Negative show report posts... enough is enough.
- Thread starter Peter Breuninger
- Start date
IMO part of the problem is that the OP continually adds fuel to the fire. The initial post said nothing about experts vs everyone else and I believe that further exacerbated the conversation/debate. It is clear to me that the OP will not apologize as some have suggested he do and as such, this thread is now self powered and slowly deviating to more obscure and marginally related topics. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the OP should apologize; that would clearly be up to him if he chose to do so.
On a different note - Took the Philips Golden ears test and achieved "Basic Level" on my home PC. Guess I'm not that deaf!
Also, I like the Phillips training better than the Harmon test, in initial testing/training it seems to have a more broad spectrum of criteria, not just frequencies.Thanks for the very informative post. Having thought about what you have written, i have 2 further questions. How does the "expert" reviewer disentangle what is accurate with respect to timbre of any given instrument reproduced by a system that they are evaluating. That requires musical experience not scientific knowledge per se. How does the expert reviewer quantify how a system is able to communicate music itself rather than sounds - i.e the overall goal? What I mean here is the ability of a system to engage in such a way that you get lost in the music.
???
I don't get the significance of this exchange, nor any reaction to create this thread. If there was a room at the show, playing a CD in a $500 player, using radio shack wires, through an AVR to a $2,000 speakers, and you were to express your opinion of it, would it be positive? Or would it say that digital never sounds as good as analog, that the wires screwed up the sound, and that those speakers were not remotely as authentic as they are required. And you would do so after 15 seconds of listening, no? Heck I think you would walk out of the room in less than 5 seconds.
I would not agree with much of that opinion but you are welcome to express it as after all, this is what the Internet allows us to do. We all become little magazine editors, able to have our voices heard. If one doesn't want to hear such, then they need to not visit any forums. Because doing so automatically gets you opposing views to what you believe.
I partnered with Steve even though we do have fairly different views of audio world. Yet, we came together to create this forum, acknowledging that having different views is the nature of the beast. Fundamentally audio and high-end audio in the specific, allows any opinion to be "right." Until such time that we all give up on subjectivity and agree on using blind testing and such, we can't possibly challenge each other on their opinions of what they hear. They may very well be wrong or we are.
So no, anything is game as far as sharing opinions or else, we would have to close down the forum. As long as the opinion is expressed in a civil manner, is about the equipment and not the person, it complies with our charter and for that matter, any other forum where the management is not tilting the discussion in one direction or the other.
Hi Amir, can you practically explain this?
1. Let's say I am listening to mussorgsky full symphony on system A, comparing it to system B. If the timbre of the brass or violin in one system sounds fake, or the piano is playing weird through the crossover (problem in all speakers that I know) how does the Harman help me judge this?
2.Also, if the speed and slam is slow?
3.Or how is the separation and positioning of the instruments in an orchestra. I find that very few electronics can effectively separate properly when 50 plus instruments of a full symphony are thrown through it.
What am I missing that I don't see how Harman addresses these points?
1. Let's say I am listening to mussorgsky full symphony on system A, comparing it to system B. If the timbre of the brass or violin in one system sounds fake, or the piano is playing weird through the crossover (problem in all speakers that I know) how does the Harman help me judge this?
2.Also, if the speed and slam is slow?
3.Or how is the separation and positioning of the instruments in an orchestra. I find that very few electronics can effectively separate properly when 50 plus instruments of a full symphony are thrown through it.
What am I missing that I don't see how Harman addresses these points?
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Hi Bonzo,
We asked some of the same questions there, but you added some extras which are spot on.
Btw - Lampi rocks.
We asked some of the same questions there, but you added some extras which are spot on.
Btw - Lampi rocks.
After reading the "concerning" posts I agree 100% with you. ...There is nothing there warrantying the first original post.
That being said, this thread had some of the most beneficial comments I have read in a long time. I appreciate everyone's honest comments and great suggestions.
And I really like reading the posts by Alan Sircom. ...Thank you very much sir for sharing great insights. ...And thank you to all of you; I feel in good mature company here.
It is a paradox. I will give you an explanation but it is just that, an explanation, not a proof point.
At high level, I hope we agree that we have no idea tonally, what something is supposed to sound like. If I boost 300 Hz by 3 dB, is it getting closer or farther away from what the talent and production crew heard? They used an imperfect system like ours. Without any documentation, we have no idea what frequency response it had. So at the extreme, audio is "broken" as far as architecture. Inversely, anything, no matter how broken, might be the "right" sound and everything else wrong. This is a truism that cannot be debated even though is a hard pill to swallow.
