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In Reply to: RE: Measurement and Perception and the Value of Each (Long Post) posted by jrlaudio on November 03, 2012 at 01:46:42
You can design an amplifier or electronic component to a given specification. To specific design criterion.
You can design a speaker to a given specification. To specific design criterion. Speakers are the most interesting case when it comes to "objective" measurements. We see some measurements in some speaker reviews. Amplitude response and electrical phase (seldom ACOUSTICAL phase, which is amplitude response and acoustical phase, or the two components of 'frequency response'). We may even see impulse or step response.
But do we ever see polar response? Two speakers measured on-axis may have similar on-axis response but radically different off-axis response due to driver interaction and crossover topology.
So you take two speakers that measure "similarly" on-axis which are not the same at all and put them in two different rooms with different floor, wall and ceiling materials, and different distances from walls to speakers, between speakers and to the listener. Add to that different toe-in angles.
You're going to get pretty much an INFINATE combination of different products, unless audio rooms are built to a specification, with materials, distances and equipment all specified (as is done with some theatres built to a specification.)
What does this all mean?
Even if "objective measurements" have a place in making a product meet design criterion and topology, they have far less use for the audiophile purchasing gear. This is because he has all these other variables at play which will affect how "bright" the speaker will sound (tonal balance, etc.) and how the speaker will present the holographic "effect" we call image:
a) room size and height
b) room materials including floor coverings, window coverings, treatments
c) speaker and chair placement
d) speaker distance from back and side walls, from eachother and from the chair
e) speaker toe-in
f) the most important factor of ALL: the individual recording
When you're mucking about with a though f, suddenly these VERY "telltale" objective measurements from specifications and review tests become rough guides at best. I've heard speakers that were nice in one place moved to their new home where the person was suddenly less impressed. Sure. Is there any question as to why?
You can try to write a nice long rant about why subjectivist audiophiles are inept and in denial, and you can go on about the ability of sound waves to be measured in 12 different ways. Measuring ability is not even close to being the final "point" - it's what data we would collect and how we would INTERPRET these data sets.
For one thing, we could go a LOT further to explain why different system/room/placement/toe-in combinations sound and image differently even with the SAME speakers. Polar response of a given set of speakers is constant - each speaker has the same polar response. But how this response interacts with the OTHER speaker AND room boundaries to create a specific image "EFFECT" will vary for pretty much all system/room/placement/toe-in combinations. And this CAN be measured. But do we measure this way? Hardly.
The designer does on-axis measurements. Maybe he considers off-axis response and power response. Maybe he considers the kinds of rooms that his speakers MIGHT go into. Who knows what kind of room he's voicing his speakers in...
In any case, with the wide varieties in speakers (with their unique on and off-axis response and voicing) rooms, treatments, placement and on top of ALL of that, 10 different recording engineers capturing the same acoustic event 10 different ways, each with a unique process and equipment from the mix to the final mastering...
You bet it's subjective.
If you can write a book about ALL of the things we can measure that help mould the final sound we hear sitting in a chair, congratulations. It will 1000 pages of stuff we probably already knew, and none of it will change anything about the way we record and mix and master music, and none of it will have any relevance to an audiophile who knows that the final "proof" is in his subjective and qualitative assessment of his own music on his own system in his own house in his own mood with his own ears and his own biases and preconceptions.
Until you can take the human brain out of the "chain" (it's always the final frontier of sound reproduction) all the measurements in the world will not result in the "single correct system" that is based on "all the right and relevant measurements".
Cheers,
Presto
Follow Ups:
Accuracy is basically "what goes in, is what comes out". If the signal is changed somewhere along the way by the electronics it is deemed for this discusssion as less accurate.To determine accuracy in a loudspeaker from a measurement point of view, it must be measured under a prescribed "control" condition. This is why anechoic measurement is essential and an accepted pratice when measuring the performance of a loudspeaker. A condition where room effects do not exist is the only way to measure the performance of a tranducer like a loudspeaker. Measuring a loudspeaker in a "normal" room is pointless. It is like pouring 100% pure water in a glass that has some salt in it. Then tasting the water. The water will taste salty. How can you draw conclusions about how pure the water is (or was) in this case? You can't, there is no control. The point of measurement is to see whether a given device is perfoming in way that is consistant with its design or determine its actual accuracy. If other variables not created by the device are perceived in the measurement the data is meaningless. You cannot quantify whether the data is the device or whether the data is "the room" and its interaction (or the salted glass in the water example). You need a standardized control.
