AVR Sound Comparison - Page 3

There are many members here using Pioneer Elites to drive 4 ohm loads without problems. Were you referring to non-elite Pioneers? If not please read the SC threads, as they seem to be doing quite well. As for your other suggestions regarding an AVR with pre-outs I can agree with that 100%. I wish that other CE's had done what Yamaha did this year and added them on their lower tier models. But then again maybe Yamaha should not have made such a drastic drop on their AVR's to begin with.

It's totally relevant if you believe there is value in applying Scientific means-testing to claims about audio.


Yes, what Scientific data we have, suggests that humans -including audiophiles- are actually incapable of discerning some differences which many people here and elsewhere regularly claim to be capable of discerning, and the results of such testing have been very consistent over the last several decades.

Now see rto, I find it so very difficult to understand how you can post that people are
and then quantify that as an absolute. "Some" means just that, 'some'. "Some" is not an absolute 'whole' as you are attempting to lead people here to believe.

But I gather the biggest misconception about this entire topic (going back to the OP's opening sentence) is that while you insist these DBT fail to be able to distinguish which system is better, that not one person, myself included, has said otherwise in this thread. What I am stating is that there are differences in sound. It doesn't matter, and is actually completely irrelevant, as to the fact that the majority of people choose the less expensive system in a DBT. What is relevant and what does matter, is that people DO hear a difference. It matters not if that difference makes one more pleasing to the senses than the other. What does matter is that there is enough of a difference that they were able to make a choice. And were you to argue that the choice was made on a guess only, that because there wasn't any difference at all, would then make all these factual DBTs invalid.

So as you can see, (and I know it wasn't you who challenged me to begin with) different people interpret different things, differently, as I said earlier.

In that case any receiver will do fine for you! LOL

I can easily believe that Elites are used to drive 4ohm speakers everyday. The question isn't can an amp drive 4 ohm speakers, but rather at what level and for how long can these 4ohm speakers be driven using say an 8 ohm amplifier before amplifier failure.

What amazes me is that no one has ever commissioned a serious large scale controlled listening test.

It would atleast produce enough data for people to make their own conclusions.

The only conclusion I have is that there is no real serious interest in doing so from members bantering back and forth to company using extreme subjectivity to sell their products.

Nothing would end the debate better then a yearly controlled listening event

I haven't done anything of the kind. You simply insist upon trying to stuff absolutes in my mouth which I clearly haven't uttered.


You appear to be suggesting that perception is reality, and if someone believes they're hearing a difference when they really aren't, it's irrelevant. Is that a fair synopsis of your position?

well can you post something relevant because one is junk and the other is about amps and presents no data or conclusions. i see nothing about avrs or processors so unless someone posts otherwise we are in a data free zone.

no, the question is which is more important in buying-decision making and that is philosophy not dogma.

Are you saying the results of DBTs of level matched like electronics show there is a difference? Actually I have always read the results as generally there isnt enough difference and that anyone picking A or B are merely guessing. Enough samples during the tests picked the "same sound". There has to be a strong correlation (statistical significance) in the data for two amps to be proven as sounding different.

Conclusion is that electronics being tested didnt have enough audible difference to be scientifically proven as different.

Note: Im not concluding that all amps sound the same....Someone always loves to jump to that conclusion

What philosophy are you talking about? Suggestive evidence collected by Scientifically valid means isn't dogma, but objective evidence.

hehe, but what else can we offer on here?

I say.... buy what you like, like what you buy...just don't post wild subjective conclusions online about it

Back in the eighties, Stereo Review magazine ran a series of DBT's employing an ABX comparator in a fairly stringent double-blind protocol. In one series of procedures, they compared budget CD players against multi-kilobuck audiophile units....in another, they compared low-rent recievers against an expensive dedicated audiophile pre-amp connected to several different multi-kilobuck audiophile amps. Participants were professionals in the field of audio, many of whom had decades of experience, and most of them were utterly convinced they'd be able to tell one product from another. In fact, they couldn't, to a degree of statistical significance. The letters following those tests were comedy gold.

No. You have stated as absolute. The last time:



Perception IS reality to those who are doing the perceiving. When someone says they hear something, and you say they do not hear something, who's reality is real?


And with that statement you are invalidating all these DBT if the participants are indeed "guessing". I would certainly presume that there would be 2 possible choices in a DBT; difference, no difference. ANd what motive do people have to say there is a difference when in fact (as you claim) there is none?

Again, sound is subjective. I can say in all reality that I interpret louder as not better, but just louder. I also say that there are differences between 3 different manufacturers AVRs. This is reality. I will agree that it may be possible to make all 3 AVRs sound alike but the way it is done will distinguish one from the other ie...they will sound different. I mean, 10 watts at 20% THD will sound different than 10 watts at .05% THD. The 10 watts with 20% THD will sound louder than the 10 watts with .05% THD, but I won't perceive tha 10w/20% as being better, only louder and actually, worse.

But as penngray has already established, DBTs are invalid since people guess at what they are making claims of. So, untill the time comes when all people come to the same conclusion that there is no difference and do not guess that one is different, then DBTs are irrelevant and meaningless waste of time.

You simply quoted me out of context. Here's what I said in context:


I took the liberty of highlighting the qualifier so you wouldn't miss it again. So much for absolutes.


