Conclusive "Proof" that higher resolution audio sounds different

[arnyk]

Perhaps not in a "magazine article", but it is definitely true for any scientific journal. It's always a matter of debate and opinion about when a person's contributions reach the "author" stage as opposed to the "acknowledgement" stage, but any substantive contribution requires at least the latter.

Ignores the fact that wide acceptance over a period of time time makes a difference. Every worthwhile scientific discovery matures to the point where it is simply accepted as being reliable and everybody moves on. For example, does every mention of Newton's Laws of Motion or Calculus credit Newton? What about Radio - does every article about radio technology credit the people who invented it? What about Atomic Energy or Computers? What about MP3 files? Do they all credit Jim Johnson?

There's no need for reasonable people to struggle over whether popular (not academic) articles about whether articles written about ABX 1982 some 20 or more years after its discovery mention who discovered it or not. Look at the article that has been cited: http://www.nousaine.com/pdfs/Flying Blind.pdf. The article was published in Audio Magazine which was a popular magazine that was sold in Supermarkets, Mewstands, Drugstores etc. at the time.

(An interesting factoid is that Audio Magazine functioned as the unofficial journal of the AES in the early 1950s please see: http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Audio-Magazine.htm)

The article does mention similar experiments by Clark and Greenhill in the early 1980s, but it says nothing about who actually invented ABX. Read it yourself, it contains no formal cites whatsoever which is typical for popular magazines. Through it all, Clark, Nousaine (RIP) and myself remained good friends. ;-)

 

[Orb]

Arny,
Amir is talking about the power supply stage-design for the ML no 53; http://www.learnabout-electronics.org/ac_theory/transformers03.php
If possible might make sense to put Amir's quotes inside the [] quote /quote command as I must admit it is a bit confusing following who said what.

Cheers
Orb

 

[arnyk]

Arny,
Amir is talking about the power supply stage-design for the ML no 53; http://www.learnabout-electronics.org/ac_theory/transformers03.php
If possible might make sense to put Amir's quotes inside the [] quote /quote command as I must admit it is a bit confusing following who said what.

Thanks for pointing those ambiguities out. I think I have them all fixed up, now.

Amir took another pratfall with this response:

??? Please forgive me Arny for being blunt but that is like the gas station attendant saying he is intimately familiar with the engine in your car because he has put gas in thousands of cars smile.gif. All you need there is a screwdriver to bolt a power supply to a PC case. And plugging in its cable into the motherboard. That gives you no understanding of how PC switchmode power supplies work. My kids in elementary school were building their PCs and I am pretty sure they, nor their friends had any idea how they worked.

The operative phrase is:

"All you need there is a screwdriver to bolt a power supply to a PC case. And plugging in its cable into the motherboard."

Obviously Amir has never actually done such a thing or seen it done because a PC power supply actually looks like this:



Note the profusion of different cables, and not just the one cable that Amir claims does it all. I might add that this power supply is probably on the low end of complexity with an average or lower than average number of cables.

Reality is that I have been doing this for decades and go back to the days when we actually repaired the power supplies, usually by analyzing the circuit on the fly as power supply schematics like schematics for anything else in the PC case are and were like hen's teeth. I seem to recall that the service manual for the original IBM PC and AT did have detailed schematics, but it quickly went downhill from there.

 

[still-one]

 

[rbbert]

In small doses it is kind of amusing, though; someone with no education, credentials or qualifications whatsoever (arnyk) arguing technical matters with engineers who have all of those and more (amir, tony lauck, jkeny, orb, etc)

 

[microstrip]

+1!

 

[amirm]

Reality is that I have been doing this for decades and go back to the days when we actually repaired the power supplies....

No Arny. Sadly the reality is that you are a hobbyist with no professional/pratcial experience as to know what amplifier design really is and just like HDCD and SACD post, are making random assumptions and stating voodoo technical jargon.

You may recall the last time we had a discussion about amplifier design on AVS Forum. There you said you had designed one amplifier. I asked you for the schematic and you said once more that dog ate the schematic and you had no record of it to share with us. You went on to challenge me on my ability to read amplifier schematics by posting about the Bryston Amp. Here is how that went for you: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-au...92314-question-bi-amping-17.html#post23980728

I have been meaning to answer this but have been too busy at work.