Even if I recorded you playing solo piano, what I capture with a microphone will be different than what you heard when you played it. If you were not even there, well, then there is no reason to assume you would know the correct sound, whether you are a musician or not.
Here is the shocking part that creates the paradox. One would think that if the above is true, and I just assured you that it is, then if I take two speakers and take a group of 100 people to listen to each one of them blind, that 50 would like one and 50 would like the other. They would both present a random sampling of the audio reproduction with wildly different responses. Yet that is not the outcome we see in testing! 80 or even 90% of the votes go with speakers that have smooth frequency response that gradually tilts down from low to high frequencies. Chew up the frequency response and you get punished by the majority of listeners. Have the response be "flat" and you get beat up just the same.
How can this be? We have no reference in these blind tests. It is not like we play what the talent heard first, and then the two speakers. We only play the two distorted samples only. The original is missing in action. Yet, we all seem to have some internal compass that provides a robust judgement call that is very similar to our peers.
Dr. Toole says it well in his book:
"In the audio industry, progress hinges on the ability to identify and quantify
technical defects in recording and playback equipment while listening to an
infinitely variable signal: music. Add to this the popular notion that we all “hear
differently,” that one person’s meat might be another person’s poison, and we
have a situation where a universally satisfying solution might not be possible.
Fortunately reality is not so complex, and although tastes in music are highly
personal and infi nitely variable, we discover that recognizing the most common
deficiencies in reproduced sounds is a surprisingly universal skill. To a remarkable
extent we seem to be able to separate the evaluation of a reproduction
technology from that of the program. It is not necessary to enjoy the program
to be able to recognize that it is, or is not, well reproduced."
[...]
"Fortunately, it turns out that when given the
opportunity to judge without bias, human listeners are excellent detectors of
artifacts and distortions; they are remarkably trustworthy guardians of what is
good. Having only a vague concept of what might be correct, listeners recognize
what is wrong. An absence of problems becomes a measure of excellence."
And what is "wrong" is described first and foremost as frequency response variations, both on and off-axis. Hence the focus of testing and training in this regard.
I sat in listening tests and judges speakers. My votes were the same as the 80 to 90% of the people who took the tests. I have no musical training at all. I can't tell one note from another. What I can do is recognize colorations. I know what room resonances sound like both in tone and timing. These latter skills is what I have trained myself to hear and detect based on scientific research. Elimination of these resonances shows improvements both objectively and subjectively. So the "science" is in charge, not some musical knowledge.
Taking a moment (or three) to reply to the OP's last post (my opinion, of course):
"Part of my OP is about "biases." Your biases my biases. You develop biases over time. It's based on human survival.. the known pathway to safety for the caveman. As an expert reviewer (why does this upset so many people, the word expert- I'm sure every riled up poster here is an expert in something, it's just not in audio),I have learned over time what my audio biases are due to the audition of a wide variety of audio equipment in many settings, homes, shows and stores. Most people do not have this experience.”
You are making an assumption since there is no educational requirement(s) to be an “audio listening expert” that if those who intently and critically listen but do not have an explicit set of experiences like you have that they are not experts. However, you are omitting musicians and avid audiophiles with dozens of years of critical listening experience via audio systems and live music.
Net - You have no way to prove who is or is not an expert. Most people who claim to be experts in a field have a degree in their area of expertise. Your segregation of what you categorize as "expert" vs "everyone else" I believe infuriates most on this post.
“It is very evident when I visit someone's home and their system is threadbare, two dimensional, and bright in the upper frequencies, despite the fact they attend a show or two every other year and frequently visit other audiophile homes. I suspect they have built in a bias for detail appreciation or perhaps they may suffer from a mild form of tinnitus. Wherever the reason, they have a bias for their own system and sound and when asked they say others systems "suck". What I see happening here in this thread is denial, just like the fellow with the bright system, he simply does not believe (he denies) his system is bright and two dimensional. When he goes to a show he hates the sound of most systems and when he speaks of other audiophile's rooms he has disparaging comments.”
I have seen the example you state above, but much more often I’ve experienced critical listeners who acknowledge their system’s short comings and benefits. No system is perfect and I think anyone who thinks so (professional or not) is indeed fooling themselves. I do think that people get acclimated to their system’s signature and those shortcomings are harder to recognize unless compared to other system(s). Net – not everyone has a bright non-dimensional system and thinks everyone else’s sucks, I’d call this an overestimate.
