...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?

i know, i know...both can be taken into consideration, and bottom line we use our own ears to make a final decision...

but i wanna know which you put more stock in...statistics or opinion

...and why?

...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?

i know, i know...both can be taken into consideration, and bottom line we use our own ears to make a final decision...

but i wanna know which you put more stock in...statistics or opinion

...and why?

I rely on what I hear and measure. I work on a wide variety of products and have a good idea what products deliver great value.

For electronics, a review can point out obvious flaws and shortcomings. But most components perform very similar anyway so it's a matter of picking the features you want in a pre/pro or pre-amp section along with sufficient power in amps and AVRs.

For speakers, specs give you an idea of how they can be expected to perform and if they will meet your volume and space requirements, but listening to them is the only test that really matters in the end.

I rely on what I hear and measure. I work on a wide variety of products and have a good idea what products deliver great value.

For electronics, a review can point out obvious flaws and shortcomings. But most components perform very similar anyway so it's a matter of picking the features you want in a pre/pro or pre-amp section along with sufficient power in amps and AVRs.

For speakers, specs give you an idea of how they can be expected to perform and if they will meet your volume and space requirements, but listening to them is the only test that really matters in the end.


i'm still not quite sure where either of you stand...

Reviews for audio equipment are useless for anything other than pointing out build quality and the quality of certain components (like how good the caps are in a crossover network for a speaker...etc). But the reviewers interpretation of how something sounds, usually using terms like "airy", "warm"...etc which are so subjective to begin with that they're effectively useless for a possible buyer.
You can also use statistics and specs to examine its theoretical performance and get a good idea of how it sounds from that.
And finally, never trust the specs completely, as things can always be fudged, which makes the final item on the list to listen to the speakers personally. Your ears are the final judge.


i'm still not quite sure where either of you stand...

Well, that is because it is best to use as much info as you have available. In my opinion only someone inexperienced with the audio realm would only trust and use one source for their buying decision.

Reviews for audio equipment are useless for anything other than pointing out build quality and the quality of certain components (like how good the caps are in a crossover network for a speaker...etc).


Actually most reviews include frequency specs and charts. I ignore the superlatives but do play close attention to the charts and specs that those reviews show.

I, generally speaking, rely on specs for speakers quite a bit before listening. But as to electronics I agree with Easyaspie. On electronics I generally shop features.

Actually most reviews include frequency specs and charts. I ignore the superlatives but do play close attention to the charts and specs that those reviews show.
Yes, i agree, but i was going off of the original posters idea of what a "review" is. He stated a review as being a "listening critique...a review".

Well, if stats are solely performance stats (and not say, the list of features and such), then I put a bit more weight on reviews, as some companies fudge their stats a bit and I'm not a techie that can decipher them all. Plus, reviews often point out subjective things or more easily show you what obvious flaws a junk product might have.

However, it depends on WHO is reviewing. Are they a respected A/V reviewer? Or are they from Consumer Reports or something that has questionable reviews over the years.

So of the two you asked, I'd say reviews, but ultimately neither is an overriding factor. Personal auditioning, overall company reputation, and the specific features play way more into it.

Actually most reviews include frequency specs and charts. I ignore the superlatives but do play close attention to the charts and specs that those reviews show.

Exactly, a good "review" is actually a test and will contain actual performance data, not the claims of the manufacturer.

Exactly, a good "review" is actually a test and will contain actual performance data, not the claims of the manufacturer.

well, yes...but we're not trying to determine what constitutes a "good review"

let's use the sub "reviews" conducted by craigsub awhile back as an example...

on one hand craig listed how a particular sub "measured", listing averaged output as well as output at 15hz, 20hz, 25hz etc...

on the other hand he and his panel of guests listed their "listening" impressions, both with music and HT...

pressed to choose, which would YOU put more stock in..."listening" or "measuring"...?

it's that simple...

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?
I would give absolutely no credence to the latter.

I'd give more credence to an independent set of measurements than I would to a spec sheet, but a complete spec sheet provides useful information that is reliable within certain bounds. (And an incomplete spec sheet tells me what the manufacturer doesn't want me to know!)

the smile on my face :D

well, yes...but we're not trying to determine what constitutes a "good review"

let's use the sub "reviews" conducted by craigsub awhile back as an example...

on one hand craig listed how a particular sub "measured", listing averaged output as well as output at 15hz, 20hz, 25hz etc...

on the other hand he and his panel of guests listed their "listening" impressions, both with music and HT...

pressed to choose, which would YOU put more stock in..."listening" or "measuring"...?

it's that simple...

Well, you have to put everything in perspective first. In a shootout type of test like craig did, I'd put alot of stock in what he and his guests had to say as far as impressions.

BOTOH, when you read a review in a magazine I'd probably go more by the actual test data, assuming they do that properly, because you won't get a reviewer to say anything bad about a product. They always want to compare it to their "several times more expensive" reference. The review ends up becomning one big ad for the product.

I think it all depends on what is your general home territory. If for instance, you are already very comfortable and familiar with a particular device, an iPod as opposed to an iRiver, the actual listening experience and the follow up reviews will give you a pretty good idea. If you are NOT familiar with what you are about to purchase and it will cost you some big benjamins, then by all means, personal experience is the best, probably guided by a review from someone you tend to agree with. Stats are fine if you know exactly what you want to do with the equipment.

I would give absolutely no credence to the latter.

I'd give more credence to an independent set of measurements than I would to a spec sheet, but a complete spec sheet provides useful information that is reliable within certain bounds. (And an incomplete spec sheet tells me what the manufacturer doesn't want me to know!)

hypothetical...

if you finished an hour-long listening session with a pair of speakers (or an amp, or a pre-amp) and were so impressed as to seriously consider purchasing, then you were handed two separate and independent studies showing measurements that proved the equipment in question to be inferior in some respect...

would you still consider buying the item...or strike it from your list of prospects?

hypothetical...

if you finished an hour-long listening session with a pair of speakers (or an amp, or a pre-amp) and were so impressed as to seriously consider purchasing, then you were handed two separate and independent studies showing measurements that proved the equipment in question to be inferior in some respect...

would you still consider buying the item...or strike it from your list of prospects?
Well, first of all, I'd never spend an hour "listening to an amp." The very idea is nonsense. You can't listen to an amp. You can only listen to a system. And the sound of a system is largely or entirely determined by the sound of the speakers, barring some defect or inadequacy in the amp. (Which shouldn't take you an hour to figure out!)

And as a practical matter, I wouldn't waste my time listening to a speaker that I haven't already seen some measurements/specs for. Life's too short to waste time listening to potentially inferior equipment.

I think the question you're really asking is, if a speaker sounded good to me but the measurements suggested problems, would I believe my ears or the measurements? My answer is, I wouldn't buy anything unless my ears and the measurements were in agreement. The reason is that I know I can't get optimal sound in my room unless I start with speakers that measure well.

ok, mcnarus...i'm markin' you down as a measurement-stat guy


as for "listening to amps"...well...

i fall into the "the more revealing your speakers and source components, the greater your chances of hearing differences in amplifiers, if any" camp...

but that's fodder for another thread...

I think that mcnarus is saying that "nothing exists in a vacuum." You have to take everything into account. Stats can give useful information, but the conditions where a system as a whole will be (including speakers, amps, the room, and source material) tells you far more.

Of course, not all of us have the resources to set up a whole system in the room we're going to use it just to audition it, but we should try to come as close as possible.

ok, mcnarus...i'm markin' you down as a measurement-stat guy
I would object to that description. I would rely heavily on measurements to choose equipment, but I would rely on my ears to set up a system. And the latter is probably the more critical task.

...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

Often.


or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?

Rarely.

I would object to that description. I would rely heavily on measurements to choose equipment, but I would rely on my ears to set up a system. And the latter is probably the more critical task.



i understand...and agree...

but the original question focused on the phrase "when making a purchase"...

if i were sub hunting (which i'm not) i would more than likely pull the trigger on a seaton submersive...

i've never seen published specs...but i've read enough reviews from people whose opinions i have come to respect to feel confident making such a purchase

silly?

well...that's how i roll;)


by the way...i own five subs and none are seaton's, so this is not meant as a plug

but i've read enough reviews from people whose opinions i have come to respect to feel confident making such a purchase
And what is the basis for that respect?

And what is the basis for that respect?




reading...lots of reading

reading...lots of reading
Reading what? Reviews? How can reading a review tell you if that reviewer is worthy of respect? Seems to me you're simply presuming that reviewers know what they're talking about. In a business as full of snake oil as audio, that strikes me as a foolish presumption.

Reading what? Reviews? How can reading a review tell you if that reviewer is worthy of respect? Seems to me you're simply presuming that reviewers know what they're talking about. In a business as full of snake oil as audio, that strikes me as a foolish presumption.


that's a lot of presuming...

how else to form an opinion in the on-line community than by reading? trust and respect are given and earned here as in other social circles...after months (years) of reading someones shared experiences with different products, an opinion, and certain amount of respect is slowly developed...

as always, some more so than others...there are those that i give little credence to, and those whose opinions i value greatly...

it does not happen overnite...and requires LOTS of reading to gain such a level of familiarity

but i wanna know which you put more stock in...statistics or opinion



Why do you want to know this?

hypothetical...

if you finished an hour-long listening session with a pair of speakers (or an amp, or a pre-amp) and were so impressed as to seriously consider purchasing, then you were handed two separate and independent studies showing measurements that proved the equipment in question to be inferior in some respect...

would you still consider buying the item...or strike it from your list of prospects?

Well since nothing is perfect, this implies everything is a compromise. If the two independent measurements show something to be "inferior in some respect", and that respect is something that does not bother me, then sure I'd buy it.

Hypothetical: I listen to a pair of speakers and really like them. I see two sets of measurements showing that the tweeter has a bad breakup at 30kHz. I don't care, I can't hear 30khz (neither can my wife or kids, and I don't have pets).

I think you have to take everything as a compromise, and you have to weigh as much information as possible. Subjective reviews, and objective measurements can both be useful - and they can both be useless.
(OK maybe useless is too strong, lets say of "limited use").

how else to form an opinion in the on-line community than by reading? trust and respect are given and earned here as in other social circles...after months (years) of reading someones shared experiences with different products, an opinion, and certain amount of respect is slowly developed...

as always, some more so than others...there are those that i give little credence to, and those whose opinions i value greatly...
But you still haven't answered the question: On what basis do you decide that some people's ideas are worthy of respect, and other people's ideas are not?

It's been my observation about audiophiles—and psychology suggests this isn't limited to audiophiles—that they gravitate to opinions that conform to their own preconceived ideas. IOW, you don't find people whose opinions you can trust; you find people whose opinions you agree with. But what if your preconceived notions are wrong? How will you ever learn anything?

I would put more weight on the views of Prof James Boyk @ Caltech, working with Prof Gerald Jay Sussman of MIT, and Keith Windstein MIT.
Here is what they said in 2002 about Audio Experiment:

Although modern audio circuitry achieves outstanding performance as defined by easily measured electrical criteria, experienced listeners often report that designs with much poorer measured specifications yield more "musically accurate" sound; or that two designs with almost identical "specs" nevertheless sound different. This anomaly is disturbing to those of us who believe that accurate reproduction of sound must be correlated with accurate reproduction of waveforms. At the same time, we recognize that the mapping of waveform error to perceptual degradation is not understood; so the "anomaly" may be more apparent than real.

Our ignorance of the physical correlates of auditory perception is profound. For example, in every human language, most of the meaning is conveyed in the consonants, but most of the acoustical energy is concentrated in the vowels. This is a suspicious feature to a communications engineer. One would expect that the energy would be concentrated in the part of the signal with the highest information content. We seem to be extremely sensitive to subtle sounds. This is apparent, for instance, in the fact that a human can walk slowly around a darkened room without fear of walking into a wall, because in the region near a wall, a room's background noise has a characteristic sound!

The purpose of our study is to find measurements that correlate with specific perceptual cues, and ways that these measurements are determined by circuit structures or other aspects of design. This knowledge should make possible better recording and playback. We hope that it will also yield important data about the nature of auditory perception.

Our approach is to compare two specially-prepared microphone preamplifiers--both technically excellent, but very different in circuitry--using conventional electrical criteria and also listening tests. We record identical microphone signals, obtained by splitting the output of a single microphone to feed both preamplifiers at once. We record the outputs of the two preamplifiers as two channels using a high-bit digital recorder. The recordings are then compared by careful, blind listening, and are annotated to describe the characteristic features of their sounds. They are also examined using computational tools, to determine the analytic differences between them that might cause the differing perceptions. We then prepare new synthetic recordings in which the sound of each preamplifier is modified, by incorporating specific differences found through computational analysis, in an attempt to make it sound like the other unit. In this way we hope to discover which differences matter to perception and, if possible, correlate particular differences with particular aspects of perception.

In more detail:

We take two mike preamplifiers of different design, both of which have good technical performance. We make two mono recordings by feeding both preamplifiers simultaneously from one microphone. We record these signals in 24-bit format with a 96kHz sampling frequency. One or more experienced listeners audition the recordings and verbally characterize the sonic differences. Notes are made of these comments. It is essential that the recordings--call them P and Q--be reliably distinguishable by the listeners. If this is not the case, either new recordings must be made with better equipment (such as better analog-digital converters); or better playback equipment must be obtained so that the existing recordings can be heard in more detail.

We then study the digital recordings with computer and characterize the differences between them analytically in terms of specific factors like frequency response, etc. We pay special attention to differences noted by the listeners, whether these apply overall or at specific spots. In this part of the work, the test of whether all relevant differences have been found is whether everything has been accounted for down to the level of the background noise.

