Why Some Audiophiles Fear Measurements

Thanks. Kind of a pi**er that it seems it can be implemented correctly at least Pioneer did.

This may not cheer you up then, seems things have gone from good to err whats happened.
Paul Miller reviewed the SC-LX83 and was surprised to find that somehow Pioneer have gone from an incredibly well implemented SX-LX81 backward with the LX83 that has HDMI 1.4
Brief comparisons (LX83 then LX81):
Stopband images: -49dB vs-99dB
Jitter S/PDIF: 570 vs 40psec
Jitter HDMI: 365 vs 37psec
Now without the PQLS active jitter on HDMI for the LX83 is over 1500psec, while the LX81 had great peformance and did not even need PQLS.

Paul Miller even dedicated his opinion page to this calling it One Step Forward and Two Backwards lol.
Cheers
Orb
 
the simple call do 'do a dbt' is not that simple! But what better way to learn??

I'm big on blind testing, but I'm satisfied with single-blind for my own informal tests on myself and friends. I do agree that DBT is complicated to do correctly, but it's the only way to truly prove that cable elevators and replacement AC power cords etc do not change the sound. Likewise, it's also a great way to prove to people that their own hearing is not as reliable and repeatable as they think.

I've tested friends blind in my home studio. In my studio the best listening position is behind where I sit at the computer. So I can play various clips without the person behind me seeing what I'm doing, or even seeing my face. I described how someone can test themselves blind in my AES Audio Myths video:

AES Audio Myths said:
When I want to test myself blind, I set up two parallel tracks in SONAR as I did here, with the Solo switches grouped while in opposite states. This lets me switch from one to the other with no clicks or pops. I put the mouse cursor over either Solo button, close my eyes, then click a bunch of times at random without paying attention to how many times I clicked. This way, I don’t know which starting version I’m hearing. Then I listen carefully to see if I can really tell which is which as I switch back and forth. When I open my eyes I can see which track is currently solo’d.

--Ethan
 
A question: When doing these listening test why do we assume evreyone has the same level of hearing. Do we do that with eyesight? Does a person with 20/10 eyesight see the same detail as someone with 20/20? Would it not be more credible if before a listening test the participants were given a hearing test so we could detetermine how accute their hearing is? Then we could group them into different catagories and see if there are any differences. Has anyone tried this method? Would be fun to find out.
 
A question: When doing these listening test why do we assume evreyone has the same level of hearing. Do we do that with eyesight? Does a person with 20/10 eyesight see the same detail as someone with 20/20?

The difference is that eyesight has a standard of 20/20. For listening, there is no standard. Everyone is "supposed" to hear 20Hz-20k, but at what amplitude? It is a lot easier to correct vision than hearing!
 
A question: When doing these listening test why do we assume evreyone has the same level of hearing. Do we do that with eyesight? Does a person with 20/10 eyesight see the same detail as someone with 20/20? Would it not be more credible if before a listening test the participants were given a hearing test so we could detetermine how accute their hearing is? Then we could group them into different catagories and see if there are any differences. Has anyone tried this method? Would be fun to find out.
I think Harman gets close by benchmarking their trained listensers' capabilities. It's not the elementary school nurse setting a pair of Beyerdynamics on your head and playing some tones at different amplitudes.
 
I think Harman gets close by benchmarking their trained listensers' capabilities. It's not the elementary school nurse setting a pair of Beyerdynamics on your head and playing some tones at different amplitudes.
Thanks for the info it was very enlightning. But I wonder after all these years of study no one has come up with a meaningful terminology for this disipline. It also seems you'll always have a mix of subjective and objective in your evaluations. Sort of like the blind men describing the Elephant after feeling one part.
 
WoW!

happy.gif


Measurements don’t tell us everything. My ears are more accurate. They don’t measure the right things. They don’t equate with how I hear music. I just don’t care.

Some audiophiles don’t like measurements. I think that many are afraid of them. I’m going to tell you why.

