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Can You Trust Your Ears? By Tom Nousaine

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Wombat

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A good reason to just stick to what people actually write and not try to read things into it that you might suspect they are "thinking."


I do try but subjectivise is not my prime language.
 

March Audio

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Ok, good point re:TVs. But it gets more interesting, perhaps, if we compare different screen technologies. I've always found that I prefer the LCD screen on the iPhone over the AMOLED screen in samsung phones (haven't tried the new iPhone though). Both of these screens are reasonably neutral. Differences are slight. Still, I have a very distinct preference in this regard. As do others - some prefer the AMOLED screens. Does it make sense to do blind testing of which screen technology people prefer? Perhaps. But whatever one finds, I'm pretty sure there will always be substantial minorities who have preferences which go in the other direction.
I think youll find there are quite measureable and distinct differences between the screens.
 
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March Audio

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Of course, it might be better if it were more standardization in the recording process, but you can´t break it if you just approach only the other end of the chain.



You assert again two things as if it were facts, but in reality we don´t know. The point of exacerbation isn´t clearly a given as it depends on the the distortion already present in the recording. Remember the quite wildly varying response patterns in the mentioned study. If the consumer´s reproduction departs from the average/ideal in the same way as the production system did it surely would give better results.

Most people tend to buy records that deliver "good sound quality" if reproduced by their system, so the distortion might have been random in the beginning if likely isn´t anymore later.



Could you cite a reference for that? I can´t remember that they did a formal study with recording quality as the independent variable.
Afair Tooles conclusion from the mentioned study of Mäkivirta/Anet were quite similar to mine.
Furthermore i thought we were discussing the concept of "fidelity" seperated from preference considerations.


I dont understand what your first paragraph means.

I disagree, we do know. If you add unquantified distortions at replay you only worsen fidelity. Your own comments confirm that you dont know the original distortion so how can you correctly compensate? Whatever you do It will also be incorrect for the next recording. It just makes no sense to do so.

I think its a poor choice of phrase on my behalf, it implies there is no situation where a non nuetral speaker could be preferred, however the testing was carried out with different recordings with the same end result, neutral wins.

WRT to fidelity v preference people seem unable to seperate the two. A neutral speaker is higher fidelity. Period. Audiophiles have sometimes bizarre concepts of what a system should sound like, usually influenced by the visual and product biases. Yet take those stimuli away........

Ok, most digital sources are flat as a pancake wrt frequency response. If a cd player showed up in stereophile with a frequency response like a typical speaker it would be panned from a technical and subjective POV. Why do you object to a speaker being faithful to the applied signal?
 
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March Audio

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Most people tend to buy records that deliver "good sound quality" if reproduced by their system, so the distortion might have been random in the beginning if likely isn´t anymore later.
.
No, audiophiles buy records that deliver their personal interpretation of "good sound quality". Myself, I buy music I like for artistic reasons.

If an applied fixed replay distortion is unquantified ref the original, then the end result is random.
 
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Cosmik

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Ok, good point re:TVs. But it gets more interesting, perhaps, if we compare different screen technologies. I've always found that I prefer the LCD screen on the iPhone over the AMOLED screen in samsung phones (haven't tried the new iPhone though). Both of these screens are reasonably neutral. Differences are slight. Still, I have a very distinct preference in this regard. As do others - some prefer the AMOLED screens. Does it make sense to do blind testing of which screen technology people prefer? Perhaps. But whatever one finds, I'm pretty sure there will always be substantial minorities who have preferences which go in the other direction.
The aim of screen technology is presumably to get the best black possible, the best linearity, the smoothest colour graduations, the highest possible brightness, the fastest response, widest viewing angle, lowest power consumption and so on. It has a job to do, and is designed specifically to achieve it.

