A rant ...

[Dimitrov]

Came across this post from Mike, Head Honcho at Rock Grotto boards and thought I would find out what the good members think of it :

I am getting a little bit pissed of with the recent trend where people are expected to "prove" a point (even BEYOND reasonable doubt) and if the measurements don't change the sound cannot be different type of thing...it's all got to be proven beyond doubt before it is accepted as true.

People being blindfolded, gagged, strapped to chairs, hooked up to oscilliscopes, men in white coats taking notes... what the f@@k does any of this have to do with enjoying music?

Of course it's good to have healthy debate but to take it into a "laboratory" setting for conclusive proof is just going a bit too far AND it takes the enjoyment out of the music too...

FFS, it's not the equipment that should be under scrutiny, it's the listener! Trillions of people out there, all with different perception, different hearing abilities, different ears (remember that the human ear is as unique as fingerprints), different states of mind, some stressed, some happy, some relaxed, some sad, some mad, some insane, some drugged, some drunk, some sober, some sombre, some depressed, some manic..... believe me (and this is FACT!) put 1000 people in front of a live band and they will ALL have a different perception on what they saw and heard.... the "band" may have been technically perfect but the atmosphere, the vibe, the surroundings etc. will have been digested by each individual differently.

It annoys me intensly that we speak so much about the "equipment" but fail to realise that it will be listened to by trillions of ears, and each pair (being a unique acoustic shape) will hear things slightly differently.

A semi deaf person may actually get MORE out of a recording than a person with perfect hearing, much the same as a blind man can sense what's going on around him better than a fully sighted man.

A guy who is "zoned" into the vibe will get more from his transistor radio than a stressed out accountant listening to his latest "£700" 1 metre length of interconnect.

When we can accept the FACT that we are ALL individuals it will then become crystal clear that it's our "perception" of sound that matters (to us in an individual sense)...to have an "expert" tell us that changing a capacitor for a different brand / different value has no effect is actually quite insulting. That is one pair of ears telling a trillion ears that they are mistaken BUT if it sounds good to their ears then carry on... it's all in your mind but that's OK, whatever floats your boat type of thing.

It's got f@@k all to do with audio "religion", voodoo, science, fact, fiction.... it's all to do with the FACT that we are ALL very complex beings with unique auditory sensory skills, the human mind (fortunately) is not as clinical as a computer... it has emotions, it has passion, it has love, it has feelings..... to try and match up a piece of equipment to all these individual, living, being, breathing, walking, seeing, hearing emotional roller coasters is IMPOSSIBLE and I'm sure 99.9% of people would agree that they are unique?

There is nothing more "unique" than emotions, and music stirs the emotions AND the senses..... think of an old tune you liked back in the day, you can even smell and taste that time in place.... it's unique to you..... Can you remember what you were doing in 1983 from looking at a capacitor? erm.... nope!

Rick was so loved here (by me anyways) because he knew that we weren't all the same... we are all unique.... similarly he, like me, managed to pick up that not all capacitors "sound" the same... different brands, different chemical compositions equate to different "house" sounds.... could be that the two of us were two in a trillion (I am not discounting that) and we could both notice quite substantial tonal signature changes between different breeds of capacitor (and resistors).... Rick would ALWAYS back up any of his personal preferences with a "your mileage may vary", "use your own ears" type thing.....

What is pissing me off at the moment is the way this forum is veering off toward annoying people all trying to PROVE that they are correct.... NOBODY is correct, we are all little piss ants in the scheme of things, quasi "molecules" in the arsehole of the universe..... inconsequential, carbon footprint taxed arseholes who only have one true qualification in life and that is guaranteed death.

I am not a subjective / objective listener..... I enjoy music. Some days it sounds like crap, other times it takes me to a new level of being.... all depends on what mood I am in.... it's got f@@k all to do with anything OTHER than my ability to receive and zone in.....

If props like Peter Belt's rainbow foil, incense sticks, LSD, Magic mushrooms, ambient lighting, booze, snorting coke out of a hooker's belly button, a dusting of shake and vac on the carpet, a prince albert in your bell end or a simple "cap upgrade" do it for you then YOU are NOT wrong!

You are in the ZONE.

Is it just me or is this guy redefining the word "sound" to be "whatever you perceive" ie purely subjective? Sound is an objective measure.

I don't agree with what this guy is saying, but maybe you guys have an opinion on it? Just thought I would share.

 

[March Audio]

Yes that appears what he is saying. What he obviously misses is that if that is the case his forum serves no purpose as there is nothing to discuss. What you perceive is what you perceive and thats the end of it. There is no such thing as an objective measure and everybody just argues that the piece of kit they just bought is excellent. Especially owners of Schitt shit

I find it amusing that when you start making hard factual information available, as the testing of DACs in this forum, doesnt the choice of product become so much easier. You can start to avoid the (often expensive) crap performing kit, and the marketing BS. This is reflected in the comments of many new members who are saying "thank God I found this no BS forum".