One reason is that most audiophiles, and many reviewers, don’t understand measurements. They haven’t bothered to learn how to interpret them, or what makes them important, or which ones most reliably indicate perceived sound quality. It takes a commitment of time to seek out explanations, ask questions, and learn how to correlate the measurements with what you hear when listening to your favorite music in your room. Gaining that basic understanding can sometimes mean hard work. For the math-averse, it can even be painful.

I have no problem with a consumer going out and buying a product based solely on what he or she hears in an audition -- you don’t need to understand measurements to enjoy an audio system. But audiophiles who are entrenched in high-end audio are typically far more involved in their hobby than the average Joe or Jo -- and they spend a lot more money on it.

Audiophiles are an opinionated bunch. There are numerous Internet message boards where audiophiles gather to discuss all manner of gear: what they’ve bought, what they think sounds best, what they don’t like. These discussions nearly always lead to the subject of measuring audio components, because it’s a variable some audiophiles take seriously. Then the arguing begins.

I’ve been involved in some of these discussions, and usually I try to strike the balance that I believe in: that it’s best to use everything at your disposal to judge an audio component, particularly if it really matters to you and you’re spending a lot of money. That includes listening, talking to dealers and other audiophiles, reading reviews, examining construction and finish quality, listening some more -- and, yes, examining measurements. What I’ve noticed in these exchanges is that at this point many audiophiles, because they don’t understand measurements, simply tune out any discussion of them.

This lack of understanding is perhaps the simplest explanation of why some audiophiles dismiss measurements. But there are other reasons. One is that measurements can threaten an audiophile’s belief system. A classic example: An audiophile believes that a specific product performs exactly as the manufacturer says it does. He hears what he’s been told he’ll hear, and so has bought into the manufacturer’s advertising claims. Then, along comes a set of measurements that directly contradicts what he’s been told, and thus what he claims to hear. This situation can be embarrassing to the audiophile, even stressful, and the easiest way out of it is to dismiss the measurements altogether. After all, if the manufacturer states A, and I hear A, then B just can’t be. Which brings us back to the beginning: Measurements don’t tell us everything. My ears are more accurate. They don’t measure the right things. They don’t equate with how I hear music. I just don’t care.

There’s a chance that, in some instances, our hypothetical audiophile could be right. Back in the 1970s, many designers of power amplifiers chased the goal of low distortion. A specification of 0.001 distortion couldn’t possibly sound as good as 0.0001. But over and over and over, that’s not what people heard; therefore, that particular measurement is no longer considered a good indicator of sound quality. More recent testing, both subjective and objective, has revealed the flaws in that measurement’s validity as it applied to audio reproduction, and some audiophiles like to cite this as a reason why measurements can’t be trusted today. But if you believe that we’ve concluded to everyone’s satisfaction that some measurements don’t matter, you also must conclude that that same scientific and experiential evidence has proven that many measurements that are routinely taken do correlate with sound quality. We’re a lot further along in the audio game than we were in the 1970s. If you haven’t tuned in to measurements since then, you’ve missed a lot.

In March 2008, I wrote an article titled "There’s No Right Way to Enjoyment, but High Fidelity is Different." In it, I outline the distinction between simply enjoying music through your audio system and declaring that a component is faithful to the source signal -- which is the very definition of high fidelity. I hate to put so sharp an edge on this -- we want people to come here and read our articles; we don’t want to offend them enough that they go somewhere else -- but sometimes, you need to be blunt. If all you want to do is enjoy your system, then by all means, ignore measurements. I understand this position; in some ways, ignorance can be bliss. Like any married man, I enjoy a lot of things I don’t fully understand.

But if you want to fully understand audio equipment -- why it sounds the way it does -- and you’re on a quest for truly, verifiably high fidelity to the source signal, then understanding measurements is key to your completion of that quest. You can’t have a fully informed opinion without some grasp of measurements. Dismissing measurements because you’re afraid of them, or because you disagree with them, or because they don’t jibe with your audio worldview, or whatever, doesn’t invalidate their importance. Either you want the full picture or you don’t.

