"Bias" of ASR community towards measurable parameters?

[InfiniteJester]

At least most Chinese brands despite all the bullshit they put the measurements on the marketing and/or package (and lots of them are accurate!!).
On the bright side marketing like this, all flowery bullshit and no measurements, just announce or rather shouts at you that you are being conned.

...Or maybe I'm just a spiritless person that doesn't know any better?

At the very least, they talk about obviously esoteric things like spirit and feeling instead of mudding the waters with high resolving transients and enhanced transparency and resolution with a technical multidimensionally separated sound.

 

[tmtomh]

I worry about being misunderstood on this one. I do not believe in magic.
But while the ASR community is partly a bastion against snake oil and subjectivism, I think some ASR users tend to overrate the meaningfulness of measurable data when it comes to headphones. (Maybe this also goes for other audio devices, but I almost only read the headphone topics here.)

a) Most of us agree that the frequency response is the most important parameter. But it is all about the frequency response in your ear, not on some measurement rig (you cannot know it exactly in beforehand). I have quite a few IEMs and Over-Ears, and when I tune them to Harman, they all sound different - some quite significantly - as they interact with my ear in a different way (also HRTF, hair, glasses etc.). Soundstage also seems a bit random.
b) The Harman Target is a very helpful standard, but it is not the perfect target for everyone.
c) Distortion is important if it exceeds a certain amount. But many people completely overestimate how well they can hear it. Besides, it is irrelevant if a headphone has high distortion on 114dbspl if you never listen to it at 114dbspl anyway.

So basically, my point is that, while all this data surely is more helpful than highly subjective reviews, our ears still are not measurement rigs. The things you hear come from an interaction between headphone and your ear, and not everything which is measurable does really influence your listening experience.

- If a headphone does exactly hit the Harman target that doesnt mean that it will sound perfect to you (or that there is something wrong with your ear if it does not sound perfect to you).
- You probably cannot hear in a blind test if a headphone has less distortion unless one of them performs badly.
- If you like a headphone which was reviewed with average/mediocre results, you were not necessarily fooled. It is not necessarily a good idea to buy a "better" headphone if you didnt feel something was wrong before you read the review.

Great post, and all totally reasonable. My specific responses to your three main points are in keeping with most other comments in the thread:

(a) Yes, this is an issue with all transducers but much more so with headphones because the fact that they go on or in our ears adds extra variables and magnifies other variables, all of which can impact the perceived tonal balance and other sonic characteristics. Regardless, best-practice measurements remain the best reference because they are reproducible and give us all a common set of characteristics we can relate those heard variations to.

(b) Yes, but in this case it's not about physical human variation but instead about preference. Sometimes there is a tendency here to equate a scientifically experimental preference with objective superiority - although my feeling is that folks are pretty laid back about that. So for example someone will periodically post that they don't love the Harman headphone target curve, and the general response is, in effect, "That's cool, not everyone does."

(c) This is also true, and even more so than with item (b) I would say this is super-widely acknowledged here all the time.

 

[muza_1]

At the very least, they talk about obviously esoteric things like spirit and feeling instead of mudding the waters with high resolving transients and enhanced transparency and resolution with a technical multidimensionally separated sound.

Well those you can challenge, spirit is a bit more complicated given that nobody knows what it is.

 

[krabapple]

I worry about being misunderstood on this one. I do not believe in magic.
But while the ASR community is partly a bastion against snake oil and subjectivism, I think some ASR users tend to overrate the meaningfulness of measurable data when it comes to headphones.

Gee, this topic sure looks familiar.

Do headphones really need a whole separate iteration of it?

 

[ZolaIII]

What is redutcio ad absurdum exactly?

Reduction to the absurd.

 

[Brian Hall]

Your title:

"Bias" of ASR community towards measurable parameters?​

I would call it a sensible bias towards reality.

 

[Miguelón]

I don’t believe they exist unmeasurable parameters that can be perceived by a human being in audio.

If something can be perceived acoustically then can be measured.

