BTW, you state that if a speaker measures poorly and sounds great, then the measurements are in fact what we need to be looking for and as a result are good? I submit that the measuring devices are simply not able to measure the very thing that makes the speaker sound great to the listeners ears, instead measuring aspects of the sound that do not correlate with what we hear. This is something that I know you will not accept as a possibility.

No, I don't take advice from Joe audiophile who has not conducted a single proper test to arrive at claims they make about sound fidelity.  I rather trust the people who have.  And those people who have literally dedicated their lives to this question have proven conclusively that what you said is wrong, dead wrong in majority of cases.  

Of course you want that to be true.  So that when you claim this speaker is heaven's give to mankind and measurements show it to have strong resonances and coloration, you don't look embarrassed.  The solution isn't to make up a new theory to fit your poor judgement.  The solution is to learn the science, realize how compelling it is, and start to invest your dollars that way.

I have now tested some 300 speakers.  And I measured all of them based on best the research has to offer as far as predicting listener preference.  You haven't done any of this, right?  My experience has proven in vast majority of the cases that a neutral speaker is the best speaker -- just like research predicts.

The notion that some speaker with screwed up frequency response where it colors the tonality of everything you play through it means we should change how we measure it is just absurd.  Sadly, you have many friends who look at the cost, size and brand of a speaker and convince yourself that it must sound great.

To be sure, some statement speakers bring incredibly capability as far as dynamics is concerned.  That aspect costs money and so is justified.  What is not is having a speaker tuned by some designer by ear with obvious flaws in its response.

Sadly ideas like yours keep these companies in business.  They love that you defend them and create FUD around proper measurements of their products.  You can do that but know that I am here to provide the transparency that they don't.  Smart companies will learn and start to follow the science as many of their competitors have.  Others will just sit there thinking everyone is like you.

As ASR has grown, so has importance of proper engineering and measurements.  This isn't a trend you kill by claiming we don't listen to music or we don't know how to measure.  All that does shows that you rather have your head in the sand that spend a minute learning something about audio.

Where this distinction between objectivist and subjectivist come from in audio and why there is now a complete DIVISION ?

it come not from science but from the efforts by technology and audio market , divided about the GEAR marketing PUBLICITY complementary strategies: is our piece of gear the best well measured by technology, or is this piece of gear the best loved one by all listeners ?

Well, I have great news for you: we at ASR use science for both because they are actually quite interrelated.  Science is our friend and not our enemy as is the case for subjectivsts who care about nothing but "what my ears tell me."  

Back in 1967 a PhD graduate of Imperial College in UK with specializing in psychoacoustics named Dr. Floyd Toole joined the new National Research Council in Canada to investigate what made a speaker more appealing to listeners than another.  At that time, it was thought that everyone was different in their preference so there was room to build any and all speakers with whatever response.

He organized controlled blind tests and tested multiple speakers against each other.  You know what popped out?  That there was strong commonality in what listeners preferred.  With no reference to what is "real," listeners agreed with what was good sound and what wasn't.  That this was no wild west.

What was even  more fascinating was that measurements could, to a high degree explain and predict listener preference!   That a speaker which had flat on-axis and smooth off-axis correlated quite well with listener preference. 

The above was quite reassuring.  That even in absence of a reference, we prefer an uncolored sound.  The coloration is obvious when viewed in a special set of measurements called Spinorama.  And reflected in US ANSI CEA/CTA-2034 standard.

Dr. Toole has risen to the level of top luminary in audio science for his incredible contribution to the field of sound reproduction rooms.  His work (and that of his team) have hugely impacted how speaker are designed.  Look at the response of this Genelec 8361A for example:

See the comments about flat on axis and excellent directivity?  That is complying with this research.  In case you don't know who Genelec is, they are the top 2 or 3 brands in studio monitors (and likely the largest).  Here is their German competitor, Neumann in the form of KH150:

See the similarity in the form of flat on-axis and controlled directivity?

These companies are no joke.  The know the science and follow it.  They know that a neutral measuring speaker is the right approach.

We are here due to generosity of Dr. Toole and his team in publishing everything they found in peer reviewed journals of ASA and AES.  On the latter, AES bestowed the title of AES Fellow upon Dr. Toole.  From this bio:

 Dr. Toole’s research focused primarily on the acoustics and psychoacoustics of sound reproduction. Most notably, he established methods for subjective and objective evaluations which have been used to clarify the relationships between technical measurements of loudspeakers and listeners’ perceptions. All of this work was directed to improving engineering measurements, objectives for loudspeaker design and production control, and techniques for reducing variability at the loudspeaker/room/listener interface. For a papers on these subjects he received the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Publications Award in 1988 and, with Sean Olive, another in 1990.

