DonT relax anything... Go on criticize them those costlier speakers designer... I will congratulate you for that...

And who in his right mind can oppose to someone who ask " for flat on axis response and smooth off-axis." Not me ...

But designers will go on with their trade off choices and you will criticize them... All is OK...i will read you...

But dont come to me saying that all there is to say about audio components is their measures set...And dont come to me saying that human hearing impression are all illusory and with no value out of blind test ...

Psycho-acoustic dont say that... Trained ears are not the same as untrained one... Furtwangler and Floyd Toole or Dr Choueri or the creator of my headphone a physicist acoustician of genius Dr Gorike all had trained ears...dont put them in the same basket as people who buy an amplifier for the price tag and dials... Dont put them in the same basket than people unable to tune their own room... Etc...

The human ears beat the Fourier uncertainty why ?

Because he use some aspects of sound by virtue of his non linear structure and brain tools which made him able to EXTRACT 10 times the accuracy information in the time domain permitted by the linear Fourier treshold between frequency and time ... This means that hearing is not explanable only by Fourier methods, and it means that human hearing can be trained and is very trustful when trained at long term... Furtwangler dont need a blind test...he dont pick up his amplifier by reading your measures... It does not means that measures are useless... Who would pair the wrong amplifier with the wrong measures to the wrong speakers?  We need measure for regularity and standards... Deriving all  audible qualities from them is non sense...

No one is taking away anyone’s choices in designing a speaker. Nothing about what I or audio science stands for mandates anything in that regard. We simply as for flat on axis response and smooth off-axis. You can get there a million ways.

To be sure, it is not my job, and should not be yours either, to make anything easy for manufactures/designers. They have their challenges and they signed up for that when they decided to get into that business. I am a consumer and want a performant system. You can’t deliver it? Don’t get in the market.

We have speakers that cost just a few hundred dollars that deliver on these metrics. That expensive speakers costing many multiples can’t is no reason to relax the criteria for them

Thanks i appreciated that...

It is hard to read so clumsy english syntax asmine in my posts 😊😁😊 , i apologize to all people and stay very shameful about my posts especially after reading thinkers as great as writers as George Santayana :

«Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.»

In audio fanaticism the subjectivist are less sinful in their ignorance of technology than the objectivist fanatical aim which is to erase "perceived qualities" so meaningful they could be from the highest designing goal in favor of what is measured or to reduce them to pure "standardization" for mass market benefit ...Alas! mass market production is not high end craftmanship...Values could never be reduced to numbers..

Psycho-acoustic is precisely the study of these irreducible "musical" meanings for sure for the benefit of mass market production but not at the price of reducing these values to mere numbers...

Sound and music are arts based on science but not reducible to science, from the recording engineer using his EARS experience to choose the trade-off choices set and the more pleasurable and useful for the recording process and from the craftmanship of designer learning the last discoveries in psycho-acoustic and designing complex new more PLEASURABLE design for the benefit of the BIASED ears/brain system wishing for such to the listeners picking up the gear pieces of his choice to put them in the best acoustical conditions for him...All here is at the same time art and science, not one without the other...Only mass market productions so useful they can be is no more high art and high science but trivialized automatized art and science transformed now in useful techological tools or daily devices or trivial machines ...

But we can decide also to design A.I. regulating at the same time our ears and the sound dimension and bent ourselves totally to its ruling and renounce tomorrow our own creativity for an alleged illusory "perfection"... It is a society choice : the perfect hive "knowledge" or the imperfect learning humanity...

Science investigate mysteries so deep only naive mind think that these mysteries will be debunk as mysteries and reveal as trivialities ...Mathematician are in awe considering prime numbers distributions...No technological trick would reduce it to a trivial fact...

Euler one day discussing with the atheist Diderot claiming as evidence that GOD did not exist, fatigued by his credulous naivete as a thinker wrote his famous equation : e powered to pi and i +1=0... Diderot stay silent and departed... This equation dont prove at all that God exist, but before negating a SOURCE for the harmony of all things we must think a bit...That was Euler point...

In the same way the psycho-acoustic discoveries about the non linear working of the ears/brain iin their time dependant fashion made us think a bit before reducing all "qualities perceived" to Fourier method and measures as powerful they are for our technological benefit...

I want to publicly thank @mahgister for serving as the defacto and perhaps accidental Audiogon gatekeeper.

 

While I have neither the patience nor the time to read his rather lengthy posts, @mahgister is single handedly grinding Amir into submission. Each forum has a reason to exist, people choose the one they like that’s where they tend to visit. Since I’m a vacuum tube guy, I don’t need to visit ASR but certainly wish them no ill will.

Attack on person , or insults discredited any rational arguments value...

I apologized to Amir when i was tempted to do so confusing him and his sincere gentlemanship in discussion with some zealots around him,...

I despise those who resort to insults because it undermine the the points under discussion... These points are not personal matter... They are philosophical debate of our times...

I learned a lot discussing rationally with Amir... I thank him for that...

I am not perfect... But you are right and i apologize...

But think in my shoes... you dont read my posts at all and you did not understand anything about my fundamental points...I reacted perhaps a bit rudely...

i apologize...

I wish you the best and bear no grudge... Thanks...

@mahgister ,

 

You exude much hostility when being challenged. I will take my leave of you now and return to my previous belief of spam.

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.

The main point was about the tools used to takes measurement, all applications of Fourier theory and his fundamental linear nature and his time independant basic nature...

The ears did not work in a linear manner at all and live in a time dyssimetric dimension for our fundamental perception...

All the measures taken about amplifiers and dac are tools of a linear nature in the frequencies domain basically... But How to use them to serve the non linear nature of our hearing abilities an his time dependant nature ?

We must not use Fourier analysis then with a naive idea about distortions coming from components and complete ignorance about the way human hearing perceive them...I cannot cite him about distortions it will be too long post...

Dr. Hans Van Maanen explain it better that i can here...

Here is a gist of his ideas :

«The temporal resolution of human hearing is at least an order of magnitude better than derived
from its frequency response, so it is very likely that especially metal percussion instruments

larger the contribution of artefacts to its output signal will be. As several of these cannot be detected using continuous sine waves, these differences may not show up in the specifications.
This can explain why amplifiers with similar specifications give significant differences in the perceived quality.

Then Any ASR review of amplifiers will not be a warrant of "musicality"... Then Keep your ears open... Measures and especially some limited set of measures dont tell all the story there is to tell....

Thanks Amir for the falsification of the Gear market specs ...

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

Subjectivist are not in the obligation to stay ignorant about measures and hearing theories and fact...

