atdavid I favor A/B auto testing...Not for eliminating bias tough, but more to begin to be conscious of them...Musical personal perception history is entirely based on subjective articulate bias in evolution...Therefore not reducible to any "objective laws" of perception or of engineering...It is impossible to design a perfect universal piece of gear that will satisfy all and each human on the planet.... Precisely because musical personal perception history is entirely based on subjective articulate bias in constant evolution... |
I will vouch my whole life for this particular illusion called music by me with my own audio room in evolution... |
There is some objective collective truth in sound perception, but musical perception is more complex than just sound perception and taking into account the different genetic potential of each one of us and our own different individual listening history, it is impossible and illusory to reduce this individual history to some objective collective laws of hearing...We lear to listen music on our own term with a specific history and potential where we transform our own experience with musical experiences that are very different and varied in their impact for each one of us...Our continuously transforming experience with sound is the way to go deeper in our personal musical experience...Music perception does not reduce to sound perception at all... When i buy a piece of gear, or evaluate my room, or judge the impact of some modification in my audio system, i dont claim for a universal validity, but i claim and vouch from my own experience and personal history of listening, in my particular room with my particular gear... Reducing that to an A/B/X test is pointless... But testing ourself in some confortable personal environment and with our gear with an A/B test is, like says wisely Paul McGowan of PS audio, a necessary and instructive experiment to improve also ourself ... It is the listener own environment, mastering his own decisions, that are keys to personal improvement in audio and musical experience... What i speak about is from the subjective point of view of a listener in a process of experiencing music more deeply, and modifying his own perception of sound, with new gear or tweaks etc ,with this goal in mind and with his "own musical perception particular organ" create by his own history... Reducing that complex and very individual and personal history with ABX tests to some engineering laws of sound emission and perception is only truncating the musical experience to the lowest denominator, it is perhaps good for marketting, or engineering technology, but not a method able to explain musical perception in his relation to sound perception in an individual personal history... https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/do-double-blind-tests-work/the second article post by thyname go in the same direction... |
Let’s just say that many people hold onto illusions virtually their whole life.
You speak like Buddha.... Me I want to dissipate my illusions, and gain some "objective audio illumination", and for that I will read your posts among others, but without erasing the last persistent subjective illusion I live with and for, called music in my audio room with my gear and tweaks... |
atdavid
Perceived significant changes in ones own personal system often disappear when bias (visual sighting) is removed.
All the changes that were implemented by the change in my audio system were made in a " cumulative" personal history, no illusion can persist in a cumulative long history, except for this particular complex illusion, which is the articulate sum history of all my bias, linked to individual pleasure called music.... |
atdavid529 posts11-25-2019 11:53amOther than the process, there is nothing objective at all about blind testing, or ABX testing. The actual testing is 100% purely subjective. By removing sighted bias, it ensures a much higher level of subjectivity. Then you say the samething that I was just saying the post before in other words...Glad we understand each other... |
Probably the #1 lesson that an audiophile can learn is that they are susceptible to bias. There is a difference between entertaining illusion, and selling snake oil, and being in a conscious audiophile history of articulate evolutive bias toward this goal: being more happy with our own listening experience ...Most audiophiles exist precisely with this" label name" because they are in a search history, and not in a so-called mission to eliminate all bias, but only the disruptive one for their own history, not the creative one, and this occur in their own personal history of cumulative articulated bias ...We always listen with our bias, but they are the good one and the bad one... "Listening without bias" is not only impossible, this is the most difficult illusion to erase, a bad one indeed...And this illusion is not only the disease of "audiophile", but of " scientist" also... By the way you speak like if being an audiophile was a tare or a disease of the mind, most audiophile are conscious that they are susceptible of bias, being audiophile is precisely that, cultivating some bias, eliminating some bias...It is an history or a life...Not a piece of engineering... Most audiophile want to learn, but no audiophile will erase his own personal history of listening, and exchange that for an "illumination" by some " scientist" ...We must be respectful of facts and persons... By the way all people vote for the virtue, and all are in favor of tests , blind one also, to eliminating blatent snake oil products, and that goes without saying...This is one thing, but it is another one to attack audiophile personal bias history, and calling that an" illusion".... All illusions are not the same, a rainbow is not a cable in the night perceived to be a serpent...In the kingdom of illusions there is the creative one and the disruptive one... |
A good overview indeed... :)
|
This is one thing to eliminate negative bias, that disrupt the process of listening...In that we are on the same page.... All of us wanted to eliminate snake oil or negative illusions...Nobody is against tests...
But it is another thing to negate the role of positive bias in an audio individual history, and reduce that to deception only....Biases are not reducible to be only preferences, because preference is only one of the final conscious products of a long personal complex history of listening processes and this personal history is an objective fact not reducible to be only a temporary negative single illusion or a singular preference only that must be eliminate at all costs ...
