Why Some Audiophiles Fear Measurements

I'm still of the opinion that there is some necessary measurement for comparing audio electronics that we haven't developed. DBT, etc. all notwithstanding, there are so many reports of dissimilar sound from electronics (that should sound the same) that something must be present. Not being an engineer, etc., I can't posit what it is.

Lee

silviajulieta said:

Dear Kareface: My knowledge on the room treatment subject is really low that's why I'm asking. I'm taking the advise and support about from RPG people that I think are very good.

I was several times in audio dedicated system rooms, some really like me and other not so ( I have not an audio dedicated room ). I'm using some Snex and RPG Skylines and I will add something else according what RPG tell me. Right now my acoustics is really good but I know or at least is my hope that I can improve the system/room relationship.

Thank you again.

regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

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They are a great group, you'll be better off in the long run going that route.

RBFC said:

I'm still of the opinion that there is some necessary measurement for comparing audio electronics that we haven't developed. DBT, etc. all notwithstanding, there are so many reports of dissimilar sound from electronics (that should sound the same) that something must be present. Not being an engineer, etc., I can't posit what it is.

Lee

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What I've found is things that don't manifest in measurements are usually truly rare and are usually resolved under scrutiny. The reports you describe I would wager are 1000/1 psychoacoustics, if not greater.

FrantzM said:

but the "all else being equal" is vague enough to mean anything .. What else should be equal for the amps to sound alike.
For the record my position is that electronics do sound different .

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All I meant by "all else" is frequency response and any other standard specs. I would never say that all electronics sound the same, though I do believe that all electronics that are competently designed and built should sound the same. Again this goes to the unreliability of human hearing when assessing fidelity. Many times I've thought two audio files sounded different, only to learn they sounded exactly the same once properly compared and level-matched etc. If we can all agree that silly tweaks such as cryo'd AC outlet covers cannot possibly change the sound even a little, then why do so many people insist the sound did improve? This is the million dollar question. And the answer is obvious, to me anyway.

--Ethan

No, no, no -- you have to cryo the outlets themselves, not just the covers, Ethan. Silly boy.

DonH50 said:

No, no, no -- you have to cryo the outlets themselves, not just the covers, Ethan. Silly boy.

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Actually, to get the most out of your system, you need to cryo your ears. That way sound goes directly to the ear drum without having to mess with the outer ear. Only way to go.

randybes said:

Actually, to get the most out of your system, you need to cryo your ears. That way sound goes directly to the ear drum without having to mess with the outer ear. Only way to go.

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Cryoed ears? Bah! Direct cranial interfacing is the only way to go!

I am not an authority. I am just a lover of music, live and reproduced and of the equipment that reproducess it. Measurements mean nothing to me if they do not produce audible results. If they are audible that means I can leave the measurements to the professionals and proceed directly to the listening for evaluations. Invariably when somene talks about preferences they are talking about a sound that deviates from their idea of the perfect measurements. They want me listen to thier perfect measurements. That is not setting up a straw man. That is the reality. Since you have anointed me a subjectivist, I subjectively feel as though I am being beat over the head with measurements.

>>>Why Some Audiophiles Fear Measurements
Curious that no one has told exactly with some detail what are the measurements that audiophiles fear.

@Gregadd: Well, of course one problem with measurements is figuring out when they matter. For instance, you misspelled three words out of 118, or 2.5423728813559322033898305084746 % How many significant digits are actually relevant to this discussion?

Seriously, I have found plenty of folk clinging to either extreme through the years, and I feel either position taken to extreme is unwise. Listening has shown the way to refine our (or maybe just my) measurements, and vice-versa, many times. I have no real fear of either.

Forgetting to take out the garbage and facing the Wrath of Wife, now that's a fear worth having! Almost as much as wondering what my son is doing on his own tonight up in college... - Don

Misspelled words? Is that the best you can do? I'm sure there are grammatical errors there too. Just like measurements, I can hire a proofreader. Where were you when I was pouring over every issue of Audio magazine trying to figure why my system measured perfectly,but sounded horrible? I could have used your help in trying to decipher those terms. A funny thing happened. I discovered Audio Research and decided to let designers like Bill Johnson do the measuring for me.


If his product did not sound right,I just left it on the shelf.

Well, I'm a hairy-knuckled engineer, not a scientist, let alone an English teacher; maybe English as a Second Language.

The right measurement applied to the wrong problem is still a wrong measurement.