So no, there is no dichotomy as you state it: " is our piece of gear the best well measured by technology, or is this piece of gear the best loved one by all listeners."  Maybe not "all" but we know how to please vast majority of listeners with speaker measurements as a tool to predict that.

Now, if you haven't been exposed to this science -- and i take it that you have not with that commentary -- I can see why this would be all a surprise.  So I suggest getting started by buying Dr. Toole's book and really getting educated in science of audio and preference:

Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms (Audio Engineering Society Presents)

It costs only $60 and will give an education that a million forum posts won't.  I suggest you put down those two silly papers on FFT which do nothing but confuse you and start reading this book.

We at ASR follow this science because we not only understand it, but also experienced it.  I have attended the double blind test of speakers not once but twice at Harman.  Dr. Toole is a personal friend and teacher.  People who buy speakers like I show above have incredibly positive experience and satisfaction.  

What sticks out to me about the subjective/objective thing is things like the Magnepan LRS speakers which I and many others have and love yet measure poorly on ASR.   Are things like image size and room reflection dynamics of dipoles etc things that can be measured.   Can we show some objective measured thing that explains why many like the Maggies.   I think this is where the measurement approach fails.

The LRS was both measured by me and by Workwyn for AudioExpress with the same results.  Speaker beams heavily creating a very narrow listing spot.  In addition, it has little to no bass.  These are facts enforced by physics of speaker design and there is nothing you can do about it:

The appeal of these dipole speakers is that they are basically effect boxes.  The back reflections create a spacious sound that many audiophiles relish.  I am not a fan because it overlays the same effect on every kind of music.  This becomes tiring to me as I don't expect rock/pop tracks to sound this way.  Ditto for the tall image their portray.

But again, I know the appeal.  I know that with a ton of fiddling and room manipulation you can improve their sound.  So no need to search for such proof.  If you want a specialized speaker, they can be a good choice.

This whole thread is like watching a couple of old, slightly obese guys at a flea market arguing over whether the AMC Gremlin was a better car than the Pontiac Aztec.....either may or may not be right but it just isn't relevant.

Slightly obese??? I am not obese at all.  See me in the middle in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Z0W_KlHOT5M

Ironically Amir is vehemently anti-upmixing. See this thread https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-do-listeners-prefer-for-small-room-acoustics.286/page-7#post-9703

But he went completely mute when he hero Toole made clear he does just that https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/effect-of-loudspeaker-directivity-compared-with-in-room-measurements.21508/page-14#post-1031803

Not a peep out of him about that ;-).

I don't know how you missed my response on the next page:

"The first time I tried Lexicon Logic 7, I found it captivating. Sat there enjoying a few CDs. But then the effect grew old and constant errors in how it created multi-channel from stereo became too much so I did not go back to it. It is definitely no replacement for true multi-channel as Carl states."

That is not at all "vehemently anti-upmixing." I tried it and it grew old. And this was with Lexicon algorithm.  Perhaps Aura3D is better (see below).

As to Dr. Toole, this is what he said at that link:

"The only "faux" multichannel that I have ever condoned is upmixing, and the success of that depends on the nature of the stereo mix and of the particular upmixer - there are several quite different options. None that I have experienced are gratifying for all recordings, but I now regularly use the Auto3D upmixer."

I quoted the key section for you where he acknowledges it is not for all recordings.  He listens to a lot more classical music than I do.  I listen to much more modern music.  That makes a difference as to whether you like the "faux" upmixing or not.

Note that our multichannel room is strictly for watching movies.  It is a window-less room and I don't enjoy sitting there for music consumption.  My main music system is in a different place that doesn't make it easy to set up multichannel. The content I listen to doesn't come in multichannel so again, it is moot.

Did you post the correct graph?  

I did.  Vertical directivity was a problem for me as any change in how I was sitting would impact tonality.  See my listening expressions from the review:

I first positioned the panel right at me and started to play. What I heard sounded like it was coming from a deep well! I then dropped the little rings on the stand and repositioned the speaker as you see in the picture (less toed in). That made a big difference and for a few clips I enjoyed decent sound. Then I played something with bass and it was as if the speaker was drowned under water again. It wasn't just absence of deep bass but rather, quietness on top of that.

"I use science". The ostensibly invincible intellectual shield.

Only if it is stated but not demonstrated.....

Keep for yourself your theory that all there is to say about sound qualities is relative to your limited set of measures...

I don't have to keep what I have not stated.

Objectivist must learn psycho-acoustic science behind technology and develop humility....

