Are audio companies all involved in a huge conspiracy? - Page 9

Well, this quote from that post pretty much sums it up;

"In hindsight what was really happening over time was I was training my objective brain (I've always been quite technical) how to subjectively evaluate using my ears."

To me that reads like self-brainwashing.

It should read the opposite Training to hear system artifacts by practicing as he says is a completely accepted and sanctioned industry practice. Indeed, we develop expert listeners that way, allowing them to hear artifacts far more accurately and reliably than average people. Here is a comparison of how they did relative to normal listeners in double blind speaker tests:



They are in the bar in gray. As you see, training has made them far more critical of distortions.

Not saying he achieved that goal but the process is anything but brainwashing. The same is used in other industries where experts are developed to taste ice cream, coffee, bear, etc. There is technique and science to what to look for. You can learn that by practice.

It says "Untrained", not "average".

No, Amir, he did no such thing. Learn to read in context.

Seems to me like a repetition of the audiophile myth that blind tests involve different kind(s) of listening than sighted evaluations. In this case I read the above as saying that by listening by some means as yet unknown to sceince differences can be heard, but that form of listening is impossible to do in a blind test.

This is an argument by means of introduction of a false premise. Or as is described here: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx

"Ad ignorantiam - The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true."

Well I agree that we can be trained to know what to listen for to a certain extent. Such as a person that assumes bloated bass is powerful and that accurate bass is anemic. A loudspeaker by it's mechanical nature is one of the more significant components in the chain and can certainly have easily identifiable characteristics. Those characteristics can be completely altered by placement, so one speaker might sound better 8' from the listening position and another at 10', or toed in vs not toed in etc....I don't know how you rectify that in a speaker DBT, but that's not really my point. My point is a speaker test is completely different than a component, speaker cable or power cable testing, and should be. To suggest you can "train" yourself to hear what a power cord can do seems beyond absurd.

Well, you could, if a power cord actually did anything.

What's truly absurd about the immediate case is that JS claims to have trained himself by listening sighted. That's a trick.

Well, since you mentioned it regardless , the tests that I showed accomplished that using a speaker shuffler which moves speakers in and out to the same position. I would tell you more on where to go and read it but seems like a few here think any discussion of science that can remotely be tied to a commercial interest is taboo and subject one to being called a "shill." If you are not in that camp, let me know and I will provide more detail. You would be in good company of such major organizations such as Audio Engineering Society which has no such preconditions. And rightly so as vast majority of audio research is done by companies with a financial interest in this business. I accept that you have a preconceived notion that the results of his work are not believable. That's fine. We all have our own ideas that we use to evaluate claims in this field. What you quoted from him though was more generic. That practicing to hear distortion is brainwashing. It simply is not. This is what he said:

If there is a difference, that is the way to find it. Just to be clear, i have never tested power cords this way and don't know one way or the other if what he says is true. I am only commenting on what is written and that it follows industry practices for hearing small distortions.

That's a complete misunderstanding of what he was responding to. If you'd bother to read the earlier description of this "training," you wouldn't have been hoodwinked into comparing it to good psychoacoustic research.
This explains a lot.
No, it doesn't. You obviously don't know a thing about "industry practices."

Two different speakers will perform differently if they're at the same postion, they're mechanical, they have different dispersion patterns etc., so that is flawed right from the get go. It's like comparing a pair of headphones tight to your ears against a pair held two inches away, not that drastic obviously, but the same basic principle. It in no way is a reasonable example of being able to hear, or being "trained" to hear something like a power cord.

Some of the manufacturer white papers I've seen seem to be more reasonable than some of the drivel I've seen from a few reviewers, so I'm not totally closed minded based on the source.

You're confusing two very different types of tests. What Amir is describing is a test (actually the training for a test) to determine which of several speakers sounds best to the test subjects. That the speakers sound different is assumed. You're thinking of tests to determine whether two components sound different in the first place.

One of the absurdities of Skubinsky's joke of a test is that he assumed a difference that wasn't there, then chose his test method to confirm this false assumption. IOW, pure pseudoscience. No wonder Amir's a cheerleader for it.

