Objectivist or Subjectivist? Give Me a Break
- Thread starter Jeff Fritz
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Hello rbbert
Actually no because Ethan was talking about measured cable response. And I asked you essentially the same question. You started your response with:
Look again at the measurements. There is some slight high frequency roll-off, obviously not enough to hear but measurable. Have you read Tooles book?? There are all kinds of things you won't be able to hear that are easily measurable.
The white elephant is simply if 2 cables measure well within .1dB which these do by a wide margin why would you hear a difference??
Hello Tim
Exactly, that's the issue at hand and it doesn't matter one bit how they measure because they have all been brainwashed that measurements don't matter.
How convenient.
Rob
Actually no because Ethan was talking about measured cable response. And I asked you essentially the same question. You started your response with:
Look again at the measurements. There is some slight high frequency roll-off, obviously not enough to hear but measurable. Have you read Tooles book?? There are all kinds of things you won't be able to hear that are easily measurable.
The white elephant is simply if 2 cables measure well within .1dB which these do by a wide margin why would you hear a difference??
Hello Tim
Exactly, that's the issue at hand and it doesn't matter one bit how they measure because they have all been brainwashed that measurements don't matter.
How convenient.
Rob
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J_J,
No one can quote everything relevant in such threads. Although I do not expect people to read it all, I hope that people have to have read al less the last pages and know the usual positions of usual posters. This to say that I had raised the issue before a few posts back and had asked another poster to clarify what he was including in when he referred to "electrical performance" and how he measured it, but got no answer.
The second aspect is that unless you specify what type of blind test you are exactly referring, your question is vague, independently of the need of positive or negative tests.
I end copying and modifying your sentence "Would you prefer to be a bit more careful in your answers in future, preferably reading the poster last posts before replying?"
Hello rbbert
Here is Ethan's post that I am refereing too, underlined and bolded by me:
I don't see how you get just listening tests out of that. It's clear to me that he means measured response similar to the two wire measurements I have posted. Within the .1dB window which is probably much better than you need with music.
Rob
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Hello rbbert
His whole point, and I welcome him to correct me if I have it wrong, is they measure so close that any differences are well below the known JND thresholds where we can JUST hear a difference such as the
.1dB number that JJ posted using tailored signals to find the threshold.
The cables I measured are again well within that threshold so why would you expect to hear a difference. You seem to be avoiding or missing that.
Believe it or not you can predict audibility based on measurements once you know what what the JND numbers are. I believe that was the crux of Ethan's point.
Rob
Hello tomelex
And if the differences are all below the JND thresholds would you expext an audible difference??
Are you opposed to the idea that you can predict if there will be audible differences between cables based on measurements alone??
There is phase and impulse response data posted earlier in the thread. Impulse looks fine and phase shift is less that .5 degrees through the entire audio band.
Rob
Measurements alone are certainly not going to convince me, especially not a single type of measurement (e.g.freq response). I thought we were well beyond that, to the point at least where "objectivist" refers to some type of reproducible results from listening tests. Of course, for results to be reproducible the study (test) needs to be well designed and well performed. For the test to be meaningful, it has to be able to consistently detect small differences that are themselves meaningful. I'm unaware of any cable tests that meet these basic criteria, which isn't surprising; participating in such tests would be incredibly stressful but boring, and recompense would be minimal at best.
Surely Rob you don't design and build your speakers by measurement alone? I feel fairly certain you do some listening
Surely Rob you don't design and build your speakers by measurement alone? I feel fairly certain you do some listening
Since that's not what I said, you shouldn't start running with it. What you say is true, clipping will create greater loudness for the same energy than an undistorted signal, unless the undistorted signal is something like equal-energy-per-critical-band, which would be weird, but would maximize loudness.
Now you're putting more words in my mouth. Where did I say "should"? Hint, I didn't.
You're showing the same kind of contempt I have seen in a lot of other people who don't actually understand who perception works.
You are also utterly missing the difference between ACCURACY and PREFERENCE.
What do you say to someone who personally prefers the exaggerated dynamic range.
Actually, no, that's not what they do with hideous speakers, it's a lot more complex than that, because they are trying, usually badly I must say, to increase articulation with those pathetic little vibrators they call loudspeakers.
And, yes, using a clean system can provide wonderful results. Now do you know what was done during the recording?
As to using "DSP", ok, what DSP would you be thinking of?
Note: I am referring to vinyl, and clipping does not enter into this discussion, clipping is far, far too "hard" a distortion, just so that's clear. Tape overdrive is, to some extent, more like it, except tape overdrive also erases high frequencies, and creates a problem when the bandwidth expansion actually reduces the bandwidth.
Note: I am not talking about deliberate artistic effects like a guitar amp. That's its own thing.
But, remember, preference. What you PREFER is only what you PREFER. And almost nobody I know of likes the most exact copy of the sound pressure at one or two points in a room, and for good reason.
J_J,
No one can quote everything relevant in such threads. Although I do not expect people to read it all, I hope that people have to have read al less the last pages and know the usual positions of usual posters. This to say that I had raised the issue before a few posts back and had asked another poster to clarify what he was including in when he referred to "electrical performance" and how he measured it, but got no answer.