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

By the way i am perhaps the only one posting deep scientific reason why Amir ideology about hearings and all perceptive "musical" qualities correlated by him to a narrow set of linear measures is just that : a marketing ploy, an ideology but not science...

Amir do a great sercvice by informing us , i thank him for that many times, the problem is that he really think the information given is absolute truth about perceived experiences musical qualities...They are not... And there is no more and no less deluded subjectivists than there is deluded objectivists... Psycho-acoustic is a too deep matter to be reduced to a limited set of linear measure on the gear based on Fourier theory or to be based only on gear  fetichism ...

Fourier theory is not part of the design of any amplifier. Nor is Fourier theory what the paper is about that you keep posting

I never said a such non sensical thing about Fourier being part of the material design of an amplifier... They are the background theory for the hearing based frequency theory... i always spoke myself about hearing theory and the impact on design QUALITATIVE INTERPRETATION and the predictive relation between perceived "musicality" of the gear and some sets of LINEAR measures IN THE MASS MARKET INDUSTRY which are not enough to predict "musicality" of the gear because the human hearings work non linearly in the time dependant domain Simple.... I only said that some set of measures are interpretated in the LINEAR context with Fourier theory as a frequency based Hearing theory in the background interpretative context instead of a time dependant theory...By the way going in the time domain with your measures interpreted in a linear context, DOES NOT MEANS YOU WORK IN THE TIME DEPENDANT DOMAIN of hearing theory...The CRUX is not the time domain symmetricality in itself ( laws of nature can be read mathematically in a time independant way ) but it non symmetrical direction, then time dependant one, in a non linear way for human EARS/brain workings..

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.

All your measures being interpretated linearly OUT OF THE SPECIFICS NEEDS from a hearing theory based on what MAagnasco and Oppenheim and Van Maanen asked for, cannot have then any concluding value for interpreting them as "good sound" in a psycho-acoustic sense and i a predictive way... A good standard design dont means a "musical" pleasurable sound quality... You then really means only "good sound" as an attribution in a mass marketing standardized designing sense of the words... ... What you call "good sound" then with your set of measures has nothing to do with real "perceived sound qualities" in a psycho-acoustic SUBJECTIVE sense.... Then objectivists claiming the opposite are wrong...If anyone claim the opposite then it is because someone want to IMPOSE what must be a "good sound" with a hearing theory which is linear and TIME INDEPENDANT...

But now we have no debate TOGETHER you said it very clearly : Your set of measures cannot be claimed as to have any PREDICTIVE PERCEIVED SOUND QUALITY VALUES out of the numbers revealing some aspect of distortions and jitter, etc ...The fact that you equate it with good sound QUALITIES is purely an abuse of words; you means good standard design... Then Probability of a good sound with no predictive attribute .. As you say you LISTEN with behind your head the measures biases you had taken BUT you submit yourself to blind test...perfect then...

Then i had no more point of disagreement with you... It is the objectivists around you reading your reviews who EXTRAPOLATE and ATTACK subjectivism claiming to some "musicality" and grow in a cult using some specialized set of measures as PREDICTIVE instead of being only : minimal or optimal standards with no predictive value for "musicality"...Which quality is "unreal" or "illusory" anyway for them ......You are more "neutral" than this circle around you and you do a job thats all... And effectively you cannot be faulted for the rudeness and wrong interpretations of others.. yOu stay silent and give your reviews... Anybody can interpret your verdict as predictive of "good sound" or not... It is up to them... And up to a blind test... 😊

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.....magnasco and Oppenheim experiments are after 60 years the culmination of a trend growing in hearing theories : Human hearing must be based on an Ecological theory of hearing as exist an ecological theory of visual perception by J. J. Gibson and based on the AFFORDANCES given by natural sound analyased in a non linear way in the time dependant domain by the ears/brain... I suppose you know this book :

wikipedia:

«James Jerome Gibson (/ˈɡɪbsən/; January 27, 1904 – December 11, 1979) was an American psychologist and is considered to be one of the most important contributors to the field of visual perception. Gibson challenged the idea that the nervous system actively constructs conscious visual perception, and instead promoted ecological psychology, in which the mind directly perceives environmental stimuli without additional cognitive construction or processing.^{[1 »}

he wrote one of the most influential book about visual perception research in the century...

All my observations about the non linear and time dependant dimension of hearings and their future impact on gear design must be interpreted in  this book context ... Van Maanen use this hearing theory to design his amplifiers ande speakers... This is the reason why i used it...

Then no i am not qualified, J. J. Gibson and Magnasco and Oppenheim and Van Maanen are qualified more than necessary...

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.

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.

I will defend Amir here...

Crazy people are here too...

What about Bidenism ?

Are you living on the cyclops planet ?

Pick a book and quit the news...

Amir has taught me nothing about audio but his site and its "pinball wizards" (deaf, dumb and broke kids) have taught me a lot about cult psychology. When one person has a crazy idea (say, in audio reproduction, measurements matter more than how something actually sounds, or everything audible is measurable by today's instruments), they are challenged by peers and the crazy idea gets rejected and the species evolves in a pro-survival direction. But when they surround themselves with other crazy people, there’s no challenge and the idea lives on because they feel social acceptance based on that idea. This phenomenon is massively dangerous and just a small version of the same idea destroying the US democracy and eventually possibly the world, namely Trumpism.

If you add Bidenism  disease   to Trumpism disease, i apologize to you ...

But refrain yourself to insult Amir, i did not partake any of  his ideas about measurements meanings at all , as my long posts here demonstrated, not by insults, but by DEEP ARGUMENTS...

 Then you were right about my  ignorant political disagreement with you, but i am afraid that your post about Amir reflect ignorance more than lucidity... 

Insulting is not a good way to debate sonmeone and put him in a corner...

Thats my point...

Again i apologize for my misreading of your political standpoint...

@mahgister

You're not defending anyone; you're just showing your ignorance.

For citing person B for being wrong about something does not make person A right.

Here you were more than right and i am totally with you...We think the same...

Thanks...

@mahgister

No worries.

Just the point being that cult behavior is bad anywhere.

If someone is not enough wise to separate my heavy syntax from my arguments from hearing theory aspects and call my posts "repetitious verbosity" this reflect more his limited mind process than my "verbosity"..

Just a question if i want to know if you get the point : What is the relation bettwen a Gibson ecological perspective on sound hearing impressions and a Fourier inspired one ?

And what is the relation of this with Amir opinions about measures and my opinion , and what are the relation of all this to design ; and WHY AM I WRONG OR RIGHT, in spite of my VERBOSITY ?