The false logic that you seem to be trying to pass off here is that we need to look at single transformer devices and multiple transformer devices in the same way. ...In short Amir, you've demonstrated nothing but your well known affectation for fallacious logic and false, distracting comments.

The one amp I made a firm statement about was an amp for which I was able to provide a schematic. You provided zero schematics or other confirming evidence.

Fair enough. Instead of me providing another schematic, why don’t we work from yours which was the Bryston 4BSSS2 stereo amplifier. Let’s recall your post:

Here is an official schematic of a 4BSSST2 power supply from the Bryston web site: http://bryston.com/PDF/Schematics/4BSST2_SCHEMATICS.pdf

If you look carefully there are indeed two power transformers but their secondary windings are connected in parallel. There is one main bridge rectifier (BR2) and one set of filter capacitors for the power amp output stage (C19 and C20). Its all one power supply that is shared between the 2 channels. I presume that the power transformer function was implemented in two separate transformers for convenience.

I don’t know how to say this but that is NOT the power supply that is powering the amplifier! Yes, it is “a” power supply but not “the” power supply. A high power amplifier will have positive and negative rails in addition to at least a couple of voltages. You can’t produce all of that from that single circuit.

What is this for then? If you follow the output of the circuit to the yellow box on the left, you see that it goes into IC2 which is a 78L05. This is a standard 5 volt regulator. Any digital designer knows the rest of story now. The 5 volt is needed to run some digital circuit. In this case, it is the other yellow box, IC1 which is a “PIC” microcontroller. Yes, there is a little computer here. What is that doing in an amplifier? First clue is the name of this entire board: “Micro Soft Start.” It is very typical to have a soft start in amplifiers where the amp waits a few seconds for the power supply rails to stabilize before turning on. This gets rid of power on “pop” or glitch sound. The technical lingo for that is soft start. This board also performs a few other function such as remote turn on/trigger, etc.

So where is the real power supply? It is in the next page of the schematic. Here is channel 1. Channel 2 is a complete duplicate of this:

The clipped section on the left is the amplifier. I have kept the output section there. The module of interest is the block on the right. Looking all the way on the right we see the transformer windings coming here. They go through the bridge rectifier BR1 which given the center tapped transformer, generates +- 90 volt rails for us to drive the output transistors. A large bank of paralleled capacitors provide filtering/energy reservoir. Those two DC voltages are dropped down to +-30 volts through the transistor emitter follower voltage regulator. (The Zener diode on its base (1N4754) provides the regulation.) The output of that in turn goes into IC 7815 which as the name implies is a 15 volt regulator. Putting it all together, the power supply for this channel alone produces +-90,+-30, and +- 15 volts for a total of 6 different voltages.

Channel 1 circuit is duplicated completely for channel 2. This means we have another set of 6 supply voltages generated there to feed its amplifier circuit. As you note, there are two transformer windings (TX1 and TX2 in your diagram) that feed each amplifier power supply electronics. Instead of having two smaller transformers, we simply have one twice as big with dual windings to supply each channel independently. We can confirm all of this by looking at the guts of the unit:

Starting from front, we see the massive toroidal transformer (the big round thing). Out of it there are three things: the black cable which is the AC primaries and the feed for the little supply you outlined. The horizontal board in front of the transformer is the circuit board you talked about which we now know is the soft start, not the power supply. We see two sets of red, blue and purple branching left and right out of the transformer. They in turn feed the two amplifier channels on the left and right. The large cylindrical devices on their side are the power supply filter capacitors. We see that as the schematic indicated, there is a complete set for each channel which tells us the power supplies are in there.

So we do have two independent power supplies. Each is backed by massive capacitor block that stores energy in addition to filtering. The upstream transformer is designed to feed both of them at full power. Therefore, it will not have any issues driving one channel at full power (i.e. powering the woofer) and the other, a handful of watts to feed the tweeter. The shared transformer is a convenience. They could have put two in there or as they have done here, one twice as powerful with two windings. It is like having two 15 amp sockets or one at 30.

