Two unresolved issues

[Ron Party]

Thank you again, Bruce, for staying on topic and providing valuable information. Does anyone here besides Bruce have anything to post regarding the original topic? This is not a thread about Strats vs. Teles or any other such interesting but at best tangential matters.

If anyone believes there is a specific physical property that digital does not capture completely, please so state and explain why.

If anyone believes a null test will or will not show exactly what is missed, if anything, in a digital recording, please state so and explain why.

If anyone believes there exists evidence of the credible debunking of Meyer & Moran's AES paper, please state so and explain why.

Take the high road and avoid personal flame fests.

 

[Ethan Winer]

Quit taking comments I made from another thread that having nothing to do with your argument about digital vs. analog and using them here.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Every single quote I used in this thread was taken from a post to this thread. Click the little arrow icon next to the quote and you'll find the post it came from.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

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

I'm not trying to be dense, but I don't understand what is being shown or how it relates to M&M. Can you be more specific about what you're showing and how it relates to the files M&M used?

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

When was the last time you were asked to spend your hard earned money on a product?

Every time I see an ad on TV or in a magazine.

We all make our own decisions when to buy equipment and what equipment we will buy.

Many people do not know what to buy, hence the thousands of forum posts asking what to buy, or which sub is best, or "Do I really need to spend big bucks on wires?" And so forth. I'm glad that you have it all worked out to your own satisfaction. Most people are not so lucky.

You would just want proof that it sounds better and of course no one could ever provide proof that would make you happy

That is totally untrue. There's lots of proof that will make me happy.

--Ethan

 

[Bruce B]

I'm not trying to be dense, but I don't understand what is being shown or how it relates to M&M. Can you be more specific about what you're showing and how it relates to the files M&M used?
--Ethan

Can't you see Ethan that 2 of the units that were being used are not much better than Redbook CD when playing SACD via their analog outputs! That's why I included a "good" SACD player to show the deficiencies of thier equipment.

 

[Ethan Winer]

Again, not trying to be dense. Maybe I need to have a list of all the gear M&M used handy, which I do not have. Are you saying that some of the players they used have no output above 20 KHz? What about the other players? If 3/4 of their 554 trials were invalidated, that still leaves 138 tests where nobody could tell the difference. This is why it's so important for those who believe hi-res matters to do their own better tests.

--Ethan

 

[DaveyF]

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

Ethan, In some ways, I think we may be talking of the same thing. If a piece of equipment portends to be better sounding, I want to hear this for myself. If that is true, then I am not particularly concerned if there is science behind the product; I still hear what I hear. OTOH, I do agree with you that if a manufacturer has stumbled onto something un-verifiable from a scientific point of view, then that manufacturer should be forthright and claim that they have no idea as to why the result that they have obtained is the case. Voodoo science is to me a major turn-off. If you take what I am saying a little further, you may conclude that all speaker cables should sound the same...from a scientific point of view that is. In my experience, not sure about yours, that is not the case. So. what is going on here? Am I hearing things that don't exist or is the science at this point in time, not able to tell me what is the cause of the differences.

 

[Bruce B]

I know you can read spectral analysis... stop trying to avoid the obvious. You can clearly see information above 20k in the 2 files... just not much! Thats why I included a decent SACD player's output.
In any trial, if 416 out of 554 were invalidated... then the whold trial needs to be done over. You can't come to any conclusions with percentages like that.

Equipment List

 

[Gregadd]

Okay .Given that we have all the measurement and materials we need there is no reason why we can't make the perfect reproduction system and perfectly reduce live acoustic music. I submit we cannot and have not. Not even with the greatest designesrs and best materials. Your own live recording failed to reproduce a perfect recreaction of the live event. If it's all perfect, with the perfect digital, the adequate speaker , the adequate reciever, the treated room. Yet you were not able to reproduce a perfect recreation of the live event. Why not? You sidestepped this question before. If can do it, I will drive to Connecticut to hear it double blind if you prefer. I wll be honest and admit it if ou are correct. I have thrown down the gaunlet.

 

[microstrip]

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

Unhappily you really do not want to know if the claim is true - the manufacturer claims it sounds better, not that it measures better, and you do not have tools to verify it, unless you get the amplifier and carry by yourself the needed DBTs in proper conditions. You want to extrapolate your personal convictions in a non scientific way to establish your truth.

