On the subject of whether this thread has show HA in a good light or not, I'm definitely of the opinion that it hasn't. I also believe personal insults lower the quality of debate - assuming members are interested in debate. In fact I'd go further and say they should be outlawed by TOS.

When people are attacked they either fight back or run away. I don't see how either can be seen as constructive. Also when under attack it's dificult to remain focussed on the debate in hand so I think it also dilutes the quality of people's contributions. If we removed the insults and retaliations from this thread it would be smaller, easier to follow and consequently much more helpful to an outsider or neutral. Then, there are no doubt people who are frightened to contribute at all in case they draw ridicule or insults. I think there's a real danger that you end up with what effectively becomes a private club for like-minded people. Of course, if that's what HA members want, that's fine. I'd rather see an atmosphere of openness and moderators tepping in as soon as it gets personal.

Quote from: krabapple on 2009-04-16 16:16:10

Sad to read how many commenters there thought it was a 'great article' and 'real in-depth journalism'.
   


Nice to see a few skeptics, though.

I couldn't even read through the whole article, much less all the comments.  It's frustrating how much misinformation is out there.  I'm a frequent visitor to Gizmodo, but all this week has been devoted to "audio" and really, you should see some of the atrocious things they've talked about.

Quote from: 2Bdecided on 2009-04-16 16:44:29

So it's typical journalistic sloppiness, and probably getting carried away in the moment.

And let's face it - we do need people wanting better quality than can be heard on 99% of pop releases in the 21st century. Does anyone think CDs (as actually sold, rather than as theoretically possible) sound that good in the pop world in 2009?

Good point.  Fremer's still a douche, though.

IIRC (and I may not) in his 'real life' Fremer was/is a psychiatrist, and in in NYC that can pay pretty well.

Do you think Fremer really gets into the music with his "$350,000 system", or does he dwell on what can be tweaked or repositioned or even replaced/upgraded. You can't really enjoy the music if you are constantly critiqing the equipment it is playing on. It's a hard habit to break.

Quote from: Ron Jones on 2009-04-16 17:04:41

I've come to a very definitive conclusion regarding my ears' abilities to resolve sonic information: there's a finite limit. Investing $350,000 in an ultra-high-end stereo isn't going to suddenly grant my ears the ability to hear atoms bonding or to be able to resolve the sound of a mosquito sucking blood from an elephant in Zimbabwe.

Indeed. Fremer's pricey system didn't restore his ability to hear the LP hiss that the reporter heard.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-04-21 12:54:58

If you want to worry about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I've got nothing for you.

Read the rest of my post, please. I never said anything about "worrying" about any signal undergoing these processes. Anyone who would have actually read the entire post would have known that.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-04-21 12:54:58

You obviously have no compelling clue about the practicalities of doing real world audio, while right now that is very much of my life.

This feels like a pretty blatant personal attack. This is entirely unwarranted, unnecessary and unappreciated (not to mention completely baseless). I've never even so much as attempted to attack you or anything that you may or may not hold dear, so I don't understand where the animosity is coming from. We don't even seem to have any differing opinions, for Christ's sake!

If you want me to clarify anything that I've said, I'd be happy to do that. I feel I've been clear, but I'm either A) wrong or B) being deliberately misinterpreted. The former I can understand. The latter I most certainly cannot -- especially here of all places.

Quote from: pdq on 2009-04-16 16:54:26

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-04-16 16:32:19

My first question is who paid $350,000 for the equipment Fremer uses?  It is worth that today?  Is he a trust-fund baby? Does he get paid that much by Stereopihile? Or, has Fremer fanned the flames of Fremer-celebrity or possbily Fremer-fear so well that enough high end audio dealers and/or manufacters have been cowed into giving or loaning him most if not all of that equipment?

It's not that hard for the manufacturers of "$350,000 worth" of audio equipment to donate it to Fremer, because the actual manufacturing cost was probably only a few thousand, if that.

You are a very foolish person. And irresponsible as well.

