Negative show report posts... enough is enough.
- Thread starter Peter Breuninger
- Start date
Amir, I might have not said that I do appreciate and agree that the Harmon method of testing is a great idea. I think the techniques of how you learn the sound signature of eq and other distortions would easily carry over to recognizing the signature of power issues, and maybe even difference in cables. 
I also think other methods of testing are important too, as well as measurements, etc... I don't discount any methods of measuring or listening. We still have a lot to learn and progress won't be made by people who think they know everything already.
One thing never discussed about cables is feedback from reviewers and customers. The feedback I get as a manufacturer is grouped very tightly together, my cables are described as performing the same way by a huge majority of those who test them. This information could be analyzed statistically somehow... Anyway, my point being that the experiences of people who try my cables are not at all random, which is certainly an indication that the effects cables make is not entirely psychological. I'm surprised Harmon hasn't used it's testing facility to test these sorts of things. I did read about battery-biased crossover caps in a high end JBL speaker, which seems pretty "tweaky" for a big company like Harmon. I'm sure experienced listeners who trained themselves to hear cable design issues would be able to come to some conclusions regarding cables. If they decided a battery biased xo cap is a good idea they may decide wire makes a difference too!
I also think other methods of testing are important too, as well as measurements, etc... I don't discount any methods of measuring or listening. We still have a lot to learn and progress won't be made by people who think they know everything already. One thing never discussed about cables is feedback from reviewers and customers. The feedback I get as a manufacturer is grouped very tightly together, my cables are described as performing the same way by a huge majority of those who test them. This information could be analyzed statistically somehow... Anyway, my point being that the experiences of people who try my cables are not at all random, which is certainly an indication that the effects cables make is not entirely psychological. I'm surprised Harmon hasn't used it's testing facility to test these sorts of things. I did read about battery-biased crossover caps in a high end JBL speaker, which seems pretty "tweaky" for a big company like Harmon. I'm sure experienced listeners who trained themselves to hear cable design issues would be able to come to some conclusions regarding cables. If they decided a battery biased xo cap is a good idea they may decide wire makes a difference too!
...Exactly was my question. ...Regarding Audio Shows today from a point of view by the expert audio reviewers, professional audio writers, audio exhibitors, audio manufacturers, audio companies, audio dealers, audio advertisers, audio lovers, ...all audio people related, even audiophiles who go to those audio shows to audition.
That is a pretty measureable effect. See this post of mine: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...tem-for-cables&p=134813&viewfull=1#post134813
Is there something like that for your cables?
Harman is a combination of different companies. The folks in Mark Levinson division for example cater to many things that are considered to be voodoo by other parts. The JBL group doesn't usually fall in this category but I agree with that biasing caps is pretty tweakyI'm sure experienced listeners who trained themselves to hear cable design issues would be able to come to some conclusions regarding cables. If they decided a battery biased xo cap is a good idea they may decide wire makes a difference too!
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I was just thinking the same thing and then I read your post. I guess either he decided not to follow through on his threat, or people felt too threatened to send him a private message. I have not seen one quoted PM to the OP in the 630 posts, but then, what could one write that has not been written in this thread already?
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steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I do believe there IS viagra for women
Fluoride 'reduces' cavities
Where did this come from??I am still waiting for a scientist to explain to me how fluoride protects tooth enamel. Replacing a few ions here and there could potentially change solubility (the mechanism a dentist once used to explain it to me) but I have never heard of a kid putting his tooth in a glass of Coke overnight and finding it still there in the morning, nor have I ever seen any solubility data that demonstrates the percentage change that fluoride causes. One would think that reducing fluoride to a single number would have huge marketing appeal but no, it is still shrouded in mystery.
Still we find fluoridation being promoted as the best thing since sliced bread was invented. Meanwhile I find that despite all fluoride I was exposed to as a kid including drinking water, dentistry, and even prescription pills, the health of my teeth seems to have depended much more on what I eat than anything else, hence a mouth full of capped molars and eroded incisors.
