Count 1 more for all receivers sound the same - Page 10

I think the big key is that, if there were noticeable differences between amps the companies making those better amps would show the hard data proving it. They would eagerly go into double blind tests and come out on top, repeatedly. I know I would be throwing my amp around in double blind tests if I ran a company that created one which was noticeably better - making sure ALL the professional magazines knew all about it. The dearth of these tests speaks volumes.


EDIT: I realize that in science the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - but in capitalism it is.
Edited by cybrsage - 2/9/13 at 7:59pm

 

Your gracious reply speaks volumes and I thank you for it. 

 

Absolutely. And if a room is not treated, then really, all arguments about whether this amp sounds better than that amp, or even this speaker sounds better than that speaker to some extent, become pointless. People often forget that they are listening to a system - and the room is the most influential part of that system.

Well that doesn't sound like a very good description of the arguments I've read and occasionally participated in, but if that's your perception I have one question: Are the best theists those who are happy for atheists who have found satisfaction in their lack of belief?

Isn't that the truth! Non-theists are expected to accept theists but the inverse is not true. To get back on topic, I have no faith in the belief that amps are unique in their sound. Amplifiers, at least non-tube ones and one's not designed as glorified tone controls, sound pretty much the same.
Receivers are different because of all the processing they are capable of.
Edited by Theresa - 2/10/13 at 4:33am

So concert hall, stadium etc processing aside, is one receivers DTS HD Audio the same as any other?

So concert hall, stadium etc processing aside, is one receivers DTS HD Audio the same as any other?

Good question, I don't know.
As for sample size, its more than sufficient and the many repetitions show the same thing increasing certainty.

 

DTS HD MA and Dolby TrueHD are, AFAIK, 'standards', so they should be handled the same by every AVR they are found in. It is the DSPs that create the differences by adding additional processing - eg Dolby True HD + Dolby PLII Cinema or Dolby True HD + THX Cinema etc. Some DSPs upmix 5 channels into 7, for example, even when the original codec is 5.1 - eg Dolby True HD + DTS Neo:X, where the latter adds height and/or wide channels.

 

In my professional life (Advertising) I have often had to work with markt research organisations and one of the very common errors people make is to assume that a huge sample size is needed to give accurate predictions or indicators. You will hear people say of a particular piece of MR things like "How can they determine what the market for this product wants when they only surveyed 400 people - the market is millions?"  The answer of course is that so long as the sample is properly representative of the universe, then the conclusions will be accurate. Arny also makes an additional good point about where larger sample sizes may be needed. But this doesn’t apply to ABX testing, as he and you point out, because no matter how many times the tests are run, no matter how many testees there are, the result is always the same. (I like Arny's bullet in the brain analogy here!).

+1

What hasn't been mentioned is that for some tests "experienced" audiophiles were deliberately included in the sample and that they were no more likely to prefer high end models.

Indeed. In among the links to various AB tests that were in the post I made a while back, there is an amusing description of how the founder of one of the 'audiophile' amp manufacturers resorted to a form of cheating in order to be able to 'hear a difference'. I guess that you can have the most golden of golden ears in all the world and you still will not reliably be able to hear a difference where there is, ahem, no difference to be heard.

 

I never really understand what all the fuss is about. I am massively pleased that I have learned that amps make no difference to SQ (usual caveats) - it has the potential to save me thousands of wasted dollars. You'd think people would be pleased to learn this (unless they've just spent 10 grand on an amp of course). In the 'bad old days' of my devotion to this hobby, when I knew little about such things, and had not even heard of the concept of treating the listening room, I dread to think how much I spent/wasted in the fruitless search for audio nirvana, changing amps like I changed my socks, buying highly expensive interconnects, etc etc, all to no avail, for what are now obvious reasons.

 

I got so fed up with the constant chopping and changing and its concomitant waste of money, that I started to research the subject, bought and read a book on acoustics (F Alton Everest's) and then started using the Internet as a resource and gradually started to learn where the real differences could be made. For me, the great revolution was when I discovered the importance of the influence of the room and how addressing that could make such a huge difference to SQ - far more than any electronics or fancy wires.

 

I was also fortunate, back in the day, to be working in the arena of creating and producing cinema commercials and part of that involved spending time in professional sound editing suites, where discussing thing with the engineers over a beer after the day's work was done also yielded fascinating insights into what these guys believed was important. Of course, they had little truck with esoteric wires, 'audiophile' amplifiers and the like. The one thing that every editing suite I ever went in, in all my life, had in common: they were highly treated to counter modes, reflections etc. It was one of these engineers, who worked extensively for the BBC, who put me onto my M&K S150s when he first heard them years ago and was blown away by their sound. It took me some time to get around to buying these speakers but I have never regretted it and will probably never change them (unless I ever decide to go the active/powered route with their active MK counterparts). 

I was surprised to learn from you how good the M&K speakers are. The dual tweeter configuration complicates things but M&K seems to have overcome any problems. You mentioned that you had thought of getting the active version, I would be interested in hearing what you think of them if you audition them.