“This is a bias issue. His bias. If this person posts on the Internet that a room at the show sucked and was only in it for 15 seconds... I believe him. I believe in his belief, but not that the room sucked.”
Agree, as you said, all humans are biased in one way or another. It’s part of what makes us human.
“Everybody riled up here is mad, they are mad because they have personal denial of being wrong. So when they are challenged, they fight. I posted this thread because this has been accepted Internet behavior for years. To state an opinion without the appropriate knowledge and with perhaps tremendous built in bias. That is my opinion. The problem is, this behavior has gone unchallenged for years. This is the first time they have been "called out" and they don't like it.”
I think you are far underestimating people to say everyone is mad = denial = fight. They are mad because (a) you have called out some as being “cowards”. (b) You assume those that post negative unwarranted comments is a significant % but have provided no data to confirm (c) You further added fuel to the fire by segregating the “haves” and “have nots” by calling yourself an expert and everyone else an amateur without even acknowledging that others even without calling themselves an expert might be so. Net - It’s not about denial; I truly hope you can see that.
“This is not about audio. This thread is about the human nature. This thread is about being challenged when they themselves have challenged others for years with impunity. Exhibitors can't challenge them in public. Someone should step up. Now someone did and they don't like it.”
Again, Peter, who is challenging who? No one is saying negative audio review posts that are not thorough and are pure vitriol are appreciated, but this is America so get over it, move on or move over.
"Part of my OP is about "biases." Your biases my biases. You develop biases over time. It's based on human survival.. the known pathway to safety for the caveman. As an expert reviewer (why does this upset so many people, the word expert- I'm sure every riled up poster here is an expert in something, it's just not in audio),I have learned over time what my audio biases are due to the audition of a wide variety of audio equipment in many settings, homes, shows and stores. Most people do not have this experience.”
You are making an assumption since there is no educational requirement(s) to be an “audio listening expert” that if those who intently and critically listen but do not have an explicit set of experiences like you have that they are not experts. However, you are omitting musicians and avid audiophiles with dozens of years of critical listening experience via audio systems and live music.
Net - You have no way to prove who is or is not an expert. Most people who claim to be experts in a field have a degree in their area of expertise. Your segregation of what you categorize as "expert" vs "everyone else" I believe infuriates most on this post.
“It is very evident when I visit someone's home and their system is threadbare, two dimensional, and bright in the upper frequencies, despite the fact they attend a show or two every other year and frequently visit other audiophile homes. I suspect they have built in a bias for detail appreciation or perhaps they may suffer from a mild form of tinnitus. Wherever the reason, they have a bias for their own system and sound and when asked they say others systems "suck". What I see happening here in this thread is denial, just like the fellow with the bright system, he simply does not believe (he denies) his system is bright and two dimensional. When he goes to a show he hates the sound of most systems and when he speaks of other audiophile's rooms he has disparaging comments.”
I have seen the example you state above, but much more often I’ve experienced critical listeners who acknowledge their system’s short comings and benefits. No system is perfect and I think anyone who thinks so (professional or not) is indeed fooling themselves. I do think that people get acclimated to their system’s signature and those shortcomings are harder to recognize unless compared to other system(s). Net – not everyone has a bright non-dimensional system and thinks everyone else’s sucks, I’d call this an overestimate.
“This is a bias issue. His bias. If this person posts on the Internet that a room at the show sucked and was only in it for 15 seconds... I believe him. I believe in his belief, but not that the room sucked.”
Agree, as you said, all humans are biased in one way or another. It’s part of what makes us human.
“Everybody riled up here is mad, they are mad because they have personal denial of being wrong. So when they are challenged, they fight. I posted this thread because this has been accepted Internet behavior for years. To state an opinion without the appropriate knowledge and with perhaps tremendous built in bias. That is my opinion. The problem is, this behavior has gone unchallenged for years. This is the first time they have been "called out" and they don't like it.”
I think you are far underestimating people to say everyone is mad = denial = fight. They are mad because (a) you have called out some as being “cowards”. (b) You assume those that post negative unwarranted comments is a significant % but have provided no data to confirm (c) You further added fuel to the fire by segregating the “haves” and “have nots” by calling yourself an expert and everyone else an amateur without even acknowledging that others even without calling themselves an expert might be so. Net - It’s not about denial; I truly hope you can see that.
“This is not about audio. This thread is about the human nature. This thread is about being challenged when they themselves have challenged others for years with impunity. Exhibitors can't challenge them in public. Someone should step up. Now someone did and they don't like it.”