If you brain work, answer or DEBATE  before insulting me...If you cannot BABBLE a RATIONAL  answer go into the cells of hell reserved to your kind...

I dont insult anyone, if i did it because of my quick temper  or by misunderstanding  i APOLOGIZE but i answer to insults IMMEDIATELY ...

I wait for your answer and in details bright mind ...

Repetitious verbosity != DEEP

Very easy answer...Point me the thread where someone debate Amir about the Fourier /ecological theory of hearing in psycho-acoustics and the relation with his opinion ?

It is easy to answer by insulting someone... More easy to escape by saying what he said is "COMMON PLACE"... It is not common place dude... You confuse generality with specfic deep philosophical points about hearing and your limited opinion..

You are right about one thing : i have an ego yes and a quick temper , but i can recognize when i am wrong... And i dont mix common place fact with DEEP question in psycho-acoustics..

And i learned how to apologize after insulting people... Ask your mother..

You will not answer me on this debate anyway , you are not able to do so anyway it seems..

I wish you the best and forget my verbose posts in the future...

I did not insult you, I pushed back on your self flattery, As to the rest of your post, I’ll opt for the much quoted Mark Twain quip on the matter, and abstain. I had all this of this debate ~50 years back, ain’t nothing new here.

...

I beg your pardon but all my posts which are a rational discussion with Amir were not about subjectivits and objectivists, which is a MEANINGLESS debate let to itself most of the times; but more about the relation between measuring context and hearing theories, mainly Fourier inspired theory of hearings and ecological theory of hearings...I debate him about PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC not about his objectivism techno ideology as most audiophile subjectivist do WITH NO SUCCESS because they dont adress the fundamentals behind measures and behind hearings..

i like to be understood... Dont take it personal...

This thread, like many others, seems to boil down to the ’subjective’ vs. ’objective’ arguments, and which are better?

IOW, nothing new here.

@mahgister I just noticed this thread from my weekly Audiogon roundup. I am actually familiar with Gibson and his ecological approach from grad work in cognitive science. I took a moment to check out some of the papers related to your unnecessarily long and murky posts here, as well.

I don’t think ecological perception critiques about spectral analysis are relevant to musical reproduction devices. They certainly are interesting in terms of explaining human listening experiences where expectations and environmental affordances certainly play a part in how the brain perceives the sounds emanating from a device. But if the goal is just to successfully reproduce audio with minimum noise and distortion, and with maximum fidelity to the original recording, I see nothing to suggest that following the guidance of sampling theory will not result in exactly the kinds of "transparent" or "uncolored" devices that are available today. Gibson then gets to critique how the human hears/understands the purity of the emerging sounds, and reconciles them with all the affordances of space, room, materials, mood, and much else.

There are edge cases where general psycho-acoustics can be influential, like using compression techniques that de-emphasize parts of the spectrum. We would prefer to de-emphasize only where the results have low impact on human listening, for instance. Phantom center images, Dolby Atmos, etc. certainly are another area where there are great research opportunities, too, for the ecological perception-focused researcher.

In any case, I have learned a great deal on ASR and recommend it highly. It provides an excellent counterpoint to vague assertions and hush-voiced listening reviews. Most interesting for me, however, is the internet culture role of how it is deconstructing the faith aspects of the audiophile subculture. We see that playing out here!

Psycho-acoustic science and basic facts DECONSTRUCT not only audiophile subjectivist focus on gear but also deconstruct and demolish objectivist techno babble...

But it seems that people cannot think out of binary opposition...

The basic facts about hearings cannot be reduced to mere "illusions" without any bearing on qualitative design, no more than measures in the large sense of the world can be dismissed by subjectivist...

Listenings is not an illusory experience which must be dismissed by blind test...It is an ability that must be trained in acoustic environment ...

Measures are revelatory and necessary for design and pleasure BUT THEY MUST BE interpreted in the rightfull hearing theory context..

By the way faith in some restricted set of measures interpreted in the Fourier context is only that : technological misplaced faith... But there is difference between technology driven by the right hearing theory and technology even negating hearing perceptive abilities asking to be trained and used in design itself... This is the Van Maanen main point...

Most interesting for me, however, is the internet culture role of how it is deconstructing the faith aspects of the audiophile subculture.

I am not against "transparent" design...But mass market minimal design standards cannot be high end craftmanship...

But i cannot accept that some use these set of measures to disparage human hearings are passively subject of illusions, some will reduced all human hearing abilities as illusions of only subjective nature with no objective informative content useful for new design , not only to create "colorful" tubes amp but better gear in the larger sense by using human ears as a guide... This stance about linear measure of circuits with no need of the designer ears guiding rudder contradict basic psycho-acoustics... We analyse sound non linearly and we live in a time dependant dimension for this analysis and frequecies dont tell all the story... This means something for design theory...

I cannot repeat what Van Maanen taught , i am not competent and it will be too long..

There is materials physical and sensible invariants , information , behind sound experience not just abstract waves analysed for frequencies spectrum , and amplitude phase and duration and distortion, and not just subjective delusions, these physical invariants go deeper in hearing theory than just frequency based circuits analysis and told us something about human hyperacuity as Magnasco and Oppenheim called it... These materials invariant of qualitative information content are not measured by the tools Amir used, they exist for the ears who perceived them in his time dependant domain and extract from them in a non linear way much qualitative information ...

Thanks for your kind balanced answer...

Read this if you want to guess what these qualities perceived by human hearings are...I read the author thesis..,

Listening and hearing are not DECEPTIVE activity as claim those who want complete faith in their very limited set of measures as the ABSOLUTE METER for "musicality " in gear design...I dont go with ideology sorry... Not in audio not in any subject...I think alone with books and scientists not sellers ...Psycho-acoustic use measures to elucidate hearings very deep matter not to reduce it to mere subjective illusions for the benefit of some limited set of gear measures sold as TRUTH..

In a word there is a deep relation between sound perception and the production of sound by the body, negating this powerful informative feed back circle and claiming that a short set of linear measures can settle audio gear quality forever without any need to listenings , because it is merely delusions, this is not science, this is ideology, and had nothing to do with psycho-acoustic... Amir Measure are useful... Nobody oppose that.. But selling them as the last words with no need for qualitative listenings is going too much farther... Audiophiles are no more deluded than people of ASR with their toy tools.. And blind test do not replace listening training with acoustic and musician training or the trained ears of a designer ...

Classyfying all people in audiophiles subjectivists  all  in error  and ASR objectivist as living is truth , is marketing fetichism not psycho-acoustic... 

