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Topic: [USELESS] Zealotry on HA (Read 11037 times) previous topic - next topic
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[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #25 –
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2nd point and thoughts: sometimes praising Foobar or Nero or even LAME 3.90.3 comes to worshiping. Isn't worshiping and blind belief a thing HA should be aware of? There seems to be much zealotry from Nero or AAC plus fans lately. The same can be said about some other things. This list can be continued by many people, who visit site regularly.

I am supportive of your general thrust which is that there are elements here who stifle expansive general discussion of worth while topics because they are bigots or zealots. 

My favourite example is that someone thinks they have found a problem with a particular combination of LAME switches and two seconds later they are being called a Noob for not using the presets or (in the case of the truly blinkered) they haven't used APS!  As if 3.90.3 and APS is the only way to get high quality music.

Sometimes also the difference is obvious that an ABX test is a waste of time.  Try fatboy on WMA9 versus LAME 3.95 for example!

Enjoy your stay!

Love,
Fairy

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #26 –
2 Dev, I'm sometimes too captious.
Often I don't get relaxed, until I get 0.01% of guessing or less, so you might guess, that was far not 9/9

2 Garf: hell knows  If I only knew... I just "felt" ther was a difference. Though I can't say I have golden ears...

2 Steve999: just listen to the whole sample carefully. Very often difference is noticeable on hi-freqs. So listen to percussion, acoustic guitars, etc... After some time you'll be able to pick up artifacts easy enough.

Thanks everyone for keeping this thread constructive.

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #27 –
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My favourite example is that someone thinks they have found a problem with a particular combination of LAME switches and two seconds later they are being called a Noob for not using the presets or (in the case of the truly blinkered) they haven't used APS!

That is because HA is focused on quality.
As for MP3 quality, the community spent many time fine-tuning a codec and a preset (many actually) to get the best quality in a wide range of conditions, in a way everybody can understand.
Not to be harsh, but no one is interested in testing home-brewed command lines, specially what you can tell, just by looking at them, that they do not produce better quality (stereo switch, for example?).
This is not zealotry, this is common sense.

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As if 3.90.3 and APS is the only way to get high quality music.

As far as MP3 goes, there are, to this day, only two better ways.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #28 –
Aren't people getting a little tired of these discussions?

I know I am.  At least once a month we seem to get a post: "Is HA dying?", "I'm leaving, bye guys", "HA is full of zealots", "I really think ABX isn't so good, we should be more subjective guys!", etc., etc.

And each time, we see the same responses.  Yet, while HA moves forward and continues to be a great forum (in a lot of respects it continues to improve over time even), some people still seem to have these mistaken views.

Even worse is (as seen in some of the above posts), there continues to be the view that if someone points out a "problem" in some quality related issue that they will be treated poorly and ignored.  I don't understand this.  Almost every time someone has done this, and they have actually followed the forum rules in doing so, people have often paid great attention to their claims.  This goes for MP3 and the alt-presets, MPC, Vorbis, AAC, etc.

What I think is really going on is that some people simply don't like the rigor of trying to found these claims here at HA.  Most of the time when we see people complaining, we see them start to discuss issues of "feeling" and of the inadequecy of ABX along with their fears of being persecuted by the "ABX hordes".

Well, I'm sorry to say, but it just doesn't work that way.  For people following the rules of this board, HA has had (and will continue to have) a very successful track record in dealing with these issues.

For the other people, it would probably be a good idea to reevaluate some of the "problems" you seem to think exist here and/or realize that, in regard to issues like ABX, board policy will not be changing in favor of more subjective approaches.

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #29 –
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But after about 6 hours of ABXing I managed to get a result, which has shown, that there actually was a difference.


You first said it's possible to feel a difference and not be able to ABX it.  Then you state that you were able to ABX it after a long period of time.

So let me ask you this.  How long did it take you to get this "feeling" that there was a difference.  Was it less than 6 hours?

For example, if you "just get a feeling" something's wrong after 20 seconds of listening, you should be able to repeat that in a blind test in the same amount of time.  If you can't, don't you think you're probably just experiencing a placebo effect? (You state you know ABX is a strong weapon against placebo)?

edit: bad syntax

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #30 –
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My favourite example is that someone thinks they have found a problem with a particular combination of LAME switches and two seconds later they are being called a Noob for not using the presets or (in the case of the truly blinkered) they haven't used APS!  As if 3.90.3 and APS is the only way to get high quality music.

Sometimes also the difference is obvious that an ABX test is a waste of time.  Try fatboy on WMA9 versus LAME 3.95 for example!

If someone believes they have found a problem in LAME in the alt-presets, which other settings address better (something which is pretty rare), then they need to be explicit in: 1) What the problem is, 2) providing samples/abx results, 3) mentioning that they have indeed tried the alt-presets and have a general knowledge of what they are about and what they do.

Otherwise, their claim is wasting everyones time, especially the time of people who have already put in hours upon hours of testing LAME.

It's really kind of simple.  One shouldn't expect others to check their results unless they provide a reason for others to believe that their results are worth looking into versus doing something else more productive.  And no, simply making a claim does not carry enough weight to make it believable on its own.

As for LAME 3.95 versus WMA, I'm not sure I know of anyone on this board who would state themselves as being an authority on the quality of LAME.  Nevertheless, for people who haven't shown to the community that they are serious in some respect (be it through past intensive testing or through present ABX results), ABX is not a waste of time when other people come into the picture.

