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DACS Have they gone about as far as they can go?

AJ Soundfield

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what he's saying is that low-level linearity is crucial
That's a measurement term and neither of you are capable of evidence for any such thing.

I haven't seen an logical arguments why this might be wrong
One would have to understand logic to recognize it, so no surprise.
You are no different from Frank, other than you sell DACs.
Can't produce a single measurement or reliable listening test to support anything, why your DACs would "go farther" - the thread topic!...because none exist.
 

March Audio

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The complete opposite is the case. One of my primary test CDs is exactly that, of our opera house organ - extremely majestic sound ... I haven't yet heard another system do the tracks justice; yes, the note fundamentals are there, but the intricate interplay of the complex wash of harmonics is sad, very sad - interestingly, I thought that the system I just mentioned would be able to pull it off, but it was well down on getting the tonality right - it was a "small" sound, far too small ...

That's quite ridiculous and patently untrue. All you are saying is that you have an extraordinarily vivid imagination. I really don't see any point in discussing it further.
 
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Sal1950

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1. If you don’t have to deal with a crazy person, don’t.

2. You can’t outsmart crazy. You also can’t fix crazy. (You could outcrazy it, but that makes you crazy too.)

3. When you get in a contest of wills with a crazy person, you’ve already lost.

4. The crazy person doesn’t have as much to lose as you.

5. Your desired outcome is to get away from the crazy person.

6. You have no idea what the crazy person’s desired outcome is.

7. The crazy person sees anything you have done as justification for what she’s about to do.

8. Anything nice you do for the crazy person, she will use as ammunition later.

9. The crazy person sees any outcome as vindication.

10. When you start caring what the crazy person thinks, you’re joining her in her craziness.
Sounds exactly like BOTH my ex wifes. :eek:
 

fas42

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That's quite ridiculous and patently untrue. All you are saying is that you have an extraordinarily vivid imagination. I really don't see any point in discussing it further.
So, you used a double blind evaluation to determine that?

The actual story is that nearly all of the acoustic data that determines that "big" organ sound is well above the bass frequencies that people worry about - guess what, you've motivated me to rev up the NAD and Sharp system, and do a live record of one of those organ tracks - with a bit of microphone movement during the piece to stop AJ warbling on about gags.

Should be interesting, methinks ...
 

fas42

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Well, how about that now ... out of curiosity, I checked the recordings I did make of the Philips setup, and I have one of an organ recital done about 3 and a bit years ago now. I'm not really happy about it, I was always struggling with the primitiveness of the recorder AGC, and it overloads on the peaks, there's a piercing quality that shouldn't be there at times. However, it gives a good sense, yet again, of what I was coaxing out of the unit, and shows the dynamics - with background noise of me muttering and moving at times.

If anyone is interested, I'll put it up on my YouTube channel - the flaws in it due to the recorder, not the audio playback, are a bit annoying so I'm not keen to have it out there ...

Edit: aww, what the heck - I've uploaded it to Google Drive, the link's https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByOTUxlEJsYFU094cjFRTEFCTkU/view?usp=sharing ... remember caveats ...

And, no, I don't what the piece is, from a library CD I suspect, I don't recognise it.
 
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March Audio

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So, you used a double blind evaluation to determine that?

The actual story is that nearly all of the acoustic data that determines that "big" organ sound is well above the bass frequencies that people worry about - guess what, you've motivated me to rev up the NAD and Sharp system, and do a live record of one of those organ tracks - with a bit of microphone movement during the piece to stop AJ warbling on about gags.

Should be interesting, methinks ...

No dbl blind not necessary, a sub woofer made the notes quite audible - but I appreciate you probably wouldnt have heard them before on small speakers.

Here is a measurement of two different organ pieces to show you whats there.

This is my last post on this as I dont want to "encourage" you further. You have a dogma which is futile to reason with.

organ2.JPG


organ 1.JPG
 

Phelonious Ponk

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fas42

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Of course those graphs are extremely misleading, because they don't take the equal-loudness contour into account, the presence of the below 80Hz frequencies are dramatically less audible to the hearing, by the order of 30dB or so.

Plus, you rather rapidly forgot that I had fairly recently listened to this sort of material on proper, intelligently equalised subwoofers - and I didn't fall off my chair ...

But I agree the conversation should not be encouraged - it is futile to discuss with people with a dogma, ;).
 

fas42

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And that should be a dead giveaway that you're in the wrong forum.

Tim
You mean a forum where people have the same philosophical stance, but disagree on very esoteric subtleties of that almost identical POV, and then proceed to wallop each other over the head with textboxes, ream of papers, and whatever else is at hand, while at the same time hurling verbal abuse about all and sundry - good, impressive science in other words - I mighty glad this is not one of those ...
 

