Creating a Audio Dartboard

[FrantzM]

Steve Thanks

Jack here is my reply to your post ...

JackD201

I share some of your point of views. The question should be what is the purpose of our systems?Isn't technology part and parcel of reproducing music. We do er in searching but if their is no goal .. This discussion board has no merit, no reasons to even exist. There is a goal and it is to re-create. it is as Kal has pointed eminently difficult and we are Light-years from achieving it but trying to get closer to it is an interesting ideal, a worthy one to most of us. How do we do that ? ONLY with our senses? which are easily fooled or do we try to combine our senses, which we know can be finely tuned with some objective aids/tools which will not see double because it has gulped half a bottle of whiskey or who don't swear by the altar of any Audio guru. Our senses are easily fooled that much we all know and we are not consistent in our evaluation. We can be trained to be to a certain extent. So the judicious use of tools and our senses does lead to better results.
High End Audio is littered with nonsenses and abuses. The idea that all the manufacturers have our best interests at heart is naive. They are after making money, which in itself is not a problem. In this quest some are ethical some are far from it. They feed on the fact that we audiophiles have learned that some little things make a "huge" difference thus we are very willing to experiment so as to get that last iota.I have done it, we have ALL done it. And we have become gullible, we are too willing to accept that everything makes a difference. The best metaphor I keep on remembering is that the "flap of a butterfly wings cannot affect the rings of Saturn", I read back in the French System equivalent of USA's High School. So we see and accept "Quantum Mechanics effects" system enhancers, Disc makes of a special wood, so small that there is NO way they can make ANY contribution or specially treated power cord .. We even accepted that electrons can be programmed to behave a certain way, in a clock !! I remember that one cable manufacturer even used the Golden Ratio to explain why his (of course expensive) cables performed. We all have fallen for these at one point or another and that is where BT ( I don;t really care for DBT, it is a different concept and not easy to perform well by the amateur) comes to play: If not knowing you can't identify it then.. I leave the conclusion to you..
Now come the tendency to selectively reject science when Audio, our hobby comes to play... Science in general is not rejected in other realms of our daily life but when it comes to Audio, then science doesn't work... Well EVERY thing Audio is based on science, even the Wax cylinder and whatever the medium applying the Scientific method to it has proven that it improves its capabilities, in a word improves it. No Science cannot explain everything but the Scientific Method has proven to be quite reliable and explains a lot of things ... we, You, use it everyday and with great success and reliability. It may not explain emotion but brings quite numerous emotion to us, think film ,music , theater, poetry , etc. Reading it comes from the application of science and technology.. Even the physical part of its writing derive from science and technology in some ways whether the writer type it or manually writes it.. The argument that science doesn't carry emotion is weak at best ...
Now for the O and 1 .. that'll be for another time but suffice to say that "0" and "1" can capture music as well as any analog process ... In video it has surpassed analog and in photography it is moving to obliterate whatever advantage film has and moving fast ... Ask Eastman Kodak or Fuji Heavy Industries or Agfa Gmbh or Hasselblad or Linhof or Leica ... etc..

Frantz

P.S Was the superiority of the Wax Cylinder to the Gramophone , proven in a DBT?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

In terms of fooling our senses raises the age old audiophile question as to who listens with lights off vs lights on?

For me the illusion is always maximized listening with lights off.

Interesting point these days as we are getting some really decent BluRay concerts and one might think that adding the visual element should enhance the illusion. Yet, I find that it constrains it and, after a view or two, I prefer to turn off the display or just close my eyes as with audio-only recordings.

I do not know what relevance this has to the issue of measurements vs. subjective assessment, two things which, I feel, need not be isolated from each other.

 

[JackD201]

Hi Frantz,

Don't get me wrong. I use lots of measuring devices for setting up my system. For my analog alone I've got my protractors, strobes, test discs, magnifying glasses, digital cartridge weight gauge etc. etc. All these to calibrate things in a reliable, repeatable manner that I simply can't do by ear alone. I've got my multimeter, laser pointer, tape measure, spl meter, RTA suite and two test microphones which I use as well. I'm even a proponent of DRC. I'm all for reliable and repeatable. Final tuning however I do by ear. It's always nice to know you can go back and zero a system out to my starting parameters if I accidentally go too far and lose myself along the way.