Of course, you can design a loudspeaker for a given room (your listening room for instance), but how does one tell how this speaker will perfom in other locations. You can't, you have no control, no true method of comparsion or accurate measurement of the loudspeakers perfomance other than in the room the loudspeaker was designed for. It's proprietary. It may work well in that room, but horribly in another. Is that the loudspeaker being bad? No ... in actuality the performance in this example is the effects of the room and the design criteria. What the loudspeaker is doing is not accurate unto itself, it is only accurate when used in the room it was designed for. Measuring it would be pointless, except in that room.
So when building a loudspeaker for sale its measured accuracy can only be determined when measured in a standardized controlled environment like an anechoic chamber. And how well the signal put into it is reproduced when measured in this control determines its accuracy. How good it sounds in a room is then purely a factor of the room itself. You can always clean the salt out of the glass before you taste it, but if the water isn't pure to begin with ... do you follow?
This is also the problem with subjective listening for review purposes. While something may work well in a given situation (with its multitudes of affecting variables) its give you no real valuable information for your multitudes of variables. There is no control. Its relativistic. Is the subjective perception and artifact of the device in tests, or are they interactions of the variables alone. The device may be 100% accurate, but the test variables do not allow you to perceive this.
Controlled measurement removes the variables. Let's use this example. Let's say you some miracle device that tranfers a signal perfectly. This hypothetical device is 100% accurate. You measure this in a controlled situation. So you know the device itself is perfect. So now you place this device in an uncontrolled situation. The device has not changed. It is still 100%. It's the situation that is different. So you now know the variables is the situation and not the device.
The same can said for loudspeakers. If you measure the performance of a loudspeaker in an anechoic environment, where the variables are non-existant you know the actual performance of the loudspeaker itself. You know its characteristics, good and bad, accurate or inaccurate. Place it in a real room and it doesn't change in any way. What it does is still the same. It's the interactions within the room that has changed, so you know any difference is the room and not the loudspeaker. No loudspeaker will change the rooms charateristics and visa-versa. They both stay the same. Only if you physically modify the room or the loudspeaker do they change. A loudspeaker cannot remove a wall reflection for instance (it may be able to avoid it, but the reflecting surface is still there in the room). But if you know the actual performance of speaker, you can then determine what influence the other variables are having on the performance overall. So you simply wash the glass, you already know the water was 100% pure before you put it in the glass. But you have to know the water is pure first, or at least how pure and in what way. This way you can say with certainly where the salty taste is coming from and make changes to make the water pure again.
Edits: 11/24/12 11/24/12 11/24/12 11/24/12 11/24/12
So what you've said here is that anechoic measurements are the defacto controlled "standard" by which measurements are made. Well, at what voltage? Distance? Signal? Pink or white noise? Sweep? What angles vertically? Horizontally? Or full polar response measurements? At what frequencies are polar plots shown? These tests are not done in the same chamber nor are they done in the same way for each speaker system.
And what use are these if nobody listens in an anechoic chamber?
What about in rooms response then?
More stuff to think about...
You can cite "measured in an anechoic chamber" and this will still tell us really nothing about how that speaker is REALLY going to sound unless there are glaring anomalies in the response for which a prediction could be made.
Cheers,
Presto
The thread was essentially centered around ridiculously priced "tweak" products such as cables.
Edits: 11/13/12
From the OP -Topic - "Measurement and Perception and the Value of Each (Long Post)"
and
"In conclusion, if you do the measurements you find two facts.
1. Accuracy is cheaper.
2. Distortion (of facts, physics and sound) is expensive."In my original response I responded to why this is wrong and why outrageously expensive audio systems can be justified using objective measures.
You simply want to avoid discussing the topic in order to facilitate your "snake oil" offensive which based on the conclusion of the OP quoted above is really just dodging the topic.
