You CAN make choices on whatever criteria you want. If you trust dealers that's your choice as well. I don't share your trust in dealers.
Fuse and Cable Directionality
- Thread starter Geoffkait
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Hey, isn’t that the guy who invented mp3? Are there two JJ Johnstons? My favorite JJ Johnston “character” on audio forums was when he assumed an online persona of a hillbilly, presumably to escape detection by inmates. This is just a simple case of Scott’s “Prover” attempting to prove his Thinker was right all,along. So transparent. Appeal to authority, etc., etc. Same pew, different church.
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There’s often a problem with people who are obsessed with something, whether baseball, football or audio technology, which is that they cannot understand why other people have no interest in their particular obsession. I very much enjoy music. I’ve been to many thousands of concerts, although my main interest is ballet and contemporary dance. I really have no interest in the science relating to audio at all. Circuit boards, resistors and all that stuff leaves me numb with ennui. I have to use the French word because English words like boredom don’t do it justice. It’s not anti-scientific bias, I know as well as anyone else that you need some engineering skills to make the hi-fi that I enjoy. I have worked out ways of deciding what hi-fi I do like and what I don’t, and as far as I’m aware science doesn’t come into it.
There are lots of camps in hi-fi, the tubes camp, the cables camp, the fuses camp. Most of these are live and let live type of arguments, but the ASR science camp very much seems to be a case of you’re either with us or against us. Being completely indifferent is not an option.
Here is a little bit about him
James Johnston
Job Title: Chief Scientist
Company: Immersion Networks
Status: Life Fellow
Member since: 1978
AES Committee: Journal Reviewers
Technical Committees: Audio for Games, Broadcast and Online Delivery, Coding of Audio Signals, Guidelines For Working With Metadata in Broadcast and Streaming, Semantic Audio Analysis, Signal Processing, Spatial Audio
Standards Committees: SC-02-01 (Digital Audio Measurement Techniques), SC-02-12-Q (Streaming Loudness), SC-04-09 (Assessment of Acoustic Annoyance)
Primary Section: Pacific Northwest
Company Website: https://immersion.net
Facebook Address: https://www.facebook.com/james.d.johnston.50
Audio Fields:
- Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Hearing - Architectural Acoustics
- Other: Basic Research - Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and DSP
Job Duty:
- Chief Researcher
And here is a little bit about Immersion Networks.
"Immersion Networks creates software and hardware to reframe the human listening experience."
"We offer a complete ecosystem for the creation and delivery of audio far beyond anything you’ve ever experienced."
"Anything in the world of audio that JJ Johnston puts his name on needs to be taken very seriously."
George MassenburgMulti Grammy-winning Producer
"Immersion Audio Physics Engine
Immersion’s Audio Physics Engine is the core of our audio experience – Using the engine, we can generate immersive content from any audio source type from mono through multitrack, remapping it to any output format that can be defined by the user. It allows us to capture the actual locations and movements of the input sources like multitrack stems, mono masters, stereo masters, live recordings, traditional spot mics, Unreal Engine, or AI generated audio inputs and present them in any output format. We capture or create a perceptual model of any physical space, take in motion information from the listener, and encode them within the platform. The Audio Physics Engine handles all computational tasks for you, rendering content in a single workflow to any needed output format – from 2-channel virtualized motion tracked headphones to multichannel rendering or other live output formats."
Right, you don't know who my dealer is and is now a prominent member on WBF and friends with many manufacturers, reviewers and members of WBF. I trust him more than reviewers (I'm partial to some, beginning with J. Gordon Holt). I'm 68 and only trusted one other dealer as much who relocated 400 miles away 35+ years ago. He knew acoustic sound and was early in on cabling quality over cheap RCA ICs and lamp cord speaker wire. I also trusted Brooks Berdan on analog.
Yes, I completely get it why you use JJ as an appeal to authority. More on topic one wonders where JJ stands on directionality.
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One does not have to be obsessed with science to respect it's veracity or find it a useful tool in weeding out purchasing choices in audio some of which are quite substantial.
I'm not a car person. But every time I have bought a car I have done careful objective research on the cars I am considering buying.
As for ASR there are quite a few different members there with a wide range of knowledge and attitudes. I'm not so sure they are any more aggressive against opposing points of view than any other flavor of audiophile.
Emotional investment and self identity as an audiophile with a strong sense of status can lead down that road. I can point to many examples of it here on these forums in opposition to my perspective.
Ad Hominem and big egos are not limited to any one camp.
The problem with you is that you fit everything into the same category without exemptions. In my testing of fuse preferences with my audio friends, we used the SAME recordings and mostly the identical CDs and LPs to test brought from house to house. So, we eliminated what we thought we heard to what was obvious and it was obvious. Often the direction of a fuse made a significant and worse/not liked sound. Tried again and again with the same results-not the way it should be in a particular piece of equipment. Not only that, but it was consistent for the same model equipment in another friend's system.
