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Topic: "Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle (Read 154484 times) previous topic - next topic
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"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #175 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Quote from: Josh358 on
Another argument against ABX testing is that its better suited to basic psychometric evaluations with test signals than it is to music, which is a complex signal and puts great demands on short term memory. This would also be one of the arguments for lengthy testing, since long term memory has a greater capacity than short term memory.

That's one of Bob Stuart's arguments. I don't think it stacks up...

All I can say is that I reached this conclusion independently, on the basis of my own experience. I can't, as I think I said, demonstrate conclusively that it has a practical effect.

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In both critiques, it seems apparent to me that the "good" way of doing something like existing subjective testing, but with double-blind statistical certainty, is firstly to do double blind A/B testing where there's no limit on time or source material. Listen to A for a month if you want - play all the music you own (OK, that would take a few years for some of us, but you get the point). Then have a go at B. Then try direct comparisons if you wish.

Greynol just made that suggestion in a different context. I think it's a good one. If you can't distinguish two pieces of gear in a DBT after becoming intimately familiar with them, knowing what recordings make them go gaga, etc., I doubt very much you can distinguish them under any circumstances.

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They're all examples of low probability events, which per Leventhal's analysis would require an inordinate number of trials for a 95% CI.

They're not though. If a slightly broken speaker cone reveals problems with solo piano music, you run 16 ABX trial with piano music - not one each with each random CD you one. If there's a highly intermittent fault (even a subtle one) you pick X=A or X=B when you hear it - you don't pick anything until you do.

This gets back to the above. I agree. If I made some notes when I heard a piano recording distorting, and then ABX'd that segment, it would be obvious. However, this presupposes knowledge of the audible flaw. Most ABX tests don't begin with that presupposition.
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The fact that magazine rarely is ever do double blind A/B testing, never mind the X part, speaks volumes IMO.

The fact that you could actually do a full standard sighted test, and then ABX whatever you found to be most revealing - AND THEN PEOPLE USUALLY FAIL - is also quite strange. Or not.

Or, as you say, not. ;-)

It's strange to me only because I've always taken my own perceptions with a grain of salt. Some people seem oblivious to the problem of listening bias. They can't quite wrap their minds around the fact that what they think they hear, they may not hear. And, honestly, I find that puzzling.
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There's no great excuse against blind A/B - certainly not where all the testing happens 9-5 in the magazine's office. Obviously at home there are other issues, but it's not insurmountable.

I don't really think you should publish reviews if you can't manager to do them properly. But then, it's a free market. There are people who want to pay to read flawed test reports.

Cheers,
David.


Flawed, sure, but don't you think that it's an imperfect world? I have to depend on my unaided ears for much of what I do, because it's impractical to do anything else. In practice, I find myself using a combination of listening, theory, reviews, research and scuttlebutt -- and even then, I'm frequently uncertain. This despite the fact that I avoid tweaks of questionable utility, such as esoteric cables. Merely moving a pair of speakers to another part of the room can be a challenging exercise; the differences are obvious, but has the speaker become more or less accurate? To me, those who are glib about their ability to analyze such differences lose credibility, unless they're specialists who might be expect to have special knowledge -- an acoustician, say, in the case of speaker positioning.

In practice, I find reading a magazine like Stereophile a bit like trying to form impressions of audio equipment, in that I can glean what I believe is useful information from it, but only by applying the sort of painstaking skepticism I apply to my assessments of audio equipment. One of the criteria that I sometimes use is that of independent verification of perception. If, for example, I think the frequency response of a particular loudspeaker is elevated in the presence range, and a reviewer notes that that the frequency response of that particular loudspeaker is elevated in the presence range, it gives me faith both in my perceptions and those of the reviewer. It's for this reason more than any other that I don't dismiss out of hand subjective reviews -- I have noticed such concordances, in circumstances that made it unlikely that the confirmation bias was systematic. Conversely, if a critic makes statements that I believe are inconsistent with physics and engineering -- claiming for example that a power cord has sonic characteristics that one would normally associate with a mechanical transducer such as a microphone or speaker -- I conclude that he's very probably full of it and move on.

Which isn't to say that I don't wish I could ABX my stereo with an orchestra! But more often than not, we have to make do.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #176 –
Quote from: greynol on
Quote from: Josh358 on
If you care to make a substantive argument, grounded in fact or logic, I'll be delighted to respond. I'm afraid that the word "nonsense" does not qualify.

I expect substantiation from you since you are the one putting up the theory.  The burdendoes not fall on me to disprove it.  Perhaps you have some verifiable psychological studies to present?