Yes indeed it is to recreate or reproduce. However, I submit that the act of recreation and its final outcome takes on different faces. I noted three of the major philosophies of audio lovers namely the "True to the Source", "Virtual Simulation" and the "True to Intent". I'm sure there are others, many of which I suspect would be less technically demanding. I also think that all these philosophies, if we can call them that, are totally valid. Even a mix of them would be since these are not necessarily diametrically opposed objectives. It just points to differences in emphases.

The use of measurements is best applied to "True to the Source" folks like Kal above. There is an iron clad reference point and that is the master and its measurable electrical signal. Never mind that the microphones that fed that master all had to be EQed to get a semblance of what the real thing sounded like in the first place. Still, this approach is easily measurable because all we would be measuring really would be the changes in voltage over time and can be done by comparing wave forms of recorded output via a null test. Yet once even the theoretically perfect signal meets the final transducer, the speaker, and the speaker meets the room, all bets are off when it comes to trying to achieve a "Virtual Simulation". There are just too many stray variables when it comes to final application. Ironically modern DRC has brought measurement in situ, yet this is generally frowned upon by the signal purist set.

From a theoretical stanpoint, the Virtual Simulation approach is tougher to defend because there is no iron clad reference. You would have had to have been there for one and secondly you would have to remember all of it. Seeing as so many of my favorite artists are singing with the angels, my chances of getting a reference are pretty safely...zip, nadda. So one needs to fill in the blanks by activating the imagination quite a bit more. Especially since the advent of multi-track recording where in most cases, there really was no single event only a Frankenstein's monster pieced together by the mixing engineer then given some styling by a mastering engineer who can make anything at least a bit better but not bring the dead back to life. Here's what I meant by musical sub-contexts. These can be sub-contexts that range from cues or preconceptions associated with different genres whether actual or made up. If we're listening to classical music, then we imagine the venue to be a concert hall, choir music a church, a jazz trio a smokey jook joint, heavy metal an arena, dance music a club so on and so forth. These can also include the instruments used commonly for that genre.

"True to Intent" is probably the most difficult. It reminds me of the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School" where his character hires Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to do a book review of a Vonnegut book and the teacher gives him an F. Reminds me of a few music critics. Hehehe. I digress. Here we're really grasping at straws as consumers so I'd just like to keep rose colored glasses on and hope the engineers who were in actual contact with the artists approached their work with the artist's intents in mind.

As a consumer I think I am totally subjective. I just have to like how the gear sounds. No table of measurements can make me want to buy something that I just don't like. Then again, having a professional and technical background in audio, I think I'm not the typical audiophile and am more skeptical by nature when it comes to esoteric tweaks.

I personally believe that the reason folks get suckered isn't because of a lack of scientific diligence per se but rather a deeper underlying condition and that would most likely be a self confidence problem. This is what makes them prey for the snake oil salesmen just as it was with the original snake oil salesmen in the Wild West. So here is why I don't like BTs aside from the fact that they don't really prove anything except for whoever takes one sucks . As greg said it slams the failed participant without educating him. All that does is put him in a more close minded defensive position, while making the facilitator feel all superior and righteous.

Give me a sighted test, with no sales talk and just let me decide whether whatever difference is there or not there is worth my coin. I listened to the Synergistic resonator things, could tell there was a difference but decided that they were not worth it....at all. It would have had me getting up and putting it up or taking it down on a track to track basis. Talk about inconsistent results. A big No Thanks. If I have to choose between a little bit better and a little bit worse, I'll take the middle ground and save myself the aggravation. In hindsight, it should be categorized as exercise equipment. I may have imagined it all but the point is I still didn't buy it. I also do not have that clock, those pebbles, or those stickers for the windows. I may however try the furutech demagnetizer on my fillings as I have read there is a positive effect :lol:

Darn it yeah, I wonder if they did DBT the gramophone vs the phonograph. Hahahahaha!