Biases are like iceberg surfacing tops, you can eliminate what you see: one of the surfacing tops , not the iceberg... Because the iceberg is the listening process in itself constructing in the waters...
|
these guys who think they have superhuman hearing and that they alone , and their close-knit group are so superhuman that they are immune to bias that afflicts pretty much 100% of the population
It is a dialogue of the deaf...Nobody has ever argued to own superhuman hearings...But attributing that hability to someone and attacking him after that for being so is an interesting tactic indeed... All of us have accumulated in a long self educating listening history, an additive number of creative and negative bias...This is not only normal, this is impossible to erase completely all our bias, there is no absolutely objective listening without bias at all...This is a fiction...We can become conscious of some of our bias for sure...And that is science... This is not superhuman hearing...I only wanted to point this out, for making things discussed clearer and not succumb to dialogue without compromising and without listening to each other... |
11-25-2019 3:43pmmahgister,
prof
There is some objective collective truth in sound perception, but musical perception is more complex than just sound perception and taking into account the different genetic potential of each one of us and our own different individual listening history, it is impossible and illusory to reduce this individual history to some objective collective laws of hearing...
I find your writing on these subjects to be unclear as you seem to conflate separate issues: that of musical appreciate, or personal reaction to music, vs the question of the actual *audibility* of any particular technical claim.
To take a hypothetical example, if a cable manufacturer claims they have reduced the presence of a distortion that occurs in the frequency of 25kHz which therefore produces a "better sounding cable," that’s a claim that does not require all this personal musical history mumbo jumbo to investigate. Right off the bat there is reason to be skeptical, given the well known *general* limits to human hearing. So right off the bat it would make sense to ask for evidence we can even HEAR the problem being claimed.
You could claim all you want to hear above 20kHz, but no appeal to your musical history will suffice to wave away a hearing test that shows you can not, in fact, reliably detect the presence of anything above 18kHz.(And such tests are of course done blind, so you are not given visual cue, or information, as to when the tones are playing...reducing those variables to concentrate only on what you are actually detecting via your hearing).
The same goes for the fundamental question "Does cable A actually ’sound’ delectably different from cable B?"
So, take a possible blind test one could conduct between an audiophile AC cable and a standard "came with the device" audio cable. Let’s say we want to investigate the AUDIBILITY (forget preference...lets first establish if A and B are even delectably different!) of an audiophile cable on a DAC.
And let’s say this audiophile cable - the "audiophileWOW cable" was purported by others to obviously improve the sound of a well known DAC. Maybe you have even "heard" it do exactly that, with that DAC.
How to test this more rigorously? (*caveat: a double-blind set up would be even better, but even a single-blind test goes far further to reducing variables than the average "stick it in my system and listen" version used to anecdotally vet claims in hi-end audio).
You could have two samples of the same DAC, both outputting to a switcher (pre-amp, whatever), so you can switch between the signal coming out of either DAC. First you do a blind test (e.g. someone else switching in a way you, the subject, can not know which DAC you are hearing), to first determine if you can reliably detect any difference between the two DAC units (again, the same DAC model), using this switching method. Presuming you can not, the inference being they sound alike to you as one would expect, you can move on to introducing the audiophile AC cable in the test. Just have one DAC unit using the supplied AC cable it came with, the other is now using the audiophileWOW AC cable.
Now, repeat that same blind test.
Can you even DETECT a difference between them to a statistically reliable degree?
If not, if the results mirror a similar randomness as when they each had the same stock AC cable, then you’ve failed to show any positive correlation of sonic changes brought to the table by the audiophileWOW AC cable. Which is suggests that you really can’t hear a difference. (Do enough of these tests, and you can establish ever more confidence that you can not hear a difference. Do it with enough people, and you gain ever more confidence that there is no audible contribution made by the audiophileWOW cable.
None of this has to do with "personal musical history," it’s about investigating the question of audibility, just like we do with hearing tests.
But once components are established to actually sound different, then preference can play a plausible role, and it makes sense to talk about "which sonic presentation you like more" and for what reasons, how it effects your reaction to the music, etc.
Reducing that to an A/B/X test
Which is a strawman. No one suggests that we simply reduce music listening to A/B/X tests. It’s just a more concise tool for investigating whether sonic differences are detectable or not. It can be expanded to preference-testing, if you like. But it’s just conflating issues to mix up all this "personal musical history" stuff with a much narrower goal.You are making the typical audiophile exception for your hobby, as if the lessons of science, useful in most other areas, just don’t apply to audio.It’s special pleading.
I am perfectly ok with your post...I understand your concern and perhaps,i forget that this thread is about comparing costlier cables , then these context must appeal to some very rigourus testing for sure...I apologize if my posts where beside the subject .... My point is only motivated by my experience with my old hears but experimented ears, very ordinary but educated hearing, and the evidence that my audiophile journey gives me... |
I dont know why I am so fascinated by robots, Hal, in particular....My best to you all, apes and robots included...