We then synthesize various new recordings from the originals. One is a recording of the difference between the original P and Q recordings (appropriately time- and level-shifted to make them as close as possible). If P and Q were identical the difference would always be zero and the difference-recording would be totally silent. What one hears instead of silence is interesting! Last June, for instance, we recorded clarinetist Margaret Thornhill; and even the difference recording sounded like a clarinet. This implies that the redundant "clarinet-identifying information" in P, or the deficiency in such information in Q, or the two together, added up to enough information for the clarinet to be identified in the difference recording. As Q itself did not sound obviously *unlike* a clarinet, presumably P had a lot of redundancy. (On the other hand, a listener familiar with Ms. Thornhill's playing could not tell from the difference recording that she was the performer.)

We also create two more new recordings where we use the analytic differences in an attempt to make each preamplifier sound like the other: We apply the individually-characterized differences to the P recording to make it sound like Q; and apply the opposite differences to Q to make it sound like P. This gives four recordings:

P
Q
P masquerading as Q
Q masquerading as P

One or more experienced listeners audition all four to see if they can tell the originals from the masquerades. If P can be told from Q-masquerading-as-P, and Q can be told from P-masquerading-as-Q, that would mean that the masquerades are not good enough. In other words, something not identified in the analysis matters to the sound. Since the analysis was carried out down to the level of background noise, this would mean that perception is affected by something down in the noise. (There's nothing inherently impossible about this.)

If, on the other hand, the masquerades cannot be distinguished from the originals, it means that either the analytic differences do account fully for the subjective difference in sound or the resolution of the playback system isn't adequate for listeners to compare the recordings in enough detail. (Imagine that equipment of outright bad quality were used to play the recordings. Listeners might indeed be unable to tell them apart, but this would not mean they were identical. It would only mean that better playback equipment was needed.)

We also make two other recordings:

P minus (Q-masquerading-as-P)
Q minus (P-masquerading-as-Q)

If removing the analytically-characterized differences from the difference signal-- which is what these recordings do--leaves only background noise, then in one sense everything's been accounted for; but the crucial problem remains of correlating those differences with the differences perceived by listeners and described verbally. When three listeners agree that one recording of soprano has "more tonal depth" than the other, or is "rounder"--as happened in our most recent sessions--what does this mean in terms of measurement? Perhaps another "basis set" of measurements is needed, one which will equally account for the analytic difference while correlating better with perception.

That we're comparing mike preamplifiers is almost accidental. Other components could be compared as easily. The real subject is correlating measurement with perception.

The Caltech Music Lab has a rather nice setup (has a realtime environment comparison between actual instruments and those fed through Mics/amps/etc, and one that is recommended to various large manufacturers.
So they can compare the actual performance between real life sounds/instruments and how they present through an audio chain/system concurrently.

I really should post more about their work as it is scientific with interesting comments, which do not necessarily have the same perspective of a lot of the objective posters we see on AVSForum.

Cheers
DT

I would put more weight on the views of Prof James Boyk @ Caltech, working with Prof Gerald Jay Sussman of MIT, and Keith Windstein MIT.
Here is what they said in 2002 about Audio Experiment:

. . . . .

I really should post more about their work as it is scientific with interesting comments, which do not necessarily have the same perspective of a lot of the objective posters we see on AVSForum.

Cheers
DT

I'd be curious what they found, and how they tried, for example, to make P sound like Q. While we know a fair amount about how the ear brain system works, I suspect that there is a lot more to learn (and I suspect that there are individual differences that might be even more difficult to quantify)

Here is what they said in 2002 about Audio Experiment:

Our ignorance of the physical correlates of auditory perception is profound. For example, in every human language, most of the meaning is conveyed in the consonants, but most of the acoustical energy is concentrated in the vowels. This is a suspicious feature to a communications engineer. One would expect that the energy would be concentrated in the part of the signal with the highest information content. We seem to be extremely sensitive to subtle sounds.

Their ignorance about perception of consonants in language does indeed seem profound. For the most common consonants, it's not just most of the acoustical energy that is concentrated in the vowels, it is all the acoustic energy that is, for no sound at all is produced during voiceless stops. A communication engineer would conclude what from this strange circumstance? Perhaps that there is some subtle non-acoustic channel in use?

What dopes.

Their ignorance about perception of consonants in language does indeed seem profound. For the most common consonants, it's not just most of the acoustical energy that is concentrated in the vowels, it is all the acoustic energy that is, for no sound at all is produced during voiceless stops. A communication engineer would conclude what from this strange circumstance? Perhaps that there is some subtle non-acoustic channel in use?

What dopes.

I can assume your a member of HA?

I find it amusing your calling the Director of Caltech Music Lab for over 20 years and Gerald Jay Sussman dopes :)

Of course I can tell by your response that your academic and professional background must be superior to both of them.
So please why not share it.

DT

I'd be curious what they found, and how they tried, for example, to make P sound like Q. While we know a fair amount about how the ear brain system works, I suspect that there is a lot more to learn (and I suspect that there are individual differences that might be even more difficult to quantify)

Unfortunately IMO we do not know enough about the ear/brain system and how it works, just look at the ongoing research at the Music Lab of Center of Complex Sciences and Brain Sciences.

Also MIT have done further funded research (National Institutes of Health)into the way the ear works, which looks to move beyond the current assumptions:


MIT researchers have discovered a hearing mechanism that fundamentally changes the current understanding of inner ear function. This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds. Its discovery could eventually lead to improved systems for restoring hearing.

The research is described in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of October 8.

MIT Professor Dennis M. Freeman, working with graduate student Roozbeh Ghaffari and research scientist Alexander J. Aranyosi, found that the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure inside the cochlea of the ear, is much more important to hearing than previously thought. It can selectively pick up and transmit energy to different parts of the cochlea via a kind of wave that is different from that commonly associated with hearing.

Ghaffari, the lead author of the paper, is in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, as is Freeman. All three researchers are in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Freeman is also in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

It has been known for over half a century that inside the cochlea sound waves are translated into up-and-down waves that travel along a structure called the basilar membrane. But the team has now found that a different kind of wave, a traveling wave that moves from side to side, can also carry sound energy. This wave moves along the tectorial membrane, which is situated directly above the sensory hair cells that transmit sounds to the brain. This second wave mechanism is poised to play a crucial role in delivering sound signals to these hair cells.

In short, the ear can mechanically translate sounds into two different kinds of wave motion at once. These waves can interact to excite the hair cells and enhance their sensitivity, "which may help explain how we hear sounds as quiet as whispers," says Aranyosi. The interactions between these two wave mechanisms may be a key part of how we are able to hear with such fidelity - for example, knowing when a single instrument in an orchestra is out of tune.

"We know the ear is enormously sensitive" in its ability to discriminate between different kinds of sound, Freeman says. "We don't know the mechanism that lets it do that." The new work has revealed "a whole new mechanism that nobody had thought of. It's really a very different way of looking at things."

The tectorial membrane is difficult to study because it is small (the entire length could fit inside a one-inch piece of human hair), fragile (it is 97 percent water, with a consistency similar to that of a jellyfish), and nearly transparent. In addition, sound vibrations cause nanometer-scale displacements of cochlear structures at audio frequencies. "We had to develop an entirely new class of measurement tools for the nano-scale regime," Ghaffari says.

The team learned about the new wave mechanism by suspending an isolated piece of tectorial membrane between two supports, one fixed and one moveable. They launched waves at audio frequencies along the membrane and watched how it responded by using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in Freeman's lab. That system can measure nanometer-scale displacements at frequencies up to a million cycles per second.

The team's discovery has implications for how we model cochlear mechanisms. "In the long run, this could affect the design of hearing aids and cochlear implants," says Ghaffari. The research also has implications for inherited forms of hearing loss that affect the tectorial membrane. Previous measurements of cochlear function in mouse models of these diseases "are consistent with disruptions of this second wave," Aranyosi adds.

Because the tectorial membrane is so tiny and so fragile, people "tend to think of it as something that's wimpy and not important," Freeman says. "Well, it's not wimpy at all." The new discovery "that it can transport energy throughout the cochlea is very significant, and it's not something that's intuitive."

Source: MIT


TBH Dknightd I have held off sharing a lot of info as a lot of the "objectivist" posters here as you can see just like to put down anything that does not agree with their views, even if it is done by those who have no axe to grind (IMO that can only be academic research) and as far as I am concerned more knowledgeable than these posters here.
Ironically I also have research news showing exactly why placebo effects work and why it has affected DBT medical tests, but I am sure yet again it would suffer insults and be taken out of context or twisted by some, again this does not fit into the argument/perspective as it is used by "objectivist" posters on this forum.

Hence why I have an axe to grind with these objectivists who post in such a way to promote their "knowledge" greater than these who are spending a lot of time doing the research.
This is not directed at you, but due to the usual classic response we have already seen with them naming two professors at Caltech and MIT as dopes.

Cheers
DT

Of course I can tell by your response that your academic and professional background must be superior to both of them.
So please why not share it.

I'd much rather get you to think about these subtle perceptual cues lurking hidden inside consonants like p/t/k which allow us to distinguish them. Does this make any sense to you at all, even when it comes from an MIT professor? After the beginning and until the end of those consonants, no sound is produced. How can sound be used to distinguish such consonants when there is no sound there?

Actually, consonants are distinguished by place of articulation through differences in the surrounding vowels. If your favorite MIT guys find it mysterious, all they'd have to do is walk over to the linguistics department and get a tutorial from an acoustic phonetician. It is a pretty well-studied phenomenon.

I'd much rather get you to think about these subtle perceptual cues lurking hidden inside consonants like p/t/k which allow us to distinguish them. Does this make any sense to you at all, even when it comes from an MIT professor? After the beginning and until the end of those consonants, no sound is produced. How can sound be used to distinguish such consonants when there is no sound there?

Actually, consonants are distinguished by place of articulation through differences in the surrounding vowels. If your favorite MIT guys find it mysterious, all they'd have to do is walk over to the linguistics department and get a tutorial from an acoustic phonetician. It is a pretty well-studied phenomenon.

You still have not answered the question to what your academic background (research I assume) and your work is.
So, please let us know what your background is to be able to disagree with them, apart from being an HA member (only assuming that by the way you post and not provide actual facts to back up why they are wrong).

Looking forward to what you can provide on your background, at least this will help to put your knowledge into context.

DT

Looking forward to what you can provide on your background, at least this will help to put your knowledge into context.

I'm a linguist. What does "HA" mean?

i'm still not quite sure where either of you stand...

They stand in the middle, they let common sense drive their decisions ;)


Some people can buy based on listening alone, some people can buy based on measurements, data alone. I can buy both ways :D

But in the end I always will look at the data, specs, measurements to validate anything I buy and to laugh at other purchases ;)


Its up to you on how you spend your money, you have to decide if you are simply a subjective person or are you an objective person.


btw, a listening review posted by anyone with out validation (Proper Measurements/data) is worth no more then cow dung and Im always amazed that people actually BELIEVE those reviews so much they use them as facts :eek:

that's a lot of presuming...

how else to form an opinion in the on-line community than by reading? trust and respect are given and earned here as in other social circles...after months (years) of reading someones shared experiences with different products, an opinion, and certain amount of respect is slowly developed...

as always, some more so than others...there are those that i give little credence to, and those whose opinions i value greatly...

it does not happen overnite...and requires LOTS of reading to gain such a level of familiarity


Why not just ask for and look for measurements??? Ask anyone that posts subjective opinion to validate with measurements. If they can't then just ignore their opinion.

Reading and "trusting" people is a horrible idea, if anything history has proven there are more con artists in the game then you would think...Does the name Madoff ring a bell with you? Just think of all the people that over the years followed, respected and trusted that guy.....then just realize how much he screwed everyone.

Its simple with me. If I hear or read something that has zero science validating it, I will only believe 10% of what I see and 5% of what I hear!! Scientific validation is needed to actually make any conclusions.

But you still haven't answered the question: On what basis do you decide that some people's ideas are worthy of respect, and other people's ideas are not?

It's been my observation about audiophiles—and psychology suggests this isn't limited to audiophiles—that they gravitate to opinions that conform to their own preconceived ideas. IOW, you don't find people whose opinions you can trust; you find people whose opinions you agree with. But what if your preconceived notions are wrong? How will you ever learn anything?



criminy...

i thought i did that in the post you quoted

let me get more specific...

zissou has a thread concerning "best sounding pre-pros"...right off the bat, i read with interest, but i didn't put a lotta stock in his opinions...i hadn't yet formed my "opinion" of HIS opinions...

after much "reading" (it's a long thread) his experiences, thought processes, testing criteria, some biases, etc. are revealed...before you know it...BAM...
an opinion is formed

i have no experience with the majority of items tested, and therefore no opinions or preconceived ideas with which his would conform...

i'm not saying everything zissou or craigsub says is gospel...but i value their "opinions" enough (and those of others that i've become familiar with) to give them serious consideration were i buying an item they have had experience with...


psychology and gravitating?...please

criminy...

i thought i did that in the post you quoted

let me get more specific...

zissou has a thread concerning "best sounding pre-pros"...right off the bat, i read with interest, but i didn't put a lotta stock in his opinions...i hadn't yet formed my "opinion" of HIS opinions...

after much "reading" (it's a long thread) his experiences, thought processes, testing criteria, some biases, etc. are revealed...before you know it...BAM...
an opinion is formed

i have no experience with the majority of items tested, and therefore no opinions or preconceived ideas with which his would conform...

i'm not saying everything zissou or craigsub says is gospel...but i value their "opinions" enough (and those of others that i've become familiar with) to give them serious consideration were i buying an item they have had experience with...


psychology and gravitating?...please


Craigsub does have some output data and subs have measurements to back them up. Craig also had several people involved with the subjective opinion side of the sub rankings.