Of course such massive overbuilding is hallmark of high-end amps like the Bryston. So if there were one amp that did not have a bottleneck in its power supply, this would be it!

In summary, as I explained, there are many amplifiers with dual power supplies even if they don’t seem that way to the uninitiated.

So no Arny. Screwing in a PC power supply in it is case and turning that into expertise about amplifier and power supply design is like a guy saying because he washes cars all day, he is now an expert in engine design. If you can't tell where the power supply is in an amplifier from schematic of a unit *you picked to challenge me*, there is no leg to stand on. You have no expertise in this topic. Analog design is complex and doesn't lend itself to lay reading of online articles here and there.

I grew up with analog electronics as that was my hobby. I learned it from my older brother who was likewise heavily into the topic. Analog design runs in my blood . To wit, while going to college, I repaired hundreds of amplifiers, in most cases with no schematic at all. This is what I know. This is what I did. You can't win an argument of superior knowledge here by saying you worked on mainframe computers.

Ultimately this is what it boils down to. Hobbyists pretending to be experts, shouting from top of mountains that the world turns this way or that way. With the advent of the Internet and bits spinning forever on some server, you can't do this anymore Arny. It is silly to assume that with no professional or educational training you can take on anyone you see on forums who has those qualifications. It doesn't work that way in real life. It shouldn't work that way on forums.

 

[jkeny]

No Arny. Sadly the reality is that you are a hobbyist with no professional/pratcial experience as to know what amplifier design really is and just like HDCD and SACD post, are making random assumptions and stating voodoo technical jargon.

Yes, unfortunately this is the case. I don't know why you waste your time with him - it's completely like "talking to a brick wall" as he already stated but not about himself. It was his most self-revelatory post to date.

 

[arnyk]

Yes, unfortunately this is the case. I don't know why you waste your time with him - it's completely like "talking to a brick wall" as he already stated but not about himself. It was his most self-revelatory post to date.

When your opponent's first response to a technical question is either denial, double talk, irrelevant, and/or insults, it is Mother Nature's way of telling you that you have won the argument. I tend to listen to the Lady. ;-)

 

[jkeny]

When your opponent's first response to a technical question is either denial, double talk, irrelevant, and/or insults, it is Mother Nature's way of telling you that you have won the argument. I tend to listen to the Lady. ;-)

I see no evidence of that with any of Amir's answers to you - quite the opposite, in fact - your answers are laughingly lacking in technical accuracy & your excuses when called on such inaccuracies is to bluff, bluster, spoof & generally try to deflect attention away from your many exposed shortcomings. The more you post, the more these shortcomings become clearly evident. You may get away with bluff & bluster on AVS but you don't have a band of merry men jumping in with cover up posts to save you here.

 

[Whatmore]

It's very sad to see the level of ad hominem attacks in this, and similar threads, on WBF
I would expect better, particularly when some of these attacks are being generated by the moderators

 

[zztop7]

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

This may apply to some comments :
I would like to give proper credit, but I am not clear who to credit. The statement came off ritholtz.com.

zz.

 

[wakibaki]

I don't see much point in arguing about credentials. IME arguing about credentials is time wasted that could have been spent gathering evidence.

Of course many spurious claimants prefer to argue about such, as it keeps the spotlight off the main issue.

What we're all interested in is evidence. Well, some people aren't interested in evidence, but this thread is all about evidence.

It's been going now for nearly 6 months. If you can't show convincing evidence in that time, it's not going to happen.

Ultimately, you can only resolve this issue by demonstrating the capacity to hear what you claim (amirm) in irrefutable circumstances. That means, you let somebody else set up the test, and you have no hands on involvement.

The more time goes by without independent verification in circumstances agreed by both parties (and a second party to this issue can definitely be found), the more likely that public opinion will swing against the claimant, because he is the claimant, and it is incumbent on him to prove the case. The greater the delay, the more pressing the presumption that the claimant is dissembling, and the more pressing the presumption that he knows he cannot pass the test under controlled circumstances.

