DAC types and their sonic signature

[pkane]

Theres a difference between unreliable and worthless.

Maybe you can explain how an unreliable report from someone anonymous, with no way of knowing if what was heard was real or imagined, can be worth something to me.

 

[zalive]

Maybe you can explain how an unreliable report from someone anonymous, with no way of knowing if what was heard was real or imagined, can be worth something to me.

Possibly you consider your own sighted listening impressions being worthless as well?

 

[solderdude]

The yt link I put, I wanted to hear whether other people like the sound which I like to.
.... It was meant to be the only thing which was said, solely about a sound preference.

A mic'd youtube video isn't going to say anything about how it really sounds.
You can't argue about preference either.

 

[pkane]

Possibly you consider your own sighted listening impressions being worthless as well?

Of course not. But that's not what we are discussing, is it? I would never insist that my personal impressions are worth anything to anyone, but me. And I do blind testing when I want to be sure, even for my own decision making.

 

[zalive]

Of course not. But that's not what we are discussing, is it? I would never insist that my personal impressions are worth anything to anyone, but me. And I do blind testing when I want to be sure, even for my own decision making.

Your own sighted listening impressions are either worthless or not. If they're worthless, so it should be to the other people. If they have a certain worth in it, so it should be to the other people.

If worthless is '0' and completely accurate is '1', then personal impressions should logically have a value somewhere in between 1 and 0. Regardless of which is the value. Well obviously not every listener's sighted impressions have the same value. Not even every listener's blind listening impressions have the same value. Not every person should be equally biased or equally sharp listener, or equally analytical in his observations even if he hears it the right way. But regardless there should be a value. We may not know the value of someone's impressions, but to consider it to have a zero value just because it's someone else is a dangerous anomaly.

If you consider your own listening impressions have worth but everyone else's impressions are worthless, there's something wrong.

 

[SIY]

"I would never insist that my personal impressions are worth anything to anyone, but me."

Guess you missed that part.

 

[zalive]

Furthermore, even blind listening impressions are not reliable. They might be more reliable than sighted impressions because of avoiding bias induced by knowing what's in system, but they're not completely reliable because the nature of listening is subjective. There's no even guarantee that blind listening should be more reliable than sighted listening because of a different mind state when blind listening and sighted listening. Especially when blind test is done in a situation when a person might fear he/she will be judged by the results and a personal reputation will be in the line.

 

[zalive]

"I would never insist that my personal impressions are worth anything to anyone, but me."

Guess you missed that part.

I didn't miss it. I consider it pretty unimportant for this discussion.

 

[zalive]

A mic'd youtube video isn't going to say anything about how it really sounds.
You can't argue about preference either.

I didn't want to argue about the preference.
I was curious about it.
And it's not even important if to me if it sounds different in the nature. I was currious about impression of how that specific audio sounds to the others.

And yes, in case when it's a decent mic'd audio, my opinion is it will say something about the sound. It won't say it all, it can't give a completely accurate impression as when listening it live, but it can still present some of its quality. Make an audio of a lousy sounding system, you won't be able to make it sound nice. Or at least not unless you DSP it or similar.

 

[pkane]

Your own sighted listening impressions are either worthless or not. If they're worthless, so it should be to the other people. If they have a certain worth in it, so it should be to the other people.

Worth and value are relative and subjective, so I reject your premise outright.

Your judgement of what sounds better or different is worthless to me, if sighted. I have no way of knowing that what you heard was real or all in your head. I have a life-time of experience knowing and judging what I hear and how I hear it. I have a little more to go by when using my own judgement, hence the increased worth ... to me only. Despite this, I still resort to blind testing, as I know my own limitations.

 

[zalive]

Worth and value are relative and subjective, so I reject your premise outright.

Your judgement of what sounds better or different is worthless to me, if sighted. I have no way of knowing that what you heard was real or all in your head. I have a life-time of experience knowing and judging what I hear and how I hear it. I have a little more to go by when using my own judgement, hence the increased worth ... to me only. Despite this, I still resort to blind testing, as I know my own limitations.

