Audio Science: Does it explain everything about how something sounds?

[Atmasphere]

And between Durlin, Aluminum, Stainless Steel and Titanium; which one is the superior material composition for an ultra hi-end TT's platter? ...Or Gold?
...Sound performance wise; scientifically measured and from extensive listening tests by the best set of ears in the audio passion industrial and professional world. :b

Actually the best platter pad material will have the same durometer as the LP itself- but will also have damping properties. For this reason its unlikely that a tt platter made of a particular material will be correct although it might be 'nice'. The platter has its job to do and the platter pad has a different job to do.

are we not designing for linear circuits anymore?, but agree this device would be very useful.

Sure, we are going for linear. There is an assumption that if it is linear with steady-state signals, its linear with anything. But if we were really to test that, the behavior within the first iteration of the waveform its likely the only test of any value. Part of the assumption lies in the idea that if we add feedback we can make it more linear. That might be true but so far the simple forumlae that we have for feedback is insufficient to really design a feedback loop that will cause the amp to work correctly. As a result most amplifiers have problems because of their feedback (and a different set of problems if they didn't have it...). But these days we do have computers so its possible to get the feedback right by modeling all the variables; that was not possible (or very very difficult) by hand just a few years ago.

At any rate if you apply Chaos theory, you find out that an amplifier with feedback is a chaotic system. Chaos Theory predicts bifurcation (distortion) and indeed it turns up....

If tubes "inject" warmth, it is a coloration.

Tim

Warmth is a fault of the circuit the tubes are in, not the tubes themselves. If you used transistors in the same way you would get many of the same distortions including that ever-loving second harmonic. Its just that tubes are more linear so you can sort of get away with it (leading to the misleading idea that tubes are more distorted, despite them being far more linear than most transistors...) whereas with transistors you can't. Let's be clear about another thing: the 'coloration' to which you refer is the 'warmth' of tubes which is primarily the 2nd harmonic (since the ear/brain system translates distortion into tonality) and is not a frequency response error.

No. I think measuring the amplitude and FR thresholds of the mechanisms of human hearing are completely separate from perception. The ear is the microphone. Perception is the rest of the studio.

Tim

This statement is really false (and one of the more widely accepted myths by that portion of the audio community that thinks we have figured everything out years ago...)!

The problem is a misunderstanding or outright ignorance of how the human ear/brain system works (something I've been harping about on this thread with most of my posts). The industry in general has ignored the physiological studies that have gone on in the last 60 years; for example the brain has a feedback system with the ear- in fact more nerves going to the ear from the brain rather than from the ear to the brain! Apparently the brain can tell the ear to do things- modify its behavior- so the idea that the ear behaves as a simple microphone is ludicrous. But that is how most of the audio industry sees it and until that changes these inane discussions will go on... and on. Forever.

 

[Tony Lauck]

Some of the same people hearing these "differences" also hear differences when there are no offsets. So in my mind the offset vs no offset doesn't explain much of anything. I do know it will alter the noise floors of sigma-delta processes, but some people hear differences either way. This does not show it is or isn't true for audibility, just that the offset and its effect on noise floors is currently a guess at best.

I agree with you in this case. People heard differences and they wouldn't take the time to make sure that the differences they heard were correlated with the files played. (The problem isn't as simple as recognizing the identical sound, since the pattern of vibrations that hits one's ear drum each time a file is played will be subtly different for various reasons, including physical elements not part of the playback system.) What really annoyed me about some of the people who reported differences was that they wouldn't take the time to describe what the differences they heard were, even to the limited extent such as "at the start of the music" vs. "in the middle of the music". It gets worse. I didn't get a straight story. A told me that B heard differences, but B told me (in a private email) that he had not

I put the sample offset in the same category as "bit equal rips sound different". Here the problem is lack of understanding of all the variables involved. If one can reliably hear (or measure) differences it does not necessarily follow that one knows what the cause of these differences are. Again, when I asked some people to take different sounding rips and recopy them, controlling a bunch of variables, they refused to do so.

 

[FrantzM]

I think that the title of this thread "Audio Science: does it explain everything about how something sounds?" is naive and a set up. Of course it does not explain EVERYTHING, and I do not think you will find a true audio scientist or engineer who insists that it does or that the ultimate proof for you and your system is not in the listening.

