Well I’ll be....! "So what was I to complain about? Finally I stopped measuring and started listening, and I realized that the capacitor did have a fundamental flaw. This is were the ear has it all over test equipment. The test equipment is almost always brought on line to actually measure problems the ear hears. So we’re always working in reverse. If we do hear something and we can’t measure it then we try to find ways to measure what we hear. In the end we invariably find a measurement that matches what the ear hears and it becomes very obvious to everybody. " He’s putting it a little differently, but this is exactly what I’ve been saying over and over again- it is NOT on the listener to prove with measurement, not at all. The listener, what we hear, is the ultimate measure. Then and only then you can go looking for a way to measure what we are hearing. It is NOT the other way around! Pin it to the top of every thread where someone is trying to invalidate actual human experience just because it is beyond the measure of their silly primitive instruments. the ear has it all over test equipment. Read it and weep. RIP, techies, RIP. |
simonmoon-
For those that believe there is a break in period of electronics, please explain:
1. What is actually happening electronically that causes the equipment to sound better? When you hear something, do you hear it? Or are you required to explain "what is actually happening" that accounts for your hearing it? Could you even do that? Really? 2. Why does the breakin process ALWAYS result in improved sound quality? Why is it not possible for whatever the breakin process is, to result in a less good (when compared to brand new) sounding piece of equipment at the end of its breakin process? Who said this is not possible? 3. What prevents whatever the breakin process is, to stop when the equipment sounds better? Why doesn't it continue to breakin for its entire life and continue to improve? More stuff nobody ever said. Certainly not me. Sorry to say, but there's an awful lot of people out there just aren't very good listeners. Not because they're hard of hearing. Their ears are probably fine. But because they never bothered to work and develop the listening skills to recognize and differentiate among all the different details they're hearing. Often times people do hear something, but their ability to verbalize just what it was that they heard is lacking. When this happens they themselves aren't even really sure what's going on. This fascinating aspect of human perception hardly ever gets discussed in all the petty harping and irrelevant needling trying to force technical explanations. I sometimes imagine these guys with their wives, honey the coefficient of friction seems a little off tonight, but lets get Larry in here to double-blind you so I can be sure. I've explained very clearly before what happens, and will do so again, but not in BS terms of "what is actually happening" which let's face it no one knows that about anything, but in terms of "what I'm actually hearing." When something is brand new, and it could be a fuse, power cord, amp, pretty much anything, when first turned on the sound is pretty chaotic, fuzzy, grainy. The essential character, whatever that is, is there, but out of focus and out of balance. Then within minutes the sound changes rather dramatically, so that by the end of the first song its quite a bit different than at the beginning. This process continues, always in my experience for several days, often for several weeks, sometimes even longer. Hard to say exactly, for two very different yet related reasons. One is, dramatic early changes rapidly give way to much more gradual incremental differences. This is not, by the way, always a one-way street. Plenty of gear gets better and better, then inexplicably something goes off for a bit, then still later gets back on track and its better than ever. Not the norm but it happens. Another reason its hard to say is its not just one thing going on. The component isn't just accumulating hours, like miles on a car. Its also being turned on and off. Warming up and cooling down. Being played. Sitting idle. Turned off. And even if left on and always playing music, still there are the cycles of night and day. You haven't learned to listen for and appreciate how much different your system sounds late at night? Not to mention all this other stuff? Not my problem. Believe me, I wish it weren't so. Wish I could just turn everything on and have it sound great right now, instead of half an hour later. Really wish I didn't have to endure the first few minutes with the cartridge each night. Or maybe not. Maybe if it wasn't like that it also wouldn't be as divine as it is a few hours later on that same night. Who can say? Who cares? I only care to the extent knowing enables me to make it sound even better. Which there is the difference. One cares only how it sounds. To make it sound better. The other cares why it sounds that way. To.... win arguments? Such a waste. |
rodman99999-
"therefore my experience has verified the claim and anyone who doesn’t hear what I hear is at fault."??? PLEASE, point out any post, in which I’ve ever put forth such a proposition. I’ve never had an agenda, on these pages, other than to encourage others in listening/experimenting for themselves.
Relax. He's out of his league. And boy does it ever show. |
At dinner one night, second bottle of wine comes, finish my glass and pour another and.... what the? Sharp, astringent, acidic, had to double-check. Yeah same wine. Wife still had some of hers from the first, try this, sure enough, first ones better. Huh.
