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Topic: Speakers vs amps and cd players (Read 76686 times) previous topic - next topic
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Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #25 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
True and a pity, suggesting that Atkinson sees no value to any measurements of nonlinear distortion due to speakers. IOW he thinks that they all sound the same in this regard.

I know you have some beef with JA and I certainly don't always agree with him, but I think you've made quite a leap there. He may just think they are a bit hazily correlated to perception. I believe your friend Dr Geddes pays little mind to the speaker induced variety also, he considers the amplifier variety more insidious.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
The measurements at the site I referenced suggest otherwise.

Soundstage? They (NRC) do measurements, but I'm not aware of any discussion related to audibility correlation. Link?

You seen those inexpensive Goldwood woofers JJ likes using? Rather pedestrian motor design, to be kind. No Faraday rings, etc. Certainly not "low distortion". May be a hint...

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #26 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
The measurements at the site I referenced suggest otherwise.

Soundstage? They (NRC) do measurements, but I'm not aware of any discussion related to audibility correlation. Link?


The entirety of Toole/Olive's research program on measured loudspeaker performance vs preference involves NRC-type measurements, so I think that counts  ;>

Them having worked at the NRC while doing the early part of that research too --


Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #27 –
Quote from: krabapple on
The entirety of Toole/Olive's research program on measured loudspeaker performance vs preference involves NRC-type measurements, so I think that counts  ;>

Them having worked at the NRC while doing the early part of that research too --

Look at my responses to Arny. He/I referencing, specifically, "distortion" measurements.

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #28 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on

True and a pity, suggesting that Atkinson sees no value to any measurements of nonlinear distortion due to speakers. IOW he thinks that they all sound the same in this regard.

I know you have some beef with JA and I certainly don't always agree with him, but I think you've made quite a leap there. He may just think they are a bit hazily correlated to perception. I believe your friend Dr Geddes pays little mind to the speaker induced variety also, he considers the amplifier variety more insidious.


That is incorrect to the point of being a complete inversion of what he writes.  Geddes considers distortion of any kind in electronics to be a non problem and builds his systems accordingly. His own audio system is based on a mid-priced AVR and he advises others to do the same.

Geddes considers loudspeaker distortion to be the final frontier. The punchline to the Lee-Geddes papers about the audibility of nonlinear distortion is that since speakers and only speakers are going to be saddled with audible nonlinear distortion for the foreseeable future, shaping that distortion so that it has the least audible impact is of the essence. Hence the need for a better understanding of what is more audible and what is less audible.

With electronics, we can point at all of the equipment with all forms of distorton 80-100 dB down which means that even a flawed measure like THD suffices.

Speaker nonlinear distortion is often less than 20 dB down, with 40-50 dB under less stressful than actually used being common. I still remember one of my speaker-guru friends exclaiming that they found a driver with nonlinear distortion over a usable range that was > 60 dB down. That was and is exceptional performance.

http://www.data-bass.com/home

Quote
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
The measurements at the site I referenced suggest otherwise.

Soundstage? They (NRC) do measurements, but I'm not aware of any discussion related to audibility correlation. Link?


It is not necessarily the job of people doing measurements to explain every jot and tittle of what those measurements mean.

Absence of pontification is not evidence of absence of significance.

Please actually read Geddes before again misrepresenting him. Here's a link to full text - no excuses about having to pay for AES papers!

http://gedlee.com/distortion_perception.htm

Quote
You seen those inexpensive Goldwood woofers JJ likes using? Rather pedestrian motor design, to be kind. No Faraday rings, etc. Certainly not "low distortion". May be a hint...


That's JJ's buisness, not mine. Lots of speakers lack Faraday rings. Please show that their usage is an absolute requirement for low distortion in all speakers.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #29 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Rich B on
What about a high-end speaker?


Quote from: Rich B on
Why are you asking me to define this?

Well, you used the term above.
I'd be curious to know your definition of the term you use as well.



I think we all,  (including Rich B) know that there is no generally agreed-upon meaning to the phrase "High end speaker", so attacking someone's usage of the term is a cheap way to pick an argument without actually taking a position that could be discussed in a reasonable way.  It seems very cowardly to me.

