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In Reply to: Reminds me of a Methods class I took about thirty- posted by rcrump on November 12, 2002 at 04:13:27:
If guys like you are going to turn this forum into a place where you regularly post condescending cheap shots such as comparing reasonable questions raised to "simplistic" issues you discussed in a class 35 years ago, I personally will have no interest in participating.I appreciate your expertise and experience. I do not appreciate the attitude conveyed in your last post. As far as I'm concerned, you are not God and I do not need to be spoken down to.
Follow Ups:
Phil, DBT will not advance anything......It will tell you which component sounds better is all, something that is better measured with a meter if we could afford one sensitive enough.....DBT is merely a beauty contest, but one that would pit Ruth Buzzi against Bette Middler.....Hawksford, Duncan and others have sought to advance the body of knowledge and all I hear is "measurement error" as you can see below in Escallier's post.....The test was flawed, not that I bothered to run the test the way it should be run, IHHO, and got different results, but that the test was flawed......Gee what an advancement in the body of knowledge regarding human hearing......When you folks decide that components might sound different let me know as I'll be around....
"Phil, DBT will not advance anything......It will tell you which component sounds better is all, something that is better measured with a meter if we could afford one sensitive enough.....DBT is merely a beauty contest, but one that would pit Ruth Buzzi against Bette Middler"Sorry, but I believe you have it backwards. I gave an example of that in your posting a result of -120dB, when in fact, you'll find that artifact to be 40dB below your playback equipment distortion levels. So where is the beauty contest then? Is it in being able to say you can measure something that is -120dBc, or whether or not there is an audible difference? Test equipment already is, and has been for some time, far better than the human ear in measuring differences that are not at all audible. You can't throw out the DBT, it is the only way you'll ever advance the art by correlating AUDIBLE differences with measured differences and not necessarily at the singular component level, either. Otherwise you have no foundation upon which to base your results.
> > Test equipment already is, and has been for some time, far better than the human ear in measuring differences that are not at all audible> >And what is that supposed to mean? Think about what you have said. If it's not audible, then why do you want to measure it in the context of listening to music. What you don't measure, but the ear hears are FM distortions, and a myriad of relationships that when even subtly skewed tell the brain something is wrong. Why don't persons such as yourself acknowledge that you don't have the first clue as to what is audibly important to the listening experience. Instead, you have the audacity to ASSUME that your understanding of the human hearing mechanism is complete, and that you can measure all parameters that are important - How haughty can one be? Why don't you admit that what you can measure simply isn't important to the listening experience, and what I can hear, you can't measure.
You understand the listeing experience and physics better than Richard C. Hyser did??? A number of years back Richard designed a black box that could be inserted between a preamp and amp. Once inserted into the system it distorted terribly the music going through it - even the most uneducated ear could tell that! And yet no measurements could be obtained from the output of the black box to explain why the output was so different from the input.
And while you are at it, ask your machine what kind of strings Steve Howe uses on "Mood for a Day".
This is a most interesting claim. If you would be kind enough to tell us where we could get a copy of this article, I, and I am sure many others would appreciate it.
Quite frankly I am most curious on some of your assertions concening this black box.
"A number of years back...."What's a number of years back? 10, 20, 30??
"Instead, you have the audacity to ASSUME that your understanding of the human hearing mechanism is complete"
You're putting words into my mouth.
"and what I can hear, you can't measure."
Really. I can come up with my own box that will produce an anomaly that can be easily measured and you can't hear.
If the musical experience were limited to listening to static sine waves or even two frequency intermodulated tones, then I would agree with the Jit Meister - and the old McIntosh clinics where they presented you with a mighty impressive looking THD chart generated by their high buck SOTA test gear. Yessiree, we can measure tones right on down to the basement! For those individuals who enjoy listening to test tones, then the audible results would likely correlate with the measurements. Fine.Music lovers, on the other hand, listen to a very different environment. The only constant here is change. This world consists of a highly complex, harmonically-rich, and dynamic environment of REAL music. Of all the engineers here in the Asylum, I find Jim Johnson's (aka jj) comments the most compelling. He acknowledges that all standard measurements are essentially useless. It's not so much that they are wrong - just irrelevant. He states that indeed all that can be heard CAN be measured using tests. It's just that such relevant tests would be extremely complex and are NOT the ones touted here as being authoritative.
Which is why I disagree with rcrump about the validity of DBTs. You have to figure out how to corelate what we hear, with what we can measure if you are to get realiable repeatable results. DBT's are also important in dcided what is important to measure, and what isn't."Yessiree, we can measure tones right on down to the basement! For those individuals who enjoy listening to test tones, then the audible results would likely correlate with the measurements. Fine."