OK, here are the statements to which you objected:

"In theory, it's possible to conduct an ABX test of any length, but in practice, there are practical constraints. So if lengthy listening does in fact have benefits, they will tend to be lost in an ABXing regime."

Do you object to my assertion that there are practical constraints on the length of ABX tests (or number of samples/participants, I wrote hastily)? I had taken that as a given.

I didn't maintain that lengthy listening does have benefits, so there's no assertion there. I merely said "If it does." I'm not aware of any substantive evidence one way or the other. So no assertion to defend, merely a hypothesis to be tested. You yourself gave an example of one such possible test in your discussion of JA's amplifier DBT. A better testing regime might include a statistical analysis of ABX results before and after a period of lengthy listening. Presumably, if familiarity improves performance, it will show up in superior ABX scores. One might infer such an outcome from the verified improvement in consistency of judgment after listeners were trained in speaker analysis at Harman, and the observation, also made by Olive and Toole, that in the absence of training the ability to make consistent judgments increases with listening experience, but only as a likelihood, owing to the substantial differences in conditions.

"Another argument against ABX testing is that its better suited to basic psychometric evaluations with test signals than it is to music, which is a complex signal and puts great demands on short term memory. This would also be one of the arguments for lengthy testing, since long term memory has a greater capacity than short term memory."

Presented merely as an argument. I happen to think it likely, as I said in another post, based on my own experience with analytical listening and ABX testing. But I don't pretend to be able to prove or disprove it scientifically: it's merely a hypothesis. I welcome you to do either, if you have any substantive theoretical or practical evidence -- or even just an intuition, in which case your hunch will be on equal footing with mine.

Potentially, if these common objections could be debunked -- or, if shown to be true, circumvented through improved testing regimes -- it would bolster the case for double blind testing as a reliable arbiter of audibility.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #177 –
Yes, you're right, you've posed what is just a theory as a hypothetical.  My curt response is due to the fact that we've seen it before, though usually by people as an excuse for their complete unwillingness to perform a double-blind test.  I think the theory has absolutely no merit, myself.  If you're straining to choose A or B when being presented X, then there is probably nothing special about either A or B that would cause either to stand out.  If after lifting the cover changes the way it sounds to you, then you have your answer.

We already know how easy it is to tell someone how to detect the "evils of mp3" objectively.  It is also quite easy to tell someone what expectation bias is.  This can be done without having to involve someone in double-blind tests.  Perhaps I may have missed it, so can you give an example of JA or Stereophile doing either aside from defensive posturing against performing such methods, ever?

I appreciate that you attempt to take an objective approach in your decision making.  Unfortunately not everyone is as keen about this as you and I think it's a shame that JA is doing little, if anything to improve the situation.  Rather it is readily apparent to many of us that he would rather people stay in the dark.  Perhaps you can give me a hypothetical postulation as to why he would allow reviews to be published that glorify hideously expensive power and mains cables.  Regarding reviews that agree with your sighted observations, have you ever read nonsensical subjective claims from a reviewer with whom you agreed on something that didn't seem nonsensical?  If yes, how do you square this?  If it were me, I would think it would lead me to question my own objectivity (or lack thereof).

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #178 –
Quote from: Josh358 on
If I made some notes when I heard a piano recording distorting, and then ABX'd that segment, it would be obvious. However, this presupposes knowledge of the audible flaw. Most ABX tests don't begin with that presupposition.
I think most do. Most people who use ABX use it when they think they hear a problem, but aren't sure - or when they're sure they hear a problem, but want to prove it to a scientific audience. It's rare to run an ABX test when you don't think you hear a problem. It does happen, but I don't think it's the more common scenario.


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In practice, I find reading a magazine like Stereophile a bit like trying to form impressions of audio equipment, in that I can glean what I believe is useful information from it, but only by applying the sort of painstaking skepticism I apply to my assessments of audio equipment. One of the criteria that I sometimes use is that of independent verification of perception. If, for example, I think the frequency response of a particular loudspeaker is elevated in the presence range, and a reviewer notes that that the frequency response of that particular loudspeaker is elevated in the presence range, it gives me faith both in my perceptions and those of the reviewer. It's for this reason more than any other that I don't dismiss out of hand subjective reviews -- I have noticed such concordances, in circumstances that made it unlikely that the confirmation bias was systematic. Conversely, if a critic makes statements that I believe are inconsistent with physics and engineering -- claiming for example that a power cord has sonic characteristics that one would normally associate with a mechanical transducer such as a microphone or speaker -- I conclude that he's very probably full of it and move on.
You can take that approach, but it's very frustrating. Given that the very same people will report audible problems which (to me) are gross, subtle, and non-existent in exactly the same terms, it's not that useful. Given that we have a rigorous scientific approach that can cut out all the nonsense with fairly surgical precision, it seems strange to reject it. It's like wanting to believe in magic so much that you ignore the bit where someone shows you how the trick was done.

