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Is SINAD important? - "Myths" about measurements! [Video YT]

Round-off errors.

p.e.:
90.35 becomes 90, so does 89.66
90.83 becomes 100, so does 100.42

Then why not round up first before binning?
The fraction is not shown in the chart.
One DAC one SINAD number. Because of rounding, one gets Fair label another gets Poor label.
 
DACs do 100dB 40 years now.It has to be deliberate to go lower than that.And I don't mean at silly 4-5V levels where no DAC will ever operate for normal listening,but even at 500mV to 1 perfectly usable V.
Yeah of course there's not really much reason why it couldn't be better by now, but in the end me and lots of other consumers don't care.
Though I understand your point but my point is that the SINAD ranking is for many people a bit misleading since they think that stuff below 99dB is somehow not good enough for them when in reality it's as good as they ever going to hear.
 
its a difference that is negligible, even Cameron agrees that one should not look at that level.
I suspect it is just the tool that creates the 'tiers'. Maybe that tool could be persuaded to only look at integers but someone who owns a DAC that is 89.99 would then complain why it isn't in the 100-90 category :)
 
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There's another aspect rarely addressed about subjectivity,objectivity,etc.
The old (very-very old) aspect of "who's watching" you (more like reading these days) .
Has nothing to do with audio,it's forum related,strictly.

There's not one (1) person I know who does not change behind a screen.
My small audiophile circle are a mixed bag but mostly subjectivists fed by the decades of BS around.The few of them who write on forums appear to be strict,single minded,etc,you know,the works.
Up close we are laughing and they admit all the fails and illusions.And I mean laughing our hearts out,not bitter smiles.
It's a false picture out there,far from reality.
 
Features is the excuse. So if there's a DAC with inputs/outputs and maybe DSP or whatever below 99dB you won't buy it? Why not?
The blue and green sections of the chart probably contain around 200 or more devices there. In the unlikely event I can't find one there that meets my needs, then I may stray into the orange section if there is one there that meets my needs better.

Can't see that being very likely though. Can you?
 
Yeah of course there's not really much reason why it couldn't be better by now, but in the end me and lots of other consumers don't care.
Though I understand your point but my point is that the SINAD ranking is for many people a bit misleading since they think that stuff below 99dB is somehow not good enough for them when in reality it's as good as they ever going to hear.
It's probably because people don't have time to go deeper.The most popular stuff out there start like "The 15 best xxxyyy".

There was a time that you had to go deep to built a gaming PC for example.Now you just type "best gaming PC $3000 2025" and there's a button for you ready to buy all the components at one go.Anything else feels like a waste of time,and more importantly time taken from virtual interaction with other people through SM,cause that's where the juice is.

So...
 
Well, if it is indeed what you assert, then why group into 4 bins, and label them poor, fair, very good, excellent???

If it is indeed “just a SINAD chart” why the need to give labels like “excellent” or “poor”.

I assumed the labels meant "excellent engineering" versus "fair" or "poor engineering" because SINAD at a certain point becomes more of an engineering issue than an audible/practical one and labels are there for convenience.
 
I assumed the labels meant "excellent engineering" versus "fair" or "poor engineering" because SINAD at a certain point becomes more of an engineering issue than an audible/practical one and labels are there for convenience.
Exactly.
 
GoldenSound talks through some myths (according to them) and misconceptions about audio/hifi measurements.

The Headphone Show



NB FOLLOWING SUMMARY ADDED BY MODS COPIED FROM A POST DOWN THREAD FROM THE OP .

The video is disappointing in reality,

but I thought it could open up debate In fact, the conclusion is "don't rely only on measurements" and "don't rely only on the ears" :facepalm:
Took the time to view the video. To me it makes sense in order to make critical thoughts about measurements and their relevance to listening quality.
For a pro like me much was already known of course. But for people with knowledge in different areas it can be helpful. So nothing wrong with this video.
 