To many, Darwin's Theory of Evolution was and is distorted by detractors into meaning simply that man descended from the apes, as they go on from there to demonize the entire theory. Of course, it means no such thing, although that might have been one of many possible initial oversimplified interpretations of Darwin. But, that particular interpretation is not one considered useful or relevant by evolving science since then.

I see many similar superficial anti-audio science arguments here and elsewhere that perform a similar oversimplification and distortion of the very definition of what audio science is in order to bash the offending, now mere straw man concept. Of course, there are objectivist wanna be's who do a similar thing to subjectivists in order to bash them personally and their beliefs. But, that is not necessarily based on rigorous or good science either, or good ethics for that matter. As with all things, there is good and bad - good audio science and bad, good practitioners and bad.

Science does not preclude observation. In fact, it is fundamentally based on observation. Audio science does not preclude listening for yourself and deciding what you like best. What audio science can do, at its best, is to provide more useful information and more insight into what is happening and why. It is interested in general, universally applicable information rather than the anecdotal observations of one individual under one set of listening circumstances - "one guy listening to one system in one room with his choice of recorded music". Proper science also understands full well that individuals differ in their acuity and sensitivity to musical sound - it has observed and measured that phenomenon.

Contrary to some assertions here, much audio science is about gathering and analyzing the perceptions of many individuals in listening to music under controlled, unbiased conditions. Those perceptions or preferences embody each individual's own personal value system as to what is important - emotion, feeing good, getting goosebumps, foot tapping and/or any other more purely sonic virtues. Audio science is not, as some have said, purely about making electrical or acoustic measurements with steady state test tones.

Some seem to have a great aversion to electrical or acoustic measurements. I have no idea why this is true. I find them useful, though their correlation with our perceptions and preferences is still evolving science and it gets into psychoacoustics. I do believe that measurements over the years of audio equipment have helped make that equipment better on average. No equipment maker wants his creation to be called out by measurements as not fulfilling his own specifications or performing erratically relative to the competition in published tests. But, if you go back far enough in the history of hi fi, not all equipment "measured the same" as it might superficially appear today in many common, simple performance measures with certain classes of equipment.

But, there is also a big gap between common published audiophile-grade measurements and much more sophisticated professional measurements because of the gap in knowledge necessary to comprehend them, as well as the difficulty in performing them.

In any case, there are no science police forcing anyone to accept scientific test results or measurements or upon which to base their own equipment purchase decisions. That there is nonetheless such hostility in some camps about audio science is not a complete surprise. It is largely a result of incomplete, superficial understanding of what audio science really is and emotional reactions to the fear and uncertainty that entails.

Are you just being obstinate & awkward - the -200dB was simulated in the digital domain; the -115dB was the measuring limit of the new APX555.

Ah yes, marketing claims from leading engineers like Rob Watts (whose credential sin the field are pretyy damn good) & I guess that applies to Martin Mallinson too (also with highly respectable credentials) - these must be dismissed. I'm just showing you different sources that point to the same thing - the standard thresholds of audibility may need some revising Dismiss al of it as is your wont.


What point are you trying to make - it's just electricity & therefore everything needed is already known? There's no answer to that really as it so far off the mark that it's impossible to even begin answering.[/QUOTE]

Was his asserion peer-reviewed? It remains a marketing claim regardless of his credentials.

Please read Fitzcaraldo post above .. and please keep the discussion free of ad hominem even when you're out of arguments

 

[jkeny]

Was his asserion peer-reviewed? It remains a marketing claim regardless of his credentials.

Please read Fitzcaraldo post above .. and please keep the discussion free of ad hominem even when you're out of arguments

I don't think it's ad-hom to point out that to me you are being awkward & obstinate when you ask the same questions over & over & perfectly good answers are provided each time "how did he measure such low values ... Could use that for the search for Tachyon or other elusive particle ...Still doesn't explain how he arrived at these abysmally low numbers"

Was his -200dB blind tested, peer reviewed - no!
Was his measurement peer reviewed - does it have to be?
Was Martin Mallinson's claim of people hearing below currently acceptable thresholds, blind tested - yes. Peer reviewed - no. Measured yes!!