Cheers!

Jack

P.S.

AFAIK 35mm film is equivalent to over 4000 lines. The highest HD is only a bit over a fourth of that

 

[MylesBAstor]

That's always been my thinking Myles. Anything "reproduced" in my opinion is all about suspension of disbelief. It doesn't matter if the goal is like Kal's which focuses being true to the source material or like Tom's which seeks to recreate the event or many great producers and engineers whose focus is in preserving the artistic intent of the composer and performers. Whichever of the extremes, I believe it is a matter of how closely the user, with the aid of his equipment, can put himself in that position of suspended disbelief for extended periods of time without being distracted from the "story" by introducing discontinuities and maybe some goofy special effects. Not surprising then that the subject of a favorite drink always pops up in tweak discussions? Because sometimes a stiff drink really does help!

Here's where subjectivity comes in as far as I am concerned. Some of us are more sensitive to tone, some dynamics, some phase. The tendency is for the individual to choose and tune equipment that plays to his or her hot buttons. I find absolutely nothing wrong with this approach. If that is what allows the listener to connect better with the music hence maintaining the illusion, why not?

What I do find wrong is if one goes too far overboard and instruments and voices border on being unrecognizable. Extreme examples like no longer being able to tell between acoustic bass and electric bass or a nylon stringed guitar and a steel stringed one because personally this type of over-coloring affects the music itself by distorting the musical sub contexts of the pieces and not just the sound per se.

Seeing as all human's hot buttons are different and even perhaps as unique as finger prints, I find it difficult to see how DBTs whose results are based on a sample population's means and their deviations can address qualitative issues for the individual. I've said it before, it can tell a manufacturer many useful things about his product. Full measuring and testing likewise benefits the manufacturers in helping them attain their design targets and meet their quality control standards. It doesn't mean however that all these will assure satisfaction for every single prospective customer. If it did, we'd all be listening to the same systems in the same rooms.




Funny you should mention the Phonograph Frantz. I did a lecture on the history of recorded music and research said that the wax cylinders were superior in sound quality to the Gramophone. It lost because of Edison's reluctance to license out his technology earlier and because the cylinders were more difficult and expensive to produce and store. Sounds a lot like the Betamax vs VHS battle and the LP vs Compact Cassette vs. CD battles. The lesson I learned is that the better format doesn't always win. We're seeing the exact same thing again with CDs vs MP3.

I think the key phrase is "suspended disbelief" or as JGH said, "the occassional glimpse of reality."

 

[MylesBAstor]

EXACTLY !!!

Let us step back for a second and go with what is more immediate: Are you suggesting that we should go back to the Wax cylinder? The better the reproduction chain the more music is brought to our ears.. Shouldn't that be the goal? Isn't it the goal? To make the capture and reproduction of the event better we must use technology ...err .. science .. Those are Oscilloscopes, those are the Voltmeters .. Those are the equations .. Without these you would not have had the tubes you so love or the Pick-up cartridges or the Turntable you , would be the first to admit have gotten better ... You don't just hear the rumble .. you measure and the lower it is (all things being equal) the better the TT. How do you set the bias of a Tube? By ear only reliably, all the time ? How do you know what resistor to use ? Through the applications of equations and since these resistors vary quite a bit from their nominal values ...Shouldn't that be measured? When you are matching tubes don't you measure these? What do you think crossover points are if not the solutions of some abstract mathematical functions ... Crossover themselves are physical representations of differential equations, you more than a lot of people here, know that
If you are about producing music then all things are good .. Jimmy Hendrix made beautiful music out of the screech of an over-driven tube amplifier is that what we should do .. Overdrive the amp and declare that what we hear is good .. that what our ears tell us is nice , when a violin that the violinist intend to be piercing is now soft and fuzzy because the amp is producing tremendous amount of seconds harmonics ?
So our ears can't be fooled? So Musicians don't use technological tools to tune their instruments? I have seen musician use both a Tuning Fork AND a thermometer (!) to tune their instruments .. They don't see any disconnect they use science and technology to produce music.
DBT is but one tool, it can be used t make our equipment better. That does not mean it explains everything but it DOES explain some ... It helps debunk quite a few myths ... Many things don't contribute in ANY way to the sound and if when you see it you hear and you don't see it you can't .. Let us allow ourselves an honest pause...
The amplifiers that we all like, you really think their designer did not use and oscilloscope or a meter or a stable signal generator or a precise Distortion meter or other meter sometimes of the highest precision and yes .. They listen , that is where the art comes the great designer balances the various constraints and pull out a great component but measure they do .. Measure AND listen the best do ... There is no disconnect ... You don't need an oscilloscope to feel the emotion of the music but you can bet one had to be used to bring the music to you. And if that reproduction can bring you close to the original even you can bet the House that science in the form of an oscilloscope or a bunch of "1" and "0) were used somewhere along the way .. unless you are listening to a wax cylinder ...

