From the discussion of the last 25 years i got the impression that most people tend to believe in more "reliable or accurate hearing" under "blind conditions".
Come on - this "you peek" game that SY loves so much is exactly meant as dissmissing results of sighted listening.
And i hope that you don´t want just to play semantic games with me (which you surely would win), as i have addressed a lot of issues in very detailed posts.
First, you don´t know if for a specific listener any test is/was more reliable than another unless you have done some _reliable_ tests with this listener.
As i have done that (as stated earlier) with different listeners over the years, i can conclude that listeners, who could listen, had serious difficulties to provide correct results under "blind conditions" without serious training _under_ these specific conditions.
If you meant that in a broader sense referring to a random sample of people drawn and beeing put under test, you might be right.
The phrase "well-controlled" makes the difference, experiments are quite often not "well-controlled" but just "blinded" and that is often sufficient for the "don´t peek gang" .
The main reason for doing "blind tests" (where possible) is, that you can exclude a potentially confounder.
If you want to know about the quality of any test, you have to use - beside the usual good scientific practice, which includes positive and negative controls - qualitative tests as well.
And of course, "well - controlled tests" will show more consistent results, but it´s hard to believe that you really have missed that the "blinding part" of test control is routinely overemphasized in these discussions. And if you analyze published experiments wrt multidimensional evaluation you´ll find reflections of this overemphasize as well.
The number of sound controlled listening experiments is imho surprisingly small, but the reason may be (to cite Bech/Zacharov) that:
"Almost everyone listens to sound most of the time, so there is often
an opinion that the evaluation of audio quality must be a trivial matter.
This frequently leads to a serious underestimation of the magnitude of
the task associated with formal evaluations of audio quality, which can
lead to compromised evaluations and consequently the poor quality
of results. Such a lack of good scientific practise is further emphasised
when results are reported in journals or at international conferences
and leads to a spread of scientific darkness instead of light.")
(Soren Bech, Nick Zacharov; Perceptual Evaluation - Theory, Method and Application)
Last edited:
How so is there a "strawman"?
I am merely questioning the claims made somewhat recently in this thread!
Asking for more information.
The claims to me seem somewhat questionable in terms of real-world practice, or even "tests". No one seems the slightest bit interested in discovering if they are reasonable, valid or unreasonable or false. Refusing to
discuss or make a dispositive statement. Why is that??
How is that "my" strawman??
I'm not looking for any particular outcome - YOU may ASSUME that my motivations are whatever you project.
Apparently lots of posters with extensive technical knowledge are unable to focus on some simple and logical issues that relate to claims made, and not refuted (thus far), and carry the discussion forward on that basis.
Now:
I think we both know that 0.1dB "level" adjustments would be rather difficult even between two identical speakers since the typical measured frequency response deviations between any two samples exceeds that level.
If you get Voice Coil, you'd have seen this every month, every speaker.
Which TWO speakers placed side by side, that are of identical manufacture will not deviate that much or more in any given room? (Perhaps not in an anechoic chamber?)
How can one possibly match dissimilar speakers to that degree of accuracy??
So what sort of "level matching" procedure will meet this criterion??
If there is one, just state it, or cite it. Dancing about and saying, this or that, are avoidance behaviors, and rhetorical tricks. Otherwise the answer is simply one that is more balanced, like, perhaps "...we can do this or that, and get this or that, but that or this remains an issue..." etc.
I am only asking questions.
Everyone seems to want to avoid them, wonder why?
If they are so simple, then put them to bed with a dispositive series of replies? Easy enough.
matching electronics levels ought to be trivial...
...but I've never ever heard the LEVEL that electronics (dac/preamps/amps) played at
(assuming they are not distorting due to level) change in any way my subjective impression of their overall tone/timber/presentation. Louder or softer, somehow I personally do not appear to be easily swayed by SPL one way or the other.
Fwiw, making something louder is an old audio store showroom "trick". Never worked on me that I am aware of. And that's every case afaik.
Perhaps I listen for other "cues" than most people?
Ymmv.
...but I've never ever heard the LEVEL that electronics (dac/preamps/amps) played at
(assuming they are not distorting due to level) change in any way my subjective impression of their overall tone/timber/presentation. Louder or softer, somehow I personally do not appear to be easily swayed by SPL one way or the other.
Fwiw, making something louder is an old audio store showroom "trick". Never worked on me that I am aware of. And that's every case afaik.
Perhaps I listen for other "cues" than most people?
Ymmv.
Classic confusion.
