Computer Audiophiles Are Anti-Computer

[AJ Soundfield]

I noticed in the Beolab thread some interesting 'moderation' to your statements about "liking" what B&O are doing. Glad to have helped.

You certainly don't lack for imagination. But that is usually a strength.

Now if you could only figure the difference between AB and ABX, statistical relevance to population, "I prefer A vs B due to less USB noise" etc, etc, etc.

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Yes, I am profoundly ignorant of 'soft sciences' like psychology and their methods - Dunning and Kruger being exponents of such.

Awareness is a good sign

 

[fas42]

The madness of using "liking" to evaluate products is why audio has been such a mess for so long - I may like a Porsche more than a Ferrari; but that Aston Martin over there is faulty, a tyre is out of balance and the vibration at speed makes the car impossible to appreciate. Ranking those three cars is out of question, until all the technical flaws are eliminated - but the audio crowd don't get that concept ... because they have no way of measuring the vibration.

At the moment the only method that computes for me is to eliminate all the flaws that cause audible artifacts, one after the other, until the sound is satisfactory - after that, I might worry about maximum SPLs, and aesthetics ... anything else, to me, is a road to nowhere ...

 

[AJ Soundfield]

the only method that computes for me is to eliminate all the flaws that cause audible artifacts, one after the other, until the sound is satisfactory

 

[fas42]

Well, we've established that you can't hear audible artifacts, AJ - so the premise wouldn't make sense to you ...

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Well, we've established that you can't hear audible artifacts, AJ - so the premise wouldn't make sense to you ...

Yes Frank, I admit I can't hear Santa, orgasmic DAC "noises", Leprechauns, Youtube cel phone recording "artifacts", Casper , etc, etc.
I rely on you folks for detection of such. To great enjoyment.

 

[fas42]

Out of curiosity, have you ever been aware of excessive sibilance in the reproduction of vocals, AJ?

 

[AJ Soundfield]

have you ever been aware of excessive sibilance

Yes, when I was 5, there was a goblin in my attic and at Christmas, it would keep saying "Wake up AJ, SSSSSanta'sss here, SSSSSanta'sss here!"

 

[fas42]

Hmmm ... must be those early morning starts ...

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Frank has any, umm, "outside the loop" person every heard your HTIB "artifact free" system?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

The madness of using "liking" to evaluate products is why audio has been such a mess for so long - I may like a Porsche more than a Ferrari; but that Aston Martin over there is faulty, a tyre is out of balance and the vibration at speed makes the car impossible to appreciate. Ranking those three cars is out of question, until all the technical flaws are eliminated - but the audio crowd don't get that concept ... because they have no way of measuring the vibration.

At the moment the only method that computes for me is to eliminate all the flaws that cause audible artifacts, one after the other, until the sound is satisfactory - after that, I might worry about maximum SPLs, and aesthetics ... anything else, to me, is a road to nowhere ...

How are you measuring the the vibration, Frank?

Tim

 

[fas42]

How are you measuring the the vibration, Frank?

Tim

I'm in the same boat, Tim, as everyone else - I would prefer to have a reliable, technical tool to give me a readout but I can't buy one - I have considered trying to build something that would do the job, along the lines of recording acoustic output and then analysing it - but I run out of steam easily these days, so it will probably never happen.

So, I just rely on being aware of the vibration, as a person in a car would - no measurements, but I know it's there - it's a simple Yes/No question each time I try something; am I aware of a disturbance or not in the sound?

 

[fas42]

Frank has any, umm, "outside the loop" person every heard your HTIB "artifact free" system?

Well, I have put up poor quality recordings of it operating, on YouTube - which hopefully give a flavour of what it was doing...

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Well, I have put up very poor quality recordings of it operating, on YouTube - which hopefully give a flavour of what it was doing...

Yes, that was my fear.
In any case, I'm glad they allow you access to external sound producing items and internet inside the institution.

Well, now back to computer audiophiles hating on computers.

 

[AJ Soundfield]

I come from a religious background. We can see what ways scientists are 'sinful'

Agreed. The bold bit is very important otherwise those "incoherent" individuals end up disrupting the forum. We see this very clearly in this thread.

Indeed it's going to be impossible for believers to coexist on a science forum.

 

[Jinjuku]

I'll say this: If you are a subjectivist that has zero measurement equipment you really in most all instances have no business posting about what you think you hear.

I have a friend that has a HT setup and he loves it. We are listening to some movies with a lot of LFE. But something is a bit off in one of the DVD's I brought over. I also had my measurement mic and laptop.

So to make a long story short he has the ability to PEQ but neither the knowledge or equipment to get there. I find out measurement wise he's down over 6dB from ~54-57Hz. His amp has more than enough headroom for this given his listening area and the driver isn't going to hit either mechanical or electrical/thermal limits based on simulation.

