Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: what value listening tests (Read 41995 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

what value listening tests

Reply #100 –
Quote from: Woodinville on
Quote from: dv1989 on
Quote
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method.

Yeah, we're just as fundamentalist as those we criticise, right? Except for those little things called evidence and self-assessment/correction. Next you'll tell us that global warming is a religion.


When the dialog sinks to this level, ignoring the simple fact that science is testable and religion isn't, there's no real hope for a dialog.

Conclusions from evidence are not "faith", they are conclusions.
Faith is belief in the ABSENSE of evidence.

Until the little cheap shot is retracted, I see no point in dialog with Mr. Rabbit.


By all means cease talking to me if you are going to start talking about religion. I am trying to have a conversation about sound.

By the way, FYI the word faith is the same as the word trust. There is no need to invoke religion.

what value listening tests

Reply #102 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
You actually really believe that sound as percieved by humans is entirely objective? Seriously? Or are you winding me up? I honestly can't tell.


In the end, the result of human perception is the changing of the chemistry of the brain in certain places.

The brain is an object.

Chemistry is an objective state.

Certain places in an object like the brain are of course also objects.

So where's the problem with perception being objective?

Perception is an objective change in the state of an object, right?



what value listening tests

Reply #103 –
@magneticrabbit:

Nobody here will be convinced of what you say (about "sensing" differences in encoders that you can't prove in short-term testing) until you can provide statistically significant double-blind results to support your claim. If you can do that, no matter how long it takes you, then we would be glad to accept that.

Until then you will be viewed in the same category as UFOs and big foot - lots of people have claimed to see them but none of them have been able to prove it.

what value listening tests

Reply #104 –
And now for a little light relief... CLICK!. It seems relevant somehow.

what value listening tests

Reply #105 –
@magneticrabbit:

This notion that we are able to better distinguish lossless from lossy when not paying as close attention is not consistent with what ordinary people who actually pass double blind tests generally say.  Those that are interested in creating slightly smaller files at the expense of transparency will often tell you that they can only tell the difference when performing double blind tests but not under normal listening conditions.

To whom should I pay more attention, those who have actual experience with ABX testing or someone who appears to have never performed an ABX test and seems completely unwilling to try?

what value listening tests

Reply #106 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
You actually really believe that sound as percieved by humans is entirely objective? Seriously? Or are you winding me up? I honestly can't tell.

I don't have to believe it. It is a fact. Seriously.

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
What is the meaning of the quotes around the word "people" in reference to myself? Are you being abusive, I honestly can't tell?

I meant certain parcel of the population that refuses to accept the truth about certain facts for some strange reason. That web site is full of them and you may find like minded people there.

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
It's not April the 1st, is it?

Not just yet. Today is March 11. 

what value listening tests

Reply #107 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
By the way, FYI the word faith is the same as the word trust. There is no need to invoke religion.


If you're not going to use the word the same way others do, then communication is impossible.  Or you're equivocating. Or something.
-----
J. D. (jj) Johnston

what value listening tests

Reply #108 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
<<There is, I believe,  such a huge and very fundamental difference between listening to music under normal circumstances and listening to music during a listening test. Normally when we listen to music its not a purely concious process, rather its more or less an automatic process - we simply let the music kind of wash over us, and leave it up to our subconcious mind to do the work, to  invoke an emotional response, and to provide us with a pleasurable sensation (hopefully).

This is very different to the very concious process during a listening test, where people sit in moods of deep concentration and furrowed brows, focussing their attention on bits of the music, comparing, making notes, remembering, judging, etc.

I dont believe the two processes are comparable enough to draw any conclusions that might apply equally to both scenarios, apart from very crude and broad ones. Normal listening and listening tests are as different as chalk and cheese. If I can invoke a slightly rude example, it is like the difference between a couple having passionate, romantic sex in the privacy of their own bedroom versus doing it in a laboratory in front of technicians and cameras.

Its only when you are really listening to music, as opposed to examining it under a microscope, that you can fully appreciate all the nuances of it - the nuances that will go right over you head and out the window in a listening test. You might think you can hear them, but your ability to pick them up will be skewed by the mood and state of mind you have to be in to do the test.


I think your basic premise here is flawed. Listening to music isn't necessarily a purely passive or subconscious process. There are different modes of listening to music both passive/emotional and active/analytical.  If you had sat through as many courses as I have in music history, musicology, theory, composition/orchestration you learn to listen to music in a very analytical way focussing on different aspects: harmony/counterpoint, theme development, structure,historical significance,etc; Your emotional response has little to do with the process, in fact, it can sometimes get in the way.