I can accept that maybe he believes what he's saying, and maybe that he believe's what he's hearing. I'm just saying if that's the case then he's creating those beliefs whether he knows it or not.
Seriously, if it takes "months" to identify a "signature"... wow.

I said from the get go I agree you can be trained to hear accuracy, the same way you can train to hear if a guitar is out of tune, but only to a point. There are well defined and finite limits of human hearing that some of these people claim to exceed by gargantuan amounts. The only plausible explanation is the belief system, or as the thread title suggests, a conspiracy to part people from their money. I think in the big picture there's a bit of both in play.

No I get that, I was suggesting using speaker testing as an example to support the results of training to hear system artifacts is flawed.

Absolutely. Once someone has heard the swishy swirly sound of lossy compression at a very low bit rate, it's much easier to notice it at higher bit rates.

Indeed. Listener training is unrelated to fooling oneself into believing a difference exists when it really doesn't.

--Ethan

As a CPA with a BS in Philosophy I appreciate your link to the discussion on the Top 20 Logical Fallacies.

Last night I was trying to explain to my wife that you would not need to have an EE or be a Physicist to understand why a power cord (that was not defective) could not have an audible effect that would be detectable to the listener.

I explained that a power cord supplies electrical current to the power supply for an audio amplifier.

The power supply is designed to convert the 120 volt AC electrical current provided by the power cord into a specified voltage, amperage, and direct current (DC). In other words, the purpose of the power supply is to eliminate anything that is not the specified voltage, amperage and direct current required by the electronic components of the amplifier.

In other words, if the power cord could induce an irregularity in the volts, amps, or other characteristic of electrical current provided to the power supply, the power supply would correct for this irregularity in the electrical input and provide the proper electrical output as it was designed to do.

Well, putting aide that not all power supplies are regulated, JN on this forum has a (complex) answer for how such audible effects can be induced. You can read about it starting here: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1369578/i-was-wondering-can-anyone-explain-t-me-how-a-upgraded-power-cord-can-help/60#post_21148394.

Note that it is his arguments, not mine . So don't ask me about it. As I noted, I have no opinion about power cords making a difference and use generic ones that come with my gear....

I'm not interested in high jacking this thread, but I read his posts and I don't see any proof that a power cord could make a difference that could be scientifically replicated. For example, a double blind test.

With that I will stop my questions about power cords in this thread and move elsewhere.

There are actually two dimensions to ear training.

One dimension of audible differences is where we hear that the spectral balance or timbre is incorrect while the other dimension of audible differences is where we hear sounds that were not part of the music or we hear that parts of the music have disappeared. Both of these kinds of errors are most easily and sensitively detected by means of direct comparison over a period of a few seconds at most.

When differences of this nature are large, then it can be safe to presume that nobody in their right mind would perform or record music that sounds that bad. Of course recordings have been made where there is quite a bit of reliable evidence that their sonic shortcomings are exactly what was recorded. If you attempt to configure or adjust your system so that they sound right, you will hurt your system's SQ for the general run of recordings. This is one reason why I automatically discount poetic prose about a system's sound quality based on just one or a small number of recordings.

Once we enter the realm of subtle differences, then it is very difficult to judge SQ unless some kind of direct comparison with an accurate sound can be made. The natural variation in performances and recordings work against us, because it becomes unreasonable to presume that any given recording is a priori actually done that well.

The other problem is that in the realm of subtle differences, relatively small level differences and the natural morphing of spectral balance and content of music can contain differences that vastly exceed the differences among the equipment being compared.

The good news is that close comparisons of equipment that only manifests small differences is generally possible and often easy to arrange.

Listener training is a reliably observable effect, but it works only to a point. Once a difference is so small as to inaudible, that is it butts up against one the thresholds of hearing for that effect, nobody hears nothing. The standard means for training listeners is to contrive a situation where the effect in question is magnified so that it becomes obvious and easy to hear. The magnification is scaled back in logical steps until no difference is heard. The point where differences are no longer heard becomes a data point. It is well known that these data points tend to cluster around points that in some cases correlate with physically observable effects that can be observed by independent means. IOW, if we understand how parts of our hearing system work, their maximum performance can be deduced from that knowlege, and when that happens it matches up with actual observations.