I may be a little late to the party, but this has been on my mind for the last week.
May I take us all back to thread #138 for a moment. Arnie had a link to an article which had John Atkinins, who edits Stereophile magazine telling a story about a double blind test. the test was between a high end tube amp, and a lesser expensive solid state amp.
Here is the direct quote from the article ("A man is in his 20's thinks he knows everything whereas a man in his 60's realizes he knows little. John, being in his 20's in 1978, agreed to join a Martin Colloms' ABX test of two different amplifiers. The test was between a tube and a solid-state amplifier. No one during this test heard any difference. Armed with this knowledge, John sold his then expensive amplifier and purchased a lesser expensive one at the time because he could not hear any difference in the ABX test. After six months John could no longer listen to music through the new, lesser expensive amplifier because it was not enjoyable as a music reproducer.").
What I got out of this article was a very good lesson in human emotion. Even though the two amps sounded the same, John was not pleased in having an amp that in his mind was inferior. (I personally would pick a tube amp over a solid state amp just for the ambiance.) I will go out on a limb and state that most of the people entering these forums have a great joy for music and HT. They also have preferences for speakers, amps, receivers, and yes even where to buy their cables. not based on science, but on personal preferences and emotion (My self as one example). On a human level this makes total sense. But from a science level? And we are in, AVS "Audio Video Science".

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hifi2005/atkinsonkrueger.html

 

Triple tweeters in fact, Theresa!  Very hard to get right I would imagine, but that Ken Kreisel knows a thing or two... ;)

 

Here they are in all their pig-ugly glory:

 

 

 

The dealer where I bought the S150s has the active versions on demo. I have disciplined myself not to even think about an audition!  They cost about $4,500 *each* over here in the UK... if I ever move house and get a better room, with potential for a PJ and very big screen, I will push the boat out I think and buy three... 

Sorry, my memory of them is defective. Didn't realize the active ones are so expensive.

Depends on the belief system of the theist. There are some belief systems which state non-believers are in peril. Those who belong to those belief systems have a moral obligation to at least inform the non-believers of their peril - much in the same way you would inform someone about to cross the street that they are about to step into the path of a speeding car. In that instance, the best theists are those who inform the non-believer but stop there, for the choice is up to the non-believer and cannot be forced upon that person. Not believing brings harm to the non-believer (from the point of view of the theist), which will sadden the believer. In the case of an atheist, they believe there is nothing to believe in (when speaking of a soft atheist - a hard atheist believes there are no gods which is a belief system in and of itself). As such, there is no harm in believing if said belief brings happiness to the person.

To put it into silly mode:

If I believed that you must eat grapes or you will die, I should inform you of my belief (unless I am hateful and want you to die). I should not force you to eat grapes, and I will be saddened if you choose to not eat grapes and therefor die. If you do not believe eating grapes will do anything, you can tell me this, but if I choose to eat them and eating them makes me happy, then you should be happy that I found happiness by eating grapes (unless you are hateful and want to see me unhappy).

The atheist should be more inclusive since their view is that belief or non-belief makes no difference. Since it makes no difference, why bother to try to change anyone's mind? To the theist (in the religions where peril awaits the non-believer), non-belief is actually harmful to the non-believer. If the person truly believes their religion is true, they have a moral obligation to at least attempt to convince the non-believer they are making a horrible mistake. It is the right thing to do, if the believer honestly believes their religion is true.

It is like if someone asks if you want the chicken sandwich or the hamburger and you really do not care which you get - but you know the person offering you the choice likes hamburgers better. You should choose the chicken sandwich, since you do not care which you get, and let the other person have what makes them happier. The choice does not matter to you but actually does to the other person.
Edited by cybrsage - 2/10/13 at 3:13pm

I know I will never get the opportunity to participate in a true DBT of products I am considering, heck can't even find competitive products in stores any more. This thread has my head spinning. I tend to think less than 1% of the posters here ever get to participate in a well done test. Makes me think I should quit considering upgrading to the new Marantz 8801 and just get a Blowes tabletop unit!! Kidding!

When I upgraded from an old JVC receiver with synthetic 4 channel surround, no sub, no center channel, no decoding and went to the opposite extreme of the top of the line Pioneer Elite $4200 receiver, I can say without any official tests that the sound was truly night and day better! Of course there were probably 1000s of improvements in that 15 year time span between products. When comparing current competitively priced products, any differences should be extremely small or imperceptible. Just wish I could witness the comparative testing myself.

Forgive me for not reading every detail. In the ABX set up what measurements are taken other than level matching?

 

"Night and day" differences - that's a phrase I have read 100s of times on AVS when a subjective test (sample size: 1) has been made. "Even my girlfriend/wife/kids could easily hear the difference" is another. Note "easily hear". On more than one occasion I have read "Even my wife/GF could hear the difference from another room". "You would have have tin ears/be deaf not to hear the difference..."  And so on and on...

 

So yes, the alleged differences are, so they say, easily heard. One would therefore expect them to be just as easily heard in a blind ABX test. But they never are. And then people pop up and suggest the ABX tests are 'insufficient' or 'amateurish' or 'inconclusive' or that we need to make many more tests and then, suddenly, the results will swing away from random 50-50 chance. Meanwhile, on their sample size of 1, with a trials number of 2 or 3, in random circumstances using no proper controls etc etc, they ask us to believe them when they say the differences are clear. Wow.

