Another Paul Mcgowan video

[Dimitrov]

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Paul?

Paul has this very comforting, calm demeanour when talking, it almost seems like you could trust what he has to say without thinking, but I know he is a salesman, first and foremost so I don't know if what he says is true or if there is gobbledegook science in there too.

 

[Wombat]

Here we go again.

 

[oldsysop]

 

[Dimitrov]

Elaborate guys?

 

[Wombat]

Type McGowan into forum Search and spend some weekend time reading.

 

[Theo]

This guy has a talent for suggesting wrong thoughts by stating truisms! Maybe this is the definition of a salesman.
Take the analogy with colorblindness. He is right to say that if you don't see the color blue, there's no way your brain will tell you it exists.... unless someone you trust explains it to you or you have access to a spectrometer AND you understand physics. This is actually a demonstration that measurements are facts which can't be ignored by the brain... although he suggests: "you need to be told by someone you trust what you should hear because you don't know it exists!"
The last part of his talk is even more interesting indeed: he tells us that he his writing novels and that there is no measuring if it's good or bad. Again, I may agree with him to a certain extent. Then he actually confesses that he is feeding you stories which will make your listening to music different and convince you that there is a difference even if you can't measure it...
He is sooooo good!

 

[BDWoody]

Elaborate guys?

He's a talented salesman.
Beyond that...not much of any real meaning or value.

 

[Fluffy]

*


* - did not even watch the video.

 

[solderdude]

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Paul?

He mixes actual facts with fiction. You would have to know quite a lot to be able to tell where reality stops and fiction starts.
A give away usually is when he starts to say ... weeeelllll ... mostly the fiction starts from that point.
He brings it with a very trustworthy 'flair' and people really want to (and do) believe everything he says.
I am certainly not one of them and usually call him Paul McClown.

Best to take his videos as amusement and sales pitch.
Not as factual information despite there being some truths in there.

 

[HammersRocco]

One of the things that comes to mind re: measurements vs. what people believe they here is to apply certain qualities to the device that absolute drive me bonkers - because there is no way they can be engineered into it.

One of the big examples I always hear - "musicality". How the heck do you engineer that? - if you see that in your design requirements... how the heck do you go about it ???!!!! It's one of those terms that in my mind subjective reviewers have come up with, taken from similar approaches in schools of subjective reviews in other industries, the wine industry, for example - I literally saw one wine review where the wine was described as "whimsical" .

However, we are used to it however nonsensical it is. And this is something we would no accept when the stakes are higher. Lemme give you an example - before my current gig (now I do interwebs stuff) I used to design and test medical devices, the monitoring kind, not the poke, prod or get stuff in or out of you kind. We looked for the various waves (signals) implied in body functions and use that to get the data. Very similar to audio processing in that we care about similar things, like THD, noise floor etc in a low freq signal. Guess what we did to test those things? MEASURE. If measured data was within tolerances, we were ready to trust the thing to look over a HUMAN LIFE.

Why do I mention this (and apologies for stating the obvious, I know peeps are pretty advanced here)? Because looking for "Musicality" in a DAC makes as little sense as looking for EMPATHY on a medical device... sure, it's kind of related, but obviously not really... you cannot design for empathy and you cannot design for musicality. You design to the best of your abilities and properly done measurements (as part of the test spec/test plan cycle) will tell you how you did...


I kind of like Paul - however nothing to do with his views. He does freely admit that he smoked plenty of... stuff in his youth so well... that said, at first I was shocked that someone that does what he does (design electronics) would believe that green marker on CDs would make a sound difference, as he stated in one of his videos.

ah well


v

 

[pozz]

One of the things that comes to mind re: measurements vs. what people believe they here is to apply certain qualities to the device that absolute drive me bonkers - because there is no way they can be engineered into it.

One of the big examples I always hear - "musicality". How the heck do you engineer that? - if you see that in your design requirements... how the heck do you go about it ???!!!! It's one of those terms that in my mind subjective reviewers have come up with, taken from similar approaches in schools of subjective reviews in other industries, the wine industry, for example - I literally saw one wine review where the wine was described as "whimsical" .

