It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.
@amir_asrHopefully this at least partially answers your question. :)
Yes, it does. Thanks for sharing your point of view. However, It also exposes what might be missing for some discriminating listeners. Your reply explains your approach, and the type of characteristics you listen for. It clarifies what’s important to you. This is helpful in surfacing differences in translation and expectations by some other listeners who look for something more in what they hear and listen for - in completely different ways. That’s okay, just different means of approach.
In your words, you are listening for "distortion", "any differences", "brightness", "artifacts no longer there". Helpful, yet a more generic description overall.
---------------------------------------
GAPS / DIFFERENCES in descriptions:
Some other critical listeners are looking for different descriptions, using different vocabulary, to convey a different type of listening experience. None of it is being measured or reported on your graphs for the PNW show report on your website. Again all just words. People seem to be speaking using different descriptions. And, will likely continue to disagree about what’s important to them using different words.
More personal descriptions by some listeners, might use words and ranges to describe how much of any of these type of "artifacts" exists, such as "Texture, sound stage, depth, presence, layering, balanced, bassy, lean, sibilant, transparent, clarity, clean, clear, open, detailed, etched, quality, warm or warmth, veiled, 3D, engaging vocals, bumped mid-bass, lush midrange..." All subject to interpretation of course. Don’t kill the messenger, just sharing words and different things others look for, to learn more, aside from measures and graphs.
Many can argue there are no trustworthy measures for this type of data being represented, or for showing on graphs. Very different audio science camps and forum listeners reporting it differently. For what its worth, or simply disregard. :)
That is not what we do with the tool. The tool gives you data. A human interprets it against psychoacoustics research which is based on listening.
And what is the alternative? Not measuring? Then how do you know your listening tests are accurate? Just because you say so?
You are so lost you did not even understand my point... But i cannot rival Dr. Van Maanen explanation..
I will take your hand ,Read me: measures in INNOVATIVE amplifier design are GUIDED by the designer EARS and psycho-acoustic fact to realize more musical design ... As Van Maanen do... And the point is that the use of Fourier method ,in electronic design and with this specific measuring tools, had a psycho-acoustic cost , the Fourier tools are linear and time-independant... Human hearings and musical sense come from non linear ears structure and non linear reading in the TIME-dependant domain...
Then if in the way we design our amplifier we dont take these facts into account, then our amplifier will not sound "musical"... It is why many piece of gear you measured perfect can sound non-musical at all for many listeners ... Amir you SERVE YOUR TOOL , the goal is that the tool must serve the designer... But you DEBUNK with your tools, you dont DESIGN amplifier, as Van Maanen did... It is the reason why yourself with more, way more deeper experience than me in audio, you dont understand this basic psycho-acoustic facts...and you read anything UPSIDE DOWN...
I learned it myself thanks to you, because i reacted to your arrogant dismissal of human hearings as FIRST RULER in audio, instead you put the MEASURING FOURIER TOOL as first ruler .... It is the reverse for a designer, knowing that the ears/brain use non linear time dependant methods the measures are used IN THE DESIGNING PROCESS ITSELF to serve better the pleasure of the human hearings not to be on the optimal spot of the measuring dials or graphs for some debunking work ...
Do you catch where you are lost and why ? Van Maanen will teach you the technicalities... Myself i am not in your field and you cannot take me seriously... Except if you read Van Maanen and the meaning of Oppenheim and Magnasco experiments...
Today's measurement tools, as advanced as they may be, often fail to fully capture the subjective listening experience. In my view, the most reliable way to evaluate audio equipment is through actual listening. While ASR and its measurements can be interesting and entertaining, I consider them more of a pastime when I have the time to spare. Ultimately, our own ears and personal experiences hold the key to determining what sounds good to us. So, while measurements have their place, I prioritize the subjective listening experience as the ultimate judge of audio quality.
@rowlocktrysailfully agree. I love objectively good audio equipment. It’s a bit like ice cream. Yeah I can measure the ingredients and ratios to know it’s ice cream and not yogurt but some taste better than the others. The study of the mind is still indeed science but it’s not as exacting as say electrical engineering. And yes speakers are electric signals into acoustic ones but we measure ultimately what’s good via a subjective device.
"Nothing you quoted says those DACs measure the same. "
Amir, you clearly either do not read what is posted by your members or you are seriously deluded.
I am done with you. You do not answer many questions and when you do you twist your answers to suit yourself. I do not wish anyone ill, but I can say it is a good thing that so many realise your site is a joke and that the number is increasing. Please do not spread the furphy that you are doing people a service by running it.
@amir_asr Didnt see the question and I still dont but I, unlike you, will answer. I dont need to post it. The thread has been linked many times on here and this post is about you and your practices.
So you finally agree that the information was there courtesy of ASR and all this time you had other intentions as opposed to merits of having that thread open. This much was obvious but was to get that out of you, albeit after repeated questioning.
I can say it is a good thing that so many realise your site is a joke and that the number is increasing.
Knock on wood, you are absolutely wrong on this. ASR has had an incredible growth now being neck and neck for top audio site on the Internet. Your fellow audiophiles see the value that the site brings. Top people in the industry and luminaries in audio science and engineering are regular members and add incredible amount of value to the site. And of course there are almost daily reviews of new products. I tested a new Arendal speaker which I posted today that the company had sent me.
At the end of the day think what you are doing for your fellow audiophiles. I am doing my part to bring people together and have robust discussion of audio science and engineering together with new data on daily basis. If what floats your boat is rude arguments like this, then, yes, we are not for you. Or your fellow posters with similar angst.
I will take your hand ,Read me: measures in INNOVATIVE amplifier design are GUIDED by the designer EARS
His ears? Why on earth should I trust his ears? What training and qualifications does he have when it comes to his hearing? Can he hear to 20 khz? What level of noise and distortion can he hear? Is he not influenced by wanting his own product to sound better?
But let's say all of that is true. Don't you think we should verify? If a manufacturer says their amplifier has incredibly low noise, don't you think we can measure that? What it he says it produces 200 watts; should we not verify that? Let's look at an example in the form of Bob Carver. Many people are his fans and think he has incredible abilities just like you are vouching for your hero designer:
But let's put that aside. As the name indicates, the amplifier is supposed to produce 275 watts. This is what it did instead:
Yup it blew its fuse after just producing 29 watts!!! I replaced the fuse and tested again:
Even burst power to the right produces 75 watts, far short of of claimed 275 watts.