The resolution of this dispute is entirely in the hands of amirm, because only he can provide the proof. Continuing to allow the debate to rumble on merely suggest that he prefers it this way.

Put your money where your mouth is amir. Discrediting arnyk does not make your case. Provide some real proof and then we can all move on.

w

 

[amirm]

I don't see much point in arguing about credentials. IME arguing about credentials is time wasted that could have been spent gathering evidence.

Sadly few people want to bother to do real work beside me. Folks complain left and right but when it comes time to action, they keep looking at me for more work. Your post included. Why not run some tests yourself and report the results? What's wrong with that?

It's been going now for nearly 6 months. If you can't show convincing evidence in that time, it's not going to happen.

Evidence has been put forward. Whether someone wants to believe them is up to them, not the rest of us. There are people who will argue Pope is not a Christian even if he showed up in front of them in person. That produces no responsibility for the rest of us jump and and down when they object for the hundredth time with no data of their own.

Ultimately, you can only resolve this issue by demonstrating the capacity to hear what you claim (amirm) in irrefutable circumstances. That means, you let somebody else set up the test, and you have no hands on involvement.

You are calling my ethics into question? Where is such requirement for any other test of this kind ever conducted? Meyer and Moran had who for the witness? How about Tom? We assume ethical conduct in such matter. We get assurance by having the same means necessary for others to try and duplicate the results. In this case, that has been provided in spades.

Besides, you are a bit behind times. We now have award winning, best peer-reviewed paper submitted to this year's Audio Engineering Society Convention by Stuart, et al. showing audibility of filters and quantization from high resolution to 44.1 and 48 Khz sampling. Look to my January article in WSR magazine for all the details. For now, here are some highlights:

5. CONCLUSIONS
1. FIR filters that emulate downsampling for sam-
ple rates of 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz can have a dele-
terious effect on the listening experience in a
wideband playback system.

2. 16-bit quantization with and without RPDF
dither can have a deleterious effect on the listen-
ing experience in a wideband playback system.

3. Our findings are consistent with the idea that
filters with long impulse responses blur the tem-
poral details of signals.

4. Not all pieces of music contain musical features
that demonstrate these losses of transparency.
Possible important features include echoes that
give a sense of the physical space around the
performers.

5. Consideration should be given to the use of psy-
chophysical tests that minimise cognitive load
in studies of this kind.

Here are the statistics from the study:

This is the first test of its kind, run by professionals with substantial educational and professional experience in conducting such tests as opposed to hobbyist work published prior. While it does not point to night and day differences, it nicely debunks the notion that there can't be any difference.

Again, this is a peer-reviewed listening test. Yet folks still don't believe what it says.

The more time goes by without independent verification in circumstances agreed by both parties (and a second party to this issue can definitely be found), the more likely that public opinion will swing against the claimant, because he is the claimant, and it is incumbent on him to prove the case. The greater the delay, the more pressing the presumption that the claimant is dissembling, and the more pressing the presumption that he knows he cannot pass the test under controlled circumstances.

Sorry but this is just wrong. Both sides are "claimants." There is no sense of entitlement here. You don't get to automatically be right about inaudibility when you lack evidence to prove your point. One or two ad-hoc tests by hobbyists is not data.

A few people have been roaming audio forums for years demanding that any subjective evaluation of audio be backed by double blind tests. There was no other requirement. That has been done and not just by me, but by others. Recently on Hydrogen Audio yet another test was put forward for me to pass. I and two others passed it. Here is the outcome of that, this time with new ABX plug-in that has cryptographic hashes that verifies authenticity of the files uses and the log file:

foo_abx 2.0 beta 4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.5
2014-11-23 13:38:11

File A: limehouse_linear_phase_050.wav
SHA1: 661058f46dfb7de9fd2687344ece857f0ae1531a
File B: limehouse_reference.wav
SHA1: e8ad96830d23cad4bba5bf822ce875ae452b9e7c

Output:
DS : Primary Sound Driver

13:38:11 : Test started.
13:38:31 : 01/01
13:38:39 : 02/02
13:38:48 : 02/03
13:38:58 : 03/04
13:39:06 : 04/05
13:39:18 : 05/06
13:39:24 : 06/07
13:39:31 : 07/08
13:39:40 : 07/09
13:39:48 : 08/10
13:39:56 : 09/11
13:40:03 : 10/12
13:40:09 : 11/13
13:40:17 : 12/14
13:40:28 : 13/15
13:40:36 : 14/16
13:40:36 : Test finished.

