Quote from: ajinfla on 2017-12-04 22:56:26

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-04 22:49:16

you don't need a listening test

I do. It's critical actually.

Well, I don't. I buy equipment with specs that are good enough to guarantee audio fidelity.

The human ear is just no precise enough for analyzing electronic equipment.

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-04 23:02:29

Quote from: ajinfla on 2017-12-04 22:56:26

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-04 22:49:16

you don't need a listening test

I do. It's critical actually.

Well, I don't. I buy equipment with specs that are good enough to guarantee audio fidelity.

You may want to look up oxymoron.
Best get used to the concept of absolutely needing listening tests to determine audio anything around here, including "fidelity".

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-04 23:02:29

The human ear is just no precise enough for analyzing electronic equipment.

It is precise enough to analyze audio.
You may want to become a bit more aware of your surroundings here.

Which is precisely why you have no business using electrical measurements to gauge audio quality on this forum.

Harsh? I'm blunt and you didn't familiarize yourself with the community as I implored you to do on more than one occasion, so yeah, I guess so.

I'm not interested in semantics, rather this was making sure you understand the deal about sound quality in these parts.

This little mantra should get you through: everything should be assumed to sound the same until demonstrated otherwise in accordance with TOS8, unless it could be trivially and readily demonstrated by rational people who prescribe to TOS8 and are behaving sensibly and rationally (IOW: not controversial among non-placebophiles).

The main exceptions are headphones and speakers.

our talk about accurate ears leads me to believe that you a subjectivist on the inside.

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-05 02:43:43

our talk about accurate ears leads me to believe that you a subjectivist on the inside.

Audio quality is subjective. You're way outside of statistics. Stay in your lane.
Look around here, join AES, learn what listening tests are for.

That isn't what one hears. That is what one feels.

Posted by Ralph (M) on December 5, 2017 at 13:29:59
In Reply to: RE: Why do you waste your time posting there? posted by John Elison on December 4, 2017 at 22:42:08:

The human ear is far less sensitive than electronic measurement equipment. Therefore, we can measure all sorts of distortion and other things that no human can hear. Everyone knows this. If you think you can hear frequencies that cannot be measured you're delusional.

This is a common myth. IOW, the statement above is false, although if the opening statement were to read something like 'The human ear is **usually** far less sensitive...' it would be more accurate.

We can easily hear some forms of distortion, in particular higher ordered harmonics. The reason for this is that the ear uses higher ordered harmonics on order to sense sound pressure. We have about a 140 db range (although the upper limits will cause damage as you know).

GE proved this back in the 1960s but the implications have been largely ignored to this day. In fact we've had inklings regarding our sensitivity to higher ordered harmonics going back to the 1930s (see Radiotron Designer's Handbook 2nd edition).

The ear converts most forms of distortion to tonality. Most engineers know that the 2nd harmonic of tubes contributes to their 'warmth' or 'richness'. Trace amounts (that can be difficult to measure) of higher ordered harmonics are what make solid state amps sound bright and contributes to harshness.

It is the presence of higher ordered harmonic content in SETs that causes them to sound 'dynamic'. Its my supposition and experience that when audiophiles are using the word 'dynamics' that they are usually talking about distortion and that the two terms can be exchanged without changing the meaning of the conversation. That might sound cynical to some but that's my experience.

I get the purpose of TOS8 now. It is quite clever, actually. A mild but sneaky weapon against subjectivists.

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-05 03:57:31

I get the purpose of TOS8 now. It is quite clever, actually. A mild but sneaky weapon against subjectivists.

Hallelujah!! Not that you haven't been advised to read the TOS's and everything after practically from day one (I, for once, have almost been at the end of my tether).


But do you, actually?

Though I still hope you finally realize how doing things over here the other way around ends up getting you nowhere.

With all due respect....you don't know what you're talking about.

It seems this entire conversation has gone way beyond what every person even knows what they're talking about.

From an engineers perspective (and I'm an electronics engineer and embedded developer working with signal processing, not an audio engineer), the term "fidelity" is pretty misleading. When you're working with radars and, ranging, image processing, or communications, things like noise and distortion are of course measurable and quantifiable.

When signals are processed, units are calibrated and adjusted against. In the areas where I work, it's not just noise, noise is only one such component in a range of quite a large number of things that influence a signal, beyond it's representation.

When it comes to fidelity in the audio world, it is usually conflated with with terms like low noise and high dynamic range. Also "fidelity" is supposed to mean "exactness" or "accuracy", not "precision", mind you! But exactness to what, really? If it is "the recording", well, then it kinda depends on what the recording was made. You might argue, that all audio recordings aren't geared for "exactness", because that's not really the point.