At 20 Hz, power drops to just 14 watts:
And look at the level of distortion, it is off the charts!
You see the power of measurements? We are able to reliably and convincingly show that the famous Bob Carver who could do no wrong, indeed and done a lot wrong. He had misled his customers by a mile. And I say this sadly as someone who bought his receiver back in 1982!
I suggest you put less trust in people's claims and seek out independent analysis of audio technology. This is what your fellow audiophiles are doing. Resist the temptation to ignore science and engineering where it can generate so much useful information.
Your site is well designed and Interesting Amir... I appreciate design and observations from various corners..
The fact that it draw many people talented in audio dont surprize me...
It does not means that your basic measuring and debunking philosophy is right...
In audio, in medecine as in politic, unanimous crowds are most of the times deluded...Ideology and technology are not science at all...
It is not simple matter to understand something... Especially basic audio debunking ... basic medecine debunking and basic geopolitic debunking ... Imagine psycho-acoustic debunking now ?
«My tool are better than your ears, it is simple , they measure distortion at level that you even never will dream to detect » -- Groucho Marx audio engineer 🤓
@amir_asrWTF are you even saying. Don't twist my words around. I didn't say that. No I dont agree. You never answered me. Why are those threads allowed but that one is closed? Show me where the answer is. You are delusional.
You know nothing about psycho-physics it seems... or better said, you dont want to know... Because it will destuct your Fourier linear and time independant ideology...
I will take your hand ,Read me: measures in INNOVATIVE amplifier design are GUIDED by the designer EARS
His ears? Why on earth should I trust his ears? What training and qualifications does he have when it comes to his hearing? Can he hear to 20 khz?
The human ears dont listen abstract measures, but in the time domain the ears brain non linearly decode information so complex none of your tools can describe it...It is not measured in decibels, or in hertz... Etc... it is called Qualities... these qualities are investigated RIGOROUSLY in psycho-acoustic for example in the work of Oppenheim and Magnasco , you never commented about and i posted it 5 times..
We listen music, speech and natural sounds and we RECOGNIZE them we dont listen to level of distortion and we dont perceive it in isolation as your tools can in their linear and time independant way ... You listen to your tools first , we listen music first ...
But read Hans Van Maanen... Debunk him... if you are able to debunk him... And i invite your audio disciples to read him too... Explain to me where he is wrong...Go and do it...
His work in speakers and amplifier design called " temporal coherence" because it is founded on psycho-acoustic hearing basics... Not on Fourier linear and time independant tools as your debunking tools ... The tools you use to debunk... He use other tools measuring scheme to DESIGN his own works in amplification and speakers after studying psycho-acoustic real discoveries about hearing..
You may convince yourself that using these linear time independant tools will give you hints about "transparency" as you call your fetish acoustic concept...But timbre accuracy and musical sense live in the time domain and are more fundamental because they are determined more by the ears acoustic than by electronic chip well "measured" by you and well scored by you ... Measuring Dac is one thing... Measuring amplifier another things, and measuring speakers another things... as you know already for sure ... BUT measuring all that at the end is BY THE EARS/BRAIN not by Tools working linearly in the time independant domain...designing business is not debunking business at all ....
We live in an era where men decrease themselves smaller than their tools, calling it progress and the new norm, in ancient times it was called idolatry : obsession with some tools transformed in new gods...
Myself i try to think by myself, and i am allergic to cults, ideology and groups...
In philosophy we differentiate the means and the ends without confusing them...
" ASR has had an incredible growth now being neck and neck for top audio site on the Internet."
Did you measure that scientifically in a blind testing comparison or is this your opinion only? Show us the evidence. Can this evidence be verified independently? This site is based on science and not opinion.
" ASR has had an incredible growth now being neck and neck for top audio site on the Internet."
Did you measure that scientifically in a blind testing comparison or is this your opinion only? Show us the evidence. Can this evidence be verified independently? This site is based on science and not opinion.
Sure. Go to Similarweb.com and create an account. Then you get get this kind of statistics for any website you want:
ASR is the top line in navy color. Orange is this site. And teal at the bottom is stereophile.com. ASR is far newer site by far yet we have overtaken both and created a huge gap. It is proof point that vast number of your fellow audiophiles see the value in ASR and visit it.
Sure. Make sure you conduct such listening tests with rigor and report back. Don't tell me you like the story from the guy who designed something. That is putting your trust in the hands of the wrong person.
Here is a story for you. Read what happened when Dr. Olive arrived at Harman:
This question was tested in 1994, shortly after I joined Harman International as Manager of Subjective Evaluation [1]. My mission was to introduce formalized, double-blind product testing at Harman. To my surprise, this mandate met rather strong opposition from some of the more entrenched marketing, sales and engineering staff who felt that, as trained audio professionals, they were immune from the influence of sighted biases.
[...]
The mean loudspeaker ratings and 95% confidence intervals are plotted in Figure 1 for both sighted and blind tests. The sighted tests produced a significant increase in preference ratings for the larger, more expensive loudspeakers G and D. (note: G and D were identical loudspeakers except with different cross-overs, voiced ostensibly for differences in German and Northern European tastes, respectively. The negligible perceptual differences between loudspeakers G and D found in this test resulted in the creation of a single loudspeaker SKU for all of Europe, and the demise of an engineer who specialized in the lost art of German speaker voicing).
So be very careful in believing what a designer claims.
And once more, listening tests are wonderful. Demand that your supplier show such controlled listening tests. If they don't have one, clearly they are not valuing listening as you say. Instead they want you to be believe written words with no verification. Caveat Emptor!!!
@maxwellseq Just curious what point you are trying to make.
I wasn't trying to make a point. Someone quoted me from a different thread - about S/PDIF - in this thread, and I clarified. It was off-topic; I should have not responded.
But he has confirmed that audiophile may tend to evangelize their personal subjective v. objective frame of reference. Measurements are helpful, but rooms, room treatment (or not), equipment, cables (an endless discussion of)... are important. Each audiophile "hears" what he/she likes and at some point, isn't that the issue? Which is why I love Hans Beekhuyzen's sign-off comment on every YouTube, "...and whatever you do, enjoy the music." Too often, I've found myself deep into these "debates" and arguments... vs. how much time am I actively listening to my set up, my music?
