Analog Apologist

[tonmeister2008]

A combination of both methods. You know in medicine why, putting aside CYA, a MD asks for several tests? Because one doesn't give them all the information they need to make a diagnosis. The same is true for audio.

When will you admit that reductionism doesn't work?

I'm in a big believer in the more listening tests and the more technical measurements the better; Good perceptual data and good technical data allow us to better understand the psychoacoustic relationship between perception of sound and its measurement.

However, there are good data and bad data. Data from uncontrolled listening tests are generally unreliable,biased, and what I consider bad data. A lot of technical measurements produce bad data. That doesn't mean there aren't technical measurements that produce good data. You learn which ones are good and bad only through a scientific approach towards listening and measurement. I don't see you doing much of either.

Medical doctors make diagnosis using well-established scientific practices (at least I hope so) and good data. The drugs they prescribe are based on controlled drug studies. They make a diagnosis based on current knowledge of the medical scientific literature, and the available physical evidence based on tests and evaluation of the patient. If they have doubt they will get a 2nd expert opinion from another doctor. What doctors don't do is solicit opinions from unqualified people, ignore all published scientific on the subject, and distrust physical measurements or data from controlled perceptual measurements. Yet, this approach is quite common in audio. I don't subscribe to it.

Sorry, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't argue that a scientific approach is good for medicine, and in the same breath (or an earlier breath), say a scientific approach does not work for audio.

My science may not be perfect, but to say it is reductionist ignores the 30+ years of research that has already been done by myself and many others.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Well, Mike, I lived with vinyl and listened to it on a daily basis for 30 years before I gave it up, and I have "experienced" many tables at my friend's house and at shops. Am I going to invest in and live with whatever you consider SOTA, when my pretty broad and high-end experience thus far has failed to deliver what I want to hear? Of course not. So I guess you can go ahead and put me on your ignore list, but let's not fool ourselves. There's nothing respectful about it.

P

P,

sincerely; if you are ever in the Seattle area you would be welcome to come for a visit and hear my 3 tt's, 3 RTR decks, and music server. i'd love to show you why i feel like i feel about vinyl.

if you are in the Bay area there are a number of members here who could do the same, or if you are in the Dallas-FW area there are a few others here who would be glad to share their high end vinyl systems.

sometimes learning can be fun.

i can disagree with someone who i believe has it wrong about something and still respect their passion and intent.

Mike

 

[MylesBAstor]

I'm in a big believer in the more listening tests and the more technical measurements the better; Good perceptual data and good technical data allows us to understand the psychoacoustic relationship between perception of sound and its measurement.

However, there are good data and bad data. Data from uncontrolled listening tests are generally unreliable,biased and what I consider bad data. A lot of technical measurements produce bad data. You can't identify which ones are good and which ones without taking a scientific approach towards listening and measurement. I don't see you doing much of either.

Medical doctors make diagnosis using well-established scientific practices (at least I hope so) and good data. The drugs they prescribe are based on controlled drug studies. They make a diagnosis based on current knowledge of the medical scientific literature, and the available physical evidence based on tests and evaluation of the patient. If they have doubt they will get a 2nd expert opinion from another doctor. What doctors don't do is solicit opinions from unqualified people, ignore all published scientific on the subject, and distrust physical measurements or data from controlled perceptual measurements. Yet, this approach is quite common in audio. I don't subscribe to it.

Sorry, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't argue that a scientific approach is good for medicine, and in the same breath (or an earlier breath), say a scientific approach does not work for audio.

Sean,

Please reread my post again. I don't think you read it thoroughly. What I said is that one needs a combination of both measurements, short and long term listening. Both schools need to interact but unfortunately right now the level of distrust between the subs and obs is rivalled only by the distrust between baseball owners and the player's union.

Take for instance Lyme disease. Doctors passed it off as nothing til a nurse came along and did the legwork. Then there were doctors who didn't go along with the "establishments" view on cholesterol and opened up new understandings on the development of cardiovascular disease and advancing it from being heart disease to a systemic disease. I think that the history of medicine is littered with mistakes and false turns. But they learned and I feel that most measurement related obs think they know it all.

 

[Gregadd]

The pharmaceutical industry has not only made mistakes, they have committed fraud and engaged in criminal activity. One can only imagine why doctors continue to rely on them.

 

[RBFC]

So how do we define what are SOTA analog and digital rigs? Is that based on measurements or your opinion, TAS's, mine or a panel of trained expert listeners?

If the expert listeners deem the SOTA digital system is superior and it also measures better in all regards, will you accept the conclusions of my test?

How many rooms do I need to repeat the test in to show evidence that listeners can reliably tell the analog SOTA system has more noise, distortion and that is why they rate the system lower in sound quality/accuracy? If I repeated the tests and got the same results in 10 representative rooms would that be enough data to convince you that digital is superior to analog sources, in terms of perceived sound quality?

Thanks for the response, Sean.