Little while later, pour myself some more, now it tastes like the first bottle. Does wine really need to "breathe"? I guess if wine drinkers were like eloquent audiophiles there’d be someone at the table pontificating on how if you say it tastes better fine but don’t go try and tell me it tastes better harumph harumpf.
When in fact after a little more conversation and investigation it turns out the wine does in fact taste better, and I’m not gonna go into the whole story of how we demonstrated this but we did in fact demonstrate this.
Turns out the issue is not after all anything like its being made out to be, however eloquently the illogical dog chasing its own tails narrative is told. What we were able to show is really going on is the difference was there all along. Some just weren’t paying attention.
There’s always gonna be people who aren’t paying attention. Which is fine. Makes the world go round. Only funny thing, pretty much always turns out the more you pay attention the better you do. Which is why I’m always recommending people go and listen. To DYODD. To listen and audition and buy what you like and not what some random interwebber recommends. Over and over again.
To disregard the vast number of times I’ve said this, well that is beyond not paying attention. We’re talking downright willful ignorance here. And for what? To make a cheap audio turf war point?
Nah. Couldn’t be. That would never happen. Would it?
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litho=stone
cephalic=head
lithocephalic=head full of rocks
Example: One way to come off as pretentious is to use big high falutin words like lithocephalic when plenty of words like dense, dull, dim, etc will do. |
the ironically named prof (who hasn't read enough of my posts, apparently) writes:
Have you ever gone a step further, and "actually listened and compared" without peeking?
Yes. Matter of fact, I have. Several times. Beyond your silly double-blind too. One time a friend came over, and with the same mulish know it all stubborn resistance to learning something new thought he would play a little trick on me. So he did a little something. While I was out of the room. Well this was a party, another friend had a request, and wanting to do a quick level check sat down just to check the volume. Immediately, and I mean immediately, it was apparent something was wrong. Within about ten seconds, and just by listening, I figured out what it was, fixed it, and well under a minute had everything back to right. Only then did I notice my friend with this stunned stupid wtf look on his face, probably just the way prof would look if he had any self-awareness. Or awareness, period. Earlier this year when trying my first Blue Quantum Fuse it took about a minute to be sure it was in there the wrong way. Not making this up, you can go back read my post. Here's one prof: read em all. Learn something! The Blue sounded better right away, but not right. I knew it couldn't be right. First time ever hearing one. Flipped it around, sure enough. Like I said many times, wasn't always so good a listener. Its a skill. That's the good news prof, you can learn. If you want. Takes practice. Get on it. Anyway, time was thought the idea of warm-up was bunk. But, don't cost nuthin. So left everything on all the time. This went on for months. Never did notice any difference. See? Stupid idea. Oh well. This was a really old Kenwood, so old the power switch had died years ago, kept it on with a little wood peg shimmed to fit just right. Easier just to leave it on. One day something moves, thing goes off. Since I long ago forgot and decided it was BS went ahead and left it off. Next day turned it on to listen. WTF??!?!? Thought at first the old Kenwood was finally ready to bite the dust. Damn. Well it was a good 20 years. Wait. What? I thought it sounded bad. Now.... eventually it dawns on me I had gotten used to the warmed-up sound. Lotta stories like this. Friend does something behind your back. Something gets hooked up wrong, looks right, only sounds wrong. Happened over and over again. Its easy to understand why some people are not good listeners, why they cannot hear these things. What seems trivially easy for me now was impossible 40 years ago. Also easy to understand why some guy at work would think its nuts. Not really his thing. What I can't understand is why anyone would hang around on a site dedicated to the proposition that there's things that sound better, and that these things are worth big money because of the way they sound, and then instead of doing that all they do is attack the very idea of being able to hear in the first place! That. Is. Nuts! |
And what matters is the sound? That's what I thought.
But if that's the case, and there's people saying there's things can't make any difference when we know they can in fact make things sound better, well then its not silly at all.
At least, and I hate having to say this, but not the way I've done. Read my posts above. Everything is focused on listening- what things matter, what to listen for, how hard it is, that listening is a skill, that it can be learned, that you can learn and get better at it.
Not to say there aren't a lot of people making silly arguments. Actually they are more lame attempts at wit than arguments. But whatever. You get the point.