Personally I find Sinad an extremely useful metric, it allows me to discount products at a glance.
Has Amir measured a component that has excellent Sinad but measures poorly in other respects?
Keith
But, see here, I have found that statement to be helpful and quite dangerous at the same time.

I lurked here quite a while before joining and my mindset was "All AVRs suck, cause ASR says so based on SINAD"

I have told this story before, but condensed, I bought a used Yamaha AVR at an extremely low price. Hooked it all up, finally got all the settings correct, and expected to laugh or write it off as junk.

To my surprise, I heard quite decent sound. In fact, I was almost shocked to like the sound, and had to almost re-think what I thought was so true before.

Yes, it can matter, but if its not audible when listening "Fairly" to hear it, does it matter that much in reality?

I am not being anti ASR and I get all the reasons it DOES matter,
But to just LOOK at a chart, and having never used or heard the product, and proclaim, "It is substandard sounding" comes off as a bit, "too easily dismissive", in some regards.
 
But, see here, I have found that statement to be helpful and quite dangerous at the same time.

I lurked here quite a while before joining and my mindset was "All AVRs suck, cause ASR says so based on SINAD"

I have told this story before, but condensed, I bought a used Yamaha AVR at an extremely low price. Hooked it all up, finally got all the settings correct, and expected to laugh or write it off as junk.

To my surprise, I heard quite decent sound. In fact, I was almost shocked to like the sound, and had to almost re-think what I thought was so true before.

Yes, it can matter, but if its not audible when listening "Fairly" to hear it, does it matter that much in reality?

I am not being anti ASR and I get all the reasons it DOES matter,
But to just LOOK at a chart, and having never used or heard the product, and proclaim, "It is substandard sounding" comes off as a bit, "too easily dismissive", in some regards.

Some focus to "on-boarding" would be very beneficial: one prominent area to spoon-feed the most important of "what you need to know". I know there are videos and articles about, but they take effort to find, and I know what I'm looking for.
 
There's another aspect rarely addressed about subjectivity,objectivity,etc.
The old (very-very old) aspect of "who's watching" you (more like reading these days) .
Has nothing to do with audio,it's forum related,strictly.

There's not one (1) person I know who does not change behind a screen.
My small audiophile circle are a mixed bag but mostly subjectivists fed by the decades of BS around.The few of them who write on forums appear to be strict,single minded,etc,you know,the works.
Up close we are laughing and they admit all the fails and illusions.And I mean laughing our hearts out,not bitter smiles.
It's a false picture out there,far from reality.
I like and agree with this perspective. You're talking about how we may use different personas in different contexts. Sometimes I feel like the online persona is getting away from me a bit and almost developing a life of its own, which creates a tension I dislike. I quit facebook twice for exactly that reason. Once insta. Once even here, abandoning an old username. In the case of fb I also disliked witnessing people I know puppeting their own fb alternates. Here is different, of course, as I know only your ASR personas.

Now then, being aware of this separate and false (your word) screen persona, what am I to do? I can put it another way: What shall I do with my internet-mediated freedom to be inauthetic? That's an interesting question.

That Trevor/Nigel with the weird hair seems to have a clear idea what he wants to be online: pleader, prosecutor, and judge of myth allegations.
 
Some focus to "on-boarding" would be very beneficial: one prominent area to spoon-feed the most important of "what you need to know". I know there are videos and articles about, but they take effort to find, and I know what I'm looking for.
I think after now hearing about a half dozen AVRs of varying pedigrees and prices, I am just a bit surprised to discover, (and I have relatively good hearing still) that even the cheapest mediocre SINAD one I heard, still in no obvious way sounded bad.