Cheers,
David.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #179 –
Quote from: Wombat on
In reality creating such an impulse graph that Apodizing marketing uses is only possible with mathematics that result in a bent phase response (that alone was an audiophile no-no back a while), a bad frequency response and what i am not sure about, it must introduce TONS of aliasing.


Imaging. Not aliasing. And no, there is no need for such a filter to introduce 'TONS' of it. Not even minimal amounts. The Meridian filter doesn't. SoX and Izotope, when properly configured, don't. The Ayre filter does,
but then the, already raped-over, term 'apodisation' doesn't apply there at all.

(Could we drop the silly terminology and simply discuss what particular filters are and do?)


Yes, the Meridian filter introduces non-linear phase shift. And yes this used to be a no-no.
There hasn't been a lot of rigorous study on the audibility of such, but surveying what is available leads me
to believe that some phase distortion is not a bad thing, provided it stays out of the mid-band and evolves monotonically with frequency.

As for frequency-magnitude response. Is ruler-flat to 18kHz with a small drop at 20kHz 'bad'?


Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Understanding masking is one of those things that we who get Zwicker and Fastl et al have over your average Joe the high end audiophile or rick the recording engineer.


Let it be noted that understanding stuff is declared useful in discussions like these.


Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
"in the context of Peter Craven's so-called "apodizing" reconstruction filter. This eliminates the conventional linear-phase "ringing" at the Nyquist frequency but introduces minimum-phase "ringing" at a slightly lower frequency."

This is false. What figures 1 and 2 of the relevant Stereophile review of the  Meridian 808i.2 show is not an elimination of linear phase ringing, but rather a reapportionment and what seems to be a significant increase in total energy in the ringing of the so-called Apodizing filter.

Looks to me like typical high end engineering -


In fact JA's description is quite correct. If you had understanding of AA and AI filters (ha!) you would know that for a given cutoff and steepness the summed energy in the pre and post lobes is a constant, and that nulling the pre-ringing would double the post-ringing energy.

And as for the slight drop in ringing frequency, well, that touches the core of Craven's thinking, and how he came to adopt the term 'apodising' in the first place.

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As has been pointed out before JA uses what has been for decades the high end's *perfect* obfuscating smokescreen - he avoids engaging in reliable listening tests.  If you can fool enough of the paying customers some of the time and fool yourself all of the time... ;-)


For years I have been wondering about your animosity towards JA. You heap the (perceived) sins of an entire industry onto an individual. And yet, the members of that industry, including its customers, seem quite happy with the state of affairs. I find your outright hatred, frankly, boring.



Quote from: 2Bdecided on
The Meridian engineers report that it's linear phase up to about 18kHz. The phase response does bend above 18kHz to achieve their desired result.


I have a rough copy of the Meridian filter at home (thanks to internet-based espionage, although no laws were violated and no sentient beings were harmed).

Phase shift starts well below 18kHz, but stays within remarkable bounds. They did some clever engineering there.


Quote from: 2Bdecided on
"The individual impulses are added together and the pre and post ringing is canceled out."

If there's signal content at/around the filter's cut-off frequency, the ringing certainly isn't cancelled out.


Yes, this is quite correct.

The sampling theorem proves that for a linear phase reconstruction filter approximating Sinc(t) all the ringing disappears ...

... for a band-limited input signal.

But most ADCs today employ half-band linear-phase AA filters, which inject their own pre- and post-ringing into the captured signal. This ringing can only be removed by filtering again at a lower cutoff frequency, and with a minimum-phase response. Which brings us back to Meridian.

Further, the AA filters being half-band restricts their attenuation at Nyquist to (multiples of) 6dB. So the signal isn't really bandlimited and the AI-filter side ringing is excited as well.





Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
I think we suspect that pre-ringing is somewhat more audible than post-ringing but not to the extent that several times the amplitude could be overcome.


Ask JJ. He has the data. Although not at 22kHz.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Plus, the Apodized wave rings at an approx 10% lower frequency which is also a slight disadvantage.


See above. It is the crux of this all.



Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
That would be the interesting experiment, to move the filters' corner frequencies down until one or the other (hopefully not both!)  becomes audible, to see which one becomes audible first at the highest frequency.


Interesting, but not necessarily relevant. The frequency band above, say, 12kHz hits the cochlea in a spot that does its processing significantly different than lower frequencies. Hence perception above/below 12kHz differs as well. Ask JJ. He knows that pre-ringing in the mid-band is bad. But not necessarily at the edge of audibility.



Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
IOW follow a linear phase filter with a 22.05 KHz corner frequency by a minimum phase filter with a 20 KHz corner frequency to attenuate the linear phase filter's ringing at 22.05 KHz.  The apodizing filter need not provide a ton of attenuation, since the liner phase filter still reduces out-of-band responses.


If the aim is to annihilate the linear phase pre-response then the apodising filter really needs a ton of attenuation. Further, the linear phase filter referred to is in the ADC, and the apodiser is in the DAC. If suppression of images is required (and I can't see why it suddenly wouldn't be so), then the minimum phase filter has to supply, again, a ton of attenuation. These aren't exactly secrets.

Have a nice day.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #180 –
Quote from: Josh358 on
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That article is very old news. Les Leventhal was dealt with on a professional basis by The Audio Engineering Society.

How so? That's news to me.


You might want to check out the JAES which is where the Leventhal controvesy played out directly and in-person, not Stereophile which was reporting their biased view.

Stereophile has a vested interest in magnifying any controversy relating to the results of reliable listening tests since the results of virtually all realible listening tests are so different from their day-to-day fare.

One big turning point in the history of reliable listening tests was the ready availability of software and files for people to use to do their own listening tests.

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The basic problem is that there are no known reliable bias-controlled listening test methodologies that produce the results that magazines like Stereophile need to justify their existence and support their credibility. Many people here understand that they are basically technically useless advertising vehicles.  They do contain some valid technical information, but its there to create a perception of factuality that they generally lack.


This I think involves speculation on your part regarding the motives of Stereophile's staff.


I think that the interpreation above of what I said is reasonble given what I wrote, but that is not what I had in mind when I wrote it.  I was not thinking about their motives,. I was thinking about the reactions of people who are well informed about subjective testing.  We are generally mystified by what they write about many things given our own personal expereinces. We are mystified by their apparent lack of desire to subject their opinions and beliefs to reliable listening tests.  Some of us once thought as they still appear to do.  As they say: "Listening is believing:", but we believe that we have vastly reduced the effcts of common bases on our listening tests. They seem to allow strong extraneous influences intrude on their listening. We thinkg that we have had good sucess in vastly reducing those extraneous influences.

In my view Leventhal was barking up the wrong tree. First off, you can increase the sensitivity of a listening test by simply running more trials. For those of us who routinely do a lot of trials because we are investigating a goodly number of alternatives, all this whining about getting tired gets old fast.  If you don't do reliable listening tests your need to investigate a number of alternatives is reduced because you will probably get the results you seek more quickly because your desire for the results you seek contaminate the evaluation.


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BTW, did you see Jim Austin's "As We See It" in the March issue of Stereophile? He concludes, "Yet a science-based activity without scientific constraints, in which the only distinction among tweaks that appear to be nothing more than snake-oil, well-designed amplifiers, and speakers with good dispersion characteristics are the vicissitudes of personal aural experience, makes me uncomfortable. I find myself craving some certainty, if only to put a little more space between the creations of a skilled audio designer and, say, a jar of petty rocks."


I see that as an strage statement. First off, what's this "speakers with good dispersion characteristics are the vicissitudes of personal aural experience" stuff? Who said that? So chalk up 1 (one) straw man.  Next, what is this "Yet a science-based activity without scientific constraints"?.  Yet another straw man. And so on. I feel no need to seriously address what seems to be nothing more than debating-trade prattle. I've always been more interseted in the study of technology than the study of rhetoric.

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Leventhal's suppositions are no more credible than the whining about confusion and stress.  The real problem is that we have a large segment of the audio industry that is based on fallacious assertions and bad logic.

Here I would have to ask for supporting evidence.


Been there, done that but any reasonable recital of it vastly exceeds the domain of one post to HA.

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I have experienced fatigue and stress in forced-choice tests, and I know others have reported the same experience, including IIRC some testers on HA.


Does this surprise you? Remember that most of the sighted evaluations you have done or heard of are so weak that they generally fail to even meet the basic definition of being a proper test.  Its not the forced choice that stresses you, its the fact that we don't tell you the *right answer* before, during and after the test.  Sighted evaluations are like multiple choice tests with a cheat sheet right there on the desk in front of you. So not being five the right answers stresses you out? Who'd a thunk?

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What I can't do is objectify my personal experience, in terms of whether or not it had an effect on my ability to reliably detect subtle differences. It would be possible to design an experiment to test that hypothesis, but, I think, difficult to conduct one owing to the large number of trials required for a statistically meaningful result.


