My expensive shoes have measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will they fit. My expensive new suit has measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will my expensive new shoes match.
The people being misled by measruements aren’t being led my manufacturers, they are being misled by reviewers. Idiotic rankings of digital gear based on measurements outside the range of human hearing. Cancelling entire brands who put out features customers actually want as they sell to humans, not bats. The worst of these websites will rant about their own superior $$$ equipment but mot even one person will ever use speakers in a klippel matchine, they actually put them in a room! The horror. The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.
You need to measure what matters! Are the customers actually happy? Is the warranty honored? Most importantly is their an in home audition period?
I don’t need someone to tell me if I could or should like a product. My room is not a test bench, or a klippel machine. Who cares what the component measures by itself because unless its a clock radio I’ll never use it by itself, I have to interconnect it in a "system" with "high quality" cables, (as in all cables are not the same).
If you want to measure something measure how your personal system of curated components interact with your room. That’s it. The rest of the stuff you could forget because these days if a brand overpromises and under delivers they will be following a formula for losing money, an no company likes that.
Dr. Floyd Toole stated "Two ears and a brain respond very differently to a complex sound field — and are much more analytical — than an omni-directional mic and analyzer." A very significant point from a man that should know.
I spent many years chasing the best measuring audio products within my budget. Some eliminated via in store audition, some traded after at home performance fell short. Listening always the final arbiter.
Many years spent designing and testing complex electronic systems. Measuring and testing was excruciatingly long and detailed process. The last hurdle was performance in the intended environment. Measurements provided a reasonable predictor of performance, but never 100%.
Sorry I'm not sure what 'cancelling' of brands is. Is it a Generation Z term for disagreeing or ignoring?
Talking down to customers is not bogus, i.e. false. It is just rude and rather negative for sales penetration.
I agree measurements are not predictive of sound QUALITY overall. But they can often be accurate predictors of aspects of sound CHARACTER, eg a substantial suck-out or a kink in the frequency trace of a speaker.
It is very rare that snake oil type products display any measurement changes in use. If they did, their proponents would not have to say the difference needs to be heard in terrms of sound quality (a generalised non-scientific term even though it needs to be apprehended).
Some people accurately measure things that are not relevant in the context of the sound quality of a product and has 0 predictive (or bogus) value to a consumer. Then they try and misconstrue the result as being predictive. Ranking products based on SNR that is beyond human hearing is an example of this That is bogus.
Some people will cherry pick measurements to come to a conclusion that was predetermined. Certain websites promote themselves as being the arbiter of what is and what is not snake oil. If a product they deemed useless measures exemplary they will either bury the results or slam the lab that did the testing. Bogus. All of the videos I posted of reviewers being called out by other reviewers or the companies they tried to cancel are examples of this. Measurements that don’t align with the outcome they want are demonized or ignored. They are being bogus with no regard except one, drive traffic to their website.
Hold on. What are BOGUS measurements? What do you mean by the term BOGUS?
Dictionary definition is NOT GENUINE, COUNTERFEIT, SPURIOUS.
Is that what you intend?
Obviously no-one wants to be supplied with measurements that are FALSE. But you mean measurements that in your opinion are not useful. That is an entirely different kettle of fish. FALSE means objectively false. Stuff you don't find useful is just your opinion.
Excellent post @kota1, it completely makes the point I stated above. Here are some key statements in it.
In your most recent paper, you proposed a statistical model that predicts listeners’ preference ratings of headphones. How did you first come upon the concept of the model?
We now understand what the target response should be for achieving good sound.
The statistical model for predicting listeners’ preference ratings of headphones based on deviations in its frequency response was really an extension of a similar model I developed in 2004 for predicting listeners’ loudspeaker ratings. The only difference is the headphone ratings are based on a single curve whereas the loudspeaker’s radiation uses several curves to characterize its sound over a sphere.
If you need that device @kota1, maybe I should go a little easier on you, then again, making jokes about alcoholism, a serious disease for many, and genetically influenced is in pretty bad taste on your part.
Bogus, anyone buying equipment can skip both sets of measurements. One guy likes it, the other guy "meh". You need to audition at home.