This knowledge used to be part of job function and responsibility. Getting it wrong would impact the fortunes of the company I worked for and myself.  Have you been similarly situated?  What is your level of knowledge of psychoacoustics on scale 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest?

• The common conclusion is that reproduction of sound from
20 Hz – 20 kHz with only the correct amplitude is completely
sufficient for sound reproduction, indistinguishable from the
original, but quite in conflict with the above mentioned
anecdotal findings and with what I hear.

Anecdotes and $5 will get you a cup of coffee....  Nothing in the research you are posting supports stuff like that.  There was no test of human perception of frequencies above 20 kHz.  Or impact of eliminating such.  This is all stuff you are reading into the research which has no justification whatsoever.

The Fourier theory is very powerful and useful for audio, but it can only be applied correctly when the conditions imposed are fulfilled.

Fourier theory is not part of the design of any amplifier. Nor is Fourier theory what the paper is about that you keep posting. The Fourier theorem as it is more properly called, is a mathematical proof. It used in some signal processing domains such as lossy audio compression. It has no applicability to an analog amplifier. Such an amplifier is not performing any transform from analog to digital or vice versa.

You are intermingling topics because of lack of understanding of the underlying concepts.

The research simply says that for a special class of signals our hearing system seems to be able to detect their frequency and timing more accurately than the uncertainty principal in Fourier predicts. It has no relevance to topic of audio measurements, or function of analog audio equipment. Extrapolating otherwise shows that even the most basic concepts here are not understood.

And again, much of our audio measurements is done in time domain with no usage of Fourier transforms. They are not bound by any uncertainty principal because they don’t attempt to quantify either time or frequency. When we use Fourier transforms, it is to decompose a signal, i.e. its distortion products. We don’t intend or rely on its frequency resolution.

@kevn 

Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) - 

My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.

My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.

You have me at a disadvantage as I thought I clearly answered your question.  Once again, no, it is not a proper test so doesn't make for a good starting point or any starting point for that matter.

It reminds me of buying a Japanese learning CDs years ago at an airport.  It claimed full immersion and quick learning.  I start the lesson and first thing it wants to teach is the words for Horse and Jockey!  I am pretty sure that should not be the starting point to learn any new language unless you are into horses.  :)

But tell me what you concluded about the results of the tests you ran.  Who had good listening ability and why?

@amir_asr Why did you close Erin's thread?

Answer was clearly given and in detail in my post when I closed the thread.  Your question has been repeatedly answered here as well. That you don't accept the answer is not my issue.  It is yours.  Disagree and move on.

@mahgister 

Thanks for the discussion... I learned a lot... i am not qualified in any way, i am not an engineer, but i know how to read... And Hans Van Maanen is more than qualified here... I read his very simple and very clear articles among others

My pleasure.  You make a key point here.  Just like you, other audiophiles can read too.  So audio marketing people will throw big sounding technical words that often they even don't understand to then make a technical claim they don't have to prove.  Said audiophile draws inferences from everyday life and the sale is made. 

Cable maker says said wire needs 200 hour break in.  Audiophile remembers that cars used to have such break in periods and automatically believes that wires must also need the same.  

You should be skeptical of these claims when they are provided with no proof points, either in the form of measurements or controlled listening tests.  You have post repeatedly on topic yet you have not provided anything like this.  Reading your comments, and please forgive me for being blunt, it is very clear that you are not understanding the mathematical nature of the topic being discussed or its relevance to measurements or audio equipment performance.

To wit, you keep saying there is something wrong with all the measurements we run.  Well, yesterday I reviewed the Roksan Attessa streaming amplifier. Here is our dashboard including FFT on top right:

The Fourier transform is decomposing the innocent looking time domain scope measurement on the left and warning us that the power supply is generating a ton of hum and noise.  So much so that it is higher than the distortion the amplifier is producing!  Pure, voltage (time) domain analysis of noise showed the problem again:

Notice that it can't even clear the noise floor of 16 bit music at full power let alone at my reference 5 watts.

Are you going to claim that this is a well engineered amplifier and these measurements are not probative because you read a paper on Fourier uncertainty principle?   Before you say yes, let me tell you that the owner had heard this same amplifier at a dealer and distinctly detected hum in one channel.  He wanted to find out if this was a real problem with all units produced so purchased the new unit and had it drop shipped to me.  Measurements conclusively predict and prove what he heard.  Not only that, it pointed to where the fault in design is.

This amplifier had universally raving reviews online until mine came out.  Stereophile had measured it and found SNR that was much worse than that but swept it under the rug with politically correct language.  

