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Topic: Article: Why We Need Audiophiles (Read 499451 times) previous topic - next topic
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Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #625 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
The widest dynamic range commercial recording I've ever found (and I've been searching for about 10 years) has about 80 dB dynamic range.


I remember you noting this a few months ago in a different thread here. Would you mind sharing which recording (CD?) this was?


Now to blind listening again. I had time to read the Stereophile article about the HE2005 debate.

Quote
Yet the ABX test, consisting of 10 different 60-second musical excerpts that took close to 2.5 hours to get through, failed to reveal statistically significant differences.


No wonder in my opinion. Summed up reason: fatigue => high probability of grading errors => inconclusive results. You need to concentrate the entire time, especially at the beginning of an item because you have no clue as to which stimulus is the original and which the UUT. At Fraunhofer, we try to limit our blind test items to 20 seconds maximum each. I personally am even more strict when conducting blind tests. I try to limit one test session to 7-8 items, 12-15 seconds per item. This way even the slowest listener finishes the session within 30 minutes. Why do I do this? Because it seems to me the test results became more reliable when I started doing this. Moreover, listeners were much more willing to participate because they knew they didn't have to spend "more than an hour listening to boring and annoying music and speech". A motivated listener is better than an unmotivated one. Which is also why we usually offer candy to the participants

If I would have been asked to participate in quoted 2.5-hour test, I would have rejected the "offer". The mentioned, supposedly experienced sound engineer setting up that ABX protocol could have done much better than that.

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #626 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
I did address this question. Perhaps you both missed my posting. There are no "tests," there won't be any scoring. All I am doing is playing level-matched files of various provenances to meetings of audiophiles, including many of my own recordings. I will be using the original hi-rez master files, the Red Book master files, and AACs and MP3s at various bitrates, as well as the specific comparison I mentioned in an earlier posting. The goal, as well as to have a pleasantly entertaining evening, is to allow listeners to hear for themselves if any of the differences are a) audible and b) matter.


In other words a sighted *comparison* with all that's problematic about those. Yes, I think we all 'got' that, even those calling it a 'test'.  IIRC it was also referred to, by you, as educational.  I'd say it could be far more educational if done fairly , while as it stands it could be downright misleading.


I find it disappointing that after all these years, the closest thing I have seen to proper testing of audio codecs in consumer magazines was contained in a trio of articles in Stereo Review's Sound & Vision back in 1999 - 2002.  They even spent the time and money to write their own DBT software.  It seems ironic to me that the online community had to cobble together their own limited resources to get the updated truth of codec quality since then, and that the print magazines continue to ignore these results.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #627 –
Quote from: ff123 on
I find it disappointing that after all these years, the closest thing I have seen to proper testing of audio codecs in consumer magazines was contained in a trio of articles in Stereo Review's Sound & Vision back in 1999 - 2002.  They even spent the time and money to write their own DBT software.  It seems ironic to me that the online community had to cobble together their own limited resources to get the updated truth of codec quality since then, and that the print magazines continue to ignore these results.



Without checking, I'm guessing that was spearheaded by David Ranada, who is sorely missed in audio journalism these days.

Meanwhile the press reports junk 'science' like that Stanford music professor's apparently informal polls showing his students' preference for lossy sound over lossless, as if it meant something.


Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #628 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: krabapple on
maybe some here, reading a thread like THAT, will see how Arny got to be Arny)


That whole thread is unbelievably mild, compared to much of what has been posted on RAO.



Yes, but I'd sincerely hope RAO is never held up as the threshold of awfulness one should not meet or exceed.  HA's should be WELL below that.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #629 –
Quote
I am still wondering why no one asks the Gizmodo guy that paid the visit to Fremer, to do an ABX test to prove his claim that his MP3 sounded like shit in comparison with Fremer's vinyl.
    It would be easy to "prove" a difference with ABX.  They were comparing two different versions of "Heroes".  The vinyl version had a German chorus and audible hiss, pop and crackle.  That German chorus is a dead giveaway! 

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #630 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
I am sorry, but I still don't see the lack of logic.