If you have something to contribute and keep it to yourself because the loons might squawk, well all that does is cede the ground to the know-nothings, nut jobs and wannabee losers. If you have nothing to contribute then fine, don't. Wish the know-nothing nut job wannabee losers would do this. But they won't. 18,000 posts and counting, no sign of letup any time soon. With new ones coming on board all the time.
If they enjoy banding together bantering brainlessly back and forth and you can see the folly in it, point it out. Skewer them. As best you can. Defeat their arguments wherever and whenever you can. Refute, poke holes, chide, deride. Not all the time. But when and as you're able.
Otherwise, if the place goes down the sewer and you didn't even try and do anything about it, well at least don't go acting all high and mighty and above it all. Not when you cowered when you could have at least tried to conquer. |
For many years my "expectation bias" was rock solid: wire is wire. Digital is perfect. There’s NO difference between CD players, DACs, wire, and most definitely the last thing that would ever make any difference is something as stupid and senseless as putting a cone under it or a weight on top or anything like that. Sheer, utter nonense.
Until I took the time to actually listen and compare.
So yeah people are biased. Duh. But there is expectation, what we imagine we might experience, and then there is the actual experience itself. To put one above the other is to be confused almost beyond belief. Its like saying you’re some kind of robot: mindless, programmed, unable to adapt or change.
Which, come to think of it, all things considered, could well be you are. If that is what you think, and think it long enough, after a while that is what you are.
Now as for how long this takes, well there are things like tone and volume I just seemed to always have been able to hear. If a speaker cab is woody, or the bass is bloated, or the top end tipped up, pretty much everybody is able to notice this right off the bat.
The differences between CD players, cones, amps, things like that, the differences are there, only they tend to be of a different character and usually much more subtle. I’m writing for the guys who want to learn this stuff. Because listening is a skill. Like all skills it can be learned. This is not easy. Does not come naturally. It takes work.
So 6 to 12 months? Yeah. About how long it took me. During that year or so, often times took my wife around to shops and it usually went something like this: Yeah that one WAS better! How? Don’t know. It just sounded richer, more expensive. Which is funny. Wife says it "sounded" more "expensive". (Her words.)
Only much later on was I able to break it down into darker backgrounds, more palpably solid presence, micro-dynamic shadings, sharp but not hard transients, beautiful trailing decay and ambience, depth and layering, air and space, etc.
Now having developed those skills, it don’t take no 6 to 12 months. Six to twelve seconds, maybe.
This past year I’ve been on a tear, adding Herron, Koetsu, CTS, Euphoria, and more. Every single one of those gave immense listening pleasure as they sounded great right out of the box and then proceeded to open up and improve minute by minute, then hour by hour, day by day, until finally stabilizing some weeks later.
Well after all every single night I have to endure listening to the first side, as no matter how well everything else is warmed up the cartridge and phono stage still improve massively the first few minutes. The second track is a lot better than the first, the second side better than the first, and then it slows down a lot but still always continues to improve well into the night. You go to sleep with that wonderful late night sound in there and oh how I wish the "you can’t remember" crowd were right because then I wouldn’t have to endure the first side thing all over again, night after night.
Anyone thinks this is nuts, based on their own inability to hear these things, all I can say is keep at it. You can get there. |
"expectation bias" ? This is practically a standard of movie reviews. How many times have we read about the reviewer coming into the movie not knowing anything about it? Or how the movie was nothing like the trailers? Or everyone said wow best movie ever, changed my life, another Marvel, the first two Guardians were great, this Star Wars was "supposed" to be, and so on. Its a standard thing, right? Everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? Which means you also know the very next thing to follow the expectation is the BUT and the HOWEVER or every once in a while the AND IT WAS. Right? This is something every single person on the whole freaking planet understands. We all know this, right? Further beating a dead horse, driving the point home, like a stake into the vampires heart, we all know that the reviewer is perfectly capable of then writing about his actual experience of the movie IN SPITE OF EXPECTATIONS! Sorry about the all caps but when you have someone so unbelievably dense they can't understand what everyone else on the planet just automatically gets its like all sense bounces off the skull until you're shouting in vain to get through. Probably other side of the impenetrable skull is vacuum. Let's see if it can learn. Don't hold your breath. |
Because a lot of stuff really does sound so good you notice immediately and right out of the box. Doesn't mean it doesn't continue to improve as it burns in.
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