Two unresolved issues
- Thread starter Ethan Winer
- Start date
- Status
This is your best argument?? You come up with a laundry list of things that is obvious to anyone that they can't do and then you declare victory??
The list of things you are asking about has no bearing on what a measurement system is designed to do. You are talking about physical set up parameters and asking the measurement set-up to determine what they were after the fact. It wasn't designed to do that, if it was you can be sure that in could.
To what end??
How is this information useful??
If the measurement system could determine this would it move things forward??
Is this information important when used to compare two different speakers systems as an example??
What you are asking is so out of scope and context that is is laughable. It actually clouds the issue and helps drive the wedge between the two sides.
Rob
Well, they can be resolved if people are intellectually honest, as I mentioned previously in another thread. This is why I started this thread, as a (polite) demand to put up or shut up. So far only Bruce has put forth anything of substance, which I'll address separately. I haven't seen any of my core questions addressed. Not even a little. So far nobody has explained what specific physical property is not captured digitially. And nobody has so far acknowledged that a null test shows all differences even if there are things "science" doesn't yet know about. Which is why I'm confident that science does indeed know what to measure. If there really were other properties beyond my four parameters, they would have showed up long ago in a null test.
I did see some straw men, such as you can't measure a Strad - which BTW is wrong! - or that you can't measure the height of a trumpet player on stage. But those are straw men because these properties exist outside of the gear. You don't need to "measure" a Strad to know if digital recording can capture the microphone's output fully. And that's the core question here. I have seen these same straw men used over and over in this forum and every other forum. No matter how many times I explain that "imaging" is perception that happens outside of the gear, people ignore that and use the same illogical arguments anyway.
--Ethan
Actually, I'm the one providing answers and explanations. All I see from the other side is "you're wrong" with no logical explanation, only straw men. Further, in my OP to this thread I didn't ask for measurements. I merely asked what specific physical properties digital can't capture, and why a null test is not proof of complete capture.
So your specific non-dogmatic answer is what exactly?
"many improvements are simply imagined and due to placebo effect and expectation bias"
There, all fixed.
There's that pesky straw man again, confusing reproduction accuracy with human perception. How many times do I have to ask the first three questions in the OP before I get a straight answer?
Unhappily, people who believe that are unwilling to take part in blind tests. Which BTW do not have to be expensive. They just have to be honest, with the participants willing to accept the result no matter how the chips fall. And without claiming blind tests are somehow flawed when they can't pass them.
--Ethan
The Strad “strawman” you are referring to was used in another thread and not as a strawman argument. It was but one example used to illustrate that everything we hear on recordings can’t currently be measured and that statement also had nothing to do with your digital vs. analog “put up or shut up” challenge. And you wonder why you have “unresolved issues.”
Your missing the point Ethan. If you have profiled through measurements a Strad and a cheap violin and I show you both sets of measurements, based on your experience with the previous profiles, you could pick out one from the other. If I just showed you some measurements that were taken of a sample of sound, you wouldn't know if it was a goat playing a chicken.
The main question is not the existence of another independent parameter. As you are referring we have properties (sound properties) and measured parameters. Two thinks can be questioned.
a) the threshold of audibility of the parameters. It is clear most of us we do not agree on your values of -80 dB. We do not have proper DBTs to prove it, you also have not shown written evidence DBTs to prove the opposite.
b) the possibility that some particular values and correlations of the distortion parameter can affect the sound properties, at values bellow the mystic -80 dB. Also some distortions at low value can have some masking effect over the others and may be some of them can help to create a better illusion of reality - I am just listing a few possible areas. I accept this is not compatible with your position towards a).
I understand that Bruce, but that's not enough to invalidate the entire study because much of the source material was hi-res to start with. Here's a single post (versus the 29 pages you linked to) that debunks the M&M debunkers pretty well:
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/486598/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths/300#post_7254658
Key point made there:
"several samples were properly high res (DSD or high res PCM) from start to player and on none of those did anyone manage a statistically significant result."
Even if M&M is not 100% conclusive, it's a damn good first effort. It's easy to criticize someone else's work, but actually doing the tests needed to prove an opposing viewpoint is much more difficult. So before the hi-res believers claim victory, they need to do their own better tests and publish the results. As far as I know, 3-1/2 years after MM's study was published, that has not happened.
