Then enlighten me... Or enlighten Amir...
Or enlighten the two of us...
😉😊😊😊😊
I discovered the ideas of Hans Van Maanen that may interest you...
His site and papers are in his site "temporal coherence"...
Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?
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.
1,423 responses
DonT relax anything... Go on criticize them those costlier speakers designer... I will congratulate you for that... And who in his right mind can oppose to someone who ask " for flat on axis response and smooth off-axis." Not me ... But designers will go on with their trade off choices and you will criticize them... All is OK...i will read you... But dont come to me saying that all there is to say about audio components is their measures set...And dont come to me saying that human hearing impression are all illusory and with no value out of blind test ... Psycho-acoustic dont say that... Trained ears are not the same as untrained one... Furtwangler and Floyd Toole or Dr Choueri or the creator of my headphone a physicist acoustician of genius Dr Gorike all had trained ears...dont put them in the same basket as people who buy an amplifier for the price tag and dials... Dont put them in the same basket than people unable to tune their own room... Etc... The human ears beat the Fourier uncertainty why ? Because he use some aspects of sound by virtue of his non linear structure and brain tools which made him able to EXTRACT 10 times the accuracy information in the time domain permitted by the linear Fourier treshold between frequency and time ... This means that hearing is not explanable only by Fourier methods, and it means that human hearing can be trained and is very trustful when trained at long term... Furtwangler dont need a blind test...he dont pick up his amplifier by reading your measures... It does not means that measures are useless... Who would pair the wrong amplifier with the wrong measures to the wrong speakers? We need measure for regularity and standards... Deriving all audible qualities from them is non sense...
|
No one is taking away anyone's choices in designing a speaker. Nothing about what I or audio science stands for mandates anything in that regard. We simply as for flat on axis response and smooth off-axis. You can get there a million ways. To be sure, it is not my job, and should not be yours either, to make anything easy for manufactures/designers. They have their challenges and they signed up for that when they decided to get into that business. I am a consumer and want a performant system. You can't deliver it? Don't get in the market. We have speakers that cost just a few hundred dollars that deliver on these metrics. That expensive speakers costing many multiples can't is no reason to relax the criteria for them. |
You distorted Van Maanen intention above ... I corrected you by citing the text and reestablishing his intention... But it seems distorting facts to suit your gaol is an habit... All reviewers and audiophiles DIFFER all day long about anything... There is a multitude of groups and cultist about all possibilities in audio... No one IMPOSE DICTATORIALLY a theory of hearing and a normalized set of measures for all ... With the Correct and only one accepted vocabulary... Are you kidding ? or you are blind so busy to sell your salad ? 😊 Audiophiles debate without end unable to impose anything... They are FREE and want to stay free ... They dont tolerate to be imposed hearing standards through the only good measures theory by statistical and blind tests proof... Musicality for Furtwangler is not the same as for Karajan... Guess why ? A clue : it has nothing to do with "neutrality"... Wait and i will explain it in my musical thread... Hilde45 measure my words numbers post... i must watch myself... 😊
The fact here that you reverse the accusation is revelatory... You are the one who want to IMPOSE a unique view about the relation UNIDIRECTIONAL between measures and what we hear ...No audiophiles do that... Offering his opinions to other is not imposing it through a site with this goal ... Audiogon is not like ASR... There is no hearing ideology here... Only subjective impressions... You are the one claiming what hearing theory MUST BE... By the way i appreciate your site and your reviews AS I SAID NUMEROUS TIME... i dont accept the one way mandatory direction from measures to hearing as hearing theory... |
Yes and it is a good thing... But sound is not images...The qualities of an image are easy to define in a consensual way... The qualities describing sounds are not... Yourself you dont even accept anything "colored" "musical" etc you claim they are WRONG... Neutrality is good but wanting neutrality as a perfect obligatory mandate in design will cost something... You are not God and you cannot decide that tomorrow all trade-off choices in audio will be declared unlawful and only pure abstract neutrality will be the goal and the only qualitative adjective usable for describing a good sound or a PLEASANT ONE...No more pleasure because it is illusory if i read you right... Only perfection is acceptable... The problem is by definition of what is a trade off in audio no perfection exist from recording to speakers.. As i say you had your own hearing theory...Imposing it is not possible and doable anyway... Human dont hear as a Fourier analyser, so useful it is for designing ALL audio components... Than human hearing own a future and will rule future design not the reverse... By the way we dont have a singular accepted theory of human hearing... What we know is that human hearing work as a non linear tool in his own time dyssimetric dimension by history and evolution fatefulness.. Then let the designer create their own trade off choices...I am not against some regulation but i dont want society of audiophiles being ASR disciple repeating measures mantras as synonymus with good sound... 😊 It remind me of some transhumanist who are really sure that man must become part machine to compete...How do you falsify that claim ?
