As a long-time reader of Audio and Stereo Review, I was staunchly grounded in the laws of measurement, and by extension, the mantra that equal measurements yielded equal sound.

Over the course of a few weeks, I went back and forth between the receiver and the tubes because the analytical side of my brain simply would not accept what the creative side was hearing.  It was the conundrum of ‘same-difference’ and I was at war in my own mind.  Was Easter Sunday about eggs, or was I believing in something else?

Since that time, I have come to appreciate hearing in 3D, instruments occupying their own space, positions and depth within the soundstage, transparency, nuances of the warmth of tubes and that difference I couldn’t describe back then:  ‘timber truth’.  Yes, the receiver reproduced music extremely well, and yes, I enjoyed it tremendously; but, in critical listening, the tubes added a visceral ‘sense’ of the timber of instruments in space.  My mother and her friends, all opera singers, heard these differences, especially in the human voice, without a clue about the technology, which I found very evidential.  Those ‘Stereophile words’ used to describe ‘sound’ were now their words, taking on the life and vibrancy of Chaucer in the language of their reality and what they heard.

I now view the notion of 'hearing' differences in components analogous to string theory.  There are dimensions that await measurement and tools that await development to measure what audiophiles hear that others cannot - or will not.  For them, the pragmatic side of the brain dominates, Easter is about eggs and there was no...but wait!

there is no measurement to determine the subtle nuances in taste differneces of high end wine or well crafted ale.

Technically correct notation yields a technically correct score, but can technical correctness equal the playing of Beethoven, Horowitz, Tatum, Peterson or Rubalcaba?

One of my sons, who is a musician, brings his boys over so they can to revel in the old man’s ‘tubes and ribbons’.  The Foo Fighers record in analog and tubes.

Oh carp somebody just went Deepak Chopra on us. You forgot to use quantum entanglement. Or maybe string theory just sounds like a better choice for a totally irrelevant analogy of esoteric scientific-sounding mumbo jumbo?

Here is an appropriate visual representation of lossy compression artifacts.

The first is a high resolution lossless 24 bit image of 11,2 MB size.
The second is an example of perceptual lossy compression by which its size could be reduced to 2 MB.

Bitmap
JPEG

Except that I didn't speak, and told the guy in advance why I was staying silent for the duration of each test. I wrote 'A', 'B' and '?' on three pieces of paper. I just held up one at a time.

Yes, the pseudo-drugs which actually are either harmful in themselves or keeping people from trying useful medications are indeed a problem. However, your argument ignores those non-scientific remedies which are effective either through the placebo effect or are themselves medicinally effective even despite any scientific endorsement. For instance, just how many people still believe that chicken soup is an effective treatment for the common cold?

I can't tell those apart.  Your pictures must be rigged.

Quote from: andy o on 2009-05-04 05:36:08

Oh carp somebody just went Deepak Chopra on us. You forgot to use quantum entanglement. Or maybe string theory just sounds like a better choice for a totally irrelevant analogy of esoteric scientific-sounding mumbo jumbo?

Hehheh, well Deepak Chopra isn't so bad, I actually tend to go for that sort of thing. Of course, "how to live your life" is in a different building than "how good is this piece of equipment?"

There's some vinyl rips from Michael Fremer available here, so it's possible to get at least some insight into the sound out of his phono preamp.  The downloads are the two "Step Right Up" AIFF files.  I'm not taking sides here, just mentioning this as an FYI.

BTW, I tried these in Foobar and they didn't work, but I don't know why.  Winamp plays them okay though.

Deepak Chopra is a pseudoscientific fraud.  That's 'not so bad' to you?

There's new age flake/audiofool/homeopathic/psychic friends network "bad" then there's political and religious authoritarian/murderer/criminal/terrorist "bad".

In the last months of her life, baby Gloria Thomas suffered such terrible eczema her skin would weep and peel, sticking to her clothing when she was changed. Despite her bleeding, crying and malnutrition, her mother and homeopath father failed to get conventional medical help before she died a painful death, a Sydney jury has been told.

Quote from: andy_c on 2009-05-04 01:01:32

There's some vinyl rips from Michael Fremer available here, so it's possible to get at least some insight into the sound out of his phono preamp.  The downloads are the two "Step Right Up" AIFF files.  I'm not taking sides here, just mentioning this as an FYI.

BTW, I tried these in Foobar and they didn't work, but I don't know why.  Winamp plays them okay though.

What should we compare them to?

So while it is reasonable to be skeptical of the results of sighted listening, because their propensity for producing false positives, I feel one should also be skeptical of blind test results because of the possibility of false negatives. In the example of a recent poster to this thread who felt he could hear the difference between lossy and lossless compressed files until he took a DBT, and who now rips using the VBR LAME codec, if that had been me I would stuck with lossless, at least for the primary rips. What happens when he eventually learns to hear that artefact of which he had been previously been oblivious or which had not been unmasked by the program used for the DBT? Is he really going to rip all his CDs for a second time?

JA will just continue to dodge this issue by telling us that for his intended audience lossless is the correct and only answer (although even that is inferior to analog). The audience that you are referring to doesn't exists in his universe.