Frantz

Frantz: One thing. Using instruments to tune is not the same as buying an instrument. And you are right-many instruments for instance a Bechstein piano is very humidity sensitive. That's why many musicians, despite the piano's amazing sound, don't buy it.

 

[vinylphilemag]

In terms of fooling our senses raises the age old audiophile question as to who listens with lights off vs lights on?

For me the illusion is always maximized listening with lights off.

I remember listening several years ago with a young man wearing glasses. While listening he removed his glasses. When I asked why, he commented that he could hear sound reflections off the frames of his glasses.

For serious listening, it's always lights off with me (and when I wore glasses, I removed them too), eyes closed. I think the lack of visual distractions enables me to enjoy the music more.

 

[Gregadd]

Oh, let's not go overboard . DBT has improved a ton of audio. Good examples are anything Harman group produces (Revel, JBL, etc.) and practically every audio compression system.

Now to be fair, there is a mix of subjective and objective blind testing used in all of above but there is a solid place for blind testing and instrumentation. Yes, if you stand in the middle of the road you can get hit by both sides . But that is where I stand on such things. I have seen merits of both....

I trust every representation you make. Just for my edification what audio improvements were made by the use of DBT? Discrediting some reviewer or audiophile by embarrassing him with the test is not my idea of an improvement.

 

[amirm]

I trust every representation you make.

You are too kind. I probably go overboard as many times as others do .

Just for my edification what audio improvements were made by the use of DBT? Discrediting some reviewer or audiophile by embarrassing him with the test is not my idea of an improvement.

I will expand on the two examples I provided:

1. Audio compression. Lossy compression is as much art as it is science. There are many ways to fool the ear so that it can't hear the 91% of the audio samples which are thrown away (128 Kbps encodings). The process of creating the best encoding algorithm starts with the researcher tuning things, and then an "expert listener" providing non-blind opinions. The next step is then blind testing by the researchers and expert listeners. And finally, broader tests of general public is performed from time to time. All of these contribute to final product. The practice here is what has been followed for example in every MPEG standard from MP3 to AAC and its variations. Audio/video codecs are almost always selected for various standards based on blind testing (that is how technology from my old group -- VC-1 -- got into HD DVD and Blu-ray).

2. Harman Group. Harman has an elaborate double-blind testing system which includes speakers. Massive sleds move speaker left and right in under 4 seconds behind black curtain and listeners are asked to rate which one sounds better. According to Kevin Veoks, more than once such blind testing reveals things that people did not anticipate. They would not release a product unless it outperformed its competition in such blind testing. Of course, they also perform a ton of subjective and objective testing in addition to such blind testing.

 

[c1ferrari]

Fascinating stuff, Amir...very cool

 

[Gregadd]

You are too kind. I probably go overboard as many times as others do .


