Two unresolved issues

[Ethan Winer]

Guys,

I am trying hard not to be pushy or a jerk, but I think it's important to resolve two outstanding issues. It bothers me greatly when someone makes a claim, then that claim is refuted with logic and evidence, or requests opposing evidence, but the claimant never follows through. Actually, that doesn't bother me as much as when a claimant can't defend his position, but continues to make the same claim a week later anyway. This is the antithesis to progress, suppressing the chance for everyone to learn and grow (me included).

So with this explanation of my motive, and again making clear I'm trying hard not to be a pushy jerk, I'd like to see the following two outstanding issues resolved. I'm starting a new thread rather than take the LP demagnetizing thread even further off topic.

In this post Mike Lavigne said digital does not capture audio completely:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38449&viewfull=1#post38449

In this post I asked Mike to state what specific physical property is not captured by digital recording:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38536&viewfull=1#post38536

In this post I explained that a null test will show exactly what is missed in a digital recording, and asked Mike if he disagrees that a null test is adequate proof:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38664&viewfull=1#post38664

In this post I asked Mike to provide concise and clear definitions for the various audiophile type terms he used such as "tonal texture," "transparency in the mid-range," "substance," "organic signature of instruments," and "bloom and openness:"

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38864&viewfull=1#post38864

Finally, in this post I asked Bruce Brown to point me to a credible debunking of Meyer & Moran's AES paper detailing the extensive blind testing they did over the course of a year, leading to their conclusion that 44.1 / 16 is not an audible bottleneck:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38919&viewfull=1#post38919

Guys, if you can prove my statements wrong I will gladly admit it. Further, I promise to change what I post at audio forums in the future. But if you can't prove your case, is it too much to ask for an acknowledgement, and also ask for a change in what you post in the future? Let's please resolve this for the benefit of everyone. Thanks.

--Ethan

 

[Steve Williams]

seems like a fair request to me

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Guys,

I am trying hard not to be pushy or a jerk, but I think it's important to resolve two outstanding issues. It bothers me greatly when someone makes a claim, then that claim is refuted with logic and evidence, or requests opposing evidence, but the claimant never follows through. Actually, that doesn't bother me as much as when a claimant can't defend his position, but continues to make the same claim a week later anyway. This is the antithesis to progress, suppressing the chance for everyone to learn and grow (me included).

So with this explanation of my motive, and again making clear I'm trying hard not to be a pushy jerk, I'd like to see the following two outstanding issues resolved. I'm starting a new thread rather than take the LP demagnetizing thread even further off topic.

In this post Mike Lavigne said digital does not capture audio completely:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38449&viewfull=1#post38449

In this post I asked Mike to state what specific physical property is not captured by digital recording:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38536&viewfull=1#post38536

In this post I explained that a null test will show exactly what is missed in a digital recording, and asked Mike if he disagrees that a null test is adequate proof:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38664&viewfull=1#post38664

In this post I asked Mike to provide concise and clear definitions for the various audiophile type terms he used such as "tonal texture," "transparency in the mid-range," "substance," "organic signature of instruments," and "bloom and openness:"

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38864&viewfull=1#post38864

Finally, in this post I asked Bruce Brown to point me to a credible debunking of Meyer & Moran's AES paper detailing the extensive blind testing they did over the course of a year, leading to their conclusion that 44.1 / 16 is not an audible bottleneck:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38919&viewfull=1#post38919

Guys, if you can prove my statements wrong I will gladly admit it. Further, I promise to change what I post at audio forums in the future. But if you can't prove your case, is it too much to ask for an acknowledgement, and also ask for a change in what you post in the future? Let's please resolve this for the benefit of everyone. Thanks.