-Michael Fremer

But good systems with excellently matched speakers (with excellent time and frequency domain responses) do "image" spectacularly better than lower quality stuff. The front/back depth of the sound stage is increased, the location of (say) the singer is focussed more tightly etc etc. You can also put the speakers further apart before the sound stage falls apart. It's not what the record producer intended (usually), but it's very impressive. Stereo is supposed to work with 60 degree speaker angle. I've heard it work stunningly well with 110 speaker angle - but only with very good speakers.

The photographs of that particular listening room are not impressive unless they misrepresent the reality - from what it looks like, I'd want the speakers much further away from the walls, and from everything else. The kind of early reflections I'd expect in that room would seriously damage the magical 3-d sound stage that's claimed to exist.

Cheers,
David.

Then he goes for the personal attack.

You are a very foolish person. And irresponsible as well.

I am not a psychiatrist. But people who spend their time counting other people's money can probably use one.

You are beyond crabby but I really enjoy having pushed your buttons so you can throw your little hissy fit and prove that you are incapable of having a discussion without hurling insults and personal attacks. I hope you enjoyed showing that beneath the thin veneer of "objectivity" and "rationality" is a nasty, angry, emotional child.

If you're into objective measurements, my room measures quite well thank you. Those photos don't really let you know what's going on. You might want the speakers further from the walls, but the measurements tell a somewhat different story as does the sound. The first reflection is very well taken care of...your "expectations" would be dashed. There's something incredibly condescending about your post...that you'd think that someone with 30 years of doing this wouldn't know how to deal with a first reflection. I mean really....

Quote from: analogcorner on 2009-04-24 19:45:51

Quote from: pdq on 2009-04-16 16:54:26

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-04-16 16:32:19

My first question is who paid $350,000 for the equipment Fremer uses?  It is worth that today?  Is he a trust-fund baby? Does he get paid that much by Stereopihile? Or, has Fremer fanned the flames of Fremer-celebrity or possbily Fremer-fear so well that enough high end audio dealers and/or manufacters have been cowed into giving or loaning him most if not all of that equipment?

It's not that hard for the manufacturers of "$350,000 worth" of audio equipment to donate it to Fremer, because the actual manufacturing cost was probably only a few thousand, if that.

You are a very foolish person. And irresponsible as well.

-Michael Fremer

You are quite right. I was guilty of using hyperbole.

What I should have said is that in a business where sales volume is very small (and I doubt that $150,000 turntables are sold in the tens of thousands) a high percentage of the sales price of the product goes to support the R&D effort to develop it. The manufacturing cost in this case is a relatively smaller percentage.

The result is that if the manufacturer wanted to, they could sell one or two units at much nearer the actual manufacturing cost, far below the list price. Obviously they don't want to do this generally, but to put it into the hands of someone who has a wide audience and can generate many potential sales, this is a smart thing to do.

So do I believe that they still made money selling you a unit for just over half of the list price? You bet I do.

OTOH I could just be blowing smoke. 

P.S. Thank you for taking the time to add your side to this discussion. Sometimes we forget that we are probably not getting both sides.

Quote from: analogcorner on 2009-04-24 20:35:52

If you're into objective measurements, my room measures quite well thank you. Those photos don't really let you know what's going on. You might want the speakers further from the walls, but the measurements tell a somewhat different story as does the sound. The first reflection is very well taken care of...your "expectations" would be dashed. There's something incredibly condescending about your post...that you'd think that someone with 30 years of doing this wouldn't know how to deal with a first reflection. I mean really....

Eh, what can I say, your reputation precedes you. A lot of engineers here (myself included) believe you are very wrong about several aspects of audio engineering. 30 years experience doesn't matter when you are wrong. So please forgive us when we put the "ass" in "assume", and I at least to be gracious about our misconstructions about what I already agree with you on. (And vice versa!)

Arnie Krueger is a liar.

I have never behaved as described below.

I have never had to be forcibly restrained by anyone for anything. In my entire life.

I took the ABX test as devised and produced by the group and I got five of five identifications correct. My editor, John Atkinson got 4 of 5 correct. The average of all test takers was inconclusive. According to Dr. Stanley Lipschitz, I was a "lucky coin" and my result was tossed.