If a newer technology with ostensibly better specs doesn't seem quite as nice as an older one, there may be several reasons:
  1. It may be better in respect of most of the specs, but not in a couple of crucial areas - maybe the new blue emitter is not quite as pure as the old LCD, or whatever.
  2. The new technology reveals a weakness of the specs themselves
  3. People are simply used to the older technology and think they prefer it - for now.
  4. Content has been optimised for the older technology and needs 're-mapping' for the deeper blacks, etc.
Most of the time I would bet that the eventual shake-out is that newer technology develops rapidly and achieves universally better specs than the old one, and people eventually prefer it.

But not in hi-fi! I strongly suspect that domestic audio follows a different path: instead of technology being developed to meet a clear requirement, existing 'craft-based' historical technologies are pored over, debated, tested, tweaked and modified. I would bet that most hi-fi practitioners and customers are strongly influenced by mythology ("Nothing sounds as good as an electrostatic!" "Big drivers sound so slow!" "Digital sounds so metallic!"), and that that influences their choices from then on. The market is just too small for the scorched earth approach of megabucks corporations that results in 100" OLED televisions for $2000.
 

Analog Scott

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The aim of screen technology is presumably to get the best black possible, the best linearity, the smoothest colour graduations, the highest possible brightness, the fastest response, widest viewing angle, lowest power consumption and so on. It has a job to do, and is designed specifically to achieve it.

If a newer technology with ostensibly better specs doesn't seem quite as nice as an older one, there may be several reasons:
  1. It may be better in respect of most of the specs, but not in a couple of crucial areas - maybe the new blue emitter is not quite as pure as the old LCD, or whatever.
  2. The new technology reveals a weakness of the specs themselves
  3. People are simply used to the older technology and think they prefer it - for now.
  4. Content has been optimised for the older technology and needs 're-mapping' for the deeper blacks, etc.
Most of the time I would bet that the eventual shake-out is that newer technology develops rapidly and achieves universally better specs than the old one, and people eventually prefer it.

But not in hi-fi! I strongly suspect that domestic audio follows a different path: instead of technology being developed to meet a clear requirement, existing 'craft-based' historical technologies are pored over, debated, tested, tweaked and modified. I would bet that most hi-fi practitioners and customers are strongly influenced by mythology ("Nothing sounds as good as an electrostatic!" "Big drivers sound so slow!" "Digital sounds so metallic!"), and that that influences their choices from then on. The market is just too small for the scorched earth approach of megabucks corporations that results in 100" OLED televisions for $2000.
You also got to check the factory presets which are usually skewed towards a sensational picture quality. Sensational in all the wrong ways
 

Cosmik

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You also got to check the factory presets which are usually skewed towards a sensational picture quality. Sensational in all the wrong ways
Yes! If a new screen can be brighter than the old one, they will turn it up to the max because they can.
 

svart-hvitt

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I'm not excluding the middle here. The assertion "the Toole research shows that people still prefer playback neutral systems regardless of recording." is where the excluded middle lies. And again, I doubt very much that is actually what Toole's research shows given the enormous range of recordings out there. It would be one thing to assert that his research strongly suggests that most people prefer neutral playback systems overall even with a broad range of recordings. But the assertion I am objecting to is an absolute assertion that includes all recordings and all listeners without any exceptions. Nope not buying that assertion.

This is crazy semantics. Of course, Toole’s sentence can be read as you wish. However, most people find Toole’s short sentence meaningful.
 

Cosmik

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Soniclife

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Yes, and there is also the opposite effect: that broadcasters and programme makers use 25 fps to make 'soap opera' look more expensive like film, throwing away the immediacy and atmosphere that 50 fps gives you. Ironically, with TVs that interpolate it back up to 50fps, the effect is probably wasted - but the quality will be slightly lower of course.
For drama productions I think it's interlaced vs progressive that probably forced the TV companies, the tools to do effects probably need or prefer progressive, worldwide sales might be a factor as well, and I'm not aware of 50p ever being a broadcast standard.
 

Analog Scott

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The bold one.

It’s as if unless people don’t write with mathematical precision, you don’t get it. Remember, semantics isn’t science.
There was no bold sentence.