Quod erat demostrandum

 

[Basic Channel]

Reduction to the absurd.

Yeah I was asking what the poster was referring to by that. But it seems that and other questions such as "who exactly on here doesn't believe in soundstage" shall remain unanswered.

 

[ZolaIII]

Yeah I was asking what the poster was referring to by that. But it seems that and other questions such as "who exactly on here doesn't believe in soundstage" shall remain unanswered.

It's reverberation or echo. You can't have meaningful with eighter headphone designs, eventually a little bit of it and same regarding direction (angular driver's). You can add some wet reverb or sonar or something else or try to extend propagation in highs mimicking it to a extent but not as speakers in the room. And with speakers you have sum and phase along with back to front refractions ratio and keeping under control one's from the rest of the walls and dispersion width so again not easy to get correctly nor the same. That's off course very complex question so this is only attempt to give you insight, no final answers. In mixing it's partly taken care of (similarly adding or diminishing the reverb and making it more wet or dry depending on input instrument or vocals). How? Mainly by ear and intuition and from very rare talented tone master's.

 

[markanini]

Gee, this topic sure looks familiar.

Do headphones really need a whole separate iteration of it?

Which thread are you referring to?

 

[Curupira]

Ha! Reductio ad absurdum, always funny.

This is the reason why we need measurements:

View attachment 377165

How many years in the future is the Chinese industry?

Funny, because measurements actually are the Zeitgeist of our current era. Compare the headphone/iem and source market 10 years ago, driven by that feeling zeitgeist, with today's market that supplies BK/GRAAS measurements right on the product box, who'd you think fairs better to an uninformed consumer? We literally have 20 dollar iems that perform better in distortion AND tonality than multi-thousand dollar speaker systems...

 

[Curupira]

On the bright side marketing like this, all flowery bullshit and no measurements, just announce or rather shouts at you that you are being conned.

Well, in fairness audio companies still practice both. I, for instance, love seeing FiiO's marketing material: just below their BK measurements there are VERY well put together animations and bullet points on the intangible technology wonders of the product. Take at look at their latest release, the FD15 . It leaves even me salivating

 

[rank]

Subjectivism is very well represented here too by many participants. Who don't take the trouble to learn about a field where we use numbers and formulas without words. Audio electronics is now a poor relative of the industry. I have listed the brands that have disappeared or abandoned the exponential increase in sales in this sector 50 years ago. Only in continental Europe but thanks to an English correspondent I will also be able to cover the British Isles and Anglo-Saxon Oceania (hurray!).
We understood that it was at the level of transducers that there was going to be the last debate. This is about pleasing the listener with distortion levels in real percentages well above the decimal point. The brain is mostly sensitive to medium frequencies so this is where we will find the preferences of the people tested.

 

[Miguelón]

Well, in fairness audio companies still practice both. I, for instance, love seeing FiiO's marketing material: just below their BK measurements there are VERY well put together animations and bullet points on the intangible technology wonders of the product. Take at look at their latest release, the FD15 . It leaves even me salivating

I bought various IEMs of Sennheiser and AKG (around 300$ ) on Amazon and always found that my Apple Ear Pods (cable, not bluetooth) sound better despite its 30€ price. I have the mini jack ones, connected to a 60€ Ifi go link (surprisingly this dongle works so much better with my iPhone than the 300€ Ifi go Bar and is way lighter and easy to carry on the pocket).

 

[LevityProject]

A poorly treated room will make even the best-tested spec speakers difficult to use for audio engineering. But they will sound better than lesser quality speakers in that same room for audiophile purposes.

What I don't like about manufacturing specs for speakers is that tests done in anechoic chambers are not reflective of real-world usage. But it is still a data point. Plus, mass production processes create inconsistencies - for worse or better - depending on the manufacturer and their quality control processes.

I think this is an established fact that can also extend to DACs and audio interfaces from user experiences on a wide use of common brands (Focusrite, UAD, Steinberg, Digico and others) - but I'm happy to be proven wrong on that. eg the question that analysis of one device out of a line begs is whether all products of the same line are the exact same as that one device.