So much for "science."

good afternoon to you too, Michael..

I must commend you on your responses; I had certainly underestimated you on them. Hope you stick around (and that we try to keep this significantly civil).

Your word vs Arny's on the fight, eh? I'm willing to trust your two words equally. Can either of you find somebody to vouch?

If Lipshitz did not let you or John do additional testing in the amp test, I think that's highly unfortunate, and I disagree with that decision. You're totally right in asserting that if a few people can do 4/5 or 5/5 in a test like that, it makes a lot of sense to bring them in for 16 trials to more firmly establish audibility for individual people like yourself. That said, I believe those results can support the idea that, at most, few people can hear such amplifier differences - and this has importance in and of itself, insofar as people's buying decisions are concerned, but perhaps not for stating whether an audible difference universally exists. And if a longer trial test with an individual listener yielded a similarly negative result, I think that would have been further interpretable....

I have mostly good words to say about your assertiveness about the role music (and good sound) can play in one's life when it is accorded attention. And that many people, like said Gizmodo writer, simply dismiss it the whole notion of good sound out of hand. Some people will always conform the music to the environment - the continued popularity of XM/Sirius does not say much about how the average listener cares about SQ. But others really don't know what they are missing with better speakers, better formats/encodes, etc.

That said... people can still get good sound with 192k MP3s. A lot of people here have put a lot of time into making that happen, with well-performed ABX tests. And iPods (some of which are spectacularly hi-fi devices). And even 128k iTunes store downloads. Hell, nowadays 64k HE-AAC sounds great! Some of my most cherished listening moments have occurred with headphone listening of 96k MP3 encodes of decaying cassette playback of obscure English punk-prog bands. And while I wholeheartedly agree that the quality of that is sh*tty, I often take your opinions as meaning that such listening is emotionally inferior to if it had been in any higher quality of an environment - which frankly strikes me as unjustified elitism. Extrapolating this line of reasoning to vinyl (which I'm well invested into btw) is similarly unflattering.

Put another way... I agree that it's important to one's listening experience to pay good attention to one's surroundings and equipment, like such attention supports the positive emotions of any hobby - but for the love of god, what does that have to do with sound quality?

My word vs. Arny's? Why bother.

Mr. Fremer,

your anger about many of this thread's posts is understandable. I am happy to see that you take the possibility to set things straight. Up to now I knew most of your views at second hand. Despite your ire your posts seem sensible and even contain much I would agree to, much in contrast to some of your school's followers in this thread. Still I would never see any sense in preferring sighted over blind testing except convenience and I think you do follow that path. And the latter is not a matter of opinion, but widely accepted and necessary scientific methodology.

[
It is your word against his. Although many people might have a clear bias whom to believe, we don't know for sure. Why don't you prove your point and agree to a public blind test together with ABK? If you think his methods aren't scientific enough, feel free to propose enhancements for public discussion.

I took the ABX test as devised and produced by the group and I got five of five identifications correct. My editor, John Atkinson got 4 of 5 correct.

Still I would never see any sense in preferring sighted over blind testing except convenience and I think you do follow that path. And the latter is not a matter of opinion, but widely accepted and necessary scientific methodology.

My contention is that this kind of back and forth testing is not appropriate to judging audio gear...it's the methodology that was used to develop MP3s, wasn't it? Throw away data do A/B and "prove" nothing audible was lost...but in the end compare the final compressed audio to full resolution and the difference is easily heard....it's a kind of death by tiny slices.

Quote

I'm interested in what the HA community thinks about this new Gizmodo article, or blog, about Michael Fremer, an audio reviewer from Stereophile, which clearly goes completely against the grain around here.

If I had a quarter for every B.S article that Stereophile publishes I would be a rich man. Some of John Atkins articles give me a good laugh. I like it when he tried to compare sound quality with so called "graphs" to make it look like it was half-assed pseudo-scientific. People actually listen to these boneheads though. My friend actually thought monster cables could make a difference in sound quality once. I was appauled and questioned him were that information came from he told me he read it in "some magazine", but couldn't remember the name of it. I just rolled my eyes and told him it was B.S.