Zissou's thread is extremely subjective (actually beyond extreme, its 100% subjective) and a complete waste of time from my point of view, IMO!!

Again, I wouldnt value opinion unless its validated. It sounds like you do not put much weight into the measurements or even the science behind audio.....Yet? ;)

zissou has a thread concerning "best sounding pre-pros"...right off the bat, i read with interest, but i didn't put a lotta stock in his opinions...i hadn't yet formed my "opinion" of HIS opinions...

after much "reading" (it's a long thread) his experiences, thought processes, testing criteria, some biases, etc. are revealed...before you know it...BAM...
an opinion is formed
IOW, your assessment of someone's credibility is based solely on what he says, with no external validation whatsoever? You just keep reading him until you decide one day that you're going to believe what he says?

That doesn't strike me as a particularly useful approach to gaining knowledge.

I'm a linguist. What does "HA" mean?

Then I apologise for assuming your a member of Hydrogenaudio, but your style of posting would do most of those members proud.

I am surprised as a linguist that you disagree so strongly.

Do you agree or disagree with the fact most of the human vocal energy is at lower frequencies, where it is vowels and not consonents that have their energy?

If you agree with that, then what Prof Boyk is saying makes perfect sense.
If you disagree then you are disputing what a lot of others also state as I can find reference material supporting Boyk, and not your disagreement (which you did not outline apart from calling them dopes).

Just to make it clear how Prof Boyk looks to me to be correct with his statement, here is a snapshot of an article done by those who are involved with speech and hearing products, this is aside from the point above with regards to where the majority of vocal energy is in the FR.


Speech signals are particularly affected by the decreased capacity of information transmission with sensorineural hearing loss because speech signals spread over a wide range in both intensity and frequency. Of the two major elements of speech sounds, the vowels are less affected, because they are relatively long and intense, and have energy concentrated at low frequencies. Consonants, on the other hand, are more affected in their perception, because they are short and soft, and typically have energy spread over a wide frequency range. This is unfortunate, because consonant recognition is key to speech understanding.

And yes all of this is important to telecomms, but that is a seperate discussion and already moving away from what could had been useful information that was initially provided in this thread by me.
So thanks for
a) abusing and name calling 2 research Professors at Caltech and MIT
b) creating a situation where the information provided is correct and of actual interest but now is lost amongst the need to correct you.

DT

So thanks for
a) abusing and name calling 2 research Professors at Caltech and MIT
James Boyk is not and never was a "research professor at Cal Tech." Furthermore, he has no academic training in either electrical engineering or psychoacoustics. If you want to argue from authority, DT, the first thing you need to do is find one. Boyk ain't it.

Do you agree or disagree with the fact most of the human vocal energy is at lower frequencies, where it is vowels and not consonents that have their energy?

I would have to be able to make sense of this, before I could agree or disagree. I just wonder whether you were listening when I just explained to you why consonants are not distinguished by "their energy", because in an important class of cases, they don't have any energy.

IOW, your assessment of someone's credibility is based solely on what he says, with no external validation whatsoever? You just keep reading him until you decide one day that you're going to believe what he says?

That doesn't strike me as a particularly useful approach to gaining knowledge.



oh fer cryin' out loud...

[QUOTE=mcnarus;16518763]But you still haven't answered the question: On what basis do you decide that some people's ideas are worthy of respect, and other people's ideas are not?

QUOTE]

well, for me I start with the assumption based upon my own observation that there are often subtle differences between the sound of different components--when I play a cd through my denon 5910 vs my sony bdp 5000 vs the sony cdr--all via the same rest of the system--they all sound a bit different to me. thus, the first step is to believe that a difference between teh components is possible and not just my imagination but i suppose that point is up for debate.

second, what I look for in reviews is not for them to tell me everything subtly wrong with the player but how the reviewer characterizes the sound compared to other reviews he or she has done in the past based on their experience, listening tastes, and their system. Thus, whether we have similar sound preferences is irrelevant--what I want to know is what they think about the review sample compared to what I know of them from past reviews and how this piece sounds in their opinion in general terms. anything that is bright, harsh, cold, analytical, etc...is not likely to go well in my system based on my listening tastes.

And then there are the measurements--do they match the listening review or not--i remember once reading a review of a cable in stereophile where the reviewer liked it but the testing showed it to be nearly non-functional. that provided a good deal of info about the review, reviewer, and the product.

And then there is experience with the rag and reviewer--comparing my listening results to what reviewers have said gives me some means of comparison--reading how a reviewer looks at a product (lets take mikey fremer and teh focal 1037 be). I have heard that speaker many times and based on how he reviewed it and my own experience with the speaker I can gague what his opinion of a piece of gear is likely to mean to me.

Of course none of this is foolproof. One review by itself doesn't mean much but a group of reviews can give me an idea of the bounds of opinion on the gear and that combined with measurements gives a fuller picture.l finally combine this with an in-person listening eval and you get a pretty good idea of what you're looking at.

so one might wonder why bother with the reviews at all? wel, sometimes certain types of music dont work well with certain speakers or the like--having a range of opinions using more diverse listening tests can help ensure that you're not missing something.

anyway, thats my take on it. certainly how things sound to me matters most but I do value reading objective test data and incorporating the opinions of others into my buying decisions--whether I agree with them or not.

I started out (long ago) buying things I heard in a store. Later, I bought an SVS cylinder sub for over $1000 un-heard and un-seen. I went by numerous people's opinions and experiences in the sub forum. Basically, a culmination of positive reviews helped to sway me. But, what really mattered was that I had a perfect place for a sub that size in my room that kept it hidden.

Before then, I had purchased an all digital Panasonic 6.1 AVR based on a few positive reviews (it was new at the time and I wanted to try an all digital amp). I also have purchased new HK receivers based on previous HK experience -- I already knew I liked their sound (and looks). The ultimate decision of which model were specs and price. No reviews were necessary.

So, I have purchased things I've heard first hand in showrooms, things I've read about (reviews) and things I know from reputation. Nothing has yet disappointed me.

One thing I will say about high end "audiophile" reviews, is that they tend to be pompous and pretty much worthless. How an amp "really" sounds is more dependent upon the speakers and the acoustics of the room, than which wires and transport were used -- though all of that gets mentioned. And they are not likely going to hit too hard a piece of equipment advertised in their magazine or on their web site.

To make my Panny sound good I needed different speakers than the ones I drive with my HK. I have since chosen speakers to match the AVR and fit the room, and both sound great now.

As for specs, you soon learn how to read what is given, but what is left out matters even more.

Why not just ask for and look for measurements??? Ask anyone that posts subjective opinion to validate with measurements. If they can't then just ignore their opinion.

Reading and "trusting" people is a horrible idea, if anything history has proven there are more con artists in the game then you would think...Does the name Madoff ring a bell with you? Just think of all the people that over the years followed, respected and trusted that guy.....then just realize how much he screwed everyone.

Its simple with me. If I hear or read something that has zero science validating it, I will only believe 10% of what I see and 5% of what I hear!! Scientific validation is needed to actually make any conclusions.



well...measurements give me an idea of build quality and design competence...don't get me wrong, those ARE important to me and i DO take them into account, but i certainly would NOT make a buying decision simply because one component had better measurements in one area or another...

opinions of those that have owned or had extensive hands-on experience with those components...now THAT gets my motor running


Madoff?


c'mon...

James Boyk is not and never was a "research professor at Cal Tech." Furthermore, he has no academic training in either electrical engineering or psychoacoustics. If you want to argue from authority, DT, the first thing you need to do is find one. Boyk ain't it.

That is the type of response I expect from you Mcnarus, and stands with what I said on how the objectivist posters here on AVSForum that really put down those with more knowledge and if their perspective or point of view differs.
You really have no idea who he is.
He has more training/experience than any objectivists here, but please why not share your background with work and academic?

Unlike you, he is a classically trained pianist (was lucky to hear him many years ago when visiting an R&D center of a leading technology company in the area), he is also a recording engineer with more background and commercial background than ArnyK who you seem to love, and yes he does have an engineering background.

The level of slander from objectivists on this forum is beyond a joke these days, and sadly it is becoming worse.

I am not going to bother arguing with you or Greg who is now doing the objectivist approach of QQQ in another thread that was wriggly room lawyer type posting.
Funny enough I have been reading that approach of some of you posters both at Stereophile and HA recently, and the conclusion is that you guys really like to push that your knowledge is superb, when in reality you just live with assumptions, and only assumptions that fit your agenda/view.

Just to show how much ******** you posted, here is a bit of background of Boyk, from Caltech (not his own posting).

Lecturer in Music, in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, 1979-2005
Furthermore he was the director of the Caltech music lab for 25 years.
Furthermore is work background started in electical engineering.
What does that background mean?
Well for people who may be a bit biased in their posting like you Mcnarus, it means he is working on the study of music within the electronic world; amps/preamps/DACs/measuring tools development/etc.
Err, that is electronic engineering, so no idea what your view of electronic engineering is...
Oh its to support everything ArnyK says, funny though I did not see ArnyK doing the same sort of work at university.
Also another mistake by yourself and again slander.
Boyk HAS done funded research, sadly though your not happy because he does not run to AES with everything he does :rolleyes:

And if you even bothered to look at any of his papers (if you could even find them because frankly it seems objective posters here seem to be pretty lax on investigative work) you would notice he has an incredible in-depth knowledge of electric engineering.

The sad thing from all this, why the F$$$ should I even bother posting papers that others would find incredibly useful when dumbass posters ruin it with what can be called slander, and an incredible lack of knowledge.

So as you seem so critical of him.
Please mcnarus, share YOUR background of education and work, looking forward to see that it does not compare (an assumption by me but one I am sure is pretty spot on).

BTW please tell us WHO are the authority that you mention in your posting, you,HydrogenAudio posters?

DT

I would have to be able to make sense of this, before I could agree or disagree. I just wonder whether you were listening when I just explained to you why consonants are not distinguished by "their energy", because in an important class of cases, they don't have any energy.

I think you do not understand the comment then by Boyk, or your now backtracking on what you said.
BTW I notice you did not disagree with the quote I provided, that is saying the same as Boyk.

So I guess we are now seeing wriggly room laywer posting as I like to call it when an objectivist is started to prove wrong, and tries to wriggle out of their original comment.
This raises the question who is the dope, the one who is accused of being a dope or the one doing the name calling?

DT

Just for the entertainment of others.
If you have the time take a look out the approach of "objectivist" posters in these links, some have links to here.
The style of posting and attitude/wriggling is exactly what I see from Greg and Mcnarus.

John Atkinson correcting those on HA.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=71245&st=1025

99% of objectivists screwed up when analysing/testing/putting forward a cohesive argument about the merits of demag LPs
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&an=0&page=0#Post63963

To help put that last link into perspective, here is another link showing another company that changed their manufacturing process of LPs to overcome the issues identified by Furutech, who the objectivists on Stereophile did not know about or actually think was possible.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue40/clarity_records.htm

Interestingly, this has more weight than any views put forward by the objectivists who post here and there, when you consider they are not selling mega bucks hardware, but changed the manufacturing process of their best LPs to resolve what Furutech identified as a problem.

Anyway, no need for me to post anymore here, as I know Mcnarus and greg will be forced for some reason to do their wriggle room posting, because that is just how objectivist posters seem to react here/HA/Stereophile.

Summary; take what Mcnaurs/greg/most other "self proclaimed objectivist" say with a pinch of salt.

DT

well...measurements give me an idea of build quality and design competence...don't get me wrong, those ARE important to me and i DO take them into account, but i certainly would NOT make a buying decision simply because one component had better measurements in one area or another...

opinions of those that have owned or had extensive hands-on experience with those components...now THAT gets my motor running


Madoff?


c'mon...



The Madoff point is important here because you believe track records, extensive hands on experience matters even when they never provide scientific data to backup their opinion. Just like thousands who followed Madoff for years ;)

You say posts with lots of subjective analysis gets your motor running and that is fine but its a dangerous way to make decisions IMO. Again, if the subjective analysis isnt backed by a shred of objective data it should be ignored and I do not care if the guy has been doing it for years and years. He won't get any respect from me because I know too many people "out to sell something" instead of out there educating everyone on how to make better decisions for themselves.

btw, measurements can also actually tell you how something sounds. You just need to get the right measurements done and that isnt very easy yet in the world of audio.


The future is buy based on measurements/specs, test in home, return if not good so people better start to understand measurements and specs better or everyone should buy stocks on UPS ;)

James Boyk is not and never was a "research professor at Cal Tech." Furthermore, he has no academic training in either electrical engineering or psychoacoustics. If you want to argue from authority, DT, the first thing you need to do is find one. Boyk ain't it.

Why doesnt DulcetTones read papers or quote anything from Geddes, Toole, Linkwitz, Welti??

Mcnarus.
As Boyk has no standing in electical engineering (according to you), or with the "authority" (who I assume you will name for us here), I am sure you will manage to criticise in detail the following paper.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~musiclab/feedback-paper-acrobat.pdf

Of course I am sure you will find small issues with the paper, without providing the maths or in-detail engineering issues you have with it.

DT

Why doesnt DulcetTones read papers or quote anything from Geddes, Toole, Linkwitz, Welti??

I have thanks, whats the point in posting them when they are mentioned every other day by you or mcnarus :)
However I mentioned Linkwitz early on when I joined this forum, and was told that he didnt know much from some of the objectivist posters here.
Go figure eh.
It is only recently that the trend is to go on about Linkwitz as a force of knowledge it seems.

Edit:
BTW you miss other important paper writers, such as Walt Jung, but then not everyone knows who he is unless you follow engineering closely, then there is Dunn as well, amongst many other respected engineers/professors.
Anyway, do you really think it is that easy to become a professor or a director of a lab at Caltech or MIT?