Critical listening to reproduced sound is much the same process, assuming the listeners are trained and the listening test is designed properly: you are listening in a very analytical way to the various perceptual attributes of the reproduced sound such as timbre, spatial, dynamics and nonlinear distortion, and other artifacts.

In both cases (critical evaluation of music versus sound quality) there is a fair amount of active listening and critical analysis going on which makes the two processes quite similar. Once listeners turn off their brains and listen passively or emotionally to music or audio components, my experience is you tend to get essentially the same useless, random information. This is quite the opposite reality of what you are arguing.

Cheers
Sean
Audio Musings

what value listening tests

Reply #109 –
Quote from: greynol on
Those that are interested in creating slightly smaller files at the expense of transparency will often tell you that they can only tell the difference when performing double blind tests but not under normal listening conditions.

I just read this in another thread and thought I'd add it here:

Quote from: dsimcha on
Tried aoTuv and it's truly amazing.  Now I can't even consistently ABX -q 2.  I can (barely) get it on some songs with lots and lots of high frequency content, but it's hard enough that I'm confident it will be transparent in more casual listening.

what value listening tests

Reply #110 –
"I think your basic premise here is flawed. Listening to music isn't necessarily a purely passive or subconscious process. There are different modes of listening to music both passive/emotional and active/analytical. "

I started reading this thread in the middle, well actually I read the intial post and then skipped all the way to the Sean Olive post, because I recognized a sensible audiophile when I read the post.  Of course listening for sound quality differences is different than listening to music ,for most audiophiles.  As a music collector myself, I know that sound quality can affect music listening if it is unusually good or bad.  But in general, music collectors try to focus on the music -- the stereo is good enough for today. 

A music collector won't tell others that he has to KNOW the musicians playing to decide whether he likes the music.  And if he's comparing a few jazz drummers, such as Joe Morello and Buddy Rich, he's not going to play Buddy Rich loud and Joe Morello at background levels, and then claim Buddy Rich is exciting while Joe Morello is boring. 

My point, and I do have one, is that knowing the band name (or brand name) can influence "subjective evaluations" ... while listening to louder music versus less loud music can influence subjective evaluations too. 

So when the typical audiophile compares audio components knowing the brand names in use, and having the components play music at different volumes, the comparison is biased even if the listener is not. 

Add in the peer pressure among "real" audiophiles to always "hear differences" and it's no wonder half to three-quarters of audiophiles will think they can "hear differences" when comparing a component with itself.

Those audiophiles who hear differences among speakers & rooms are half way to being a smarty pants audiophiles.

Those audiophiles who believe all electronics and wires sound different, but can never demonstrate their claimed listening skills to witnesses, 'because that puts too much pressure on them', know very little about human behavior, and audio.

Audiophiles often do not hear sound quality differences as well as they believe they do.  So what, everyone believes they are above average !  Why should listening skill claims be any different?

 

what value listening tests

Reply #111 –
Quote from: andy o on
Quote from: greynol on
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method. It is a valuable technique, to be sure, but it is not all powerful. It does have limitations - something you seem to be unaware of i would think.
While that might be true, [...]

I don't think that's true at all, I'm always irked when pseudoscientific bullshitters go to this line of argument. As a great philosopher once put it: "It works, bitches". It takes as much faith to "believe" in science as it takes to "believe" that if you throw yourself out a window you'll go down instead of up. Now, a wishy washy relativist might say "But what is really up and down, but human constructs?" To which I would reply why don't you go find out. These arguments about ascribing any kind of faith-based "way of knowing" the same weight as science, by trying to bring down science to its level is really disingenuous, annoying, and even if they don't realize it, everyone that's not Amish knows it deep down.


Andy, thank you. That was one of the most perfect things I've ever read.
And oops, I was intending to make my first post on HA something a little more deep, possibly on the subject (well worn here already, I'm pleased to note) of how much crap (some) subjectivist audiophiles speak. But having gotten sucked in, somehow, to reading through this thread regarding MagneticRabbit's somewhat strange obsession with his own fragile psychological state, I saw your post, and had to reply. Oh well, never mind. I promise to try and make my next post about something constructive :-).

Oh, and MagneticRabbit - I didn't see if you replied to an earlier poster who suggested a fix for your problem with listening tests. They suggested that you get a family member to test you at random, without you knowing on what days or times you were being tested. Surely this shows that you can indeed be tested without realising it? Apologies if you already replied to that one. If not, what say you about that idea? Cheers, Alex.