I am not against blind test...They are the norm in some psycho-acoustics experiments and in some design process ...
I am against posing blind tests as replacing ears training in acoustic and in progressive and FINAL evaluation..
I am in favor of rigorous tests as you are...
But bashing audiophiles for some right reason ( you are right audio is not about Taste) dont justify your ideology: only my measuring tools linear and time independant tools in the frequency domain will say the last truth about the qualities perceived through the gear...
I dont "put my trust in the wrong person" as you said reminding us of an attitude in cultist group, I THINK WHEN READING, and i read that most of what the ears does to create meaning and catch meaning , in music , in speech , in natural sound, and then in a psycho- acoustic laboratory is not only in the frequency domain but in the time domain where the brain extract information in a non linear way...
Then there is a high cost to pay if we TRUST the Fourier linear tools and if we work ONLY in the time independant and frequency domain... The price is we loose contact with the basic of human hearings...
Then your tests are useful ONLY to reinforce your false hearings assumptions... Not about the limits of hearings, we are as you know limited indeed in the decibels and in the Hertz scale, even if we beat the Fourier uncertainty, but the meanings and qualitative physical sound phenemona associated with a system/room cannot be described by your set of measures... Saying the opposite may be ressembling a technological cult but it is not science and it is not amplifier design... It is debunking stategy nothing more... But you debunk the wrong thing easy to debunk : human earings , you never debunk the false assumptions from psycho-acoustic ruling audio design... On the opposite you try to reinforce them...Ears /brain dont work like a Fourier computer...
I am not in this cult , i think when i read... I dont read only Hans Van Maanen by the way...And anyway all his work is founded on psycho-acoustic, among other thing funmdamental, the psycho-acoustic fact behind Oppenheim and Magnasco experiments you NEVER EXPLAINED NOR COMMENTED HERE EVEN AFTER I SUGGESTED IT 5 TIMES....
You could not because this will demoslish your pretense to capture the audible qualities through measurements... And you could no more bash audiophiles for their ignorance which is an half truth, because they ignore acoustic most of them but at least they trust their ears even if they go in the wrong direction ( upgrading with the wrong purchases) by lack of information...Anyway even your "disciples" trust their ears at some point... Your analysis of gear dont cause any unanimous acceptation for sure...
It is more easy for you with dac, less easy for amplifier, and way less confortable with speakers/room... More you go near the human hearings the more difficult it is to impose your analysis tools... At the end even yourself know and you said it that hearing must be used...
Then all the fuss about your ideology is bashing people and anyway you used the tools in the wrong way, instead of using it to modify the audio design accordingly to psycho-acoustic non linear workings of the ears in the time domain, you use your tools in a linear way in the frequency domain to DECIDE what gear is good and which one is bad and to as you said DEBUNK ... You debunk thinking you are right, you do not design...The proof is in the pudding, Hans Van Maanen DESIGN according to his understanding of psycho-acoustic law, "temporal coherence" is his trade mark..
By the way without naming names, there is amplifier designer who designed according to what they know about the time domain even here ...There is many Van Maanen in the world... All creative designer go accordingly of what they think work from psycho-acoustic, for example in the tubes amplifier design... It is the same for speakers design at some high level...
Sure. Make sure you conduct such listening tests with rigor and report back. Don’t tell me you like the story from the guy who designed something. That is putting your trust in the hands of the wrong person.
In audio, we are still measuring rudimentary stuff.
A key point. Because we don’t fully understand the brain, let alone the complex mechanisms of perception -- and then interpretation of all that, and (still further) the language we use to describe the interpretations -- measurement is neither complete nor foolproof. This does NOT say it does not help. But it has its limits.
@ossicle2brain -- +1 Calling someone a troll is a kind of trolling, especially when the person in question is coming back with replies again and again. You’d expect more from an educated adult, but keyboards are too easy to use these days.
@mahghister -- you post an extraordinarily long article, 4 times and you’re wondering about no replies? Perhaps you see that this is a medium built for brevity, not long briefs. You write, "You dont get my points..." -- my guess is that people mostly skip your posts because they're too long. If you cannot control this, you're going to get ignored. Free advice, not meant as a personal attack, Sir.
@ghasley Why is this a thing, indeed? Probably because we like binary choices and the "objectivist OR subjectivist" dilemma has speared people. Something Mahgister gets at nicely (if obtusely) in his emphasis on the room-listener aspect of psycho-acoustics.
@decooney
Again, the majority here at Audiogon do not need a meter or graph to know what sounds good. Listen, then measure.
There’s a lot of confidence expressed here in listening skills, that’s true. Too often, these skills are reported out without much in the way of detail about rooms, preferences, etc. So, there’s a lot of miscommunication here.
My prefer method is listen-measure-listen-measure-listen. It’s a long and iterative process. And I’m an amateur; I don’t measure gear, just room acoustics. But by alternating between those, I have learned to better correlate what the SPL or Impulse or RT60 graph means in sensory results for my space and how to aim for certain measurements which then are tested, again, by listening.
@piaudiol
Some people hear.
Some people listen.
Some people measure.
Some people know the difference.
Is this supposed to be profound? Some people do multiple things.
As @amir_asr pointed out, "That is not what we do with the tool. The tool gives you data. A human interprets it against psychoacoustics research which is based on listening."
And of course, after that, the end consumer gets to be a king and pronounce whether it’s good-for-them or not.
So what the eff is the problem here?
Perhaps you must SPOKE and DISCUSS the truth and depth of the psycho-acoustic points and articles i submitted , instead of repeating that my posts are too long for 2 years now... No more longer than Amir posts here by the way...
And remind this, i am not here to win a popularity contest about my posts... i submit content and ideas not short sarcasm, and short bashing... Explanations need space especially if someone must separate the frequency domain and the Time domain analysis and illustrating it with the articles which are related to this...
Put you in my shoes: what will you think of someone who never DISCUSS your ideas but never stop to say that your posts are too long ?