Edits: 11/13/12
What is the point of the original post? He makes those claims at the end and they're really rather outlandish.
"1. Accuracy is cheaper."
False premise. First off, define accuracy. Second, the "value" of a component has more than objective quantities, it also has subjective qualities. You may not need a 1/2" thick machined aluminum front plate on a component, but if you do, it costs more than a folded piece of tin. Third, some more expensive components ARE more accurate. If you want to take a cheap low buck CD source and compare it to a DCS stack you're welcome to.
"2. Distortion (of facts, physics and sound) is expensive."
Overgeneralization. A cable that has inductive/capacitive components that do nothing more than to color sound might be distortion. But this statement alludes to the possibility that the more something costs the more distorted it is which cannot be further from the truth. I've heard some very pricey ($25K+) studio monitors and the quick, tuneful, immediate and engaging sound I heard was no accident and it was not what I would call "distorted" at all. That said, once you get into the whole concept of "voicing" a loudspeaker, you've already left science in the rear-view mirror. But there is more to sound that facts and physics and that's what staunch objectivists are missing. Enjoyment is a state of mind. You can take two twins with "perfect" measurements and facial structure (computers have calculated who is the most beautiful woman in the world based on her facial geometry). You can have two different men meet with these women, one who has a wonderful time with her and the other, who lacks self confidence, sweats and stumbles. What happened? Both had the same "perfect" woman. Ah well, perhaps there is more to a man enjoying the company of a woman than her physical specifications. Ridiculous comparison? I think not. Man's enjoyment of music (and art in general) is as much tied up in his own pysche and outlook as it is in the performance itself.
- I admit I dislike "fake physics" in advertising.
- I admit that I would never buy an audio component or device that only has a psychological effect. I can create these affects for free myself.
- I admit that better lighting and room aesthetics improve the listening experience.
- I admit that asymmetry in the room and other obsessive compulsive concerns drive me nuts.
What's the problem here? If you think a product is snake oil don't buy it. But if you plan to "convert" someone who believes they "hear a difference" then by all means go ahead. If this same person also believes that even a purely psychological improvement is worth the price of a tweak, then who is the fool? One who is happy to pay for a placebo? Or one who argues that this is foolish?
If my doctor charged me $10 for a sugar pill and it made my headaches go away, would I be outraged at paying $10 for a half gram of sugar? Or happy that my doctor used the power of my mind to cure me while giving me a "medication" with no detrimental side effects? If he kept giving me sugar pills after my headaches persisted and the cause was a growing brain tumor, yes, I would be rather p1ssed.
So why are you so worried about who buys snake oil anyways? Unless someone comes to me and asks "Do you think this is snake oil?" why would I worry?
Every day in advertising we're being sold a better mousetrap. A better tasting diet soda. A better car. Five-hour-energy drink "PROVEN" to work by a ZILLION doctors (quick read the fine print).
I find this worry to be a waste of resources.
Cheers,
Presto
The whole OP was a Strawman, a troll, obviously. Right out of the pages of Zen and the Art Of Debunkery. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And to make matters funnier the other troll agreed with him.
The subject line actually more than hints at an interesting discussion, and his conclusion, as obtuse as it is, maintains the theme of the topic. Too bad the only fire power anyone could muster to support his comments were the attacks on tweeks and snake oil. Kind of like condemning all of mankind because some wack job shoots up a theater in Colorado.What's kind of sad* is that the "subjectivists" do such a poor job of putting these kinds of faulty thinking attention seekers in their place. As if because their listening experiences differ from what they would expect looking at specs or measurements, somehow the importance of specs and measurements are diminished. Best one could conclude it was their expectations that were out of line. Their subjective or even objectively based listening opinions are NOT less credible if one accepts the importance of measured performance. Their defensiveness reveals an ignorance of their own position......
*Actually more sad because it's easy to dismiss an audiophile with more book smarts than listening experiences, but so very off putting listening to some guy with lots of listening experiences try to monkey some psuedo-scientifical justification for it.
Edits: 11/23/12 11/23/12 11/23/12
.