...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267327268_The_Body-Image_Theory_of_Sound_An_Ecological_Approach_to_Speech_and_Music

@mahgister Well, I just skimmed that response a bit but, yes, it certainly is possible to build audio reproduction systems that have colored sound that some people might prefer (tube and vinyl aficionados rejoice!), but in reality these were always stopgaps towards perfect fidelity due to the limitations of the devices. But some folks prefer them, so be it.

But with the advent of better technologies and the theories that guide their use, we can build remarkably transparent systems for low cost these days, so the limitations of those other approaches become more obvious. There is some research that shows that hypersonic sounds (>20kHz) might cause some brain activity changes, but it’s unclear whether that is definitive for providing perceptually-relevant high-frequency components that would enhance our temporal experience of music, etc.

If you want to know what people want from speakers, you just need to study them and come up with a crowd-sourced preference curve, for instance. And lo, we have one.

But in any case, I remain perplexed what you hope to gain by pushing this line? If you have a desire to research how to color sounds to enhance audio enjoyment, please do the work. I will be interested (if it’s well-written and coherent). Nothing you mention has any bearing on testing whether audio devices are high quality from the standard of low noise and distortion. It is orthogonal to those goals.

I forgot to say that you missed a point about Van Maanen...

A key point he mentions is that sinusoidal signal sweeps don’t fully characterize the frequency response of, say, an amplifier, because of some theoretical requirements.

He said as a physicist that a sinusoidal continuous signal dont act on the circuits of amplifier as a Sudden variable  dynamic burst of music , then as you said the frequency response of a circuit cannot be predicted adequately under this kind of linear continuous signals... He then designed his circuits in a way for them to be able to reacted and be more linearly predictable under REAL MUSICAL BURST...

Correct me if i am wrong... it is what i remember...

Thanks for you interest...

For sure you know better than me to analyse what he want to do...

bUt human hearings is sensible to some harmonics positively and not to some others so much positively  for example...  The tonal perception is heavily influenced by harmonics , Van Maanen explain in his paper how the fact that human hearing is time dependant help him to design in a better set of trade-off his own circuits..

I read it because of these application from the Oppenheim and Magnasco experiments revealing after 60 years of investigation that human herings cannot be reduced to spectral analysis alone  nor to any linear Fourier inspired theory ... van Maanen used that in his design trade off and you are best equipped than me to understand HOW PRECISELY he did it...

i used his articles as contradiction of the claim by Amir that linear measures of gear are enough... Amplifier must stay in linear control but the direction toward a better sound is possible only if we understood the non linear way hearing perceive sounds..

Reducing noise and and controlling distortion not only reducing them is always a goal ...  But it is half of the task ... The other half of the  task is designing  circuits more susceptible to please and inform the human hearings who do not work as a Fourier engine at all... The Fourier engine must serve hearings not reduce hearings to its mere linear workings in a time independant way... Ears perceived real physical invariants in the real world and analyse them non linearly in a time dependant way, no fourier approach can explain it ..¯ Van Maanen is conscious of that and use it as inspiration for his  complex design... Why did he call his design "TIME COHERENCY " ? you know enough about electronics to connect the dots better than me here  ... 😊

One thing is sure Van Maanen nor Magnasco and Oppenheim will mock people trusting their hearing acquired biases and training as deluded... They are in science first  not first  in marketing of gear or marketing of tools...

Thanks very much for your interests ...

@mahgister Actually, I just read a bunch of van Mannen for fun. Luckily I have both a BSEE and MSEE in information theory and signal analysis, thus feel somewhat competent to comment a bit (though I prefer a much more reserved approach to science and engineering). A key point he mentions is that sinusoidal signal sweeps don’t fully characterize the frequency response of, say, an amplifier, because of some theoretical requirements. Linearity is one of those requirements and there are all kinds of nonlinear things going on in real systems. Indeed, the effects of nonlinear transfer functions can be quite interesting and require very interesting mathematical tools. But, really, it’s what we call distortion.

So, if an amplifier designer is trying to create a great amplifier, what should she do? She could test using sinusoids and try to reduce distortion and noise in her design or she could do....what...exactly? van Mannen has concerns about feedback topologies as well, but still, other than trading-off options, she still will want to test using the best tools she has in an effort to reduce noise and distortion.

No one is against blind test... but blind test is not a cure... Nor replace any training...  By the  way i use some form of blind test in my room tuning  even sometimes  by accident...

And we must distinguish between unconscious biases and consciously acquired biases as an acoustician and a musician training for years... I am not against Amir measures as informative...

I am against ideological uninformed stance about human hearings for the benefit of a very limited set of measures which can detect if a design is faulty at best not inform us about his ultimate sound quality ...

I dissociate useful Amir information from his limited understanding of human hearings because he sell his tools and methods and for doing so say that all people trusting their ears are deluded...

For example i trained myself tuning my room... it was not perfect, but i learned basic facts... And there is no comparison at all between before and after my one year full time acoustic experiments... is this perfect as a job ? not at all... but it cost me nothing and i learned about all acoustic concepts by EXPERIMENTING... i know what means this acoustic ratio for example not by theory or by an equation not even by a mere computing ( ASW/LV) but by specific practice in a small room with his acoustic content ... Not by reading an equation... in the process i learned how to trust my hearings even if it is an inmperfect tool and a biased one... Who dare to mock me because it was imperfect ?

What is the best ? Training our ears and learning how to listen...or buying and learning nothing ?

You speak about ears cup of headphone ...

After loosing my acoustic room i was sad... I embarked in a 6 months of listenings experiments on my hybrid AKG K340 headphone.. The main problem was the complex ear cup control... This headphone is one of the most complex design and one of the best... i opened it and put mechanichal control for vibrations, erase the protective plastic grid that was there not for the S.Q. but for protection , i experimented with the right volume for the dual chamber of the shell with the thickness of the pads, i equalized them a bit with a large band equalization , i discovered the right amplifier for it ... And wow! my sadness disapeared after this 6 months... This headphone is speaker like and project according to the recording process a soundfield out of the head and i could no more detect any defect as in my first day listening.. Not bad for a used 100 bucks headphone... All my other 9 headphones even modified sound artificial and headphone like...

Without my trust in my ears whay did i could have done ? NOTHING ... I would have criticized the headphone design as some reviewers did without bothering themselves to understand the design to begin with and serve it well ... i even read the Dr. Gorike patent... 😊

i trust my ears not because it is perfect but because i work with it...I used measures when i need them... i dont trust measures as truth about hearings sorry...

Many people cannot understand that the human ears USE frequencies SELECTIVELY and filters them to perceive OBJECTIVE QUALITIES, speech, music, natural sounds , and these qualities INFORM US A LOT about our surroundings they are evolutive affordance for our survival but the human hearings is not frequencies based in a linear way , it is timing based in a time dependant way... What we hears from an audio system is complex and cannot be replaced by limited linear measures set...