You are intelligent i think, then use it... And patronizing people even politely work few times, i even thank you and i apologize, the last time but patronizing dont work for two years... I will not change my english skills mastery nor my thinking in the next month..Sorry...
i dont want to be rude but i hope for DISCUSSION WITH YOU ..Not for the same repeating useless criticizing of my style..
Discuss with me... Dont repeat the same melody about my long posts.....Do you think there is NO SUBSTANCE in the works of the 4 physicists i proposed here ?
By the way these 4 posts of the same articles were for Amir who never commented till this day about the Magnasco and Oppenheim experiments and their consequences about human hearings and audio analysis .. And by the way instead of repeating this critics about my posts, WHY YOU DONT READ THE ARTICLE AND COMMENT IT HERE YOURSELF ? I mind about facts and i think now your posts are TOO SHORT and miss the point`: THE CONTENT OF THIS ARTICLE BY OPPENHEIM AND MAGNASCO ... Not my syntax...
@mahghister -- you post an extraordinarily long article, 4 times and you’re wondering about no replies? Perhaps you see that this is a medium built for brevity, not long briefs. You write, "You dont get my points..." -- my guess is that people mostly skip your posts because they’re too long. If you cannot control this, you’re going to get ignored. Free advice, not meant as a personal attack, Sir.
By the way you miss my point here ... Perhaps you could have read the articles in my long posts instead of bashing my too long posts because they appear too long for your taste...
The data measured and read coming from the frequency domain and interpreted from this linear Fourier perspective is not the same that the data measured and interpreted from the time domain in a non linear perspective of analysis ... The ears works non linearly... Do you catch it ? If not read the articles of Van Maanen...If i resume it all details it will take 15 pages...
Then Amir is wrong and you are wrong: the tools give us data yes, this is a common place useless fact ; but the CONTEXT where these data will be interpret or not is the most important factor , will it be only the frequency linear domain or also the time non linear dependant domain ?
Dont imitate Amir, who dont read them, and stop repeating his points as a parrot...
My post are LONG sometimes with no reason you are right, but sometimes there is a reason...
Is this supposed to be profound? Some people do multiple things.
As @amir_asr pointed out, "That is not what we do with the tool. The tool gives you data. A human interprets it against psychoacoustics research which is based on listening."
He has managed to alienate me, when I was a pretty big fan before. Plus I am still on ASR and will just continue to post while subverting the norm. He thinks he is the second coming of Jesus for audio and loves the smell of his own farts.
I am not in this cult , i think when i read... I dont read only Hans Van Maanen by the way...And anyway all his work is founded on psycho-acoustic, among other thing funmdamental, the psycho-acoustic fact behind Oppenheim and Magnasco experiments you NEVER EXPLAINED NOR COMMENTED HERE EVEN AFTER I SUGGESTED IT 5 TIMES....
You could not because this will demoslish your pretense to capture the audible qualities through measurements... And you could no more bash audiophiles for their ignorance which is an half truth, because they ignore acoustic most of them but at least they trust their ears even if they go in the wrong direction ( upgrading with the wrong purchases) by lack of information...Anyway even your "disciples" trust their ears at some point... Your analysis of gear dont cause any unanimous acceptation for sure...
It is more easy for you with dac, less easy for amplifier, and way less confortable with speakers/room... More you go near the human hearings the more difficult it is to impose your analysis tools... At the end even yourself know and you said it that hearing must be used...
Now for the tasteful pleasure of Hilde45 my post will stop here...😊
I let Van Maanen spoke :
«The discussion on the perceived quality of audio systems often lacks
objective criteria. This is partly due to the subjective experience of the
ill-defined property "quality", covering many aspects, partly to the lack
of understanding of all the properties that influence the perceived
quality. The latter is not synonymous with the technical quality of a
system to begin with.
Disregarding non-linear distortions, the frequency response between 20 Hz
and 20 kHz of a system is very often taken as a major parameter determining
the quality of a sound reproduction system. The basic idea behind this is
the Fourier analysis of sounds, in which any sound wave, no matter how
complicated, can be decomposed into an infinite series of sine and cosine
waves of different frequencies, starting at zero and "ending" at infinity.
The, never mentioned, assumption is that the frequency components above the
hearing limit, usually taken at 20 kHz, do not influence the perceived
sound in any way.
Although this seems a reasonable assumption at first, it is not as
straightforward as one would think. Two aspects play an important role: the
first is that Fourier analysis only holds for linear systems and if there
is one transducer which is non-linear, it is the human ear. In non-linear
systems frequencies not present in the original signal can be generated
and/or other frequencies can acquire more power than in the original sig-
nal. This can easily be demonstrated using a 3 kHz sine wave with 5 periods
on and 5 periods off. Although Fourier analysis tells that 300 Hz is only a
weak component in this signal, it is the strongest one hears. As 300 Hz
corresponds to the envelope of the signal it is not surprising using the
non-linear properties of our ears. It can be concluded that frequencies
above the hearing limit can indeed generate signals that are below the
hearing limit which could thus influence the perceived sound and the
quality experienced.
The second aspect is that the limitation of the bandwidth of an audio
reproduction system has consequences in the time domain, which we will
discuss in the next section. The relation between the spectral response and
the temporal behaviour will be discussed, followed by some examples and
discussion on the perceived quality.»
Curious what @amir_asrwould say about this. Considering he is in his mid 60s, he clearly has compromised hearing an maybe that's why he doesnt do listening tests.
Do others think that audiophiles are wasting money on any higher end gear because of hearing loss with age?
And clearly Amir doesn’t need money. He lives in a $3million house!
Hans Van Maanen is a working physicist in fluid dynamics and a top published expert and designer in Audio with his own "temporal coherence" brand name speakers and amplifiers...
Who must we trust?
Someone who work with basic psycho-acoustic and design his audio components from it or Amir debunking "audiophiles" ?
As i already said, thanks to Amir for information debunking market specs of gear...But the bucks stop here... His bashing of audiophiles is not based on psycho-acoustic facts but on techno babble ideology ... Debunking is perhaps a field work because someone verify specs numbers thats all; but it is NOT SCIENCE NOR DESIGNING in audio it is only some technological tools choices applied for some NARROW goal ...
