soundcheck
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- Apr 28, 2020
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Many of us throw up our hands when equipment is described as "fast", "slow", "crisp", "warm", etc. It seems impossible to relate these terms to measurable characteristics.
You nailed it.
First of...
People need to accept that there are characteristics in sound that are not properly described through
the commonly used measurements. And "people" includes Amir!
Audio Precision openly stated that their measurement gear won't cover the full audible "signature" (spectrum).
It would require more and different measurements to explain what we hear.
Their AP devices are best to be used for quality assurance in production processes. That's what I recall was said.
Note:
I had discussions with manufacturers in the past. We agreed that measurable improvements - all in the "inaudible" arena - ,
which usually require numerous product design enhancements, also can have indirect impact on the sound signature of a product.
All kind of parts get changed. Software gets changed, asf. asf. What's really the root cause of an audible change on the final device
usually remains unknown. If the device sells great for that very reason - a perceived better sound. Who cares what's causing it!
Now. Fact is.
There are audible differences, even if standard measurements are suggesting to some people there are none.
It's been proven a million times. Not just by the "audiophile golden ears" out there.
Manufactures, professional reviewers, reviewers, audio professionals, more or less experienced users, ... they can all hear it.
Everybody can - even via poorly recorded Youtube videos you can tell fuse A from fuse B, cable A from cable B, asf. asf.... apart.
Now. For all the "scientists" over here.
Empirical evidence is fully accepted in science. So. Yes. Listening experiences can prove a certain matter. That's not the issue.
The problem starts with people trying to explain it or being forced to explain it. That usually turns out to be very "objective"
and the terminology used gets adventurous.
Whatsoever. As a "real" scientist you'd listen to all these people.
You start looking for the subject until you see it yourself. Simply ignoring the facts is the worst thing a scientist can do.
To quote sciencealert.com :
The issue is that when it comes to facts, people think more like lawyers than scientists, which means they 'cherry pick' the facts and studies that back up what they already believe to be true.
So if someone doesn't think humans are causing climate change, they will ignore the hundreds of studies that support that conclusion, but latch onto the one study they can find that casts doubt on this view. This is also known as confirmation bias, a type of cognitive bias.
Yep. Cognitive bias. That's what we find in the audio realm a lot over here and elsewhere.
And I'd extent above sciencelalert quote "...they already believe to be true..." by "...and/or they want others to believe to be true..."
Now. It has even been proven numerous times by measurements, that there are differences, beyond the standard measurements.
One approach was to compare a real music sample with its loop-back recording. Not just a test-tone!
It was done by DAC and ADC looping. No ears involved! The tool being used was AudioDiffmaker .
You can find several gear tests results over at gearspace.com
Each of these tests did show differences for a different device on the recorded sample file. And here we talk about the audible part!
And we talk several dB in difference.
The key parameter over at gearspace is named "correlated 0 depth". It shows how close the recording gets to the source.
This approach also works on transport optimizations. We used it over at slim devices forum more than 10 years ago to show that my
Squeezebox Touch Toolbox (Linux optimizations) was impacting the sound signature. Result: It did clearly impact the sound signature btw!
AudioDiffmaker is (was?) just one approach. It to me simply shows, if you start looking for evidence, you'll find it.
Amir could take that tool and run some tests with it. It might turn out to be a very useful step ahead. It might turn out to be useless. Who knows.
The better we know what we're talking about the better we can describe it.
Until then the language around it remains flowery. Which is not that bad. Many people understand what's "crisp" when you hear it.
You simply need to learn a new language.
Enjoy.