If you were to make a measurement of "audio fidelity", I'd ask for each component to be tested individually, in a controlled test chamber, especially when it comes to transducers. They better be temperature controlled and in a controlled atmosphere, otherwise the results aren't quantifiable. The source signal should be scanned and reconstructed such that the plain signal is able to be analyzed by itself and then fed through the system in order to measure the entirety of the system. And by scanning, I mean something like really scanning, not recording using an audio ADC.

In terms of signal processing test gear, all audio equipment, no matter how much money you throw at it, is "lo-fi". If your amp cannot work on a range of 100Hz - 1GHz, and has no frequency standard in a physics package (sic) as a reference, It's like comparing an assortment of various ages and quality ranges of butter knifes to a laser scalpel.

The whole notion of analogue audio be it Vinyl or otherwise, expensive or not, is not "clarity", "fidelity", "clearness", "un-veil-ness", or any other of such terms. The idea behind listening to a system like that, is to be OK with the type of distortion it introduces. Vinyl and all components in a setup using nice tube amps, and speakers with large drivers, etc. it's all about the right playback capability, while accepting the type of distortion each component introduces into the chain. The record player, the cartridge, the vinyl itself, the amp and the speaker (and to be fair, the dust on the vinyl itself) is part of the sound generation element. And that's all before even going to things like the tactility of analogue audio and the eye candy they bring. Whether that is a nice vinyl spinning on top of an opulent record player or a nice reel to reel machine slowly spinning away.

There is an entire range of music geared towards lo-fi, btw.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNYkWKHf1Q and I can totally see the appeal. In fact lo-fi distrotion is often used in music as an effect these days.

When your quest is for precision in the signal itself, going to expensive audio equipment is simply the wrong way, because "audio" is the wrong way. Precise signals is not about "sounding good" it's about data. When we're talking about audio, we're talking about an experience, which comes in a variety of flavors.

I love listening to vinyl, mainly because of the tactility and the way the sound reproduction is flawed in a way that is actually quite pleasing. I love listening to my Uher reel-to-reel more, mainly because playing with it, is almost like playing with an electric train set. It's a great toy for me, and it also makes pretty sweet sounds, too. Also it's able to record, and yes, the quality is also very friggin awesome, especially when you take care of it!.

The Analog Scott person over at Analog Asylum recently posted this gem when it comes to listening to music:

Quote

That isn't what one hears. That is what one feels.

If you wouldn't hear it, you wouldn't feel it, except if he means visual or tactile music, which I doubt. He obviously is not understanding what is a quantifiable measure, and what is an assumption, but that would be really as low-hanging as strawberries.
The person he's answering to, is asking about how you'd measure (or quantify) musicality and involvement. The tangent goes out of the window, when we talk about quantifiability, because we end up in psychoanalysis territory, and then we eventually start coming full circle.

Something like this lets me just put my hand to the forehead and sigh slightly:

Quote

Posted by Ralph (M) on December 5, 2017 at 13:29:59
In Reply to: RE: Why do you waste your time posting there? posted by John Elison on December 4, 2017 at 22:42:08:

The human ear is far less sensitive than electronic measurement equipment. Therefore, we can measure all sorts of distortion and other things that no human can hear. Everyone knows this. If you think you can hear frequencies that cannot be measured you're delusional.

This is a common myth. IOW, the statement above is false, although if the opening statement were to read something like 'The human ear is **usually** far less sensitive...' it would be more accurate.

We can easily hear some forms of distortion, in particular higher ordered harmonics. The reason for this is that the ear uses higher ordered harmonics on order to sense sound pressure. We have about a 140 db range (although the upper limits will cause damage as you know).

GE proved this back in the 1960s but the implications have been largely ignored to this day. In fact we've had inklings regarding our sensitivity to higher ordered harmonics going back to the 1930s (see Radiotron Designer's Handbook 2nd edition).

The ear converts most forms of distortion to tonality. Most engineers know that the 2nd harmonic of tubes contributes to their 'warmth' or 'richness'. Trace amounts (that can be difficult to measure) of higher ordered harmonics are what make solid state amps sound bright and contributes to harshness.

It is the presence of higher ordered harmonic content in SETs that causes them to sound 'dynamic'. Its my supposition and experience that when audiophiles are using the word 'dynamics' that they are usually talking about distortion and that the two terms can be exchanged without changing the meaning of the conversation. That might sound cynical to some but that's my experience.

Ref.: https://www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinyl/messages/115/1159235.html

This is what I mean with this: This person obviously has never visited a cal lab or any lab dealing with signal analysis. I won't judge someone's relationship with science, but I'd advise at least reading a book about how human hearing works, how hearing aids are made, and how human perception and sound works in general. Maybe not necessarily reading a book, but just watching a youtube video or two, or just talking to people working in those fields would be beneficial. There is also one thing about "proving" and "providing evidence", studies confirming findings of other studies, etc.