And bashing audiophiles is ridiculous enterprise... Why? Because there is too much difference between audiophiles themselves, and putting them in the same trash bin is RIDICULOUS... And bashing human hearing because of alleged limits in Hertz and Decibels is a common place argument ignoring the non linear nature and the time dependant dimension where the ears really work beating Fourier uncertainty principle; then bashing those who use their ears without even knowing psycho-acoustic basic facts it is ignorance and/or some marketing propaganda for some goal of his own ...
Now look at the article for the context about these remarks by Van Maanen ...
«Feedback seems like a miracle cure for all shortcomings of audio equipment. Yet, in the ‘high-end’ audio community, many critics on feedback can be found. It is beyond discussion that the specifications of many semiconductor amplifiers are far superior to those of loudspeakers and vacuum tube amplifiers, yet this correlates not well with the perceived quality of the equipment. How come? And why is it possible to hear differences between amplifiers with distortions two orders of magnitude lower than the loudspeakers one needs to listen to these amplifiers? Are certain phenomena overlooked and, if so, what can we learn to improve the perceived quality of equipment? This paper analyses some pitfalls and parasitic
effects of feedback and gives directions for improvement of the perceived quality. This was confirmed by designing amplifiers, derived from this analysis, using unconventional lines in which listening by music experts was regarded as more important than measurement results. It showed that parasitic effects occur in amplifiers with global feedback, which are often disregarded, because these do not show up with the usual derivation of the equations for systems with feedback. These parasitic effects lead to the introduction of artefacts, which are
specific for systems with feedback. This is surprising, as the common idea is that feedback only suppresses undesired phenomena, but is an unambiguous result from the analysis, presented in this paper, which also shows that the commonly used equations for feedback are flawed. On top of this, several (underlying) assumptions about the properties of the amplifier are also incorrect.
Suppression of these parasitic effects requires linearization of the individual amplification stages as much as possible and by designing the amplifier in such a way that other properties are as close to the assumptions as possible, in combination with a constant, but moderate, feedback factor over the entire audio range. The testing of equipment using continuous sinewaves does often not reveal these parasitic effects as these only show up in the dynamic response of the amplifier to music-like signals. The simplistic approach that the sinewave response enables the prediction of the behaviour under all conditions ignores the conditions under which the Fourier theory may be applied and leads therefore to incorrect results and conclusions. Which is why there is a great need for well-defined dynamic test signals, but as long as these are not available, human hearing
remains for the time being the best piece of ‘measurement equipment’ which can be used...»
.............................
«The designer should realize that global feedback can only be applied to a limited extent and that the dynamic behaviour of the amplifier to music-like signals is (far) more important for the perceived quality than distortion figures, in line with the findings of refs. 3 and 4. These probably explain a part of the audible differences between amplifiers or other electronic audio equipment, which cannot be understood from the distortion figures and has given feedback a
bad name in certain high-end audio circles. Such artefacts are therefore hard, in many cases not at all, measurable using continuous sinewaves. As music is a textbook example of such a dynamic process, this is likely to be crucial for the determination of the perceived quality of an amplifier. So more complex test signals, which represent non-steady, multi-spectral conditions, as occur in music, are needed. As long as such test signals are not agreed on,
human hearing is still the best “measurement” instrument available.......<
It can be remarked that critical comments from high-end audio enthusiasts are often scornfully put aside by technology experts as “non-scientific” small talk from freaks who do not understand the theory. The author strongly disagrees with this view as too often critical remarks from people with “golden ears” did make sense, albeit that it was initially absolutely nunclear what the technical or scientific background was. Such remarks did help the development team to further improve the equipment, even though it would have been very hard to show the effect of the individual steps in a scientific way. But the progress over the years is beyond discussion...»
As a guitarist myself, I think the fact that most professional guitarists run their instrument through a rack or pedalboard tuner tells you all you need to know about our so-called golden ears. Those of us with experience can tell that something is "off" fairly easily, but getting it to be "not off" by ear takes a little more fiddling and is subject to the bias of the strings surrounding them. So, scientific approaches like ASR's can get you in the ballpark a lot more efficiently than guessing.
Rational approach in audio private installation is related to electrical mechanical and ESPECIALLY acoustic embeddings controls...
Amir methods of measures CAN ONLY VERIFY GEAR SPECS as publised by the company and infirm it or confirm it... THATS ALL...
Amir cannot choose the gear for your needs and for his QUALITIES...
And if as a guitarist you dont trust your ears... What can i say ?😁😊
Myself i learned how to use my ears in 2 years experiments... Are they telling me always the truth ? no... Am i satisfied with my 600 bucks system ? Yes... It sound better Speakers/room and headphone that everything i listened to... and i can identify his FLAWS...
Is it perfect then ? Not at all...But most people trust price tags not their ears... It is the reason why a pair of Magnepan in a living room can sound worst than my speakers box in a dedicated room... I know because i verified it...
How will it cost me to make my actual headphone system almost perfect ?
15,000 bucks....Not a dollars more...
I know WHERE i go and WHERE i came from...
Dont trust anyone.... TRAIN your ears in acoustic...And READ articles and books... Not only ASR forum and audiogon forums ...
As a guitarist myself, I think the fact that most professional guitarists run their instrument through a rack or pedalboard tuner tells you all you need to know about our so-called golden ears. Those of us with experience can tell that something is "off" fairly easily, but getting it to be "not off" by ear takes a little more fiddling and is subject to the bias of the strings surrounding them. So, scientific approaches like ASR’s can get you in the ballpark a lot more efficiently than guessing.
Then there is a high cost to pay if we TRUST the Fourier linear tools and if we work ONLY in the time independant and frequency domain... The price is we loose contact with the basic of human hearings...
I don't know why you keep bringing up Fourier transform. Most of my tests don't involve any kind of fourier analysis. Take the dashboard I post earlier for that Carver amplifier:
See those THD+N and SINAD numbers? They are computed *without FFT*. The analyzer simply filters out the 1 kHz tone and what is left is noise+distortion. It then simply reports that sum energy of unwanted signal as a ratio to the test signal. No FFT is needed or used.
The problem with that one number, as bad as it is in this case, is that it is not diagnostic. So the analyzer in addition to that shows the fourier transform on top right. Now we see the problems. We have tons and tons of power supply noise and hum which better not be good in any audiophile's mind.