"While you certainly offered some useful, valid points, your comments effectively place legitimate design concerns in the same category as total snake oil"I don't see how I 'effectively' do that at all. I am saying that legitimate design concerns lead to a design that meets certain criterion. Whether or not these concerns lead to a subjectively better sound is another matter. Some design concerns are real, and must be addressed, while others are closer to a form of snake-oil in and of themselves. Some design speakers thinking that a 1st order electric crossover must be used at all costs, because group delay is "the" most important aspect of home stereo speakers. Some think you need a single driver, because passive or active crossovers are where most of the sonic evils lie... which is strange because a transient accurate loudspeaker has no more phase issue than a full range speaker - both have natural acoustic phase roll at their frequency extrements and are inherently band-pass devices. With phase correction, even those errors can be compensated for mathmatically. Phase correction works. You can pass a square wave through a digital IIR Filter and get a square wave out. Fantastic. Some think digital IIR Filters "SOUND BAD". The only good filter is NO filter they say. Okay. Too bad all digital sources use filters to limit out of band noise, which have an effect on phase and transient response.
But all that aside, at the end of it all, no matter how much engineering went into the components OR the system as a whole, the end goal is to do what? Meet a bunch of objective measurement criterion? Or please the end user? It's the latter. Meeting ALL of preconceived design specifications is mute if the end user does not feel his $30K got him the sound he wanted. If he feels there is not enough bass for his recordings in general, then there is not enough bass. How much baffle step compensation is correct? 3db? 5dB? 6db? Depends on the room. Depends on the LISTENER.
Anyways, my point was that the OP used the word "accuracy" and he (and you) failed to do that. Why? We can try to define accuracy but then the audiophile converts this DEFINITIVE word into yet another subjective audiophilism: "It just doesn't sound accurate to me..."
What he means is that it just does not sound NATURAL to him, because the word ACCURATE can in no way apply to subjective apprasial of a non-engineered interconnected pile of engineered components. But they use words like accurate, probably for no other reason than to get objectivists shorts in a knot.
So can you calculate how much baffle step correction is called for in a given design? Ask Zaph if you can get ahold of him... I believe in some of his designs he basically says "Add BFC to taste and for the given distance from the wall." So how can someone ENGINEER a speaker without saying on the back "This speaker MUST be 3 feet from the wall in order for the baffle step compensation circuit to correctly accentuate the lower frequencies."? What if someone prefers this speaker 2 feet from the wall because they want a bit more boundary-related bass reinforcement? What if they find the bass 'over-bloomed' at 3 feet and prefer four? Are they WRONG? With engineering, if I prefer a tire that causes the car to spin off the track or the odomoeter not to work, I am destroying the original design intent. But what if the final result is just a preference and actual performance data has no real bearing? People who run very high performance cars are very very careful not to put on wheels which may have different diameter or offset than the original factory tires. At the extreme speeds and performance limits at which these vehicles are operated, one does not want to monkey around. That said, many advancements in racing have been made by drivers using their intuition and giving feedback to their mechanics, who called for differently engineered parts. This "feedback loop" can be subjective information from the driver - he speaks of the FEEL of the vehicle... It's up to the mechanics and engineers to adequately interpret this rather subjective description and come up with a new specification - something tangible to build to.
Anyways - back to snake oil.
I've always maintained that someone who pays to have their imagination sold back to them is insane. I pick on Geoff Kait alot because of his teleportation tweaks, for example. I believe that you can't use psychic energy to make stereos sound better. But you CAN use PSYCHOLOGICAL tricks to do it. Geoff Kait is no more guilty of snake oil than a company that sells an amp for $50K when $30K of it is all "jewelry" and fancy bling finishing. Sure you can make an amp chasis out of a single block of aluminum. You can make knobs out of exotic and rare woods too. But the former is much easier to sell as an "engineered improvement" than the wooden knob is, isn't it? Okay, it's neato to have a frame extruded out of a single piece of aluminum. So show me the performance data that proves it superior to a standard chassis design made from multiple pieces. Oh, that's abusurd they will say. They will scoff and say that customers who have spent tens, nay, hundreds of thousands have heard the difference their extruded chassis make and that I am the fool.