When someone talks about "trace amounts" of something like a harmonic (which is a continuous object of a spectrum), it's pretty clear there is some misunderstanding there. The second harmonic of a time-invariant signal is a mathematical property, there are no "trace amounts" possible of such thing. He also said "they can be difficult to measure", there is no need to measure those, because they can be calculated from oversampling. Simply analyse the signal path with a precise instrument, like a nice Tektronix MSO48, which even at its lowest setting provides 125M samples per second. Provide a standard deviation map, apply against the data gathered and check whether the data is indicative of it. There are well defined procedures in place for exactly such measurements. Whether you're looking at p-values or other means of measuring indicativity.

https://d35c7d8c.web.cern.ch/sites/d35c7d8c.web.cern.ch/files/styles/responsive_front_page/public/CMSLHCb_EDfig2_1_0.png

We measure and then analyse the data gathered. If things are difficult to measure, we need to use a better instruments. That's how we derive knowledge, not by intuition about something.

Also, "warmth", "richness", "harshness", "brightness"...

As someone working in the fields of science and engineering, I learned to be very careful when dealing with people like moon-hoaxers, flat-earthers, global-warming deniers, or audiophools. I advise everyone else, to just ignore those people, this seems to be the best way of dealing with subjects where people get easily offended. People seem to love to cling to beliefs, when insight and knowledge is lacking. It is uncomfortable to be told wrong, and proven with evidence. Evidence should be examined, and not shunned first and then looked at. On the other hand, I don't see the point in people getting aggressive and argumentative, though. When someone is unable to understand, then it's better to simply ignore them, in my experience. This is not a middle school course where teachers are expected to explain again and again until the last student with terminal ADHD has understood the subject matter. But I don't see the point at being a dick to people, even if they're dicks themselves...

When doing ABX testing of digital audio - or any audio really, you'd look for specific artifacts. The idea behind ABX-ing is ruling out ones own bias, nothing more, nothing less.

Your snarky interventions are really tiresome. If you have nothing to contribute to the topic, then kindly keep quiet and stop polluting my thread. Ok?

then kindly keep quiet and stop polluting my thread. Ok?

Quote

then kindly keep quiet and stop polluting my thread. Ok?

Dear cocky, presposterous, lil' piece of...  "wast of time",  mmrkaic sir,

Please, do not worry yourself. I will alas, follow your erm, "order".

Certainly not because I think you are in the position of bossing anyone around here, but indeed because I will, as I guess some members of this community will, give up on you as a lost case, given all the animosity you, from the height of your arrogance and donquixotean "brothers unite" posts, have already managed to attract to your person - out of sheer sttuborness in recognizing that other folks are, sometimes, right, and that through the afore-mentioned tip-offs, they have been trying to put you on the right track as to what all this ojective thingy is roughly all about - definitely not the imaginary cruzade you have been on about!

And you've managed to concur into all that negativeness in what? Barely a month!

Hence this self-imposed cease & desist message of mine.

Best,

includemeout

Since you have so generously dispensed with advice, allow me to reciprocate -- could you kindly stop posing as some sort of representative of or spokesperson for this "community"? You started responding to my posts as some sort of community leader. That pose, in no small part, contributed to my dislike of your posts.

I also wish you all the best.

P.S. You may wish to use a spellchecker. "Cruzade" is not a word.

P.S. You may wish to use a spellchecker. "Cruzade" is not a word.

Quote from: mmrkaic on 2017-12-06 11:56:36

Since you have so generously dispensed with advice, allow me to reciprocate -- could you kindly stop posing as some sort of representative of or spokesperson for this "community"? You started responding to my posts as some sort of community leader. That pose, in no small part, contributed to my dislike of your posts.

I also wish you all the best.

P.S. You may wish to use a spellchecker. "Cruzade" is not a word.

Me? A community leader!?
Nah! It's just your imagination running wild - again.

Quote

P.S. You may wish to use a spellchecker. "Cruzade" is not a word.

Oh, dear!

PPS: You may wish to use a spell-checker. "spellchecker" is spelled "spell-checker", according to Webster's.

See how pedantic you are?

With all due respect -- listening tests are a waste of time.

With all due respect -- listening tests are a waste of time.

Actually TOS8 has been perverted in recent years. Its point was not to claim the fact that superior equipment that measures better isn't better. It's there to tell that claims about audible differences need proof from listening tests.

Attacking mmrkaic's point that there's no need to listen when equipment is measured to be transparent is idiotic.