Mark (mep) just got my old D-79 up and running, we think, so my old ARC amp is in good hands. As for Bill, I actually met him several times in the late 70's and early 80's; he wouldn't remember me, but he was (is) an incredible guy. In one of the sessions we were comparing CDs to records ("vinyl", now) and comparing ARC to Levinson in the process. One of the interesting things was that some of the source material was a high-quality recording on a Levinson-modified Studer of -- Mark Levinson playing guitar! He wasn't bad, but he was a better designer than musician, imho... As an aside, those early CDs had a lot of "issues" compared to vinyl or tape (a 2" 30 ips master is probably still pretty hard to beat for musicality, even if the digital stuff blows it away on measurements; sometimes I just miss the hiss!)

I can't even afford to look at the ARC shelf anymore.. - Don

p.s. How much does the proofreader job pay?

proofreader- my niece does it for free. She is an ivy league and speaks fluent french.
ditto on affording ARC.
I imagine Bill has purchased and examined a few oscilloscopes in his day.
Significant digits don't matter. It's like saying you have 2.5 children. It is best expressed as 3/118.

Seriously Don. At the level of high end equipment today do we really expect the lay person to engage in any meaningful measurement based discourse? Most of the measurements we get are filtered through the marketing department anyway.

That's a good point. I think a lot of audiophiles go by specs they don't really understand, or at least they don't really understand how they relate to the sound they hear (is 0.001% vs. 0.05% THD in your preamp all that important if your speaker has 1% THD? Is 10 ps jitter much better than 100 ps at 1 kHz?), and yet they can argue about it anyway. The meaningful measurements are probably buried in the back room and copy floor.

I can cite a roughly equal number of cases where a techie didn't measure anything and proclaimed there was no difference when in fact it was different and readily measurable if the right measurement was performed.

As for me, trying to explain something based upon decades of education and experience in measuring and listening, to somebody that hated high-school algebra, has always been a challenge (from my college days right up to today). E.g., I have to remember when somebody says "DAC" they mean everything before and after it as well, including all the DSP circuits before it, the clocking circuits, and analog output filters and buffers after it. Even the power supply. All different circuits to me, with their own challenges distinct from and in support of the DAC. A certain level of competency, or background if you prefer, is required or we have no common language. At that point, the trick/challenge is to keep talking until we find common ground and can hash it out. Way easier in person, and (for me) with pen and paper handy! As most have by now noticed, I have a hard time talking without pictures...

Take care,
Don

p.s. That is one sharp niece!

Ethan Winer said:

I would never say that all electronics sound the same, though I do believe that all electronics that are competently designed and built should sound the same.

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I hear this statement often. I personally don't know if it is true or not as I have not taken the time to test hundreds of amps against each other. But know of someone/entity which has done that with some rigor. That is Ing. Öhman who is a designer and reviewer in Sweden. He has created an interesting test jig for amps. He takes the output, runs it through a high-power voltage divider simulating a cross-over load, and then takes the reduced output and after level matching, compares it to the input. If the amp is 100% transparent, there should be no audible difference in the test. To be sure, there are some issues with his test but overall, I think it is a credible effort. He calls this "bypass testing." His writings are in Swedish and google translation can be challenging to understand. Fortunately, they ran into an interesting test with a Bryston amp which has been translated professionally into English: http://bryston.com/pdfs/07/Swedish14BSSTReview.pdf

Here are some key quotes:

"The outcome of the second Bypass Test became different
from ever before. To explain how, I have to start
with explaining the normal procedure, and results: A
“normal” Bypass-listening test typically involves 3 to 6
listeners, listening to the two alternative signals, B (Before
= bypassed) and A (After = the test object is inserted
into the signal path).

This is first done openly, i.e. all listeners knows which is
B (before object) and A (after object), and that opend
listening is often done for a longer period of time. During
this listening, people are allowed to talk to each
other about what they hear or think they hear. Thus, it’s
possible to “learn from each other”, and vague characteristics
that take a long time to identify for one listener,
typically get identified very fast, due to the crosscommunication
of experiences.

When the blind ”verifying listening” thereafter takes
place, it is still an option to talk to the other listeners, but
of course it is difficult to draw any conclusions since it is
no longer known which one is B or A.
To sum it up, normally there are lots of views, ideas and
opinions regarding the character of the tested amplifier
after the open listening.
That was not the case this time.

We were sitting in open listening for well over one hour,
and no one mentioned a single word about any differences
they either imagined or heard. Actually, that’s the
first time ever something like that has happened.
...This is the first time that none of the listeners
even believed that there was any audible difference
what so ever between input and output of the amplifier."

Pretty compelling stuff in my book .

Amir I remember you battling with NIN about the legitimacy of that device.

If I understood that correctly, ie: The listeners could talk to each other and discuss what they were hearing, even in the "blind" phase of the test, then it's not a blind test. I'd still consider it much better than sighted listening, but I wouldn't call it proof of much of anything.