True to my skeptical nature, I tend to agree with the John Birch Society explanation (what a gas). I once found a stack of their old literature at a yard sale back in the 1980's and their claim is that fluoride is a waste product of the tin and aluminum industries (stannous flouride, sodium flouride) as well as a Communist plot to destroy the West. Apparently the Birchers spearheaded the early anti-fluoridation movement.
This is a real 'Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you!' kind of moment.
So when I went to the local health food store and bought a few books I discovered that early efforts to dump fluoride waste into soil or air proved too toxic (fluoride is the most reactive negative ion and a hellacious carcinogen/mutagen/toxin). The solution that was devised was to dilute it into the domestic water supply and tell us it was good for us. Some random dentist in an unincorporated municipality who speculated that high levels of natural fluoride protected their teeth (as opposed to the lack of penetration of junk food into a rural community) was trotted out as the spokesperson for the movement.
Toxic waste became the world's first mass-dosed compulsory medication with a 5% increase in the background cancer rate (according to the Birchers anyway). The US RDA of fluoride is still zero, meaning that it has no known role in human nutrition and is still considered a toxin.
Here we are approximately half a century later and the world is still divided on fluoride, with many European countries banning it and many US water systems compulsively medicated with the justification that we are all saving the teeth of the poor who cannot afford to see a dentist (yet I see no evidence that the poor are gaining any benefit if all the Medicare beneficiaries who get no socialized dental insurance and sport mouth full of false teeth is any indicator, and why not just add dental care to Medicare anyway since it would be much more efficient use of resources IMO).
I also heard one explanation for the mechanism of effectiveness being that fluoride is a good disinfectant and kills bacteria. If that were so, we should expect alcoholics to have perfect teeth since they ingest almost nothing but disinfectant.
The question I keep asking myself is, where are the double blind studies? It cannot take that much effort to do a study on rats. Yet despite having looked and looked and looked for them, I find that the available literature keeps referencing the uncontrolled studies of the municipal water supplies that were subject to compulsory medication showing a downward trend in tooth decay that looks very similar to the general downward trend in tooth decay that began around the time that Cuban sugar was banned from the US marketplace and antibiotics came into widespread usage while research into dental health that clearly implicated diet and hygiene as primary variables became the cornerstone of a public education campaign.
Ever wonder why none of the portraits of the founding fathers of the US (or any other portrait from that time) show smiling teethy? Apparently none of them had much in the way of teeth. It seems that somewhere between the Paleo era when teeth almost never rotted and the revolutionary war, human health took a sharp downward turn and the culprit seems to be the way we process food.
Anyway the conflicting evidence left me baffled and doubting so I drink and cook with only bottled water until someone proves it to me one way or the other. Yeah, regarding the honesty of the medical literature one only need watch TV commercials to learn which grand medical innovation has become the latest victim of the ambulance chasers.
Sorry Amir, your faith in science is somewhat misplaced. Anything can be perverted by money.
I suppose it is time for someone to post something randomly and loosely linked to the Kardashians or Duck Dynasty next. Ramble on.
Great lousy thread btw...
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
So that there is proper closure and our policy clear, I thought I post this summary from our point of view:
1. We don't police the quality of any content. You can spend a millisecond looking at a product and render judgment or a year. It is up to you what you do, and what you choose to write.
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3. You can plead to your peers to act differently anytime you like. Just be professional, don't do any name calling and help keep WBF one of the most cordial yet informative web sites round. Disagree as strongly as you like, but keep it focused on the topic, not the person.
4. Let's understand that the reason forums like ours exist, is because we want to share knowledge and that knowledge can and is different than others routinely. There should be no expectation of people agreeing with some universal truth. If it comes, great. If it doesn't, again this is the nature of the Internet.
5. On WBF, we prefer to do everything in our power but to close a thread. So while your requests to close threads are heard, and considered, we like to rely on them as last resort. We hope you are all on board in helping keep the forum so civil that our policy in this regard doesn't need to come into play.