I picked one of the upper range of Paradigm's line because in a reasonable world (which high end audio is not) it would be considered to be a high end product. At ca. $2K a unit it costs about 10 times more than a mainstream speaker with similar function (and surprisingly similar performance). The company has a long favorable reputation originally based on the research of the NRC. Their equipment is reviewed in high end magazines.  Obviously its not a $400,000 speaker or a $40,000 speaker, but it is a ca. $4,000 a pair speaker in a world where $400 a pair can get surprisingly comparable performance.

IMO high end audio at this time is partially based on keeping the wrong people from properly reviewing their overpriced products. This is easy enough to do - simply price their product so that no sane knowledgeable person would buy it, and send review copies only to people who are in on the scam. 

If properly reviewed, everybody who gives any credibility to good technical tests should be asking "Why the outlandish price?".  Reality is that high end speaker companies are almost all merely systems integrators. They produce no raw drivers of their own. They have no lock on some secret loudspeaker technology. They buy their drivers from the same production houses as everybody else can. A few have captive production facilities, but again they have no special magic that can't be bought on the open market.  Their speakers are not technically exceptional in any way that they seem to be willing to actually demonstrate with anything from opinions from people who effectively shill for them. The outlandish pricing is based on what they can bully the market to pay through innuendo and outright false claims.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #30 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
That is incorrect to the point of being a complete inversion of what he writes.  Geddes considers distortion of any kind in electronics to be a non problem and builds his systems accordingly. His own audio system is based on a mid-priced AVR and he advises others to do the same.
Geddes considers loudspeaker distortion to be the final frontier.


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/gedlee/1223...tml#post2682717

Quote
I'm not sure what you mean here? Do you mean crossover distortion in a split supply amplifier? If so then yes, this is the most insidious type of distortion. I am rather surprised that you are not familiar with our work in this area. You should read it as it will answer your questions about measureing it etc.

But amplifier distortion is beyond the scope of this thread since we are talking about loudspeakers. In loudspeakers there are no types of distortion that are significant - unless the speaker is broken. Amps can have highly audible forms of distortion, but thats a topic for an amplifier thread.
__________________
Earl Geddes


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/2...tml#post4034467

Quote
Not a trivial question at all, its right on the issue.

Let me make a few key points, some of which you have already made:

1) there is a threshold of nonlinearity below which we cannot detect it because of our ears inherent masking of such things.

2) this threshold can be vastly different for steady state signals versus transient ones. Steady state is far easier to detect.

3) (and here is the first key point) the numbers produced by THD or IMD do not correlate with the detectability of the nonlinearity in the underlying system. One form of nonlinearity, crossover distortion, is detectable at .1% THD while another, pure second order nonlinearity is not detectable even at 10%. Hence THD and IMD are useless at sorting out the "good" from the "bad". This is true for any signal steady state or transient.

4) it is the higher orders of nonlinearity that are audible, not the lower orders. Masking tells us why this is true.

5) the types of nonlinearity found in a loudspeaker are normally of the most benign type, low order. Electronics, the most insidious type, high order.

6) good loudspeakers are well below the thresholds of audibility for most signals, but certainly music, except when pushed beyond their design limits. A 15" woofer and a compression driver are never going to be pushed beyond there limits in a home situation.

There are metrics that do correlate with subjective assessment, but no one seems to want to adopt those - better to use pointless numbers than risk being shown to be at fault - being ignorant of the truth is better than being wrong.

An odd thing about the above is that it is very possible to make a loudspeaker with higher levels of THD that will actually sound better because the overall amount of higher order nonlinearities have been minimized. B&C actually does this, but they never even mention it. It is only apparent when one looks at the Klippel data. Their BL curves are deliberately NOT flat!! How's that for changing the paradigm of loudspeaker design!

I used to believe that nonlinearity was a key aspect of transducer design - my ears told me that. But the numbers don't lie and now I know that I was wrong all those years and wasted so much time chasing something that was unimportant.
__________________
Earl Geddes


Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
It is not necessarily the job of people doing measurements to explain every jot and tittle of what those measurements mean.
Absence of pontification is not evidence of absence of significance.