With that said, while I'm one who believes that competently designed and executed amps of the same power driving the same load should sound the same, they often don't. But they are very, very close. I always find myself going back to the purpose of all this stuff: Listening to music. Could I hear the difference between a SS McIntosh amp/preamp stack and a Cambridge Audio integrated if I knew what to listen for and was switching back and forth listening for amp differences? Maybe. Would it make a nickel's worth of difference if I were sitting down with a nice glass of wine to listen to Monk's Dream? I seriously doubt it. Of course that doesn't mean you should buy junk, but IMO, if you buy good-quality, well-spec'd electronics in that space at the upper end of midfi, lower high end, with enough power, you're good. Spend your money on music and transducers.

P

It seems to me half of the reason we have the impasse is because those who 'don't like measurements' (bear with me, broad depiction I know) do not ask the essential question

'HOW or WHICH of these measurements may be of use to me in my day to day listening experience?'

Just to show I am an equal opportunity poster haha, also a lot of the problem is that *WE* cannot show to those audiophiles a situation where their everyday listen9ing experience can be improved (potentially).

So a lack of wondering on one side, a lack of 'ability to teach' on the other. (tho to learn one must want to learn, so maybe the first is more important??)

So, to that end, I DO have something that I think may open the eyes of some of the people who feel 'I have no use for measurements'.

I will admit I am thinking of gregad specifically here, partly because of his view re the worth of measurements, but also because this one hones in on his 'big question' re measurements...imaging.

I am a slow typist, and am really busy, so am not willing to make a long detailed post if it will not be looked at. BUT, if greg (or others) are willing to set aside scepticism and honestly look to see if (finally! haha) measurements and their worth can be made real and useful to them, then I'm happy to start the thread.

That does not mean they must now agree, but only that I ask they look with in that new fashion...'How COULD this be of use to me??'

terryj said:

It seems to me half of the reason we have the impasse is because those who 'don't like measurements' (bear with me, broad depiction I know) do not ask the essential question
When it comes to measurements I am not at an impasse. I have made my decision and moved on.
'HOW or WHICH of these measurements may be of use to me in my day to day listening experience?'
I like to poke fun at the measurement crowd. I pay the manufacturers of my equipment to measure. I don't mean to be insulting but most of the measurement crowd could not measure thier way out of a paper bag or interpret the data they so loudly tout. They rely on things like frequency response and distortion. Pretty pedestrian. For the most part they are spoon fed data that supports what they already beleive. Furthermore, if they knew how to measure or interpret the data they don't have the scientific instruments or access to the equipment to perform any measurements. Nor have they ever designed or produced any equipment.

Just to show I am an equal opportunity poster haha, also a lot of the problem is that *WE* cannot show to those audiophiles a situation where their everyday listen9ing experience can be improved (potentially).

A condescending statement. I actually witnessed the development of the high end. Reading every magazine I could get my hands. Some used qualitative analysis, some quantitative analysis.I went to hi-fi shows. Hung out in stores. Not to mention buying my first stereo when I was still in high school. Just about every important measurement in High End Audio I observed it develop from theory into actual application. No I did not see it all. No I did not understand or agree with all of it. Some of it was later discredited.
So a lack of wondering on one side, a lack of 'ability to teach' on the other. (tho to learn one must want to learn, so maybe the first is more important??)
Not only do I have a curiosity about how audio worked, with a degree in math, I had a minor ability to understand it. I actually know what an integral or differential equation is.

So, to that end, I DO have something that I think may open the eyes of some of the people who feel 'I have no use for measurements'.

My eyes have always been wide open to any kind of knowledge. I stand fast on this point. No numbers my eyes see will contradict what my ears hear. As I've said before hearing is what it's all about.
I will admit I am thinking of gregad specifically here, partly because of his view re the worth of measurements, but also because this one hones in on his 'big question' re measurements...imaging.

I don't have a question regarding measurement of imaging.Never did. My system images just fine.The prevailing view remains that there is no existing metric for measuring front to back depth and air around instruments. See Roger Sanders post on this forum.. Ethan conceded there is no metric for measuring air around instruments or front to back to depth. Both Roger and Ethan tried to explain off axis response and its' use in predicting lateral imaging. Of course stereo imaging can be measured. It is an artificial addition to the recording. I still await a methodology by which the end user can predict a speakers ability to project depth of field and a sense of space around musical instruments. By all means enlighten me.
I am a slow typist, and am really busy, so am not willing to make a long detailed post if it will not be looked at. BUT, if greg (or others) are willing to set aside scepticism and honestly look to see if (finally! haha) measurements and their worth can be made real and useful to them, then I'm happy to start the thread.
Scepticism implies indecision. I could take my current stereo to the grave.

That does not mean they must now agree, but only that I ask they look with in that new fashion...'How COULD this be of use to me??'

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After almost 40 years in this hobby, measurements are mostly a curiosity to me.

ahh, that would be a 'don't waste my time' then.

thanks, decision made.