--Ethan
I'd look for pitch-changes showing that a whammy bar was used.
Seriously, depending on which Strat pickups are active, a Tele and Strat can sound identical. But it's not difficult to identify this stuff by looking at measurements. An FFT will show which of two clips has less LF energy, indicating a treble pickup versus a Tele's rhythm pickup closer to the neck.
But again, none of this has squat to do with assessing what digital recording can or cannot capture. It's just another straw man.
--Ethan
Excellent question with a very simple answer: We care because we are asked to spend our hard-earned money on these products. Often lots of money. If someone claims their $17,000 power amplifier sounds better than another with similar specs but costing only $500, I sure want to know if that's really true! Don't you? Donald Trump and Bill Gates can spend a million dollars on their stereo and not flinch. But the rest of us do not have that luxury. So to me, this is the entire point. That, and scientific knowledge for its own value, which understandably some may not care about.
--Ethan
I'd look for pitch-changes showing that a whammy bar was used.
Seriously, depending on which Strat pickups are active, a Tele and Strat can sound identical. But it's not difficult to identify this stuff by looking at measurements. An FFT will show which of two clips has less LF energy, indicating a treble pickup versus a Tele's rhythm pickup closer to the neck.
But again, none of this has squat to do with assessing what digital recording can or cannot capture. It's just another straw man.
--Ethan
And one more time you are taking something I said from another thread and dumping it here and calling it a strawman when in fact the thread I posted in has NOTHING to do with analog vs. digital. Quit taking comments I made from another thread that having nothing to do with your argument about digital vs. analog and using them here.
Is it just me, or do some of you get the sense of parallelism between audiophile snakeoil believers and religious zealots?
Not here big guy unless your intent is to insult some of us.
Very easy, and I've explained this dozens of times already: A null test shows all differences. So if there were some as-yet unknown attribute of audio fidelity, it would have been revealed long ago. Hence, present day measuring tools used to assess fidelity are not only adequate, but perfectly up to the task. And there's your proof.
--Ethan
Exactly. Thank You. Now, the logical next step is to understand why people enjoy those anomalies. But that's where I get off the bus. All I care about is sheer faithfulness to the source, which is the very definition of high fidelity. All the rest is personal preference, and I have little interest in that. I do not begrudge people who prefer the sound of vinyl or tubes or transformers or analog tape. The only time I pipe up is when they say those mediums are higher fidelity than digital (or solid state transformerless), or state that digital somehow misses capturing something important.
--Ethan
Really Ethan? When was the last time you were asked to spend your hard earned money on a product? No one asks us to buy their products. We all make our own decisions when to buy equipment and what equipment we will buy.
I don’t believe you really would want to know Ethan. You would just want proof that it sounds better and of course no one could ever provide proof that would make you happy so therefore you would declare victory and say that a $500 amp sounds identical to a $17,000 amp.
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Still haven't commented on my second observation.
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..
If you do a null test with the original file, you're nowhere near going to cancel out anything with 2 of the units they used.
Ethan, we're not trying to claim victory here. We're just trying to invalidate the study because of too many unanswered variables. There's too much more work that needs to be done to put this to bed.
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..
If you do a null test with the original file, you're nowhere near going to cancel out anything with 2 of the units they used.
Ethan, we're not trying to claim victory here. We're just trying to invalidate the study because of too many unanswered variables. There's too much more work that needs to be done to put this to bed.
Why do you not accept -80 as a reasonable level of inaudibility? If you haven't done the tests - which I have done many times! - what led you to believe that -80 is not sufficient? This is a serious question and I hope you'll give me a specific answer.
I do not have DBT results from a statistically significant number of people. But at least I've done some tests, and it's clear you have not done any. Further, once one understands Fletcher-Munson and masking, it becomes clear why -80 dB is a safe figure. As I have explained countless times in countless discussions, as soon as someone posts Wave file clips showing artifacts 80 dB below the music being audible, I will immediately change my opinion. But after many years that has never happened. If you can't show such proof in the form of clips, are you willing to change your opinion? Will you even try to create such clips?
--Ethan
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Sticky
