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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: RE: Fremer Brinkmann DAC/MQA Shill posted by ahendler on July 28, 2017 at 18:06:52:
Yeah, arguing on the basis of technology just doesn't cut it.
As an engineer, I'm naturally intrigued by measurements, and understand that they're a necessary design tool. But I learned many years ago that they won't tell you how good equipment sounds, because we either don't have all the measurements that we need, or we don't know enough about how the brain responds to them. Besides which, he didn't /understand/ the technology.
Funny that you mention Maggies, since I've been rebuilding an old pair of Tympani IVA's and they're getting to the point at which I listen slack jawed because they can be so damned natural, even spooky, on acoustical music. Now I can think of some highly-regarded and superb-measuring $100,000+ speakers that are loud, clean, deep, and measure well, but just don't sound real.
I think part of the problem in this case is that we tend to look at the wrong measurements, e.g., quasi-anechoic measurements that don't correspond to what the ear hears in an actual listening room, and so don't reflect the advantages of a well-designed dipole line source.
I was recently reading through an old thread and someone mentioned the uncanny holographic imaging of tubes, which I think we've all heard. He said it seems to occur even in hybrid amps as long as the tubes are used in the output stage. So why the hell do tubes do that? I can't find anything in the measurements or the literature that explains what's going on.
I've also heard many express a preference for ladder DAC's. There's some funny stuff going on in delta sigma/DSD, e.g., the noise shaping, and again, I can see why some might prefer the sonic trade-offs of one technology to another. But how the hell does one quantify the perceptual effects of ultrasonic noise, particularly given that electronics may react differently to it?
Over the years, you begin to tease out some of the relationships between measurements and what we hear, and there's been some good research e.g. on the audibility of distortion or amplitude response aberrations. But our knowledge is still amazingly incomplete and I continue to be puzzled by much of what I hear.
Still, whether one discusses listening or measurement, I think it should be about the audio. Calling a writer a "shill" just because one happens to disagree with his conclusions is uncalled for and reduces the level of the conversation to that of a Congressional sound bite.
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Follow Ups
- Really - josh358 19:30:44 07/28/17 (1)
- +1 nt - ahendler 21:52:04 07/29/17 (0)
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