 ---------- 
Total: 14/16
Probability that you were guessing: 0.2%

Again, two other people passed the same test. The author of the test however would not run it. Neither would Arny, Krab, etc. who were also there.

The resolution of this dispute is entirely in the hands of amirm, because only he can provide the proof. Continuing to allow the debate to rumble on merely suggest that he prefers it this way.

No. I have done exactly as I was challenged to do. Run the tests as provided and gave my results. I have then run more tests. More variations and different ones. Nothing has provided satisfaction. Nothing.

Put your money where your mouth is amir. Discrediting arnyk does not make your case. Provide some real proof and then we can all move on.

Sorry, no. "Real proof" of the kind constantly demanded on forums has been provided. That anyone be able to pass such tests.

In the past I have also shown how as a matter of audio science, these differences can be audible. That a bunch of lay people with no professional or educational background in audio had convinced themselves of inaudibility doesn't become my issue to resolve. They went past their bounds of knowledge and now have egg on their face. They need to educate themselves and not throw challenges out there that come back to haunt them.

What I wanted to get done, I have gotten done and then some. The Internet has gone from having no formal tests of this kind defined and run, to countless results posted and ton of analysis performed. You cannot turn the clock back with posts like this. You simply can't. You need to take into account what has happened and not hang your hat on another empty challenge, hoping that changes the facts it does not.

Now why do I continue discussing the topic? Because it is fun and enjoyable to set the record finally straight on this aspect of audio technology. It has nothing to do at all with thinking I have not made my point. I could not be more satisfied with the outcome of the tests as I have reported.

BTW, I have offered others to come and witness me taking the test again. But they refuse. Here is the latest offer I made on HA forum: http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=107124&view=findpost&p=881871

 

[wakibaki]

You are calling my ethics into question?

I am suggesting you could demonstrate that your ethics are beyond question.

Do you put your pride above scientific discovery? Suppose you were to die tomorrow? A piece of knowledge would be lost to humanity.

I saw your offer.

Your suggestion that they should pay half your proposed considerable travel expenses is sufficient disincentive to suggest to me that the offer was not seen as being made in good faith. I wouldn't have considered it for a minute. Why do a test you know the result of when you can brush the guy off because he can be seen to be making unreasonable financial demands?

In any case, you cannot be seen to profit from the exercise in any way, shape or form. You cannot be said to have made an open offer with this financial entanglement, be it so trivial as half the price of a trip to Florida. Try asking to meet halfway. Ask a university or college for help. If the negotiation stalls again, come back and ask me for more suggestions, but not before exercising some of your own ingenuity, please.

You were also suggesting that you could use your own laptop AFAICS. Surely you understand that this is absolutely out of the question, to exclude the possibility of tampering.

When it comes right down to it, there are no "gentlemen's agreements" in such circumstances.

It's the implicit failure to recognize this, however, that redounds most to your discredit. Of course it's not going to be done with your equipment. That's the first thing any nay-sayers are going to question if you get a positive result. You should know that.

The whole point is to make it so that you can't cheat. Then there is no issue of trust.

So set it up without any financial penalties on the opposition and there's no arguing about the firmware. Jeez. Anybody'd think it was difficult to prove one way or the other, but if you spend your time arguing on the internet it'll go on for ever. If it goes on forever though, you'll be discredited by default.

The measures taken are for your protection too. They make the results less controversial and more likely to gain acceptance.