Some engineering is required to meet design criterion. Other "engineering" is charlatanism dressed UP as engineering with no other purpose than to increase the price-tag on the end result. Very suspicious are these "new technologies" that don't seem to require additional parts or time-consuming assembly. They're just a neato shape, or a slightly different form - then this is offered as the latest panacea with no proof of additional performance gains.
I've been in the room with the little bowls and all of the head nodding and "Do you hear that? Didja? Didja?" suggestion tricks. I didn't hear a godd@mn thing when they put that little 1/2" wide bowl on it's goofy little stand on the wall. If that makes a difference in the sound then removing the plant from the end table should impart a sonic different 100 times more profound. And that doesn't either. In fact, if the little bowls do this, then people walking around the room during auditions should as well (and moreso) and that doesn't seem to make much of an audible difference EITHER!
Sure, snake oil is "bad" when it uses "fake engineering" to sell. But what if people are WILLING to line up and pay for it? Gamblers go to casinos with the intent of "winning money" despite knowing the FACT that the more they gamble the more they will approach the mathmatically determined odds. You can win a coin toss three times in a row, but do it ten thousand times and you will get 50/50 accuracy unless something is wrong with the coin.
I just don't see how arguing with people who "believe" is of any value. It's like telling the religious that there is no definitive proof of God. They don't care, they have belief and faith - they need nothing more. When someone survives a crash after serious trauma, it's a miracle. If someone dies in a crash "God took them". If this were true, and there was no god, could someone survive a crash or die in one? Can a person survive a crash without a miracle? Can a person die in a crash without being "taken by God"?
Once you boil it down to THAT point in the conversation, it had better be in good spirit and jest followed by wine and cheese, else it's a complete waste of time.
Cheers,
Presto
Edits: 11/11/12
Nice of to address the topic of accuracy. Here's 3, IMO, reasonable methods for equipment buyers wishing to determining system accuracy.
One could conclude whatever component/system that meets some measurement standard is the most accurate. I'm sure there will be plenty of argument over which standard should be applied.
Or one could conclude whatever system (or component within that system) allows the most realistic/live sounding reproduction of recordings to be the most accurate. I'm sure there could be plenty of argument/disagreement over what recordings best reveal a systems performance.
Or one could conclude whatever system/component allows the greatest musical enjoyment over the widest diversity of music and quality of recordings to be the most accurate. Of course the accuracy of the system selected will be as accurate as the diversity of recordings AND one's definition of musical enjoyment allows.
Regardless of which methodology one chose to employ the cost of the system should be first and foremost a function of volume, bass extension and frequency accuracy in the playback environment if sound per dollar is important. Depending on application, even sound per dollar systems can be outrageously expensive based upon these objective measures.
But not everyone cares about sound per dollar and yea sure snake oil products exist and are enjoyed by many but certainly not most audiophiles.
Why do so many seem to think it's so important to argue their way is the only way and everyone else is a fool? What's up with that?
"I've always maintained that someone who pays to have their imagination sold back to them is insane."
This happens every time we go to a theater or concert, or at least we hope it's going to happen. He do have to contribute the price of a ticket and the "willing suspension of disbelief."
"I believe that you can't use psychic energy to make stereos sound better. But you CAN use PSYCHOLOGICAL tricks to do it."
This seems like a distinction without a difference.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
If these products are supposed to put the listener in a better frame of mind instead of positively impacting the train of pressure waves reaching the listener's ears - then they should be advertised, sold, and otherwise endorsed as such.
Edits: 11/13/12
You carp about small amounts of phase shifts. Ever look at Stereophile's impulse test results for speakers? The differences you mention are negligible compared to the end result coming out of many speaker systems
When JA and his flock of reviewers can ignore such obvious issues, there is ample reason why he can state that measurements is not an important parameter. For you to quote him after all your posturing, is a laugh.
Stu
I am against people using "fake engineering speak" to describe what something DOES when that something it "does" is a) not able to be substantiated or b) is just complete nonsense.
These types of things should be reported.