My, again time domain, measurements also showed very audible spike when the unit is powered on and off:

Another own this morning post that he indeed hears those pops in his amplifier.

None of this was done to verify some spec.  No performance spec is provided by the company anyway.  

You paid $3,200 for an amplifier that is not as silent and clean as a $100 amplifier I have tested recently.  

You see the power of measurements to quantify audible issues?  You see how the theory you read in that one paper does not at all related to any of this?  You see how you should challenge the one designer to produce proper measurements of his amplifier and controlled listening tests showing some benefit in his design approach?

I have read the papers you keep quoting.  I will say once again, they have no bearing whatsoever on the topic we are discussion. Go ahead and quote where Oppenheim and Magnasco say anything about audio measurements being obsoleted by that experiment.  You won't find it.

The Naysayer Church wants you to trust their antiquated science (1800’s electrical theory) and faith-based, religious doctrine, BLINDLY ("Trust ME!"). 

What?  I thought it was your group that says "I trust my ear so you must trust what I say."  That is definition of asking someone to trust you blindly.  We on the other hand believe in bringing independent proof.  We do that with not only measurements but proper knowledge of electronic design and sciences around perception.  You want to throw all of that out ask us to believe what someone perceives through faulty listening tests.  This fits what you see above to the letter.

You really think engineers don't know what a wire does?  Or what a rack does for equipment performance?  That they need audiophiles to tell them there are differences that can't be explained?

    IF you’re interested in the possibility of improving your system’s presentation, have a shred of confidence in your capacity for perceiving reality and trust your own senses: actually TRY whatever whets your aural appetite, FOR YOURSELF.     

Trust your senses, plural, and you will definitely fall in the ditch of wasting money and effort instead of sitting back and enjoying music. 

What you should do is do what you preach: trust your ear and only your ear.  If any other senses are involved, then you are not assessing the sound of something.  Learn how to do a proper listening test that has only one variable (what is being tested) and do it to rule out chance (i.e. repeat a dozen times) and by all means you can trust your ears.  

Yes, there is a bit of work involved in that.  But I assure you it is less than attempting to convince people to abandon common sense and audio science/engineering. 

If you can't be bothered at all, then there are people like me who do the legwork for you and present you very useful information to base your audio purchases on. Huge number of your fellow audiophiles are doing exactly that and are better for it.  Think hard as to what they know that you don't.  Surely they know your method.

Theories have never proven or disproven anything. It’s INVARIABLY testing and experimentation that proves or disproves theories/hypotheses.

That’s right. Your theory is that this and that makes a difference in sound. We put the very same person in a listening test, while keeping their lying eyes out of the equation and all of a sudden that difference disappears like fart in the wind. What then happens is that you deny the results of these experiments. You much rather not know it seems. But again, people are realizing the gig is up here and adopting a much more rational method to judging audio gear. They are saving huge amount of money and getting much more performant systems to boot.

 LIKEWISE: no one can possibly know whether a new addition (ie: some kind of disc, crystal, fuse, interconnect, speaker cable, etc)  will make a difference, in their system and room, with their media and to their ears, without trying them for themselves.   

Oh we can.  If I told you that my music sounds warmer when I wear read socks vs blue you are going to go along with that?  You won't opine that this can't be possible?  That we could measure the effect of red vs blue socks and show conclusively that there is no difference? Or use knowledge of acoustics that says what light sees as far as color, doesn't matter when it comes to sound?

What if I insisted that I can hear the difference?  What if I started to sell red socks saying it makes your music sound warmer, more like real instruments and less "digital?" What then?  I am still good to go and you will defend me if someone shows up with all of the above science and engineering to show these socks can't possibly make a difference?

You see the problem?  Some of you have let your guard down so much that you know believe anything can make a difference in sound.  You don't realize how trivial it is for your brain to manufacture differences where there is none in the sound waves.  You not only go along with these faulty tests and conclusions and come to these forums encouraging people to do the same.  And damage is done.

You don't live the rest of your life this way.  Don't do it for audio.  Know the limits of your audio testing.  It is not like you are born with knowledge of your brain and perils of ad-hoc subjective testing.

Anyone that knows anything about the sciences, realizes that something like 96% of what makes up this universe, remains a mystery.     

You believe in that science but when it comes to audio, all of a sudden we know nothing.  But let me ask you this: do you worry about dark matter with respect to performance of your car?  Do you know dark energy is what pushes your car ahead instead of a know chemical reaction?  

If the answer is no, why on earth do you believe that putting a battery connected to one end of an audio cable makes it sound better?  I mean are you not at all moved that when I measure this Audioquest cable, that I can't even detect a difference down to many decimal places with with the battery on or off?