Thanks for everyone in helping us make this thread constructive and open.
1. We don't police the quality of any content. You can spend a millisecond looking at a product and render judgment or a year. It is up to you what you do, and what you choose to write.
2. While as individuals we wish that you put thought in anything you write about a product, as forum managers we do not have any bar with respect to thought, effort, or quality of what goes into your posts. This is the Internet. It enables anyone to have an opinion. It is the responsibility of the reader to decide what information they want to rely on, and what not. No one is policing the Internet in this regard and neither are we.
3. You can plead to your peers to act differently anytime you like. Just be professional, don't do any name calling and help keep WBF one of the most cordial yet informative web sites round. Disagree as strongly as you like, but keep it focused on the topic, not the person.
4. Let's understand that the reason forums like ours exist, is because we want to share knowledge and that knowledge can and is different than others routinely. There should be no expectation of people agreeing with some universal truth. If it comes, great. If it doesn't, again this is the nature of the Internet.
5. On WBF, we prefer to do everything in our power but to close a thread. So while your requests to close threads are heard, and considered, we like to rely on them as last resort. We hope you are all on board in helping keep the forum so civil that our policy in this regard doesn't need to come into play.
Thanks for everyone in helping us make this thread constructive and open.
Not much. And we haven't heard much from the OP lately. Who knows if he got any PMs? And wouldn't objecting privately, instead of in the forum where others could challenge your POV be...what was it? Cowardly?
Tim
Back to the pre-fluoridation topics.
You can count me in as someone who was apprehensive about Harman's testing procedures. Years ago I worked in the Circuit City electronics department. Our training materials included a session learning about the Harman design philosophy. Based on the (terrible) learning module, Harman had determined that flat frequency response was the most important thing. Harman trained people to hear deviations from flat frequency responses. Harman then had those people blindly determine which speakers they liked. With just that terrible introduction, it's reasonable to think that there is a self-affirming loop.
Based on one of amirm's posts a few months ago, however, I started looking closer. In reading their literature and studies, I figured out that I was conflating Harman's two testing procedures into one. I was confusing the results of the listening tests (where the trained listeners note issues with the sound) with the preference tests.
The research I've seen indicates that Harman's listener training does not really affect sound preference. Given a group of different speakers, the trained listeners put their preferences in the same order as the untrained listeners (including dealers, reviewers, and college students). The difference was that the trained listeners were absolutely brutal when giving their degree of preferability. The training makes them harsh critics, but it doesn't seem to change what they like overall. Well, it does seem to make them REALLY dislike electrostats.
I would also say that the results of the research are far from shocking. Turns out we prefer speakers with a slightly descending frequency response, good off-axis response, with low-distortion, and no resonances. That's basically a list of what any decent speaker designer is aiming for anyway. I can't think of any data stating as much, but I bet that with blind testing both an audiophile who frequents live shows and one who exclusively listens to recorded music would choose the speaker that best exhibits these traits.
Now, as much as we talk about how we are all about the sound or music or whatever, the truth is that none of us are truly able to separate what we hear from what we see. I heard some really bad ribbon tweeters about 10 years ago, and still don't really like speakers with them. But this is a personal bias that I'll gladly own up to. The market is large enough that I can find great sound without relying on ribbon tweeters. People will attack Magico for being cold and sterile, likely due to the aluminum body. But in terms of Harman's research and what generally constitutes good sound, I think Magico is probably close to state of the art.
The point is, if we want to give an honest assessment of just sound, it has to be done blind. We're too easily influenced by our other senses, particularly sight.
But this shouldn't in any way be constituted as a reason for people to not give negative reports about sound at audio shows. Would I prefer that people giving negative responses at shows own up to their biases? Sure. But that would also require that they actually sit back and critically review what those biases might be. But I maintain that people online have learned to filter low-information posts, such as "I put my head in and left because the sound was terrible." But a high-information negative post can be valuable, especially to a reader who understands the constraints of audio shows in hotel rooms. And anyone reading this thread should certainly understand those by now.
