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.
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.
Interesting thread. One guy producing actual data and others countering with words. Not a fair fight it would seem. The audiophiles may need to up their game, but at least it’s a home game here for them so that helps. 😉
Fwiw I use name brand speaker wires with batteries on them and gotta say it’s one tweak I never have heard a difference with. But it’s OK, In my defense, I bought them used for a reasonable price versus the competition. They work fine and sound good because my system ain’t bad otherwise so no need to measure…they get the job done. Glad I didn’t pay top dollar new though. I might have felt a little silly then.
This paper as you say never negate the benefit of linear measuring methods in GEAR DESIGN , it demonstrated that linear Fourier frequency based methods cannot explain hearing
No it didn't. It only says simultaneous detection of timing and frequency is better than Fourier Uncertainty limit. It says nothing about either one being used by itself.
Magnasco and Oppenheim said this :
«The significant increase in timing acuity unaccompanied by a
drop in the total acuity for a pulse with considerably larger
variances in timing and frequency indicates that either the precision of human time-frequency perception operates in a realm distant from the true uncertainty bound, or such a bound does not exist for the auditory system»...
See? It says it right there. They are only talking about time *and* frequency ("time-frequency") detection together and its level of uncertainty. Nothing about either analysis by itself having an issue.
By the way when we speak of measures in science, ESTIMATION of measures results must be BOUNDED in a set... This set SIZE is ascribed by the theory , here Fourier theory... Magnasco and Oppenheim state that the results of their experiments exceed more than 10 times the uncertainty limit of the Fourier principle...
Nope. The research has nothing to do with Fourier *theory*. It only has to do with time and frequency detection thresholds. This is reflected in the title of the paper: "Human Time-Frequency Acuity Beats the Fourier Uncertainty Principle"
See the word Uncertainty? It doesn't say theory. It talks only about a relationship between time and frequency in our perception. Any other interpretation is wrong and outside of the scope of the paper.
Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) -
My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.
My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.
You have me at a disadvantage as I thought I clearly answered your question. Once again, no, it is not a proper test so doesn't make for a good starting point or any starting point for that matter.
It reminds me of buying a Japanese learning CDs years ago at an airport. It claimed full immersion and quick learning. I start the lesson and first thing it wants to teach is the words for Horse and Jockey! I am pretty sure that should not be the starting point to learn any new language unless you are into horses. :)
But tell me what you concluded about the results of the tests you ran. Who had good listening ability and why?
Thanks for taking time to reply : ) - may I assume that my having you at a disadvantage is your acknowledgement you had not directly responded to my original question? It is important only because your latest reply is again about learning when my question is about inherent ability :) – this is a factor of vital importance as we will come to later in my reply here, in answer to your question.
Your comment, that the instructional CD and its first two words of translated instruction (‘horse’ and ‘jockey) did not make a conducive start to learning any language unless one had an interest in horses, caught my attention.
It is known with the pedagogy of language learning, that understanding the general or foundational rules of syntax and phonetics is far more complex than a beginning with specific but simple words that name the world around us….well, like horses and jockeys! Nouns are, in fact, the way children and full adults begin to have interest to learn and understand a new language in every society and culture. It begins as distinct sounds and inflections of those sounds. I would argue, in fact, that the CD attempted to immediately immerse you in the start it promised, in learning Japanese, and that the bias you had of what learning a language should be about, coloured what the CD offered.
That aside, would you agree that your bias towards ‘learning’ has coloured your two responses thus far? That is, in relation to my question which is about inherent ability. This is an important factor in light of the bigger discussion of the thread, everything of which really boils down to just one thing – if differences in sound quality can actually be heard between equally measuring equipment. And all that boils down to just one other single thing - that is, if listening ability can be better evaluated.
Learning how to listen and inherent listening ability are two quite different things, something which the listening test I posted shows.
The categorical mistake of equating listening tests of equipment with listening tests for human hearing aside, formal blind listening tests in fact carry more than one uncontrolled variable, contrary to accepted belief. These unknowns are 1) the hearing/listening abilities of the listener, and 2) the potential (if unmeasureable) differences in equipment under test. You see, we cannot use as a control the very unknown that we are attempting to determine, just because we believe accurate measurements of that same equipment make it a ‘control’. The ones who believe that differences exist think that their unqualified listening abilities are the control, and the ones who don’t believe differences exist, think that their measured equipment is the control, when the equipment itself is that which is being blind tested. With the test I posted, the resolutions of the test tracks are controlled, as with the playback device and earphones the test is conducted on. The only variable is the listener.