The second aspect is that unless you specify what type of blind test you are exactly referring, your question is vague, independently of the need of positive or negative tests.
I end copying and modifying your sentence "Would you prefer to be a bit more careful in your answers in future, preferably reading the poster last posts before replying?"
1) at least you could maintain the local context.
2) actually, the only question one needs to answer about a DBT is "is it done right". No, it does not matter which kind, as long as its done right and has proper controls. There's nothing vague there, although it does take understanding of tests to know what "done right" amounts to.
3) That's not an argument, that's mere repetition! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
So, which isn't going to convince you, any measurement or one insufficient one, i.e. magnitude response?
If I find a cable in which the least mean square error is at or below -120dB peak output, for any signal in the DC to 50kHz range, would you agree that was transparent under any normal listening scenario (that isn't itself broken)?
The context was clear IMHO.
People always refer to "it is done right" and then wash their hands and move away. Can you point us to practical documented audio blind tests carried in an high-end environment that you consider done right and and whose results are meaningful? I can imagine a lot of tests, but IMHO the resources to carry them and the general lack of interest of the community versus these subjects make them very improbable.
My apologies I have no time or will to see youtube movies.
I said "It sounds as though you are coming from the angle that distortion should be introduced deliberately..." thus inviting you to correct my impression if wrong. I still don't know whether it is wrong or not.
Aha! So you are advocating added distortion to increase apparent dynamic range... I think. Couldn't you simply use a dynamic range expander to do it with minimum distortion?
Adding a soupcon of distortion as the volume gets louder - if that's your preference... sorry PREFERENCE. At least it would be controllable. Or the dynamic range expansion mentioned above.
Sorry the clipping thing came from an earlier post of yours where you talked about "harmonic splatter that happens when the system gets to peak levels" and I wasn't sure whether you thought it was a good thing or not. I still don't.
j_j said:
I don't think measurements, any kind of measurements, are going to convince the folks who believe in high-end wire. I suspect that even if you conducted blind listening on them personally, and they failed to consistently ID their favorite high-end cable vs. Radio Shack wire, they'd believe that something in the blind listening was wrong and that their sighted conclusions are still right. That is the way it has always been. Nothing has changed. The subject has just come around again. Until next time....
Tim
Tim
Maybe, maybe not. The problem (as has been mentioned repeatedly) is that really are virtually no well-designed and well-conducted blind tests of cables, nor (unfortunately) are there likely to be. The manufacturers have little incentive, and the naysayers probably don't have the resources.
Remember, for a test like this to be meaningful, you also have to show that the listeners correctly identify cables known to have potentially audible (even to objectivists) differences.
I'm reporting a testable, verifiable result. I am not advocating anything.
Is there some reason you must personalize the issue?
Clipping is not generally good. Digital clipping is particularly and egregiously bad. The system I described is not in any fashion clipping so I still have no idea why you keep harping on this issue.
As to why you can't use a dynamic range expander... Let's think about it. If distortion around peaks (still not clipping) doubles the apparent loudness, now how much more power (in ratio terms) would be required for the same sensation, assuming linear behavior?
Can you tell me? If you can, you already knew the answer.
I didn't realise that asking a question, then in the absence of an answer, attempting to develop a working hypothesis was personalising the issue! I'm just interested in what you think is a good thing, or a bad thing, or a useful thing.
OK, let's call it 'soft clipping', or 'saturation' or 'approaching overload'. I think you know what I mean!
We may be getting there one step at a time. If it's not too personal could I ask these questions:
Some systems saturate/overload/soft clip (could be tape, vinyl, amplifiers) causing added distortion.
(a) Do you think that this effect can be a useful substitute for extra dynamic range?
(b) Do you think that these systems may have been designed, or may have evolved, in the way they have, because of this characteristic?
(c) Could you envisage advocating, and designing, a system where this effect was deliberately induced as a way of expanding the apparent dynamic range of a compressed recording?
(d) Is the 'saturation' inherent in some recording systems like vinyl, in fact, a good thing under some circumstances, if not all?
(e) Would you rather have a system that was 'saturation'-free up to any volume you wanted, or one that had the characteristics of existing vinyl/tube equipment?
(f) In the ideal world, would you like the option of the 'saturation'-free system, plus the ability to add dynamic range expansion using DSP?
(g) In (f) would you prefer to do the dynamic range expansion with added distortion (simulated 'saturation') or 'straight' dynamic range expansion?
I am genuinely interested, because I don't just want to make observations. Thanks!
A control? Yes, that would be helpful, though for something this simple, screening participants for good hearing would probably be fine. But I'm not talking about formal testing; you're right that there's no interest, certainly not in the scientific community. I was talking about simple self-testing. You didn't require well-designed, well-conducted sighted listening tests to conclude that wire makes a difference worth hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars. All I'm suggesting is that the believers close their eyes and see how much of that difference they can actually hear. Two guys and two IC cables could pull this off in a fraction of the time we've spent talking about it on the internet. It wouldn't prove anything to anyone but themselves. But that standard has been good enough for spending the money. It might suffice for saving it as well.
But there doesn't seem to be any interest in that either.
Tim
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