any suggestions for cables? - Page 29

As a student of human interaction, consider the character trait of intellectual honesty when evaluating posts. Here's a primer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_honesty

It is even better than that. In tests of speech intelligibility, the subject has to repeat what he is hearing. He can't bluff his way through that with any kind of bias. The standard is this for this is the so called "Oldenburg Sentence Test." Here is a good explanation of it:

"The Oldenburg Sentence Test was used to investigate the subjects' speech intelligibility in noise. Each test lists comprises 20 sentences composed of a first name, verb, numeral, adjective and object. The sentences are built out of a ten-word-group for every word of the sentence. Based on the randomized selection of words, the sentences patterned seem to be senseless in most cases. However, this results in an enormous advanage: the subjects are unable to complete the sentence with logical syntax or to remember sentences. The subjects' responses were analyzed using correct word-scoring."

Short of showing him the words themselves which obviously is not done in a listening test, the results can be pretty trustworthy. The fact that the listener knows he is testing noise, reflections, etc. does not help him at all in giving the right answer.
You generic position was completely valid Terry. You called on people who constantly demand double blind tests for all ideas they disagree with in audio to do the same with respect to their beliefs in acoustics. The proof point you used that "Harman has done it" is a minor miss. Fact is that reliable research and listening test data that meets the criteria for peer-reviewed journals of the industry exists and hence, the notion that it is not required for acoustics is completely wrong. People are practicing the worst form of double standards possible. What is good for the other guy clearly is not good for them. I suspect this is rooted in not studying relevant research and thinking their beliefs are beyond questioning.
You are unique in not being beyond criticism Terry .

As to correcting you, I thought I did that as I replied to RUR a week ago: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1439769/any-suggestions-for-cables/780#post_22868254. He asked me point blank about Dr. Toole's double blind tests and I explained that he relied on research from others in this area. And was perfectly OK to do the same as you asked me directly to confirm. What do you think the odds are that others will disagree with their camp this directly?

Thanks AS..I think. Cheers for the link, but am not sure how I violated the tenets there?

One's personal beliefs do not interfere with the pursuit of truth; I made it clear that not only do I not use 'cables' (which felt like a deflection from the topic) but also that my room is treated. (ha, funny to say topic when the thread is titled as it is, but hope you follow me). No-one funnily enough (or not) questioned me on it.

Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis; I fessed up to my own misunderstandings, and asked a few times for clarification (based on prompting from you and X admittedly), In other words, I was more than willing to find errors of my own.

Ha, I guess I flunked on the next one tho! Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another; I got my facts wrong. However I was 'horrified' to find that and made special effort to correct it. Hopefully that get's a tick.

Oh well, maybe you're right. I cop to the fact I was wrong. And I do that without any fear at all.

I vaguely recall making a post along those lines somewhere. I think the idea I had went something like 'insert words at various (differing) levels under the main signal, see how many or on what system you can after the music recite the words you hear'. And I think the thrust was 'completely random, no linkage at all between the words'. We have all heard the arguments of resolution blah blah, well that was an attempt to test this concept of low level resolution, stuff like that. I mean on one system you might know a word appeared, but on another you might be able to say what it was. Or on one system it might only be recognisable at -50 db but not -60db.

It could very well have been on a forum I no longer post on!!

Well yes, my stance was actually wrong, still until that was fully exposed those responding to my prompting nonetheless responded without that knowledge, in other words they reacted 'as if' it were real. It did however feel a bit churlish to belabour that point when I got my last spray. I'd rather admit to being wrong and leave it at that. Else it sounds like 'making excuses'.

'Generic position' however is an apt description.

Beyond criticism??

Me?

heck, ask my wife! (cept we're not married. You get the idea tho) Your last bit seems a bit 'poorly written'...I think I get your meaning tho. In any case I wanted a direct answer to my question, when you answered me it was completely direct and I got it. I guess I missed the one you are referring to. Appreciate the direct response.

I wasn't referring to you. I was referring to other posters, including those whose views you champion.

Reread the paper, late reflections do not mean what you think they mean in this context.

Used to work with the author. Join the ASA if you want the full text.

Re-read the paper? That is like an atheist telling the pope to re-read the bible again . If I read that paper one more time, I could recite backward from the end to the beginning from memory!

You said the paper from Dr. Toole and Olive were "hand waving" stuff. Now it is one of your proof points about something and you know it better than I? Have you spoken to Dr. Toole or Olive? I have. And at length and on multiple occasions. I have written articles on this topic that have been published. So please don't ask me to re-read one of my own references. I know the text and I know the views of the authors in this case.
I *am* a member of ASA. I said at the start that I searched their archives and all they have is the quick summary of that talk, not the paper. Are you a member? If so please download the paper and quote for us the specific areas that you say contradicts other research have been discussing. If you can't do that then as I said, you were hand waving and we can move on....