It's an appeal to science not an appeal to authority. I'm guessing you didn't bother to watch the actual video and expose yourself to the science he is sharing
Auditory memory is very short, something like six seconds per the AES (or IHF, or somebody). But there is also plenty of evidence for long-term awareness of subtle changes... Which may or may not survive a DBT. But psychoacoustics is NOT my area of expertise!
Well that it something I have a knack at, memorizing structures and colors. You are so certain of yourself. Not just my interior walls (previously dirty mauve, now salmon pink) but my walkway in front and my 22 rental properties (well that's too easy as they are all interior painted swiss coffee-I'd know if the color was swiss coffee or not in any properly lit room). The problem is the ambient light of viewing for me, what the color temperature is. I also did photography and video color correction prior to and during my younger years. As to sound, no, there's where retention of sound long term basis is faulty. I can describe what I heard, what I liked or disliked about the sound but absolute sonic character, no.
Straight to ad hominem. sad.
Meaningless generalization.
All of which was done without any meaningful test controls. If YOU are happy with that so be it. But your protocols are very problematic. And as such utterly untestable and unverifiable. There is a really good reason science demands strict protocols in testing. Verifiability and repeatability. Humans are inherently unreliable. You are no exception.
I debated a lot with JJ back in the day. Most likely residing in an archive of some audio forum somewhere frozen in time.
Appeal to science is an obvious kind of appeal to/from authority. And that’s why you use the word science so much. It’s a ruse, pretending have the full force of science and the truth behind you.
Argument from authority - Wikipedia
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He's a member of ASR, still with the AES, has presented a few talks at the PNW Audio Society, and is quite approachable. He's still giving lectures now and then, and we've corresponded a bit online and on the phone. At some point all of us appeal to some sort of authority, unless we claim to be an original genius with new and heretofore unknown insight. "Appeal to authority" is often used as an Internet put-down but it often provides a more credible basis for a concept. One could argue your posting links to the reports and marketing for directional fuses was an appeal to authority, but aren't such "appeals" really providing additional background and support? I freely acknowledge there are folk like JJ with far more knowledge of things audio than I, just as he has conceded aspects of transmission line theory and GHz IC design to me.
This thread appears to have wandered back to just everyone attacking everyone else, and I need to go practice then enjoy the rest of my Sunday after church and then dealing with on-going tax questions (blah). Y'all have fun...
On topic: I still do not think fuses are audibly directional, but I know durn well my trumpet is!
On topic: I still do not think fuses are audibly directional, but I know durn well my trumpet is!
yeah...
No. It isn't *me* I am certain of. It's the science that I believe is the most reliable source of objective information.
I am an artist. I guarantee you my working understanding of color and color theory blows you knack for memorizing colors out of the water. I can also guarantee you that you would not come close to matching any color from memory. It can't be done. And I have spent thousands of hours matching colors. It can't be done without direct comparisons for reference.
You are talking about basic name brand identification. I have spent plenty of time color correcting production variations from the same brand name colors out of different production runs. Getting the name right is a joke. Yeah most people can tell blue from yellow too. Your idea of matching colors is on a very different page than my idea of matching colors.
Again, nobody does it from memory.
Anyone who disagrees and wants to put it to a test, I'd bet serious money on this one.
George Massenburg is best known for his recordings of Earth, Wind and Fire but that group was headed by Maurice White, who’s back up band was Ramsey Lewis In the 60’s on ARGO (great sonics). I appraised his recording studio on Corinth in W.LA. years ago. He is a techo-geek. Jennifer Warnes loves him for his promotion of her/recordings. Otherwise, my friends and I do NOT consider him a top recording engineer of sonic merit. So, his wild enthusiasm for James Johnston means nothing to me. Plus, anyone who states they produce the greatest music reproduction ever-don't believe them. There are many ways to build a great music reproduction system and they are not EXCLUSIVELY the best ever.
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Ah, yes, the we all do it defense. I repeat my question from earlier, what is JJ’s stand on fuse and cable directionality?He's a member of ASR, still with the AES, has presented a few talks at the PNW Audio Society, and is quite approachable. He's still giving lectures now and then, and we've corresponded a bit online and on the phone. At some point all of us appeal to some sort of authority, unless we claim to be an original genius with new and heretofore unknown insight. "Appeal to authority" is often used as an Internet put-down but it often provides a more credible basis for a concept. One could argue your posting links to the reports and marketing for directional fuses was an appeal to authority, but aren't such "appeals" really providing additional background and support? I freely acknowledge there are folk like JJ with far more knowledge of things audio than I, just as he has conceded aspects of transmission line theory and GHz IC design to me.
I always bring samples for other than swiss coffee. Lighting is almost never consistent. Again, I made color correction choices based on my abilities and preferences. I didn't have a "blind" test to find a matching or choice of color (that certainly is ridiculous). Hey, I bet your eyes have changed color shade determination ability over time as well. The best color test is scientific determination of wavelength under controlled lighting conditions using a spectrometer for example. I didn't say I have the ability to perfectly match color, but approximate. I hope you bring something to check the wavelength of every color you want before you make a decision because you apparently are indecisive without "proof."
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