We can all use papers we want to push our views, the only conclusion though as I have said many times is that there are no absolutes yet, sadly which is ignored by you and other objectivists.

DT

I have thanks, whats the point in posting them when they are mentioned every other day by you or mcnarus :)
However I mentioned Linkwitz early on when I joined this forum, and was told that he didnt know much from some of the objectivist posters here..
Go figure eh.

DT

Go figure :D

I do not know them all, I simple read the ones that are important to me and what projects I work on.

EDIT
btw, DT I sometimes can not figure out what side of the fence you are on. Honestly, I think you argue more with McNarus or others just to argue.

Why doesnt DulcetTones read papers or quote anything from Geddes, Toole, Linkwitz, Welti??

Oh and regarding audio perception, if I want to follow the latest advancements on perception and music and rythm (not sounds) I like to use another academic lab:
http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~large/

So Boyk does audio/music perception with electronics, while Large does audio/music perception with the brain.
Who do you read for modern research started after 2000, or doing research into either of these areas from the 80s onwards to date?

DT

The Madoff point is important here because you believe track records, extensive hands on experience matters even when they never provide scientific data to backup their opinion. Just like thousands who followed Madoff for years ;)

You say posts with lots of subjective analysis gets your motor running and that is fine but its a dangerous way to make decisions IMO. Again, if the subjective analysis isnt backed by a shred of objective data it should be ignored and I do not care if the guy has been doing it for years and years. He won't get any respect from me because I know too many people "out to sell something" instead of out there educating everyone on how to make better decisions for themselves.

btw, measurements can also actually tell you how something sounds. You just need to get the right measurements done and that isnt very easy yet in the world of audio.


The future is buy based on measurements/specs, test in home, return if not good so people better start to understand measurements and specs better or everyone should buy stocks on UPS ;)



wait just a minute...

if we're buying based on measurements/specs, why would we ever have to "return if not good"...;)

wait just a minute...

if we're buying based on measurements/specs, why would we ever have to "return if not good"...;)

because the measurements may not be good enough or you may not realize what you like isnt what you think ;)

I find it funny you question and debate measurements/specs more then you would some unknown person's subjective review. Very strange IMO but its your money and you can waste as you please like the rest of us ;)

Oh and regarding audio perception, if I want to follow the latest advancements on perception and music and rythm (not sounds) I like to use another academic lab:
http://www.ccs.fau.edu/~large/

So Boyk does audio/music perception with electronics, while Large does audio/music perception with the brain.
Who do you read for modern research started after 2000, or doing research into either of these areas from the 80s onwards to date?

DT


Thats cool, I do not follow or read research from any of these guys. If they do not build speakers/design rooms I care little about them since my projects are all about building speakers, buying equipment and testing stuff.

Nor do I argue for/against what their opinion is. I simply will state that opinion based 100% on subjective hearing and ZERO percent on quantitative analysis isn't validated opinion and therefore should be treated as such (or ignored actually!)

because the measurements may not be good enough or you may not realize what you like isnt what you think ;)

I find it funny you question and debate measurements/specs more then you would some unknown person's subjective review. Very strange IMO but its your money and you can waste as you please like the rest of us ;)




ohhh...ok...got it

Go figure :D

I do not know them all, I simple read the ones that are important to me and what projects I work on.

EDIT
btw, DT I sometimes can not figure out what side of the fence you are on. Honestly, I think you argue more with McNarus or others just to argue.

Heh, I put it as "we all have an axe to grind, unless coming from academic research".
My axe is the attitude of some who call themselves self-proclaimed objectivists who without thinking put down theories/papers or their authors without actually considering and looking to investigate further.
This is compounded when they post as if suggesting they know more than these who are studying the subject; clear case example is the two professors at Caltech and MIT that Mcnarus and Greg take chomps at.

In summary:
I argue with those who put down articles/experts who do not fit their own POV and their only argument back are insults or vague comments/suggestions.

Cheers
DT

ohhh...ok...got it

okay, I have to ask what was the point of this thread??? You seem to have a pre-formed opinion on how you would shop for audio gear and it seems you are reluctant to agree with anything we post so what was your goal?

Heh, I put it as "we all have an axe to grind, unless coming from academic research".
My axe is the attitude of some who call themselves self-proclaimed objectivists who without thinking put down theories/papers or their authors without actually considering and looking to investigate further.
This is compounded when they post as if suggesting they know more than these who are studying the subject; clear case example is the two professors at Caltech and MIT that Mcnarus and Greg take chomps at.

In summary:
I argue with those who put down articles/experts who do not fit their own POV and their only argument back are insults or vague comments/suggestions.

Cheers
DT

Thats fine, Im all for research but are you saying that PhD out there have done studies to prove that simple testing using our hearing in non-controlled environments are okay??

okay, I have to ask what was the point of this thread??? You seem to have a pre-formed opinion on how you would shop for audio gear and it seems you are reluctant to agree with anything we post so what was your goal?
He can be interested in your opinion without being obligated to agree with it, can't he?

Thats fine, Im all for research but are you saying that PhD out there have done studies to prove that simple testing using our hearing in non-controlled environments are okay??

Heh this is quite amusing.
Linkwitz links two of Boyk's articles from his site under links.
It would be surprising that someone as respected as Linkwitz (even you mentioned him), would link articles by someone who is not good in their field.
In fact for one of the articles (its an older one), Linkwitz states of Boyk:
This article is an excellent look at human perception when trying to evaluate new versus old technology.

BTW, a PhD is not the same as being a professor at a technical college is it?

I am saying that a lot of what objectivist use as conclusions are from from it, and this can be proved if taking on board other experts that I have also named (and others that neither of us have), and reading their papers/articles/expressed POVs.
I am also saying it is becoming tiresome how objectivists are anything but that when they put down those with more knowledge (by this I do not mean me, but those in academic research/labs) than themselves and do papers that are not with their views.

Remember this all started with Greg calling the professors dopes, then when I responded pointed out how he was wrong with his 1st appraisal we then get Mcnarus also jumping in saying those 2 professors are not "the authority" on their subject.
I guess this raises penngray, that it was actually them who argued by blatantly putting down these two (and also with false facts that could be deemed to be slander) that forced me to respond because it looks like what I posted does not fit into their comfort zone, or they want to suggest these do not know what they are doing even though they are professors in their engineering depts.

Cheers
DT

He can be interested in your opinion without being obligated to agree with it, can't he?

Sure but if he already has made of his mind about how to do things....why the Just askin' thread and then all the disagreeing. If he really wants to debate it then just state his position from the start, I only know his position from all his post disagreeing with many other posts.

btw, there is a way to show interest...he has shown really none actually ;)

Heh this is quite amusing.
Linkwitz links two of Boyk's articles from his site under links.
It would be surprising that someone as respected as Linkwitz (even you mentioned him), would link articles by someone who is not good in their field.
In fact for one of the articles (its an older one), Linkwitz states of Boyk:


BTW, a PhD is not the same as being a professor at a technical college is it?

I am saying that a lot of what objectivist use as conclusions are from from it, and this can be proved if taking on board other experts that I have also named (and others that neither of us have), and reading their papers/articles/expressed POVs.
I am also saying it is becoming tiresome how objectivists are anything but that when they put down those with more knowledge (by this I do not mean me, but those in academic research/labs) than themselves and do papers that are not with their views.

Remember this all started with Greg calling the professors dopes, then when I responded pointed out how he was wrong with his 1st appraisal we then get Mcnarus also jumping in saying those 2 professors are not "the authority" on their subject.
I guess this raises penngray, that it was actually them who argued by blatantly putting down these two (and also with false facts that could be deemed to be slander) that forced me to respond because it looks like what I posted does not fit into their comfort zone, or they want to suggest these do not know what they are doing even though they are professors in their engineering depts.

Cheers
DT


IMO, I didnt think you could really be called a professor anywhere without a PhD, Teachers are people without PhDs, Im married to a PhD, I have PhDs on all sides of me where I live. I get to enjoy the PhD world sometimes a little too much :eek:

Outside of your angst against people you call "objectivists", what is your position?

Do you believe in your own ears? Do you believe scientific proof is needed? Do you believe measurements are important to validate any opinion?

I guess this raises penngray, that it was actually them who argued by blatantly putting down these two (and also with false facts that could be deemed to be slander) ...
False facts? Slander? Hey, pal, the views you quoted about perception of consonants were seriously in error. I explained to you why. I gave no false facts. But there is no relevance to the topic of this thread. It was just a matter of a couple of engineers making an analogy way outside their expertise and getting it all wrong. It's not a surprising mistake, but they really should have checked it before embarrassing themselves.

Sure but if he already has made of his mind about how to do things....why the Just askin' thread and then all the disagreeing. If he really wants to debate it then just state his position from the start, I only know his position from all his post disagreeing with many other posts.

btw, there is a way to show interest...he has shown really none actually ;)



sorry...didn't mean to come across that way...

i guess the "reading and trusting someone is horrible" and "cowdung" comments kinda put me on the defensive...

sorry...didn't mean to come across that way...

i guess the "reading and trusting someone is horrible" and "cowdung" comments kinda put me on the defensive...

If they did put you on the defensive then you did have your mind made up before this thread.

Alone, they are cowdung (sorry if that offends)...if there is no validation of the opinion then the opinion is worthless. Its not an insult to anyone its just the way good decisions are made.

Subjective experiences can create excitement because they tend to have lots of fluffy words to describe the experience and if that is what someone wants that go ahead but you will be just like the BOSE, Monster, Expensive cable owners of the world and know little about the truth.

This discussion always reminds of how good BOSE is at selling its product. Its a perfect example of why people should stop reading/listening to subjective reviews! Heck put Monster on that list, put all the high end cable/speaker wire/power cable scams out there too....the list goes on and on. One common element to them all is that they all use 100% subjective BS, word/data twisting reviews to convince people that the products are worth it, sadly too many people still fall for this stuff. :(

Amazingly Audio can still be in the same delusional category as Diet Drugs, UFOs, Male enlargement products, etc.....

Why can we not have Audio evolve to something that is more meaningful and helpful to everyone involved?

IMO, I didnt think you could really be called a professor anywhere without a PhD, Teachers are people without PhDs, in my books and Im married to a PhD, I have PhDs on all sides of me where I live.

Outside of your angst against people you call "objectivists", what is your position?

Do you believe in your own ears? Do you believe scientific proof is needed? Do you believe measurements are important to validate any opinion?

Hey I aint against all objectivists, as much as it may surprise you there are a few I have a lot of respect for here and at Stereophile that disagree with my perspective, but it should be pretty obvious which ones I have an axe to grind with.

I believe there is a balance between what we hear, with a lot of weight from research, measurements we currently use I am really not convinced about but we have nothing else, also I do not believe we have absolutes.
I am sure you have experienced times when the bias affect is wrong, or the fact the louder sounding system is best does not occur.
Both of these have happened to me, but I do not ignore the fact research does show bias can have affect as can other research suggesting the louder device can be perceived as better and should always be considered.
The difference with me is "can" and not necessarily "must".

I have many lists of experiences either with myself or watching others that break the rules that are applied to subjective testing, however this does not mean I ignore the finding of those papers, just that it tells me there is a balance, or in summary not absolutes for all people or all situations/times.
Meaning I am a believer that further research is required in a lot of the areas.

If you want an example of my position with regards to this thread, then I think it must be a combination of specification/design and associated measurements (such as behaviour at 8ohms/4ohms), and strict listening.
For myself I tested 10 amps over a period at home, of those in a DBT I would say 7 of those would have the same results (failed to identify), the other 3 that had better engineering/specification could be identified clearly but I would only say IF compared to one of the 7 weaker spec amps (this is a summary when saying weaker spec and was more complex than that).
So a DBT would have a massive chance of failing unless I took one of the 3 excellent amps and DBT against one of the 7 "weaker" amps.
Again with regards to the 3 excellent amps, only 1 of those could be differentiated to another excellent one, so again there is a high chance of DBT failure.

And critically the blind test relies upon the technique of selecting specific music that caused an emphasis of a negative characteristic from the speaker.
The examples I use is Goldfrapp Seventh Tree that has masking hiss, and American IV by Johny Cash on Hurt (has a strong breakup at a certain section of the music with most amps with the selected speaker).

So as you can see the only way I can pass a test was to use a specific speaker and spend much time with it and an average amp to identify negative characteristics, and then make those problems worse by using specific music that aggravates the issue, on top of that I need to go through a lot of amps from average and working my way up the chain of build quality/specification until I reached a point where the issues became much less noticable.
This is not how DBT are done because in a way I am using very specific music and hardware that could be argued is either flawed or "engineers" the situation to identify a difference, and I am selecting the amps.
With regards to measurements you would expect there to be no difference noticed but there is, anyway that is just one example.

So how did I select my amp?
I selected the one by strict listening; primarily passes the negative issues I pick up on like those example of Goldfrapp and Johny Cash , and then select what provided the "feeling" at both low and medium/loud volumes.
This is subjective, but at two different levels of subjective listening, with the second more lax listening stage being highly unreliable in terms of subjective listening.

So I think we can all state as IMO what we hear, but if you want to post as fact it requires research to back it up, and so far we still have not reached IMO the level to have an absolute conclusive meaning.
But like how its been pointed out that the hearing mechanism in 2007 by MIT was more complex than original thought by many articles/papers, this was funded research.
This is why I find it interesting what I posted with regards to Boyk originally and his POV with regards to measurements and hearing perception.

