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Source of Fremer's "1 arc second" claim?

In the latest TAS April 2025, page 34, Fremer reviews some Technics TT, and repeats his claim that "listeners in blind tests could hear arc second speed shifts". where one revolution ~1.3 million arc seconds. Anybody have any idea where this is coming from?

Basic math will make you wonder whether any listener can hear a difference between chamber a' = 440.00000 Hz and 440.00004 Hz, rounding the 1.3M to an even 1M. When tuning my violins, I can hear 2–3 cent difference, where 800 cents = 1 octave = doubling of frequency. At 2 cents, that is over 1 full Herz difference. Even playing a cord with tones at 1 Hz difference will result in an oscillation at 1 Hz, i.e. peak to peak 1 second. For easy math, assume even a 0.00005 difference, which would lead to an oscillation with frequency of 20,000 seconds = 33 minutes. Good luck hearing that. 

"Golden Ears" being able to hear ten times better than a normal human, why not. But 20K better? We are off by several orders of magnitude. Maybe I don't understand that he is talking about, but I consider it complete BS.

Maybe it has to do with consistency (accuracy vs. precision), but then the a different unit needs to be used that includes time in the denominator. But even then the math/physics don't add up.

If anybody can provide any insights, LMK. Thanks!

The alternative is rather unflattering for Mr. Fremer.

oberoniaomnia
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,160 posts
 

error correction on playback without an understanding of the error during the cut… sounds a bit …. well draw your own conclusions… 

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,160 posts
 

Fremer should be granted grace…. imo

richardkrebs
426 posts
 

@oberoniaomnia

Yes, it is an interesting trade off. We did not need to go to the max averaging available, so I'm happy with the hardware design choices I made. .  The change from no averaging to averaging of 2 counts was astonishing, we all heard the effect. But we could hear no difference going higher than 4. This implies that data noise is low. 

To be clear, as you point out, this tuning is not a speed change of the equivalent of one arc second/ rev.

However it was a change to the granularity of the feedback/controller/motor loop in the order of one arc second. 

Cheers.

yoyoyaya's avatar
yoyoyaya
856 posts
 

Mr Fremer in his recent review of the new Wilson Benesch turntable could not hear any difference when its vibration reduction base was or wasn't working. "Late breaking news: The day I completed the guts of this review, a leak developed in the ThorLabs air-suspension system somewhere inside the Alpha Drive unit. I could hear the hissing and the pump, which I never heard over the four months, began to cycle. The cure for now was to shut it down and run the table unsuspended, but honestly, in my concrete-floor situation I didn’t hear a difference." It seems that  MrFremer's golden ears are somewhat tarnished.

richardkrebs
426 posts
 

Guys

I think that we need to cut MF some slack.  In my conversation with him, I said something to the effect that a change in controller motor command in the region of one arc second resulted in an audible change in the sound. While you could argue that there is a difference in changing the speed by the equivalent of one arc second per revolution to changing the speed sensor averaging by one arc second, which is of course true.... The fact remains that we heard a difference by making a change that is microscopic. This was my key point.

In this hobby, I think that we are too fast to ridicule. We are all, I hope, striving to achieve excellence of sound in our homes. It is not a competition. Why can't we accept that and considering the big picture, pardon semantic errors that don't really matter. 

Cheers. 

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