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #31 –
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2 Dev, I'm sometimes too captious.
Often I don't get relaxed, until I get 0.01% of guessing or less, so you might guess, that was far not 9/9

Are you sure you mean 0.01 %? That's a lot more than most people ask for here (about 100 times!). Besides, neither ABC/HR nor Foobar show the p-val with this accuracy.
If, on the other hand, you meant 0.1%, then 9/9 is not far off: 10/10 has p-val  < 0.00098.

Could you be more specific on the number of trials used? The classic p-val calculation is not totally reliable for long tests.

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #32 –
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if someone is unable to ABX the difference, that couldn't mean, that there's just no difference at all.



This was already adressed above, but let me put in in simple words : That's right, if someone is unable to ABX a difference, it means that he couldn't hear the difference during the test. No more, no less. The rest is speculation.

A useful case is when the subject thinks he passed the test, while he didn't. It proves that the subject was wrong when he though that he heard the difference in the test.

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IMHO in some cases the difference can be subtle enough for someone not to be able to ABX it (as ABXing mostly includes small fragments ans short time periods). But at the same time the same person could feel it. [...]which is nearly impossible to get during usual ABX tests I think, it's even possible to ABX this tiny difference, but such blind tests could take incredible amount of time.


If it's impossible to get in a usual ABX test, that's hard, but you have to setup an unusual ABX test ! I'd like to find back the thread where that guy ABXed a 24 to 16 bits dithered wav against a truncated one... running one ABX session each morning 

And to encourage everybody, remember Xerophase ! He claimed to hear without effort the difference between wav and MPC quality 5, that his high end hifi revealed differences that we couldn't hear on our computers, that blind testing was not needed...
After some discussions, he did the blind test, he succeeded, he posted samples, we tried hard to find what could be the difference... and finally confirmed his results, the sample was definitely ABXable ! It didn't begin well, but at the end it turned out to be a very good thread...

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #33 –
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For quality judging people use ABC/HR or other blind rating method.

ABC/HR is flawed.  I rate samples on the left poorly because they are à gauche.

Gur svggrfg funyy fheivir lrg gur hasvg znl yvir. Jr zhfg ercrng.

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #34 –
personally, the "zealotry" isn't what bothers me most, but the narrow-minded thinking of some people: When some newbies ask about help, HA regulars sometimes don't think about whats best for HIM/HER but for oneself. Thats a big difference. Some people don't need the horsepower of fb2k. Its not always about whats better and what worse - the world isn't black/white. However, this is also often the fault of the people who ask about help, because they ask the wrong questions. "whats the best mp3-ripper" obviously isn't going to result in an answer about whats best suited for oneself.

What i would like to see more at HA: People who understand that needs are differently, and that software is different. To everyone his own. Sure, some apps are better than others, but some also are just "different" because they are made for different tastes/needs. Some newbie may be better off with an easy-to-use app, which is at the same time reliable. Options and features which are unnecessary for oneself make an application WORSE for oneself, NOT better.

I'm sick of "xyz is the best!" BS-posts. Newbies shall ask the right questions, and regulars shall sometimes step down from their high-horse and try to see things from the POV of the person which asked.

- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #35 –
I can honestly say that I've got perhaps quite a unique opinion on this.

I've never ABX'd since I started getting into audio compression. I started off just being content with zipping down 22khz mono cd tracks, then ADPCM'ing them back in the days where MP3 just wasn't there. I used RealAudio's early incarnations - all the development since then with MP3, and all other formats have been a godsend.

I specifically don't ABX or train myself to spot artifacts specifically so that I can enjoy what I can of the music, not what it has been encoded with. My involvement with Hydrogen Audio and audio compression is purely to make sure that the people I choose to share my music, regardless of their artifact awareness, can enjoy the music with me without picking out pre-echo and stereo troubles.

From this - I don't advocate aggressively any specific player or format - its whatever suits the person or application. For every improvement to the technologies, its a good thing - even though I wouldn't notice! Ignorance for me is bliss, but an awareness to other peoples sensitivities and perceptions in mind just plain makes me content.

The other thing is, blind fanboy-ism towards technologies with possible and admitted flaws is an insult to the people who've created them. Mp3 will never be perfect, but to my ears its fine. Understand my previous point before quoting rules on me. Ogg is great - in fact most formats are nowadays. The whole thing with ABX is it requires concentration - that of which I don't generally apply when I'm listening to music. I'm not thinking "Oh, I'm certain I heard some pre-echo back then", I'm thinking "Jeez, that chord sequence makes my hairs stand on end".

Audio compression is a science, for those who aren't well versed, leave it to those who can. For those who want to learn -- learn the science, and prove it before spouting off nonsense. Formerly I felt that the reason my audio collection was so good, was because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. Now I find they have to stand along side pumped up idiots talking rubbish and having to filter through flame filled garbage all day.

At the end of the day, its all about music and perception. Look to rjamorim's tests for a bit of independant qualified information, but at the end of the day - do what suits you and listen to the people worth listening to.

Ruairi
rc55.com - nothing going on

[USELESS] Zealotry on HA

Reply #36 –
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HA regulars sometimes don't think about whats best for HIM/HER but for oneself. Thats a big difference.


Ah someone who speaks sense (from the other side of the coin I happen to like strawberry ice cream - for the life of me I cannot understand why everyone does not feel the same as me, what is the point of the other ice creams even existing - there should be only 1 ice cream so everyone can get the best...)

Lyx for moderator?