Cheers
DT

False facts? Slander? Hey, pal, the views you quoted about perception of consonants were seriously in error. I explained to you why. I gave no false facts. But there is no relevance to the topic of this thread. It was just a matter of a couple of engineers making an analogy way outside their expertise and getting it all wrong. It's not a surprising mistake, but they really should have checked it before embarrassing themselves.

Lets take this one step at a time to prove the point.
Do you agree with the following that has nothing to do with Boyk:

Speech signals are particularly affected by the decreased capacity of information transmission with sensorineural hearing loss because speech signals spread over a wide range in both intensity and frequency. Of the two major elements of speech sounds, the vowels are less affected, because they are relatively long and intense, and have energy concentrated at low frequencies. Consonants, on the other hand, are more affected in their perception, because they are short and soft, and typically have energy spread over a wide frequency range. This is unfortunate, because consonant recognition is key to speech understanding.

Do you need a chart to show this as well?
Because this is exactly what Boyk is talking about, as he states:
For example, in every human language, most of the meaning is conveyed in the consonants, but most of the acoustical energy is concentrated in the vowels. This is a suspicious feature to a communications engineer.

Notice it lines up with the quote above that has nothing to do with him.
And I am not going to get into an argument why you do not understand why it is important to telecomms.

DT

If they did put you on the defensive then you did have your mind made up before this thread.

Alone, they are cowdung (sorry if that offends)...if there is no validation of the opinion then the opinion is worthless. Its not an insult to anyone its just the way good decisions are made.

Subjective experiences can create excitement because they tend to have lots of fluffy words to describe the experience and if that is what someone wants that go ahead but you will be just like the BOSE, Monster, Expensive cable owners of the world and know little about the truth.

This discussion always reminds of how good BOSE is at selling its product. Its a perfect example of why people should stop reading/listening to subjective reviews! Heck put Monster on that list, put all the high end cable/speaker wire/power cable scams out there too....the list goes on and on. One common element to them all is that they all use 100% subjective BS, word/data twisting reviews to convince people that the products are worth it, sadly too many people still fall for this stuff. :(

Amazingly Audio can still be in the same delusional category as Diet Drugs, UFOs, Male enlargement products, etc.....

Why can we not have Audio evolve to something that is more meaningful and helpful to everyone involved?



umm...yes, penngray, i DO know which weighs more heavily with ME...

i am still interested to know how others think...helps me form opinions...;)


contrary to what you appear to think i DO respect your opinion, and those of other measurement/spec guys (but not all...depends on what i've read)

learning the thought processes of others (and how they go about forming THEIR opinions) helps ME to determine how much credence to give them when it comes time to take into consideration any advice or opinions they may give...

naturally my preconceived ideas may take precedence...but i don't wear blinders

by the way...i think our ideas of what constitutes a review differ greatly...

again...data stored

umm...yes, penngray, i DO know which weighs more heavily with ME...

i am still interested to know how others think...helps me form opinions...;)


contrary to what you appear to think i DO respect your opinion, and those of other measurement/spec guys (but not all...depends on what i've read)

learning the thought processes of others (and how they go about forming THEIR opinions) helps ME to determine how much credence to give them when it comes time to take into consideration any advice or opinions they may give...

naturally my preconceived ideas may take precedence...but i don't wear blinders

by the way...i think our ideas of what constitutes a review differ greatly...

again...data stored

Fair enough! I was probably generalizing EVERY review too much. I know Kal (member on this forum) does great reviews and I read them so I was wrong to say all is "cowdung". ;)


btw, I formulate my opinion by simply buying as much as I can and test things in house.

Do you agree with the following that has nothing to do with Boyk:

Consonants, on the other hand, are more affected in their perception, because they are short and soft, and typically have energy spread over a wide frequency range.

No, I don't. As I've said several times, it makes no sense to compare vowels and consonants in this way, because place distinctions among the consonants are heard through their effects on neighboring vowels. Consonants like p/t/k do not "typically have energy spread over a wide frequency range", because for the durations of the consonants themselves (discounting surrounding vowels and releases), they have no energy at all. Are you listening? No energy. You can easily satisfy yourself of this; say "sk-k-kit" and "sp-p-pit" stretching out the pronunciation for several seconds. What do you hear after the "s" and before the "it" part?

I'm beginning to feel rather self-conscious about filling this thread with so much tangential material. Please start a separate thread if you want to continue this.

No, I don't. As I've said several times, it makes no sense to compare vowels and consonants in this way, because place distinctions among the consonants are heard through their effects on neighboring vowels. Consonants like p/t/k do not "typically have energy spread over a wide frequency range", because for the durations of the consonants themselves (discounting surrounding vowels and releases), they have no energy at all. Are you listening? No energy. You can easily satisfy yourself of this; say "sk-k-kit" and "sp-p-pit" stretching out the pronunciation for several seconds. What do you hear after the "s" and before the "it" part?

I'm beginning to feel rather self-conscious about filling this thread with so much tangential material. Please start a separate thread if you want to continue this.

Yes keep up that moral attitude of yours, it may help you believe your right.

Ok so not only are you disagreeing with Boyk, you are also disagreeing with a company that makes digital hearing instruments - Alpherma Corporation.

Lets add some more shall we to show that it is you who is wrong and just cannot admit it:
http://www.dacaudio.com/tutorial/tutorial.html#Voice
This shows the voice spectrum as a chart, notice the energy is mostly in the lower FR where we DO NOT find consonents.

The following link is even more explicit about FR and where vowels and consonents are found:
http://www.csun.edu/~vcoao0el/de361/de361s71_folder/tones.html

And finally here is part of an article by Mark Ross Ph.D, appeared in Hearing Loss May 2004:


Some speech sounds, such as vowels are predominately composed of low frequency energy, with less of their power in the higher frequencies. Other speech sounds, in particular the voiceless consonants, are the reverse. They have most of their energy in the high frequencies and less in the lower frequencies.


In addition to their energy locations on the frequency axis, speech sounds also vary in intensity. Some are naturally weaker (like the voiceless /th/ sound, the weakest sound in the English language) and some are naturally more intense (like the vowel /aw/, the strongest). When these are spoken in a normal fashion, as in the word "thaw" there is a 30 dB intensity range between the two phonemes. The intensity of all other speech sounds in the English language fall within these bounds (note, however, that this does not take into consideration inflected speech, which will move the entire speech banana up and down).


...it is apparent that a person with this hearing loss will hear more of the lower frequency speech sounds than the higher ones. Indeed, some of the higher frequency sounds, such as the /s/ sound (the most frequently used phoneme in the English language) will barely be heard at all. Will this person be able to understand normal speech without a hearing aid? Yes, but only with some difficulty and then only if the talker is close by and raises his or her voice slightly. There are, unfortunately, many people with audiograms similar to this who do not, for one reason or another, wear hearing aids. One often sees this type of audiogram in older people whose hearing loss just "crept up" on them and who are still not fully aware of the difficulty they are causing themselves, their family and friends.

Conversing with such individuals is a strain on everyone's part. Often, they'll complain that they can "hear" the talker but cannot "understand" what is being said. This is, indeed, a very frequent complaint. Looking at the audiogram, we can understand somewhat why this should occur: they are not hearing the full range of high frequencies where many of the consonants have their predominant energy. And we know from many years of research, that consonants contribute more to the understanding of speech than vowels. Without a hearing aid, this person would be hearing primarily low frequency vowels energy and some part of the voiced consonants, but little or no portions of the crucial voiceless consonant sounds (such as /s/, /t/, and /k/).

So yep, looks like you are wrong and Boyk is right when looking at these sources (whether a manufacturer or academic), what a surprise :rolleyes:
To remind us, Boyk said:

For example, in every human language, most of the meaning is conveyed in the consonants, but most of the acoustical energy is concentrated in the vowels. This is a suspicious feature to a communications engineer.

Still, I could bet a million pounds you will somehow again twist this to suggest your right, and again with that attitude we come to expect from most "objectivist" posters found here/HA/Stereophile.
I think I have spent enough time pointing to various other sources backing the view of Boyk, but you are yet to provide any apart from your own view/knowledge.
So you still going to accuse the two professors of Caltech and MIT as "dopes"?

Cheers
DT

Still, I could bet a million pounds...

Conversion isnt that good these days, bet US dollars instead ;)

that attitude we come to expect from most "objectivist" posters found here/HA/Stereophile.


Hey now, if you are going to atleast active like you are objective in this debate why not fake liking any opinion from what you believe are "objectivists".

If you lump a whole bunch of us into that Label "Objectivists", Are you a "Subjectivist"?


FWIW, I buy Pro-V1 golf balls and I use a new ball every round. I subjectively believe its better. I also buy new clubs every other year because I again subjectively believe they improve my game.

I have also bought equipment/speakers PURELY on someone else bragging about them. The $$$ deal was too good and they look awesome.

Can I be a "Subjectivist" now?

Conversion isnt that good these days, bet US dollars instead

I think you're converting it the wrong way ;)

Conversion isnt that good these days, bet US dollars instead ;)



Hey now, if you are going to atleast active like you are objective in this debate why not fake liking any opinion from what you believe are "objectivists".

If you lump a whole bunch of us into that Label "Objectivists", Are you a "Subjectivist"?


FWIW, I buy Pro-V1 golf balls and I use a new ball every round. I subjectively believe its better. I also buy new clubs every other year because I again subjectively believe they improve my game.

I have also bought equipment/speakers PURELY on someone else bragging about them. The $$$ deal was too good and they look awesome.

Can I be a "Subjectivist" now?

yeah your right I am overplaying the "objectivist", but after the last few days of reading various threads here,HA,and Stereophile I am starting to come to a grim conclusion about a select amount of objectivist posters - this does not mean you.
Hey it does not stop these posters though using the word "subjectivist" over the top though, and with a quite of bit more vigor than myself :)

So what money should I be taking, so many choices mentioned :)

Cheers
DT

Can I be a "Subjectivist" now?
No, to be a subjectivist you need to accept that the faithfulness in "high fidelity" concerns the correspondence between subjective reaction to reproduction of an event and reaction to the event itself. "Objectivists" appear to want reproductions to resemble recorded signals.

Originally Posted by mcnarus
IOW, your assessment of someone's credibility is based solely on what he says, with no external validation whatsoever? You just keep reading him until you decide one day that you're going to believe what he says?

That doesn't strike me as a particularly useful approach to gaining knowledge.
oh fer cryin' out loud...
Sorry, I meant to respond to this earlier, but your thread got hijacked by somebody who just likes to attack people, and I missed it.

I was sorta setting you up, but my intent was to offer as a contrast the way I decide whom to respect in the field. I look for what I called above "external validation." In particular, I look at the relationship between what a reviewer (or Internet poster) is saying and the known science (granting that there's always unknown science) in the relevant fields—electrical engineering, physics, and psychoacoustics.

When I read subjective reviews, I invariably see assertions that are plainly at odds with what scientists have long known about electronics, sound, and human hearing. They use methods that no accredited scientist would even consider to reach conclusions that simply don't square with fully accepted theories in the field. When they say things that are contradicted by peer-reviewed research and college textbooks, their credibility is shot in my book.

No, to be a subjectivist you need to accept that the faithfulness in "high fidelity" concerns the correspondence between subjective reaction to reproduction of an event and reaction to the event itself.
A great definition.

"Objectivists" appear to want reproductions to resemble recorded signals.
I wouldn't put it quite this way. I'd say we believe that precise reproduction of the recorded signals is the best that can be achieved by playback gear. We might actually want something different than that.

And to contrast the two, I harbor some doubts about whether moving away from precise reproduction of the recorded signals can actually move you closer to a correspondence between subjective reaction to reproduction of an event and reaction to the event itself.

I think you're converting it the wrong way ;)

hehe, no...1 million pounds is more expensive then 1 million dollars. Hence I suggested betting 1 million dollars ;)

I wouldn't put it quite this way. I'd say we believe that precise reproduction of the recorded signals is the best that can be achieved by playback gear. We might actually want something different than that.

And to contrast the two, I harbor some doubts about whether moving away from precise reproduction of the recorded signals can actually move you closer to a correspondence between subjective reaction to reproduction of an event and reaction to the event itself.


I thought being objective meant I just want scientific data to back up subjective opinion.

Im also just a numbers/charts guy, if I want live music I go to a club :D

yeah your right I am overplaying the "objectivist", but after the last few days of reading various threads here,HA,and Stereophile I am starting to come to a grim conclusion about a select amount of objectivist posters - this does not mean you.
Hey it does not stop these posters though using the word "subjectivist" over the top though, and with a quite of bit more vigor than myself :)

So what money should I be taking, so many choices mentioned :)

Cheers
DT


Have you read Sean Olive's blog or his recent thread in this forum?

Just wait until we get a speaker ranking system to help people decide which speaker is better to buy ;)

I thought being objective meant I just want scientific data to back up subjective opinion.

But then how could "objective" be opposed to "subjective"? There is nothing inherently unscientific about collecting subjective judgments and analyzing them; there is nothing inherently scientific about instruments. How can we make sense of your phrase "scientific data to back up subjective opinion"?

Just for the entertainment of others.
If you have the time take a look out the approach of "objectivist" posters in these links, some have links to here.
The style of posting and attitude/wriggling is exactly what I see from Greg and Mcnarus.

John Atkinson correcting those on HA.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=71245&st=1025



LOL. Atkinson published a misleading article and graphic about mp3s , and HA called him on it. THAT was the 'correction'.

99% of objectivists screwed up when analysing/testing/putting forward a cohesive argument about the merits of demag LPs
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&an=0&page=0#Post63963

Ah, so if I go to this thread, there will be be DBT data showing that LP 'demagnetization' makes an audible difference? In other words that it 'works'?