Mixing has the goal to produce something that appeals to people (aka listeners, aka customers) liking it. It is art. Ears are uniquely suiteable for that.
A listening test to determine the difference between a green and a red cap is a scientific investigation, and ears are totally inadequate for that because they are coupled to a complete perception apparatus that throws in irrelevant factors for the target (price, peer opinion, ownership, etc) and a distorting brain that will go to any length to present you with a result that fits your expectations.
Jan
Wow - you have reliable ears and you can do remote psychoanalysis. Very impressive!Markw4 said:
That is not the ultimate test for "do I like the sound or not"; it is a good test for "do I enjoy the whole experience or not". It is not a very useful test for 'does this interconnect cable sound brighter than that one'.Kindhornman said:
No, I mentioned Lyme disease separately. Fibromyalgia is a more recent example and is actually classified as a syndrome, not a disease. However, as with Lyme disease, the doctors who didn't believe in it had to come around when the FDA finally approved certain medications as "indicated" for the treatment the condition. In the case of Lyme, the medication was an antibiotic. Doctors still in denial claimed presence of the infectious organism was merely correlation, not causation. Eventually, they had to admit they were wrong. In the case of fibromyalgia, I think there were three drugs approved, one of them being Lyrica, for symptomatic treatment.
(I can only advise to look up the definition of syndrome, before entering amateur MD games)
No confusion. I didn't say they were the same things at all. For mixing you have to trust your ears for the reasons you give. Sometimes you have to trust them for other things that you have no way at hand to measure. Or, for which no measuring equipment exists. If I have 2 amplifiers and I have to pick one to mix with, I will choose the one that sounds more detailed to me. I don't look at the specs, and normally don't have a distortion analyzer sitting there to use. If they sound about the same, fine, toss a coin. If one is muddy and the other clear, I will use the clear one. What's wrong with that? I should hire someone with a distortion analyzer to come over and measure them for me, or else I am naive? I don't think so.
Syndrome means there is no definitive test for it at this point in time. Diagnosis therefore is a process of exclusion. The reality is that doctors have to deal with illnesses that we don't have technology to measure very well. Does't mean there is nothing to measure, only that we don't know how to do it today.
Last edited:
What is wrong with that is that perceptions of "detail" can be fooled by the presence of extra noise and interference. Hence you may be choosing the amp with inferior interference rejection. This issue is a reason why some DIY cables (with appallingly bad design or construction, so admitting lots of RFI) are perceived to give more 'detail'.Markw4 said:
Okay. But it I get a good mix out of the amp I chose, then it was good for my purposes. If it produces consistently great mixes, maybe I even need to buy an RF interference generator. If it was a bad choice, I will find out when I listen to the mix on other systems.
But, yes, I have to agree with you that if I want to buy an amp that is accurate, I should check it every way I can, and if perceived performance is inconsistent with specs, then there is a problem somewhere that should be investigated.
Impossible to have no expectations or bias at all. That's not how you are wired. Totally out of your control.
Jan
SY noted a preference for a minutely different level increase that he didn't even perceive as such. This provoked a haughty troll, who said it would be undignified were he to be identified, to insist that such a level difference was imperceptible and that therefore SY's reaction was impossible.
I enjoyed that exchange quite a bit!
It reminded me of the story that spread like wildfire from august personages at one of Sid Harman's bigwig summit meetings. After hearing the CTO go on at length, as was his wont, Sid said "Eric. You are the most pretentiously arrogant a$$hole I have ever met in my life. [long pregnant pause here, could have heard a pin drop] And I thank God every day that you are here."
I enjoyed that exchange quite a bit!
It reminded me of the story that spread like wildfire from august personages at one of Sid Harman's bigwig summit meetings. After hearing the CTO go on at length, as was his wont, Sid said "Eric. You are the most pretentiously arrogant a$$hole I have ever met in my life. [long pregnant pause here, could have heard a pin drop] And I thank God every day that you are here."
Have respect, you're dealing with superhumans who can control their conscious biases and have no unconscious biases. These are remarkable individuals and we should feel honored that they walk among us lesser mortals.
That is my long experience as well. Many. many people who listen often to compare or detect changes in sound or just listen to details deep within the music presented can focus themselves.
However, I also understand that doing a large test number of the general population for data gathering, needs to eliminate such possible variable to get a more focused data.
-RNM
Last edited:
Indeed. Notnihing wrong with subjectivity. It also depends on the type of source material - in live amplified music you are listening to a stereo mix at the gig, often... And pure studio recordings are "artificial" stereo already...
- Status
- Not open for further replies.