The conclusion appears to be based on expecting a $5,000 AVR to have internal DAC performance maybe somewhere in the ballpark of a $100 DAC. That does not seem unreasonable, or are you saying that all DACs sound the same as long as they are half decent? If you play a lot with external digital volume control, it may be important to you to have DAC performance in your $5,000 AVR that is better than a $10 phone dongle but maybe it does not matter if they all sound the same. With that level of engineering detail, what else have they missed?
The thing is you can’t predict this based on how a speaker was measured or an amp was measured
Much more accurately, YOU cannot predict much about a speaker and how most people will feel about the sound when the room is known, and a full range of measurements are available. A lack of experience does not extend to all people.
However, even for other products your statement is still YOU, not everyone. Many amp vendors, D'Agostino, Pass, Macintosh even claim they tune their amps specifically for their sound (some have a few sounds) and that is based on a transfer function that is unique to their products or a group of their products. Given there is no way at all they can test their amplifiers with more than a small subset of speakers, but achieve reported consistent results, they have a good handle on the measured performance. However, just a few topics over, you are advocating 100% for matched amplifiers to drivers for active speakers, which is 100% a measurement exercise. That position and your statement I quoted are at odds with each other.
Another reason measurements are bogus is reviewers pass judgement without actually using the product. In this example the measurements are kept in context of actual usage:
All of the measurements should be considered bogus that are promoting an "angle" or self serving point of view. Obviously a manufacturers measurements can be self serving to promote their product. A reviewers measurements can be used to promote traffic to their site to generate revenue. Both players may have an angle, I call bogus on both.
I auditioned, I liked. Screw the "measurements. I found it interesting that Nordost published an article that confirmed my experience. I had that setup long before Nordost even acquired QRT from the founder. That’s all. I would not recommend buying something because of a measurement, only auditioning.
Interesting how they used a "chain" of devices to generate the results. I didn’t believe them because of their measurements, I believed them because of my in home experience.
ASR tried cancelling GR Research using bogus measurements so another reviewer showed up to check it out personally. What happened? What do you think:
I think Strike 5!
For one, that was probably the worse wine/audio analogy ever made. I always picked my wines purely on the alcohol content, color and grape type, and not the 25 other major chemical compounds that contribute to taste.
So we are on to two. Two two two .... I guarantee those two crossovers will not measure the same. Just by looking at it, I know the iron core inductor will be much lower resistance than the air core inductor that replaced it. Also, those enormous film capacitors will have different ESR at frequency also impacting the final response. Perhaps at a gross level they will be similar, but not in detail. The changes will be as substantial probably more than your worry about component tolerances.
How else do I know this is not done by what I would consider a truly experienced professional? Start with the flat wire inductor. They look so high tech don’t they? I would almost want to use one just because they look good. Their reason for existence is a claim of reduced skin effect, even up to 100KHz. First, why do I care about the woofer part of the circuit at 100KHz. They claim less self heating due to space factor and winding density, but each wire layer is heavily insulated and the total surface area is less than a standard wire wound inductor meaning that in practice, a standard air core is superior thermally. I could go on about highly variable winding diameter, etc. but I think I said enough. I will finish with the itty Miflex capacitor next to the enormous Miflex capacitor. They are both +/-5%. What exactly is that small one supposed to do? It looks like it would be about 1/100th the value. Is that supposed to be a high frequency bypass? You will not find that on the crossovers of high end speakers for a reason.
Interesting sidebar: Do you know why audio film capacitors are always 250, 400, 630V even though audio signals are never anywhere near those levels?
That is 4 strikes @kota1, Hans Beekhuyzen is not an expert, I suspect he is not an expert on anything. That video does nothing to negate the work published by Golden Sound (which I came across when researching MQA a while back). If this is the best rebuttal to a very extensive test, that indicates to me that Golden Sound is probably right. You don't negate technical arguments with words, you negate them with technical arguments.
As soon as Hans starts to call into question something as fundamental as Nyquist, you know he is highly unqualified to make any statement about the topic though he tries to recover by stating no one has proved him wrong. Not content to make himself look bad trying to call into question, Nyquist, he then starts talking about distortion and filters, claiming all filters make distortion. Marginally true, but also linear distortion, which we are much less sensitive too. Good thing or every speaker every made would sound horrible. Try comparing the linear distortion of a speaker to a DAC. Oh boy, that would be an eye opener for Hans! He then makes a statement that we should be using 192Khz, though no one seems to be even able to prove conclusively we need more than 44.1, but perhaps he is not aware of even the most basic things about DACs and ADCs that most of us working near the technology can pick up by osmosis. Maybe I am wrong, but I suspect Hans is not very technical.