Hi Melanie, and a big warm welcome here at What's Best Forum (WBF)! :b

I decided to quote you because I want to keep your post in my archives.
Very impressive introduction, felicitations ma chere, j'apprecie beaucoup, vraiment.

Who takes measurements? ...A microphone, or two, or three, and going through some wires, and to finally end up inside a machine to be stored.
Then it is rendered as graphs, representing what was recorded by the processing chain.

Is it accurate? And like you said in your above post, can anyone (humans) read the results accurately?

Like I said; your post is very valuable and extremely valid.
And again, I'm real glad that you just joined this Forum here! :cool:
Looking forward for more exchanges...

Bob
 
happy.gif


Measurements don’t tell us everything. My ears are more accurate. They don’t measure the right things. They don’t equate with how I hear music. I just don’t care.

Some audiophiles don’t like measurements. I think that many are afraid of them. I’m going to tell you why.

One reason is that most audiophiles, and many reviewers, don’t understand measurements. They haven’t bothered to learn how to interpret them, or what makes them important, or which ones most reliably indicate perceived sound quality. It takes a commitment of time to seek out explanations, ask questions, and learn how to correlate the measurements with what you hear when listening to your favorite music in your room. Gaining that basic understanding can sometimes mean hard work. For the math-averse, it can even be painful.

I have no problem with a consumer going out and buying a product based solely on what he or she hears in an audition -- you don’t need to understand measurements to enjoy an audio system. But audiophiles who are entrenched in high-end audio are typically far more involved in their hobby than the average Joe or Jo -- and they spend a lot more money on it.

Audiophiles are an opinionated bunch. There are numerous Internet message boards where audiophiles gather to discuss all manner of gear: what they’ve bought, what they think sounds best, what they don’t like. These discussions nearly always lead to the subject of measuring audio components, because it’s a variable some audiophiles take seriously. Then the arguing begins.

I’ve been involved in some of these discussions, and usually I try to strike the balance that I believe in: that it’s best to use everything at your disposal to judge an audio component, particularly if it really matters to you and you’re spending a lot of money. That includes listening, talking to dealers and other audiophiles, reading reviews, examining construction and finish quality, listening some more -- and, yes, examining measurements. What I’ve noticed in these exchanges is that at this point many audiophiles, because they don’t understand measurements, simply tune out any discussion of them.

This lack of understanding is perhaps the simplest explanation of why some audiophiles dismiss measurements. But there are other reasons. One is that measurements can threaten an audiophile’s belief system. A classic example: An audiophile believes that a specific product performs exactly as the manufacturer says it does. He hears what he’s been told he’ll hear, and so has bought into the manufacturer’s advertising claims. Then, along comes a set of measurements that directly contradicts what he’s been told, and thus what he claims to hear. This situation can be embarrassing to the audiophile, even stressful, and the easiest way out of it is to dismiss the measurements altogether. After all, if the manufacturer states A, and I hear A, then B just can’t be. Which brings us back to the beginning: Measurements don’t tell us everything. My ears are more accurate. They don’t measure the right things. They don’t equate with how I hear music. I just don’t care.

There’s a chance that, in some instances, our hypothetical audiophile could be right. Back in the 1970s, many designers of power amplifiers chased the goal of low distortion. A specification of 0.001 distortion couldn’t possibly sound as good as 0.0001. But over and over and over, that’s not what people heard; therefore, that particular measurement is no longer considered a good indicator of sound quality. More recent testing, both subjective and objective, has revealed the flaws in that measurement’s validity as it applied to audio reproduction, and some audiophiles like to cite this as a reason why measurements can’t be trusted today. But if you believe that we’ve concluded to everyone’s satisfaction that some measurements don’t matter, you also must conclude that that same scientific and experiential evidence has proven that many measurements that are routinely taken do correlate with sound quality. We’re a lot further along in the audio game than we were in the 1970s. If you haven’t tuned in to measurements since then, you’ve missed a lot.