 

[microstrip]

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.
--Ethan

Because I have heard notorious sound differences between DACs and CD players that have less than -90 dB .

Because I have owned amplifiers that sounded much better after one hour warm-up and measure the same either cold or warm.

Because I hear differences between cables - and their distortion is much less than -100 dB.

Because most people in this forum or other forums who have systems with higher resolution than yours, writing independently of you and me share a subjective systematic about these products. Not just saying that they hear, but that subjective sound properties have some consistency in a product. Even some non audiophile friends who are victims of my loans confirm it.

Because people who are in the business of recording and have produced excellent recordings also do not accept your views about electronics equality.

I could add many others, but also because I can not find any trusty writings of stating that it was proved that this -80 dB is the threshold of audible distortion.

BTW, I carry my occasional measurements (audio is just an hobby) with a EMU TRACKER ADC/DAC.

 

[microstrip]

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.

--Ethan

I consider that the few blind tests I have done with friends are not valid DBTs. Could you describe the methodology and systems you have used for your some tests, since you consider them DBTs?

 

[fas42]

Okay, I'll throw my spoke in now with a few comments on posts so far ...

while remaining open to the possibility that science may someday discover some audio parameter that is currently unmeasured.

No new parameters need to be discovered, just the way they are measured needs to be more searching and comprehensive. Knowing a car's top speed, acceleration time to 60mph, and braking time from a certain speed tells you almost nothing about it is like to drive the car. But if they got a car, loaded it up with instruments and had some robot mechanism drive it through a very comprehensive set of manouvers, to the limits of the car's capabilities, on different road conditions, in different weather conditions, you would certainly know an enormous amount, in figure terms, about the car. A very expensive exercise, and to the layman the figures would be completely overwhelming. But the engineer would then have a much better handle on what is going on for that particular car, as relevant to the consumer!

Of course, the layman just takes the car for a test drive, he assesses the parameters important to him by seat of the pants measurement techniques, and probably makes a very correct decision for himself ...

The problems come in when we have virtually infinite permutations of causative factors in playback. I'm sure we've all heard systems that are in seemingly terrible rooms (by dimensions, furnishings, etc.), yet sound fantastic. I'm also sure that we've heard systems that should sound great (on paper)that disappointed.

Agree 100%. Those infinite permutations play around with my favourite fetish: low level, high frequency distortion ...

when a new breakthrough allows far deeper understanding of the subject?

The breakthrough will come when the measurers extend their range of testing procedures to cover the more subtle behaviours, which are level dependent, and time dependent -- the latter meaning the performance of components changes with time, which every audiophile knows intimately: components and systems sound different at different times.

Which is why I'm confident that science does indeed know what to measure.

IMO, right and wrong. It knows what to measure, what for me is the big culprit, distortion, but it doesn't or is not willing to go further with developing of test procedure, to accurately find out what is really happening when people hear differences ...

Frank

 

[mep]

Surely you jest! Manufacturers come out with a new reference every few years, for like 30 years now, and still each time "sounding" better than the last.......and measurements not getting much better, but staying about the same, so the same measurements but "better" sound each time.....oh the magic, if thats what you belive in...

So if it doesn’t measure better, it couldn’t possibly sound better right? New preamp circuit, new power supply design, it’s now a balanced circuit instead of unbalanced circuit, but somehow it will sound exactly like a previous design from the manufacturer because the measurements are close?

However, I have stated, and taken the ridicule before, that actually plain old stereo, rendered perfect, with its weak illusion, just might not sound as good as a "flavored" variety. There is a difference between accuracy and "sound". Sound is in your head, and we all got different heads!

I’m not even sure what the above paragraph means. What is a “flavored” variety? And sound has to travel through the air to get to your head unless you are wearing headphones.

What happens after a particular speaker spits out some sound waves happens in your brain, again, we all have different brains.

Huh? Aside from the fact that your sentence lacks some grammatical structure, I have no idea what your point is here.

And why audiophiles think that becuase they hear a difference they are somehow gifted people is beyond me.

I didn’t know that audiophiles that can hear a difference between components or sources considered themselves gifted.

 

[microstrip]

Surely you jest!

Manufacturers come out with a new reference every few years, for like 30 years now, and still each time "sounding" better than the last.......and measurements not getting much better, but staying about the same, so the same measurements but "better" sound each time.....oh the magic, if thats what you belive in... (...)