But if all they say is "use my cable supports, they make your stereo sound better." well, if the causality of the PERCEPTION of better sound simply lies in suggestion (placebo effect), it's irrelevant because if the user PERCIEVES an improvement, they did get what they paid for.
If a pharmacy charges you $10 for a sugar pill but it's been making your heacaches go away, do you get your money back because it was a sugar pill? Or do you happily pay because your headache went away.
This argument/discussion is a philosophical one because the philosophy transcends the usual 'subjectivist/objectivist' debate. The latter debate is two groups with different agendas who believe they have the SAME agenda making them BOTH wrong. Wrong to be arguing that is.
Each group is, in essence, using equipment to reproduce audio in different ways for different things. For the objectivist, the "assembled final system, in room" is an engineered solution of sorts, and it's performance is what leads to a pleasurable listening experience. The subjectivist uses a more "artisan" approach, and uses "try it and see" methods which may have no more validity or explanation other than "that looks pretty" or "it's expensive - it must work" or "so and so said it made an improvement".
I am not sure I see any reason to argue with someone who openly admits that paying for the placebo effect is fine, as I would not want to waste time with someone like Atkinson if he believes what he is quoted as saying there. Not out of malice or disrespect, just because that person and I share slightly different belief systems.
I've seen subjectivists and objectivists in the same room both agreeing that a system sounded damned good and neither camp took any measurements.
It's actually often the objectivists who make assertions about the value of measurements and they do not always do them themselves. One thing is for certain, I don't think too many subjectivists are secretly doing measurements or reading up on a library of specifications.
Getting a paint to match a paint chip is engineering. Using that paint to create pleasing artwork is not an engineered solution, but relied on engineering to get the "right" color and to provide an artists with repeatable results, like the ability to buy more of the exact same color!
Gotta get some work done now...
Cheers,
PResto
"THEY ARE PRESENTED IN A FALSE MANNER AS LEGITIMATE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SOUND OF A SOUND REPRODUCTION SYSTEM - FALSE ADVERTISING."
You view the "audio system" as somehow separate from the listener. I do not.
I have no problem suing manufacturers, distributors and vendors for fraud if they make specific claims that, narrowly read, are false. Most marketing literature is carefully written so that vendors won't liable for fraud. However, in the end, it's best to rely on caveat emptor . I'll shed no tears for a foolish rich man who gives his money to a con man. I figure that he probably got his money through some shady means in the first place, given that he's a fool.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
... a rich guy buys some voodoo stands that in addition to doing not what they purport to do at all, hold up the equipment nicely and add to the AESTHETIC of the room? Is not aesthetic of the room important. C'mon guys. Custom room professionally finished with task lighting and nice floor coverings versus a rag-tag partially finished basement area with a cheap throw-rug over the concrete floor, CDs and junk everywhere and warehouse style two-lamp fluorescent fixtures on bare joists hooked up with lamp cord? I've heard systems in rooms like the latter. The former room is just more fun to listen in. Part of the concert experience is the glamor and glitz of the hall, and the velvet seats and sexy lighting.
Enjoying art is not a science experiment or lab. It's a human experience. The aesthetic - the perception. It's all part of it. Poorly engineered audio equipment or a bad room with wicked bass nodes is not going to help. But other seemingly important specifications and design goals may become lost in translation.
I spend a lot of time making speakers adhere to rather strict design goals. Some sound very nice at the end, as a properly engineered speaker should. But if someone does not like that speaker, do I lambast them for having a preference for something other than "X transfer function" or do I realize that people have different references, different hearing curves and simply different preferences?
You can't engineer the human factor out of human beings.
Nor can you have a single formula for "correct" that fits everyone when it comes to an aesthetic experience.
Cheers,
Presto
I lump attempts at mind games, hypnosis, psychiatric therapy, drug use, and surgery to alter the brain, ear, or head transfer function as potential aspects impacting the "sound experience" that exist OUTSIDE the realm of the "audio system".