We then look to the right and see copious amount of third harmonic distortion -- not the beloved 2nd harmonic people think tubes output. Using psychacoustics, we can overlay a graph on both the noise and distortion and assess audibility, again based on listening test research.
Fourier transforms then are an invaluable diagnostic tool to assess audibility because much of our knowledge of psychacoustics is in frequency domain, not time. In time domain, we are relative quite deaf. This is by design. When you listen to someone in your home, their voice gets bounced around the room, gets delayed (timing changes) plus attenuated and then mixes with the direct sound creating a "phase soup." So the notion that time matters is non-sequitur in most part.
But again, a lot of our measurements are independent of any kind of Fourier transform. This measurement that I post again has nothing to do with that:
Output power is varied and THD+N extracted per above explanation. It shows that this amplifier is a distortion factory, overlaying its own signature on *everything* you listen to. It is against the very word "high fidelity."
You also keep saying we only use sine waves. We do not and I already explain to you that 32-tone, multitone signal is just that, 32 tones and if you listen to it, it sounds like organ playing. Its waveform in time domain is quite complex looking as well.
My jitter test also uses dual squarewaves which by definition have infinite number of sinewaves:
It looks like a single sine wave but it is not. Everything above other than the 12 kHz spike is unwanted noise and jitter by the way. Using psychoacoustics though, you arrive at what I say above, "not an audible concern." Without the FFT you could do that analysis.
So really I would not keep repeating that the problem with measurements is some random claim about Fourier transform. Plenty of tests don't use them. And when we do, the FFT tells us the very thing we want to know: "how audible is that noise and distortion?" The only people who don't want to see such an FFT is because they are afraid of the story they tell.
They want to claim their gear sounds great despite the flaws found in measurements? That is cool. Just show a controlled test of half a dozen audiophiles with levels matched and blinded. Post that and we can talk. Don't keep writing essays. Essays don't make music. If ears are all that matters, then let's do an ear's only test. Until then, all the rest of what you are quoting is hoped to confuse the regular reader who doesn't understand the topic, hoping to get you to forego proper proofs, that is, with ears only, equipment sounds better.
IME, every time a guitar is run through a pedal, there is loss of SQ. For this reason, i have had a few of my pedals modded so that the signal on by pass is as pure as possible, and yet the sound still suffers vs. no pedal at all. Maybe it is the a'phile in me, but i also carefully pick the cables that I use on my guitar set up as well, one would be surprised at the difference in sound to be had there as well!! Could we measure these differences and come to a proper conclusion as to which are the one's that suck tone, I doubt it.
@amir_asrThere is another variable that I do question when it comes to measuring gear, and it is this...is this measuring gear not somehow calibrated to someone’s hearing and expectation of what sounds to them...correct? If we believe ( and I have no idea if you do) that all appreciation of SQ is subjective; IOW one person’s appreciation of the sound of a stand up bass is another’s definition of a cello, then we have to come to the conclusion that what sounds great to one, is not necessarily the case to another.
A further reason I have no interest in WBF, is because the site turned into a horn speaker lover’s fest, and to me horn speakers are hopelessly colored and generally annoying to listen to. ( and I have listened to numerous models). To others, this design is the ultimate in SQ. Music, at least IMO, is something that appeals to a variety of tastes; RAP for instance has its fervent followers, and its haters. Everyone has their preferences, and so how do measurements account for this??
Amir methods of measures CAN ONLY VERIFY GEAR SPECS as publised by the company and infirm it or confirm it... THATS ALL...
Specs? What specs. Some of you gone so blind on asking for proof points that manufacturers feel like they shouldn’t give you anything. Have you seen the type of measurements I have been posting on any gear you bought? You have not.
So no, I wish I was just verifying things. Instead, I am having to do the work that the company should have done when designing said gear. Because if they had, they would have seen the many awful sins that they could have fixed which have nothing but negative impact on fidelity of equipment.
And you are helping them in this regard by constantly saying measurements are not important, etc. Don’t let them off the hook. We have a speaker salesman here who doesn’t even post measurements for speakers! How bad can we get? Do you really think you learn nothing from frequency response of a speaker? That it can’t tell you how good or bad it is at faithfully producing a neutral sound that is true to the recording? Check this example of the Klipsch RP600M speaker:
Look at that massive dip at 2 kHz. You don’t think this measurement is massively important to know about? If we had held up every speaker company to post measurements like this, I am pretty sure they would not have marketed this speaker. As it is, it took measurements like mine to get them to fix this in version 2 (I have not confirmed).
So no, I am not just verifying specs. I am giving you a picture of how well engineered and correct the design and execution of an audio product is. I shouldn’t have to but you all as consumer, and laxed press, have allowed it to get this bad.
I am doing my part to reverse this trend. Some companies have woken up and are starting to do the right thing by posting measurements like I do. These are the companies you want to reward: the ones that don’t hide behind essays as a way to avoid giving you information you need to know how some equipment can perform.
... all the rest of what you are quoting is hoped to confuse the regular reader who doesn’t understand the topic, hoping to get you to forego proper proofs ...
This is just such nonsense, and made all the more so by the use of bold face for emphasis. Certainly, @mahgisterisn’t trying to confuse the reader and isn’t obligated to provide anything to meet your definition of "proper proof."
This is a hobbyist’s website, not a scientific forum or, in the case of ASR, a quasi-pseudo-faux-scientific forum. At the very least, @mahgisterhas pretty good grip on logic, which is probably why his posts confound you so.
I don’t know why you keep bringing up Fourier transform. Most of my tests don’t involve any kind of fourier analysis. Take the dashboard I post earlier for that Carver amplifier:
See those THD+N and SINAD numbers? They are computed *without FFT*. The analyzer simply filters out the 1 kHz tone and what is left is noise+distortion. It then simply reports that sum energy of unwanted signal as a ratio to the test signal. No FFT is needed or used.
You dont get it anything right but always half truth...
I never say that your measure use FFT, i indicated that they are used in the usual theory context about hearings that the ears work linearly and mainly in the frequency domain, this is the inspired Fourier theory of hearing in the frequency domain ... It is falseby being INSUFFICIENT to describe human hearings and DEMONSTRATED by Oppenheim and Magnasco...And Hans Van Maanen explain it COMPLETELY theoretically and for his own design ..¯Read it...