However, we are used to it however nonsensical it is. And this is something we would no accept when the stakes are higher. Lemme give you an example - before my current gig (now I do interwebs stuff) I used to design and test medical devices, the monitoring kind, not the poke, prod or get stuff in or out of you kind. We looked for the various waves (signals) implied in body functions and use that to get the data. Very similar to audio processing in that we care about similar things, like THD, noise floor etc in a low freq signal. Guess what we did to test those things? MEASURE. If measured data was within tolerances, we were ready to trust the thing to look over a HUMAN LIFE.

Why do I mention this (and apologies for stating the obvious, I know peeps are pretty advanced here)? Because looking for "Musicality" in a DAC makes as little sense as looking for EMPATHY on a medical device... sure, it's kind of related, but obviously not really... you cannot design for empathy and you cannot design for musicality. You design to the best of your abilities and properly done measurements (as part of the test spec/test plan cycle) will tell you how you did...


I kind of like Paul - however nothing to do with his views. He does freely admit that he smoked plenty of... stuff in his youth so well... that said, at first I was shocked that someone that does what he does (design electronics) would believe that green marker on CDs would make a sound difference, as he stated in one of his videos.

ah well


v

What do you think of the Shunyata/Clear Image Scientific power products?

https://clearimagescientific.com/

 

[Thomas savage]

Everyone needs a little McClowan in their life's .

 

[Dialectic]

His customers would be better off if he'd use the AP analyzer as a tool rather than as a technical-looking decoration for his YouTube videos.

 

[HammersRocco]

What do you think of the Shunyata/Clear Image Scientific power products?

https://clearimagescientific.com/

That is a new one! From audiophile world to medical world - first lemme say that while I took the classes in school, I am not an expert on power supply performance AND I did not work on that - but let me put it this way - our testing labs did not use hospital grade power stuff and not once I had a test fail because of power line noise - that is 1/2 your answer there. Our power designers were tops, so maybe that is part of the reason, since the devices were for both hospital and home use.

On the other hand, well, obviously having clean power with low noise is not a bad thing - but all this needs to be sorted out once and if we find power line noise is an issue. Haven't read the whole site, but of the case studios only one addresses actual interference issues - the other say "we found power line noise and we eliminated it". Do not remember if the FDA has requirements on that matter - meaning, never saw a risk factor analysis that listed power line noise, at least for our devices.

But really it all comes back to measurements - if you measure interference that might be attributed to power line noise, then you go for it. The measurement, it will tell you what you need to proceed. No other way.


v

 

[mansr]

One of the big examples I always hear - "musicality". How the heck do you engineer that? - if you see that in your design requirements... how the heck do you go about it ???!!!! It's one of those terms that in my mind subjective reviewers have come up with, taken from similar approaches in schools of subjective reviews in other industries, the wine industry, for example - I literally saw one wine review where the wine was described as "whimsical"

I've seen that too. No idea what it's supposed to mean.

Subjective reviewers often describe equipment as if they were critiquing a musical performance. If the drummer has bad timing, a better amp isn't going to fix it.

 

[SIY]

What do you think of the Shunyata/Clear Image Scientific power products?

https://clearimagescientific.com/

Wow. Just... wow.

 

[Ron Party]

One of the things that comes to mind re: measurements vs. what people believe they here is to apply certain qualities to the device that absolute drive me bonkers - because there is no way they can be engineered into it.

One of the big examples I always hear - "musicality". How the heck do you engineer that? - if you see that in your design requirements... how the heck do you go about it ???!!!! It's one of those terms that in my mind subjective reviewers have come up with, taken from similar approaches in schools of subjective reviews in other industries, the wine industry, for example - I literally saw one wine review where the wine was described as "whimsical" .

v

Great point. Reminds me of a battle Amir and I had at our old haunting ground with a highly regarded, forum creator backed, subjectivist who vehemently advocated the superiority of a certain SET amp and vinyl because they produced a more "natural" sound.

 

[Tks]

His customers would be better off if he'd use the AP analyzer as a tool rather than as a technical-looking decoration for his YouTube videos.

As would we all.

 

[Thomas savage]

Wow. Just... wow.

Science just needs to catch up.

 

[quorzar]

... ok ... at least, if there is something we can not measure yet, shouldnt it be the minimum that something that was created (recording) should also be reproduced (play on hifi system) as exact as possible? Arent that the measurements we know and see in very amirm post? And then if you master that, you can go forward with something you cannot measure?
If there would be the slightest logical explanation that I can believe, it would be easier ...