Edits: 11/13/12
Prophead is the preferred forum for debates between subjectivists and objectivists. I consider myself both. So I guess that makes me crazy. :-)
Frequent posting in Isolation? 34 posts in 4 years is frequent?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"Anyways - back to snake oil.I've always maintained that someone who pays to have their imagination sold back to them is insane. I pick on Geoff Kait alot because of his teleportation tweaks, for example. I believe that you can't use psychic energy to make stereos sound better. But you CAN use PSYCHOLOGICAL tricks to do it. Geoff Kait is no more guilty of snake oil than a company that sells an amp for $50K when $30K of it is all "jewelry" and fancy bling finishing."
That's the same ridiculous argument Naysayers have been using for years - that expensive cables, tube amps, tiny bowl resonators, Mpingo Discs, Shakti Stone, Intelligent Chip, are either mass hysteria, hypnosis, ritualism, a psychological trick, placebo effect or expectation bias. A lot of the "imaginative arguments" put forth by Uber Skeptics are eerily similar to knee jerk arguments against UFOs and crop circles. Swamp gas, weather balloons, secret technology, faked photos, Government conspiracy. HA!!
Next stop - Zen and the Art of Debunkery.
Geoff Kait
Edits: 11/12/12 11/12/12
My stereo just sounded worse. The bass became bloated and the soundstage collapsed entirely.
Cut it out GK. I know what you're doing...
Take my picture out of your microwave at once or I'm getting out my voodoo doll collection. In fact, I got my wife to sew a cute little rendition of your favorite amplifier and I am not above using it.
Cheers,
Presto
...and resting in relative peace, too!
Interesting to see that it can awaken from time to time, only to see the same tired arguments play out with no resolution whatsoever. :)
.
... clueless deaf guy, who listens to his crappy stereo, and, frustrated that he can't hear things others talk about, expresses his feelings like this:
The babble about "soundstage" and "imaging" is just a lame attempt at fostering "mystery", "mystique", or some unproven conjecture that the human brain/ear combination can sense things that machinery cannot.
And it's totally understandable - what kind of "soundstage" or "imaging" can Crown amp and pre provide? I'm sure I would go suddenly deaf, too, if I had to listen to that at home.
...although not commonly used for hi-fi applications, can do soundstaging. Just not with speakers rammed up against the wall.
The different staging and imaging we get from different systems is indeed explained by science, the very science that is purported to have nothing to DO with this "illusion". Sure it's an illusion, as is a hologram or the famous "highway mirage" from heat or the effect of sound changing pitch with the doppler effect.
Soundstage is a function of the following system aspects:
a) Polar and power response of speakers
b) Speaker distances (to back wall, side wall, between speakers and to chair)
c) Speaker toe-in angle
d) Ceiling height
e) Absorbtion properties of wall, floor and roof materials
f) Phase response of speakers, crossover topology, driver polarities
g) which affect - impulse response of speakers, group delay, etc.
h) Chair type (high-back or low-back chair)*
*often overlooked, a chair which goes above ear level affects perceived sound stage versus an armchair or recliner where there is nothing above the shoulders. My theory here is the higher chair back results in reflections which can interfere with sound stage and "confuse" the ear, resulting in a more confused image. When sitting in an office chair with an HVAC unit or fan running, extend your hands outward then move them inward so your fingertips touch behind your head and your thumbs just touch the either side of your neck. Observe the pitch changes in the fan noise, then tell me a high-backed chair will not affect perception of sound in a hi-fi room! ;)
All of these factors will mean that pretty much every stereo in existence could "image" slightly differently.
I feel terribly sorry for someone who does not get a perceived depth of soundstage, the wonder of a black background, the illusion of intrument placement, or that "you're there" sensation on orchestral or live recordings. Or to have speakers, regardless of size , vanish and become mere pieces of furniture and sounds eminate from everywhere else. Or to have recordings with phase-related effects result in sounds beyond the boundary of the side-walls or even above or behind you. Yes, some systems (mine for example) will result in not just speakers vanishing but the damned walls disappearing too. Like you and your chair and system are hovering in an empty space over the grand canyon.
WE COULD MEASURE this stuff and perhaps find corollary between measurements and perception, but nobody does. Polar response of an individual speaker is not useful - we need to observe the constructive and destructive interference created by 100's of iterations of placement and room boundaries/conditions to somehow explain the variations in image - even with the same two speakers.
