"Things that cannot be measured"

[rdenney]

You can’t measure how well a car handles. It’s not about track times - that’s a crude metric - it’s about how it feels to drive, how much you feel in control of it in different road conditions and speeds. A car can be more than the sum of the parts if the parts are designed to work together beautifully.

Talking of more than the sum of the parts, if you take a bog standard Nad amp like a c300 and install Panasonic FM/FC power caps, Elna smoothing caps, Wima input caps, Wima / polystyrene driver board audio path caps, film / Elna Cerafine / Nichicon Muse other audio path caps it will sound much, much better than stock, although I doubt it measures any different. Just like a Hypex NC500 sounds quite different with a Sparkos SS2590 op amp compared with standard, but it’ll measure the same.

If it's just a matter of how it feels, then drivers should be able to detect a difference as the basis for a preference. Believe me, this is measurable.

But I wonder how many add stuff like that to cars, imagine that they feel better, and then discover that their autocross track times are actually slower.

Or add the next slick magic brake pads, imagine that they stop quicker, but then their measured stopping distances in controlled testing are actually longer.

Or that the lateral acceleration that the vehicle can sustain with control actually goes down, despite that it feels better.

I would submit that people add these things for the same reasons that they add expensive tidbits to their stereos--because experts suggest it's important and they want to be one of the cool kids. Few will do anything in the car that would take advantage of any improvement.

Making it feel better but perform worse (or, at least, no better) is NOT what they think they are doing, nor is it what the makers of those devices claim they are providing with those products.

Rick "not guessing, actually" Denney

 

[MarkS]

if you take a bog standard Nad amp like a c300 and install Panasonic FM/FC power caps, Elna smoothing caps, Wima input caps, Wima / polystyrene driver board audio path caps, film / Elna Cerafine / Nichicon Muse other audio path caps it will sound much, much better than stock

No, it won't. Which you could discover by listening blind.

 

[BluesDaddy]

For those who enjoy driving, a car is so much more than a means of transport. An M2 BMW is a very different car from the ordinary 240i, but it measures much the same. Once you have active damping and steering, carbon brakes and pure 50:50 weight distribution a car becomes quite different to drive. If you enjoyed driving you wouldn’t buy a people carrier, even though it does a lot of things quite well. Similarly an AVR does lots of things quite well, but you’d buy something built for purpose if you were serious about listening to music in stereo.

But now you've gotten into things beyond the realm of the "sound" of a system. No one has ever said well built, well designed in the functional/looks department, beautiful equipment with lots of power cannot, and does not, enhance one's "experience" - just don't claim they make the audio "sound" other than in one's perception (brain). That's been the whole point.

 

[BluesDaddy]

You can’t measure how well a car handles. It’s not about track times - that’s a crude metric - it’s about how it feels to drive, how much you feel in control of it in different road conditions and speeds. A car can be more than the sum of the parts if the parts are designed to work together beautifully.

Talking of more than the sum of the parts, if you take a bog standard Nad amp like a c300 and install Panasonic FM/FC power caps, Elna smoothing caps, Wima input caps, Wima / polystyrene driver board audio path caps, film / Elna Cerafine / Nichicon Muse other audio path caps it will sound much, much better than stock, although I doubt it measures any different. Just like a Hypex NC500 sounds quite different with a Sparkos SS2590 op amp compared with standard, but it’ll measure the same.

As I wrote before, any analogy taken far enough becomes farcical and fallacious - you've done that. You're confusing subjective impressions - the "experience" you might have - with an objective reality. You example of exchanging caps, etc., assuming they all measure the same, will make a NAD sound "better" is simply not supportable unless you KNOW and EXPECT (even if you don't realize you have that expectation) it to. That's what confirmation bias is all about. You're simply demonstrating how strong that bias is.

 

[Phorize]

You can’t measure how well a car handles. It’s not about track times - that’s a crude metric - it’s about how it feels to drive, how much you feel in control of it in different road conditions and speeds. A car can be more than the sum of the parts if the parts are designed to work together beautifully.

Talking of more than the sum of the parts, if you take a bog standard Nad amp like a c300 and install Panasonic FM/FC power caps, Elna smoothing caps, Wima input caps, Wima / polystyrene driver board audio path caps, film / Elna Cerafine / Nichicon Muse other audio path caps it will sound much, much better than stock, although I doubt it measures any different. Just like a Hypex NC500 sounds quite different with a Sparkos SS2590 op amp compared with standard, but it’ll measure the same.

So people spend entire careers making a purposeful contribution to a field of endeavour, are meticulous in their methods, are conscious of standing on the shoulders of giants , of their own professional and intellectual reputation, that of the institutions that they work within and of the mentors who worked long hours to support them-and this is what you bring to the table? This half baked, scientifically and frankly at this point culturally illiterate non contribution? You have no shame or appreciation of what the age of reason has done for you. Time to grow up and stop believing in fairies.