You also have to understand that the simpler a test the better(Good ol' worn out KISS). The trick coming up with the right surrogate test signal to achieve the desired results. It is quite possible to make a test signal so complex that a room full of Cray computers can't properly analyse it. So what good is that?
It is quite possible to make a test signal so complex that a room full of Cray computers can't properly analyse it. So what good is that?Halleluiah! This is what we lay people call music , the reproduction of which is the raison d'etre for the high fidelity component. Easily quantifiable tests based on simple tones makes for easy test results but establishes useless proof. That is unless of course you spent your twenty grand on equipment for listening to test tones.
"That is unless of course you spent your twenty grand on equipment for listening to test tones."Well, that is what test equipment does best.However, music is a series of harmonically related tones. The difficulty that test equipment has with it is that it is random in it's nature.
Test equipment is great for evaluating test tones, not music. It can quantify meaningful differences only for those who choose to listen to test tones.For those of us who listen to "a series of harmonically related tones" , however, the results from the test gear does not yet correlate with audible results.
Well, sounds like a dead issue then. Maybe someone else can come up with something worth talking about here.
talk and not enough action toward advancing the knowledge base...
I've apparently been operating under the misunderstand for some time that the purpose of audio websites was to talk. Unfortunately, as a lay person, talk is about all I have to contribute. I certainly would not want my posts to further impede the progress of knowledge in the audio world (sarcasm clearly intended).The problem, from my perspective, is that the audio world seems largely divided into two camps, naysayers and yeasayers, and the attitude of each camp is you are either for us or against us – no in between allowed. I see that problem reflected both here and over at AR.
Unfortunately, that presents some problems for those of us who think we see problems with both camp. My experience and personal impression is that when a question is raised regarding a possible problem with some aspect to the views of a particular side, the person raising the issue is immediately seen as the enemy and is responded to accordingly. That is, the response is either one of lecturing the questioner with the full and complete dogma of the particular side to which the question was directed, or, attempting to discredit the questioner. Seldom does the specific question ever get addressed or dealt with in any reasonable manner, at least in my experience.
As I see, it there are many issues of disagreement in the audio world that seem like they could be discussed in rational, technical terms – issues such as sonic differences between cables and components, SACD vs. DVD-A vs. redbook, tubes vs. solid state, digital vs. analog, planar speakers vs. cone speakers vs. horn speakers, moving magnet cartridges vs. moving coil cartridges, linear tracking arms vs. pivoted arms, vacuum tables vs. non-vacuum tables, use of equalizers, value of electronic room correction, up-sampling vs. non up-sampling, triodes vs. pentodes, the value and limitations of DBTs, proper protocol and statistical analysis for DBTs, switching power supplies vs. standard supplies vs. battery supplies, value of power line conditioners, value of vibration isolation devices, single CD players vs. transport-DAC separates, quantum theory vs. classic theory, and many others I’m sure I have not thought of.
Some of these issues don’t carry a lot of emotional baggage, but many seem to, and one better be prepared to choose sides and hope that he can shout louder and longer than those on the other side of the issue.
Perhaps my view on this is way off. I hope so. Otherwise this forum will simply be nothing more than a mudslinging arena.
Come get me if you all resolve to seek the advancement of audio via finer measurements.....
It's the camp of get everyone good and upset at you.Come get me if you all resolve to seek the advancement of audio via finer measurements.....
No, Bob, you stay here. You have much more to contribute than I do. I think I had better stick with practicing law for the time being.
Phil, you are doing fine....I'll just get in trouble if I stay over here as I know what works for me and what I want and it isn't going to be forthcoming here.....Folks here are more interested in beauty contests more than ideal measured design parameters....
Why not start your own thread on testing. So far all you've done is jump into the middle of DBT type discussions.....
I will not allow this forum to degrade into personal issues.Your post is the type of thing that starts things on a downhill ride. If you haven't anything to add to the discussion, please refrain.
Excuse me? It was a legitimate suggestion to what he was seeking. Why don't you go read what I've been subjected to.
I will and I did. Thus far, I've seen a little of that, but I've also noticed that you've had a tendency to respond in kind which will eventually escalate without a doubt. My objective is to address that quickly and I will attempt to do it without bias either way.You can't control how others act, but you can avoid being a party to the problem. That's all I'm asking.
You'r reading WAY too much into my reply.
what I meant by I'm gone in my above post?.....
Yeah, maybe you shouldn't be here.
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