--Ethan

I'm guessing those issues will remain unresolved, Ethan. There is a very large chunk of the audiophile community, a lot more than half from my experience on boards, that does not believe in, as your slogan says, "Truth, Justice and the Scientific Method." Or, to put a finer point on it, they believe that truth cannot be uncovered by the scientific method and that, in fact, sometimes that which is revealed by science is further from the truth than what they hear. Truth in audio, it seems, is fungible. The recording, media, component with higher noise and distortion, lower dynamic range and a less accurate frequency response is considered more truthful than that which is superior by all objective metrics. The recording, media, component with vanishingly low noise and distortion and a dead flat frequency response throughout the entire range of human hearing can be cold, lifeless, sterile...false, by comparison. How can this be explained? You've gotten all the answers you're going to get, I suspect. Just be glad you found a place where you're not completely alone. On most audiophile forums I've been to, you would would have no company at all.

Tim

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

Is it just me, or do some of you get the sense of parallelism between audiophile snakeoil believers and religious zealots?

 

[Ron Party]

I agree with Steve that this is a fair request. BUT, please keep the discussion civil. There is no need to characterize, or generalize about, a person just because of his/her opinions.

 

[audioguy]

Ethan: I'm with Tim on this issue. You will NOT get your issues resolved.

A large number of high end audio's products are built upon un-scientific principals. Just go check out the thread I started entitled: "Intriguing" audio components that are said to improve sound quality..

Pure CRAP!!

 

[Steve Williams]

Guys, not only will I reinforce what Lee and Ron said but let's avoid any mud slinging. We will always have different views and that is OK. Let's all take the high road here.

I am leaving in an hour for the airport and off to San Juan, PR and then a 9 day cruise in the South Caribbean for some island hopping so will have limited if any internet access other than at the airport tonight. So let's everyone take a deep breath and relax rather than throwing grenades at each other

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Guys, not only will I reinforce what Lee and Ron said but let's avoid any mud slinging. We will always have different views and that is OK. Let's all take the high road here.

I am leaving in an hour for the airport and off to San Juan, PR and then a 9 day cruise in the South Caribbean for some island hopping so will have limited if any internet access other than at the airport tonight. So let's everyone take a deep breath and relax rather than throwing grenades at each other

No grenades here, Steve. Enjoy your trip. Taking your iPod with you ?

Tim

 

[microstrip]

It seems like a fair request to me

Unhappily it is not a fair request in the current context.

Etan will always use measurements and his unproved dogma of the four variables and the .1 dB and -80 db rules as an arguments against any subjective argument. May be in his current system this dogma it is true - I have no reason to doubt it.

Considering current knowledge, hi-end audio is not being scientifically driven for a long time - most improvements are simply empirical. Unhappily performance of current state of the art can not be scientifically demonstrated. Unless research of the perceptual aspects of sound can make a bridge between the state of the art measuring instruments and sound quality there is no science or scientific method. Trying to discuss audio quality in a forum in a pure scientific way is a loss of time. Only people who do not know what is the scientific method can pretend it. From what I have read in this forum even AES seems to accepts it - it is why peer review is not possible in these matters.

The truth is that only extended and expensive listening tests could allow to demonstrate the progress that has been done in audio during the last 30 years in a scientific way. Unhappily no one is interested in doing them just to satisfy the people who share Ethan view.

The subjective claims of audiophiles are many times badly formulated and this weakness is easy to explore, but they do not invalidate that that some of the sound differences they perceive really exist.

So, the best thing we can do is to let Ethan claim his victory and listen to his system. After that we can discuss some interesting things, such as why tube and transistor preamplifiers with flat responses and distortions of - 80 dB sound different and why an amplifier with a flat THD of -70dB sounds better than another with -80dB ...

 

[Ron Party]

I'm trying to understand your post. Are you agreeing, disagreeing, or just not answering the question of whether there is a specific physical property that digital does not capture completely.

Are you agreeing, disagreeing, or just not answering the question of whether a null test will show exactly what is missed in a digital recording.

Are you able to, not able to, or just avoiding to provide concise and clear definitions for the various audiophile type terms such as "tonal texture," "transparency in the mid-range," "substance," "organic signature of instruments," and "bloom and openness".