The conclusion I am drawing is that testing one device in a line can be indicative of the line's potential, but it doesn't guarantee every unit will be identical. However, If a tested product varies significantly for the worse from the manufacturing specs, it should give very good reason to pause and consider purchasing something else. Some devices test so poorly that it's just worth not considering them unless it's the only option you have.

To help with that decision, reading and considering real-world reviews becomes a helpful secondary data point. In other words, it's not either/or. It's both/and.

 

[Miguelón]

A poorly treated room will make even the best-tested spec speakers difficult to use for audio engineering. But they will sound better than lesser quality speakers in that same room for audiophile purposes.

What I don't like about manufacturing specs for speakers is that tests done in anechoic chambers are not reflective of real-world usage. But it is still a data point. Plus, mass production processes create inconsistencies - for worse or better - depending on the manufacturer and their quality control processes.

I think this is an established fact that can also extend to DACs and audio interfaces from user experiences on a wide use of common brands (Focusrite, UAD, Steinberg, Digico and others) - but I'm happy to be proven wrong on that. eg the question that analysis of one device out of a line begs is whether all products of the same line are the exact same as that one device.

The conclusion I am drawing is that testing one device in a line can be indicative of the line's potential, but it doesn't guarantee every unit will be identical. However, If a tested product varies significantly for the worse from the manufacturing specs, it should give very good reason to pause and consider purchasing something else. Some devices test so poorly that it's just worth not considering them unless it's the only option you have.

To help with that decision, reading and considering real-world reviews becomes a helpful secondary data point. In other words, it's not either/or. It's both/and.

I agree that speakers tested on anechoic conditions don’t predict so well room behavior, this is the reason Amir’s reviews provide data from walls, floors and ceiling reflections.

What you propose as test conditions instead anechoic ones? The problem will be the transfer function between different rooms, I think is easier to test anechoic and them use another measures as spinorama that provide radiation pattern of the speaker

 

[solderdude]

I agree that speakers tested on anechoic conditions don’t predict so well room behavior, this is the reason Amir’s reviews provide data from walls, floors and ceiling reflections.

Those are calculated from measurements made around the speaker in such a manner that the floor, ceiling and wall reflections of the garage (where he measures speakers) are not measured along and thus mimicking an-echoic measurements (but from around the speaker within a certain height range).

 

[Blumlein 88]

Also the spin o Rama measurements are done in an anechoic chamber. Measurements are done every 10 degrees horizontally and vertically. From that you can know the speaker radiation pattern. Which helps with understanding how it will work on a room. The Klippel can obtain the same data without having the anechoic chamber.

 

[Miguelón]

Those are calculated from measurements made around the speaker in such a manner that the floor, ceiling and wall reflections of the garage (where he measures speakers) are not measured along and thus mimicking an-echoic measurements (but from around the speaker within a certain height range).

Is possible to measure reflections alone? How to cancel direct sound without calculating delay?

I mean, if Amir measured his in garage response it will be so hard to deduce ours.

Not an expert on audio at all, but it seem that mathematically speaking establishing the simplest environment and some calculations is the lesser evil method…

What you propose as alternative one?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Is possible to measure reflections alone? How to cancel direct sound without calculating delay?

I mean, if Amir measured his in garage response it will be so hard to deduce ours.

Not an expert on audio at all, but it seem that mathematically speaking establishing the simplest environment and some calculations is the lesser evil method…

What you propose as alternative one?

There is no need for an alternative. Yes, the Klippel can cancel out the various reflections using nifty mathematics. So the result in Amir's garage, or your home or a real anechoic chamber are the same. So with the speaker's radiation pattern measured in a way you know how it would do in empty space with no reflections you can develop the directivity to see if it will work well in various rooms. Mainly the research at Harman has narrowed down the kinds of characteristics that most people prefer. Correct frequency response with few resonances and controlled off axis directivity.