OK I gave it a look. Didn't see any. Along the way saw Atkinson making some spurious claims about HA and mp3s . Saw him get pwned on that by Axon. Saw Arny and Ethan raise some interesting questions about the gear used for Fremer's demag session.

Here;s a perhaps more informative -- and certainly shorter -- thread on the FUrutech nonsense

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=71737


To help put that last link into perspective, here is another link showing another company that changed their manufacturing process of LPs to overcome the issues identified by Furutech, who the objectivists on Stereophile did not know about or actually think was possible.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue40/clarity_records.htm

Oh, gee, an audiophile label believes in audiophile voodoo. Alert the media. There's no data there, just another anecdotal OH WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE reports.


Interestingly, this has more weight than any views put forward by the objectivists who post here and there, when you consider they are not selling mega bucks hardware, but changed the manufacturing process of their best LPs to resolve what Furutech identified as a problem.

actually it's got no weight at all. It's another vaporous 'demonstration' using a sighted comparison. We're talking about *Classic Records* here, a company deeply immersed in the audiophile Kool-Aid.

Anyway, no need for me to post anymore here, as I know Mcnarus and greg will be forced for some reason to do their wriggle room posting, because that is just how objectivist posters seem to react here/HA/Stereophile.

You should try posting your ideas at HA -- it would be amusing if nothing else.


Summary; take what Mcnaurs/greg/most other "self proclaimed objectivist" say with a pinch of salt.

DT


Summary: where's the DATA, DulcetTones?

No, to be a subjectivist you need to accept that the faithfulness in "high fidelity" concerns the correspondence between subjective reaction to reproduction of an event and reaction to the event itself.

This can't always be the case, since how often do we ever get to witness both the 'event itself' and the recording of it?

Moreover, we only get to experience the 'even itself' once, if that. Do we 'record' our subjective impression for comparison? If so, with what fidelity is that mental recording? Is it flawless or....as would seem to be the case...often highly colored with the passage of time?


And, too, it is absurd to expect that the subjective reaction will be the same every time --or even during the course of the single listening session.
Ce rtainly, when listening to a particular recording, I can have quite different subjective reactions to it on different days, over the same gear.

And what of the many recordings that don't represent an 'acoustic' event at all (created in the studio)? To what do we compare that?

"Objectivists" appear to want reproductions to resemble recorded signals.

What on earth can this mean? Home audio reproductions *are* recorded signals.

But then how could "objective" be opposed to "subjective"? There is nothing inherently unscientific about collecting subjective judgments and analyzing them; there is nothing inherently scientific about instruments. How can we make sense of your phrase "scientific data to back up subjective opinion"?

A complete 'objective' dataset on audio difference will include the analysis of subjective reports (obtained with bias controls in place) and measurements of the signals or gear compared. Those two independent lines of evidence constitute scientific data to back up what would otherwise be a more or less purely subjective claim of difference.

Btw, I know of no case where a difference confirmed by DBT, could not be traced to a measureable difference.

But then how could "objective" be opposed to "subjective"? There is nothing inherently unscientific about collecting subjective judgments and analyzing them; there is nothing inherently scientific about instruments. How can we make sense of your phrase "scientific data to back up subjective opinion"?

You can make sense if you step back and have a simple view of all things audio for just one minute.....

Its pretty simple for me,

Scientific data as in accurate measurements, proper controlled tests to support subective conclusions.

That is what I define as being objective. yes, I believe measurements accurately and scientifically can describe the audio experience.

Oh look Krabapple back, well I must had read a different thread than you at HA because John Atkinson was quite amusing and personally I feel he corrected more than what you suggest he got.

And as I said earlier, certain objectivist just blithely again state Furutech is rubbish-BS and so must be Classic Records.
But interestingly the discussion at Stereophile there was noticable measurement differences of before and after of a record used with Furutech.
It was the objectivists who measured incorrectly, then an objectivists stated they did do 20/30 correct but this could be improved as they did not try that hard, a few other objectivists were scratching their head because they could not hear differences, then the one who did hear differences backtracked.
And then in the end the objectivist as far as they were concerned decided the test was invalid because a record will sound different anyway the 2nd time round.
However that does not answer why some passed and others failed the test.

I do hope others read the Stereophile thread on the Furutech, and then also check out Classic Records.

Here is a confusing point Krabapple,
so how can Classic Records by changing their manufacturing process end up with similar results as that of Furutech?
I mean one is a manufacturing process of an LP (according to you is BS and snake oil), while the other is actually a product to de-mag (again according to you is BS and snake oil).
Logically if both can work similar there is a common denominator, which Classic Record admits they identified and removed from their LP manufacturing process.
With your suggestion of "cool-aid"; Hey I did not realise a modern LP manufacturing company is dealing in "cool-aid", wow I have never heard anyone suggest that LPs themselves are now snake oil potential.
BTW have you measure two of their identical records; one that has the carbon additive removed and the standard press where the additive is still included (the additive was/is the standard process for LP manufacturing)?

Now you say I should try posting at HA, well lets see how John Atkinson got on with what could be deemed "the mob" mentality:

John Atkinson trying to discuss with those on HA (read all the way to the end is strongly advisable page 49):
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=71245&st=1025

Ok so now onto your assumptions of what happened in the Stereophile Furutech Krabapple:
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

Key points in the discussion:
1.Arny on his analysis and reasoning of 20/30 differentiation
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=23&vc=1

2. Measurements became messy by some objectivists, also hearing perception started to lower from a good 20/30 to worse a day or two later:
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=28&vc=1

3. Budha summarises what has occured over much of the thread, some concerns about new files posted by Ethan that do not sound the same as the originals:
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=31&vc=1

4. Axon and Michael analysis with response from Stephen Meijas
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=32&vc=1

Sadly though it does show that eventually all threads will turn into a mess when lines are drawn strongly between objectivists and subjectivists (mob mentality ruling this time on subjectivists).

Anyway with an even stronger "mob mentality" at HA that matches the most aggressive "objectivist" posters here I would not touch HA with a barge pole, but thanks for the invite that is a setup to bash with "mates", as can be seen with the attempt against John Atkinson.
Some time ago, it was bad enough you found someone to argue with me about discrete signalling, and then for me to eventually find out he had just completed his degree in a different area of sampling (showed with his use of dirac impulse, or his disagreement on the formulas as presented originally by Nyquist's and Shannon's papers which it looks like he had never seen).

Seperate to this, I suggest checking the article on Classic Records (I knew about the additive awhile ago from a non-published source, but this will do for you to investigate and question "why if any" the additive can cause problems, "and how" this aligns with what Furutech see:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue40/clarity_records.htm
You will dislike the review I am sure, and possibly the information as presented below the review by Classic Records.
However it provides something to investigate.

Cheers
DT

What on earth can this mean? Home audio reproductions *are* recorded signals.
"Audio reproduction" is ambiguous. It could refer to a recorded signal, but it is commonly used to refer to the sound derived from that signal by audio reproduction gear. It should have been obvious how I was using it here.

A complete 'objective' dataset on audio difference will include the analysis of subjective reports (obtained with bias controls in place) and measurements of the signals or gear compared. Those two independent lines of evidence constitute scientific data to back up what would otherwise be a more or less purely subjective claim of difference.
So if you have the first (analysis of subjective reports) but not the second (measurements of signals), you don't have "scientific data", right? What if you have the second but not the first? Your statement implies that then, also, it is "a more or less purely subjective claim of difference." Probably, you didn't really mean this.

So if you have the first (analysis of subjective reports) but not the second (measurements of signals), you don't have "scientific data", right?

Wrong. Both are scientific data.

What if you have the second but not the first?

Then you have grounds for assessing whether there is likely to be a difference, or not. As you would if you had only the first. The most thorough analysis would have both. But either one is sufficient to make a reasonable call.

Your statement implies that then, also, it is "a more or less purely subjective claim of difference." Probably, you didn't really mean this.

More or less depending on whether there are any predictions to be made from existing objective data.

"Audio reproduction" is ambiguous. It could refer to a recorded signal, but it is commonly used to refer to the sound derived from that signal by audio reproduction gear. It should have been obvious how I was using it here.

Anything other than live music played in your listening room, must be a recording...aka a recorded signal. The function of the gear is to 'decode', transmit and transduce the recorded signal into sound waves. Some feel this should be done with input vs output accuracy as the paramount consideration; others feel that euphonic distortion introduced to the recorded signal, sounds 'more real'. I sympathize to an extent with the latter view, in that two-channel stereo , to me, is often enhanced by surround synthesis via Dolby ProLogic II. But I like being able to turn it off, too, when I want to, and I want the signal up to the point where *I* manipulate it, to be objectively accurate versus the input signal (i.e., the recorded signal on the CD).

Oh look Krabapple back, well I must had read a different thread than you at HA because John Atkinson was quite amusing and personally I feel he corrected more than what you suggest he got.

His artful dodging and weaving has 'amused' several on HA. He continues to misrepresent mp3 technology and performance, though. On that SP thread he lies thus:

"Over on Hydrogen Audio, the denizens are insistent that low-bit-rate MP3s are sonically transparent when used properly,"



And as I said earlier, certain objectivist just blithely again state Furutech is rubbish-BS and so must be Classic Records.

All 'we' ask are good data indicating such an effect -- the LPs benefit from degaussing -- is likely to be real and audible. So far it's not forthcoming from 'you'.


But interestingly the discussion at Stereophile there was noticable measurement differences of before and after of a record used with Furutech.

Magnitude of measured difference matters. There also appears to have been issues with pitch stability from play to play.

But please, do not turn this thread into that thread. Anyone here can visit it, or the Hydrogenaudio thread (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=71737) I linked to, and see for themselves.


It was the objectivists who measured incorrectly, then an objectivists stated they did do 20/30 correct but this could be improved as they did not try that hard, a few other objectivists were scratching their head because they could not hear differences, then the one who did hear differences backtracked.


And then in the end the objectivist as far as they were concerned decided the test was invalid because a record will sound different anyway the 2nd time round.

Report of 'hearing' difference is not unlikely -- including between two plays of an LP when NO magic gadget has been applied to it. The crux is whether the difference holds up to blind testing, or has a measured correlate that indicates audibility. Ande then one wants to show that a measured differnece is, in fact, due to the cause stated, and not due, for example, to simply play-to-play variability -- a small but unfortunately real possibility with primitive analog technology like turntables.


However that does not answer why some passed and others failed the test.


Why does that need 'explaining'? Doesn't it first need to be demonstrated that the test really tested what it was claiming to test?


I do hope others read the Stereophile thread on the Furutech, and then also check out Classic Records.

And read the Hydrogenaudio thread (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=71737) about this silly tweak.

Ethan Winer and Arny Kruger both post regularly to AVSforum -- readers can also consult their posts here, or even PM them.


Here is a confusing point Krabapple,
so how can Classic Records by changing their manufacturing process end up with similar results as that of Furutech?

The audible 'results' are all subjective, so the question is moot.

Logically if both can work....

Which hasnt been demonstrated. You're begging the question.



BTW have you measure two of their identical records; one that has the carbon additive removed and the standard press where the additive is still included (the additive was/is the standard process for LP manufacturing)?

No, have you? Did you also measure two or more LPs that got the same treatment, to get a baseline on variability? How did you do all this and what were the results, and how do they relate to likely audibility?




2. Measurements became messy by some objectivists, also hearing perception started to lower from a good 20/30 to worse a day or two later:
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=28&vc=1


Btw, 20/30 correct has a p value of .05 -- right at the threshold of 'acceptable'. So I'd expect more testing needs to be done either way.
But it's funny that you should rail against 'objectivists', when Arny was actually reporting probable success in differentiating the 'before and after' files. The question is why. Were the issues of pitch stability and spectral differences ever resolved? I really prefer not to have to wade through Jan Vigne's and Michael Frog's constant and invincible stupidity to get to the data.

4. Axon and Michael analysis with response from Stephen Meijas
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=63963&page=0&fpart=32&vc=1


Axon rocks: "I'd also like to correct others and say that, IIRC, I have never claimed that my null ABX results mean that demag is inaudible. What I have claimed is that Mikey and Stephen are wrong when they say it is an "obvious" and "immediate" difference - which I believe my listening, and Ethan's and Arny's, reasonably contradicts, and is supported by the existing measurements. "

jj also posted to that awful thread. He noted that:


"There are some issues playing any LP. After you play an LP you must let it recover. Yes. Really.

This is the main problem in testing anything with an LP. LP reads ARE destructive, at least minimally, no matter what we would all like or prefer, so at the very least one would have to somehow record the LP, then demag it, then re-record it, then somehow remagnetize it, and then RE-RE record it. Until you can get 1 and 3 to match, there is no way to do a test."

Meanwhile, Fremer called Axon 'crazy' and he and Meijas still insist that the differences were big.


Some time ago, it was bad enough you found someone to argue with me about discrete signalling, and then for me to eventually find out he had just completed his degree in a different area of sampling (showed with his use of dirac impulse, or his disagreement on the formulas as presented originally by Nyquist's and Shannon's papers which it looks like he had never seen).

So, you're a sore loser. I got that.

Fair enough! I was probably generalizing EVERY review too much. I know Kal (member on this forum) does great reviews and I read them so I was wrong to say all is "cowdung". ;)


btw, I formulate my opinion by simply buying as much as I can and test things in house.


that's an enviable position to be in...

there is LISTENING involved i hope...

that's an enviable position to be in...

there is LISTENING involved i hope...

Sometimes ;)

I have posted this many times though 99% of the time I listen to music using my Ipod and a small Ipod dock in my garage or just use headphones......Im not a two channel critical listening type person. Im all about movies though and my custom HT room is a lot of fun IF I ever use it. Too many projects, very young kids take up time. If I have a couple of hours during the day and I can actually leave I would be golfing!!