Interesting, because John you have laid out my argument for me, point by point.

You didn't need to because the following is also the short version of relevant points from my post of 18:26, today:

Quote
As I wrote, either the original blind test was flawed...


Very likely. I don't know of any audio equipment DBTs done in 1978 that weren't flawed by modern standards.

Quote
or the non-audio aspects of perception did not dominate actual sound quality in the long term.


Also very likely.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #631 –
Quote from: Bjorn on
I am still wondering why no one asks the Gizmodo guy that paid the visit to Fremer, to do an ABX test to prove his claim that his MP3 sounded like shit in comparison with Fremer's vinyl.


It very probably was just a level mismatch. When I hook up an iPod (< -10db) to my amp after listening to my +4db CD player it initially sounds like shit, either. You have to turn up the volume very far to compensate. But then the impression that it sounds like shit will already have burned itself into your memory. Your brain just works like that. Your ears' sensitivity to specific frequencies shifts with volume.

Fremer's phonograph would probably be very easy to ABX against any digital device, anyway, because of its audible hiss.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #632 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: krabapple on
maybe some here, reading a thread like THAT, will see how Arny got to be Arny)


That whole thread is unbelievably mild, compared to much of what has been posted on RAO.



Yes, but I'd sincerely hope RAO is never held up as the threshold of awfulness one should not meet or exceed.  HA's should be WELL below that.


Of course, and despite the firestorm of yesterday, it still is.

The point is that you told people to look at how bad things were in RAO, and your example was about a 1 on a scale of 10.

I'm beginning to think that Atkinson has no clue that if someone starts arguing with him on RAO, they have from 5 to 10 Atkinson supporters also buzzing in their ear with joyous  little spiels about what an idiot you are, what a w**** your wife is, how you have s** with your kids, and how you sod***** the kids on the block, how they are going to call the police on you, etc.  It's all ludicrous and in its way it is part of the RAO game like harassing the batter in baseball. But, it takes its toll, no matter how small. And Atkinson still gets his due, regardless. But these people have nothing to do but to have fun trying, and maybe get a free lunch with drinks from Atkinson at the next CES.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #633 –
Quote from: DVDdoug on
Quote
I am still wondering why no one asks the Gizmodo guy that paid the visit to Fremer, to do an ABX test to prove his claim that his MP3 sounded like shit in comparison with Fremer's vinyl.
    It would be easy to "prove" a difference with ABX.  They were comparing two different versions of "Heroes".  The vinyl version had a German chorus and audible hiss, pop and crackle.  That German chorus is a dead giveaway! 


The principle that is in operation here is that once people have a positive identification of the formats that are playing, all of their prejudices come into play just like a sighted test.

And there's no need to focus on just the hiss and tics and pops in vinyl. I've repeatedly sucessfuly ABXed CD rips versus LP needle drops even when the samples were perfectly time-synched, the noise levels were generally comparable, there were no tics and pops, and the frequency respoonse was matched within a dB or so over most of the audible range. The processing was done by a vinyl advocate, and I didn't even know what A or B were before listening to them.

But I got 16 out of 16 plus the identification right.

Once you know what you're listening to by whatever means, all the memories and prejudices that you have built up over the years are automatically assigned to the media you are listening to. It may be possible to overcome, but obviously not for everybody, and certainly not for someone who does not believe that they have all this to overcome.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #634 –
Quote from: C.R.Helmrich on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
The widest dynamic range commercial recording I've ever found (and I've been searching for about 10 years) has about 80 dB dynamic range.


I remember you noting this a few months ago in a different thread here. Would you mind sharing which recording (CD?) this was?



If memory serves:

Bis label (Swedish)
Beethoven Symphonies
Minneapolis Symphony
Dual layer SACD/CD

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #635 –
Quote from: C.R.Helmrich on
Now to blind listening again. I had time to read the Stereophile article about the HE2005 debate.

Quote
Yet the ABX test, consisting of 10 different 60-second musical excerpts that took close to 2.5 hours to get through, failed to reveal statistically significant differences.