Seeing how these companies don't present a single listening test research showing efficacy is not a concern to you?  That any and all things must make a difference to somebody as to then keep the floodgates open to all of them?

Are you not concerned that some of these things do the opposite that is claimed?  Here is a Nordost flat cable noise immunity test:

Compare that to cheap generic cable (watch the top right graph):

This cable not only costs a lot more, it is also a pain in the neck to use as high-end cables are almost always are:

Why can't you leave any room for independent evaluation of products showing issues like these?  You don't take medication without such, why do you spend incredible amount of money on these audio tweaks this way?

Doesn't it make sense that it is pretty easy to make money by making a fancy looking cable and selling it for thousands of dollars?  Just like a magic trick, isn't reasonable that your senses can be fooled enough to make a sale?

@curtdr 

Thanks a lot.  I agree that the band leaders are beyond convincing.  I am pleasantly surprised though how many people have changed their views on such tweaks.  That did not come because we just said they are useless but because comprehensive set of tests were performed across so many of them, and explanation given as to why that people started to see the logic in it and shifted their views.  

To be sure, it seemed hopeless for years and decades.  Arguing with words wasn't enough.

@mahgister 

Because Amir when he gives us his gear measuments reviews , so useful it can be, and they are, implicitly state that all of what we can say about "audible qualities" of the gear is once for all contained in the limited set of measures he use critically ...

I don't know why this keeps getting repeated.  No attempt is made to measure everything about a piece of audio gear.  We measure just enough to find out how well engineered the audio device is.  Anything more is redundant and bad use of resources.  To wit, if you go to your doctor and complain about soar throat, he doesn't send you to get an X-ray of your feet!  Sure, you could claim that your feet have something to do with your soar throat but he is not going to accept that.

By the same token, if I throw a simple sine wave at an amplifier and it generates a lot more distortion that a high-fidelity piece of gear is supposed to produce, the it doesn't matter what claims the company makes otherwise.  We already have proof that it is poorly engineered.  Take this $13,000 TotalDAC DAC review: 

Look at the copious amount of noise and distortion to the right of our single 1 kHz tone.  I don't care what paper you have read.  No high fidelity DAC should produce this much garbage.  Or this ultrasonic spray and imaging components:

You can't save this DAC by claiming this device has memory and time dependency.  A simple sine wave should go in and come out clean.  If it cant do that, how is it going to do it with music that has thousands of them?  I just tested a tiny dongle DAC for $80:

Here is its dashboard:

Its distortion spikes are 15 dB better than best case human threshold!  This is what it does when you give it 32 tones to output:

Stunning, right?  Isn't trivial and simple to conclude that TotalDAC is poorly designed and can't rival this $80 dongle?

Which paper you have quoted says that we should ignore the noise & distortion in TotalDAC and call it great?  Why do we need to worry about time*frequency metric?

You see what is going on here?  It doesn't take much to show whether any effort was put in to make a device be truly hi-fi.  Folks were told to trust the marketing material and testimonials from Joe youtuber/reviewer that performed totally improper listening tests with his eyes.  That shouldn't be the way we evaluate audio hardware.

@mahgister 

Your information is useful,  but you cannot qualify all amplifier only on the specs measured... listening test arenecessary...

My information is routinely the only reliable data you have on performance of audio equipment.  The only thing outside of that is marking claims and buyer anecdotes.  Come back with such listening tests on all audio gear and I will stop measuring.

It is incredible that almost nobody from ASR can read the articles i put and understand them...Why ? 

First, I had already read and knew about the Oppenheim and Magnasco paper.  It made the rounds when it first came out.  Many jump to conclusion thinking that paper gives the subjectivist ticket to ignore measurements.  Reality was, as I have explained repeatedly, it has no relationship to measurements let alone going that far.  The test simply states that our prediction of simultaneous detection of frequency and its timing is too conservative.  That for special type of signal at least, our higher order brain function is able to tease out more performance.

I had not seen the Van Maanen paper before but once you mentioned I did.  What is in there is mostly marketing of high-end audio with some contrived simulations that have little relevance to the point you or he are trying to make.

@mahgister 

There is no mystery in what i said... this is evident

There is mystery when you state a theory you have believed with no evidence in reality.  You have not presented any data points related to performance of audio amplifiers.  You just want us to read a few lines of text written by a company designer.  So no, it is not evident in the least.  