And, finally, are you able to, not able to, or just avoiding to provide evidence of the credible debunking of Meyer & Moran's AES paper.

Given his lengthy and deserved pedigree, I'm fairly confident Bruce has some observations he can share about the first two questions. I for one would really like to hear what he has to say and I hope he joins the discussion.

Again, borrowing from what I posted when wearing my moderator hat, this discussion is for the purpose of addressing and hopefully answering the questions posed by Ethan. This thread is not to characterize, mischaracterize, or generalize about anyone. Think what you will about people who hold or do not hold whatever beliefs they hold. Those opinions are irrelevant to the discussion.

Members and guests reading this thread should be able to read a civil discussion on the merits. Many, including myself, don't know the answers (if any exist) to some or all of Ethan's questions. The discussion should not depend upon who is the person asking the questions.

 

[mep]

You have to be able to discern the difference between someone who really is asking you a question and someone who is looking for a response so that they can beat you down with it. You say the discussion should not depend upon "who is the person asking the questions" and in the land of utopia, it wouldn't. But guess what, it does matter when people perceive the motives behind the questions and have some insight into the person asking the questions. Let me know if I need to add any smiley faces here.

 

[Gregadd]

I hope that this request would continue to be rejected as the OP laments it has been in all over the net. Science is good but fallible. You need not be concerned that your experience is different from scientific doctrine. Science has an impressive list of failures. Where would we all be if we had to obtain proffessional degrees and indulge in sicentific study to validate our expereinces?

My Opinion is this thread should be deleted.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

ON EDIT: Never mind. I think maybe Greg is right. This can go nowhere good.

Tim

 

[rbbert]

I hope that this request would continue to be rejected as the OP laments it has been in all over the net. Science is good but fallible. You need not be concerned that your experience is different from scientific doctrine. Science has an impressive list of failures. Where would we all be if we had to obtain proffessional degrees and indulge in sicentific study to validate our expereinces?

My Opinion is this thread should be deleted.

Science is certainly fallible in a general sense, but well-designed scientific studies to test and either prove or disprove a hypothesis are pretty much fundamental to our world and our lives. The usual problem is that a scientific study is not designed to adequately test the hypothesis and/or attempts are made to interpret results in a way the study wasn't designed for. Furthermore (with more direct implications for this hobby), analysis for and results of testing for the "null hypothesis" are rarely disclosed.

OTOH, direct observation (e.g., "eyewitness testimony") has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Well done psychoacoutics and research in other behavioral areas also shows pretty convincingly that our senses can be and are "fooled" with regularity.

 

[microstrip]

(...) This is a discussion board and it is pretty hard to have a decent discussion under the unwritten rules of "I hear it, therefore it is better." (...)
Tim

Tim,
Do you consider that this forum should accept that all well designed digital sources and electronics sound the same and just discuss speakers , listening distances , room acoustics and recordings?

 

[mep]

Well Tim, I did try and post answers as to what I thought the terms Mike used meant. I also posted a list of questions of things that we can hear and I don't think we can measure. I listed a bunch of examples. No one responded to my last post about things we hear and I don't believe we can measure and I didn't get my nose out of joint and complain and say my issues are unresolved. If people want to answer you, they will. If they don't, they won't. There is no sense in pleading or demanding that people should answer you. And the questions I asked didn't have anything to do with digital or analog, the same questions apply to both. It was simply questions about things that I know we can hear but I don't think we can measure.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Well Tim, I did try and post answers as to what I thought the terms Mike used meant. I also posted a list of questions of things that we can hear and I don't think we can measure. I listed a bunch of examples. No one responded to my last post about things we hear and I don't believe we can measure and I didn't get my nose out of joint and complain and say my issues are unresolved. If people want to answer you, they will. If they don't, they won't. There is no sense in pleading or demanding that people should answer you. And the questions I asked didn't have anything to do with digital or analog, the same questions apply to both. It was simply questions about things that I know we can hear but I don't think we can measure.