Formal blind listening tests are designed to fail both parties, because they do not qualify as tests (having more than one variable), let alone being that which tests for listening ability. It is a categorical mistake to substitute one for the other.
There are other listening tests many others refer to, having to do with frequency range done under very controlled circumstances in a clinic. These, unfortunately, chop sounds up into bits and pieces and are not listening tests, let alone tests for listening to music which is above all, about time; those are hearing tests, a completely different qualification of what an educated and deeply trained listener is about.
While we may each have a very strong belief in how we rate as listeners, we may not actually know in relation to others, or a standard for comparison, where we each actually stand. And, as you have rightfully pointed out numerous times in this thread, our unqualified hearing cannot be relied on – this accessible test allows each of us to quickly know if we can trust our listening ability, or if it needs practice and development, by way of track resolutions we cannot contest, and our own ears as the only variable.
There is more I have to add, but I leave it here for now, in anticipation of your response. Thanks again.
So sorry, I just realised I had forgotten to tell you the results of the actual test. The test subjects ranged between 39 to 65 – a 63 year old was one of the four who identified resolution for all six tracks correctly, another was 59, an the last two were 42 and 45 respectively. The 45 year old was a woman. Three of them identified just two tracks correctly, two of them were women aged 40 and 46, and the ones who got between three and four tracks right were all men. None of them were professionally trained listeners, and most of the men were into hifi audio. None of the women were. There didn’t seem to be any correlation between age, accuracy, or experience, leading me to believe that one may hear frequencies well, but not be able to listen accurately. The number of accurate listeners seemed strangely high, but the sampling was too small to draw any conclusions from that.
Oh, I was the 59 year old.
Two things appeared to be absolutely clear – first, that inherent listening ability is very different from individual to individual, and second, it was a surprise that so many were accurate, despite the average quality of equipment used.
No equipment to debunk, no measurements, no claims of golden ears, just plain simple listening ability that day. Two of the audiophiles were a touch peeved : )
That’s fine Amir, compared to a superior human being like you, almost of god-like proportions, I am just a monkey. Nothing more nothing less to expect from a professional audio forum writer like you.
Meanwhile, let’s just carry on with our things: I will continue to listen to noise and distortions, while you continue to listen to your graphs.
---First : i thanks Amir multiple times for the discussion if you read my posts...
--- Second: i am a passionnate person not a flegmatic type...
---Third: i never bear grudges...In spite of my reactive quick temper...I apologize when needed if i am wrong..
---Four: i look for truth not for a win in a discussion... I recognize when i am wrong ...
---Five :
So our hearing has non-linear processing. So what.
The fact that our Ears/brain work in a non linear manner in a time dependant manner, reflect the fact that the ears recognize REAL QUALITIES IN THE WORLD. and dont just compute them in an illusory manner based on Fourier modelling ...Amir say that ears/brain cannot be trusted only his set of linear time independant measure can be trusted... Do you see the difference ?... He use his set of measures as the only truth in audi9o, it is false claim, the hears recognize REAL QUALTITAIVE INFORMATIVE EVENT in the world...Then audio can be characterise by human hearings and not only by a linear set of measures in the Fourier context...
The Fourier analysis of Signals is linear analysis in some window frame determined by the uncertainty limit RELATION between the time and the frequency factor... The fact that the
human ears treat signals non linearly, in some case thirteen times out of the limites permitted by the Fourier analysis, means that the ears/brain RECOGNIZE discontinuous signals which are real informative event in the world , not computerized randomly constructed information by the brains in the Fourier frequencies bassed space which for amir can be interpretad as SUBJECTIVE only and ILLUSORY if not correlated by a set of Fourier measures in his box tool...