No wonder in my opinion. Summed up reason: fatigue => high probability of grading errors => inconclusive results. You need to concentrate the entire time, especially at the beginning of an item because you have no clue as to which stimulus is the original and which the UUT. At Fraunhofer, we try to limit our blind test items to 20 seconds maximum each. I personally am even more strict when conducting blind tests. I try to limit one test session to 7-8 items, 12-15 seconds per item. This way even the slowest listener finishes the session within 30 minutes. Why do I do this? Because it seems to me the test results became more reliable when I started doing this. Moreover, listeners were much more willing to participate because they knew they didn't have to spend "more than an hour listening to boring and annoying music and speech". A motivated listener is better than an unmotivated one. Which is also why we usually offer candy to the participants

If I would have been asked to participate in quoted 2.5-hour test, I would have rejected the "offer". The mentioned, supposedly experienced sound engineer setting up that ABX protocol could have done much better than that.


One other factor. Some of the books I've read about hearing perception suggest that our memory for actual sound is on the order of 5-20 seconds. After that, all we remember about the music are abstractions like the tune, the beat, the words, etc.

This immediate kind of memory for hearing is similar to the so-called photographic memory which people have to varying degrees. For me the photograph is pretty well shot after a few seconds, but my second son can still see it well enough maybe a day later.  It hurt him in school until he disciplined himself to not use it. The alternative was to actually learn the information instead of remembering the photograph.

The point being that if the samples are 60 seconds long, most people will forget most of the details by the next time the music comes around.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #636 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
It is quite possible that in a subsequent blind test, the same null result would emerge. But how would that address my very real dissatisfaction with the amplifier? And remember also that I used the Quad for a long time before recognizing the cognitive dissonance between what I was expecting to hear and what I was actually hearing.

I must say, I'm quite impressed at how well you are able to move from amusing personal anecdote to objective sound quality claim. It is no wonder you've managed to guide so many readers along with you, even as the newspaper and magazine industries suffer. 
I, however, don't buy it.
You're basically putting me in an impossible position with this anecdote, because I have to psychoanalyze what you were thinking so many years ago. Furthermore, I'm only privy of the facts of the story as you describe them. However, the obvious point is this: there's so many factors that go into our purchasing decisions beyond sound quality it's extremely difficult to figure out where your dissatisfaction stems from. We can however rule out (on the basis of your ABX test) that it was not sound quality. In a consumerist culture (especially when it comes to hobby purchases), generally speaking, we try to use our "stuff" to define us. Let's assume that this amp apparently did a poor enough job of defining you, and you made the subconsciously biased decision to believe that it's sound quality was sub-par, perhaps in an effort to justify trying a new amp. That decision on your part would absolutely nothing to do with the actual sound quality of the unit. I'm certain that if you had repeated your ABX test, you'd have affirmed this.

So then let me recommend a third option to your false dichotomy:
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote
So yeah, it really makes you look completely illogical. The fact that you're willing to hang your hat ("so be it") on such a fallacy does even moreso.


I am sorry, but I still don't see the lack of logic. As I wrote, either the original blind test was flawed[...] or the non-audio aspects of perception did not dominate actual sound quality in the long term
or the non-audio aspects of product satisfaction (which ABX is designed to remove, and did so effectively) dominate actual sound quality in the long term, for you.
The problem with this conclusion is, obviously, that it has been a forgone conclusion in your mind (and ego) that your hobby was completely about the absolute sound quality, and nothing else. So when that becomes evidently false, you trash blind-testing as a scapegoat.


I'm sure it wouldn't bother anyone here if your magazine only subjectively evaluated the things which are subjective, because certainly things like atheistic of a piece of equipment matter to people, you included. Sound quality is just not one of these things, however.
elevatorladylevitateme

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #637 –
We have just recently banged our heads together in another thread, but I must admit that pretty much sums it up for me quite well!