But all that aside, he makes the claim that most people prefer MQA to not using MQA. Funny story, but researching that is how I became more aware of Audiogon. I searched the web, and the most frequent comparison was Qobuz and Tidal. It was not overwhelming in Qobuz's favor, but significantly more preferred Qobuz in my non scientific internet review.
All of these bogus websites attempt to use click bait and label themselves as the "doorman" guarding the high quality club. When put under scrutiny they just move on to their next target using bogus measurements as "proof". In reality they are simply using measurements to promote their bogus opinions.
Golden Sound used bogus measurements to try and cancel MQA, then another reviewer responded who wasn't even affilated with MQA. What happened was completely predictable, it sounded "very convincing" to him, bogus measurements and all:
This is a very well respected company known for unbiased measurements and product reviews, I am sure you can find a high quality, good measuring speaker quickly HERE, you’re welcome!
@kota1, if you want to be appear credible stop posting links to reports / white papers / etc. that have either been ripped apart, or very questionable in content. I would also not posts a corrected room response and indicate it is the real corrected room response when it is a calculated room response.
I would also suggest not deflecting and answering the questions posed, not the obvious deflection that has nothing to do with the content.
Your repeated bating that has nothing to do with the topic also lacks maturity, but I am sure you know that.
Can you imagine how bogus it would be for me to say that whomever uses MY speakers will find they are a perfect match for their room and gear and offered my measurements above as "proof". That would be B-O-G-U-S. That is similar to what the measurement hysteria crowd is pushing as a S-C-A-M.
measurements are focused on single device compliance and performance, not complete sound system + room integrity.
I find that when my room integrity measures well the sound system is subjectively better to my ears. The thing is you can’t predict this based on how a speaker was measured or an amp was measured. That's why I find people promoting measurements as an avenue to SQ as bogus. I find it has to be curated for each room relying on acoustics, not an anechoic chamber.
how can be audio devices designed, improved, manufactured, and serviced/fixed at the end without measurements?
Bogus is when someone claims the sound quality of an audio device can be reliably predicted by measurements. When that happens it becomes a race to the bottom of who can replicate a measurement at the lowest possible price and claim superiority=bogus claims. The bogus reviewers and websites are promoting measurement hysteria as a form of click bait.
Is their a universal measurement for sound quality?
Not all papers are brutal. Some are good, some are average, some are questionable, and some are really brutal. Both gaming the results with a really awful, but hidden source device, and a ton of graphs without scales, no pictures of the setup, limited details on the processing other than trust us, etc. It is particularly bad.
So are after market power cords, vibration control devices and power conditioners bogus if they measure well and make the system sound better? Does it win a prize instead?
1x CD player, older, $4000 --- I have an idea, how about tell us the model. Why is that a secret? It was obviously a unit with troubles that conveniently measured poorly. I am making a leap there? You bet, but I have a reason. That reason? A current, $250 Japanese CD player was better than their $4000 unit, quite a bit from the pictures shown. They needed to pick something really awful to show a difference. They gamed the test. Worse, they gamed it in another way I will mention later.
29 graphs, count them, 29, not one of them with an adequate scale being used, let alone always with a good description and most of them, with absolutely no scale at all.
They have some pretty big claims of timing errors, 20-40useconds, though how someone could replicate this with almost no data I have no idea. Of course, they are using what could be an ancient (and purposely chosen) CD player, and to make it as bad as possible, they are using a CD made on a computer CD writer, not even a pressed CD. At this point now very old CD player, well worn, and a computer made CD, with "sample sized", their words, timing errors. It sounds like the CD was misreading. I could see a mechanical platform improving that. Personally not played a CD in over a decade. Rip everything to storage.
@kota1these guys are talking about measurements to level match before you A/B speaker cables of the same Gauge, which doesn't make sense if there is no difference in cables as they claim, how would it be louder with one cable than another if as they say no difference than no level match should be needed.