As I've said, Widescreen Review is so desperate for content they don't have to pay the author for that they will publish anything. Nobody reads it anyway. Fortunately.

Where have you read that they don't pay authors?

Were you paid for any of your articles and if so how much?

Gary Reber wrote a long editorial (diatribe) recently in which he whined (again) about a complete lack of advertiser support of both his print and online activity forcing him to reduce issue size to 60 pages and jeopardizing the publication itself. He's obviously on the ropes financially. It is not surprising. Given the other resources freely available on the web, why anyone would pay for a monthly collection of Blu-ray reviews is beyond me. My local bookstore, which carries a wide selection of periodicals, hasn't carried Widescreen Review on its shelves for years.
Edited by audiophilesavant - 2/2/13 at 9:13am

So you expressed a strong belief without having the facts relative to compensation of authors. We call your type "subjectivists" in this thread. Next thing we know you will be telling us a thicker interconnect cable sounds better and when we ask you to prove it, you ask us to do that for you!
Many newspapers and magazines are under severe pressure from the Internet. If you had said that, there would be no argument. But what you said was that this translates into quality of the work that goes in them and further, it means the people who write for them are not qualified to do so. I think we call people who extrapolate illogically this way in this thread, subjectivists.

Did you know for example that Ethan Winer wrote an article that WSR published in December? Do you think that reads poorly on Ethan because you think you can get online Blu-ray reviews for free? Did you read Ethan’s article?

Sounds like you are celebrating the financial woes of WSR. I am not. I have learned so much from WSR during its 17 years history. They were a major force behind the formation of home theater hobby and educating the enthusiasts on all matters related to it from correct video to room acoustics. Technologies like DTS would not even exist as a commercial success in consumer world without WSR.

WSR since the beginning has had a strong emphasis on teaching the science. While other magazines focus on gear review, WSR gives a voice to someone like Ethan to write an article on distortion characteristics in audio. Which advertiser do you think would be enticed to pay to have that article come out as opposed to a review of their product? Scant few. Sadly because folks like you who don’t show an interest toward learning by subscribing to the magazine, WSR is in the bad financial health.

So the reality is the opposite: WSR is failing because it focuses on science and teaching as opposed to what sells! To wit, I get to write about any topic I want on WSR. And indeed I have written articles on everything from Internet delivery of movies to acoustics and signal processing. Gary lets me write one page for 10 pages. With that kind of freedom, devoid of pressure from advertisers or the printing costs, I get to focus on teaching what I have learned in 30+ years of professionally being involved in computers, audio, video and signal processing. It is was a privilege to be able to do that for all that I have learned from other learned authors who have chosen to do so.

Answering your question, I don’t get cash compensation for writing these articles. I never asked for money and would not accept if it were offered. I am fortunate enough to not need the money and get extreme satisfaction in expressing my passion for this field in the articles I write. In that sense what I get back is far more valuable than money.

You seem to think you get the same high quality information online that you do in WSR. So I invite to show where on the web you would read about computer optimization of acoustics which was the title of my article in the same January issue you reference: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/Computer%20Optimization%20of%20Acoustics.html

In there I explain how we can use computing power to optimize the performance of N subs to blend with 5 to 9 other main speakers, while at the same time producing the smoothest frequency response across multiple seats. This creates millions of combinations which puts the task well beyond the capabilities of even top acoustic experts. I not only explain the science but also dig through a number of real test cases. I explain the research behind them so that you don’t have to spend money buying the papers and importantly being able to parse the data in them. The article ends with authoritative references as if this was a paper published in AES.

After that article came out, I received the nicest emails from one of the top experts/researchers in the acoustic industry. He said it was wonderful to read such fresh approach to acoustics. And no, he has nothing to do with Harman, Dr. Toole, etc. He is one of the experts who is routinely cited here as opposing my views. Yet here we are with me sitting on the most complimentary note from him. This was the point I was making that you responded to. That if I write something that is not valid, there is a feedback mechanism for magazine articles because what is written comes out under your real name and hence folks can write and say it is not correct. I am fortunate that in the four years that I have been writing these articles, the only feedback I have received have been positive. Doesn't guarantee accuracy of course but does make your case that it lacks it pretty weak .