Phelonious Ponk

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You mean a forum where people have the same philosophical stance, but disagree on very esoteric subtleties of that almost identical POV, and then proceed to wallop each other over the head with textboxes, ream of papers, and whatever else is at hand, while at the same time also hurling verbal abuse about all and sundry - good, impressive science in other words - I mighty glad this is not one of those ...

You know exactly what I mean - a forum for discussing the science of audio, where people don't just make claims without some evidence. Given the clearly stated purpose of this forum, your posts here are nothing but trolling. Do you feel abused? I think you're the one doing the abusing and I think you know exactly what you're doing, I think you came here to deliberately disrupt the conversation. And that's not me abusing you. That's just me being frank, Frank.

Tim
 

fas42

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And what if some people strongly believe in the science of audio, but also believe that the level of understanding of what matters in that science is inadequate - should such people be excluded from interacting with those who are 100% confident that everything that needs to be known is already in the picture - hmmm ... did someone once talk about "known knowns", "unknown upside down knowns(??), and other peculiar things ... I have a strange feeling ...
 
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March Audio

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And what if some people strongly believe in the science of audio, but also believe that the level of understanding of what matters in that science is inadequate - should such people be excluded from interacting with those who are 100% confident that everything that needs to be known is already in the picture - hmmm ... did someone once talk about "known knowns", "unknown upside down knowns(??), and other peculiar things ... I have strange feeling ...

If those people only make unsupported subjective comment, then they are not contributing in a useful manner to this forum or its intent. There are plenty of other forums where that sort of "noise" is welcomed.

Do I believe everything is known? No. However I certainly do not subscribe to the often seen subjectivist position where audio/hifi is some kind of magic which is different to any other type of engineering. Or that the cause of those individuals aural delusions is a real effect due to some mysterious physics unknown to science.
 

fas42

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If those people only make unsupported subjective comment, then they are not contributing in a useful manner to this forums intent. There are plenty of other forums where that sort of "noise" is welcomed.

Do I believe everything is known? No. However I certainly do not subscribe to the often seen subjectivist position where audio/hifi is some kind of magic which is different to any other type of engineering. Or that the cause of those individuals aural delusions is a real effect due to some mysterious physics unknown to science.
What the hell is "unsupported subjective comment" - a comment by its very nature is unsupported, but I believe they are essential part of any scientific inquiry - part of their function is to throw light on new areas , new ways of looking at things - ritualistic playing with test tubes, just to prove you're doing something real, seems rather a sad way of advancing knowledge.

And neither do I believe in magic. Everything I do is based on a reasonable guess, using the cheapest materials and parts available - these are some interactions where I'm still scratching my head to understand the linkage, but I am certain they will have very normal, "scientific" explanations in the end.
 

fas42

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......and therein lies the problem.......
In that instance, the reasonable guess is a response to " I don't like how the system sounds" - I could measure its behaviour, in the conventional ways, and that would tell me nothing useful, as I have repeatedly stated. Using a "reasonable guess" is why a good mechanic can fix your car post haste, the "by the book" chappy will take weeks to get an answer, and cost you a fortune - experience and a nose for where to look makes sure that efforts bring quick results.

So that is diagnosis ... evaluation is just listening, very closely, very, very closely - no longer just doing "do I like it now?" sniffing - but can you hear any flaws, any flaws at all.

The "reasonable guess" gets results fast, real fast - of course if the measuring gear was available, relatively cheaply, I would use it like a shot - but it's not ... QED.
 

amirm

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Let me get us some closure. Members from all walks of life are welcome here. The discussions however should be based on two types of scenarios:

1. You are trying to convince someone. In this case, you need to rely on accepted audio science/engineering to do so. Saying "I hear it and I have this theory of my own" is NOT acceptable.
2. You are asking questions. In this case you are welcome to bring your subjective experiences, asking if others can shed light on them being valid or not using audio science and engineering.


We can't have a situation where every hypothesis is considered valid at face value or we become yet another subjectivists forum. We also don't want an echo chamber as Frantz would put it where we deny all feedback and topics of discussion, hence #2.

So Frank, you can ask questions per #2. But trying to be convincing violates #1. Many of us came here to be able to have discussions that are grounded and on solid footing of decades of audio research. Information shared in this forum need to be authoritative and not something that can easily be shut down by someone who knows the audio science/engineering. Over time I hope we build the strongest foundation of audio science as it reads on high fidelity audio reproduction. The goal is NOT to fill the forum with guesses that we can't do anything with.

I hope everyone appreciates this direction and sticks to it.
 

John Kenny

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Amir, are topics to be avoided which "accepted audio science/engineering" have nothing to offer? Topics like soundstage depth, timbre just to name two.
Are topics only allowed if measurements "proving" their audibility are available?

Has anybody ever analysed "demonstration records" produced by Chesky, etc which have tracks for Naturalness, Holographic imaging, presence, depth, etc? to show what the sound wave characteristics are that give such perceptual impressions or is the "accepted audio science/engineering" that this is all phooey?
 
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