Again, Peter, who is challenging who? No one is saying negative audio review posts that are not thorough and are pure vitriol are appreciated, but this is America so get over it, move on or move over.
Thanks again, Amir. Would be interested in any views you have on timbre recognition, fidelity of imaging, and the points Bonzo brought up.
As I just explained, we are all born with ability to somehow recognize frequency response variations and so so with remarkable similarity to each other. So in that sense, we don't need the Harman training. No musical training is needed either as I explained, no one knows what that timbre is, even people who sat there and played the instruments, or anyone in the concert hall. A machine, a microphone, recorded some sound that was unique captured by it, and further manipulations performed in post production. Familiarity with that instrument provides no value or else, we should throw out the opinion of anyone who is not a musician and we know we can't do that.
What the training does is not to change our similar preferences in this regard, but to accentuate the acuity. If someone plays a not slightly wrong I may not like the music as much but you would be infuriated I imagine. That is what training does. It increases the "gain" substantially. And speeds up reliability and detection of problems. Again, just like you can in correctness of music being played.
These are subjective terms that have no foundation in audio science. As such, they can mean whatever. For any one system you think has speed and slam, I can get another person who says it has neither. How would you prove you are right and they are wrong?
What does have foundation is room resonances. Frequency response peaks have a counterpart in time domain which means notes get extended in low frequencies. Bass becomes "loose," muddy and boomy. If these are what you mean, then the training very much helps in that in controlled manner, introduces you to these artifacts.
This is again a subjective term with no scientific foundation. I earlier post the view of Mark Levinson No 53 where the Robert Harley in Absolute Sound said it aced this task. Yet Fremer in Stereophile said it did the opposite. This is the problem with subjectivism. We can't adjudicate who is right. But let's agree that both can't be right.
By the same token, I don't know what to do with the comment you just made. It has no proof point because just like the Mark Levinson, I can find someone else to say the opposite. Indeed, we have this thread because someone thought an subjective opinion expressed must be wrong. Which one of those people would you trust and why? Do the EA speakers have warmth or don't they?
I can tell you with high confidence that if you can't separate the instruments, the #1 culprit is the speaker and the room combination. Forget about everything else until you get that right. If you have left that to chance, and are judging the amplifiers in two different chains, or judging sighted, then you again have a subjective opinion that does not lend itself to scientific analysis and reasoning.
As I have tried to explain, it is all about getting better at hearing severe, high order flaws in speakers and rooms. Being trained allows you to be in the group on the left:
rather than the groups to the right when it comes to reliability of judging performance of speakers and rooms. That's the value of it.
Let me second this and not just for Alan's contributions to this thread, but in general. His comments are always well thought out and bring insight that are new and create great learning opportunity for me.
I agree in general with what you say, but I think it's time to leave the PeterB issue aside, because:
Totally agree. I have learned a lot.
I don't agree for the following reason: Most people who comment on the sound of a room at a show actually walk into the room, sit down, and listen to the system. This didn't happen in this case. We had someone who stood at the entrance to the room for 10-15 seconds and then left and posted a drive-by shooting of the sound of the room. This didn't sit well with numerous people on this forum and I understand the sentiment.
Hi we have to disagree here. For example the reason I.upgraded from level 5 to the 7 with the Lampi was separation of complex music. I sold my audio research pre when I saw what the NAT audio pre did on instrument separation in the same system in the same room. On certain electronics it will come more as one flat thing.
If you train yourself to listen to Gnomus from mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition, you will get the speed and slam I referring to. This is quite obvious to someone who has been to orchestral concerts.
My antenna regarding the timbre of violins and brass went up only after attending classical concerts. Many audiophiles I know don't listen for these things and just assume (I did too) the sound of these instruments. (Sorry guys, just trying to sound like an expert as per the theme of the thread:
If you train yourself to listen to Gnomus from mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition, you will get the speed and slam I referring to. This is quite obvious to someone who has been to orchestral concerts.
My antenna regarding the timbre of violins and brass went up only after attending classical concerts. Many audiophiles I know don't listen for these things and just assume (I did too) the sound of these instruments. (Sorry guys, just trying to sound like an expert as per the theme of the thread:
I fully agree. While Amir is right that improving the room acoustics plays a crucial part in getting better instrument separation -- it emphatically did in my case -- removing the injection of electronic noise into my system by by-passing the internal power supplies of my amps with external power supplies that operate in a much cleaner fashion helped a lot in that respect, too. Electronics thus also play a crucial role.
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