Thanks for your respectful answer ...

@mahgister Fair enough. Having also worked on studies of human subjects in later careers in technology, I can assure you that subject reports are clouded by an enormous range of biases, expectations, timing effects, etc. Amir goes into the problem of performing even simple tests to distinguish systems and how challenging it is, so I have strong doubts about the subjectivist-style claims and how intellectually honest those folks are!

I just don’t see any downside to leaning heavily into objective tests. I’ve only seen poorly-designed tests (often headphone tests are impacted by problems with the ear cups, for instance) that were problematic.

Anyway, I learned some new stuff today! Always a good day...

You get it in the reverse direction...

The Oppenmheim Magnasco experiments is ONLY ONE of a set that investigate the limits of any Fourier modelling of human hearings in the lasy 60 years ..

This paper never pretended nor justify the rejection of linear measure in the design process.. 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  ... And you are wrong in minimizing toward a caricature the results : they does not only say that our estimation of frequency and its timing is too conservative, this is  a MARKETING DISTORTING EUPHEMISM you use sorry to minimize the real impact of the discovery...  we do not read the same paper, the paper say that this  relation BETWEEN FREQUENCIES AND TIME IS NON LINEAR AND NOT EXPLANABLE BY FOURIER MODELLING AT ALL...The fundamental teachings then  was that no Fourier modelling can explain human hearings and the linear Fourier context where your measure set applies for gear specs cannot REPLACE  human listening even as said Van Maanen  demonstrated in  gear design , especially if gear design must be based on psycho-acoustic...

And if you read Van Maanen as someone who sold gear your are not of good faith sorry,  because he spoke as a scientist... it is evident when we read his papers... you accuse him of what you do ; selling your measures method and minimizing an important discovery about human hearings and his potential impact on design ...

 Anybody reading the articles i posted can verify... Only gullible people will not see how you just distorted the experiments results and interpretation .. Sorry... I learned how to read...

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.

I never contested the usefulness of your measures..

I contested what you implicitly suggested that your measures set are ENOUGH to spoke about All aspects of  design qualities...Debunking gear claims from the market is not the same as EVALUATING gear on musical aspects of their design ...

You know full well this fact because your crusade seems to be debunking not only audiophiles deluded by cables but human hearing itself... The measures we used must always be interpreted not only in a material design context but also for their MEANINGS in relation to human hearings as taught by psycho-acoustic..

Minimizing the real lesson of Magnasco and Oppenhein experiments as a mere underestimation about frequency and time reveal your agenda... I know that you are very intelligent then distorting this experiment results to make a point reveal a very SUBJECTIVE back tought that has nothing to do with science...

The results of this experiment is not about an error of estimation about frequencies and time it is about the necessary transformation of hearing theory out of the Fourier frequencies modelling based theory because it is UNEXPLANABLE in a linear and time independant  Fourier context .. Any other conclusion reveal bad faith...Sorry to say so... You never adress directly this article in the first two days of our discussion , now you spoke of it  MINIMIZING and distorting his meaning and results... Why ?

Anybody able to read a text can verify that what i said is true...

...

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.

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»...

«Such results add to the growing body of
evidence that human auditory processing is adapted for natural
sounds. Not only then is auditory processing inherently nonlinear,
these nonlinearities are seemingly used to improve perceptual acuity to sounds that correspond to the physics of natural sound
production.»... «Lastly, our
observations about time-reversal symmetry breaking and the
temporal precision of the auditory system suggest further research
into this ecologically-relevant domain.»

Reducing this as you did to a mere underestimating time and frequency relation in a linear model is FALSE...

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... What this means ? The results of the experiment does not suggest a mere error of estimation INSIDE the bounded set PRESCRIBED by the linear Fourier theory... but the experiments suggested an information extracted by the ears/brain so high OUT OF the accepted set of possible values prescribed by the mathematical Fourier theory... The conclusion of the article is then we need an ecological based hearing theory and further experiments in this direction...

The qualities we hear are not MERE ILLUSIONS.. They correspond to LEARNED and taught by evolution real informative events related to sound sources and sound production in evolutive history...

Sorry for your complete miunderstanding.. ..

No discussion is possible without GOOD FAITH...

And Van Maanen is not a mere seller...Anybody reading his articles and biography cannot buy that... You are a seller ...

The test simply states that our prediction of simultaneous detection of frequency and its timing is too conservative.

Is this conclusion from one of Magnasco and Openheim sound as a mere underestimation about bound relations between frequencies and time ?

«Early last century a number of auditory phenomena,
such as residue pitch and missing fundamentals, started
to indicate that the traditional view of the hearing process
as a form of spectral analysis had to be revised. In 1951,
Licklider [25] set the foundation for the temporal theories
of pitch perception, in which the detailed pattern of action
potentials in the auditory nerve is used [26,27], as opposed
to spectral or place theories, in which the overall amplitude
of the activity pattern is evaluated without detailed
access to phase information. The ground-breaking work
of Ronken [21] and Moore [22] found violations of
uncertainty-like products and argued for them to be evi-
dence in favor of temporal models. However, this line of
work was hampered fourfold, by lack of the formal
foundation in time-frequency distributions we have today,
by concentrating on frequency discrimination alone, by
technical difficulties in the generation of the stimuli,
and not the least by lack of understanding of cochlear
dynamics, since the active cochlear processes had not yet
been discovered. Perhaps because of these reasons this
ground-breaking work did not percolate into the commun-
ity at large, and as a result most sound analysis and
processing tools today continue to use models based on
spectral theories. We believe it is time to revisit this
issue.
We have conducted the first direct psychoacoustical test
of the Fourier uncertainty principle in human hearing, by
measuring simultaneous temporal and frequency discrimi-
nation. Our data indicate that human subjects often beat the
bound prescribed by the uncertainty theorem, by factors in
excess of 10. This is sometimes accomplished by an
increase in frequency acuity, but by and large it is temporal
acuity that is increased and largely responsible for these
gains. Our data further indicate subject acuity is just as
good for a notelike amplitude envelope as for the Gaussian,
even though theoretically the uncertainty product is
increased for such waveforms. Our study directly rules
out many of the simpler models of early auditory process-
ing, often used as input to the higher-order stages in models
of higher auditory function. Of the plethora of time-
frequency distributions and auditory processing models
that have been studied, only a few stand a chance of both
matching the performance of human subjects and be
plausibly implementable in the neural hardware of the
auditory
system
(e.g.,
Refs.
[6,7,12,27]),
with the reassignment method having the best comparative tempo-
ral acuity. Elucidation of which mechanism underlies our
subjects’ auditory hyperacuity is likely to have wide-
ranging applications, both in fields where matching human
performance is an issue, such as speech recognition, as
well as those more removed, such as radar, sonar, and radio »

is this experiment after of a long history of past experiments in the same direction looked like as Amir falsely claim as just a mere underestimation of some linear factors bounds in Fourier models between frequency and time  or more as a revolution in hearing theory out of Fourier models based theory ?