BTW, last week I submitted the next article for the February issue. That one came about from another thread that you were participating on the need for more data relative to the performance of HDMI in AVRs. Here is what my workbench looked like at the end of the project:



You are looking at $100,000 worth of audio and test equipment! There is a $25,000 Audio Precision Analyzer and a $10,000 one from Prism Sound alone. Speaking of Prism Sound, I worked with them on creation of this article. I suspect you have never heard of the company but hopefully you have heard of the late Julian Dunn who is one of the foremost authorities on digital audio performance and the author of many industry standards and papers (see this wonderful write up about him: http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/jaes.obit/JAES_V51_4_PG290.pdf). It was a pleasure to be drawing on the deep expertise that still exists at Prism Sound for this article.

That article will come out next month in WSR. Sadly, that may be the last issue of WSR due to the very difficult financial situation they are in. It will be a loss for us collectively if they close the doors. To celebrate otherwise as you are doing will be a sure sign that we don’t care as much about the science as we claim to…

If you say so...

I think kiwi is speaking to you amirm, it just isn't cool to brag when you've "got it" but then that is what separates the cool from the not cool. Are we cool?

I wonder what label we put on those who do selective quote mining? Out of what must be (literally!) tens of thousands of words we are reduced to a mere handful (taken out of context).

Well yeah, out of a field to mine so vast I am confident it would be a doddle that ANYONE, me and thee, would be able to be caught out in a contradiction at some stage. No, an argument is solid when founded upon a logical whole. (that the mental rigour needed when properly quoting is absent in this case then the idea that these are genuine contradictions remains, in the scottish sense, not proven)

Intellectually honest is one label that comes to mind that certainly would not apply, you can help with finding the correct one.

That someone is so intellectually barren that they have the false impression it is somehow compelling is kinda dipsy. Then to put on public show for all to see exactly how scatterbrained they really are.....well we don't have to pity them that much as we have already established they don't have the mental horsepower to even realise it so they will remain in ignorant bliss, patting themselves on the back saying 'gee, am I clever or what'

I hope the irony in this statement isn't lost on all, given your choice of champion to defend in the name of "human interest." Some of us have long since recognized just such behavior for what it is and have labeled it as much.

Catching up on some old posts. This was said in defense of the M&K speakers: Well, Deluxe uses JBL Synthesis systems. Here is a picture of one of the rooms:



If you look in the rack below the desk on the left, not only do you see the JBL Synthesis SDEC-4500 processor which pefors the EQ based on proper listening tests I linked to earlier in this thread, you also see the Mark Levinson No 502 processor. You may recognize the same in my picture of the latest set of tests I ran. So much for Pros not buying "audiophile" class products . OK so that is not typical but thought it was ironic that this example was brought up.

As you will see in my article, the 502's performance was stellar. So objectively they made the right call there.
You are right that as a rule Pros buy Pro products. That said, I want to make sure we don't chase what they do as being more correct than what consumers do. There is no requirement to be have a degree in signal processing, psychoacoustics, or ability to perform double blind tests to become a pro mixing movie or music soundtracks. Those people may have a bit more access to manufacturers than consumers do but outside of that, their choices are no more fact based than any other category of customers.

To give you a specific example, a few years ago there was a blind test on AVS forum. Folks were give a few files and they were to identify the order of them with respect to quality. I participated as did many including one of our movie mixing experts, Filmixer. We sent our results to the author using PM. When I did that I got the "nice try but you are wrong" answer . Later on the results were posted which as he said disagreed with my vote. The point of contention was that I found two of the files to sound the same which according to the answers, was impossible. To prove to the author that could not be the case, I ran a binary comparison which showed the files to indeed be identical, bit for bit! Needless to say, that led to the author declaring the test invalid after realizing that he had uploaded the same file twice but with different names. Here is the the thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/908161/audio-dbt-1-summary. As you see there, Filmixer did not catch that and voted the identical files as being different.

Mind you, I would not hold a candle to him when it comes to his everyday job: mixing movie soundtracks. So I am not telling you that I am better than him. The point simply is that being a Pro doesn't make you more authoritative in audio. It just doesn't. For video yes. But not for audio.

Yeah, I see and take your point. I know exactly what you are referring to. It is the difference that interests me. Agree or disagree with him, he makes an argument at least, and has something to say (agree or disagree)

Compare and contrast to another that has yet to make a contribution other than constant carping from the sideline. It is clear that he has nothing to contribute, and I doubt has the capacity to contribute. The irony lies in that he probably thinks he does, which is a neat summation of his view on self worth.

Anyone else wonder whether that binary comparison really came after initial submission of voting by PM?

You don't need to "wonder." I am transparent about such things: http://www.avsforum.com/t/908161/audio-dbt-1-summary/60. I did rerun it for the purpose of posting it in that thread and showing that the files were identical since folks were not believing it. You can see that posted in the thread.