You're not doing an apples-to-apples comparison. You're comparing a demo (thats all that a sighted evaluation is is a demo) to a real live test.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #181 –
Quote from: WernerO on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
"in the context of Peter Craven's so-called "apodizing" reconstruction filter. This eliminates the conventional linear-phase "ringing" at the Nyquist frequency but introduces minimum-phase "ringing" at a slightly lower frequency."


This is false. What figures 1 and 2 of the relevant Stereophile review of the  Meridian 808i.2 show is not an elimination of linear phase ringing, but rather a reapportionment and what seems to be a significant increase in total energy in the ringing of the so-called Apodizing filter.


This is false.  In the given example, the apodizing filter does not merely re-aopportion.  It changes the frequency of the ringing and significantly increases its total energy.

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In fact JA's description is quite correct. If you had understanding of AA and AI filters (ha!) you would know that for a given cutoff and steepness the summed energy in the pre and post lobes is a constant, and that nulling the pre-ringing would double the post-ringing energy.


The above seems to state that the steepness and cutoff frequency remained the same. Graphical analysis shows that the cutoff frequency dropped by about 10%. I can't comment on the steepness due to the limitations of the data. Graphical analysis suggests a significant  increase (doubling) in the energy in the ringing.

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And as for the slight drop in ringing frequency, well, that touches the core of Craven's thinking, and how he came to adopt the term 'apodising' in the first place.


Noting your ability to dismiss evidence that conflicts with your beliefs...  We now agree that the corner frequency dropped significantly, which falsifies your previous two statements, I can live with that! ;-)

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As has been pointed out before JA uses what has been for decades the high end's *perfect* obfuscating smokescreen - he avoids engaging in reliable listening tests.  If you can fool enough of the paying customers some of the time and fool yourself all of the time... ;-)


For years I have been wondering about your animosity towards JA.


It's not animosity, its understanding of his situation and an offer of help for his obvious problems with the relevant facts.

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You heap the (perceived) sins of an entire industry onto an individual.


That seems to be a pretty bizarre allegation. How do you reliably measure which sins I perceive and where I place the blame?  Are you in possession of everything that I've written and posted? Have you audited it thoroughly and accurately?  Here's a test for you - give an estimate of the total number of words I've posted on the sins of the high end and compare that with the ones that blamed them on on just John Atkinson.  Note that even just the words quoted above show signfiicant attribution of techical shortcmings to someone else. The text you quoted falsifies your claim that I blame only Atkinson!

What you see here is due the fact that Atkinson posts here and stands up for himself like a man. If I go over to Harley's forum and try to talk with him, he often doesn't even reply, and  then he waits a little while and deletes my posts. That puts Atkinson way ahead of Harley in my estimation.  I give Atkinson kudos for parting ways with Harley long ago. 

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And yet, the members of that industry, including its customers, seem quite happy with the state of affairs.


That seems to be be a presumption on your part. For example, we don't know how much turnover there is of customers in the high end audio business. At least I don't. Do You? Got a reliable source and numbers?

I can infer something from the fact that Stereophile's subscription base seems to be  relatively stable while they seem to be promoting the magazine to new customers quite aggressively...

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #182 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Are you in possession of everything that I've written and posted? Have you audited it thoroughly and accurately?
What, all the rec.audio.opinion threads included?!?!

I think I've just had a brief vision of hell.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #183 –
Quote from: Josh358 on
OK, here are the statements to which you objected:

"In theory, it's possible to conduct an ABX test of any length, but in practice, there are practical constraints. So if lengthy listening does in fact have benefits, they will tend to be lost in an ABXing regime."

Do you object to my assertion that there are practical constraints on the length of ABX tests (or number of samples/participants, I wrote hastily)? I had taken that as a given.


The important question is whether or not there are unusual practical  constraints that significantly reduce the sensitivity of ABX tests.  By unusual, I mean peculiar to just ABX tests or just peculiar to bias controlled tests.

As far as length of test, length of sample, length of trial, number of participants etc go, the answer is no.  There are many successful ABX tests that carried these issues well beyond practicality. I'm talking days, even weeks.  Furthermore, we know for sure that at least some of those variables have optimal values that are relatively short, IOW measured in seconds.  We know for sure that for some of those variables, longer is very bad.

One of the best articles about these issues is "Flying Blind" by Tom Nousiaine which should Google up pretty well. It was published in Audio Magazine, if memory serves. 

The one big, hard to solve problem with listening tests that I see is that test sensitivity can be highly dependent on the musical selection being used for the test. Pick the right one and the test can be a slam dunk. Pick the wrong one and it can be mission impossible. But this is true of all listening tests that are actually tests. The only reason why people don't run into this problem in sighted evaluations is the fact that they aren't really tests.