What is perceived is REAL and cannot be reduced to a Fourier based frequency model about hearing... Then you did not understood the meaning of the experiments... It is not an experiments about the frequency limit of human hearing, anybody know human hearing is limited in the frequencies range, it is an experiment about the way the brain use real sound source of information IN THE WORLD, EXTRACT real accurate information FROM IT in a way no Fourier modelling in frequencies, duration, amplitude etc can explain because the ears/brain do it non linearly and this information is accessed in the time domain ... And he do it non linearly because of a real natural connection with a sound source... Amir say that his linear set of measures isthe ONLY REALITY... The ears/brain out of a blind test Amir says has no way to perceive accurate information about reality save by his limites set of measures... Magnasco and Oppenheim debunk Amir saying no, there is in the world real qualitative information to be perceived and the ears/brain do it OUT OF A FOURIER MODEL because it beat the uncertainty linear limit of this model and the only way the ears can do it is by a non random , non computerized, direct qualitative information relation with the sound source determined by evolution in an ecological system ... This information is not distributed linearly in a time independant way, but time dependant, this means this information is not equally distributed as random bits on a gaussian curves and reconstruicted linearly by the brain but is real information or QUALITIES recognized in the world...
Then you get it wrong...This experiments has nothing to do with the limits of hearing in itself, which is a common place fact but has all to do with the way Fourier limits are overpassed to seize a REAL information......Magnasco and Oppenheim call it an HYPERACUITY because it is not explanable by the Fourier concepts of frequencies, amplitude duration, etc which concepts are always linearly interdependant in a TIME INDEPENDANT DOMAIN... The law of nature are time independant...Mathemathic dont obey time dependency... An information which can be lost is time dependant not time independant...
---Six :
you are determined to dominate this thread
Are you kidding me ?
rational arguments in science had nothing to do with brawl in a bar...
The one who win, win with logical argumentation...use your brain to know who is right...
Amir is unable to prove that the ears is unable to directly recognize REAL QUALITATIVE event IN AN OBJECTIVE WAY in the world... Amir claim only my set of measures can determine the Qualities of gear design, listening test MUST CONFIRM IT and cannot contradict these meassures, audiophiles claiming to do it are deluded ...Because for Amir only linear set of measures in the Fourier context of interpretation are real...
Magnasco and Oppenheim experiment prove the opposite of Amir claim . they prove that a set of linear measures about the gear cannot REPLACE ears/brain perception of sound event as the only objective description of sound... The ears brain also capture objective information about the world in a way linear measuring Fourier tools could not...
Why do you think Magnasco and Oppenheim, if you had read them, appeal to an ecological theory of hearing and not on a mere frequencies based Fourier model ? are they deluded ? are they audiophiles doing bad science ? I think that they are serious physicists as Van Maanen is one otherr physicist using this non linear and time dependant working of the brain to design his amplifier and speakers... Van maanen is not an audio engineer he is a TOP PHYSICIST in fluid dynamics who perfectly master electronics and acoustic... READ HIS PAPER...
Conclusion :
My point is simple Amir measures so useful are they, and they are useful to verify gear real specs over the seller claimed specs , are MARKETED by Amir as the ONLY ONE POSSIBLE DESCRIPTION of sound qualities and the only method to assess sound qualities ...He attack ALL audiophiles INDISTINCTLY put them all in the same bin and called them DELUDED all and each one of them , when they claim hearing something QUALITATIVE and he use blind test as a tool to impose his ideology about human hearing real abilities which can be trained and are trained by musicians, acousticians, phonologists etc .. THIS IS FALSE ... I debunk the debunker here... His measure so useful they can be to verify gear specs coming from the sellers CANNOT be extended as the only way to determined sound qualities because Human hearings is not explanable by a Fourier model , and his set of measures make sense only in a Fourier context...
We are not in a bar brawl here... refute my arguments... point to me where i am wrong... Nothing else will do... No ad hominem attacks will do....
Do a test : ask Amir why Magnasco and Oppenheim conclude that we need an ecological theory of audition ?
Ask Amir what is it this theory and why we need it ? Or go on and think that these two physicist are ony two deluded audiophiles believing in the existence of OBJECTIVE QUALITIES existing to be perceived by the productive ears/brain out of the limits permitted by Fourier analysis...And ecause As amir say it, all audio qualities must linearly correlate with my gear set of measures nothing else... Blind test will prove it...This is not truth, this is marketing of his gear mweasuring method which go too far ans discredit any subjective listenings as DELUSIONS and nothing else, if they do not correlate with his set of measures.. The problem is the ears/brain perceive some information in a cway not explanable by the Fourier modelling of frequencies and amplitude and duration... Qualities exist which cannot be captured by an electrical tool based on Forier modelling..
For the mathematic part all you need to understand , the basic, is in this video.. Think about it ...
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.
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...
I am listening to and enjoying, speakers, an intergraded amp, a phono pre and a music streamer, and Amir felt compelled to hack the head off the pink panther. It's profitable to be controversial.