 

[Purité Audio]

You hear this stuff all the time, it is the ‘doesnt Make any difference to the sound, but makes me feel better’ mantra.
Having said that placebo works!
Keith

 

[Cosmik]

I think he's basically right: you can't prove that people's perception isn't affected by the knowledge they're taking part in an experiment; and everyday experience suggests to us that our hearing isn't an objective measuring instrument. Art affects people in different ways and the listener incorporates his circumstances (including the equipment he's listening to) into the art.

Put those things together, and you can't prove that device A sounds better than device B.

All that is left is to argue rationally for your 'strategy'.

 

[Thomas savage]

Yes that appears what he is saying. What he obviously misses is that if that is the case his forum serves no purpose as there is nothing to discuss. What you perceive is what you perceive and thats the end of it. There is no such thing as an objective measure and everybody just argues that the piece of kit they just bought is excellent. Especially owners of Schitt shit

I find it amusing that when you start making hard factual information available, as the testing of DACs in this forum, doesnt the choice of product become so much easier. You can start to avoid the (often expensive) crap performing kit, and the marketing BS. This is reflected in the comments of many new members who are saying "thank God I found this no BS forum".

This is true, unless your intrest is having your feelings affirmed and being given a platform for unadulterated bollocks spewing.

All good but I’m glad there’s a alternative.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Is he suggesting we stop thinking?

 

[sergeauckland]

I've just a similar run-in with some on the other Forum I participate in, HiFiWigWam.

My position is that how something makes you feel has nothing whatsoever to do with what the equipment does and how it does it. Audio Equipment is a tool, it's no different to a washing machine or a chisel. An amplifier doesn't know or care if it's passing a signal consisting of sublime music, raucous Rap, test tones, white noise or anything. It will just output a controlled version of its input. Ditto a loudspeaker, it will output longitudinal pressure variations in the air corresponding to the voltage at its input. It doesn't have emotions, emotional connections, musicality, it's a box that does more or less as it's told.

It seems that whatever the hobby, people attach their own emotional baggage to what they're buying. How many petrol-heads will ever say their car is a box on wheels that gets them to the supermarket? What car manufacturer will ever market their cars that way? It's all touchy-feely, emotional connections bullshit.

As a recent contributor, I found I like this forum because it doesn't treat HiFi kit emotionally, just as bits of kit which do stuff more or less well.

I hope that continues.

It just doesn't give me the 30 page circular argument threads I get elsewhere.

S

 

[bobhol]

I think Mike was having a bad day. There is a certain amount of truth in what he says but he is trying to blow this all out of proportion. I enjoy this site but I have never owned and probably never will own a piece of test equipment (other than a cheap multi-meter). I take all that I read about audio with a grain of salt. I enjoy music but I am also a nerd engineer.

 

[Thomas savage]

Is he suggesting we stop thinking?

It’s a very long winded message that basically serves the purpose of saying “ no one can be right and no one can be wrong “ “let’s create a soft toy area where no one can get butthurt “ he comes across as very reasonable and nice but the message is infact fairly terrible and the result of gross self indulgence on a mass scale imo.

I file it along with this as anti knowledge propaganda that servers to protect us from anything that might interfere with ‘ what we reckon’ and thusly hurt our feeeeeelings

A campaign from cancer research..,

The reply from a young lady who’s fat and does not like this ..,

Right, is anyone currently working on getting this piece of shit CancerResearchUK advert removed from everywhere? Is there something I can sign? How the fucking fuck is this okay?

She continues to post non scientific bollocks about how being obese ( like her) is perfectly healthy etc etc and she has gained a lot of supporters too..

 

[Dismayed]

It looks like a desperate attempt to cling to a belief system that can not withstand scientific scrutiny.

 

[Dimitrov]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

It’s a very long winded message that basically serves the purpose of saying “ no one can be right and no one can be wrong “ “let’s create a soft toy area where no one can get butthurt “ he comes across as very reasonable and nice but the message is infact fairly terrible and the result of gross self indulgence on a mass scale imo.

I file it along with this as anti knowledge propaganda that servers to protect us from anything that might interfere with ‘ what we reckon’ and thusly hurt our feeeeeelings

A campaign from cancer research..,

View attachment 11060

The reply from a young lady who’s fat and does not like this ..,

Right, is anyone currently working on getting this piece of shit CancerResearchUK advert removed from everywhere? Is there something I can sign? How the fucking fuck is this okay?

She continues to post non scientific bollocks about how being obese ( like her) is perfectly healthy etc etc and she has gained a lot of supporters too..

Well, to carry a campaign such as her's, she would need allot strong of supporters!

 

[Thomas savage]

In terms of running a ‘happy’ social space aimed at talking about hifi I can see why he’s going down that road, there’s no integrity to his position nor will the content be at all meaningful beyond making people feel ‘seen’ but it’s a damn site easier than what we are doing here.

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

In terms of running a ‘happy’ social space aimed at talking about hifi I can see why he’s going down that road, there’s no integrity to his position nor will the content be at all meaningful beyond making people feel ‘seen’ but it’s a damn site easier than what we are doing here.