This paper as you say never negate the benefit of linear measuring methods in GEAR DESIGN , it demonstrated that linear Fourier frequency based methods cannot explain hearing

No it didn't.  It only says simultaneous detection of timing and frequency is better than Fourier Uncertainty limit.  It says nothing about either one being used by itself.  

Magnasco and Oppenheim said this :

«The significant increase in timing acuity unaccompanied by a
drop in the total acuity for a pulse with considerably larger
variances in timing and frequency indicates that either the
precision of human time-frequency perception operates in a realm distant from the true uncertainty bound, or such a bound does not exist for the auditory system»...

See? It says it right there.  They are only talking about time *and* frequency ("time-frequency") detection together and its level of uncertainty.  Nothing about either analysis by itself having an issue.

By the way when we speak of measures in science, ESTIMATION of measures results must be BOUNDED in a set... This set SIZE is ascribed by the theory , here Fourier theory... Magnasco and Oppenheim state that the results of their experiments exceed more than 10 times the uncertainty limit of the Fourier principle... 

Nope.  The research has nothing to do with Fourier *theory*.  It only has to do with time and frequency detection thresholds.  This is reflected in the title of the paper: "Human Time-Frequency Acuity Beats the Fourier Uncertainty Principle"

See the word Uncertainty?  It doesn't say theory.  It talks only about a relationship between time and frequency in our perception.  Any other interpretation is wrong and outside of the scope of the paper.

Yeah … stunning indeed. Whoever takes you seriously with your findings is in a stunning need for help 🤦‍♂️

Well, in that case, may your future be full of noise and distortion.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z10zK0utr60

@mahgister 

Magnasco and Oppenheim then concluded that human hearings is not only a brain computing activities based on Fourier analysis but ALSO an ecological event, a real perceptive event of a discontinuous set of qualities that cannot be reduced to Fourier modeling... This is the crux of the debate...

It isn't though.  People here want to know what gear to buy that gives them the best audio performance.  You put forward a paper that uses artificial tones to see if the listener can detect simultaneously the time and frequencies of those artificial tones.  Nothing in that research included or involved testing amplifiers.  

You and the Van Maanen's brief write up which you keep quoting have theorized that this research gives the ability for people to tell two amplifiers apart which are pristine as far as measurements.  Not a single listening test of such amplifiers has been presented by you or him.  You expect us to make a massive leap from a test of artificial tones to accepting this.

You talk about science.  In science we postulate a theory.  We can then either show that mathematically to be correct, i.e. Einstein, or practically correct by experimentation.  You have shown neither.  There is no mathematical proof that two amplifiers that measure exceptionally clean in my testing have audible artifacts that are clear to folks like you.  And you certainly haven't provided any controlled tests that demonstrate that.

This is the main issue I keep bringing  up.  I have explained why you can't leap from the one research paper with artificial tones to testing of audio products.  You don't accept that.  But let's hope you accept that you have no data whatsoever to back the prediction you are making.

And no, appealing to authority in the case of Van Maanen being a "physicist that knows what he is doing" means nothing.  Physics education doesn't teach you anything with regards to audible differences between amplifiers. By that notion, any physicist audiophile could say anything and we would have to believe it which is obviously wrong.

@mahgister 

The name of his company is "temporal coherence"... After all that he propose his finished product to a general listening tests among potential customers or reviewers...

Again, as do every other manufacturer of audio gear.  Where is the proof that he has figured out the secret in musicality that measurements don't show?  Offering ear to customers and reviewers is not that.  He needs to demonstrate with listening tests that his claims are correct.  

@mahgister 

This physicist only describe how he think about his own design parts in relation to one another to satisfy "musical qualities" as himself hear them and he try to realize a design that will take into account the non linear and time dependant way that the ears related himself to music...

So?  Just about every designer claims to be making musical amplifiers.  Claims are easy.  Where is the proof point in the form of listening tests that he is accomplishing this?  You say humans can tell such.  Where is the human tests then?

@mahgister 

As i said above Van Maanen use real musical signals not artificial tone as you repeat erroneously many times... Consult the article..

I have read every word of that article, multiple times.  There is no mention of any such musical signals.  Nor proof point that they are revealing as such.

The only signal he shows is a disjointed sine wave:

The input signal is in blue.  Does that look like music to you or a test signal?  Answer is the latter, yes?  In his very own simulation he shows the value and power of using simple test signals.

@mahgister 

only an idiot will say that Fourier theory is useless in design... But Van Maanen use real musical test and his psycho-acoustic knowledge and LISTENING as essential... Thats my point

None of us care how something is designed.  We are caring about how to evaluate company claims of superior fidelity.  You say it is done with music.  I ask how and you have no answer.  I show you that the very same company is using measurements to prove that and now you say it must be OK then.