I made the mistake of posting to this thread early on, so now I am curious if any of you know how to unfollow a thread on Audiogon, because I would like to unfollow this one.
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..
I stay out of arguments where two sides take absolute counter stances and are unwilling to address the ultimate truth that the correct answer usually lies somewhere in between. The only way to find it is to take all factors into consideration.
It’s very sad to me that we live in such a politically polarized environment these days that people are conditioned to focus on grievances rather than solutions.
It does not bode well for the future.
How about everyone just say they are sorry If you want to solve the question of is a better than b get together in a room armed with ALL the relevant data and put a and b to the ultimate listening test and talk it out about what you hear and why.
Metrics alone are very often abused rather than used properly. It takes some know how to get things right. Not an easy task. But if the data is correct two people should be able to get in a room and help validate it.
The things is all people can do on a forum is talk and share information . You can’t hear a dam thing! Certainly not on the ultimate hifi. So there are limits. Take what others have to offer with civility, not anger. Repeating something over and over hoping the other guy finally gets it is not a good strategy. If it’s not working just say your piece and move on. None of this stuff is really all that important anyhoo in the grand scheme of things.
Posting the same things over and over ad-nauseum is not facts. Answering my question about what Amir's tests do that is wrong, why it is wrong, and very important how wrong it is would be a fact. My comment about the testing bandwidth used for audio and the testing frequencies and times for the hearing test has factual underpinning.
That human hearing must respond to a threat quickly but audio tests equipment can take it's jolly old time doing analysis is also a fact.
I guessed that Radar probably uses non-linear processing. Look at that it does.
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?
Here is another question for you. Armed with your knowledge of how human hearing using non linear processing (experiment done at low frequency), exactly what is wrong with the stereo equipment that is being developing and importantly how wrong is it?
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.
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... ..
For the truth to lie in the middle they would need to be answering the same question 😀. Quite obviously they are not.
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.
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...
I can only speak for myself but the problem at hand for most here on this thread I think is how to best choose what to buy. Measurements are very useful for that. Explaining why human hearing is so complex is totally useless towards that end. It is useful to understand how human hearing works to help better understand why we hear what we do. But these are two totally different use cases. What is of value always depends on context. So there really should be no debate. Two totally different sets of information used for two different but related purposes. Best to understand it all but no point in arguing one versus the other. One topic at a time please!
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.
So there really should be no debate. Two totally different sets of information used for two different but related purposes. Best to understand it all but no point in arguing one versus the other.
You're right, of course. But the problem is that one of the persons in the debate has an ulterior motive: The promotion of his own website and forum. So he needs drama and conflict to maintain the excitement.
it is just too bad that our verbose friend doesn’t realize this, and continues to post and post with soooooooooooooooo many painful words, further feeding this dumpster fire
although anyone with any sense can see what this amir clown is about, how he handles himself, and would hardly be attracted to his site -- this said, we can also see that this forum is unfortunately frequented by plenty of folks with neither good sense nor restraint...
I can only speak for myself but the problem at hand for most here on this thread I think is how to best choose what to buy. Measurements are very useful for that. Explaining why human hearing is so complex is totally useless towards that end. It is useful to understand how human hearing works to help better understand why we hear what we do. But these are two totally different use cases.
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.
It is my understanding, albeit limited, that because much of today's pop music is mixed for headphones, that this totally screws up this paradigm.
@mahgisterAmir 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.
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.
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 ...
@mahgisterAmir 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.
Anyone reading this will think everyone here is like a certain yammering person and its goose and gander for time for A'gon and its members. Maybe that's intended, maybe not, but it's a bad look.
Magnasco and Oppenheim then concluded that human hearings is not only a brain computing activities based on Fourier analysis but ALSO an ecological event, a real perceptive event of a discontinuous set of qualities that cannot be reduced to Fourier modeling... This is the crux of the debate...
It isn't though. People here want to know what gear to buy that gives them the best audio performance. You put forward a paper that uses artificial tones to see if the listener can detect simultaneously the time and frequencies of those artificial tones. Nothing in that research included or involved testing amplifiers.
You and the Van Maanen's brief write up which you keep quoting have theorized that this research gives the ability for people to tell two amplifiers apart which are pristine as far as measurements. Not a single listening test of such amplifiers has been presented by you or him. You expect us to make a massive leap from a test of artificial tones to accepting this.