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #638 –
Quote from: Axon on
I more or less agree completely with you, so maybe I'm just confused as to what is being debated. Did Lipshitz really tell Michael that he was a "lucky coin"? Because I think we can all agree that is entirely unsupported from a mere 5-trial test. For Michael to tar "science" with a misinterpretation like that is something of a strawman - assuming, of course, that was what Stanley said in the first place.


It would be good to hear Stanley Lipshitz's side of the story....or Dave Clark's for that matter.

Off the top of my head, in the past couple of years we've had postings to HA from such audio notables as Johnston, Moran, Olive, Fremer, and Atkinson.  What the hell, let's invite Lipshitz and Vanderkooy and Clarke and make it a party.   

(I also read and participate in a pro audio list,  and all I can say is that it is very interesting to see opinions on some of these same matters from gearhead gods like Dan Lavry  et al.  A possible collision of worlds between the technically savvy no-nonsense end of pro audio , and the 'high end' audio journalists , is a scenario that has always intrigued me.)


Quote
Bizarrely, a search for your name on RAO in Google Groups gives me 2480 results, while on RAHE it's 5910. However, it looks like a lot of the RAO results are the result of crosspostings from eg Middius, so a thorough investigation of this will take more time than I am willing to spend on the matter. I do concede that I was ignorant of your avoidance of RAO, but honestly, while RAHE is mucho better, I think my original point still stands. This debate has gone on between you, Arny, John, and a rotating cast of other characters for so long that honestly I might just be prejudiced against large parts of this whole topic, because I just get this incredible sense of deja vu... I'll admit that is an irrational response.


I have never, ever denied, and have in fact noted, that I have been in the online trenches of the 'Great Debate' for years..and years. So your deja foo is unlikely to to be stronger than mine in this instance. ;>

As for RAO posting, you have to consider frequency vs  time span.  Whenever I did post to RAO, it tended to be in brief spurts, and as you have seen I tend to answer all comers,so the posts pile up quickly, then stop for a long interval.  Whatever number turns out to be accurate, I guarantee that RAO constitutes a tiny fraction of my audio-related posting to Usenet; the vast bulk of it is to RAHE.  Within days of first reading it -- this was in the days jj used to still post there -- I considered RAO a toxic dump, and its only gotten worse, and I tell people that.  If JA or Arny are still posting there regularly, I don't get the attraction.  (Stereophile's forum today seems little better than RAO, btw.  Yet years from now the archive will show a burst of posts from me there from last  week.    )

(snip)

Quote
You're right - I pretty much agree with everything you're saying on audio merits. I just don't think how you're saying it is terribly effective. I think this topic and emotion don't mix, it is important to avoid responses that are needlessly inflammatory and don't prove points - and I have already tried to apologize for the things I have said that violate that belief.

Using phrases like "audiophoolery", "shameful", "smokescreen" etc plays well to the peanut gallery, but express a very large degree of emotion that simply does not advance what I think is the goal of this thread, which is to actually debate. And they imply a great amount of maliciousness which I believe cannot be adequately proven.


"Audiophoolery" simply refers to the foolishness of audiophiles.  All humans are foolish and prone to kidding themselves; some make a specialty of being foolish about AUDIO.  It does not refer to any 'malicious' intent, though I can see how you might interpret that if you thought 'fool' was being used as  verb.

As for the other two, 'adequately proven' depends on what you will consider adequate.  The argument then becomes like the arguments of those who wish to prove that there is liberal bias in the media, or its opposite.
How long have you been reading the high end press?

I sez this: From long observation, I consider the journalistic high-end --  a visible face of the hobby in the media -- to be pathologically devoted to the description of the Emperor's clothes -- a stance that I can support with science.  And I consider that *detrimental* to the hobby.  I don't care a fig if they are sincere in their belief rather than 'malicious'; plenty of pernicious beliefs are sincerely held (see: creationism). 

Quote
I'm very comfortable with the assertiveness in saying one of JA's articles lacks "any technical validity". I'm not comfortable with calling that shameful.


Who is talking about just *one of JA's articles*?  What does it mean to persist in editing a magazine discussing arcane technical details yet lacking technical validity in some fundamental ways, when one either *should* or *does* know better?  Not just that, but to also repeatedly go on the attack against DBT, from that pulpit?