|
Which is what the audiophiles and their reviewers do day in and day out. Fortunately the research in speaker preference puts theory to test and has found what set of measurements correlate highly with listener preference. That is what we follow at ASR. Not to 100% degree but with confidence. When challenged, we can point to massive library of research. When an audiophile or their press is challenged what do they say? Oh I must be right. Well you are not. |
@amir_asr - hi there amir, thank you for your participation in audiogon, and your extensive replies. I have a question that is very important to me to ask, and I hope you will find my request in the sea of responses this thread has become. There is a pretty basic test I found on the internet, of listening ability based on two different digitally configured formats, one in a higher resolution. Here is the said link -
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
To make it more difficult to hear the sound quality and thus evaluate, lending deeper weight to the results, I had twelve different friends listen to the test tracks on the same mobile phone, with the same rather basic earbuds.
Three of them were all over the place with their evaluations, a few got just a hair over half correct, but four of them got every one of the six tracks correct as related to which was higher in resolution. None were allowed to A/B/A the tracks, just an A followed by a B. The friends were all between 39 and 65, and there appeared to be no correlation between age and the test results.
The equipment was the same in every case, and not the best to evaluate sound quality with, but it was felt to be the best way to test the effort and abilities of the listeners. All things considered and in the absence of perfect testing conditions, can i trouble you to advise if this was a good way to test for listening ability? Thanking you in advance.
In friendship - kevin. |
We have standards in video. Has that screwed up the market for consumers? It has not. People can still choose to buy a 40 inch TV or a projector. The standard says produce the video signal to represent this shade of red. We do the same at playback and we see the same shade of red. No such thing exists in audio. Folks can create pink and call it red. And we play it back as magenta and go on claiming that looks like the real thing. The standards are not about design. They are about defined fidelity. And no, a device doesn't have to be perfect. A perfect mastering display costs $50K. But you can buy a $1,000 TV and come darn close to it. And we can prove that using objective measurements and subjective confirmation. A speaker can have bass down to 20 Hz and cost $20K. Or be one that stops at 40 Hz and cost $1K. As long as they are both neutral sounding, that is perfectly fine and good. A speaker can produce 120 dBSPL that costs $100K and if it is neutral, that is just dandy as well. What is wrong with this market is that you are sold a speaker for $100k that clearly colors the sound bad ways. It gets sold because they send a review sample to a magazine and get raving review -- guaranteed. It is a corrupt industry that way. Only way out is independent evaluation which is what I am trying to do. I would think you would be in favor of all of this. But seemingly you are not. |
It is a common place fact that speakers must measure neutral and good... But the design of speakers is a craftmanship too not a mere industrial process.. No one can negate the useful necessity of measuring tools... The problem is imposing our own theory of what is hearing and what is musical... The problem is infering from measures only the excellence of the qualitative results as CERTAIN... Bad measuring speakers will not sound good, it is a common place fact... Good measuring speakers, not only will not sound as musical as someone wishes but they may displease most people... Speakers design is also a trade off art... measuring well is not enough... |
@amir_asr Then what is @soundfield talking about when he says you have never participated in a blind test outside of your own? |
This does not exist. It cannot exist. You are saying you want to be in the two places simultaneously. Again, what extensive research across many decades shows is that we as listeners prefer accurate and neutral measuring speakers. This is no top of your premise that people thinking some speaker reproduces real instruments from a recording that itself is not such a copy. You can't make up scenarios that are in conflict and don't represent reality and then draw conclusions from them. But let's say what you say is true. Then what you call "bad measurements" are the measurements we want to look for in speakers. In that regard, those measurements would be considered good, not bad.
Not remotely the case. I listen to every speaker I test. I have already said that measurements are about 80% predictive of speaker performance. That last 20% such as directivity is not quantified. The difference between us is that I believe in comprehensive research into speakers says that we can easily rule out bad speakers with measurements. That if they measure poorly as you say, we can conclude with high confidence that without other biases, majority of listeners would not like such a speaker.
That's fine. Have your personal belief. Come back when you sit in a blind test and your beliefs prove to be reliable. I have. I found that my beliefs were NOT reliable in that situation. I repeated it. Same outcome. What happened? I voted just like majority of listeners situated completely different than me. So I had to throw out my own personal notions of what is correct and listen to what science says.