@mahgister 

Van Maanen said explictly that he use real MUSIC signals not artificial tones or continuous sine wave to test his design and measure their behaviour under stress ....And he described in his articles how he designed his own amplifiers... He is not in the job of comparing amplifiers as you did with some set of linear measures... 

Oh yes he is.  See his other paper here: https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/images/docs/DynamicResponseAmplifiers.pdf

Title: "Tone burst response of amplifiers to determine some properties of their dynamic behaviour"

Then he says this:

"To that end, two high-quality amplifiers with clear differences in their perceived sound, have been tested with tone-bursts. In this report, only the results at 30 Hz will be reported and discussed, as at these low frequencies the issues show more clearly."

See?  Not only does he use classic test tones, but says it "clearly" shows the difference between the two amplifiers.  Here is one of his graphs for the first amplifier:

Please explain to me why it is OK for him to run such tests when you claim any such test is based on "fourier theory" and therefore invalid.  I remind you that this is your expert witness.

@mahgister 

In a word we must train and trust our ears... Measuring is not enough...

Do you agree if such a test doesn't exist, or that it used more than the ears, the claims are invalid?

@mahgister 

Tone sine waves are used by all designers.. they are part of the design process.. . The ultimate test is by musical real music...

Nope.  Again, he said that the tone burst clearly shows the audible difference:

"To that end, two high-quality amplifiers with clear differences in their perceived sound, have been tested with tone-bursts. In this report, only the results at 30 Hz will be reported and discussed, as at these low frequencies the issues show more clearly."

I like to know why he can test two amplifiers with test tones and declare audible superiority of one over the other just as he is doing.  Please answer that.

@mahgister 

Thats my point suggesting an ecological theory of hearings qwith not only Magnasco and Oppenheim but many other researcher in acoustic....

I don't care about many others not cited or any ecological "theory."  We care about reality of how to determine audible performance of an amplifier to make purchase decisions.  Your own expert witness is using test tones to do that.  In both papers,.  Yet you say we shouldn't.  

@mahgister 

You know how to read i imagine..

I know how to read.  But I don't want to imagine anything.  I like to see facts, not articles written by someone to promote their electronic design.  Do you have proper listening test results for anything you have put forward?

@mahgister 

but hearing theory is impossible to understand with only Fourier tools and theory..We need other more ecological approach because sound phenomenon CANNOT BE RECONSTRUCTED as the ears produce them with ONLY FOURIER TOOLS...

Is it diffucult to understand ?

The claim no.  The proof, absolutely.  How have you convinced yourself of any of this without a single controlled test?  You say the ears matter yet your designer has not provided a single comparison with ears that his amplifiers sound better than any other amplifier.  

@mahgister 

He does not used ONLY fourier tool but his hearing theory ideas then musical real music too and mainly...

Ah, we finally make progress.  So measurements with "fourier" tool is instructive to tell us about fidelity of audio gear.  Well, that is what I am producing.  And what your manufacturer is NOT.  

As to whether he is testing with real music, no proof of that is provided whatsoever.  We don't even know the song titles let alone how such a test was conducted.

@mahgister 

I make appeal to this ecological theory because you criticized all audiophiles TOGETHER in a single block as being ALL wrong because they supposed that "musicality" exist in some design when they listened to it even if the design do not correspond with your limited set of linear measures 

I don't criticize people.  I measure audio equipment and if I see problems in it, I report.  If you are going to dispute that, then you need to come forward with either your own measurements to the contrary or controlled listening tests.  Take this page of your favorite designer's product:

It says "distortion minimized for human hearing."  Where is the proof of that?  A manufacturer can just say it and it becomes true? 

It has a bunch of simple numbers in there.  What are the conditions under which they were measured?  It produces 75 watts at what distortion?  What is the level of noise?  Here is how I show power:

You see how informative that is compared to his one number?

What you see there is pure marketing fluff.  It is not remotely useful to make a purchase decision.  Not on objective or subjective basis.

@mahgister

Are you kidding me?

the testing of the design oprocess included Real musical burst and sine wave...

No, I am dead serious. Were you there when he performed these listening tests? What was his equipment compared to? How was the listening test done? Blind? Level matched? How were any issues narrowed to the specific design techniques?

An why were any sine waves used? You keep saying they shouldn’t be used.

@mahgister 

You are not able to contradict me about hearing theory and then you resort to absurdities and put them in my mouth ..

There is no dispute about the research you put forward.  That the brain applies non-linear processing to what it hears is a given.  Nothing in there said anything about measurements.  That came from your designer who wants to sell amplifiers with certain characteristics.  To which I say fine.  Please prove that they are audibly superior to competing design.  He doesn't have this proof.  And you don't either.

