many here seem to assume can be the only outcome. It could be that seeing and hearing, when recognition is learned that way, may aid recognition of learned detection of small signals in noise. We just don't know that one way or the other. There are lots of reasons to think it might be the case, however. Maybe if we trained a statistically significant number of blind people to recognize distortion, their brains will self organize in a way that does not require looking. Again, there are reasons to think in could turn out that way. We will have to wait and see how things develop. In the meantime, I am not in favor of anyone who claims to know all with absolute certainty.
Mark has gone down so many rabbit holes for someone with only a few weeks on here
I sure see what happens when somebody touches a sensitive nerve.
In the end. Someone buys my preamp. They hook it up and if they don't like it I get a return. There is no verifying of specs by the customer. It comes back if they don't like how it sounds. If that happens too much I don't eat. So far I am eating, quite well actually.
It has to pass the "I Saw Her Standing There" test before it goes out the door.
It has to pass the "I Saw Her Standing There" test before it goes out the door.
the "unkown unkowns" in EE, E&M are very limited today
an amusing point is that E&M is what set us on to the subtle difference not directly accessible to human senses at human experienced velocities well modeled by Newtonian Mechanics
Maxwell Equations, the non Galilean "relativity" of current/magnetic force, the invention of higher resolution optical measurements all lead to Lorentz Transform, Einstein's Special Relativity
Maxwell's Equation's can't be "the last word" at energy densities that add General Relativistic terms - but quite adequate at levels consistent with the continued existence of audio circuits
do you really not understand the range of EE applicability implied by the DSL MBaud data reaching my computer over >50 year old voice band twisted pair?
or use of EE theory, practical application from Radio Astronomy to Fusion confinement experiments?
an amusing point is that E&M is what set us on to the subtle difference not directly accessible to human senses at human experienced velocities well modeled by Newtonian Mechanics
Maxwell Equations, the non Galilean "relativity" of current/magnetic force, the invention of higher resolution optical measurements all lead to Lorentz Transform, Einstein's Special Relativity
Maxwell's Equation's can't be "the last word" at energy densities that add General Relativistic terms - but quite adequate at levels consistent with the continued existence of audio circuits
do you really not understand the range of EE applicability implied by the DSL MBaud data reaching my computer over >50 year old voice band twisted pair?
or use of EE theory, practical application from Radio Astronomy to Fusion confinement experiments?
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No religious dogma in here!
For me, the difference is in subjectivity. There are things I enjoy, that I think I can tell apart, but would probably fail dismally in a DBT (distinguishing Speyside malts, for one!). I don't care, I enjoy it...
But, I don't tell anyone else I am right, or overhype my opinion, or sell my "rightness" for an outrageous markup...
Blind testing may not bring out these small differences, too. There's a lot to be said for Pareto and just picking arbitrarily among N decent amplifiers spec'd to rarely/never clip (the most likely place for unique behavior to manifest). Fry those infinitely bigger fish known as room/speakers.
Unless, of course, you get a lot of satisfaction out of playing with amps, then by all means!
Unless, of course, you get a lot of satisfaction out of playing with amps, then by all means!
I don't think and was not saying that recognizing distortion requires advanced physics. Not at all. I was saying the experts with mathematical models sometimes become over confident that they know everything there is to know. It happened before and will happen again because over confidence is not confined to only stupid an or uneducated people. It's part of what all brains tend to do. The difference with smart, educated, sophisticated people is that they are much better at thinking up all the reasons why they are right (even when they disagree with each other), so it can be much more difficult for them to see when they are wrong. They have built up too much supporting rationale for the belief they already committed to.
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You know, that nerve that causes your eyes to roll after you've heard the same tired arguments for the umpteenth time.
se
other threads
Mark, have you read through some of the other near-interminable threads that address some of these issues? There's much more out there---this thread has become a sort-of coffee klatch place as befits its location in The Lounge, but there may be some other threads that would give you an understanding, not so much of the topics, but of the degree to which some of us grow impatient (sensitive nerves or not---in fact numbness might be the more appropriate description).
The Sound Quality versus Measurement thread became a forum for one guy's endless reminiscences after a while, but it serves to illustrate prevalent notions within the audio community. And that is just one. Most of the time in here, audiophile conceits tend to get a rough reception if they are at best weakly supported. Many smart people who also can hear have given these matters a lot of thought.
Mark, have you read through some of the other near-interminable threads that address some of these issues? There's much more out there---this thread has become a sort-of coffee klatch place as befits its location in The Lounge, but there may be some other threads that would give you an understanding, not so much of the topics, but of the degree to which some of us grow impatient (sensitive nerves or not---in fact numbness might be the more appropriate description).