A simple "ooops" from you would have sufficed, but alas....
Maybe all that dancing with Amir has taught you some moves. 


Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
That's JJ's buisness, not mine.

Indeed. I couldn't have said it better.

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #31 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/2...tml#post4034467

Quote
Not a trivial question at all, its right on the issue.

Let me make a few key points, some of which you have already made:

1) There is a threshold of nonlinearity below which we cannot detect it because of our ears inherent masking of such things.


2) this threshold can be vastly different for steady state signals versus transient ones. Steady state is far easier to detect.

3) (and here is the first key point) the numbers produced by THD or IMD do not correlate with the detectability of the nonlinearity in the underlying system. One form of nonlinearity, crossover distortion, is detectable at .1% THD while another, pure second order nonlinearity is not detectable even at 10%. Hence THD and IMD are useless at sorting out the "good" from the "bad". This is true for any signal steady state or transient.

4) it is the higher orders of nonlinearity that are audible, not the lower orders. Masking tells us why this is true.


Earl usually talks in a structured way. The above, especially point #1 is a global qualifier for what follows.  We all know that there are no good amplifiers, DACs or other modern electronics that have as much as 0.1% THD without being pushed into clipping, and there are none and have been none for decades that have measurable or audible crossover distortion.  His mention of them is to make an important point which is that if nonlinear distortion is high enough to hear THD is not a diagnostic measure of nonlinear distortion.

Quote
5) the types of nonlinearity found in a loudspeaker are normally of the most benign type, low order. Electronics, the most insidious type, high order.


Earl's personal system, and his lab test setups have for years been centerpieced by mid-priced AVRs and cheap (ca. $100) amps that were not chosen based on any special sound quality properties. The last time I personally inspected such things at his house was about 6 weeks ago. This is not a guy who worries about the sound quality of good modern electronics no matter how that may be misrepresented by some.

Quote
6) good loudspeakers are well below the thresholds of audibility for most signals, but certainly music, except when pushed beyond their design limits. A 15" woofer and a compression driver are never going to be pushed beyond there limits in a home situation.


The relevant qualifier here is "good loudspeakers". Earl's ideas about what constitute good loudspeakers is easy to discern - it is what he sells which is high end both in terms of construction and pricing. 

His top speakers run about $12K a pair if memory serves. There is the better part of $1K worth of drivers in each. He's not talking about all speakers used for audio or even all speakers that are used in  mainstream audio by a long shot.

Earl's interest in subwoofers is fairly recent. Its wisely focused on smooth response in the upper bass, but not so much on exceptional dynamic range and low distortion below 30 Hz. That implies a history accepting either limited response below 30 Hz or a lot (audible) nonlinear distortion at serious listening levels in that range and below.  My link to Data-bass should be more than enough evidence about that.  There are a lot of people who disagree with the idea that performance below 30 Hz is irrelevant.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #32 –
I have a foolproof method of choosing speakers, though I admit I've currently had the same pair for over twenty years.  I take a range of source material with which I'm familiar, tell the shop assistant to set the volume at a relatively soft level, where I can judge the specific character of the speakers and listen, not just be hit by a wall of noise.  The cabinet, cone materials and other factors will affect the character of the sound, and one man's speaker heaven is another man's hell.  Technical specifications are all well and good, but your ears are the best judge of whether you can live with the specific character of a speaker.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #33 –
Quote from: tonygall2000 on
I have a foolproof method of choosing speakers, though I admit I've currently had the same pair for over twenty years.  I take a range of source material with which I'm familiar, tell the shop assistant to set the volume at a relatively soft level, where I can judge the specific character of the speakers and listen, not just be hit by a wall of noise.  The cabinet, cone materials and other factors will affect the character of the sound, and one man's speaker heaven is another man's hell.  Technical specifications are all well and good, but your ears are the best judge of whether you can live with the specific character of a speaker.


In store demos have to be as bad as a means for auditioning speakers as can be imagined.

For openers, speaker sound quality is profoundly affected by the acoustic environment, and no way is the dealer's demo room the area where I'm going to use the speaker.