I also build speakers, test stuff because I just love that aspect of audio and building speakers is simply like building models to me (I have more speakers then I do rooms). All of this has given me more insight in the truth about audio then you can imagine.

I or anyone else could spend thousands of hours listening and not know a damn thing really about audio but spend 1000 hours learning how to building speakers, learn all about different speaker designs, building proper HT room, perform simple measurements and all of a sudden things become extremely clear....

Its truely an amazing experience and also very humbling. 99% of the public does not have a clue about audio.

Sorry, I meant to respond to this earlier, but your thread got hijacked by somebody who just likes to attack people, and I missed it.

I was sorta setting you up, but my intent was to offer as a contrast the way I decide whom to respect in the field. I look for what I called above "external validation." In particular, I look at the relationship between what a reviewer (or Internet poster) is saying and the known science (granting that there's always unknown science) in the relevant fields—electrical engineering, physics, and psychoacoustics.

When I read subjective reviews, I invariably see assertions that are plainly at odds with what scientists have long known about electronics, sound, and human hearing. They use methods that no accredited scientist would even consider to reach conclusions that simply don't square with fully accepted theories in the field. When they say things that are contradicted by peer-reviewed research and college textbooks, their credibility is shot in my book.



yep...unknown science, known science...crazy stuff

my father-in-law has seen numerous doctors and specialists about his "tennis elbow"...never felt much improvement with regards to "known science"...

he's now pain free...bought one of those little bracelets with the magnetic balls on the end...absolutely swears by it

"unknown science"...?

yep...unknown science, known science...crazy stuff

my father-in-law has seen numerous doctors and specialists about his "tennis elbow"...never felt much improvement with regards to "known science"...

he's now pain free...bought one of those little bracelets with the magnetic balls on the end...absolutely swears by it

"unknown science"...?
Placebo effect is not unknown. :)

So, you're a sore loser. I got that.

Ooh insult again from another objectivist, notice a trend, as an objectivist I am sure you have :)

I am not sure how you define the fact I am a loser when it was the graduate who you were so proud of was the one who made the mistakes, not me when it came to the actual equations and how they are applied to CD-DACs from the papers of Nyquist and Shannon :rolleyes:
Difference is, the guy you put up to bash me (who was wrong multiple times) just finished a degree involving sampling software and PCs, while my background is actually 20+ years as a true engineer in telecoms (working as I have shown in the past in some of the leading edge manufacturers from each decade (very late) 80s,90s, and to now.
This also include working on some of the most advanced networks the 1st to use subrate switching and subrate merging many years ago.
Add to this the work and education I received from the largest network carriers, and unique technological challenges/products within this field.
However, I would not try to even go and present an argument about technology/design/solution with regards to MP3 and sampling solutions that do not apply to that of telecomms (which is a close match to CD and DACs), but for some reason it did not stop your graduate friend from stepping beyond his actual expertise.

Your assetion of:
His artful dodging <insert JA for reference> and weaving has 'amused' several on HA. He continues to misrepresent mp3 technology and performance, though. On that SP thread he lies thus:
Re-inforces my point about the aggressive mob mentality at HA.
BTW I was kind in not specifically using single points from the HA thread to make some look like idiots and left it to others to make up their own minds, but seems an objectivist cannot do that themselves.

Looking at your post in more detail, I notice that you give a glowing report for Axon (I also have a lot of respect for this person who is what I would call is a true objectivist unlike some I can name here), and yet your scathing about those who you feel "oppose" your view.
Now look at my post, did I feel the need to support or critique those who posted at HA or Stereophile?
In fact I was not happy with the "mob mentality" that came out in the end by some subjectivists at Stereophile and mentioned that.

I must conclude my post was actually more balanced/analytical than yours, so who is now the objectivist?

And now you move onto your own analytical take of what actually happened at Stereophile and who/what was measured and listened/passed.
But I am surprised if you read all the pages, because all you can do is like what I have seen over the last few days is pass POV, insult, use vague comments back.

As I said, they did measure the before and after differently, that also included Axon.
However that is not proof, we need other information.
Now I provided speculation (speculation is MY POV not what the reviewer or manufacturer state), that indeed a common denominator of carbon black additive.
Investigate that from a technical perspective and look why two totally different solutions seem to come up with the same positive result.
That is why I then suggest YOU should go and get the two same LPs where one is standard press and the other is a different manufacturing process, and then create an excellent digital copy that you then analyse in say Wavelab 6 (full product).

One thing agreed was that the digital copy done at Stereophile was excellent, so this is an area that I would say is pretty critical when analysing the two LPs.

The point is, I have provided information showing measurements were done independantly, provided an alternative source that provides information that can be used as speculation and the theory behind the resolution, and also multiple listeners who have said they did here a difference (including at least one objectivist, where other objectivists could not).
You now play down that a listener did pass with .05 (as you know this is what Clark has used in his own papers), its a pass not borderline, furthermore there was a comment suggesting they managed that without even being fully committed to the listening.

Anyway, time for me to stop and I will not respond again because the trend over the last few days is that it is pointless trying to be objective with some objectivists :)

Cheers
DT

Placebo effect is not unknown. :)

Decided it is time to discuss the placebo effect that comes up often.

Ignoring POVs as most of us including myself are not medical research experts, this forces us to use what is published.

I am only interested (yours may vary) in aspects that raises questions of the suitability or weight placebo has in context of how it is used here at AVSForum.

I believe from what I have seen how it is used here, that placebo is mentioned because there is a clear link showing that there is an expectancy effect, basically used to equate to bias when comparing audio systems/components.

However from what I can see with the links I will provide, the expectancy effect is actually nothing like bias because it is caused by the release of endorphins/endogenous opioid, which can reduce pain and also provide a feel good to relieve symptoms.
Now this I am very interested in because as a short-medium distance runner (run 3 miles in 15 minutes) I have suffered injuries to actually experience the endorphin release.
I must admit it is quite strange to feel the urge to giggle (the feeling of well being) when you have suffered a compression/muscle injury and are trying to walk.
Therefore if a link is shown that expectation in placebo trials is actually a chemical reaction, then it has no correlation or any relevance to AVSForum.

With that said here are a couple of links:
1) Research group report in the lancet support the theory of placebo effects are mediated through endorphins (apologies but archive of story had to be pulled from a good newspaper:
http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1978-09-26-17-011&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1978-09-26-17

2) A further research expanding upon the claims of the California research above
In the discussion part of the paper (for those who do not want to read whole paper)
We measured pain tolerance because it has been shown to be affected by analgesics like morphine (Smith et al., 1966), thus indicating that such a measure of pain can be used to test analgesic drugs. Accordingly, we wanted to see whether placebos produced analgesic-like effects, that is, an increase in tolerance. Even if tolerance measures both the sensory and the motivational-affective component of pain, as carefully stated by Price (1988), this is not against our findings.

One of the main findings emerging from this study is that cognitive factors like expectation appear to trigger endogenous opioid systems in all cases. When we talk of expectation, we refer to verbal expectation. In fact, the subjects believed to receive an analgesic, such that they expected a relief of pain.
Paper: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/19/1/484

So the paper went into further detail with the effects of naloxene and its effects on the placebo and expectation mechanisms.
However, what is interesting to the discussion here is that the expectation effect is actually based upon a chemical release of endorphins/endogenous opioid (as in running or potentially injuries/pain) and has nothing in similarity to bias expectation of audio.

Cheers
DT

yep...unknown science, known science...crazy stuff

my father-in-law has seen numerous doctors and specialists about his "tennis elbow"...never felt much improvement with regards to "known science"...

he's now pain free...bought one of those little bracelets with the magnetic balls on the end...absolutely swears by it

"unknown science"...?

Its well documented that Placebo works!! Placebo is not a bad thing, people are given placebo pills all the time...it helps some people. We wouldnt have a silly billion dollar weight loss drug, herb/alternative medicine industry if placebo wasnt part of it...I say part some products do have effects on our bodies.

has nothing in similarity to bias expectation of audio.


DT, you do realize people on here (including myself) us the word Placebo very loosely. Im well aware that scientifically speaking its not Placebo induce decisions at work its just that a word like Psychoacoustics, it hard to type :D

I think the general acceptance of Placebo is fine, it gets the meaning across that knowing brand name, price, reviews of a product will have a significant impact that persons perception of what its going to sound like. Once again, I point to the fact that BOSE and Monster are HUGELY successful companies because they understand and feed off of perception ;)



OF course if someone is pendatic about this stuff then.........

Re-inforces my point about the aggressive mob mentality at HA.
BTW I was kind in not specifically using single points from the HA thread to make some look like idiots and left it to others to make up their own minds, but seems an objectivist cannot do that themselves.

Looking at your post in more detail, I notice that you give a glowing report for Axon (I also have a lot of respect for this person who is what I would call is a true objectivist unlike some I can name here), and yet your scathing about those who you feel "oppose" your view.


Axon (with whom I've had many a fine PM/forum/email interaction) is a mensch. He also writes an interesting blog (http://audiamorous.blogspot.com/).


You on the other hand, write far too much, and incoherently, in the service of far too little.

However, what is interesting to the discussion here is that the expectation effect is actually based upon a chemical release of endorphins/endogenous opioid (as in running or potentially injuries/pain) and has nothing in similarity to bias expectation of audio.

Cheers
DT


And how do you know that audio bias does not relate to something like endorphin release? It has already been shown that merely leading consumers to believe they are drinking 'fancy' wine (by changing the price) has physiological effects in their brains (in the pleasure centers, naturally); so would it be ridiculous to posit that similar effects can hold for audio consumers who are led to believe that A sounds better than B by virtue of price, appearance, reputation, rather than actual sound?

And how do you know that audio bias does not relate to something like endorphin release? It has already been shown that merely leading consumers to believe they are drinking 'fancy' wine (by changing the price) has physiological effects in their brains (in the pleasure centers, naturally); so would it be ridiculous to posit that similar effects can hold for audio consumers who are led to believe that A sounds better than B by virtue of price, appearance, reputation, rather than actual sound?

I dont, but how do you know it does?
Your speculating that endorphins affects our bias in selection and enough of an influence to affect selection based upon priceappearance/reputation.

However if this is your theory/model, you also need to consider that endorphins/endogenous opioid may also enhance our perception as far as listening at audio.
So how do you know that does not occur beyond just your POV? as I have done with much less bias than you back it up with papers.

I was happy to actually keep placebo out of audio because of unknown theories and models with regards to the speculation you raise and my further points in response.

Until these can be answered conclusively without speculation there is NO correlation between bias in audio and placebo/endorphin release.
Edit:
Doing a search, but so far only finding reward bias with regards to endorphins/endogenous opioid relase and bias, which is not the same thing.

DT

Decided it is time to discuss the placebo effect that comes up often.

believe from what I have seen how it is used here, that placebo is mentioned because there is a clear link showing that there is an expectancy effect, basically used to equate to bias when comparing audio systems/components.


I think you've got the cart and the horse sitting side-by-side. Expectancy and bias are not the same as the placebo effect. Expectancy and bias can lead to, or effect or modulate a placebo's effect.

One of the well-known effects of placebos is the release of endomorphins by the brain.

But let's back up a bit. It is very well known that listening to music can deeply stimulate the brain. One of the well-known results of listening to music can be the release of endomorphins into the blood stream.

So here's the usual sales pitch with a bit of Sunday Supplement Medical Science tossed in. Since listening to music can deeply stimulate the brain resulting in the release of endomorphins, it *stands to reason* that the more engaging and pleasing that your musical listening experience is, the more endomorphins weill get released into your bloodstream, and the better you will feel.

As the pitch goes, I can help you make your music listening experience more engaging by selling you this $50 green pen that you use to color the edges of your CDs green. The green pen reduces the reflections of light inside the polycarbonate material that your CDs are made out of, and that makes it easier for your CD player to read them. As your CD has an easier time reading CDs, it is less stressed and therefore sounds better. That makes your music listening experience more engaging, leading to the production of even more endomorphins.

Now, of course the above argument of course has more holes in it than a fine Emmenthaler Cheese. For example, it is well known that people can get a tremendous amount of pain relief by listening to music that they like, using a cassette player and cheap headphones.

Getting back on topic, A placebo effect is obviously contingent on the subject's belief that the placebo will be effective. A belief that something will be effective is a bias. Some biases are based on reliable facts, and some are based on incorrect or fanciful facts.

While there are studies showing that people who are administered placebos in DBT conditions can obtian at least a temporary measure of relief, AFAIK there are no studies showing that people who are preconditioned by telling them that they are going to receive a totally ineffective substance still obtain pain relief.

I guess it would be interesting to see how effective an actual pain-relieving chemical would be if you told people it was really sugar water, or the like.

The point Arny is that Placebo as used here has nothing to do with audio because of the expectancy.
As I state IMO, they are different models/theories, why is it only me who actually provides articles and papers?

Edit:
Found an article that will make Krabapple happy and maybe Mcnarus as they can now use something beyond saying "placebo", however it DOES support my view that placebo has nothing to do with audio.
The actual effect is related to higher activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), while all placebo studies point to reward placebo that is endorphins/endogenous opioid release, unless you have a paper showing otherwise.

Reading article to make sure it is actually relevant before linking it.

DT

Reading article to make sure it is actually relevant before linking it.
That would make for a nice change.

That would make for a nice change.

Thats quite funny, because of the last few days it has been objectivists like you who have not posted any articles/links, come out with wild assumptions that then force me to correct them :rolleyes:

But hey, keep this up because when you guys attack as you did in the amp thread you can get other articles deleted along with your posts.

The irony, err mind pointing out who shared articles in this thread specifically because all we have our POVs and are not experts?
Oh yes me, not others.