Here is a problem to be wary of - don't fault ABX for problems that actually apply to all or most good listening tests.  There are a ton of such problems, but you don't find out about them until you stop doing just demos and actually start doing tests.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #184 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Are you in possession of everything that I've written and posted? Have you audited it thoroughly and accurately?
What, all the rec.audio.opinion threads included?!?!

I think I've just had a brief vision of hell.





What, me ask a trick question? ;-)

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #185 –
Quote from: WernerO on
Imaging. Not aliasing. And no, there is no need for such a filter to introduce 'TONS' of it. Not even minimal amounts. The Meridian filter doesn't. SoX and Izotope, when properly configured, don't. The Ayre filter does,
but then the, already raped-over, term 'apodisation' doesn't apply there at all.


I admit i don´t know to much about how these filters work exactly and only gave back what i have read around the net lately.
As you can see there are many claims and explanations why someones system is better. May it be Ayre or Meridian or some forum mathematicans that add some strategies.

Like i quoted before Benchmark Media even states this pre-ringing in 44.1 kHz is most likely a non-issue!

For one or two things i don´t have the need to know exactly how it works.
If it works it should only make the recordings sound different that have pre-ringing.
If it changes every recording in sound it fails its purpose and acts like a DSP effect imho.
Since modern recordings often come from high resolution masters some studio engineer may already have used a non-linear resampler to produce the 44.1 master. What if such a recording gets apodized again?

Edit: And i still would like to see someone with generated files does a serious abx. I can´t.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #186 –
Quote from: WernerO on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
That would be the interesting experiment, to move the filters' corner frequencies down until one or the other (hopefully not both!)  becomes audible, to see which one becomes audible first at the highest frequency.


Interesting, but not necessarily relevant. The frequency band above, say, 12kHz hits the cochlea in a spot that does its processing significantly different than lower frequencies. Hence perception above/below 12kHz differs as well. Ask JJ. He knows that pre-ringing in the mid-band is bad. But not necessarily at the edge of audibility.


I suspect that you don't realize that the experiment I suggested would shed light on exactly the issue you raised. Hence your rather nonsensical judgement of "not necessarily relevant".  In fact: Highly relevant.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #187 –
Quote from: knucklehead on
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: krabapple on
It should be simple to answer this one at least:

what was the title of your presentation in Seattle?


There was no formal title. I was introduced to the audience with the words "And now John Atkinson of Stsreophile will play some of his high-resolution recordings."


Even if that were the case (can you supply some objective proof ?)...


What would you require in the way of "objective proof"? The sessions weren't recorded in any manner.

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the closest thing to a title would be the way your presentation was promoted in your fine publication as stated in the lead post in this thread .... and that is clearly not neutral in terms of leading expectation bias  ..... is it?


The event wasn't promoted in Stereophile, purely on the magazine's website - see http://www.stereophile.com/content/music-m...attle-wednesday - and in the promotion done by Seattle retailer Definitive Audio (pictured in the Stereophile Web item). Frankly, I think you and "krabapple" are clutching at skeptical straws here. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. :-)

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #188 –
Quote from: krabapple on
But the audiophile press' antipathy to DBT seems as much philosophical -- bordering on religious -- as anything else.  I have heard Mr. Atkinson tell the tale of his Damascene conversion from DBT advocate (though I'm not sure how deep that ever ran)...


That seems like a cheap shot, Krabapple. My formal education was in hard science, my first jobs were in hard science, and in fact one of the first editorial comments I had published in Hi-Fi News (in April 1979) was a criticism of subjective reviewing and the lack of blind testing.

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...to one who seems to find DBT quite beside the point.  IIRC he set up a DBT between an amp* he liked and another amp that was cheaper.  The DBT didn't support an audible difference, so he went with the cheaper amp.  Some time later he found himself dissatisfied, swapped in the tube amp, and all was bliss again.  So to him, that meant DBTs aren't useful.


No, it meant that that blind test, for unknown reasons, was not sufficiently sensitive to detect small but possibly real audible differences between the amplifiers. Note that I did not set up the test nor did I choose the amplifiers under test. I was involved purely as a listener, a test subject.  And as you yourself have pointed out, one of the amplifiers in that late-1970s test was a tube design with a high output impedance, so may well have introduced frequency response differences that were large enough to be audible.

Quote
Now to me, the thing to do would be to re-do a DBT *then*, when presumably one is sensitized to the faulty 'sound' of the 2nd amp.  (Indeed, audiophiles are forever complaining that the DBTs they read about didn't allow enough time for the listener to 'learn' the sound of the devices under test.  One would think a clear published demonstration of this need, by Mr. Atkinson, would be a boon to their argument.)  I asked Mr. Atkinson why he didn't try that - his response, more or less, was that he didn't see the point.