Yeah, but that everyone else's sighted impressions are worthless to you except your own, that tells something about you and really nothing about those impressions. Which worth is in those it's unknown. But you deem it worthless, well it's you.

Anyway why someone's blind impressions should mean more to you? What if that particular person is simply incompetent in discerning quality even when he listens it blindly? And what if blind listening disturbs the focus of that person because he bugs his own mind with various thoughts going through his head instead of focusing to listening to the music?

You overestimate blind listening impressions, at first place.
My or yours or anybody else's blind listening impressions are still subjective. They can still be inaccurate. They can still be even wrong. It can still be in your head.

Of course, your own listening impressions may have a worth to you, even in case they would hypothetically be objectively worthless. As you say, worth is subjective, so to you it the objective value of it doesn't necessarily even matter, if your own subjective opinion on them is different.

 

[pkane]

Furthermore, even blind listening impressions are not reliable. They might be more reliable than sighted impressions because of avoiding bias induced by knowing what's in system, but they're not completely reliable because the nature of listening is subjective. There's no even guarantee that blind listening should be more reliable than sighted listening because of a different mind state when blind listening and sighted listening. Especially when blind test is done in a situation when a person might fear he/she will be judged by the results and a personal reputation will be in the line.

There's no fear of judgement or reputation loss if you're doing blind testing for yourself. There's no different mind state, except for the elimination of knowledge about which component is playing -- and that's a huge source of bias if not controlled. So, why don't you try it? You may learn something about yourself.

 

[pkane]

Yeah, but that everyone else's sighted impressions are worthless to you except your own, that tells something about you and really nothing about those impressions. Which worth is in those it's unknown. But you deem it worthless, well it's you.

Anyway why someone's blind impressions should mean more to you? What if that particular person is simply incompetent in discerning quality even when he listens it blindly? And what if blind listening disturbs the focus of that person because he bugs his own mind with various thoughts going through his head instead of focusing to listening to the music?

You overestimate blind listening impressions, at first place.
My or yours or anybody else's blind listening impressions are still subjective. They can still be inaccurate. They can still be even wrong. It can still be in your head.

Of course, your own listening impressions may have a worth to you, even in case they would hypothetically be objectively worthless. As you say, worth is subjective, so to you it the objective value of it doesn't necessarily even matter, if your own subjective opinion on them is different.

Blind tests don't prove a negative. No test can. If a difference is detected in a blind test by others, that is a proof of the positive. That's valuable information to me and to anyone else who cares about real differences.

There's no possible outcome in a sighted test done by others that is of value to me. Sorry. It's unpredictable regardless of the outcome.

 

[Xulonn]

Your own sighted listening impressions are either worthless or not.

That statment is completely illogical and false. Classic "the world is black and white, and shades of gray do not exist" thinking.

There are many perceived sighted sonic differences that are clearly audible. However, at a certain threshold range, sonic differences become tiny and difficult to discern, and then disappear. Intelligent and informed people have a pretty good idea when blind testing is necessary to "filter out" psychological influences. By informed I mean people who are aware of the findings of scientists and psychoacoustice researchers who have observed, tested and confirmed audibility limits, and had their findings verified by repeated tests.

To me, a HUGE difference is one that can be heard in blind or sighted testing 100% of the time.

 

[solderdude]

You overestimate blind listening impressions, at first place.
My or yours or anybody else's blind listening impressions are still subjective. They can still be inaccurate. They can still be even wrong. It can still be in your head.

They are only invalid if the levels aren't matched and only 2 or 3 comparisons were done.
When properly conducted and say 20 'listening evaluations' have taken place the result is valid.

 

[zalive]

There's no fear of judgement or reputation loss if you're doing blind testing for yourself. There's no different mind state, except for the elimination of knowledge about which component is playing -- and that's a huge source of bias if not controlled. So, why don't you try it? You may learn something about yourself.