JA was trained in physics, so he has some grounding in experimental method.  From his years in the trenches, he's *certainly* heard the arguments pro DBT.  He counts JJ among his friends.  He cannot possibly fail to understand at this point, why sighted reviewing is a massive fail from the scientific POV.  If he ran a TAS-like operation, where they don't even make a pretense of objectivity,  it would be shameful enough; that his magazine picks and chooses from the science it wishes to acknowledge, lending an unearned veneer of authority,  seems to me somehow worse.    No amount of English charm and politesse obscures what,  to me, seems an underlying wiliness in the way this is finessed when JA is challenged about it.  (Perhaps because I married a Brit!)

Quote
That said, I've reread your posts and I caught a lot of important points which I had not caught the first time around. Maybe I am being irrational about this, and I'm just numbed. I dunno. But I will say that very little of what JA has said strikes me as being malicious or unintelligent - although it does still strike me as being largely wrong. And I'm seeing too much focus on the former....


I try to choose particular words carefully, for a reason.  But I understand totally if every pearl of wisdom is not gleaned.  (In other words, I skim posts a lot , too.    )


Quote
But it's always nice to see where people show their true colors by posting on their home forums. Nice tell.


It's an interesting thread as RAO threads go,  because there are perhaps more than the usual number of 'voices of reason' there than I remember from before, as well as the vicious nuts that condemn the place to a circle of hell for me.  (It doesn't compare to J Vigne's meltdown over one of YOUR  posts on the STereophile forum last week!)

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #639 –
Quote from: C.R.Helmrich on
Quote
Yet the ABX test, consisting of 10 different 60-second musical excerpts that took close to 2.5 hours to get through, failed to reveal statistically significant differences.


No wonder in my opinion. Summed up reason: fatigue => high probability of grading errors => inconclusive results. You need to concentrate the entire time, especially at the beginning of an item because you have no clue as to which stimulus is the original and which the UUT. At Fraunhofer, we try to limit our blind test items to 20 seconds maximum each. I personally am even more strict when conducting blind tests. I try to limit one test session to 7-8 items, 12-15 seconds per item. This way even the slowest listener finishes the session within 30 minutes. Why do I do this? Because it seems to me the test results became more reliable when I started doing this. Moreover, listeners were much more willing to participate because they knew they didn't have to spend "more than an hour listening to boring and annoying music and speech". A motivated listener is better than an unmotivated one. Which is also why we usually offer candy to the participants



Were there no rest periods  or candy) included in the 2.5 hour session?  And did it take 2.5 hours because, I suspect, the listeners kept asking to hear the samples repeated?  Which would suggest  a certain high level of motivation?


Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #640 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
I can't put it much more strongly - if this kind of debate and style spreads much further in HA, it'll kill it. Please take it back to Usenet.


I can not second this with more emotion.
Earlier (what seems like months) in this thread I issued a blanket complaint as to the tone of this conversation and the disservice it was causing in my opinion.
I say a blanket complaint, as I called nobody out by name in an attempt to prevent defenses being raised and continued poor behavior.
Now the skin wears thin I am more than willing to say it is your style, Arnold, which appears the worst.  The personal attacks are simply off the hook and rather childish.  You do yourself a disservice.
Creature of habit.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #641 –
Quote from: Bjorn on
I am still wondering why no one asks the Gizmodo guy that paid the visit to Fremer, to do an ABX test to prove his claim that his MP3 sounded like shit in comparison with Fremer's vinyl.

After all, he said it, not Fremer ...


The detail I was actually wondering about that wasn't mentioned in the article was whether the iPod signal was going out through the docking port or through the headphone jack.  I actually considered asking that question, but deemed it too nerdy.  Then again I'm posting on a fairly tech intensive site with a friggin' Yes avatar so "nerdy" is pretty much par for the course.


Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #642 –
Quote from: Frumious B on
The detail I was actually wondering about that wasn't mentioned in the article was whether the iPod signal was going out through the docking port or through the headphone jack.  I actually considered asking that question, but deemed it too nerdy.  Then again I'm posting on a fairly tech intensive site with a friggin' Yes avatar so "nerdy" is pretty much par for the course.


Well if you ask me, that's a valid question, as I said, after all it was his experience that was expressed in the article.

Then again, had you asked that question, nerdy factors considered, you could have been in a tricky position to provide ABX proof that the difference you attribute to using the headphone out jack as a line out, is not the fruit of your wild imagination ... 

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #643 –
Quote from: pdq on
In fairness to Mr. Atkinson, if he were to recommend the use of MP3 then he would become the target of everyone who ever made or downloaded a lousy MP3 file (and who hasn't) as well as all of those who aren't even willing to consider MP3's use on a philosophical basis. Recommending against its use is a safe position because it avoids all of the caveats that must otherwise be applied. He then becomes the target of MP3 advocates, which he can live with.

I do not, however, in any way condone the way in which he justified not recommending lossy encoding. His article with all of its useless and misleading spectral plots is absolutely shameful.


I certainly wouldn't expect the cat to wholeheartedly embrace mp3 as the sonic format he has waited his whole life to love and adore or anything like that, but there's no reason in the world that the technology can't be treated as just another extremely useful tool in a music lover's arsenal.  I think it's entirely possible that lossy compression is just transitional technology anyway.  I'd expect that lossless compression will continue to improve while download speeds and drive capacity continue to increase.  Eventually they will meet up in the middle and, at that point, lossy compression will start to fall by the wayside.  I do believe that the days of physical media, pretty much all of it, are numbered. 

All I would ask would be some balanced, sober and nuanced analysis without the Fox News style scaremongering.  I mean, c'mon, that pixelated Sgt. Pepper pic is a little ridiculous and obviously designed to stoke that kind of irrational "Those damned kids with their mp3s are destroying real music!" attitude that audiophiles of the baby boom generation seem to be predisposed towards anyway.  I'm 37 and I listen to most of my music as lossy.  Do I get lumped in with "those damned kids" too?  Is an honest to Jebus CD playing through, say, a cheap CD boombox from the local Value Village really better for so called "serious listening" than an iPod playing AAC at a bitrate high enough to be transparent to the listener through nice headphones?

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #644 –
Quote from: Bjorn on
Then again, had you asked that question, nerdy factors considered, you could have been in a tricky position to provide ABX proof that the difference you attribute to using the headphone out jack as a line out, is not the fruit of your wild imagination ... 


I actually find it listenable either way.  I might not be able to ABX it if they were matched up right.  It's just that if I go out through the headphone jack I have to set the volume level just so or the sound clips like Floyd The Barber on meth.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #645 –
Quote from: Bjorn on
I am still wondering why no one asks the Gizmodo guy that paid the visit to Fremer, to do an ABX test to prove his claim that his MP3 sounded like shit in comparison with Fremer's vinyl.

Quote from: Ron Jones on
Because he (John Mahoney) isn't here?

Yeah, that, and actually I'm sure it had been asked in the long threads there. I myself on another article from that "listening test" week, questioned their "source" (a guy from audiojunkies.com) about his wild claims, only one of which was that speaker cables have a break-in period. The people who make such claims just don't care to back them up with any evidence, or even just a mildly rational-sounding argument. Nope. Nothing.

I'm actually surprised that Mr. Atkinson here is engaging with you guys. I guess props to him, but I don't think he'll change his mind any time soon. For these guys (especially audio "journalists" like Fremer and the audiojunkies guy) too much is at stake if they admit they're fundamentally wrong. Just the opposite of real science (a.k.a. intellectually honest probing of reality), actually.

I rather liked a lot the quoted interview of one of Stereohile's old founders. That was amusing. I like the guy.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #646 –
Quote
It seems ironic to me that the online community had to cobble together their own limited resources to get the updated truth of codec quality since then, and that the print magazines continue to ignore these results.