Very possible. Doesn't the average Joe always crank a new amp to the max when newly installed. Now compare that to the old one played at normal volumes.

Especially, when the same sample shows "night and day" differences until you tell them, that they listened to the same thing twice

I did a little test to see if they truly DO sound the same.

I do not care about test data, DBT, etc. What is the final decision on if something sounds good to you or not? Your hearing and your ears. Tests are fun and all and interesting, but to blindly follow the (in my opinion, lack of) results is folly. The thing that set me off about this thread is when you do not agree with people like Arny, automatically you know nothing about audio or whatever little stab they want to take.

Ok, I go and buy a receiver and what will I do?

A) Hook it up, set it up, run the calibration, tweak it, use it, tweak it more, then enjoy it.
B) Do DBT and automatically conclude it sounds the same as every every receiver I bought before it.

I will let you guess which one we would ALL be doing. I have done little experiments here for the sake of this thread, so over the course of the last few days I have setup I think everyone (well, everyone that has common sense) would agree is a very fair test. I have 4 Kef Q100 speakers, a Denon 1613, and my Pioneer Elite SC-65. I put the Denon and Pioneer right next to each other. I set 2 Kefs right next to each other, one hooked into the Pioneer, the other into the Denon on both sides. Same speakers. I setup my Sound card to output 4 channel sound, one outputting into the Denon, the other into the Pioneer. The receivers are sitting right next to each other. I set each speaker so it is at 75 DB. I did not use a subwoofer for this demo.

I can run both receivers at the same time, or mute 1 while the other is playing. The sound is set to a volume not loud, but matched just about perfectly. So let's go over the parameters of this test.

• Same speakers both receivers set right next to each other (2 identical speakers setup side to side on the left and right side) The speaker output order (from left to right) Denon, Pioneer, Denon, Pioneer. Measured 6.5 feet separation
• All speakers set to 75 db with a Radioshack meter
• Same output device (my computer with Auzentech Prelude soundcard setup to output to both receivers the same signal (quality)
• Volume matched (The Denon had to be cranked up more to get to the same volume)
• Ability to quickly mute one receiver so audio memory is no issue.
• Me, girlfriend, and my friend Jason participated in this (so no one can say it's JUST me)
• The volume level was set at comfortable levels, no where near reference
• Same speakers, same sound source, same speaker wire (14 ga. RCA), same RCA to miniplug adapter for the soundcard output. Obviously level matched as the sound just is mirrored in all 4 speakers.
• No EQ, room correction, MP3 Restorer, or any audio enhancements engaged (we did turn on the MP3 enhancers later just to see which one did better)
• I have no personal bias towards either brand, I love Denon/Marantz just as much as Pioneer and they remain my favorite companies for receivers. Girlfriend has no bias, my friend has owned a Pioneer Elite and a ton of vintage receivers and amps but he also likes Denon.

We played some Dream Theater, The Knife, Genesis, Metallica, Rush, Van Halen, and quite a few other songs. Quickly muting one and then doing the same on the other. We tried direct mode, stereo mode.

We all agreed they sounded NOTHING alike. I repeat, nothing

Denon 1613: Laid back, not as dynamic, not as good separation of instruments
Pioneer Elite SC-65: Crisper, more forward, more airy, more revealing. More unforgiving of bad quality MP3 samples.

We then played Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Blu-ray) through both. It was harder to tell the difference with a movie, but we all agreed on the following.

Denon 1613: More laid back, slightly muddier
Pioneer Elite: SC-65: More forward, more dynamic, more airy. Battle scenes seemed to be more immersive..

Now to be fair, they both sounded awesome but the Pioneer walks all over the Denon in overall sound quality. And there is a huge, immediate difference.

So "ABX test pushers" and naysayers, explain to me the results of this tests. Do not just say, "your testing method is flawed" because this is more useful than a double blind test. Muting one receiver to listen to the other immediately takes away "random guessing" and audio memory (or lack thereof).

This is a true, fair, real world test. Here are some other observations:

• Due to the fact we used Analog output on the sound card, we bypassed the DAC of the receivers. Using the DAC of the receiver would have likely made them sound even more different.
• The "MP3 Restorer" function of the Pioneer is way better than the Denon version.
• If they truly sounded the same, we would have heard the same thing when we switched to the Denon as opposed to the Pioneer. The difference was huge.
• The Pioneer does have D3 amps, but if they all sound the same then there should be no discernible difference. Considering people claim in ABX tests people had trouble telling a tube amp from a solid state amp, this should not be an issue.

As I said, receivers do not sound the same and this is proof enough for me. If you want to go by "audio guessing" (like ABX tests) that is on you but as I said, I live and hear in the real world. So does everyone else here. Industry standard tests have nothing to do with what you hear.

Edit: I plan to repeat this test with my friend's Denon 3313 so no one can say it's a low cost Denon vs expensive Pioneer. It was not just the overall sound quality, it was the sound signature which was totally different.
Edited by Ricsim78 - 2/11/13 at 11:55am