Only gullible unable to read people will go with Amir interpretation here...

When the ears/brain detect a meaningful REAL information qualities about two nuanced singing sopranos voices, no tool can qualifies these voices "harmonious" or not so harmonious blending... A tool can detect information, not qualify it as meaningful by itself...A musician can OBJECTIVELY qualify the blending of two feminine voices nuances and not only that he can detect their blending in time 13 times more precisely than Fourier analysis can predict.. Why ? because the ears /brain of the musician is trained to recognize the MUSICAL QUALITIES as an OBJECTIVE reality that can be TAUGHT...

NO need for a blind test...Now tell to this musician , that he cannot trust his ears to pick an amplifier but ONLY the measured verified specs , not  even with all possible measures, but only with  the limited set of linear  Measures proposed by Amir, and say to this musician that to choose an amplifier , nothing else will warrant musicality than these limited set of measures... He will laugh... 😊For sure as he said Amir listen too...But biased by his numbers he listen as if they were predictive of musicality... They cannot.. And he want to blind test anyone saying that his set of measures is not all there is to say about the gear not only about his material design but about his sound qualities... He goes too far with his claim...

The limited set of measures proposed by Amir are useful to verify the company specs claims... NOTHING ELSE... Musical quality must be perceived and cannot be predicted and interpreted by tools without ears, sometimes musical quality correlated with some measures, sometimes not... Design is not only an industrial process it is also a guided by the ears craftmanship and by psycho-acoustic principles and laws of hearings and the law of hearings are not Fourier frequencies based but based on an ecological theory as Gibson did for visual theory  ...Fourier is good but not enough...

Why ? Because any prediction must be based on an interpretation space... The Fourier interpretation space as tool cannot predict which is out of his linear window frame of interpretation, but pertain to the time dependant real world event of natural sounds and which qualities the ears perceive non linearly... QUALITIES as objective phenomena... Music is the main example... Measuring the linearity of a well working circuit did not predict musicality as qualities perceived non linearly by ears...

Very comical that people believe i want to win a debate...

Nobody can win a rational debate...

Facts speaks by themselves...

I posted many articles anybody can read...

instead of acting as if we were two empty heads quarrelling in a brawling match because you dont understand what is at stake in this debate... STUDY AND THINK by yourself ... Dont insult those who discuss in these debate but explain to us with arguments WHY you favor the perspective of Amir or the other, the perspective of Magnasco and Oppenheim and of Van Maanen and of those who defend an ecological analysis of perception and not only a Fourier frequencies based perspective...

Qualities exist objectively as AFFORDANCES   and are not mere  ghosts born from the brain computer...

This is how j.j. Gibson became one of the most influential psychologist of the last century for the visual perception analysis...  The same perspective is needed in hearing analysis to complement Fourier analysis..

So our hearing has non-linear processing. So what.

you are determined to dominate this thread

@mahgister ,

I will be honest with you. I find your attitude appalling. Your anger because Amir (and others) refuse to bend to your way of thinking, that you are not presenting in a coherent manner, is off-putting and if there was a mute button I would have long ago used it. You are not trying to communicate or discuss, you are trying to impose.

So our hearing has non-linear processing. So what. No one appears to dispute that. It appears to be quite common where our senses are concerned. Seems pretty common in industry too.

You are screaming at Amir, but I have you provided a concrete example of how what he is doing is wrong or will lead to improper conclusions? Not screaming at him this is wrong, but exactly what is wrong, why it is wrong, and very important, how wrong he is. Is he off by 5%? 10? 75%? You are very confident what he is doing is wrong, so you should be able to confidently tell him, how inaccurate the work he is doing is. To put it colloquially, put your money where your mouth is.

I went back and read those papers and some of the links I searched. Do you know what frequencies they were measuring and what times they were using? I assumed based on your dissertation that the times would be very small, and the frequencies high. The frequencies were small, 100’s of Hz, and the times were large, many milliseconds. I don’t know all the math, but if we are testing to 20KHz, I don’t think timing of milliseconds is going to be an issue even if there are small technical problems.

I said I was done with this and I should be, but you are determined to dominate this thread.

 

I am not in anger at all...

I discussed about a very precise point...

Subjectivist negating the value of measures are wrong, objectivists claiming measures of gear can replace listenings are wrong...

They are wrong BECAUSE they focus on gear, not on the psycho-acoustic context , correlating measures and listenings..

Amir defend the idea that audibkle qualities are ell reducible to his set of measures..

I oppose it on the basis that his limited sets of measures applied to gear specs, which cannot regulate all there is to say about human listenings, because hearing theory cannot be based ONLY on Fourier linear tools... the qualitative informative perception of some sound sources event as three sopranos singing together, can be accurately described by a musician in a way unexplanable by time independant set of linear measures..

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...

No need to be angry with facts... Correct me if i am wrong... But i am passionnate speaker in a debate and i answer an argument by another one..

If someone read this experiment to be only just about measuring hearing limits, then this person dont understand what is at stake : the fundamental of hearing theory... because these hearings limits are out of the Fourier domain, and called HYPERACUITY , a perceptual power linked to a real set of qualitative events in the real worl...This is called ecological theory of hearing ... This theory complement the Fourier theory of hearing by what it lack in it : qualities in the natural world, what Gibson called AFFORDANCES...

what did you want ?

Who must move on, me or Amir ?... We discuss IMPORTANT things together ... Hearing theory and audio interpreted facts are related..

Those who are not interested by these matter can move on... Me i wait for arguments...

There is more important matter in the world for sure: war, medical crisis, economical crisis... But discussing tthese subjects here will become more IRRATIONAL, because they are more complex that just the hearing Fourier based theory and ecological hearin theory and their relation for assessing audio qualities.. After all it is an audio site...

The war between subjectivists and objectivist is meaningless division about the evaluation of the gear piece...

I try to solve the problem by STATING it more clearly where measures encounter perceived sound qualities : psycho-acoustic and hearing theory context... ..