I will expand on the two examples I provided:

1. Audio compression. Lossy compression is as much art as it is science. There are many ways to fool the ear so that it can't hear the 91% of the audio samples which are thrown away (128 Kbps encodings). The process of creating the best encoding algorithm starts with the researcher tuning things, and then an "expert listener" providing non-blind opinions. The next step is then blind testing by the researchers and expert listeners. And finally, broader tests of general public is performed from time to time. All of these contribute to final product. The practice here is what has been followed for example in every MPEG standard from MP3 to AAC and its variations. Audio/video codecs are almost always selected for various standards based on blind testing (that is how technology from my old group -- VC-1 -- got into HD DVD and Blu-ray).

2. Harman Group. Harman has an elaborate double-blind testing system which includes speakers. Massive sleds move speaker left and right in under 4 seconds behind black curtain and listeners are asked to rate which one sounds better. According to Kevin Veoks, more than once such blind testing reveals things that people did not anticipate. They would not release a product unless it outperformed its competition in such blind testing. Of course, they also perform a ton of subjective and objective testing in addition to such blind testing.

I have homewrok to do.

 

[Gregadd]

Amir this DBT thing is going to to take some time. But just doing some cursory reading say of one Sean Olive of the Harmon Group who of course performed his own trick DBT. If asked of course I could predicted he wold be a firm member of the objectivist camp. Here is a snapshot of his audio opinion,
Over the past 25 years we have included many different nationalities in our tests - including Germans -- and could not find any significant differences in the speakers they prefer. We have also measured many speakers designed in different countries targeted for their local markets, and have found them to generally converge on the same flat frequency response target -- another sign that accuracy seems to be the universal target. Highly respected German, British, Canadian and Japanese speaker manufacturers only make one SKU that is sold everywhere in the world. So clearly, the notion that loudspeaker preference is universal - is not just my opinion, but the opinion shared by many loudspeaker companies throughout the world. I think the same is also true throughout the world for amplifiers (flat), speaker cables (Flat) and CD/DVD/BLU-RAY players (flat),etc. Why would it be different for loudspeakers? Sean Olive Interview Audioholics
Flat frequency as the universal solvent. What are the odds that an objectivist/ DBT Advocate would hold that opinion. I venture to say at least 90%

 

[The Smokester]

I will try to add something to this difficult subject. First, I am in the "believable sound" camp as distinguished from the "absolute sound" camp.

Sound reproduction systems--even the very, very best--are fundamentally limited in spatiality, response, linearity, context, etc. They can only reproduce a limited set of the parameters of the original performance and even this they do in a limited way. They provide stimulation, but we fill in much with our imagination. Logically, it's amazing that we think these systems have any relevance to the original performance at all. We are just fooling ourselves, of course. We must "suspend our disbelief"--as has already been said--and we must recreate something to substitute for what isn't there and we cannot know.

The human mind is very good at this. In modern terms, we employ our individual cognitive model, developed from our own unique experiences and our singular way of sensing the world, to perceive a believable and (hopefully) pleasing impression of the original performance. Thus, what is acceptably believable --a compromise of necessity--becomes very personal...Very much a question of personal values...And so much the more so because the medium is so limited that small differences in perception become overwhelmingly important on an individual basis.

I think most arguments over audio reproduction come down to two interrelated differences: How each individual hears music (their cognitive model); and nuances of what each individual values in order to satisfy their model.

Next comment is about Double Blind Testing. DBT is a measurement technique. DBT is not synonymous with "The Scientific Method". DBT is a general term and in my mind means nothing without a stated goal, a context and, not to put to fine a point on it, details. If it makes sense to you when I say I will use a voltmeter then I will say you just lack imagination. DBT is a measurement technique, but it could also be a means for discovery particularly if an unexpected result is achieved. Each application is different and its usefulness must be judged against what hypothesis, in the context of the scientific method, one is trying to achieve. Every hypothesis is limited. Every measurement has assumptions known and unknown. If one uses only one technique to understand something then one is playing a practical joke on oneself (see "Most Secret War" by R.V.Jones).