You talk about science. In science we postulate a theory. We can then either show that mathematically to be correct, i.e. Einstein, or practically correct by experimentation. You have shown neither. There is no mathematical proof that two amplifiers that measure exceptionally clean in my testing have audible artifacts that are clear to folks like you. And you certainly haven't provided any controlled tests that demonstrate that.
This is the main issue I keep bringing up. I have explained why you can't leap from the one research paper with artificial tones to testing of audio products. You don't accept that. But let's hope you accept that you have no data whatsoever to back the prediction you are making.
And no, appealing to authority in the case of Van Maanen being a "physicist that knows what he is doing" means nothing. Physics education doesn't teach you anything with regards to audible differences between amplifiers. By that notion, any physicist audiophile could say anything and we would have to believe it which is obviously wrong.
You have now turned this into a test of manhood when it comes to listening test ability.
You really have a problem if your manhood is threatened by @mahgister.
There is no mathematical proof that two amplifiers that measure exceptionally clean in my testing have audible artifacts that are clear to folks like you.
You've probably not tested for that. As you've explained previously, you don't even listen to everything you test.
I can only speak for myself but the problem at hand for most here on this thread I think is how to best choose what to buy. Measurements are very useful for that. Explaining why human hearing is so complex is totally useless towards that end. It is useful to understand how human hearing works to help better understand why we hear what we do. But these are two totally different use cases. What is of value always depends on context. So there really should be no debate. Two totally different sets of information used for two different but related purposes. Best to understand it all but no point in arguing one versus the other. One topic at a time please!
It isn’t though. People here want to know what gear to buy that gives them the best audio performance.
If they want to check the gear performance and compared the designer specs with your VERIFICATION and opinion about the specs really measured, they will do as me and consult your ASR site and thank you for the review about specs ....
But on this thread it is not at all what all is about... Here it is about objectivist versus subjectivist... And it is about your claim that verification of specs measured said all there is to said about gear choice... I thank you as i said for your OBJECTIVE INFORMATION... I dont thank you for your measuring ideology extended as a theory who claim to be able to predict what is the " musicality" of an amplifier with ONLY A LIMITED SET of linear MEASURES, I DID NOT THANK YOU WHEN YOU PUT all audiophiles IN THE SAME TRASH BIN BECAUSE THEY DONT BUY YOUR HEARING AND LISTENING THEORY...
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.
Van Maanen said explictly that he use real MUSIC signals not artificial tones or continuous sine wave to test his design and measure their behaviour under stress ....And he described in his articles how he designed his own amplifiers... He is not in the job of comparing amplifiers as you did with some set of linear measures... He design his own , he does not debunk gear market as a job as you did .... He says it clearly here : " All stages of an amplifier should be as linear as possible when Fourier theory is to be applied to approximate its response to music signals". Not artificial tones..
Here what you said is so distorted compared to what i spoke about, it is COMPLETELY out of what i claim about Van Maanen opinion :
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.
I nevear said nor Van Maanen that his research gives the ability to people "to tell two amplifiers apart which are pristine as far as measurements"... You describe you own job here... Van Maanen dont do the same job as you...He dont debunk gear specs and do not tell people what is better or not for them IN SPITE OF THEIR OWN HEARING EXPERIENCE... You do that, not Van Maanen... This physicist only describe how he think about his own design parts in relation to one another to satisfy "musical qualities" as himself hear them and he try to realize a design that will take into account the non linear and time dependant way that the ears related himself to music... The name of his company is "temporal coherence"... After all that he propose his finished product to a general listening tests among potential customers or reviewers...
You talk about science. In science we postulate a theory. We can then either show that mathematically to be correct, i.e. Einstein, or practically correct by experimentation. You have shown neither. There is no mathematical proof that two amplifiers that measure exceptionally clean in my testing have audible artifacts that are clear to folks like you. And you certainly haven’t provided any controlled tests that demonstrate that.This is the main issue I keep bringing up. I have explained why you can’t leap from the one research paper with artificial tones to testing of audio products.
As i said above Van Maanen use real musical signals not artificial tone as you repeat erroneously many times... Consult the article..
Now you accuse me to not proposing a mathematical theory of hearing? Are you kidding me ? i have the impression you dont know at all what you speak about now... The ecological theory of hearing explicitly suppose that the mathematical Fourier frequencies based theory is unsufficient to describe sound qualities as perceived by humans... Because sound qualities are INTEGRAL QUALITATIVE WHOLES, AFFORDANCES said Gibson, the ears/brain has learned to identify and perceive and USE in evolutive history ( because perceiving sound is related to the way human produce sound ) ...