 

[jkeny]

Well, what emerges from all this is the uselessness of the ABX test as the veracity of the person undertaking the test is the last straw being frantically grasped at by the so called "objectivists". Indeed, it is so fatally flawed in their eyes, yet Arny's overwhelming desire to lay claim to such a flawed test, is puzzling? Is it not so much a test as a mystery for this congregation of objectivists & we all know religions need a mystery & a leader.

 

[rbbert]

Maybe I missed something in 155 pages, but it seems to me that amir and others have succesfully discriminated using abx tests designed and assembled by other parties, and on more than one occasion. That and a peer-reviewed, published study (which I admit I have not read) should satisfy the doubters, but apparently it doesn't?

 

[jkeny]

Maybe I missed something in 155 pages, but it seems to me that amir and others have succesfully discriminated using abx tests designed and assembled by other parties, and on more than one occasion. That and a peer-reviewed, published study (which I admit I have not read) should satisfy the doubters, but apparently it doesn't?

Indeed, your statement of the facts are correct but it appears that ever more test criteria are introduced (this only arose once positive results were returned) by these doubters. This graphically reveals their lack of integrity & lack of objectivity in all of this.

 

[amirm]

I am suggesting you could demonstrate that your ethics are beyond question.

They should already be. After all, if we are to doubt each other's ethics, why would it only apply to me? The mere fact that I have done what was asked, i.e. run numerous double blind tests and variations meant to tease out secondary issues, subjects me to ethical doubt, then there is no reason for me to keep doing them. Right?

I am sure if I pass the tests in front of a witness, the bar would move again to have my hearing checked to see if there is an implant in there that tickles my ear in the presence of high resolution audio. Should I produce an affidavit from said audiologist saying I have no such implant, then the next request would be a polygraph test from said specialist. And a background check since he and I can be related and he could be part of a crooked game to win an online argument.

Do you put your pride above scientific discovery? Suppose you were to die tomorrow? A piece of knowledge would be lost to humanity.

Scientific discovery? I have no such aspirations. You may have not read why I put the word "proof" in the title of this thread. I put quotation marks on it as to say that this is not about scientific discover. But rather, showing how uninformed and unreasonable, *our* camp, is in these discussions. That we demand double blind tests, hoping that it is too much work for the other guy to go and run them.

What you didn't count on is that some of us in our camp do try to be objective for real. That we are not afraid of participating in listening tests no matter what the outcome. As it happened in this case, my special training in hearing small differences allowed me to pass a test that the test creators thought was impossible. They thought that based on lay assumptions and hope that the other guy would not run the test as to eek out the invalidity of our proof point.

So no, there is no scientific discovery in my work. What there is, is an opportunity for some soul searching in *our* camp. That the silly proof point that we kept demanding, was just that, silly. The odds were in our favor so we had won the crooked game until now. From here on, we don't get to still stand on the mountain and claim correctness. And we sure as heck don't make a mockery of running double blind tests as to bring into question the ethics of our fellow hobbyists which in good conscious, thought to do a bunch of work to run tests that we would not run.

If the conclusion is that these tests can be passed due to cheating, so be it. From here on, you better not ask for double blind tests as evidence of subjective audio difference. Because the person could pass, through cheating or otherwise, and put us on the defensive. So we better change our tactics. Open our ears and eyes to more learning. After all, you did not know until now that someone could pass these tests through whatever means, right? You have to by definition be learning something.

In any case, you cannot be seen to profit from the exercise in any way, shape or form.

And I have not. What I have seemingly earned though is folks thinking I am a cheater and liar. It can't possibly be that our understanding of audio is wrong. It can't possibly be because we ourselves don't have critical listening abilities and have refused to participate in these very tests as to know how they could be passed. No. It has to be for some gain for Amir.

You were also suggesting that you could use your own laptop AFAICS. Surely you understand that this is absolutely out of the question, to exclude the possibility of tampering.

Oh, the possibility of tampering. The plot thickens. So there you go changing the rules again. Now if I pass the very tests I have shown in this thread in the presence of another witness, that is not good enough! I have to also change equipment.

When it comes right down to it, there are no "gentlemen's agreements" in such circumstances.