Secondly, I generally listen to speakers for hours using dozens of recordings in a private setting before reaching any conclusions. What dealer would let me inflict that on his business?

Dealer demos have a lot of exceptionally powerful sources of bias including not only the physical environment but also the social and intellectual environment.

I buy new speakers not infrequently both for myself and others. I generally buy speakers based on technical performance and price and plan on using electrical and acoustical means to tailor their response to the actual application.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #34 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
True and a pity, suggesting that Atkinson sees no value to any measurements of nonlinear distortion due to speakers. IOW he thinks that they all sound the same in this regard.

I know you have some beef with JA and I certainly don't always agree with him, but I think you've made quite a leap there.


Actually I have almost 2 decades of beefs with Atkinson. ;-)

He's staked his career on the infallibility of sighted evaluations and I've staked my public presence on the insanity of such thinking. He's staked his career on the idea that better measurements always imply better sound quality, and I've long taken the position that beyond certain often readily achievable levels, improvements in measured performance (particularly of electronics) just don't matter.

Interestingly enough, even here I have been facing arguments that seem to exactly match what I've imputed to Atkinson, which is that nonlinear distortion doesn't matter for speakers in general.

I don't know why someone would call foul on the position I've carved out for Atkinson while taking it on for themselves! ;-)

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #35 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Earl usually talks in a structured way.

Spin and whirl any way you wish. I think any reasonable person can read what I wrote, you wrote and what Earl wrote, regarding loudspeaker distortion perception (as opposed to electronics) and figure out our stances on perceptual relevance with dynamic signals.

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #36 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Actually I have almost 2 decades of beefs with Atkinson. ;-)

I know.
I've called him out rather publicly myself, regarding controlled tests and "cognitive dissonance".
But I won't call him out for frivolous reasons as you did above. That isn't reasonable or objective.
Seems almost petty to me.

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #37 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Earl usually talks in a structured way.

Spin and whirl any way you wish. I think any reasonable person can read what I wrote, you wrote and what Earl wrote, regarding loudspeaker distortion perception (as opposed to electronics) and figure out our stances on perceptual relevance with dynamic signals.


Thanks for providing Earl's comments in context. I see that in that context Earls statements were commented on  based on similar grounds to some of  my comments.

If I excluded all speaker drivers but B&C's top products and avoided trying to reproduce bass below 30 Hz at decent SPLs I might be of a similar state of mind.

One irony is that certain unnamed persons will privately admit that they accept higher nonlinear distortion by operating B&Cs top drivers at relatively low crossover points... But of course it is never audible at the listening levels they consider to be reasonable... A certain amount of truth is dependent on making certain choices.

You can insultingly call my comments spinning and whirling and I can bite back if I wish to lower myself to use such tactics, which I won't.

Instead I will say that I think we have the same basic disagreements that we have entertained for years on at least 2 different forums, and you get to be wrong! ;-)

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #38 –
Re: Earl Geddes and the irrelevance of nonlinear distortion in loudspeakers, he cites Sean Olive's and Toole's views  often,  but I wonder if in this case he ascribes a view to them that isn't quite right.

On SO's own blog, this exchange occurred last year (i'm eliding some nonrelevant parts , adding emphasis and a link))

Quote
MM: [...] Kind of off-topic, you said above "From the perceptual data, a set of acoustical loudspeaker measurements has been identified from which we can model and predict listeners' loudspeaker preference ratings with about 86% accuracy". 86% is quite reasonable, but do you have any idea why your predictions aren't even more accurate? [...]

SO: Why can't we predict loudspeaker preference better than 86% accuracy? There are a number of reasons but here are two obvious ones that I pointed out in the original AES preprint:
1) The prediction model only includes linear distortions in the loudspeaker measurements -- not nonlinear distortion
2) The accuracy of prediction is limited by limitations in the listening tests that created variance from context effects, elastic scale. The 86% accuracy was for the model based on 70 loudspeakers evaluated over 19-20 different listening tests. For the Consumer Reports tests, where we controlled context effects by comparing all combinations of loudspeakers the accuracy was almost 100%.