The Sound Quality versus Measurement thread became a forum for one guy's endless reminiscences after a while, but it serves to illustrate prevalent notions within the audio community. And that is just one. Most of the time in here, audiophile conceits tend to get a rough reception if they are at best weakly supported. Many smart people who also can hear have given these matters a lot of thought.
Well I was told that, regarded controlled testing, he said he was too busy, usually. I begin to get an impression that I alluded to, that he tended to be reluctant to change his mind. A very human foible, but one that we must resist if we hope to succeed in understanding things.
Years ago when in same situation I found some roller blinds with aluminum foil one side and foam the other.
One thing that really helps is to have heard the master tape on a flat system. Better yet to have heard an acoustic event live, then have a recording of it. I don't have the latter but I nearly have the former.
One example,
I have sat in Kevin Gray's mastering room and listened to all the sides of my copy of Mosaic Records Louis Armstrong & The All Stars: Newport 1956 &1958 (4 LPs - #3007). I got to hear the product as close as possible to the master lacquer disc that he made. He played it ALL on his lathe. That is gold.
One example,
I have sat in Kevin Gray's mastering room and listened to all the sides of my copy of Mosaic Records Louis Armstrong & The All Stars: Newport 1956 &1958 (4 LPs - #3007). I got to hear the product as close as possible to the master lacquer disc that he made. He played it ALL on his lathe. That is gold.
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I can't hear differences, is anything wrong with me?
I have a feeling that the best connector is much worst than the cheapest cable.
If I would be a person to be bothered by swamping cables issues, I would remove all the connectors in my system and solder the wires directly to they destinations, from the cartridge/DAC all the way to the speakers. This would accomplish two things, reduced problems with the wiring and reduced ability to swap cables.
I have a feeling that the best connector is much worst than the cheapest cable.
If I would be a person to be bothered by swamping cables issues, I would remove all the connectors in my system and solder the wires directly to they destinations, from the cartridge/DAC all the way to the speakers. This would accomplish two things, reduced problems with the wiring and reduced ability to swap cables.
I do, quite a few times over. And no recording sounds like the original event- it can't, there's far too much data loss because of mike limitations and the stereo format.
Interesting. To me that says that JA was happy with the Quad sound, but later sighted tests changed his opinion i.e. DBT works. I guess a true believer takes that as evidence that DBT fails, which is why you mentioned it?john curl said:
So do I - another coincidence? Shall we now discuss grades and institutions to see who has the 'better' physics degree, or should we just accept that some people can get a physics degree while apparently remaining oblivious to some consequences of physics?
I don't recall anyone saying that. Perhaps a badly taught very naive inexperienced EE might say something like that. Many on here believe that if there is a real difference then it may be heard (unless it is too small to hear) and, in principle, must be measurable. You can see the difference between this statement and your caricature of it?
We do know all there is to know about certain things, such as trivial potential dividers (otherwise known as audio interconnects). Theory and good experiments agree. What more can science ask for?Markw4 said:
Psychoacoustics has (by experiment) found what are the likely boundaries of sound perception. Electrical theory tells us how to design things which are signficantly better than these boundaries require. Two or more such things with very different designs (even using quite different technology) are found to be indistinguishable when tested by ears alone - as electrical theory and accepted psychoacoustics predict. That should be the end of the matter, but pride and commerce need a different answer. We are therefore told that ears-only tests hide audible differences, which sighted tests reveal. We are also told that things designed to be significantly worse than the audibility thresholds are actually better, because some people prefer them or can, at least, pick them out in a sighted test.
If you find anyone in this thread claiming to know "all" please point them out to me, as I haven't noticed them yet. We do have a few people who claim extraordinary hearing abilities, far in excess of the human average, yet seem unable to offer any evidence of this.
Let's be clear about this: we are not talking about testing the limits of the Standard Model or beyond-GR cosmology. We are talking about human artifacts designed using the low frequency approximation to electromagnetism (i.e. circuit theory) where there is every reason to believe that this is a valid approximation. These artifacts produce sound which is signifcantly better than ears-only tests reveal as being necessary for realistic sound reproduction. Don't compare this with the discovery of QM or GR.
Agree with you !
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btw , here is one live recording done by Gaston Matthijsse(?)on for me unknown recording equipment (?), where he managed to catch the essence of that live performance , at least for my ears of course.
https://soundcloud.com/acoustic-music-recordings/sets/art-house-jazz-ensemble-live
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