DT

The irony, err mind pointing out who shared articles in this thread specifically because all we have our POVs and are not experts?
Oh yes me, not others.
Yes, you're the one who keeps hijacking the thread by posting voluminous irrelevancies and not addressing the topic.

OK with regards to the paper here is a snapshot of interest before I link it at the bottom for those who do not want to read the whole paper:

The main hypothesis of this study was that an increase in the perceived price of a wine should, through an increase in taste expectations, increase activity in the mOFC.
The results described above provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis.
The hypothesis was motivated by several previous studies, which have shown that activity in the mOFC is correlated with behavioral pleasantness ratings for odors (10–13), tastes (6, 14, and 15), and even music (16).
This, together with our behavioral results and the additional imaging results described below, support the interpretation that, by modulating the activity in the mOFC, changes in the price of a wine might lead to a change in
the actual EP derived from its consumption.

Arny, you argued against expectation but please notice it applies also here.
Also just to clarify about placebo it does state:
Interestingly, an analogous mechanism has been proposed for pain placebo effects (7).
Notice that is proposed, while the placebo reward theory/model has actually been proved.

Anyway,also of interest that supports an actual measurable effect of bias:

Second, our findings also have implications for marketing.
Whereas there is ample behavioral evidence that various marketing actions are successful in influencing the EP of individuals, that they can modulate neural representations of this signal had not been reported before. Furthermore, the neural findings also provide some clues about the mechanisms involved.
In particular, it seems that price changes modulate the representations of
experienced utility but not the encoding of the sensory properties of taste in the primary gustatory cortex.
Third, our results have implications for economics.
EP is an important component of experienced utility, which is the economist’s
term for subjective well being.
We show that, contrary to the standard economic view, EP depends on nonintrinsic properties of products, such as the price at which they are sold. It then follows that marketing manipulations might affect subjective perceptions of well being.
This raises several difficult questions for the field.
Should the effect of prices on experienced utility be counted as real economic well being or as a mistake made by individuals?
To what extent are measurable differences in preferences based on intrinsic differences between products and price effects we have identified?
What happens to the efficiency of competitive markets when firms can influence experienced utility by changing the price of items?

With it balanced against:
An important task for future research is to develop a more complete characterization of the range of marketing actions that can influence the neural computation of EP.
We conjecture that any action affecting expectations of product quality, such as expert quality ratings; peer reviews; information about country of origin, store, and brand names (especially those associated with luxury products); and repeated exposure to advertisements might lead to effects similar to those identified here.

And the whole interesting paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/3/1050.full.pdf

Bookmark that and knock yourself out URLing instead of just saying placebo :)

Edit:
Emphasised in 1st quote how this study could be applied to music as well.
Cheers
DT

Yes, you're the one who keeps hijacking the thread by posting voluminous irrelevancies and not addressing the topic.

And your one of those "self-proclaimed" objectivists who have to be corrected often due to speculation/assumption and bias against anything that does not suit your POV.
BTW I have to post "voluminous" because of members like you, who manage to twist facts in such a way that they no longer resemble their original intent, I call it the wriggle room lawyer posting.
And still I have to post on the same subject usually around 5-8 times due to the vague attacks (never a technical merit critique) as was seen earlier in this section and also Amps all sound the same.

So who hijacks many posts with regards to DBT?
Now that those posts have been deleted in amps all sound the same, amazingly DBT ABX has popped its head again as the one valid source, by an "objectivist" who attacked with wrong and vague facts an article/paper he was not happy with, also a few other attackers are now pushing again as fact their own POV and assumptions/speculations as if they are experts all of a sudden now that those other "offending facts" have been deleted.
Shame they did not technically comment on the facts/maths/designs used/etc in the paper they attacked as they are now all of a sudden experts - funny world really.

DT

For the sake of clarity, and perhaps to rescue this thread from oblivion, could we go back to its original purpose.

The OP asks:

"...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?"

DT, with all due respect for your passion for the subject, I feel that the thread went off-course when you decided to quote the views of Sussman et. al. In that post, you stated that you ought to post more of their work....but your own view was not put forward. Posting "5-8 times due to the vague attacks" will prove to be very unproductive and simply raise the emotional temperature.

I request that we get back to what I think is the best part of this forum: the exchange of views as audio-lovers, underpinned by solid science but not completely overwhelmed by it. I do realize that the name of the forum includes audio theory.

For the sake of clarity, and perhaps to rescue this thread from oblivion, could we go back to its original purpose.

The OP asks:

"...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?"

DT, with all due respect for your passion for the subject, I feel that the thread went off-course when you decided to quote the views of Sussman et. al. In that post, you stated that you ought to post more of their work....but your own view was not put forward.

I request that we get back to what I think is the best part of this forum: the exchange of views as audio-lovers, underpinned by solid science but not completely overwhelmed by it. I do realize that the name of the forum includes audio theory.

You were one who attacked as well, so why should I not be surprised your pushing your POV again.
As I stated that is now all deleted, it had relevance if you understood the engineering/maths as it was the academic paper that had actual of interest behaviour modelled of feedback in a diverse range of amp topologies, which combined with the papers of Walt Jung and Nelson Pass provided a view that it is far too early to state whether amps do sound the same or even sound different.
But no, you and others had to push wild accusations, no facts with me having to spend over 8 hours correcting those posts until the point they all were deleted.
Now I am having to do that here :rolleyes:

Who is the objectivist here?
The one who is comfortable to post an interesting paper that shows clearly how bias is measurable, or the others who go on the attack without even using actual facts?

Also why not point out that Mcnarus was the one using Placebo in this thread and Penn also felt it right to talk about placebo once it was raised (nothing wrong with that IMO), but no you decide that I am wrong for actually correcting him, and it is me who has pushed this thread off topic, which ironically is even more so with me once again in "correction mode" to accusational posts.

Anyway, enjoy the paper I posted here as it fits in with your POV.
DT

You were one who attacked as well, so why should I not be surprised your pushing your POV again.
...DT

Aah...what I wrote in this thread just now, is my one and only post on this thread. :confused:

Again it looks like this thread will either die a natural death or see moderator intervention. :(

Also why not point out that Mcnarus was the one using Placebo
Please point to the post where I discussed placebo effect as it applies to audio.

You simply took a comment of mine out of context in order to continue your incoherent attacks on people for things that have nothing to do with this thread. Even more bizarrely, you seem to have decided to hijack this thread (multiple times, I might add) for the purpose of attacking people who participate in an entirely different forum. If you have disagreements with them, why don't you go post over there and leave us to discuss the OP's very interesting question? Or have they already run you off for excessive rambling?

Aah...what I wrote in this thread just now, is my one and only post on this thread.
Why should that stop him?

lefhandluke asks "what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?"


The great thing about music reproduction equipment in the 21st. century is that it sits on top of a "pyramid" of solid engineering advances over the past 50+ years. I know that there are sound (no pun intended) and established principles of circuit design, for example. I feel comfortable in relying on manufacturers' published specs if they are honest ones (not from the marketing department) and meaningful. I don't need to audition a power amplifier before purchasing it, if it specs properly and is well constructed.

I usually ignore reviews of equipment where there are no measurements made by the reviewer.

In my experience speakers and their interaction with one's listening space is the most "volatile" purchase. That purchase demands an audition, preferably in the room where the speakers will live.

For the sake of clarity, and perhaps to rescue this thread from oblivion, could we go back to its original purpose.

The OP asks:

"...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?"

DT, with all due respect for your passion for the subject, I feel that the thread went off-course when you decided to quote the views of Sussman et. al. In that post, you stated that you ought to post more of their work....but your own view was not put forward. Posting "5-8 times due to the vague attacks" will prove to be very unproductive and simply raise the emotional temperature.

I request that we get back to what I think is the best part of this forum: the exchange of views as audio-lovers, underpinned by solid science but not completely overwhelmed by it. I do realize that the name of the forum includes audio theory.



thank you...

i would like to see this thread continue a little while longer...

thank you...

i would like to see this thread continue a little while longer...



that said...i was kinda enjoying all this:o

that said...i was kinda enjoying all this
Then you are one sick puppy.:D

Reading thread reminds me of an episode of Star Trek. The crew of the Enterprise and the Klingons continually battle without dying due to an entity creating the hostilities and grows stonger as they continue. :)

Reading thread reminds me of an episode of Star Trek. The crew of the Enterprise and the Klingons continually battle without dying due to an entity creating the hostilities and grows stonger as they continue. :)

Indeed, thats a pretty good analysis :)
But, I finally reached the conclusion that someone has to take a step back and let the other throw a salvo whether it is right or wrong.

So I guess its going to have to be me.

Last point and on topic - with regards to bias and mOFC as measured and reported in the paper that provides a theory and model on bias expectation and effect with regards potentially to music.

The next stage of research that would be ideal is if their experiment was repeated this time with a scientific/engineer background audio reviewer/and-or a designer willing to take it and the focus being to see if they manage to control bias behaviour, of if bias behaviour even changes.

I think the paper looks excellent when considering that bias can now be measured, but ideally this needs to be pushed further using those tests again that would show pretty clear how those in the business manage or dont their bias.
Anything else is speculation until then, although the principle of it I feel IMO can be applied as a major consideration and concern for everyone else who do not look to contain/discipline their subjective listening evaluations somehow (and until it is proved this can be done - see below we have no absolute conclusion).

Anyway, the paper outlines a beautiful process to investigate in a more accurate way the behavioral experimentation of bias amongst diverse individuals from say audio consumer, to engineer designers/different reviewers that would provide solid data.

Until then, this paper is a pause for thought moment for anyone who looks to do subjective evaluations/listening.

Cheers
DT

The point Arny is that Placebo as used here has nothing to do with audio because of the expectancy.


The point is that you are wrong. There's plenty of expectancy in audio comparisions.

I explained it in my previous post, but apparently you are dismssing 100% of what I said, since you have no actual response to any of what I wrote.

I can play that game, too...

You can make sense if you step back and have a simple view of all things audio for just one minute.....

Its pretty simple for me,

Scientific data as in accurate measurements, proper controlled tests to support subective conclusions.

That is what I define as being objective. yes, I believe measurements accurately and scientifically can describe the audio experience.


at the risk of...ahh, what the hell...


do you really believe that last sentence...?

...how can that be?

at the risk of...ahh, what the hell...

do you really believe that last sentence...?

...how can that be?

The end result of the audio experience are the effects of the application of measurable amounts of endomorphins to the human brain.

The endomorphins are measurable, and so are their effects.

Next!

at the risk of...ahh, what the hell...

yes, I believe measurements accurately and scientifically can describe the audio experience.
do you really believe that last sentence...?

How could anyone disbelieve that? Notice he didn't say instrumental measurements. If someone says he likes, or dislikes, the sound from a speaker and that is noted down, you have a measurement. With suitable refinements, such records can be made accurate and scientific.

at the risk of...ahh, what the hell...


do you really believe that last sentence...?

...how can that be?

Yes, everything audible can be measured, even human response can be measured! The Accuracy of it all is something you have to decide!

Why is that hard to believe, have you done research on what isnt measureable, have you done measurements yourself?

Actually I think the better question has always been what can not be measured?? I even created a good thread on this topic in this forum.

How could anyone disbelieve that? Notice he didn't say instrumental measurements. If someone says he likes, or dislikes, the sound from a speaker and that is noted down, you have a measurement. With suitable refinements, such records can be made accurate and scientific.

Ha, good point...you definitely break apart everything people posts....its that a curse? ;)

I did intend measurements to mean using measurement tools (Mic, software, etc).

How could anyone disbelieve that? Notice he didn't say instrumental measurements. If someone says he likes, or dislikes, the sound from a speaker and that is noted down, you have a measurement. With suitable refinements, such records can be made accurate and scientific.

Yes, everything audible can be measured, even human response can be measured! The Accuracy of it all is something you have to decide!

Why is that hard to believe, have you done research on what isnt measureable, have you done measurements yourself?

Actually I think the better question has always been what can not be measured?? I even created a good thread on this topic in this forum.



well...here again

i think we have different views of what constitutes an "audio experience"...

Anything other than live music played in your listening room, must be a recording...aka a recorded signal. The function of the gear is to 'decode', transmit and transduce the recorded signal into sound waves. Some feel this should be done with input vs output accuracy as the paramount consideration; others feel that euphonic distortion introduced to the recorded signal, sounds 'more real'. I sympathize to an extent with the latter view, in that two-channel stereo , to me, is often enhanced by surround synthesis via Dolby ProLogic II. But I like being able to turn it off, too, when I want to, and I want the signal up to the point where *I* manipulate it, to be objectively accurate versus the input signal (i.e., the recorded signal on the CD).

sorry i overlooked this, as it is an interesting post...which i happen to agree with...but, just wondering...


should we be able to conclude that, generally speaking, those in the " input vs output accuracy as paramount" camp be considered to be measurement/spec guys (gals).....?

should we be able to conclude that, generally speaking, those in the " input vs output accuracy as paramount" camp be considered to be measurement/spec guys (gals).....?
I think that's a safe assumption. That's precisely what measurements tell us—how closely the output matches the input.

But I'll also pick up on Krab's point: If you want something other than that, don't you want control over how much alteration of the signal you get? And yet high-end audio, to the extent that it pursues real rather than imagined differences, is largely about fixed alterations (e.g., no tone controls)—which also presumes there's only one best way to listen to any and every recording.

...what carries more weight with you when making a purchase?

do you rely more on stats, measurements, graphs etc...?

or do you depend more on someones listening critique...a review?

i know, i know...both can be taken into consideration, and bottom line we use our own ears to make a final decision...

but i wanna know which you put more stock in...statistics or opinion

...and why?



still interested to hear others opinions on this...

care to weigh in...?