In March 2008, I wrote an article titled "There’s No Right Way to Enjoyment, but High Fidelity is Different." In it, I outline the distinction between simply enjoying music through your audio system and declaring that a component is faithful to the source signal -- which is the very definition of high fidelity. I hate to put so sharp an edge on this -- we want people to come here and read our articles; we don’t want to offend them enough that they go somewhere else -- but sometimes, you need to be blunt. If all you want to do is enjoy your system, then by all means, ignore measurements. I understand this position; in some ways, ignorance can be bliss. Like any married man, I enjoy a lot of things I don’t fully understand.

But if you want to fully understand audio equipment -- why it sounds the way it does -- and you’re on a quest for truly, verifiably high fidelity to the source signal, then understanding measurements is key to your completion of that quest. You can’t have a fully informed opinion without some grasp of measurements. Dismissing measurements because you’re afraid of them, or because you disagree with them, or because they don’t jibe with your audio worldview, or whatever, doesn’t invalidate their importance. Either you want the full picture or you don’t.

Hey, this guy cut and pasted my article in his message. Not sure what is going on here: http://www.ultraaudio.com/index.php...-fear-measurements&catid=25:opinion&Itemid=27
 
Hi Melanie, and a big warm welcome here at What's Best Forum (WBF)! :b

I decided to quote you because I want to keep your post in my archives.
Very impressive introduction, felicitations ma chere, j'apprecie beaucoup, vraiment.

Who takes measurements? ...A microphone, or two, or three, and going through some wires, and to finally end up inside a machine to be stored.
Then it is rendered as graphs, representing what was recorded by the processing chain.

Is it accurate? And like you said in your above post, can anyone (humans) read the results accurately?

Like I said; your post is very valuable and extremely valid.
And again, I'm real glad that you just joined this Forum here! :cool:
Looking forward for more exchanges...

Bob

This is his post, Bob, but the words are mine. Moderators?
 
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This is his post, Bob, but the words are mine. Moderators?

I think you have a new female admirator and a publicist too, sort of. Lol
And I think "he", is a "she". No?

Hey, rejoice Jeff, as she just gave me the chance to get to know you!
Your link is fantastic man! ...And what a room! ...With those speakers!

A moderator? What for? Gotta see the bright side of life right?

* Shoooot, and I thought that I just fell in love again!
 
I think there are a number of factors what make a good speaker and fits your taste .

First of all , there is freq response i think from expirience that people find a 2,5 dB -+ bandwith acceptable in a loudspeaker, a narrower bandwith beeing better off course , this being the 250 Hz till at least 20 khz area .
The bass can be more elevated because most people just love bass energy , so a bit extra dB s there wont matter .
Other thing is correct/optimum phase in my opinion , meaning the different units moving as one when producing a music tone , the ear is very sensitive for that and one can disguard a speaker within seconds if its not up to standard /optimized .
Next is enclosure , more stiff/non resonant means more decay of tones
and clearer sound.
Unit construction /membrane material is also very much a matter of taste some like ceramic some paper and so on
there are a million ways to construct a flat freq response in the crossover
1 order second order what ever, and every manufacturer does his own thing .
just my 2 cents , henk jan
Jeff

Great article. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if I was the inspiration to the blog.

Here is my question. Why have I heard speaker systems in great rooms which measure terrific but does nothing for my ears? Also I have heard systems that measure just OK but sound terrific. I have also heard several systems in the the same day all of which measure terrific but only one sounded good to me

My question. No one hears the same. We all hear different. Is there reason to think that there are speakers that sound best to certain ears which but not others? After all if a speaker measures good and is heard in a good system, why wouldn't I like it

This brings me to my mantra in this hobby....... "remember that it is your ass in the sweetspot so make your decisions based on your ears and your wallet"
 
Me think that several factors are at play and one is the music selection itself.
...The recording.

Then your stance (state-of-body-&-mind). ...Or disposition of the moment. ...The reality.
...Physiological, pshychological, physical, spiritual, dimensional, intergalactical, geographical, ...
...Intercontinental, emotional, graphical imaginative, surreal, and terrestrial (down to Earth).

