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In Reply to: Re: One more thing, while I'm at it. posted by rcrump on November 12, 2002 at 06:39:23:
"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.
Follow Ups:
> > 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.
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