Wouldn't be mine either. Again, this is why I listen and occasionally go against the measurements and recommend a speaker. Again, it is OK to fall in the 20% bucket. But don't say the science knows nothing about this domain. We know a ton. A ton. Dispute it at your own peril. |
@amir_asr In my hypothesis, I was attempting to point out that IF a speaker was ever designed that could sound like what people (including you) believe to be as close as possible to the sound of ’real’ instruments in a ’live acoustic space’, and if this very same speaker measured poorly; people like yourself would point to the measurements and not believe in what their very own ears were telling them! This is fundamentally where I believe we differ in our approach to music reproduction. You are seeking something that you believe looks right on a scope, or what the measurements say is what should be ’musical’, whereas I am looking for a product that can reproduce the closest to what my recollection of the ’real’ sounds like. As a former pro musician, I may have a bent/bias on what that is, but it also has allowed me to be exposed to numerous instruments and their sound in varying venues. If a product meets with my expectation of this sound, and still measures poorly, I have no concern on this. OTOH, if the product measures well and does not meet with my musical expectation, I am not interested. That simple.
|
Exactly... The problem is Amir want to create a standard in design... It is not a bad idea in itself...But imposing it will negate creativity in a field where there cannot be a perfect speaker anyway, and there could not be ONE SINGULAR PERFECT SPEAKER FOR ALL NEEDS Why ? Because speakers are interesting by the mutiple trade off choices they offer by DESIGN ... There is no SINGULAR ROOM for all customers too... In industrial design for big company , it is useful and desirable to STAY AND OBEY standards and their trade-off choices ... But individual creative small designer will choose other trade off, he will innovate to PLEASE THE HUMAN EARS OF HIS CUSTOMER NOT HIS MEASURING TOOLS DIALS to be regular for the industrial mass production needs ... Then confusing Industrial and small craftmanship , not only in speakers but in amplifier design, and imposing the same set of measures coming from the same hearing theory is not desirable nor doable... Hans Van Maanen will design his amplifier differently than the Fosi amplifier reviewed by Amir... So positive was his review and i trust him that this amplifier is not bad for the price, you cannot judge with the same set of measures the Van Maanen amplifier design and the mass market Fosi ... The difference in price is astronomical too.. I dont think that the pope of Audio elected will be Amir... He measure well for sure, but he negate what is "musical" for his own "transparency" technologically perfect measured ideal 😊... In sound and acoustic the goal was never and never will be "perfection" of electronical design by the numbers, but musicality even if we dont like the measures of this so called " musical" amplifier ..
You can call as Hinton do, A.I. more intelligent than human, it only reflect your ignorance about what are human beings.. At least Hinton know that A.I. is a danger in our corporate dictatorship... In the same way you may call "musical" what your measuring tools reveal as "perfect" but it is human ears who will decide, in blind test or in their room BY THEIR FREE CHOICES not by design ... Why ? i will not explain it here, because Hilde45 will come and denounce me as creating too long posts.,..He dont read post he measure them... 😊
|
If this were true then every audio engineer, producer and mixer would use the same speakers. They all want neutral. They all want something that comes close to it. It is important but the most important I would say is misguided. Take a trip over to gearspace.com and see the multitude of threads that exists by the people who create all of the audio and voicing we hear in music and audio today. They still are in search of speakers that do what they need. Fit their room, go as low as they need to, and have voicing they need showing the mix in the orignized way they want. Some mix on Harbeths, B&W and others like a more modern take with Genelec. That is like saying all cookies should taste the same. They need to have the same ratio of ingredients and follow the same approach. So many ways to cut it, and they are good starting points, but the end result and the journey to get there are the experience we all enjoy. |
I never said that Fourier method was wrong.. You put this in my mouth... These methods are the basis of design in Audio... 😊 I INSISTED on the point that Fourier linear methods are not able to explain hearings power , and they are not enough to create musical design ... The designer must quit his tools and listen TOO... Thats the point... Bashing Fourier method will be stupid , i NEVER did that, criticizing the context of their application and interpretation in human hearings is the point... The ears works non linearly in his own time direction, that is the point which make it powerful for extracting information... We must use this fact in the creation of the design and not use our own linear and time symmetrical measure to determine the design as "perfect" because no distortion and low noise ...It is not enough...Musicality exist ... For you it may be a myth... For some designer it is not...