Perhaps i did not wrote very well and not long enough posts... 😊

Here is a simple question for you @mahgister . Answer it in a paragraph. If all the tests that Amir does measure how accurately a signal passes through a system using a defined metric, and he uses the same metric for all equipment, and that metric provides an accurate, repeatable, and valid data point about the integrity of the signal, and Amir is only using that metric as a relative comparison while at times relating it roughly to experimentally established limits of hearing using the same metric, how is that wrong?   

Do you remember that i thanks Amir for his service about measures ?

From post one till today...

All the measures set used by Amir to  VERIFY the design integrity of gear pieces is not only welcome but must be THANKS A LOT...

Once this is said, infering from these set of measures that all that can be said about gear is in this set of measures is FALSE...

For two reasons: Amir dont measure aqll there is to be measured to begin with..

And Nevermind the measures, they are all interpreted in a Fourier context , and human hearing dont work captive of this context... We need to listen ...Even Amir say he need to listen and he did ..

Where is the point of disaccord ?

Simple, we can pedict by measures if a piece of gear is designed as it must be  by we cannot infer from this  and predict the "musical qualities" of the gear..

Amir say no, all these musical qualities are in the meassured set i used.. I disagree because not only he does not measure everything, but everything cannot be predicted by a set of Fourier linear  measures  Ecological theory confirmed by Magnasco and Oppenheim experiment say audible qualities exist  and are not reducible to our tools... They must be perceived by our ears because they are meaningful for our ears FIRST not to our tools.. But Van Maanen say  we must design better circuits answering more to our ears needs than to our fourier linear tools only...

😊 It is not false but it is not completely true..

One of my profs once said , "The problem with philosophers is they are enamoured with thinking but have no interest in knowing.'.  He went on to discuss how many philosophers love to discuss a problem philosophically but don't like to be encumbered by the often very real and very hard facts and limits associated with the problem. 

Because  knowledge is a bigger concept and a larger one    than the concept of science ... it is the reason why scientific revolutions are possible... And anyway science cannot pick values for us or dictate which value we will pick first... Knowledge is free in a way science is not, this is the reason why all great scientists claim that we need philosophy IN and FOR  science thinking .  

Some larger knowledge correct a scientific paradigm...And science is a larger notion than just  technology... It is the reason why we cannot reduce our experience of hearing to our actual Fourier technology , we need a more complex context to understand hearing than just the Fourier context...This is what Van Maanen and Magnasco and Oppenheim called  with Gibson : the ecological theory of hearing..

A very precise technological measurements sets by Magnasco and Oppenheim make them thing about hearing science... They philosiphically concluded that we need a new paradigm in hearing theory to complement the Fourier paradigm.. It6 is called a scientific revolution in hearing science...

You see, it is not a secondary unimportant measure about a common place fact; human hearings is limited ... As said Amir, to keep afloat his pretense about  his sets of measures and his claim that all sensible musical qualities dont exist or derived from his meassured set, nothing else..

 I never said that Amir mesures set is unable to catch errors in the material design of the gear... YES AMIR CAN DO IT... And we all must thank him for it...

You read me as it suit you it seems.. 😊

I said that Amir cannot claim that his set of measures are able to PREDICT all the musical REAL impressions any human listenings can pick... Calling them "illusions" because his measures are supposed to taught us everything about our  qualitative listenings ,  it is wrong... Fourier linear tools  are not enough to understand and predict what is real or not and MEANINFUL FOR US  in our perceptions of any sound event ... I only state what hearing science verify by experiment... And Van Maanen say the same as me... I am a nobody... Van Maanen is a top physicist and a designer...

 A weel designed piece of gear does not means that it will suit all needs and be perfect...Nobody can give with a limited set of measures  and predict all qualities related to all future  design... Nobody can claim that human hearings is always illusory when we analyse musical quality of musicians or of a piece of gear... We need measures and human qualitative evaluation... because saying that gear design measures qualities are necessary for musical perceived quality is right but it is not ENOUGH for predicting it in all cases and for all needs ... Design is also a creative enterprise not fixed once for all... Hearing theory evolve...  

It's all just a bunch of words unless you can concisely state what is wrong with the stereo equipment being developed and how Amir's tests do not catch these perceived errors.

Cartoon dont replace brain work...

Great post...

We are not afar from one another... I regret my first "rude" post toward you...

By the way , what you called very wisely "ambiance" in acoustic is called ASW/LV ratio: it is Immersiveness the way the listener feel included in the sonic event...

It takes me one year non stop experiments in my room to create this... As you wisely said , it is not soundstaging...I like the "ambiance" word...It include immersiveness with something more... I discovered that acoustic device are not all Helmholtz resonators or diffusive and absorbing or reflective materials ... But also secondary artefact that ADD to the "ambiance...

I used to believe a lot of things that I now accept are not true. I used to think I knew a lot of things that I really did not, especially how we hear. That was an eye opener, and helped a lot with my first problem. The final piece in the puzzle was much harder to put in place because both ASR and the people that use it, and sites like Audiogon and the people that use it are both somewhat wrong at least in my opinion for putting that last piece of the puzzle in. Both ASR and Audiogon users think they are trying to extract every last bit of musical information they can get from a recording, and here is the important point, and nothing else. ASR users approach this very literally and analytically. Audiogon user’s think they are doing the same, but are often adding things that were not on the recording, but have convinced themselves they are getting more of the information out.

That last piece of the puzzle was accepting that enjoyable sound from speakers is not just about hearing what is on the recording, but using your system to create a simulation of what a live event may have sounded like. Not did sound like, but may have sounded like. Amir often says, look, these two things sound exactly the same. I accept those conclusions. Amir often says this level of distortion is unacceptable. If you are only trying to extract exactly what information is on the recording, he is correct. If you are trying to simulate a live environment which I think many audiophiles are doing without realizing it or accepting how they are doing it, then I don’t think this conclusion is correct.

You dont know it but He called me to go on...

I am very friendly and i decided to speak so as to put his claim about listening biases in a good setting...

i work for him free.. 😊

The problem is that he does not like my hearing theory... 😊

I dont know why ...

@mahgister Amir just called and he would love it if you posted ALOT more on this topic over on ASR. He thinks it would add great value and everyone would welcome the spirited 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.

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.

The point of our discussion is simple :

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..

i added to this that we must enlarge and added to fourier theory an ecological theory of hearing to understand what we hear... Magnasco and Oppenheim say that...

 Where is the mystery ?

My basic point is simple...

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

It is useful to have a hearing theory... No one can object to that...

This is why the Magnasco and oppenheim experiment is important as the final note of many other experiments in the same direction revealing the limites of Fourier tools for understanding hearing..