Exactly, 1 billion iTunes tracks have been sold, so it is not like these files are rare - they are in wide circulation, a new format-medium and to have a blanket statement that all lossy codecs should be disregarded does not do justice to that % of the population.

Audio magazines are part financed by advertisers, a magazine is hardly going to discredit a $1000 mains cable which is advertised within (do not bite the hand which feeds).

Stereophile seems at least to have taken the position that lossless codecs are identical to uncompressed audio, which cannot be said for other publications, although is a little odd they recommend WAV / AIFF with their related tagging issues and both formats are not able to self detect errors (from HDD corruption).
 

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #647 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
One other factor. Some of the books I've read about hearing perception suggest that our memory for actual sound is on the order of 5-20 seconds. After that, all we remember about the music are abstractions like the tune, the beat, the words, etc.

Could this be the crux of the matter? Listening to music is an emotional experience. Listening for differences in a short extract is not. Differences evident in one "mode" may not be evident in the other

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #648 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Doesn't SMPTE RP 200 set the peak at 103dB SPL?

So 100dB down is 3dB SPL.

If some piece of equipment in the chain generates a whining noise at 3kHz, at a level which comes out at 3dB SPL, it meets your -100dB rule, yet has an audible fault.
Where in the real everyday world do you propose to do your listening test to show conformance with TOS 8? ;-)
You snipped my next line about there being a bucket load of caveats! You then wrote some of them. I agree with them all.

However, there are clearly some rooms somewhere where the human hearing threshold was measured at this low level - because we have the measurements! So it's not an impossibility. And here, the -100dB rule is broken.

Take the wheels of your goalposts  Either it's a rule that works, or it isn't. If it's a rule that works "most of the time, for all normal listening", say so.


Now, specifics...

Quote
If memory serves JJ had a SOTA listening room at the old AT&T labs. Immensely expensive.  Its noise level level was something north of NC10, maybe NC15. 

According to http://www.acousticalsolutions.com/educati...se_Criteria.pdf  NC 15 sets the room tone at 3 KHz about 13 dB SPL. Good chance that noise will be masked, I'd say.
Giving a dB (SPL) value for a pure tone is straight forward. dB (SPL) values for noise are less so - deriving the actual spectrum level requires further data, not given in that link. It may be that what is shown is the spectrum level, but it doesn't say so. Don't assume - the vast majority of people never quote the spectrum level.

Here's an example of how misleading noise levels, quoted in dB, can be: People talk about hearing "through the noise" in dithered digital audio - e.g. "the noise is at -90dB but I can hear a tone at -100dB clearly" - true, but misleading. It implies the ear is magic, but it isn't at all. If you look at the spectrum level of the noise, rather than it's total RMS power, you'll see that it's far lower than the tone. The ear isn't magic, it's just hearing what any good spectrum analyser will show. The RMS numbers are simply misleading. In this case, the spectrum level of the noise is actually -133dB; no wonder a -100dB tone is audible!

Cheers,
David.

Article: Why We Need Audiophiles

Reply #649 –
While I am very wary of sighted listening tests, I want to share two anecdotes...

1. I've been involved in a sighted listening test (reported previously), and the most striking thing was that, even when they knew full well what they should be hearing and fully expected to hear it, most listeners reported (and were obviously quite surprised to report) that they couldn't hear any difference at all.

2. I'm always staggered by how different the same system with the same content can sound on different days. You know nothing has changed in the audio itself, but it still sounds different, due to mood / attitude etc etc!



Different subject: way back in the thread, there was a debate about whether early CDs were "good" or "bad" compared with what we have now. The answer is both: early releases of then "current" material were often stunning, while current releases of current material are usually squashed to death. However, early release of archive material were often atrocious, while subsequent releases of archive material at least use decent master tapes etc.

Like many people, I don't have a vinyl / early CD / late CD preference over all - but where there are significant mastering differences, I do try to track down whichever version sounds best. That's why I have a ("good") turntable - I bought it to hear The Beatles properly - though with so many people doing needledrops these days, it's probably redundant.

Cheers,
David.