And now you distort what Van Maanen said : Any electronic circuit changes in amplitude and phase of distortion components caused by modulation frequency. Van Maanen use that fact to show the limit of Fourier method for predicting his behavior...Your three lines attributing to him the idea to made up a circuit with hysteresis HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS POINT ... Here it is in his own word...: «When we look at electronics with active components, such systems are non-linear as has been described in a separate paper (Feedback Flaws). Which is why we have to deal with distortion. The determination of the frequency response of such a circuit is next to impossible (note that nthe dynamic impedance of the diodes depends on the current, flowing through them and is therefore also dependent on the amplitude of the input signal) and it is obvious that the system is highly non-linear. The charge on the capacitor will be a clear function of the history of then input signal, so the system is also not time-invariant. In other words, the application of Fourier theory to electronics is error-prone and there is a severe risk that the properties for continuous
Figure 1: Example of a circuit where the Fourier theory is
i cannot put the figure but anybody vcan go there : https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/images/docs/FourierConditions.pdf
|
Again, in your hypothesis you said everyone said that speaker produced the real sound including me. So what you say above is not consistent with that. Fortunately, it appears that most of us are surprisingly similar in our preferences when tested blind, i.e. when we don't know what we are looking at. There, when presented with sound coming out of a handful of speakers, we agree with each other to a high degree in what makes good sound. This is independent of any group we belong to. From Harman research into this very topic in an extensive project: Notice how the speaker in light green was voted as poor sounding by every class of listeners from reviewers to trained listeners. This is a very fortunate thing. It means that sound reproduction is not wild west. That many of us will like a speaker that is neutral sounding. That too much highs or lows bothers us similarly. I have tested and listened to nearly 300 speakers now. Regardless of who makes it, when a speaker is neutral, it puts a huge smile on my face! It just sounds right. Above is the only hope we have of standardization in audio. If production of music is done in neutral settings, then we can have the same in our home and for the first time hear what was heard in the production of said music. We can always put salt and pepper on that if needed with equalization to our preference. This is *the* most important thing to learn about proper sound reproduction in our room. |
@amir_asr its funny business you think you dont answer purposefully. Are you and @soundfield going to kiss and make up? Must be nice living in that $3 million castle of yours acting like the king of audio. |
Nonsense. I read Maanen paper and comment about it when you first post it. I explained to you that he made up an electronic circuit that has hysteresis and then showed a couple of rudimentary simulation that says there is a memory effect. I explained to you that he did not: 1. Show that same in any real amplifier circuit 2. There are no controlled listening tests in the paper saying any of that is real or matters with real products and listeners. I have shown how incredibly using Fourier transform is because we are able to then perform psychoacoustic analysis of impairments in audio. There is nothing whatsoever in that paper to invalidate this analysis which is the standard in research into audibility of distortions and noise. Heck, there is not even a single fourier transform in the paper you post! He is only showing you time domain clipping/highly non-linear behavior of a made up circuit which does not exist in an amplifier. A fourier tranform would have shown huge non-linearities in the circuit he is simulating showing how it is butchering the signal. And whether that would be audible or not. Bottom line, in no way or shape this backs your claims that fourier analysis of audio signals is a bad or wrong thing. Nothing remotely like that.
|
Well, there you go again, another ad hominem logical fallacy, also known as a "personal attack." Of course, you reserve such attacks only for special persons that you alone designate. The irony is getting pretty deep here. |
You are right Amir... You never bashed , i confused and conflated your polite discussion with me here with some people of ASR...I am wrong here... I apologize sincerely to you ... I just answered someone else in a bad mood a post above and this is not an excuse but i was irritate...Not about you...... I dont want to personnalize the discussion too...You are perhaps wrong in my opinion but your are a gentleman... I thank you for your time and politeness... As i said i welcome your information thread, not your theory of hearing, audio qualities, and opinon about listenings and design ... We can differ and be friendly... By the way i must thank you very much ... I learned a lot discussing with you opposing your points... Really...
|
Please cut out this "bashing" business. I have not gone after anyone personally other than speaker salesman here who wants to prove there is no audible difference in anything. For the rest of you, I comment on technical points you raise. Me answering you is not "bashing." It is a technical counter with facts, measurement and science of audio. Please don't personalize this discussion this way. |
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:
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. |
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...
|
| Post removed |
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. |
@mahgister YOU 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. |
@mahgister +1
@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). |
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... https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.044301
|
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. |
Of course you did:
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:
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. |
@amir_asr I need to ask you a question... 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...
|
Your interaction reveals confusion. You might want to read your own words!
Again, you seem very confused and it’s not my role to assist you in promoting your site. |
I was talking about the author of said papers, not him. But go ahead and summarize what you think @mahgister has been quoting and what it means.
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. |
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...
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...
|
This is just such nonsense, and made all the more so by the use of bold face for emphasis. Certainly, @mahgister isn’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, @mahgister has pretty good grip on logic, which is probably why his posts confound you so. |
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.
|
@amir_asr There 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?? |
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. |
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.
|
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. |
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 ............................. «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 ................................................................................................... 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...» https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/images/docs/FeedbackFlaws.pdf |
Curious what @amir_asr would 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! |
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 |
@yowser John Wick?! More like John D... 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. @amir_asr Is great at deflecting. Thats about it. @mahgister sounds like my experience.
|
You say this to me till the first day... English is not my first language ... 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...
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...
|
@bato65
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
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. @piaudiol
Is this supposed to be profound? Some people do multiple things. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. |
You dont get my points... 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...
|