There better be. In real world, if I go to a conference and someone stands there and presents the results of listening tests, I don't immediately think if he is a cheater and liar. I have been highly critical of Meyer and Moran tests. But not once have I said maybe they were liars and cheats and completely misreported the results as to gain fame and fortune. You want to go there, you need to do so without me.

The whole point is to make it so that you can't cheat. Then there is no issue of trust.

Nah. The issue of "trust" will keep going forever as long as the test outcome is positive. If it is negative, satan could report the results and we would accept it with open arms. After all, you can't show me any negative listening test results where someone from our camp brought up the issue of trust. Right?

The measures taken are for your protection too. They make the results less controversial and more likely to gain acceptance.

For my protection? You don't say.

Let me break the real news here. The tests have been run and far more authoritative evidence presented in both online and now in peer-reviewed AES conference. Worry about your own ethics and conduct, not mine. My work just got validated in said published work. And I can back my results with my professional training as a critical listener. That the few of you still want to be in denial about it, is just that: a few unreasonable people in our camp will keep hoping and clinging to any argument to refuse to accept progress we have made here. That is OK as doing so is one of the main reasons I ran these tests. To show the hypocrisy of our position. That we hang our hat on double blind tests but when someone runs them exactly as prescribed, we are the ones crying about the test not being valid.

My advice to you is to not make our camp look any worse than it is. Don't fear positive outcomes. Embrace it as a learning opportunity. On HA forum, someone who likewise called my ethics into question when I refused to take yet another test, put aside his doubt when I told him exactly what I heard and where, and managed to pass Arny's tests.

Here is my response to him, and results of me running the test again as he instructed: http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=107718

Funny there, the forum supermod there deleted that post as being "off-topic!" They create a whole forum around validity of double blind tests but declare that someone running a double blind test is posting off-topic stuff? But we digress.

Here is how Wombat, the poster then responded in the thread itself:

After complaining at amir i listened these samples the first time Peace of cake to abx down to 0.125.

foo_abx 2.0 beta 4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.4
2014-12-10 00:10:25

File A: 30 Hz noticable jitter 0.0125.flac
SHA1: 7349f9f6449777a2c33693251099a6ed58821382
File B: no jitter.flac
SHA1: 262cd6c4d4c73502a0142f867b00aae013fd13ce

Output:
DS : Primärer Soundtreiber

00:10:25 : Test started.
00:11:29 : 01/01
00:11:39 : 02/02
00:11:51 : 03/03
00:12:03 : 04/04
00:12:14 : 05/05
00:12:45 : 06/06
00:12:59 : 07/07
00:13:15 : 08/08
00:13:28 : 09/09
00:13:46 : 10/10
00:13:46 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 10/10
Probability that you were guessing: 0.1%

-- signature --
8c03ed033758c82830a239ea2a5f3f5ff12c910f

We go from incredulity and doubt about my ethics to "piece of cake" in achieving the same results.

I suggest you all stop posting and do as he did. Run the tests. Learn what this topic is all about. Share your results. Show some respect for advancement of our discussions. Anything but FUD, hoping that will get us some place. It won't.

 

[jkeny]

They should already be. After all, if we are to doubt each other's ethics, why would it only apply to me? The mere fact that I have done what was asked, i.e. run numerous double blind tests and variations meant to tease out secondary issues, subjects me to ethical doubt, then there is no reason for me to keep doing them. Right?

I am sure if I pass the tests in front of a witness, the bar would move again to have my hearing checked to see if there is an implant in there that tickles my ear in the presence of high resolution audio. Should I produce an affidavit from said audiologist saying I have no such implant, then the next request would be a polygraph test from said specialist. And a background check since he and I can be related and he could be part of a crooked game to win an online argument.

Correct - it would seem that nothing short of an affidavit from AES (or chosen professional body) regarding the ethics of any witness that Amir used would be also called for & so on & so on. The constant denial from some is a sight to behold - I would have thought that, at this stage, given time to think, that the initial, excusable rejection of such results would have settled into a moderate, more balanced viewpoint but it appears not to be the case .

As you said, it really does sully the meaning of the word objectivitist to merely a belief system - belief systems & logic do not make good bed-fellows