What you said about your OWN mesures is RIGHT in itself and you dont use FFT... But the Context in which your interpret what is "sound qualities" and what they MUST BE , is a theory of hearing that is falsified by psycho-acoustic experiments and by many audio amplifier designer...see above...
Fourier transforms then are an invaluable diagnostic tool to assess audibility because much of our knowledge of psychacoustics is in frequency domain, not time. In time domain, we are relative quite deaf. This is by design. When you listen to someone in your home, their voice gets bounced around the room, gets delayed (timing changes) plus attenuated and then mixes with the direct sound creating a "phase soup." So the notion that time matters is non-sequitur in most part.
You spoke like a used car sellers here... Where did i say that FFT is not invaluable in diagnostic ? Did i say that Fourier was an idiot ? I said that ONLY using it in the context of an audio theory of hearings based on linear and time dependant domain is TOO NARROW and direct us to false conclusions about audio qualities as human hearings recognize them...Musician for example speaking about timbre perception and picking each multiple timbres of instruments in orchestral recordings or playins etc...
And here again you spew half truth : The bouncing of waves in a small room can create a " soup" yes,but you FORGET to mention that the difference between a "perceived soup" and a balanced ratio ASW/LV in a specific room of precise dimensions is in the PRECISE TIMING and duration.... Reverberation is not always a negative phenomenon... If the timing is not right yes it will be a soup... But all acoustic art is in the TIMING AMOUNT... I know because i created my room...
Certainly, @mahgister isn’t trying to confuse the reader and isn’t obligated to provide anything to meet your definition of "proper proof."
I was talking about the author of said papers, not him. But go ahead and summarize what you think @mahgisterhas been quoting and what it means.
This is a hobbyist’s website, not a scientific forum or, in the case of ASR, a quasi-pseudo-faux-scientific forum. At the very least, @mahgister has pretty good grip on logic, which is probably why his posts confound you so.
He doesn't confound me in the least. Unlike any of you, I have been interacting and answering what he is posting. For your part, I am pretty sure you can't even summarize let alone defend what he is posting. But go ahead: show the respect to him and tell me in your words what he is advocating.
Hypothetically, a speaker manufacturer somehow manages to develop a speaker that sounds to everyone ( including you).. exactly like the sound of real 'live' instruments in a non-amplified setting. This very speaker is what everyone believes is the best sound reproducer they have ever heard. The designer and the manufacturer take the steps you are supporting and do every measurement that you believe is appropriate, and these measurements show --- major distortions and errors in the design. Question for you is this, should the manufacturer go back to the drawing board and scrap this design, or should they produce this model for the market...but withhold the measurements as they know that folk will decry their design with knowledge of these results? (or disclose the measurements- and face the kind of scrutiny that will possibly result in most (many) folk dismissing this speaker before even having a chance to hear it!) Your thoughts...
I never say that your measure use FFT, i indicated tghat they are used in the usual theory context about hearings that the ears work linearly and mainly in the frequency domain, this is the inspired Fourier theory of hearing in the frequency domain ...
Of course you did:
But bashing audiophiles for some right reason ( you are right audio is not about Taste) dont justify your ideology: only my measuring tools linear and time independant tools in the frequency domain will say the last truth about the qualities perceived through the gear...
Just because an axis is showing a frequency doesn't mean the test is in "frequency domain." The test is actually running in time domain. It sends a single at at specific voltage, and measures what comes back, again as a voltage in time domain.
What I responded to clearly said that as well:
Then there is a high cost to pay if we TRUST the Fourier linear tools and if we work ONLY in the time independant and frequency domain... The price is we loose contact with the basic of human hearings...
That aside, your hearing works as bank of auditory filters, each tuned to a certain frequency:
You see all those humps? Those are the center frequencies of each filter. See how their bandwidth changes as you go up? This is just one aspect of why so much of understanding of our hearing comes from frequency domain, not time.
As I explained, time is not something we are very sensitive to. I gave you example of how timing is completely smeared in our everyday life as you listen to other people. If you were sensitive to timing you would go craze as you or loved ones moved around! The brain has learned to filter such things.
Sadly manufacturers have figured out that by throwing the word "timing" in their marketing material, they immediately play to the lay understanding of the term and they no longer have to provide any proof that such things matter. Don't fall for it. Ask and demand for proof in controlled listening tests without the eyes.
Hypothetically, a speaker manufacturer somehow manages to develop a speaker that sounds to everyone ( including you).. exactly like the sound of real 'live' instruments in a non-amplified setting. This very speaker is what everyone believes is the best sound reproducer they have ever heard. The designer and the manufacturer take the steps you are supporting and do every measurement that you believe is appropriate, and these measurements show --- major distortions and errors in the design.
These two assumptions are orthogonal to each other. Research conclusively shows that if you have those response errors, humans, with no reference to what real sound is like, show a dislike for these speakers. They consider them less faithful to what they think fidelity is about.
It is like saying "let's assume that you are simultaneously sick and healthy, are you sure I am sick?" Answer is that you can't be in both of those states at the same time. If I examine you and you are sick, then that is that.
Now, if you are saying the speaker is that faithful and has no *audible* flaws, then sure. For that, you would have to come up with proofs of fidelity as you stated in a controlled test. Failing that, at least provide measurements that show that.
The problem we have, and it is where you want to go, is that someone in faulty subjective test claims this speaker is the best there is. Then we measure and find major flaws. Answer to this conflict is that the reviewer/tester didn't know what he was doing, not that the measurements were wrong. Again, this is how people do in general when testing speakers:
Let's agree that we can't trust what people say in the four categories past the Trained column.
Specs? What specs. Some of you gone so blind on asking for proof points that manufacturers feel like they shouldn’t give you anything. Have you seen the type of measurements I have been posting on any gear you bought? You have not.
So no, I wish I was just verifying things. Instead, I am having to do the work that the company should have done when designing said gear. Because if they had, they would have seen the many awful sins that they could have fixed which have nothing but negative impact on fidelity of equipment.
I think that you are not used to people able to UNDERSTAND the limits of your perspective...Or not much people dare to confront you on your site because because they are also technology fad ...
I am not...
And your memory is not good...