I believe that there are several setups, both analog and digital, that could be used as SOTA. My comment was not meant as an absolute, but rather as a means to weed out (for example) the Magnavox CD players and SkyMall turntables. I, for one, would like to be sure that an opinion offered on this subject is from someone who has seriously listened to music on both media, not someone reciting the "measurement dogma". If we nitpick too much about which gear is the best, we arrive at the same place we currently are. I'm truly very curious about this debate and just don't want folks to spit on the pleasures of others. If we can go into Mike L.'s or Steve's rooms and hear LP/RTR that sounds tremendous, how can it be that the rampant distortions of the analog storage media aren't ruining the experience? The aforementioned individuals both have the capability to play a recording sourced in both media (analog and digital) on gear that would probably receive ratings of SOTA or close from reviewers. How can this flawed medium impress so many visitors (whose format preferences certainly vary)? I am sincerely interested in the hows and whys.

For the record, I no longer own any analog media. I had a high-quality TT setup and several thousand LPs. My ex-wife decided she needed a TT that she couldn't even turn on and a collection of LPs that she'd never listen to (probably just for the punishment effect and the $$$ it could bring). I did not attempt to replace it all. I've been digital for 15 years. Working in a fairly scientific arena, I completely appreciate the strengths of digital, borne out by both listening and measurements. I also believe that there exist some subtractive distortions in many digital playback chains that may eventually be squelched. If these yet unclearly-examined distortions did not exist, I do not believe that intelligent folks like Mike and Steve (for instance, sorry for dragging you guys into this...) would financially support media that typically sounded much worse than CD. They could be driving the Bentley, etc. I don't believe that the cache of ownership is so powerful that these guys would expend huge amounts of $$$ and energy just to have poor-performing analog if it had been clearly demonstrated that digital was usually audibly superior in listening sessions.

I'd love to have a SOTA digital front end in my admittedly modest (by the standards set here) system. I'm sure that it would improve the performance of the system.

What I don't get is others who become so encamped that they will gladly try to ruin another person's enjoyment of music through another medium. After all, it still is about music. The main thing is how it makes you feel when you sit in the special chair. When the debates dwindle away and the diehards are converted, perhaps digital will assume the monopoly position. Why don't you visit one of these guys and see how things go?

Thanks for your participation! I'm learning continually.

Lee

 

[tonmeister2008]

What are the speakers?
What are the associated components?
What was the source material?
Of what material was the curtain made?

Of course what is the motive for conducting the test? Say a company wants to crack into high end sales but has found itself consistently neglected or disfavored by the highend press and audiophiles it might try to establish its credibilty by the use of "science."
It does sort of beg the question, If the highend community is so biased why don't they have the same speakers for decades like I do. They change equipment like a teenage girl changes clothes. Moreover there is no evidence that we blindly follow highend reviewers. Indeed an endorsement by some reviewers is the kiss of death. I blush when I think of some of the vile things said about HP of the absolute sound.
Sean quite frankly I am disturbed by the way you throw around the word bias like candy from a PEZ dispenser. You contempt for highend reviewers in particular and to a smaller extent audiophiles in general is palpable.
Ferrari has a certain attraction to it because it is a Ferrari. It's red paint, exhaust note, and penis envy is part of its appeal. Without it would be just another fast car. A fact that a lot of fast cars complain about all the time. There is more to a sports car than 0-60 times,brakes and cornering ability. I recall being at the Mercedes dealer and having him refer to his sports car as a, Ferrari beater. I replied, "there is not such thing as a Ferrari beater."

All that information is in the paper. The original motivation to do the test was to demonstrate to our own engineers that they were not immune to sighted biases. Prior to my arrival 1993, most listening tests at Harman were conducted casually under sighted conditions. Some of the engineers were threatened by adoptions of formal controlled listening tests. Some thought that as professional engineers they were objective and not influenced by sighted biases. The tests proved they were wrong.

Harman adopted a scientific approach towards design and testing of loudspeakers in 1993-4 in order to be able to optimize the design process and make it more repeatable, and applicable at any price point. We didn't do it for marketing reasons, in fact, our scientific approach has generally been kept a secret.

I don't know for sure if reviewers influence purchase decisions or not, but our marketing/sales department tell me they do, so it must be true. I know it probably true in Japan because we pay close attention to the reviewers there. If you are product-of the year in Stereophile that definitely has a positive impact on sales, and you only get that designation if the reviewers like the product. I don't know if other high-end audio magazines in the US have as much effect because their readership is insignificant compared to Stereophile.

I don't know why you have a problem with the word bias. Humans are all biased to some extent (I know I am ) but fortunately there are methods for controlling and preventing these biases from unduly influencing our judgment.

I have great respect for many reviewers in our audio industry having met many of them over the past 20 years. We don't always agree on everything, but there is more common ground and mutual respect that what you suggest.

Reviewers simply do not have the facilities, time or budgets to do the same controlled listening evaluations that I do, and I understand that. That is why I think why objective measurements (like SoundStage and Stereophile for example performs) are important. They put the reviewer's comments in proper context and perspective.

 

[Steve Williams]

Gentlemen

For the sake of everyone's sanity and a time out I feel it is time to close the thread.