This suggests to me that SO consider the audible effects of at least some nonlinear distortions on loudspeaker preference to be both real and worthy of further investigation.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #39 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Actually I have almost 2 decades of beefs with Atkinson. ;-)

I know.
I've called him out rather publicly myself, regarding controlled tests and "cognitive dissonance".
But I won't call him out for frivolous reasons as you did above. That isn't reasonable or objective.
Seems almost petty to me.


What  I see  as petty is obfuscating the easy answers to a simple question about what has more nonlinear distortion, a CD player, an amplifier, or a loudspeaker.

It's a simple question with a simple answer that anybody who is truly knowledgeable about audio knows, but one that is widely obfuscated by the golden ear press.

it's even a question that someone who we both know and love may have stumbled over:

"One form of nonlinearity, crossover distortion, is detectable at .1% THD"

In fact crossover distortion is not detectable at 0.1% THD with normal musical recordings as the sound source.

I know of no proper DBTs ever being done to produce evidence about this claim, but if you download this file, you can use the FOOBAR2000 ABX tool to listen for yourself and present your results if you dare:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ebrlo639h99git/c...20joni.zip?dl=0

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #40 –
Quote from: drewfx on
If the supposed problems with an amp or source component don't correspond with the distortion components of the speaker (or whatever), how are they going to be masked?


Masking does not require correspondence of distortion of distortion components, especially when the difference in levels of the various distortion components is as great as it typically is with amps and speakers.

Masking does not need to be invoked when the distortion components are below the thresholds of audibility, which is also true with most electronic equipment.

Masking is not the only source of the human inability to hear certain distortion components, such as those that are part and parcel of FM distortion (jitter).

Finally neither the amplifier nor the speaker are the only sources of masking in an audio system. Most musical program material is full of components that mask other sounds including some distortion components generated by the equipment.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #41 –
Quote
The relevant qualifier here is "good loudspeakers". Earl's ideas about what constitute good loudspeakers is easy to discern - it is what he sells which is high end both in terms of construction and pricing.


Define "High End"?

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #42 –
Quote
If properly reviewed, everybody who gives any credibility to good technical tests should be asking "Why the outlandish price?". Reality is that high end speaker companies are almost all merely systems integrators. They produce no raw drivers of their own. They have no lock on some secret loudspeaker technology. They buy their drivers from the same production houses as everybody else can. A few have captive production facilities, but again they have no special magic that can't be bought on the open market. Their speakers are not technically exceptional in any way that they seem to be willing to actually demonstrate with anything from opinions from people who effectively shill for them. The outlandish pricing is based on what they can bully the market to pay through innuendo and outright false claims.


You seem to be demonizing companies that sell expensive speakers. What false claims are you talking about? What innuendo? Are you sure you aren't just paranoid about the high-end industry?

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #43 –
I get frustrated with these discussions that consist only of referencing 'Higher Authorities'. 

Quote
In fact crossover distortion is not detectable at 0.1% THD with normal musical recordings as the sound source.


A fatal flaw, it seems to me is the question of what constitutes an audiophile's idea of "musical". My experience is that the audiophile taste in music is, shall we say, very 'conservative'. If all these Higher Authorities' pronouncements on audibility are based on their own idea of 'music' (such as they choose to subject their listening panels to in their listening tests, for example) then they can be taken with a pinch of salt. Why should I believe their pronouncements on audibility if my taste in music is so much more dynamic?  :-)

[At this moment I am listening to some Britten. There is no way that if I were to play this in a dealers at any volume level, that it could be described as a "wall of noise", which tells me something about how other people judge a system, and what music they choose to listen to. I can only judge a system by turning the volume up to 'realistic', and I suspect that the Higher Authorities simply don't share my taste in music, and therefore couldn't hear what it is that I am listening for. They may pronounce that "low order distortion is inaudible" or "phase isn't important" but that may just be based on their taste in light jazz from the 1960s].

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #44 –
Quote from: Rich B on
Define "High End"?

Rich, you were supposed to tell us what a "high end" speaker is! Help me out man, I did my best with the whole FR thing for you, which you hopefully now understand. 
Would a Revel Salon qualify?
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #45 –
Quote from: Green Marker on
I get frustrated with these discussions that consist only of referencing 'Higher Authorities'.