Perhaps the fellow who's honest enough with himself to admit that the expensive high-end power amp he just purhased delivers far more in the way of aesthetics, exclusivity and pride of ownership, than obviously apparent qualitative sonic benefits.



Ugh, I can't even make sense of this. Research statistical analysis.

Nonsense.

You have gone so far off base it isn't even worth my time redirecting you (again) down the right path. I mean you obviously have read nothing other than what you wanted from my posts as evidenced by your "highlighting" one word that I had emphasized in my own, earlier posts.

And statistics are not the absolutes that you (again) are making them out to be. Statistics are just that, meaningless averages. Not absolutes. And untill you are honest enough to admit this is so, I have nothing further to say to you as you are just repeating the baseless dribble over and over.

With all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to established/accepted protocols for testing human perception. The results of such tests are perfectly valid, and have added much to our knowledge base re: the capabilities and limits of human perception. Some of this knowledge has been practically applied in the fields of Medicine and Psychology.

I agree, it would have to be done by someone competent and knowledgeable here. I nominate you Penn you have that whole arta(not sure what that is) thread going.

No "Pro" or magazine is going to do it for fear of losing standing in the audiophile community or sponsorship/advertising. The audio industry is just like most others in that if it gets out that this years model isn't different/better than the competitions or better than previous models to stimulate sales than the industry as a whole will go away.

Perhaps. I won't tell you receivers can't sound different. Like I have said a number of times, some receivers have been shown to sound so similar people could not tell them apart in blind listening tests.

You can read up on this and form your own conclusions.

As I said, the room correction feature on receivers can obviously make a difference. Bass/treble setting can make a difference. Any compression setting that was turned on can make a difference. Any processing option other than simply decoding the digital audio can make a difference. Differences in power, if one or both receivers ever went into clipping can make a difference. Whether the speakers are set to small or large can make a difference. Where the crossover was set can make a difference. And note that receiver's crossovers don't have to behave the same way even with the same setting. The channel trims for each channel can make a difference.

After eliminating every one of the factors, and any I forgot, and matching the receivers so they played at identical SPL levels (at each speaker,) a listening test in a store might have some validity.

I am not being difficult. I am trying to point out very real potential differences which I think could bias any attempt to do a listening test in a store.

Which is why some suggested a longer term test at home, providing you don't exceed the time alloted by your return policy.

Or, if you agreed with the evidence that receivers sound a lot alike when all factors are made as equal as possible, you could make your buying decision based on factors other than the elusive factor of audio quality. I realize that sentence is unreadable now that I re-read it. I mean to say, you can decide to ignore audio quality when buying receivers, after considering the evidence available. To make myself clear, I am not insisting you accept this. Just saying it can simplify buying.

Many people come to this forum and post stories about returning a receiver they did not like, and how they were wowed by another receiver they bought. But people also insist on some crazy ideas like how high fidelity power cords improved their sound. Only you can decide what you think is fact, and what you think is BS

Is this pattern actually moving or do you only percieve it to be doing so?

Absolutely. Because no statistics, and no DBT can tell you what YOU hear. Audio is very subjective. I think that was mentioned once or twice in this thread already.

In um, absolute terms, this is a legitimate point. A/V enthusiasm isn't a matter of life and death, so some might say c'est la vie if you're kidding yourself.......however, this hobby can and quite often, does lead to the expenditure of considerable sums of money. Certainly in my case it has.

So, either we happily embrace a situation where a great many people regularly invest in "benefits" which are largely or entirely illusory, or, we bemoan the fact that there isn't a comprehensive objective data-set with the potential to inform a much higher percentage of consumer buying decisions with objectively tangible beneficial results.

I dunno, it seems to me like the right choice is to keep whining.

I think a lot of reviews are silly. Just my experience in reading audio magazines in the past and comparing real life experience. Where are these amazing differences you read about in reviews? I have not heard them

Of course perceptions are limited in what we hear over a duration of limited time in an unfamiliar environment. These are the conclusions of many in the perception field; including Bob Stuart who has written papers on such material.

The real question however becomes could you tell a difference in a blind test using equipment you've listened to for a number of months or perhaps years, in a room and a system you've listened to for the same length using a recording you've heard well over a hundred times. Would you hear a difference if you inserted a new amp, speaker, cable etc...the DBX camp will never know because DBX tests are designed to test a human perception in the short term when auditory memory has been well documented as being a long term perceptional value.

Some DBX enthusiasts have gone out and challenged the established audio community, when one person from Stereophile finally stood up and accepted but only under the conditions that he could hear both pieces (amplifiers) in a familiar acoustic environment with recordings of his choice. The test could then be performed after the subject had climatized himself with his acoustic surroundings (and equipment). The DBX challenge was withdrawn...right or wrong, difference or no difference. I have never heard of a DBX which actually had tolerated the notion that differences might be there but the test is conducted in a manner which prevents those differences to be exposed.

Poppycock. I've repeatedly and quite deliberately used the word "suggestive"..... However, while the Scientific data to which we have access is insufficient in breadth and depth to be definitive, it's certainly more objectively persuasive than a slew of anecdotal audiophile opinions/subjective reviews.