@mahgister 

Is a measuring tool set is enough to predict the linear well behaviour of circuits ..,.Yes... But it is not enough to qualify and determine the ultimate  sound value...listening is necessary..

Fine.  Where is the link to the listening test protocol and results so we can examine their correctness?

@mahgister 

But for Van Maanen some other aspects of his design are inspire4d by his hearing theory ideas... Then he used music real test  also and very importantly..

Our job is to verify his claims there.  After all, every designer uses music to check out what they have built.  And they all claimed to be informed as such in their designs.  We as consumers are left to figure out who is right in this and who is not.

I have repeatedly asked you to tell me about nature of Van Maanans music testing.  You don't have any to offer.  And he has not seen fit to provide such proof either.  There is nothing scientific about that.  We have classic audio marketing, that's all.

@mahgister 

But i disagree wi5th you vabout the importance of hearing theory and listening test...I disagree with the idea that we can predict more than the behaviour of the electronic compobnents but also their sound qualities... Sound qualities is a set...In this set each sonic character production cannot be predicted as human hearings will perceive it and judged it... 

You can disagree but you need to prove it.  You can't keep repeating the same research which says nothing whatsoever about "sonic qualities" of an amplifier.

@mahgister 

BUT I KNOW THAT VAN MAANEN IS RIGHT about hearing theory and the way the ears process sound in relation to sound source.. this is why i read it...

I fully understand everything he has written and nothing there should remotely get you to believe what he is saying.  He has offered no proof points other than one silly circuit which has no place whatsoever in a real amplifier.  A contrived example is no proof of anything.  You need to write him and ask him to give you that proof: that his knowledge of said "theory" has enabled him to build a more musical amplifier.  Ask him how that was assessed.  If he says it is to his ears and reviewers or customers, run, and run very fast because that is what every other audio designer will tell you.

The evidence of reality is not oscillator results but the acoustic space occupied and your ears.

Not really.  The space between your ears is your brain which interprets and makes up stuff all the time.  It especially does that if you allow your eyes to feed it information too.

What we care about are the sound waves going into your ear.  In many cases we can prove conclusively that they have not changed yet the lying brain says they are because you let your eyes help it that way.

I wonder, if ASR website (Amir Science Review) was so popular, beating every single audio forum & site, including Stereophile, by multiple TIMES, why the owner of that site, the honorable Amir His Majesty, spend so much time here?

Because ASR is more than me: it includes tens of thousands of your fellow audiophiles who are discussing audio topics on their own without me.  I do my part to post my near daily reviews and folks go on discussing them and other topics of interest.  You can read my audio review from last night.  Or you can hang around here and continue to show interest in what we are discussing...

@mahgister 

All audio design is based on Fourier tools

What? We design circuits based on knowledge of electronics, not Fourier "tools."  Fourier principles are used in such things as lossy audio compression but have no role in design of say, an analog amplifier.

The Null Tester was invented a long time ago by Ethan Winer. Not you.

What?  Null testers were "invented" before Ethan and I were born!  Neither he, nor I have remotely said about inventing one.  Ethan built a hardware null tester to show cables don't make an audible difference which I promoted on ASR as it was very good work. 

My test relies on an incredible software tool built by member pkane on ASR called Deltawave.  It works in digital domain so doesn't have noise or adjustment issues that Ethan's hardware null tester has.  For this reason, it can show a far more perfect null.  

But yes, both tests show that high-end cables don't make an audible difference.

Are you saying Ethan’s Null Tester device was flawed?

No.  Just hard for average audiophile to understand.  For anyone with understanding of what it did, it was great.  But those were not the people who needed convincing....

Galen Gareis, formerly head of design for Belden offers many technical specs and reasons why he designed his Iconoclast cables, and offers specs on each cable that ships.  

Specs that have nothing to do with audio performance.  They are nice people with good intentions so lent me review samples (after I tried to buy them).  Here is the review of the iconoclast cable where I showed not only with measurements that the cable does nothing compared to a generic one, but also with a null test of music: 

As you see, the null shows nothing but noise at threshold of hearing (which is the limit of the test).  The files and null output are there to listen to.

Net, net, please don't be impressed by fancy looking "specs."  If you trust your ears, ask the manufacturer for ears-only controlled listening test results.  If you are in favor of measurements, ask them for measurements of the output of the audio device, NOT the cable/tweak.  If that doesn't change, then the cable is not doing anything extra for the 10 to 20X more money you spent on it.