Agnostic? 
You mean the guys with all the AES peer reviewed work, making statements about that work, often verified over and over. Them??
Like I said early in the show, if you have some work, or links to works, overturning the established science that has misled these authorities, by all means present it! Always good to learn something new GM.

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #46 –
Quote from: krabapple on
This suggests to me that SO consider the audible effects of at least some nonlinear distortions on loudspeaker preference to be both real and worthy of further investigation.

Yes, he did say that, along with this: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/01/what...ations-are.html
Quote
1) The perception of loudspeaker sound quality is dominated by linear distortions, which can be accurately quantified and predicted using a set of comprehensive anechoic frequency response measurements.
2) Both trained and untrained listeners tend to prefer the most accurate loudspeakers when measured under controlled double-blind listening conditions.
3) The relationship between perception and measurement of nonlinear distortions is less well understood and needs further research. Popular specifications like Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and Intermodulation Distortion (IM) do not accurately reflect the distortion’s audibility and effect on the perceived sound quality of the loudspeaker.

I don't think there was any misinterpretation by Earl, who was there...and has done his own investigations.
But hey, both SO and jj were at one time members here. Perhaps Arny could ask them directly, to avoid any risk of "inversion" (despite verbatim quotation).

cheers,

AJ

Loudspeaker manufacturer

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #47 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
You mean the guys with all the AES peer reviewed work, making statements about that work, often verified over and over. Them??
Like I said early in the show, if you have some work, or links to works, overturning the established science that has misled these authorities, by all means present it! Always good to learn something new GM.

Indeed I do. Because once we're into declaring what distortion is audible with 'normal musical signals' then it's pure subjectivity despite the trappings of objectivity. Coming up with some tracks to listen to and listing them in our peer-reviewed paper doesn't make it science. Who chose these tracks and why?

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #48 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: Rich B on
Define "High End"?

Rich, you were supposed to tell us what a "high end" speaker is! Help me out man, I did my best with the whole FR thing for you, which you hopefully now understand. 
Would a Revel Salon qualify?


I just find it funny that I'm asked to define these terms and then Arnold goes and throws the term around without defining them. No one complains when he does it! Some people have double standards.

Speakers vs amps and cd players

Reply #49 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: krabapple on
This suggests to me that SO consider the audible effects of at least some nonlinear distortions on loudspeaker preference to be both real and worthy of further investigation.


Yes, he did say that, along with this: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/01/what...ations-are.html
Quote
1) The perception of loudspeaker sound quality is dominated by linear distortions, which can be accurately quantified and predicted using a set of comprehensive anechoic frequency response measurements.
2) Both trained and untrained listeners tend to prefer the most accurate loudspeakers when measured under controlled double-blind listening conditions.
3) The relationship between perception and measurement of nonlinear distortions is less well understood and needs further research. Popular specifications like Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and Intermodulation Distortion (IM) do not accurately reflect the distortion’s audibility and effect on the perceived sound quality of the loudspeaker.

I don't think there was any misinterpretation by Earl, who was there...and has done his own investigations.
But hey, both SO and jj were at one time members here. Perhaps Arny could ask them directly, to avoid any risk of "inversion" (despite verbatim quotation).

cheers,

AJ



There's really no contradiction there between SO's two quotes.  The SO quote I pulled didn't address the relative contributions, nor imply that nonlinear distortions were just as important as linear.  And he says here exactly what I surmised: needs more research.  Olive attributes at least part of the failure of his preference model - -- which fails in 24% of cases --  to the effects of nonlinear distortion.  So I'd say he considers it potentially significant until further research shows otherwise.

And I'm not understanding the second part or what you wrote --Geddes was there?  *Where*?  With Olive when he did the research described in the 2004 AES preprint I linked to?  I hadn't heard that.  I know he's done his own testing.  The point was, Geddes claims that nonlinear distortion typically has *no* importance, and he cites Olive as backup.  If he only means typical THD and IM specs, that's not quite the same claim. And I don't think Sean would phrase it as strongly as Earl does..