I explained to you back then that I was merely choosing an amplifier to use in my system, just like any other audiophile. How many HA posters, for example subject their audio purchases to rigorous double-blind testing before making a decision on what to buy?

My long-term dissatisfaction with the inexpensive amplifier I purchased as a result of the blind test results was real, even there was no sign that it was not performing correctly. I replaced it with one that  it turned out I preferred the sound of under conditions of normal use. Achieving that was my goal as a consumer and the goal was achieved. It is very easy more than 30 years later for you to say, "well you should have done more listening tests" but back then I didn't see the need.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #189 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
The event wasn't promoted in Stereophile, purely on the magazine's website

*sigh*

Whether or not it was promoted in your publication is irrelevant.  Anyone who read the news promo linked in the first post was told your presentation will demonstrate the "evils of mp3".

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #190 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
That seems like a cheap shot, Krabapple. My formal education was in hard science, my first jobs were in hard science, and in fact one of the first editorial comments I had published in Hi-Fi News (in April 1979) was a criticism of subjective reviewing and the lack of blind testing.

Your actions speak louder than your past credentials, I'm afraid.  It is a shame that you've turned your back on this.

Quote from: Stereoeditor on
My long-term dissatisfaction with the inexpensive amplifier I purchased as a result of the blind test results was real, even there was no sign that it was not performing correctly.

I'm sure it was, and I am just as sure that the dissatisfaction had absolutely nothing to do with the way it actually sounded.  Had someone secretly changed the innards of your new amplifier with those of the old one you would have never noticed.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #191 –
Quote from: knucklehead link=msg=0 date=][quote author=greynol on

Quote from: Stereoeditor on
the closest thing to a title would be the way your presentation was promoted in your fine publication as stated in the lead post in this thread ...


The event wasn't promoted in Stereophile, purely on the magazine's website


Whether or not it was promoted in your publication is irrelevant.[/quote]

I was correcting the poster's comment that the event had been promoted in the magazine. Please don't read anything more into my statement than that.

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Anyone who read the news promo linked in the first post was told your presentation will demonstrate the "evils of mp3".


Except that, as I have written before in this thread, with the actual example that included the lossy encoded sections, the audience was told that they were going to be listening to a 24-bit, 88.2kHz recording by Philip Hobbs of Linn Records. If they had any expectation bias, I wold have thought it would operate in the opposite direction to your implication. It is entirely possible that the audience, if they were even aware of the "evils of MP3" mentioned in the Stereophile website piece, assumed that _that_ demonstration would occur later in the event. 

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #192 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
I was correcting the poster's comment that the event had been promoted in the magazine.

...and conveniently left the more pertinent questions unanswered.

Quote from: Stereoeditor on
If they had any expectation bias, I wold have thought it would operate in the opposite direction to your implication.

The assumed direction of the outcome does not change the fact that the promo was released.  Once again, you've chosen to ignore the glaring error by focusing on the window dressing.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #193 –
Not one of the so far here presented hypothetical shortcomings of ABX tests has been anywhere near convincing.

But can we really neglect the following:

What if human beings are of such nature, that their sense of hearing is not independent, such that shear association of a sound with an item can change the actual perception of that sound?*

Let the item(s) be two identical amplifier circuits, one boxed in a cheap, neon-green plastic housing, connected with bell wires, the other one boxed in a nice, solid metal-encloure, with finish and design by a lead industrial-design professional, connected with the same bell wires, but encapsulated in expensive looking lining, with gold plated connectors, and laid out very neatly, almost rectilinear. Both setups measure absolutely identical in every respect.

Now do three rounds of testing:

1. A sighted test. Actual sources are truthfully reported.

I think, most of us share the expectation, that a representative share of the population would produce very significant results in favor of the expensive looking setup's sound. Me probably included.

2. A sighted test. Actual sources are not truthfully reported.

If you properly randomize the procedure, the 2. test will not reveal any significant correlation between the actual sound source and the perceived quality of its output, but still a strong correlation between believed source and perceived quality.

3. A double blind test.

Again there will be no correlation between actual sound source and actual perception of differences.

Thus one might prematurely conclude that there are no practically relevant differences between both amps. But that's really not entirely true. It is only true for situations, where people are blindfolded or actively lied to. In actual practice both amps still produce a very significant difference with regard to how their sound is perceived. And 'practice' here means a mode of listening which comes closest to how people actually listen to music at home, for example while watching their tube amps glow.