Point me to that post, Mark. I'd like to read it.

Tim

 

[Robh3606]

The terms he want's clearly defined? They mean different things to different people. They mean anything. They mean everything. They mean nothing.

Hello Tim

Which makes them undefinable and useless in any conversation. Think of a language where the meaning of words changes from person to person. It's going to be very hard if not impossible to make any headway in a discussion about any topic.

Sometimes I find myself soaked in the condescension. Trust me. If you were on this side of the divide, you'd be frustrated too.

I have been there myself and once that happens at least for me the conversation is over. I have had people look at my equipment list and tell me they know how my system sounds?? Neat trick to say the least. I feel we will always be deadlocked for the simple reason that to many these are personal issues and our language is far from perfect when used to describe things we hear. To me the only way to get on the same page with someone is to sit down in a room together, turn on the music and listen.


Rob

 

[mep]

Here is what I said:

You and Tom missed my point. We have live recordings that attempted to capture the sound of musicians playing instruments in a real space. They for the most part are proportioned size-wise believably. For instance, a trumpet being played is not at the same level as the piano keyboard, the drums and cymbals sound as if they were at the correct height that you would hear if you were sitting in a club and looking at the stage, etc. In other words, instruments are scaled from one to another correctly for the most part. Sound takes place in three dimensions. I know of no measuring device that can tell me if I captured the scale of the instruments correctly. My ears will though and that’s my point.

There are so many things that are recorded that measurements can never tell you and that you will only know by listening and I listed some of them yesterday. Will measurements tell you whether the guitar player is playing a Fender Strat or a Tele? Will measurements tell you that someone is playing a Strad and not a $100.00 student violin? My point is that measurements can tell you certain things about the quality of the recording via frequency response and distortion measurements, but they can’t tell you anything about the size of the venue, the number of players and how they are arranged on the stage, and the type of instruments being played . You have to hear that for yourself and your ears will tell you if the recording is good or not.

And to Tim’s point about vertical height being recorded, check out Best Of Chesky Classics & Jazz & Audiophile Test Disc, Vol.2. Chesky recorded a shaker starting at ground level and steadily raised it up vertically. You can hear the shaker climb straight up. How do you measure that? It’s there to be heard. Ditto for the sound of drums being recorded further and further back from the microphone. Easily heard, but how do you measure that distance via test gear? My point is, we can’t measure everything we hear no matter how many times some people tell you that we can.

 

[Bruce B]

Finally, in this post I asked Bruce Brown to point me to a credible debunking of Meyer & Moran's AES paper detailing the extensive blind testing they did over the course of a year, leading to their conclusion that 44.1 / 16 is not an audible bottleneck:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...he-Furutec-Demag&p=38919&viewfull=1#post38919--Ethan

Debunking Meyer and Moran

Meyer Moran result debunked - again

TITLE: Sampling Rate Discrimination: 44.1 kHz vs. 88.2 kHz
AUTHORS: Pras and Guastavino, McGill University

Ethan... for every Meyer Moran and Lavry paper you can raise like a flag, I can show you others that are against. This has been going on for years. The main reason it was not a good study is that some of the material used in the study was just upsamped redbook SACD's and I have the FFT to prove it when I ripeed the DSD layer for HDtracks.

As far as I'm concerned, this case is closed and we need to move on to something more productive.

Here is a DSD rip of one of the discs that was used.

DSD Rip

See... lots of hi-rez energy

Here is an analog capture of one of the units used playing that same disc.

Unit 1

What the hell happened to all the high frequency energy?

Now look at the analog output of the other unit used.

Unit 2

No wonder they couldn't tell the difference between SACD and CD

Now look at the same file being played by a high-end SACD player

Hi-end player

Looks more like the original DSD rip to me..