Keep in mind that I spent a decade managing a team that developed audio compression technologies and played the role of "trained listener" during that entire period. So hearing compression artifacts at the time was what I was trained to do. In that sense, what seems to require cheating in your book, did not in mine.

I was not sure if I could still pass such tests given aging and losing high frequency acuity. Then came a bit of good news recently in the form of another 'blind" challenge on WBF forum. Someone post a very long clip (9+ minutes) and asked to PM him with the phrase that someone whispers in there. No other hints were given. It was thought that you need to have a high resolution system to hear it and naturally could not be deciphered using Youtube clip as posted. Well, I was heartened to find the magic phrase . See if you can pass the test. Click on the first link in this google search: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1C1SNNT_enUS374US375&q=site%3Awhatsbestforum.com+A+little+High+Resolution+Fun&oq=site%3Awhatsbestforum.com+A+little+High+Resolution+Fun&gs_l=serp.3...4367.4367.0.4624.1.1.0.0.0.0.47.47.1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.2.serp._YVtmwPeVi4

Listen to the youtube clip and don't go past that. I don't recall if the phrase was posted there eventually or not. If not, you can post it here and I can tell you if you are right.

I wonder if it wasn't easier on youtube than on the cd, actually. A little compression to lift the smaller details closer to the surface can go a long way.

I wouldn't even try this test without the 44/16 .wav file, but I'm not about to pay $17 to jump down yet another rabbit hole.
Edited by arnyk - 2/5/13 at 6:17pm

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

The quoted text doesn't change its meaning if you add the context.

We've been down any number of rabbit holes with this poster. If you carefully highlight the gross and often self-serving errors in his posts, he just disappears down one of his rabbit holes and reappears a few days later with another brier patch of twisted audio semi-truths.

who is 'this poster' arny? It is not clear, we can all assume we know who you mean, but...

Lossy audio compression does not work like level compression. MP3, AAC, WMA, etc. are all what we call transform based codecs. The signal is taken from time doing into frequency domain where we apply the psychoacoustics models (e.g. masking, threshold of hearing, etc.) to reduce the effective resolution at each frequency band. That creates coding errors which due to the transform window size, spread the noise across the full frame. Translating into English: transients suffer because there is now an envelop of noise/distortion surrounding them. Speech unfortunately is a type of signal which suffers in this situation as it is actually made up of transients. This is why voice is often used to test transform based codecs. To with, Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner is part of the MPEG "codec killer" test tracks where she sings with no instruments. The clip is pretty revealing in how her voice becomes more "scruffy, "rough" or scratchy for lack of better words to describe it. For these reasons, for lower bit rates where the quality gets far worse, there is an entirely different type of compression gets used for speech. They are different forms of linear predictions (CELP, ACELP, etc).

The Youtube clip at the rate that is being played uses AAC. AAC is the best transform codec when it comes to voices. In that sense, it did not present as big of an impediment to hearing the whispers as it could have. BTW, others listened to both the CD and Youtube and I don't think anyone else managed to hear the phrase. So the fidelity level did not make a difference. The issue is that people tend to not know "how to listen." As part of my previous job I had to learn to search for artifacts much like a doctor or pathologist learns to examine your lab test results (e.g. an X-ray or other scans). To me it was readily audible. But clearly not to others. Hence the reason I think it has to do with how analytical we are about the task at hand.

a lot of it comes down to 'how we listen'?

For years, I simply treated vocals as 'another instrument'. I never cared for what was sung, it was just a melody. I guess I still don't care 'that much'. I most certainly never concentrate on being able to discern vocals, it is just an inseperable part of the music.

I listened to that track on you tube last night, heck after a very short while I could have cared less, not my style of music. (call that a drum solo? )

So many factors come into it.

Well, I was quite late into the test, but it wasn't a problem in youtube (HP computer standard soundcard - Metavox preamp - Denon AH-D5000 headphones) nor on the CD at home once I got it. Streamed from Spotify via Sonos (Benchmark DAC) was a problem, though. ( I think... I did that first and perhaps I was skipping the relevant part in retrospect? )

Omg.. You guys are still here?...lol..just bought a anthem now I'm using arc room correction ..wow arc defenitly makes a huge improvement!

The copper in my aged clear speaker cables seems to be turning green. Is this affecting the sound? Should I spring for a new pair?

 

It's oxidisation - from where the copper meets the air and reacts over time to it and the moisture it contains. It is very unlikely that the copper inside the sheath has oxidised, so just cut off the exposed inch or so, strip back to new bare copper and you are all set.

 

Is the air especially moist in your part of the world?

No, air in the room has pretty low humidity. The copper has oxidized along the entire length of the cables, the cable covering is clear. When new, I remember the copper being much brighter. Just wondering if this would affect sound?