 

[Don Hills]

... Somehow, I am able to distinguish the difference between the presence and absence of frequencies above 20 kHz in music. I can also tell how adjusting equalization in the range 15 kHz to 20 kHz affects the "air" in recordings, even though I am unable to hear single tones in this frequency range. ... .

Tony,
have you given any thought to what mechanism might account for this?

 

[microstrip]

(...) The point remains that our Audio system does not do anything out of the realm of physics. We may impart all kinds of emotions to them.. Organic, nattural , etc it boils down to translating electricity into sound waves. Physical phenomenon thus explainable by Science...
Again the per absurdo argument could be that: " since there are things we cannot explain therefore Science cannot ever explain. A logical fallacy and that seems to be the premise of many posts here . This is physics after all.. isn't it? ... sound waves ? Electricity? What else is there? That can't be explained by Science?

Frantz,

After many long studies, many PhD thesis and thousands of man-year work, science is still not able to explain exactly how pigeons orient, although all the physics participating in the process is well known. Why should we believe that the current audio science can explain every aspect of stereo perception?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I am not as smart as Tony is in the dac world, but me thinks we are dealing with IMD folding down into the audio band in this case.

I think there is so much information in the audio band, that the brain is pretty busy dealing with it all, and pretty good at dealing with it all too.

I do believe in hearing limits, and recently an esteemed member here heard the best system he ever heard with the FR down 10db at about 40hz and 12 KHz. This is not new information, I have been fascinated by limited bandwidth and great sound for decades. While there are bone modulations for ultra HF and physical things for ultra LF, the ears themselves are band limited.

Yes. They are. And the limits are well-known. They are not questioned by audiologists. They are really only questioned by audiophiles who want to believe in their own mythology.

Tim

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz,

After many long studies, many PhD thesis and thousands of man-year work, science is still not able to explain exactly how pigeons orient, although all the physics participating in the process is well known. Why should we believe that the current audio science can explain every aspect of stereo perception?

Pigeons have been doing their things as long as they have been on the planet and so have the bees and other animals... We , the Humans had nothing to do with that. We are studying nature with various level of success and often utter failures. The quest for knowledge is never ending.
Stereo however came from our minds and laboratories, most notorious among these the famous and famed Bell Labs. Stereo is a technological construct. We made Stereo. We should be able to understand quite a bit about it and know a lot already.
I will refer you to my original post... in a nutshell : We don't know it all but we know a lot

 

[jkeny]

And we have been using our auditory system for the same amount of time that pigeons have flown.
What an audio playback system is attempting to do is create an illusion which appeals to our auditory perception.
We don't know enough about this auditory processing to be able to create consistent & reliable illusions through our audio playback systems.
Hence this discussion

Pigeons have been doing their things as long as they have been on the planet and so have the bees and other animals... We , the Humans had nothing to do with that. We are studying nature with various level of success and often utter failures. The quest for knowledge is never ending.
Stereo however came from our minds and laboratories, most notorious among these the famous and famed Bell Labs. Stereo is a technological construct. We made Stereo. We should be able to understand quite a bit about it and know a lot already.
I will refer you to my original post... in a nutshell : We don't know it all but we know a lot

 

[microstrip]

Pigeons have been doing their things as long as they have been on the planet and so have the bees and other animals... We , the Humans had nothing to do with that. We are studying nature with various level of success and often utter failures. The quest for knowledge is never ending.
Stereo however came from our minds and laboratories, most notorious among these the famous and famed Bell Labs. Stereo is a technological construct. We made Stereo. We should be able to understand quite a bit about it and know a lot already.
I will refer you to my original post... in a nutshell : We don't know it all but we know a lot

Yes, we know enough about it to know that the bit we miss is fundamental to explain the extreme performance of stereo in what most of us usually call "high-end".

Aren't you curious why the researchers have never studied scientifically why most people still prefer listening to music in stereo to listening in multichannel?

BTW, each of us can have his notorious list, but IMHO the stereo notable list is topped by Alan Blumlein of EMI.