Quote from: Stereoeditor on 2009-05-02 19:08:29

So while it is reasonable to be skeptical of the results of sighted listening, because their propensity for producing false positives, I feel one should also be skeptical of blind test results because of the possibility of false negatives. In the example of a recent poster to this thread who felt he could hear the difference between lossy and lossless compressed files until he took a DBT, and who now rips using the VBR LAME codec, if that had been me I would stuck with lossless, at least for the primary rips. What happens when he eventually learns to hear that artefact of which he had been previously been oblivious or which had not been unmasked by the program used for the DBT? Is he really going to rip all his CDs for a second time?

No.  Since I was following the advice of more knowledgeable folks who had done this all before, I have a lossless archive stored on an external disk.

If I start to recognize artifacts, I simply spend an afternoon finding a level that is transparent to me and re-encoding my lossless files.  Switching codecs or bitrates couldn't be easier.

People are using lossy files, and without proper education they can end up using them in a way that harms sound quality, or convenience.  As a high profile person in a position to educate folks in how to correctly use these tools, you really should educate yourself in how to use them properly, and then educate your readers in how to do the same.

Regardless of whether or not you believe that lossy files are for 'serious' listening or not, their convenience should far outweigh any percieved sound quality problems for portable use.

Quote from: Stereoeditor on 2009-05-04 01:43:02

It's a not  a "trick," merely a reflection of the reality that with so many asking questions of me in this thread and some even playing "gotcha," such as implying I have hearing damage, I don't have the time to respond to all the posts.

Wow.  I was in no way implying that you have hearing damage, rather to gauge whether you have a measurable advantage in distinguishing hi-res from CDDA or lossy from lossless.  Based on what you said, it doesn't seem like you do.

Ah. Another 4/4 result   

This one with the added feature of near-instantaneous identification of very high bitrate lossy fiels made with the presumably good AAC codec. 

This raises all kinds of flags.

My suggesting: set the friend/client up with a computer or laptop that has a good soundcard (onboard or outboard).  Then he can do his own ABX tests using WinABX or foobar, while running the sound to his 'audiophile' rig.  If it turns out he can do ABX  the MP3s Gag made, then have him makes some with LAME or AAC on his own, and try to ABX those.

The hardware used in ABX tests conducted at HA is considered to be of such low priority as to be mentioned in passing.

This presumes a ceteris paribus clause that we may have no right to presume.

Can we robustly say that the results of an ABX test conducted on - for example - a pair of Cerwin Vega VE-5M loudspeakers will tally with the same ABX test conducted through a pair of Genelec 1036A loudspeakers built into the large control room of a studio, or a pair of Magico M5 loudspeakers in the listening room of an audiophile?

Granted, we can say that ABX tests tally across a wide range of systems, because of the large number of systems used to run ABX tests, but if few of those systems were capable of the performance of the studio and audiophile ones listed above, the 'wide range of systems' remains skewed.

I'd like to see a test conducted with the all the scientific robustness we demand of codec investigations applied to the equipment used to evaluate those investigations. Not to debunk, but to see if there is any level of resolving power extant in these high-end and studio-based systems that is unavailable to more prosaic equipment. So far, it appears that the answer is self-evident (but diametrically opposed) on both sides, but I'm not sure what this is based upon. Published blind listening tests of audio equipment seem to be all based on amplifiers that no longer exist except on eBay. Surely someone can do better than that?

The problem here is that both sides concentrate on individual components

Quote from: Stereoeditor on 2009-05-04 01:28:23

Quote from: Frumious B on 2009-05-03 14:14:48

Since you're the Editor, Big Cheese, Big Kahuna, Head Honcho, etc. that picture was either your own idea or you approved it.  Otherwise it wouldn't be there.  Since the appearance of that image is not remotely analogous to the way that the music of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band actually sounds when presented in mp3 or aac even at the lowly and much maligned 128kbps CBR bitrate and since you are obviously knowledgeable and intelligent enough to be fully aware that your image choice isn't analogous then the only possible conclusion is that the image in question represents a deliberate attempt to mislead and misinform.

With all due respect, you are taking this _way_ too seriously.

Could you elaborate why as regards content? He seems to be correct with slightly exaggerated tone.

Stereophile's misleading illustration indeed either indicates missing in-house knowledge about lossy compression or the intend to malign. And its not just about one silly picture, but seems to be just a building brick of a larger agenda: Stone age encoders, low bitrates, avoidance of DBTs (which are very easy to do for lossy vs. lossless through Foobar), etc.

Many posts about the whole complex were very convincing, much more at least than your cherry picking. You are very convincing about proving that you are a very sophisticated rhetorician.

But we did know that much from Stereophile already.

Quote from: Frumious B on 2009-05-04 11:27:44

There's new age flake/audiofool/homeopathic/psychic friends network "bad" then there's political and religious authoritarian/murderer/criminal/terrorist "bad".

Those two types of "bad" aren't necessarily distinct. The first can become the latter. For example:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25428078-29277,00.html

Quote from: pdq on 2009-05-04 14:08:59

JA will just continue to dodge this issue by telling us that for his intended audience lossless is the correct and only answer (although even that is inferior to analog). The audience that you are referring to doesn't exists in his universe.

Judging by the venom on the Stereophile forum, he may have a point, albeit not one with any rooting in either science or engineering.

I now view the notion of 'hearing' differences in components analogous to string theory.  There are dimensions that await measurement and tools that await development to measure what audiophiles hear that others cannot - or will not.

[...]Listen. I mean that from the knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence, rather than the unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Any Maccy solutions to the above would be gratefully received.