 

[Sal1950]

Talking of more than the sum of the parts, if you take a bog standard Nad amp like a c300 and install Panasonic FM/FC power caps, Elna smoothing caps, Wima input caps, Wima / polystyrene driver board audio path caps, film / Elna Cerafine / Nichicon Muse other audio path caps it will sound much, much better than stock, although I doubt it measures any different. Just like a Hypex NC500 sounds quite different with a Sparkos SS2590 op amp compared with standard, but it’ll measure the same.

I'd love to see you prove any of those statements under bias contolled DBT tests.

 

[Wes]

You can certainly measure various correlates of how a car feels to drive. Whether you can synthesize them all into a single factor score is doubtful.

Suppose you drive a 1971 Porsche 911 - how do you compare that to a modern front engined car, like a BRZ? I'm sure that Jenkinson could write it up if he were alive, but putting together hundreds of different changes into a single metric is always difficult.

 

[Inner Space]

I'd love to see you prove any of those statements under bias contolled DBT tests.

The audiophile credo: I know it's true, because I heard it with my own eyes!

 

[Roland]

So people spend entire careers making a purposeful contribution to a field of endeavour, and are meticulous on their methods as they are conscious standing on the shoulders of giants and of their own professional and intellectual reputation and that of the institutions that they work within, and the mentors who worked long hours to support them-and this is what you bring to the table? This half baked, scientifically and frankly at this point culturally illiterate non contribution? You have no shame or appreciation of what the age of reason has done for you. Time to grow up and stop believing in fairies.

This is a rude and offensive post which makes no sense. Maybe a problem with alcohol?

 

[Roland]

As I wrote before, any analogy taken far enough becomes farcical and fallacious - you've done that. You're confusing subjective impressions - the "experience" you might have - with an objective reality. You example of exchanging caps, etc., assuming they all measure the same, will make a NAD sound "better" is simply not supportable unless you KNOW and EXPECT (even if you don't realize you have that expectation) it to. That's what confirmation bias is all about. You're simply demonstrating how strong that bias is.

It’s axiomatic that you can measure the quantitative aspects of a product, but the synergistic and qualitative aspects are more challenging. This thread is now so hostile that I’ll take no further part in it.

 

[BluesDaddy]

It’s axiomatic that you can measure the quantitative aspects of a product, but the synergistic and qualitative aspects are more challenging. This thread is now so hostile that I’ll take no further part in it.

"I can't convince others of my POV and they rebut everything I say so I'm quitting." There, fixed it for you.

Edit: Oh, and the "synergistic" aspects of a product are in YOUR brain, not the product itself. And "quality" certainly IS measurable.

 

[Phorize]

This is a rude and offensive post which makes no sense. Maybe a problem with alcohol?

It was rude and unnecessarily antagonistic. I apologise. Not down to alcohol though, which I don’t drink, but intolerance of lazy reasoning. I’ll repeat myself though, less antagonistically; the arguments that you are presenting lack substance and are produced without serious mental effort or research, in stark contrast to the detailed, well evidenced and effortful alternative espoused by other members here, many of whom have forgotten more about audio than the average audiophile will ever know.

 

[MarkS]

It’s axiomatic that you can measure the quantitative aspects of a product, but the synergistic and qualitative aspects are more challenging.

Measurement is not relevant. Either you can hear the difference between a "bog standard" NAD C300 and a recapped one, or you can't. If you can, you should be able to tell which is installed in your system by sound alone (after a sufficient amount of listening time, hopefully something under a year). If you've never tried this kind of blind test, you have no idea what you can or can't hear, but only what you can see.

 

[Wes]

This is a rude and offensive post which makes no sense. Maybe a problem with alcohol?

it was a terrible run-on sentence, but correct

 

[Wes]

"you can measure the quantitative aspects of a product, but the synergistic and qualitative aspects are more challenging."

certainly true that synergistic effects are difficult to evaluate - but you assume there are some

I suspect there are but there is no proof for audio per se.

It is unclear what is meant by "qualitative aspects"

 

[Phorize]

it was a terrible run-on sentence, but correct

Yep, I should definitely pay more attention to my grammar when ranting

 

[j_j]

Possibly but a measurement will not tell you how the error sounds or what meaning it has and there will always be errors bigger and smaller, only your listening experience and others' listening experience can in some cases give the measurement an audio signature.

False. Yes, it will tell ME, and quite a few other people, what the error sounds like. Please stop assuming that your understanding of short-term spectral characteristics is all there is.

 

[j_j]

You can’t measure how well a car handles.

Maybe you can't.

 

[j_j]

This is a rude and offensive post which makes no sense. Maybe a problem with alcohol?

Your "contributions" are in great part an appalling insult to those of us who have actually studied the subject and know more about it. If you object to "rude and offensive" then look in the mirror, please.

When you repeat yourself in a fashion that repeatedly insults those who have studied the field, yes, there's a problem, alright.

 

[Phorize]

This thread is has became a sort of subjectivist audiophile fly paper with one deluded champion after the next making the same doomed attempt to wrest the sword from the stone. Why don’t they just read the reference section or the new YouTube videos