Preference vs. audibility - please keep them separate.
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i think it has a lot more to do with many designers deciding that measurements were irrelevant because they were revealing very uncomfortable things about their sacred cows. In any case, if it's about psychoacoustics, other than a few speaker designers, I don't see high-end designers pursuing solutions in any kind of systematic (or other) way. On the contrary, I see them avoiding and rejecting new technologies with a lot of potential to enhance perception while chasing very elegant, expensive, profitable and sometimes pointless enhancements of old technologies that haven't addressed perception with a new idea in decades. It's easy to say its about perception. Who has done substantive work on manipulating perception? Correct me if I wrong, but I don't think it's high-end amp designers or turntable manufacturers. I think it's the guys working with surround, headphone effects, DSP, codecs.....
Tim
How would you know Tim? Have you been visiting any labs and workshops at all? Surely you aren't making these assumptions based on forum posts and ads.
Tim,
IMHO most manufacturers do not say that measurements are irrelevant - they say that the usual typical measurements and our simplistic interpretation of them is not enough.
BTW, what do you mean by "old technologies that haven't addressed perception with a new idea in decades" ?
No, I'm making them based on the results. The pro audio world, even the home theater world is full of ideas aimed at manipulating perception (yes, most have been less than successful, as effort toward true innovation often is). The quality codec may be the most successful psychoacoustic product of all time. What has come out of high end electronics? Better phonographs? Somewhat lower distortion from tube amps? The rejection of even very fundamental advances like active electronics? I can't think of a single perception breakthrough from that end of the business. They seem to be endlessly, and sometimes pointlessly refining 60 year old ideas. What am I missing?
Tim
Is their work published? Maybe it's not necessary to visit them to find out what they're up to.
I look forward to reading their published papers on stereo spatial reconstruction, audio holography and psychoacoustic manipulation using valves, tone arms and cables.
Based on results I would say that the progress in high end is large. Speaker manufacturers have systematically identified many types of distortions and are managing to create loudspeakers that are more transparent but still able to have great micro-dynamics and macro-dynamics and a lower noise floor, dynamic speakers reaching the best electrostatics in this last aspect. Believe it or not, IMHO this was also due to the contribution of a new generation of designers, having studied psycho-acoustics in their formation.
Sources and electronics have followed this trend - digital, analog, tubes, transistors or hybrid are sounding considerable better than a decade ago.
It seems to me you are trying to reverse the normal situation. High-end should not create breakthroughs in technology and psycho acoustics, or write papers - they should incorporate the SOTA of acoustic and psycho-acoustics knowledge in their developments and use technology to create better sounding products and a more rewarding sound reproduction, playing the existing recordings (almost exclusively in stereo) . Stereo reproduction has been deeply studied, and IMHO people should think about the sentence "Stereo, therefore, is not an encode/decode system, but a basis for individual experimentation" (F. Toole, 1998, Audio – Science in the Service of Art) before denigrating high-end. BTW, they should also remember that the section from where I picked the quote is entitled THE STEREO PRESENT AND THE MULTICHANNEL FUTURE.
Who,what,where....an example of a speaker incorporating psychacoustics specifically.
You either wait for them to publish or you go see what they are up to. They are either doing research and development or they are not. To say however that they are not based on lack of publication is, shall we say, a leap.
Nobody has mentioned, or even implied, a psychoacoustic breakthrough, or even small evolution from a high-end electronics product. Like I said, I base my evaluation on the (lack of) results, not ads, internet posts or missing white papers.
Tim
Tim
Pro world? The Pro world is just as segmented and stratified as any. Anything you say about consumer audio could be said of that world too.
What results are you looking for that you would consider a breakthrough anyway?
The most well known case is Meridian - Bob Stuart was the psychoacoustics expert and Allen Boothroyd was the engineer. B&W also carried their psychoacoustic studies. Both in the UK.
The Mark Levinson ML31 CD transport. I consider it a breakthrough at that period, as IMHO it sounded considerable better and different than any other CD transport when it was presented.
The D70 Audio Research tube amplifier that many people still praise a lot.
My ARC REF40 + REF150 when used with adequate speakers and probably (I have never listened to them) Steve Lamm's .
The Mark Levinson ML31 CD transport. I consider it a breakthrough at that period, as IMHO it sounded considerable better and different than any other CD transport when it was presented.
The D70 Audio Research tube amplifier that many people still praise a lot.
My ARC REF40 + REF150 when used with adequate speakers and probably (I have never listened to them) Steve Lamm's .
What did any of these products do, or endeavor to do in the realm of psychoacoustics? Did they change human perception of audio? Did they even claim to? Was there anything about their design that even claimed to be aimed at manipulating or taking advantage of human perception?
Or did they just sound particularly good to some people?
Tim
There has not been any psychoacoustics product produced for the consumer or audiophile that I know of. The Dolby version is surround based,but nothing that is 2 channel stereo enhanced. In my opinion it is not pursured because it would lift the bar and expose the mediocre sounding equipment. Speaker manufacturers especially the very high end would not benefit either. For less than 2K a person could transform any 2 channel system...the high end would be in chaos.
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Ingvar Öhman of Ino Audio (Sweden) / Guru Audio (Internationally) has done a lot of psychoacoustic research for his speakers. ( Or rather, his first speakers were created to be able to do psychoacoustic research as he couldn't find anything to buy that was good enough for what he wanted to study. )
I think Groucho focused us a page back:
Forget about the published papers if that's a stumbling block for you. When have they created any products attempting any of the above? Even published any marketing copy that referred to any work in these areas more specific than cliches about sound stage? Maybe we don't have to go this far. Perhaps they've been working on manipulating FR to take advantage of human hearing sensitivity, or strategically manipulating euphonic distortions to enhance the perception of dynamics?
I'd like to hear about this work, because my impression has been that while pro audio and HT has been doing quite a bit of work in some of these areas (not distortion, thankfully), the high end has been avoiding tone controls.
Tim
Forget about the published papers if that's a stumbling block for you. When have they created any products attempting any of the above? Even published any marketing copy that referred to any work in these areas more specific than cliches about sound stage? Maybe we don't have to go this far. Perhaps they've been working on manipulating FR to take advantage of human hearing sensitivity, or strategically manipulating euphonic distortions to enhance the perception of dynamics?
I'd like to hear about this work, because my impression has been that while pro audio and HT has been doing quite a bit of work in some of these areas (not distortion, thankfully), the high end has been avoiding tone controls.
Tim
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