Tom

It is very easy to make general fun about the evolutionary hifi progress (due to marketing pressure, most claims are really exaggerated as you say) , but do you seriously consider that, as a rule, current products of high-end manufacturers do not sound better than those of ten years ago?

Although there are a few exceptions I consider that during the last ten years there was a very considerable improvement,

 

[JackD201]

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

Rob,

Who's declaring victory? The statement was that everything we hear can be measured. Well, measure recorded perspective then. Can't do it? I didn't make the statement.

To what end? Is consistency good enough a reason for you? Being able to deduce placement and their aberrations have many practical uses. Punch ins, especially those done in separate sessions the most obvious. That is of course if you Rob, believe the quality of the recording is important. I believe the recording is THE most important thing. I live through poor recordings every single day because I love the music despite the warts. I still wish all recordings were good. Do you?

A measurement system can't do it? Boo-hoo. Invent one that can. Just 15 years ago there was no way to check for absolute phase on a mixing desk's two channel output. Now scopes are common. One day someone heard a problem, figured it out what it was, made a device to measure and graphically display it. The result is efficiency in figuring out which channel is the culprit and thus better sonics in the form of stable imaging.

Some end users clamor for information about the recordings themselves. Albums with charts about the actual musician's placement are highly prized. Now wouldn't it be great if you could run a file of an event that happened half a decade ago and get that type of information instead of looking for a surviving member of the production team and see what he or she can remember? You can use this type of information to evaluate your own speaker building projects' imaging characteristics.

And no that is not the best I can do. I wasn't even trying yet. Now that I've answered your questions, you still laughing?

Jack

 

[mep]

Jack-I find myself in total synch with your post. I'm sure some day we will have measurments that answer all of the examples I have given of things we can hear but current measurements can't tell us as well as the points you have made. But for the here and now, we don't. So when someone tells you that they can tell you anythng you need to know about audio reproduction with 4 measurement parameters, I just roll my eyes.

Happy birthday Jack!

Mark

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Come on Tim. I'm not talking about Digital and Analog. Mep gave an example of recorded perspective, something present in both.

Right you are, Jack. This was not about vinyl vs. digital. My apologies. It was about "what's missing from digital," and "what we hear that can't be measured," and I guess I slipped into that old familiar groove too easily. Sorry.

Let's see Winer or anybody else demonstrate how through measurement alone, one can deduce even just these four things by analyzing nothing but the composited audio signal. a) distance from mic to subject

b) angles of microphone

c) height of microphones

d) number of microphones

I've been gone all day and there are a couple of pages below this post, so if this has already been covered, I'm sorry for the repetition, but I don't think Ethan wasn't talking about being able to identify the number of mics in a recording with a scope, or look at a chart and see a Tele instead of a Strat. Can you identify the number of mics in a recording by listening? I don't think that's the kind of thing we're talking about. What we're talking about measuring is the effect that Tele or Strat or those microphones have on the recorded signal. That is what is measurable.

What burns my butt is when someone is arrogant enough to pass off his theory as a law.

I'm lost. What theory? I thought he was asking for some data to support the notion that digital removes something from analog recordings, some evidence of the extra "natural" that people claim they hear. Did I miss something? It wouldn't be the first time.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Lee agreed. Especially since Ethan says it all the time.


Nobody needs permission to indulge thier preferences. The point I find untenable is the notion that when scientific theory conflicts with real world expereince we are being invited "to keep it to ourselves" unitl we have proved it scientifcally. I see no reason to follow that advice. Indeed real world expereince is vital to scientific advancement.

Greg, I completely agree.

Tim

 

[Ron Party]

Mark, I know you disagree with most I said, but in order to keep this thread of Ethans on topic, perhaps let me just say I know you disagree with nearly everything I said. We did not contribute to Ethans questions....in fact..I think it would be cool to delete any post here that did not directly address Ethans postulates, then he could refer folks to this thread and they could look for factual responses instead of our opinions..but I am guilty of this so I bow out of this thread until I have a fact to contribute. Mark, we can play elswhere no problems if you agree of course.

Tom

Indeed Tom, we could delete virtually every single post in this thread except for Bruce's, notwithstanding my pleas that people address Ethan's questions. As such, posts not on topic henceforth will be deleted. Take the high road folks.