Differences among rooms often make differences among loudspeakers seem small. If you actually take several pairs of loudspeakers on a tour of various listening rooms you may find that each room impresses its sonic character on the speaker so strongly that the differences among the speakers is the lesser audible effect.

Exactly.

Please study up on Harman's hydraulic "Speaker Shuffler".


http://mixonline.com/gear/tech_talk/techtalk_wysi_not_always_wyg/

"In the MLL, Harman created a device called the speaker shuffler, a hydraulic machine that operates behind a visually opaque and sonically transparent screen, and lets you swap up to four pairs of speakers up to 200 pounds each and put them in the exact same position, all within three seconds. It removes what Chaikin calls the “nuisance variables” that can color perception, such as logo, brand, look of the product, color, price and, most importantly, position. Any speaker will sound different if it’s placed even a foot to the left or right, affecting the listener’s judgment."



"Shown is the automated speaker shuffler of the MLL set up for A/B stereo testing of two stereo
loudspeakers. Here the front listening screen is pulled up."

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2010/07/harman-kardons-quest-to-standardise.html



"Above: Trained listener Alex Miller is evaluating the sound quality of three loudspeakers in Harman's Multichannel Listening Lab. The automated speaker shuffler ensures that each speaker is heard in the exact same position. The acoustically transparent, visually opaque scrim means the tests are double-blind and not influenced by brand, price or other sighted biases. The computer randomly selects the presentation order of the speakers in each trial and listener controls the switching so that experimenter bias is removed from the test."



I am uncomfortable with dismissing potential audible differences when there are measurable differences that might be audible.

Power cords might cause audible differences due to ground loops and how they are routed, but this applies only to systems that are poorly configured in the first place. Shielded power cords might make a difference as compared to unshielded power cords in some circumstances. Of course standard commercial grade shielded power cords can be obtained for only a modest price premium. If the rest of the system is up to snuff, the location of a power cord should not matter that much. However we have audiophiles who favor unshielded interconnects and even unshielded phono cables, and amps and preamps in wooden boxes that lack the normal shielding. Go figure!
Edited by arnyk - 9/5/12 at 5:15am

 

This may well be my firm Arny. 

 

Nice post! 

Thanks for that.

I completely agree on the room acoustics being the most significant factor in audio, and most noticeable. The differences in audio gear are generally minuscule by comparison.

I suppose I should have put out the caveat that power cords in poorly configured systems could make a difference. I never thought of it though because I've only come across a ground loop problem once in thirty years with a subwoofer. Ironically the cure was a power cord, not the cord itself but where I plugged it, the same circuit as the rest of the gear. And I didn't have to be trained to hear the problem either.

I guess it's like calling a spade a spade, if a power cord's job is to get A/C to the component, then that's it's job plain and simple. If it's correcting a ground loop, or other anomily that can get into the system, then it's a power conditioner in my books, so call it that.

It really does make sense that most components by the nature of A/C to D/C conversion in their power supplies do the job of A/C filtering adequately, and that you're more likely to get A/C "noise" through interconnects and their interaction with chassis grounds. But as you suggest they'd have to be pretty poor.

I also find it interesting that listening to music is a method to test if a power cord has an effect. Ground loops can be easily heard, but what other A/C induced noise could there be that would affect "music" and not be present in the systems' noise floor without any material playing?

One issue that is bothering me with these threads (re: interconnects, power cords, etc) is even with giving the benefit of doubt to some of the positions exposed, these positions are at best simply a hypothesis held by the individual. These positions should in no way be called a theory.

I read the post and the thread quoted below and the author of the post was asked repeatedly in the thread what specific brand and models he was referring to in his many posts that had problems that a "high-end" power cord would fix. I could not find anywhere in the thread where the specific brand and models were identified. (I realize that it is possible that a moderator could have edit a post identifying specific brands or models.)