I would have thought clarity of communication would be encouraged on a forum that is about science. It isn't that I don't get the assertion. It's that I find problems with it. Discussions about science work better with clear and accurate assertions.
 

fas42

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Yes! If a new screen can be brighter than the old one, they will turn it up to the max because they can.
The way I got an old-fashioned LCD unit, many years old, to work for me was to adjust the back light intensity so that in a dark environment at night, that a pure black signal was barely discernable versus the set switched off - so, I had the best range of blacks to work with from go. Make sure the highest brightness of white was just triggered - and I now had optimum contrast. Final stage, get the colours to be Goldilocks right - and I've been happy ever since ... no upgrade lust whatsoever, when looking at the latest and greatest in the stores, etc.
 

Wombat

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Judging a TV in a store is nigh impossible with the bright fluorescent lighting and the 'display' settings of each brand, side-by-side, looking to stand out from the crowd. The sales environment is somewhat meaningless for critical assessment. I know a guy who gets called out to attend to customer's complaints re not being able to get brightness and contrast adjustments 'right' and he usually find they are using the 'display' setting.

'If in doubt read the instructions' is still valid.
 
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Jakob1863

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I dont understand what your first paragraph means.

Sorry, i corrected it for enhanced clarification.

I disagree, we do know. If you add unquantified distortions at replay you only worsen fidelity. Your own comments confirm that you dont know the original distortion so how can you correctly compensate? Whatever you do It will also be incorrect for the next recording. It just makes no sense to do so.

I beg your pardon, but you just inverted my argument. I questioned your assertion that linear (?totally?) loudspeaker/electronics would deliver the highest degree of fidelity in reproduction. I didn´t say that the addition of unquantified distortions would be generally better or generally deliver a higher degree of fidelity, because as i wrote, we don´t know (in general) about the distortion already embedded in the recording.

I think its a poor choice of phrase on my behalf, it implies there is no situation where a non nuetral speaker could be preferred, however the testing was carried out with different recordings with the same end result, neutral wins.

Analogscott linked to the page before, Sean Olive showed one of the graphs from Mäkivirta´s study:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_w5OVFV2Gs...crAglRR4g/s1600-h/Makivirta+and+Anet+2001.png

which shows the large variation between the different monitoring rooms. A totally linear reproduction would already depart from even the median curve to significant degree.
Obviously it depends if a "not so linear" reproduction would be preferred. If you could find in Olive´s blogpost it is even more difficult considering the additional attributes affecting for example ASW and LEV.

WRT to fidelity v preference people seem unable to seperate the two. A neutral speaker is higher fidelity. Period. Audiophiles have sometimes bizarre concepts of what a system should sound like, usually influenced by the visual and product biases. Yet take those stimuli away........

Of course people have sometimes quite diverging/bizarre concepts in mind but to certain degree that is justified not at least because individuals can be quite different and listening to the usual reproduction of music and evaluation depends on many factors. We should not forget that even a totally linear reproduction with a two channel stereophonic system is still a very distorted version of the reality and the final arbiter for the individual degree of percepted "fidelity" is the individuum, As said earlier in discussions with cosmic, development is often driven by majority decisions and so it is a given that some individuals would take/prefer another route.

Ok, most digital sources are flat as a pancake wrt frequency response. If a cd player showed up in stereophile with a frequency response like a typical speaker it would be panned from a technical and subjective POV. Why do you object to a speaker being faithful to the applied signal?

Must be a misunderstanding because i don´t object to it; i just objected to the assertion that is _delivers_ per se a higher degree of fidelity. :)
 

Analog Scott

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No, audiophiles buy records that deliver their personal interpretation of "good sound quality". Myself, I buy music I like for artistic reasons.

If an applied fixed replay distortion is unquantified ref the original, then the end result is random.
No, it's not neccessarily random. Simple examples. A person who is older and has some hearing loss may prefer a system that has built in compression and a rise in the high frequencies. That would compensate for their hearing loss. That would not be a "random' choice of colorations. Someone may simply really like bright compressed sound so they buy a system that is bright and compressed. That is not random. It's preference. People do have some individualistic taste and not everyone hears exactly the same way.
 
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