Then the room, of course.

And all the rest of the audio 'gang', plus all that Jazz ... :b

And with all the loudspeakers and electronica, the final frontier: the electrical link.
Between all of the above.

Or the collider.
 
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HI

I am pleased that this interesting thread has been revived.
Concerning speakers, I am not sure we are at a point where we are clear on how various measurements on speakers correlate with our preferences assuming that we ar after high fidelity and not after some kind of sound that we like .. IOW I would define High Fidelity as the case in which the reproduction bears for most people a strong resemblance with an original sound. I put preferences aside as I am finding that many systems simply sound good but do not reproduce the instruments even remotely close to what I hear in real life... To test this take a violin recording to audition then please listen to a violin in your room or anywhere really ... anyhow ... It seems that many speakers that measure just nice and flat on-axis sounds too strident even in a well treated room ... There is more to measure in a speaker IMO than simple on-axis frequency response... On top of my head, I could think of power response.
I have also found that in the bass one needs more than simple flat response in one position.. It needs top be in my (relatively) recent experience flat across a certain area.. The ideal would have been in a large portion of the listening area.. not in or at the listening position only... We seem to hear a summation of all the bass energies going in the room .. I am simply advancing a speculation not a carefully analyzed or studied theory ..
I have heard speakers I liked a lot , some of them measured very well and some others ... In particular the Magnepans .. Not so well... I do however have come to appreciate more and more the value of low distortion in the bass .. Something usually not achievable without multiple subwoofers... A topic in itself. Subwoofers are not easy to poperly integrate with any system. I am yet to find a system that doesn't improve substantially, when a subwoofer or more are carefully (and often painstakingly) added. Rgardless of the bass capabilities of the main speakers .. I am repeating myself here since I have posted this a thousand times already

For amps and electronics .. I need flat response, low distortion and impeccable behavior: stability, low impedance output for preamps and lot of power for amps under all loads, extended bandwidth.. that much is clear for me For speakers the jury is still out on what set of measurements is needed to accurately predict the sound of a speaker. It is clear to me however that smooth frequency response is important in speakers ... and this off ais as well
 
About measuring real live instruments?

Check the graphs of a playing violin, a piano, a cello, ...

And then compare those measurements against live listening.
And see what we prefer. :b

* And then, do the speakers thing! And then, compare everything again.
Then add the wiring, the preamplification, the amplification, the sources, ...
Measure again, listen again, compare again, ...

Non-stop analysing, measuring, comparing, listening, transforming, changing the components,
the speakers, the wires, until we ...
 
My speakers sell for about $400/pair at Audiogon (retail for 3 times that).

To my ears they are smooth; on and off axis.

Are they the best? No.

Do I know their measurements? In part yes. Do I like those measurements? Not particularly, but that's ok.

Do I prefer live music? It depends ... If it's a great concert at a great venue, and sitting at a great spot; yes.

Do I measure what a great live concert sounds like? No; I listen to it.
Same with music at home from my speakers. :b
 
I would define High Fidelity as the case in which the reproduction bears for most people a strong resemblance with an original sound. I put preferences aside as I am finding that many systems simply sound good but do not reproduce the instruments even remotely close to what I hear in real life... To test this take a violin recording to audition then please listen to a violin in your room or anywhere really ... anyhow ... It seems that many speakers that measure just nice and flat on-axis sounds too strident even in a well treated room ... There is more to measure in a speaker IMO than simple on-axis frequency response... On top of my head, I could think of power response.
This of course is not frequency response, or room treatments: this is distortion, pure and simple. Having worked on eliminating this problem over many years, a fearsomely difficult exercise :b, I have absolutely no doubt where the trouble lies. And I have sidled up very close to quite a few real violins in action over the years, to make sure I know the authentic sound ...

So, to repeat myself for 17,329th time, unless this fundamental problem is addressed, all the other techniques are only half baked in their effectiveness in "fixing" the problem ...

Frank
 
Correction: 17,423rd time.

Just kidding Frank :)
 

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