I thank you 10 times already for the verification set of measures you takes for your interesting reviews among all insults some gives you...
But I cannot accept AT ALL what you derive and impose on us about what is hearing and the qualities we must or must not perceive by listening in our own room...Nobody tune his room with blind test... And nobody use blind test for understanding music ...I am not against measuring tool but the context where we use tool MEANS SOMETHING...
Your implicit theory of hearings, the context from what you spoke is FALSE...
It is simple to read and comment 2 pages article... You never adress it for refuting it, or for commenting it and use it to prove me wrong...
it is not publish in stereophile it is published in physics reviews...
@amir_asr You have not considered in my example the fact that all who heard this speaker found it to be the best that they had ever heard. Is this possible in real life, I believe it is, as we have examples of gear that sounds great and yet measures poorly. (For example, a number of low powered single ended tube amps).
In my example, i would state that the measuring devices are simply measuring the wrong things, and not that the speaker is in fact inherently flawed. Your reply tells us this ( the opposite)-- you believe the measuring devices are in fact perfect, and that the audiences’ hearing is in fact flawed. This is why I think there are other members here who are taking you to task, they do not have the same absolute belief in the results that your measuring devices deliver to always correlate to the sound that gear produces.
One thing I do agree with you about--100%, and it is this, IF everyone hears a piece of gear that sounds poor to their ears, and also measures poorly, then it is a service to disclose this aspect to the a’phile community. Folks still need to hear the piece for themselves before making a purchase decision, but the fact that it performs poorly and yet is touted by the manufacturer/dealer can be possibly explained by its poor technical design. ( which is again why i believe that the measurements JA performs for Stereophile have definite value).
Perhaps you must SPOKE and DISCUSS the truth and depth of the psycho-acoustic points and articles i submitted , instead of repeating that my posts are too long for 2 years now... No more longer than Amir posts here by the way...
And remind this, i am not here to win a popularity contest about my posts..
@mahgisterYOU were the one complaining that you posted something 4 times and didn't get a response. You seemed confused as to why you seem to be lecturing in a void. (And who cares what your first language is? The content goes on and on and on. I can write more briefly in non-native languages. It's not hard.) Clearly, you're too sensitive for constructive criticism. Forget it. I will just scroll past your 1000 word posts.
In sharp contrast, no one knows the tonality of anything produced in creation of music. That brightness in music may be part of it, or may be your speaker. You don't know.
...
There is some hope here. As long as we all rally around neutral speakers, then we can reduce the level of confusion and lack of consistency. This is slowly happening as even low cost speakers are striving for this now.
In a nutshell, that's why the work done by yourself and others of a similar persuasion is absolutely vital to the future wellbeing of the whole audio industry.
At some point we may want to finally get off the 'upgrade' roundabout and settle down to just enjoying music without the constant nagging feeling that there might be something better out there.
Your work and the subsequent presentation of data in determining the genuinely better from the merely different can help us make that decision.
You should be proud of the difference you have already made inside a comparatively short time.
Please keep up the good work and perhaps consider working alongside manufacturers. I know some of them are actually happy to discuss your findings and may even use them as feedback for their own R&D.
In any case there must still be hundreds of loudspeakers that have yet to be put under the Klippel NFS.
Sadly, many high-end speakers go their own way with at times abominable tonality.
I doubt there's a single person here who has not heard an example of this for themselves. Some of the most expensive loudspeakers at shows are often the most difficult to listen to.
I don't think it's usually deliberate either. It's probably one person's individual idea of what makes a great speaker and unfortunately after all of that hard work and dedication no one was able to tell them any different.
Amir did not read neither Oppenheim and Magnasco, nor Hans Van Maanen...
Anyway he cannot read them because if he did, all his opinions about the way we listen , and the way an amplifier must be designed to sound musically will be crushes to pieces...
Psycho-acoustic science is not technology and debunking is not designing ...And Dogma about the way ALL audiophiles listening are deluded is only that a dogma created on a false theory of psycho-acoustic based on Fourier tools which are linear and not in the time domain unidirectional way of the human ears...Fourier tools are useful in amplifier cdesign for example but the designer to design well must know about the way the human ears work in the Non linear time dependant domain...
By the way for sure the time domain exist in the Fourier method BUT THE RELATION BETWEEN THE FREQUENCIES DOMAIN AND THE TIME DOMAIN ARE LINEAR... Do you catch ?
I will not go further... Amir will never debate in details the articles i used because his perspective will be destructed... ANYBODY WITH A BRAIN CAN READ THEM...
Again so useful his falsification about the gear marker can be and are welcome, his bashing of the way humans hears and listen, for the prevalence of his TOOL ANALYSIS as prescription is false and wrong..
Dont belive me, compare what Amir said with Magnasco and Oppenheim and with the articles of Hans Van Maanen...There are not into techno babble , they are physicists...
@amir_asr You have not considered in my example the fact that all who heard this speaker found it to be the best that they had ever heard.
Best they have heard? What have they heard? Did they use their eyes as well? That kind of hyperbole and kickback is stated every day and twice on Sunday in high-end audio press. It doesn't make it true.
Your claim was something entirely different anyway:
Hypothetically, a speaker manufacturer somehow manages to develop a speaker that sounds to everyone ( including you).. exactly like the sound of real 'live' instruments in a non-amplified setting.
How did that morph from a universal truth in your OP to what you just said? Was there a test where a live band played music, it was then routed to speakers and AB test was performed and people couldn't tell the original from the speakers? If not, then your hypothesis is not real.
No way, no how microphones can record the sound of a live music in an unamplified setting. Your two ears will hear differentially so can't be represented with a single mic. Stereo has also no prayer of capturing and playback the full 3-D soundfield. It is just a fantasy to think otherwise.
This is on top of no one knowing how anything sounded before it was recorded. They were not there. And if not, they have no business saying something sounded like live music. You are dabbling in audio alchemy here. These things don't exist.
Yes, we can have suspension of disbelieve if music is recorded a certain way to give us the vibe of something sounding "real." You can get this with many speakers hence the reason the same audiophile recordings are used by many in audio shows. It is a neat trick but anyone with an ounce of objectivity will accept that stereo on any speaker is not teleporting you to any live setting that a recording represents.
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