Here is a study done by Nordost that I replicated in my own system and the reduction in noise is obvious. In this case I bought an after market power cord, a vibration control device, and a QRT power conditioner AFTER an in home audition. If it didn't sound right I could care less about the measurements, in this case the measurements actually confirmed what I was hearing (table on page 4).
So are after market power cords, vibration control devices and power conditioners bogus if they measure well and make the system sound better? Does it win a prize instead?
I want to know why some people claim you have to level match when listening to different speaker cables of the same Gauge, but different design.
It is to make the errors of the equipment less audible:
If you ever wondered why so many manufacturers dem their equipment with recordings of a female vocalist with minimal back-up, it's because the errors are less audible than with something like a huge classical orchestra performing complexly scored music with great dynamic and expressive shifts.
I want to know why some people claim you have to level match when listening to different speaker cables of the same Gauge, but different design. You shouldn't have to level match in this situation, after all they tell us that cables don't make a difference.
I would assume just good experimental practice, but there is no shortage of people who just regurgitate what they read on either side of any argument on the internet. I guess it is possible that there could be crazy high inductance or capacitance, or maybe someone could use something like aluminum instead of copper? Measuring the resistance to validate the claim of same gauge seems like a good practice.
The experimental method has been described in detail, to enable researchers to repeat the tests in order to verify the conclusions. The results of this experiment may embarrass those cable sound deniers who have hindered the advance of hi-fi for the past 50 years, and hence may allow the quality of high-fidelity sound reproduction to advance.
@kota1, I realize you are trying to post counterpoint, but like the AES article, it would be best to validate what you are posting for relevance and accuracy first. You may want to ask an EE for a review of this before putting your name to it by posting.
I want to know why some people claim you have to level match when listening to different speaker cables of the same Gauge, but different design. You shouldn't have to level match in this situation, after all they tell us that cables don't make a difference.
How can a measurement, unless it is inaccurate, "cancel a brand" ? Can you point out some very specific examples of this and how the measurement was inaccurate and cancelled a brand?
"Talking down to customers" ? Do you have a specific person in mind and example? Specifics matter. If you mean the general tone at Audio Science Review to those that don't believe the same thing without stating it, I would not totally disagree, it can be toxic, but I would hope you can then also agree that the treatment is no different here to people that disagree, it is equally toxic.
What proof do you have?
What, do you think I am going to post bills of material? How about doing some research on audiophile speaker component tolerances and comes back to us with your report. +/-5% total tolerance on a film capacitor for audio is pretty standard, but depending on the vendor, 95% or more of their distribution is +/- 3% or less. It comes down to who is going to pay for screening. Air core inductors are typically much better than +/- 3%. Even cheap iron core inductors are +/-3%. High tolerance high wattage resistors are surprisingly expensive, so you ensure your designs are more tolerant of variation. Fortunately, where resistors are used, that is often the case.
Interesting article on measuring speaker cables, are high priced cables bogus, or not? The bogus websites deny, deny, deny that cables matter, offer them proof and they deny, deny, deny the very "measurements" they claim to embrace.
ABSTRACT
This paper describes a simple experiment to identify the performance of a number of different speaker cables by measuring the “error” introduced into an audio system by each cable, i.e., the voltage drop between the amplifier and the speaker. The signals used are both white noise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise) and music.
The results show that the principal factor determining the error of a cable is its geometry. Cables with very widely spaced conductors have the greatest error, closer-spaced conductor cables have less error, and very closely-spaced, flat conductor cables have the least, or near zero error. [Townshend Audio’s Isolda speaker cable is such a design. – Ed.] The results have been presented both visually and sonically at https://youtu.be/v11hmOE1Vcc.
The experimental method has been described in detail, to enable researchers to repeat the tests in order to verify the conclusions. The results of this experiment may embarrass those cable sound deniers who have hindered the advance of hi-fi for the past 50 years, and hence may allow the quality of high-fidelity sound reproduction to advance.
Is that a response to asking for your comments on the full AES article you linked to (that is behind a firewall)? I find a topic called, "I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements" without substantiating that measurements are bogus as argumentative, but is not the whole point of being here to discuss?
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