I think I know.... I am fascinated by the apes that are in the robot, and by the robots that are in the ape...
I apologize for disturbing the thread....
|
Truthful and spiritual description for me...But I must admit sometimes to be more akin to some of the apes than to some others...My bad indeed... My best Nonoise... |
geoffkait18,554 posts11-27-2019 11:58amI suspect nonoise is mistaking courteousness with sanity. By his own admission mahgister is not a towering technical genius. He’s a nice guy, though. 🤗 I am not completely objectively sane, and I agree with Geoffkait also that I am not a "towering technical genius" and not even " a technical genius" and alas " not a genius"... Only a creative normal guy who love books... But if I can made a remark, in society, and this thread is a society, courteousness is social sanity, in an asylum, if all the fools were polite, the doctors would be in pain to make a bad diagnostic...I can say that humor and comedy is akin to courteousness...Not sufficient tough but a very promising societal trait... Thanks Geoffkait for saying that I am a nice guy, that will make my day... |
atdavid..... but ..... just like always, it predominantly comes down to good speakers that you like, learning how to and actually treating your room, buying an amplifier that your speakers and you are happy with, and then accessorizing with and appropriate quality source and pre-amp, and if your source is vinyl, prepare to allocate more into that. Anything on top of that is gravy. I do that exactly...But I did not fall in love with my audio system, even if each link in my audio system is good, so good and carefully choosen, that the solution that appears to me was not upgrading and buying better gear ... It was instructing myself about some basic facts, and experimenting in some alternative way...I fall in love after creating my stones grid and homemade linked Schumann generators, and making my homemade Helmholtz resonators, and my homemade low cost "singing resonators"... And last but not least treating homemade my central electrical grid with stones... I am now in love with my audio system... Sometimes it takes more than good links in the audio system, even more than just a conventional room treatment, I think that some tweaks act for the good...It is not snake oil by the way, I make all that myself, without measuring anything, and by my ordinary hearing declining ears...My best to you... |
2,265 posts11-27-2019 12:46pm
mahgister,
It’s often hard to tell on the internet so I have to ask: Was your last post a joke, or do you really make/use the tweaks you described?
Prof I understand perfectly well your question...No need to apologize, you are very tactful and polite...If I was in your shoes and seeing my system and reading my description, I will think the same thing that you think of...
But yes this system is born with my desire for a true HI_FI system, but without money, it is difficult to bought that... I create it myself for peanuts with used components, and mostly with tweaks of my own design, inspired by many audiophile company that sells tweaks at too much high cost for me... Then I create, sometimes originally, by listening experiment,for example my own stones cabled grid in my audio room...Nobody gives me this idea but that works for my ears... I create also my singing resonators that works in my small audio room , astoundingly...This is the story in one word... My best to you Prof...
By the way I post images of my system without fearing ridicule,because my point is with almost no money, with some basic understanding, and listening experiments, and very low cost modifications of the room, house, and electrical grid, and components, we all can gain HI-FI at low cost... HI-fi is simply for me listening music with smiles without being discouraged by the 2-d low resolution.non holographic imaging, and unnatural rendering of timbre that I was afflicted with my system before my homemade modifications...My system is not the best in the world, but it is now so good for me that I do not resent anymore not being able to afford anything more now...Invention even in a modest way is the mother of joy...
|
By the way cables, and power cord are last in my list of priorities....They are system dependant, and before your audio room are completed by some treatment, your house electrical grid cleaner, your audio system under vibrations controls and more, it is waste of money to buy high cost one...At last perhaps it is an idea to try some... And if your system is sufficiently refined and even with ordinary ears you will hears the difference... It is my own experience....For sure what is big money for one is peanuts for another tough and choice of cables are not only soundwise dependant but money dependant...
I apologize for my 2 cents remarks...
I understand for sure that Blumartini is there with a complete hi-fi system already and it is interesting to know the experience of others I thanks him for the thread… My best to all,,, |
Thanks Prof...I wish you the best and yes I enjoy music now, less noise to annoy me... |
For me it makes no sense to buy "costly" or even relatively costly power cord before addressing all the other factors:
cleaning the electrical grid of house and room,
Adressing the problem of mechanical resonance and vibrations, an underestimated one,
Treatment of the room and of speakers...
and even the search for the right source gear, or amplifier and speakers is mandatory in the first place because the power cord will not act the same in a different audio grid...
There is controversy with this subject, and all those in favor of only cheap cords, and those who vouch with costly one, are nor wrong neither right, this is their experience in a totally specific environment...
The power cord is the last think to buy like costly cables for your speakers or dac and amplifier...
Choose first the right gear for you, after that makes the three problems I speak of rightly answered...
After that spend money on cables and cords ( not too much tough) the reason is the impact of cable and cords is less , way less, than the right answers to all the other problems and choices...My best to all...
|