You can count me in as someone who was apprehensive about Harman's testing procedures. Years ago I worked in the Circuit City electronics department. Our training materials included a session learning about the Harman design philosophy. Based on the (terrible) learning module, Harman had determined that flat frequency response was the most important thing. Harman trained people to hear deviations from flat frequency responses. Harman then had those people blindly determine which speakers they liked. With just that terrible introduction, it's reasonable to think that there is a self-affirming loop.
Based on one of amirm's posts a few months ago, however, I started looking closer. In reading their literature and studies, I figured out that I was conflating Harman's two testing procedures into one. I was confusing the results of the listening tests (where the trained listeners note issues with the sound) with the preference tests.
The research I've seen indicates that Harman's listener training does not really affect sound preference. Given a group of different speakers, the trained listeners put their preferences in the same order as the untrained listeners (including dealers, reviewers, and college students). The difference was that the trained listeners were absolutely brutal when giving their degree of preferability. The training makes them harsh critics, but it doesn't seem to change what they like overall. Well, it does seem to make them REALLY dislike electrostats.
I would also say that the results of the research are far from shocking. Turns out we prefer speakers with a slightly descending frequency response, good off-axis response, with low-distortion, and no resonances. That's basically a list of what any decent speaker designer is aiming for anyway. I can't think of any data stating as much, but I bet that with blind testing both an audiophile who frequents live shows and one who exclusively listens to recorded music would choose the speaker that best exhibits these traits.
Now, as much as we talk about how we are all about the sound or music or whatever, the truth is that none of us are truly able to separate what we hear from what we see. I heard some really bad ribbon tweeters about 10 years ago, and still don't really like speakers with them. But this is a personal bias that I'll gladly own up to. The market is large enough that I can find great sound without relying on ribbon tweeters. People will attack Magico for being cold and sterile, likely due to the aluminum body. But in terms of Harman's research and what generally constitutes good sound, I think Magico is probably close to state of the art.
The point is, if we want to give an honest assessment of just sound, it has to be done blind. We're too easily influenced by our other senses, particularly sight.
But this shouldn't in any way be constituted as a reason for people to not give negative reports about sound at audio shows. Would I prefer that people giving negative responses at shows own up to their biases? Sure. But that would also require that they actually sit back and critically review what those biases might be. But I maintain that people online have learned to filter low-information posts, such as "I put my head in and left because the sound was terrible." But a high-information negative post can be valuable, especially to a reader who understands the constraints of audio shows in hotel rooms. And anyone reading this thread should certainly understand those by now.
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
This may be true, but...
I just had an exchange with someone who heard the Q1 and preferred it to my Mini 2. It was not a direct comparison, and it was not blind. I reminded him that he heard them in different systems, different rooms, with different music and many months apart. I have little doubt that they sound different and I'm sure most would argue that the Q1 sounds better and for specific reasons. I would enjoy taking a blind test and direct comparison of these two speakers in the same system/room and probably conclude that the newer model sounds better. However, I have asked myself a few times if I should upgrade to buy the Q1. This is where the sighted test becomes more important to me, in fact, it is indispensable when making a purchase decision (at least for big items like speakers). I want to see the speaker because I have to like the way it looks/fits in my living room. I much prefer the aesthetics of the Mini 2, so the superior sonics of the Q1 are not enough to get me to upgrade.
Things might be different if my listening room were an isolated room in the basement or if the system were concealed behind an acoustically transparent curtain. I agree with MadMilkman that an honest assessment of just sound is one thing, and it could or should be done blind. Measurements and blind listening are excellent tools for the designer/engineer and perhaps the audiophile who wants to really "know" which component sounds better, but I would think that most end users also care about what the component looks like if he is deciding which to buy.
My apologies if this should be in a different thread, but I like TheMadMilkman's post and wanted to respond to it.
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