 

[microstrip]

And we have been using our auditory system for the same amount of time that pigeons have flown.
What an audio playback system is attempting to do is create an illusion which appeals to our auditory perception.
We don't know enough about this auditory processing to be able to create consistent & reliable illusions through our audio playback systems.
Hence this discussion

Thanks John - I though it was clear.

 

[PeterA]

I think that the title of this thread "Audio Science: does it explain everything about how something sounds?" is naive and a set up. Of course it does not explain EVERYTHING, and I do not think you will find a true audio scientist or engineer who insists that it does or that the ultimate proof for you and your system is not in the listening.

To many, Darwin's Theory of Evolution was and is distorted by detractors into meaning simply that man descended from the apes, as they go on from there to demonize the entire theory. Of course, it means no such thing, although that might have been one of many possible initial oversimplified interpretations of Darwin. But, that particular interpretation is not one considered useful or relevant by evolving science since then.

I see many similar superficial anti-audio science arguments here and elsewhere that perform a similar oversimplification and distortion of the very definition of what audio science is in order to bash the offending, now mere straw man concept. Of course, there are objectivist wanna be's who do a similar thing to subjectivists in order to bash them personally and their beliefs. But, that is not necessarily based on rigorous or good science either, or good ethics for that matter. As with all things, there is good and bad - good audio science and bad, good practitioners and bad.

Science does not preclude observation. In fact, it is fundamentally based on observation. Audio science does not preclude listening for yourself and deciding what you like best. What audio science can do, at its best, is to provide more useful information and more insight into what is happening and why. It is interested in general, universally applicable information rather than the anecdotal observations of one individual under one set of listening circumstances - "one guy listening to one system in one room with his choice of recorded music". Proper science also understands full well that individuals differ in their acuity and sensitivity to musical sound - it has observed and measured that phenomenon.

Contrary to some assertions here, much audio science is about gathering and analyzing the perceptions of many individuals in listening to music under controlled, unbiased conditions. Those perceptions or preferences embody each individual's own personal value system as to what is important - emotion, feeing good, getting goosebumps, foot tapping and/or any other more purely sonic virtues. Audio science is not, as some have said, purely about making electrical or acoustic measurements with steady state test tones.

Some seem to have a great aversion to electrical or acoustic measurements. I have no idea why this is true. I find them useful, though their correlation with our perceptions and preferences is still evolving science and it gets into psychoacoustics. I do believe that measurements over the years of audio equipment have helped make that equipment better on average. No equipment maker wants his creation to be called out by measurements as not fulfilling his own specifications or performing erratically relative to the competition in published tests. But, if you go back far enough in the history of hi fi, not all equipment "measured the same" as it might superficially appear today in many common, simple performance measures with certain classes of equipment.

But, there is also a big gap between common published audiophile-grade measurements and much more sophisticated professional measurements because of the gap in knowledge necessary to comprehend them, as well as the difficulty in performing them.

In any case, there are no science police forcing anyone to accept scientific test results or measurements or upon which to base their own equipment purchase decisions. That there is nonetheless such hostility in some camps about audio science is not a complete surprise. It is largely a result of incomplete, superficial understanding of what audio science really is and emotional reactions to the fear and uncertainty that entails.

Thank you Fitzcaraldo215. I started the thread and asked the questions hoping to learn more about what audio science actually is and what it can tell us. I had a "largely incomplete and superficial understanding of what audio science really is." Posts like yours above and those from Atmasphere, 853guy and others, have shed some light on my query and I have enjoyed, and learned from, the discussion.

I think I understand a little more about audio science now, and I am sorry that you found the title to the thread to be naive and a set up. I did not mean it to be either, and I should add, that I was certainly not in fear of learning anything new.

 

[Tony Lauck]

Tony,
have you given any thought to what mechanism might account for this?

Common frequency domain approaches are based on linear systems theory. The ear and the brain's acoustic processing are not linear. There is really nothing to explain. The linear approximation is good for first order accuracy, hence the common tests and measurements. However, one should not be in the least surprised if simple models prove inadequate to explain the world in detail.

 

[jkeny]

Yes you were clear - i was replying to Frantzm.

I also want to add that knowing a lot has got us pretty good sounding audio systems but we also, at times, get glimpses of better, more realistic sounding systems & I think this is the factor that we are taking about on this thread.