So the DSP has the ability to store several settings and revert back and forth. I have him sit down and I loop a particular track and on the fly change from one preset to the other.

The response from him was one of astonishment to say the least. It's someone that had the pocket book to spend $27,000 on a home theater but not enough sense to either measure it or pay to have it dialed in properly. All that bragging he did...

Plus my 2.0 that I put together for ~$2000 kills his selections.

In this hobby it pays to be educated vs delusional.

 

[March Audio]

But I was careful to say "like the sound of" rather than just "like".

The idea that

"I like the sound of A more than I like the sound of B" is OK, but that

"I prefer the sound of A over the sound of B" is not OK,

is absurd (especially as "prefer" means "like one thing more than another").

I fully understand the methodology of the scientists (I use science and its methods all the time, myself), but I would like to know what it is that the self-styled 'audio scientists' think they are trying to achieve. If they were to state that the science is ultimately leading to subjective enjoyment, that would be one thing. But they don't. They make measurements and conduct listening tests whose results are ranked relative to each other (different rankings for different things - there is no overall "best") but go into a panic if someone like me asks whether their science is going to help me enjoy their products subjectively. They cannot bring themselves to link science with subjective enjoyment, yet that is the only reason to build or buy an audio system. It's weird.

Well I did say that you can like or prefer whatever you want, but lets not kid ourselves that there is a significant portion of the subjective audiophool community who either dont understand or simply wont accept the concept of bias and convince themselves they hear things that simply are not there. My personal favourite is stil the guy who put special plastic (PEEK) screws in his equipment stand as it helped "drain" vibration and could clearly hear the beneficial difference..

Thing is I personally have found that I do prefer and like the sound of products with superior technical and measured performance - blind tested of course

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'm in the same boat, Tim, as everyone else - I would prefer to have a reliable, technical tool to give me a readout but I can't buy one - I have considered trying to build something that would do the job, along the lines of recording acoustic output and then analysing it - but I run out of steam easily these days, so it will probably never happen.

So, I just rely on being aware of the vibration, as a person in a car would - no measurements, but I know it's there - it's a simple Yes/No question each time I try something; am I aware of a disturbance or not in the sound?

So we haven't "established" that anyone can hear your artifacts, including you, Frank. And that makes the entire conversation pointless.

Tim

 

[fas42]

So we haven't "established" that anyone can hear your artifacts, including you, Frank. And that makes the entire conversation pointless.

Tim

Of course people can hear the artifacts, Tim - a standard whinge is that a recording has bad sibilance, they even have controls in mastering suites to "rid" the track of this "problem". This ... is ... an ... audible ... artifact - and you can make it go away by "fixing" the system - no EQ'ng and playing with tone controls; you just reduce the distortion that makes for that irritating quality in the playback.

Another goody are cymbals that sound like white noise, or people fooling with kitchenware - that ... is ... an ... audible ... artifact - and you can make it go away by "fixing" the system. No, it is not a dud recording; it's dud playback - which means it's fixable ...

 

[Thomas savage]

I'll say this: If you are a subjectivist that has zero measurement equipment you really in most all instances have no business posting about what you think you hear.

I have a friend that has a HT setup and he loves it. We are listening to some movies with a lot of LFE. But something is a bit off in one of the DVD's I brought over. I also had my measurement mic and laptop.

So to make a long story short he has the ability to PEQ but neither the knowledge or equipment to get there. I find out measurement wise he's down over 6dB from ~54-57Hz. His amp has more than enough headroom for this given his listening area and the driver isn't going to hit either mechanical or electrical/thermal limits based on simulation.

So the DSP has the ability to store several settings and revert back and forth. I have him sit down and I loop a particular track and on the fly change from one preset to the other.

The response from him was one of astonishment to say the least. It's someone that had the pocket book to spend $27,000 on a home theater but not enough sense to either measure it or pay to have it dialed in properly. All that bragging he did...

Plus my 2.0 that I put together for ~$2000 kills his selections.

In this hobby it pays to be educated vs delusional.

Great story and most likely one that could be repeated throughout the audiophile world with similar results.

I don't totally agree with this though"I'll say this: If you are a subjectivist that has zero measurement equipment you really in most all instances have no business posting about what you think you hear"

There is nothing wrong with people posting about what they hear! It's not having perspective on the potential fragility of these impressions in regard to total accuracy thats a issue. Also the idea these listening impressions are enough evidence on their own to argue a point of fact that's a problem.

We are here to learn, teach and include and have fun doing it. Unless you few guys just want to bounce about together arguing in circles till you die. There is a wider audience to be reached.