In recent times (since Sir Francis Bacon enunciated the Great Instauration in the early 17th Century), The Scientific Method has become more and more synonymous with Knowledge Discovery and formally this requires one to test all possible hypotheses--an infinitely large task, but most of them negative we assume--before one really "knows". It is this infinity of possibilities--the fear than one can always have missed the crucial one--that haunts scientists. At least the good ones. Thus, one DBT may make a subject feel foolish and the perpetrator feel self-satisfied, but at best it is only a small, uncertain, and perhaps irrelevant, step in the journey to understanding.

Scientifically, a single measurement of anything is never the final word...Why does everyone assume DBT is any different?

 

[apanton1952]

Umm, as a layman I don't give a fig (metaphor for I don't understand it ) about any of this. I hear with my emotions and if it sounds right, then it must be right. This has served me well in 25 years of playing classical guitar, and the expensive guitars aren't always the right ones for some pieces either. The analogy here is that Grand Funk Railroad can sound better on a less impressively specced system than high end. Hopefully I haven't missed the point here which is not a foreign experience to me!

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Interesting the takes and the convolutions that DBT provokes. It is by no mean THE final word. I am not sure the OP said that ... I repeat and need to be proven wrong on this that if people repeatedly fail to recognize a given component, even , experienced , trained listeners, isn't it time to take a pause? That is what DBT brings as a Tool. That it has been used to disparage some in the audiophile community has no relevance of its value as a tool ... I don't understand the refusal to understand that our sense can and do fool us and that some observations are simply not correct, Someone has said (I forgot whom) : " Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs" .
If one comes with a cable which cost$ 30 K and this cable is not distinguishable by TRAINED listeners from a regular electrically adequate cable once the knowledge removed, isn't it a case of biases at work? Isn't it desirable to remove these biases to achieve better results or try to?

Frantz

 

[es347]

At face value it would seem that DBTs are valid for audio. Why not?...they're used for a myriad of other things. I support that notion but the problem is our sonic memories are woefully short. No doubt we all have experienced the frustrations of comparing components by switching them out, listening then drawing conclusions. First we seek to determine if there really is a difference...then we are faced with which is better? I'm with aponton1952 (a very good year I might add...I was 4) on this one. I've got a synergy going right now that pleases me immensely and have pretty much decided to draw a line in the audio sand and stay put...and just enjoy the music. I'd be well served to cancel subscriptions and stop visiting this and other boards

 

[FrantzM]

<snip> I'd be well served to cancel subscriptions and stop visiting this and other boards

.. That won't last ...

Frantz

 

[es347]

...perhaps a 12 step process?

 

[apanton1952]

Heh, it's in the blood, a few more millenia and it will be in the DNA too

 

[Gregadd]

I've got a synergy going right now that pleases me immensely and have pretty much decided to draw a line in the audio sand and stay put...and just enjoy the music. I'd be well served to cancel subscriptions and stop visiting this and other boards

I plan to recommend a lot more music. So there is no reason to quit this site.

 

[amirm]

Amir this DBT thing is going to to take some time. But just doing some cursory reading say of one Sean Olive of the Harmon Group who of course performed his own trick DBT. If asked of course I could predicted he wold be a firm member of the objectivist camp. Here is a snapshot of his audio opinion..

I missed this before .

I am not sure any two audiophiles ever agree with anything. One thing I hope we can agree on though is the respect for people who spend a lifetime trying to understand how we hear audio. Sean came from the famed Canadian NRC. No one done large scale characterization of what it is we like about audio reproduction. Sean's writing is usually authoritative and allows one to learn a ton about sound reproduction. Whether one agrees with everything he has to say is not necessary to learn what he knows about audio. I firmly believe NRC and the researchers who led that work and now work at companies such as Harman and Paradigm do bring to us knowledge in addition to opinion. And that knowledge has surely advanced the art of audio design, turning it into at least 50% science. The idea of a guy sitting in the room simply tweaking a speaker without such science does not make sense to me. What happens when he gets 10 years older and grows somewhat deaf?