We have the measuring capabilities. But we are not measuring or interpreting the right things to explain things like soundstage perception.
Those who miss the point of soundstage and iterative speaker placement tests are missing the whole point of stereophonics in my mind. Accurate and detailed sound is only half of it. The stereo image (and the more holographic it seems) is even better than the fidelity! (But would not be as good without the fidelity).
Cheers,
Presto
No soundstage... No shimmer. No glimmer. No sparkle. No palpability. No PRAT. No inner detail. No black background...
No nothing.
To heck with you guys. I'm going downstairs to measure my stereo. I have some nice tone CDs that I have not heard in a very long while.
Cheers,
Presto
Amp is 6.5 x 17...cables 8 ft... ok, that's enough.
Although, to be absolutely sure, you would need to measure the depth, too.
A neutral amplifier provides no depth. All depth is a product of the recording. Got it?
N/T
I thought I read in the Isolation Ward that if you breathe deeply while listening, the macrodynamic hugeness gets huger and the grainyness gets sifted out - but most importantly soundstage depth gets deeper. So there, it is proven...
Edits: 11/13/12
God, I am as transparent as my Crown amp!
Yes, but that all depends. See, if your Crown amp is old and hasn't aged properly in a humidity/temperature controlled living room, it could develop a nutty palette albeit with a smooth but oaky finish - presuming you haven't contaminated it with Lemon Pledge while dusting. So Kerr, transparency of a Crown amp is not necessarily guaranteed...
> transparency of a Crown amp is not necessarily guaranteed... <
Not even if I put a bottle of Windex underneath? I put a dictionary under it and got a marked improvement in definition!
drill holes in my eardrums with no anesthesia. :)
Sorry to hear that, but take heart. If you have holes in your eardrums, you can still become Peter Aczel, Jr! :)
Measure all those billions of 1's and 0's and make sure they are all correct. You can do this with a microscope if you like, but it will surely take longer than 79 minutes. :-)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I've looked at pits using a regular microscope that belongs to E. Brad Meyer. This was back in the 1980's so I don't recall the details. It was clear that one could decode the information this way, but it would be more than tedious. (I have done this kind of decoding of 1's and 0's on communications lines while debugging hardware, and it's tedious to do a few dozen bytes.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/overview/sound-editor/glitch-removal/
One had better make sure they have those EAC settings just right... ;)
It would be a b1tch to have to check 1000 or more titles for glitches...
Cheers,
Presto
"It would be a b1tch to have to check 1000 or more titles for glitches..."
Exactly. I rip CDs so they can be sold as downloads. Before I upload them I have to check them to make sure the rip was OK. I use EAC and dBpoweramp to do this and if I get a secure rip then I am good to go. If the rip fails then I demand another copy of the CD from the source. Generally, I can't use Accurate Rip as these CDs aren't in the database, so I am relying on the error detection capability of my optical drive and the software. In this regard I have much more faith in dBpoweramp, because it is easier to set up. But EAC can be OK if one has set it up correctly and has verified this by testing with known bad CDs.
Listening is not an adequate test for quality. It is very easy to miss errors that someone else might hear (or that one might hear oneself on another day). Typical undetected or incorrectly corrected errors will be a tick, often audible but occasionally quite quiet. Interpolated errors (where a bad sample is guessed at by interpolation) can be harder to hear, if not impossible depending on the music. Usually they are hard to hear if one just listens to the error stream (bad music minus known good music), e.g. a one sample tick that is -40 dBfs.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
...I check extracted files with a wave editor for "glitches"...
Saves time and heartache! ;)
Cheers,
Presto
I once used a metalurgy lab's scanning electron microscope to examine the pits on a Red Book CD. I was hoping to confirm that there actually are 1s and 0s in the pits. But what I found was there wasn't anything at all in the pits, just a lot of empty space. What a ripoff!!
Thank goodness, right?
If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, pass the straitjacket.
Then again, I've spent enough time here over the years to have lowered my expectations accordingly.
I disagree strongly.
Edits: 11/13/12
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