Tony Lauck's words from earlier do come to mind about the two groups of people that we often see on threads such as these - those who say we know enough, who say audio is good enough for most people & limit themselves & others by current measurement's AND those who have heard snippets of what more is possible in various different devices that they have heard

Thanks John - I though it was clear.

 

[Tony Lauck]

Tony Lauck's words from earlier do come to mind about the two groups of people that we often see on threads such as these - those who say we know enough, who say audio is good enough for most people & limit themselves & others by current measurement's AND those who have heard snippets of what more is possible in various different devices that they have heard

It escapes me why those people aren't frequenting the "What's Good Enough" forum.

 

[jkeny]

It also brings me back to a question I asked Fitzcaraldo - what's the difference between Archimago's common-or-garden measurements & the professional ones, he mentioned. Is he differentiating here between "good enough" audio Vs "better" audio?

 

[jkeny]

It escapes me why those people aren't frequenting the "What's Good Enough" forum.

Yes or be happy with their "good enough" & let others get on with their quest for better?

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

M

Sorry, Fitzcaraldo, to pull you up on this but you are a supporter of Archimago's measurements & have stated that you see nothing wrong with them.
In your above post you say "But, there is also a big gap between common published audiophile-grade measurements and much more sophisticated professional measurements because of the gap in knowledge necessary to comprehend them, as well as the difficulty in performing them."
So are you saying that Archi's measurements fall well short of much more professional measurements & what is the distinction between these two categories of measurements?

I do not see the problem, unless Archimago's measurements as far as they go can be proven wrong or inaccurate. The types of measurements he makes are all proven and accepted, which is also to say there are many more measurements that could be made. But, those are likely to reveal lesser or more subtle differences or be controversial or not widely accepted. If there is a measurement that Archi is not making that yields major or significant audible differences or improvements, we would all like to know what that is, have it explained to us, accepted via peer review by qualified experts and added to the standard repertoire of published audiophile tests performed by Archi and others. That is one way that science advances and improves.

Individual engineers may have certain not widely accepted tests they perform that they believe reveal important differences and which they rely on to improve their own product. Again, if they reveal "big" differences between components well correlated to listening perceptions, why is knowledge of them withheld from formal peer review and from less technical audiophiles? Perhaps the belief in such measurements is not well founded or controversial. Perhaps it is to maintain a proprietary listening advantage for a specific product design. Perhaps it is just too much trouble to prove the concept and gain wider acceptance in the technical community. That is especially true since most audiophiles, even most objectivists, will make their buying decision more in the end on listening to how it sounds rather than how it measures. And, audio engineering, unlike science, is primarily about designing better products at a price point with certain profit expectations, not primarily about discovering and proving universal truths.

As I said in my lengthy essay post, I do not think audio science or measurements tell us everything, nor are they ever likely to. My readings of Archimago indicate that he believes in that. That does not invalidate measurements and the value of information they provide as far as they actually do go. He provides another data point in the array of imperfect information we have.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes you were clear - i was replying to Frantzm.

I also want to add that knowing a lot has got us pretty good sounding audio systems but we also, at times, get glimpses of better, more realistic sounding systems & I think this is the factor that we are taking about on this thread.

Tony Lauck's words from earlier do come to mind about the two groups of people that we often see on threads such as these - those who say we know enough, who say audio is good enough for most people & limit themselves & others by current measurement's AND those who have heard snippets of what more is possible in various different devices that they have heard

Oh, I don't think those are the two groups at all. Show me a post, any post on WBF, where anyone here has taken that position. I think the two groups you're talking about are actually people who believe there's a lot to be gained from existing science and expect that manufacturers are using it if it's real, and those who obsess over, or profit from, that which cannot be heard, has not been tested, and will not be verified because scientists and the big manufacturers with the resources won't chase those ghosts.

But at the fringes of the high end, John, baseless speculation, even about the limits of human hearing, is an opportunity. Go for it. There are more than enough audiophiles who already believe they hear what mortals and the best testing equipment available cannot, and they'll hear everything you imagine.

Tim

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Aren't you curious why the researchers have never studied scientifically why most people still prefer listening to music in stereo to listening in multichannel?

EZ. There is no interested party to fund it.