 

[Sal1950]

Same ole, same ole BS vomit about how we all hear and perceive things differently, yada yada yada.
Point always avoided is that no matter how different we are, if we were to hear a live event while being recorded, then hear the reproduction of same, High Fidelity is the same for everyone. If B is a perfect facsimile of A, it will be heard that way by all. Attempts to cloud the waters with a "if it sounds good to me it must be right" is just the usual subjectivist delusional rant. BLAH

 

[amirm]

The problem with what he is saying is that he is going by lay intuition. That intuition was mostly correct in the analog days where equipment struggled to cover our entire hearing range and artifacts were plainly audible.

Today, that is not how the world works. An MP3 at 128 kbps has only 9% of the total bits in the original CD file. Whose intuition explains why it sounds as good as it does? Why is it that if we survey 100 people out there, 90%+ can't tell the difference between it and the CD?

The answer is that intuition did not lead to invention of lossy codecs. Psychoacoustics which is 100% based on listening tests did. And that data is hugely consistent among listeners or we would not have any science to go by! Or be able to build durable technology like MP3 that works literally across billions of people.

So just because he puts "FACTS" in uppercase, doesn't make them so. Facts require people who are not experts in the field to present data that show correctness. He doesn't have any so he is pleading on our mistaken notion that intuition explains what we perceive of audio.

As we routinely say, there is little wrong with what people believe. It is that when they try to say they are correct and factual like he is, that the problem starts.

As much as we are knowledgeable about audio science here, we are still pushed to provide evidence. Where does that leave people who are just writing what make sense to their belly?

 

[Dimitri]

Why is it that if we survey 100 people out there, 90%+ can't tell the difference between it and the CD?

Sound is like peaches. Those who have tasted a great peach suffer, because most peaches at the supermarket are crap. They smell, look and taste "like peach", but are not "great".

"Most" of what people buy or use to listen to music is "supermarket peaches".

But hey..if you can stand listening to Queen through the Alexa speaker....all bets are off

 

[Thomas savage]

The problem with what he is saying is that he is going by lay intuition. That intuition was mostly correct in the analog days where equipment struggled to cover our entire hearing range and artifacts were plainly audible.

Today, that is not how the world works. An MP3 at 128 kbps has only 9% of the total bits in the original CD file. Whose intuition explains why it sounds as good as it does? Why is it that if we survey 100 people out there, 90%+ can't tell the difference between it and the CD?

The answer is that intuition did not lead to invention of lossy codecs. Psychoacoustics which is 100% based on listening tests did. And that data is hugely consistent among listeners or we would not have any science to go by! Or be able to build durable technology like MP3 that works literally across billions of people.

So just because he puts "FACTS" in uppercase, doesn't make them so. Facts require people who are not experts in the field to present data that show correctness. He doesn't have any so he is pleading on our mistaken notion that intuition explains what we perceive of audio.

As we routinely say, there is little wrong with what people believe. It is that when they try to say they are correct and factual like he is, that the problem starts.

As much as we are knowledgeable about audio science here, we are still pushed to provide evidence. Where does that leave people who are just writing what make sense to their belly?

Great post.

This made sense to my belly..,

 

[sergeauckland]

The problem with what he is saying is that he is going by lay intuition. That intuition was mostly correct in the analog days where equipment struggled to cover our entire hearing range and artifacts were plainly audible.

Today, that is not how the world works. An MP3 at 128 kbps has only 9% of the total bits in the original CD file. Whose intuition explains why it sounds as good as it does? Why is it that if we survey 100 people out there, 90%+ can't tell the difference between it and the CD?

The answer is that intuition did not lead to invention of lossy codecs. Psychoacoustics which is 100% based on listening tests did. And that data is hugely consistent among listeners or we would not have any science to go by! Or be able to build durable technology like MP3 that works literally across billions of people.

So just because he puts "FACTS" in uppercase, doesn't make them so. Facts require people who are not experts in the field to present data that show correctness. He doesn't have any so he is pleading on our mistaken notion that intuition explains what we perceive of audio.

As we routinely say, there is little wrong with what people believe. It is that when they try to say they are correct and factual like he is, that the problem starts.

As much as we are knowledgeable about audio science here, we are still pushed to provide evidence. Where does that leave people who are just writing what make sense to their belly?

I'm here listening to Radio Swiss Jazz, an internet radio station that streams original jazz recordings and commercially released tracks, both with no further processing. Streamimg is at 128k MP3, and it sounds most acceptable.

My own listening tests have shown that I can hear the difference up to 192kMP3, BUT ONLY AS AN AB COMPARISON WITH THE ORIGINAL. Without that AB comparison, 128k sounds perfectly fine. Some 12 years ago, when I put our local radio station onto the internet, many if not most people were still on dialups so I set it to 32kbps, WMA and it was surprisingly acceptable, much better than AM radio, if not up to FM levels.

My conclusion is that Fraunhoffer et al have done a pretty good job on these codecs, so when somebody comes on a forum and says that 320kbps AAC is unacceptable, or they can hear the difference between flac and WAV, I express my incredulity, just to get back the usual, I can hear it, and I trust my ears, and no I don't do blind tests because they're too stressful.

S

 

[Palladium]

I'm always impressed by the uncanny ability of some people who can write till the cows come home but say absolutely nothing of value.