With the first sentence I fully agree. As for the rest, in theory there should be no different mind state when you listen in peace of your home, in the environment you well know and in which you feel good. However I think one needs some experience in blind testing before he can actually get to the point of having really equal mind state regardless of sighted or blind. It's not something ensured when it's relatively new. It's a different situation and with the different situation you can easily expect a different mind state than usual. At least some listeners will experience the difference - I allow that some listeners might not experience any difference in a mind state.

Blind tests don't prove a negative. No test can. If a difference is detected in a blind test by others, that is a proof of the positive. That's valuable information to me and to anyone else who cares about real differences.

What you say is completely true. But you can't escape the human nature, which is prone to making conclusions and creating 'facts'. If no difference is confirmed through the blind test, human nature will take this as 'there is no audible difference'.

There's no possible outcome in a sighted test done by others that is of value to me. Sorry. It's unpredictable regardless of the outcome.

Something else escapes here. Blind tests do not only include hearing a difference. To audiophile, it's also about a preference. So, if audiophile claims he heard a difference in a blind test and he preferred device A in front of device B, would you find value in his judgement of preference, since it can be quite different to your preference? Or would you just find worth in hearing a difference but completely dismiss a personal choice 'which sounds better'?

 

[SIY]

There's always an elaborate hand-waving excuse about why you need to peek instead of trusting your ears. And the hand-wave excuses are always the same old ones, dusted off and trotted out as if they were some profound revelation.

 

[zalive]

That statment is completely illogical and false. Classic "the world is black and white, and shades of gray do not exist" thinking.

It really isn't, the other is complete negative of the first. So it was not really black and white. If the first was black then the second, its negation, would not be white but instead 'anything but white'. Which also includes grey shades. You see, finding value doesn't necessarily include you consider this impression to be the truth and nothing but the truth. It can be rather something worth hearing and noting. It's grey, really. If you don't find any worth in those statements than it's your world which is black and white, not mine.

There are many perceived sighted sonic differences that are clearly audible. However, at a certain threshold range, sonic differences become tiny and difficult to discern, and then disappear. Intelligent and informed people have a pretty good idea when blind testing is necessary to "filter out" psychological influences. By informed I mean people who are aware of the findings of scientists and psychoacoustice researchers who have observed, tested and confirmed audibility limits, and had their findings verified by repeated tests.

To me, a HUGE difference is one that can be heard in blind or sighted testing 100% of the time.

I agree, but many audiophiles care for smaller differences too, not just the huge ones.

 

[zalive]

There's always an elaborate hand-waving excuse about why you need to peek instead of trusting your ears. And the hand-wave excuses are always the same old ones, dusted off and trotted out as if they were some profound revelation.

I'm lazy, really, to care for setting up a blind test. But it's not all. This process is boring. I'd rather allow myself to make a mistake than do this as a usual routine when choosing equipment. There is in fact even more reasons. One is that I like to do things alone and I really hate asking anyone else to assist me, those are favors and I carefully pick whenever I ask any favor.

If I told you that to remove boredom from the process I don't even necessarily listen to the same samples when making A-B comparison but rather going for quantity to reach conclusions for me...but it's true. I used to do (sighted of course lol) A-B on same samples until it became boring. Then I started to avoid it. To me, hifi is about fun, if it's not fun to me then I'm out.

So the only reason I'd do blind test is curiosity to see results. But to make it a routine when picking equipment...I'd rather kill myself than do this.

 

[March Audio]

I'm lazy, really, to care for setting up a blind test. But it's not all. This process is boring. I'd rather allow myself to make a mistake than do this as a usual routine when choosing equipment. There is in fact even more reasons. One is that I like to do things alone and I really hate asking anyone else to assist me, those are favors and I carefully pick whenever I ask any favor.

If I told you that to remove boredom from the process I don't even necessarily listen to the same samples when making A-B comparison but rather going for quantity to reach conclusions for me...but it's true. I used to do (sighted of course lol) A-B on same samples until it became boring. Then I started to avoid it. To me, hifi is about fun, if it's not fun to me then I'm out.

So the only reason I'd do blind test is curiosity to see results. But to make it a routine when picking equipment...I'd rather kill myself than do this.

I think this above speaks volumes.

Gents, no point in arguing with dogma. Leave him to it.