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

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

I apologize Amir but i dont understand, precise your question..

Thanks

@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?

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

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

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.

Are you serious? Fourier Theory is the BASIS of circuit design... I never said that it must be put in the trash bin... 😊

but as a basis to hearing theory Fourier analysis alone dont work... THIS IS MY POINT  and Magnasco and Oppenheim point... Van Maanen know that and use the time dependant way the ears works to imagine his specific parts design... I use Van Maanen here as a PROOF for you that Fourier based theory essential for linear predictive beahaviour of components must be used also with an hearing theory which is not Fourier based...The first article i cited of Van Maanen is about :"Often disregarded Conditions for the correct Application of Fourier Theory" did this title suggest to throw out Fourier theory in the trasbin ?

You know how to read i imagine..

As a hearing theory Fourier theory is unsufficient to describe the real hearing workings.. Thats my point suggesting an ecological theory of hearings qwith not only Magnasco and Oppenheim but many other researcher in acoustic....

Are you kidding me?

the testing of the design oprocess included Real musical burst and sine wave... All designer use Fourier tools.. I dont understand your point... you seems desesperate to put me in a box with a contradiction..

I am not the expert on design... But all designer Use Fourier tools... There is NO AUDIO DEESIGN WITHOUT FOURIER TOOLS...

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...

I say WE SHOULD NOT USE ONLY FOURIER TOLLS AND SINE WAVE AND TONE BUT ALSO REAL MUSIC AND LISTENING AS  ESSENTIAL PART OF THE DESIGN...

You want to put in my mouth an absurdities...Fourier theory is essential to design... No designer can trash it..

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

😊

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

Is it diffucult to understand ?

All audio design is based on Fourier tools

Yours included and Van Maanen too...

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..

I thank you for your informative set of measures ffrom tghe beginning... Why ? because this useful...

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... 

In a word Fourier is reliaqble for circuit design not for predicting all aspects og hearin experience..

You read me wrong...

i trust that Van Maanen is competent in audio design... As i know that you are competent in your specs review...

but my point citing Van Maanen is because he was INSPIRED by the non linear aspect of hearing and the time dependant domain where the act of hearing take place ... He used this in his tought experiment and real experiment with his design..

But so competent he could be i have no idea about the quality of his design...

I used it to complement my point about the ecological hearing theory...Van Maanen is conscious of that... You have heard many more high end components than me, buy one and review it... I will love that... 😊

Test yourself his design and i will read your review...i will never be able to buy his product anyway...😊

I dont belive in the Van Maanen design theory...I cannot evaluate it by listening anyway... And i am not competent in amplifier design... 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...

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.

It is our disagrement here... You ask me to prove what is evident : it takes listening test not only meassuring test to evaluate gear... You even said it yourself and you do it..

Our disagrement is simple: we cannot reduce hearing to Fourier theory and we cannot extrapolate our design abstract measure to real hearing test predictivity... We must listen to improve the design... All audiophiles are not the same, some are deluded, some are less deluded, thats my point...  

Van Maanen use the same Fourier tools as any designer, but he used new idea for components design parts... How can he prove that his design is good out of a listening test ? 😊

 I dont need a proof to know that our fourier hearing theory dont tell all the story , it is in psycho-acoustic books... There is MANY hearing theories..

But i dont need proof to know that we must verify the design basic quality by measures but ALSO listening... And i trust trained listeners...

Note that good sound reproduction is different than good sound. One is objective the other subjective.

Good point and simply put...

I find much of the content of this thread pretty useless.

My posts may be useless but not the articles i recommended sorry... it is a counterpoint to some Amir claims about hearing theory and listenings illusions and/or power...

What interest me philosophically , and very much so, is the ecological theory of hearing...

This is very deep...

i know being technologically inclined, that it will not interest you... You will perceive it as "mere philosophy"...

But the reason why Magnasco and Oppenheim claim that this is one interesting road to go, is simple: we cannot asssign the reality of sound phenonmenon only to the computerized model of the brain... The history of evolution put real vibrating sound sources at the center of our survival , socially by the importance of speech/music  perception , and individually by the importance of natural sound perception...

This nature training of our species was a hearing training , and it is the reason why our ears/brain dont work as a computer algorythm reconstructing sound qualities of real physical sound sources by calculus of the elementary abstrast factors from The Fourier theory : frequencies, amplitude, phase, duration... our ears works not in a time independant dimension as our mathematic but in a time dependant DIRECTIOn where we were trained to hear natural and speech/musical sound qualities and natural sounds... Our survival depend for example of the way the tapping on a fruit indicate that the fruit is ripe or not...The sound quality here is OBJECTIVE information... And it is a subjective pleasurable impression.. and it is directly perceived as a WHOLE... 

Very good point... it is one of the reason i like my headphone, i felt the bass with my body by bones resonance... I never felt that before with headphone..

Btw extended bass is mostly felt not heard.

Anybody who can read can think for himself...

Anybody can read the articles i proposed... 10 articles at least..

Anybody can be respectful even in disagrement... I dont think that ASR is useless on the opposite there is there many interesting discussions...But i cannot imagine because i prefer human relation to discuss only measures... 😊 But Floyd toole had an interesting discussion on ASR and i think Dr. Choueri too...

Anybody can know and think by himself why we cannot predict all aspects of sound qualities and design ONLY by linear set of measures... Good design dont equate superior sound qualities..

Thats all ...

i say it i will repeat...I dont focus on gear as subjectivist or objectivist... I focus on acoustic and psycho-acoustic ...And here subjectivity and measures complement and are inseparable from each other.. . Gear is secondary in audio , acoustic and psycho-acoustic is fundamental... it is my opinion... audio industry is now a mature industry, pure science matter more than ever... basic technology has passed a minimal threshold of quality...

@mahgister : I understand why Amir is doing this but I totally fail to understand why YOU keep doing this. You must know this is simply another platform for Amir’s propaganda. Please stop. And if you ever wander whether you can beat Amir in audio arguments in audio forums and audio social media (and I am not saying audio truths), you are mistaken. You cannot. He invented them

Good evening...

Then do it and we will see if Amir will be put in a corner by ARGUMENTS ..

let the donuts wait..

A demonstration as i did ask for ARGUMENTS, no ad hominem attacks even if the ad hominem attacks may be true THEY COUNT FOR NOTHING ... And to be successful the rational attack must be IMPOSSIBLE to be answered RATIONNAlly.. then Amir will be put in a corner... Case closed..

I did it by appealing to HEARING THEORIES...But idiots dont know how to read and ask me to stop and go away..

Go with your method we will read ...

I can demonstrate how he is wrong.