An important part of the scientific process is the ability for others to reproduce what you're claiming in your hypothesis. I should be able to find out what specific power cords were used, what specific amplifier were used, etc. and then conduct same experimental processes and reach the same conclusion.

Without this part of the scientific process, the hypothesis can never become "accepted" as a theory.

That's not accurate mcnarus, you are twisting the meaning of my very brief explanation. I assume nothing. The only reason I am in this business is due to the fact that I initially heard a difference and investigated as to why. The training comes from continuously doing so since then.

And how's life in your universe these days, Joe?

Yes, possible but highly unlikely.

I didn't link you to any old thread on the topic or to any ordinary poster. JN is an experienced engineer working on high power supplies for superconductors and such. In his business, the wrong decision can cost millions if not billions and potentially injure people. So he has to, and indeed does know the basics of his electrical power, grounding, etc. cold. So while one can dismiss posts by random individuals without qualifications in the filed as you say, it is not an appropriate response to JN.
He is not making a case for "high-end" anything. He says so himself. Have you read all of his posts? He makes a case for a lot of equipment being designed by people who are unaware of these issues (which I can vouch for myself from my experience of managing hardware projects). He further says that given a less than well designed system, changing out power cords/interconnects can change the balance of the grounding enough to make an audible difference. My read of his posts indicates that he is not talking about rare or "broken" gear but much larger swath of electronics gear.
I think you are confusing this place with something different . There is no field of scientists reading and commenting on JN's work. I have read a lot of people argue with him. Most are random posters with zero experience in electronics, professionally or academically. The few with engineering experience have not been able to wrestle him to the ground simply because JN has very deep expertise in this narrow area. He may be wrong but no one I have seen here has come close to putting him on his back . Hence the reason I had you read his posts. He peels the layers of the onion and provides a technical explanation for what some may be hearing. Per above, if you have similar expertise I encourage you to comment to him next time the topic comes up.

Even if you don't believe him, I say he earns some credit for trying to discuss some science related to audio. Heaven knows nothing comes out the 1000th times someone says there is no difference between cables. It is all a Kangaroo court otherwise as we see here, with folks just ridiculing the other side and complimenting each other . You are no smarter after reading them than you were the day before. At least reading theory of audio and electronics will give you some knowledge that might come in handy elsewhere.

Of course that's what you would say your read is because you sell overpriced electronics.
One doesn't need experience in electronics, professionally or academically to point out a poster's English communication flaws.

No, it isn't.
No, it doesn't.

Interesting then that you apparently started with a listening technique that answered the why, dismissed the results, and now admittedly use a listening technique incapable of answering that question. Of course the answer isn't financially advantageous, so I have no choice but to doubt your stated motive.

I was referring to JN. He was asked several times to identify audio equipment that has the design issues that he claims make them susceptible to the stock cord causing audible problems. I didn't see where any audio equipment was specifically identified before the thread was locked.

I would imagine that once examples of equipment were identified, JN and others could replicate the process of scientifically quantifying if an audible problem exists and then if so, switching the power cord and scientifically determine if the audio problem no longer exists. If the audio problem did in fact originally existed and changing the power cord did not fix the audio problem, then all involved could conclude that changing the power cord did not make an audible difference.

Developing a hypothesis as JN has done would require knowledge regarding physics and other electrical and electronic disciplines, but testing it using scientific methods would not be overly complex. I only have a BS in Philosophy, but I would assume that if JN is involved with developing power supplies for superconductors, he would have more then enough experience in how to design a double blind testing procedure to determine if his hypothesis meets the rigors of scientific testing.

I'm not an engineer, but I would speculate that an engineer would want to have scientific proof that his hypothesis is valid and possibly even patent his designs for power cords based on his designs. Honestly, I can't image anything that would be more exciting.

Watching paint dry comes to mind.

Our two trolling salesmen seem to have turned this into a power cord thread. Please try to resist swallowing the bait.