I make appeal to this ecological theory because you criticized all audiophiles TOGETHER in a single block as being ALL wrong because they supposed that "musicality" exist in some design when they listened to it even if the design do not correspond with your limited set of linear measures ...you negate that audiophile OPINION as pure ILLUSION... This is why my critic came for, against your idea that well measured specs as you define it in the material design suffice to provide an amplifier with a good musicality... Your claim is not wrong in itself, a design must be well behaved and working in a predictive way linearly... But i criticized your claim that the set of measure used to analyse the design is all there is that is necessary... The set of measures CAN BE IMPROVED and the design too can BE IMPROVED ... and even then, we will need LISTENINGS to verify if the improved design correlate with the right set of measures to tell all the story there is to tell...In a word we must train and trust our ears... Measuring is not enough...
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.
Here i apologize to say it you are a bit pathetic ...I insisted in the beginning about the bio and expertise of Van maanen because , remember, that at the beginning you described his article as leaflet of marketing publicity to sell his amplifier... You try an ad hominem attack to minimize his sayings.. ... i insisted that they were serious articles describing his way to understand design of amplifier and speakers if we take into account the psycho-acoustics about the ears non linear structure in the time dependant domain...By the way if you read his bio he learn electronics in his teen years and ALWAYS designed amplifiers all his life as a hobby in paralleel to his works in physics of fluids... As you know acoustic is related to fluid mechanics.. Then after your ad hominem attack i feel that i must establish his real status as an expert... I am not an expert but i know how to read... I use Van Maanen and Magnasco and Oppenheim and Gibson, to CORRECT your claim about hearing and measure...They never correlate as you claim you can do it...Then Audiophiles are not all pure deluded people because they trust their ears... ... But you are right they must inform themselves about measures yes.. but objectivist fanatics mocking audiophile must study psycho-acoustic and hearing theory... You get my point now ? i am not a subjectivist nor an objectivist,... I think and hear by myself and i try to inform myself even by reading your specs analysis for which i thank you because it is useful...But i dont buy your propaganda about blind test and audiophiles all put in one bag together..
This physicist only describe how he think about his own design parts in relation to one another to satisfy "musical qualities" as himself hear them and he try to realize a design that will take into account the non linear and time dependant way that the ears related himself to music...
So? Just about every designer claims to be making musical amplifiers. Claims are easy. Where is the proof point in the form of listening tests that he is accomplishing this? You say humans can tell such. Where is the human tests then?
The name of his company is "temporal coherence"... After all that he propose his finished product to a general listening tests among potential customers or reviewers...
Again, as do every other manufacturer of audio gear. Where is the proof that he has figured out the secret in musicality that measurements don't show? Offering ear to customers and reviewers is not that. He needs to demonstrate with listening tests that his claims are correct.
As i said above Van Maanen use real musical signals not artificial tone as you repeat erroneously many times... Consult the article..
I have read every word of that article, multiple times. There is no mention of any such musical signals. Nor proof point that they are revealing as such.
The only signal he shows is a disjointed sine wave:
The input signal is in blue. Does that look like music to you or a test signal? Answer is the latter, yes? In his very own simulation he shows the value and power of using simple test signals.
@mahgister First you state this: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;
Then you say this:But on this thread it is not at all what all is about... Here it is about objectivist versus subjectivist...
Sometimes it pays to remember what you previously post in reply to other members--IMHO.
Van Maanen said explictly that he use real MUSIC signals not artificial tones or continuous sine wave to test his design and measure their behaviour under stress ....And he described in his articles how he designed his own amplifiers... He is not in the job of comparing amplifiers as you did with some set of linear measures...
Title: "Tone burst response of amplifiers to determine some properties of their dynamic behaviour"
Then he says this:
"To that end, two high-quality amplifiers with clear differences in their perceived sound, have been tested with tone-bursts. In this report, only the results at 30 Hz will be reported and discussed, as at these low frequencies the issues show more clearly."
See? Not only does he use classic test tones, but says it "clearly" shows the difference between the two amplifiers. Here is one of his graphs for the first amplifier:
Please explain to me why it is OK for him to run such tests when you claim any such test is based on "fourier theory" and therefore invalid. I remind you that this is your expert witness.
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