There are two options now. Let the tube amp proponent enjoy his comfy listening sessions, belief, and honest perception that his gear sounds superior (it does to him). Or try to hammer an abstract (though valid) truth into his head, that he is fooling himself, and that you could prove it by blindfolding him. Both are valid approaches. But I do not think that those, who fight for option 2 at the edge of hatred, should think that reason w.r.t. a better world is 100% on their side here.

* hint: the question is rhetorical
 

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #194 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Except that, as I have written before in this thread, with the actual example that included the lossy encoded sections, the audience was told that they were going to be listening to a 24-bit, 88.2kHz recording by Philip Hobbs of Linn Records. If they had any expectation bias, I wold have thought it would operate in the opposite direction to your implication. It is entirely possible that the audience, if they were even aware of the "evils of MP3" mentioned in the Stereophile website piece, assumed that _that_ demonstration would occur later in the event. 

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile


How long is HA going to entertain this farce?

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #195 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Except that, as I have written before in this thread, with the actual example that included the lossy encoded sections, the audience was told that they were going to be listening to a 24-bit, 88.2kHz recording by Philip Hobbs of Linn Records. If they had any expectation bias, I wold have thought it would operate in the opposite direction to your implication. It is entirely possible that the audience, if they were even aware of the "evils of MP3" mentioned in the Stereophile website piece, assumed that _that_ demonstration would occur later in the event. 

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile


Oh, come on, John.

You know (and everyone else knows) that you left scientific methods out because of the nice quantity of money you earn selling audiophile nonsense to the masses.
You can't have that, and ABX testing (or any other scientific method of testing). You are perfectly aware of that.
You are not stupid man; you are aware that proper ABX testing of lossless vs. lossy would give you unwanted results.
So, to further advertise "high fidelity" (the term is now very perverted), you do tests like these.
Their results can be interpreted in your favor, and in the favor of companies who pay commercials in your magazine.
OK, that is business, I understand that. You are making money on other people's ignorance. You sold yourself long ago.

But please, don't try to sell your methods as valid scientifical methods, and don't try to tell people that the results are perfectly valid.

They are not. You know that.
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"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #196 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Except that, as I have written before in this thread, with the actual example that included the lossy encoded sections, the audience was told that they were going to be listening to a 24-bit, 88.2kHz recording by Philip Hobbs of Linn Records. If they had any expectation bias, I wold have thought it would operate in the opposite direction to your implication. It is entirely possible that the audience, if they were even aware of the "evils of MP3" mentioned in the Stereophile website piece, assumed that _that_ demonstration would occur later in the event. 

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile


How long is HA going to entertain this farce?


I don't see it as a farce. I see it as an opportunity for people who are weak or undecided to hear directly from one of the more transparent people in high end audio how they hide from science, reason, and self-awareness.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #197 –
Quote from: Stereoeditor on
Quote from: krabapple on
But the audiophile press' antipathy to DBT seems as much philosophical -- bordering on religious -- as anything else.  I have heard Mr. Atkinson tell the tale of his Damascene conversion from DBT advocate (though I'm not sure how deep that ever ran)...


That seems like a cheap shot, Krabapple.


The whole anecdote is a cheap shot. I would like to title it "John Atkinson believes that all blind listening tests sound the same". It was a poorly-prepared test. The first ABX test I ever did was miles further down the road, and we've carried blind tests far further in the following decades.

Quote
My formal education was in hard science, my first jobs were in hard science, and in fact one of the first editorial comments I had published in Hi-Fi News (in April 1979) was a criticism of subjective reviewing and the lack of blind testing.


The world is full of people who actually staued with hard science who have no clue about doing good listening tests, some of whom don't get what the fuss is all about even when it is properly explained to it. Most of them don't have a much to lose by changing their minds as you do, John.

If you really don't get blind testing at this late stage John, then you sold your brain down the river. If you do get it, but you're hiding it, then you sold your soul. We've all seen what you were and are getting paid, so the only possible discussion is over what you exchanged to obtain it.

"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #198 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Noting your ability to dismiss evidence that conflicts with your beliefs...  We now agree that the corner frequency dropped significantly, which falsifies your previous two statements, I can live with that! ;-)


If you had the decency of quoting me correctly, instead of putting your own words on my keyboard (really, go up and read it all again!), you would see that I never contested that drop in cutoff frequency. Quite the contrary.

Oh, and when it comes to digital filters like these I don't have believes. I have understanding.


"Audiophile" listening event @ Definitive Audio in Seattle

Reply #199 –
If this thread follows the succession of others like this, we should soon see Arnold drowning the thread in continued ranting against John Atkinson and the industry as a whole and page long nitpicking with WernerO, to make it clear that Arnold's not reading WernerO carefully is much less significant than Arnold's strong feeling to fight side by side with the truth.