And yeah I get better SINAD "Should be the ideal goal", and I am not saying its not at least ONE measure of a good design, but so much focus seems to be put on this one metric, but, at least to me, its not a very audible thing, whereas other things just seem of more import.
 
but so much focus seems to be put on this one metric,

Yes, it does seem that way - but it seems to be only given so much focus by those people complaining about how much focus is put on it. :p
 
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I think after now hearing about a half dozen AVRs of varying pedigrees and prices, I am just a bit surprised to discover, (and I have relatively good hearing still) that even the cheapest mediocre SINAD one I heard, still in no obvious way sounded bad.
Well yes, but most AVRs these days are least getting into the 70s on their SINAD, which is still into the territory of "likely inaudible".
And yeah I get better SINAD "Should be the ideal goal", and I am not saying its not at least ONE measure of a good design, but so much focus seems to be put on this one metric, but, at least to me, its not a very audible thing, whereas other things just seem of more import.
I don't think there's the big focus on SINAD here as likes to be insinuated. It's more that if SINAD doesn't reach a certain level (including headroom for items at the beginning or middle of chain, rather than the amp that's generally at the end), there's not much reason to look beyond that. The audio samples from the video that has SINADs in the 50s were actually a good demonstration of that, at least. You could clearly hear the artifacts, and why would even look at a device that does that? SINAD should be into the realm of inaudibility on any competent modern device. Once SINAD is confirmed to be at a competent level, then we know to start looking at other metrics and features.

Also, as I think has been stated numerous times, SINAD has been shown to have a good correlation with the overall engineering of the audio pipeline. It's not often that a device gets a very high SINAD and then totally craps the bed on some other metric (ignoring things like reliability which a review has no way of determining objectively).
 
What are the stats, really? Your >90% assumption might be right or a post hoc rationalization of your choice of rhetorical style. Idk. If you were to use a style of teaching suitable for an audience of independent critical thinkers, addresses them as peers who, like you or me, might be insulted by presumptions of being easily manipulated by flattery and tribal rhetoric, would you not be able to find that audience?
Does an audience of independent, critical-thinking people who self-educate on the topics they hold strong opinions on exist? Sure, absolutely. However, I must ask, how much time have you spent "in the trenches" talking to the hoi polloi? For me, it's been the better part of a decade talking to people with very little filter with regards to who they are about audio science, trying to counter the spread of misinformation and improve the community's understanding. There hasn't been a week where I haven't tried to explain how someone is going wrong on Reddit, Youtube, or one of the countless forums on this topic, and in that time, the pool of people I've found who are not coming at audio science from a perspective of profound misinformation is tiny. Not non-existent, but tiny.

ASR has a lot of them, including folks whom I very much look up to like JJ, Floyd, and Sean - so too do a few small audio science minded communities on platforms like Discord. In those places, I generally don't employ this style of rhetoric because people are more skeptical of "look at that misinformed strawman over there", and I try to address people more as peers - the results are mixed, if I'm being honest, relative to the propagandizing style, but I don't think that would be improved by changing to be more propagandistic, so I'm sticking with the more peer-like approach here.

But for the masses? 90% being profoundly misinformed would be a very heavy understatement of my own experiences trying to directly inform people on these topics over years of my life. And among the profoundly misinformed, unless you wish to devote many hours of your life to a dialectical analysis of where their misconceptions come from, you will typically encounter outright rejection if you say "You, sir, are wrong, let me explain why". The goal of videos like this is not to address people who have read any of the primary literature on this topic, and certainly not to address people who are in the industry, it's to address people who see it pop up on YouTube recommended and, hopefully, we pray, will walk away Somewhat Less Wrong than they came in.
If it's the case that the stats are as bad as you say then we have a problem. Is this the inevitable natural order? I don't think so. In my experience people learn independence and critical thinking skills. So I have a choice: do I want to contribute to this problem or to resolving it?
If you have such faith in your fellow man, you are of course quite welcome to make content on the basis of this Rousseauian view - in many long years of trying to educate the public, I have found very little to make me believe in such a view, at least for mass media. Yes, this is extremely cynical, and I fully and openly accept that label. If a cynical approach can help dispel misinformation like "the Harman research just tested public preference, it doesn't have anything to do with high fidelity", "frequency response isn't related to what we hear, because it's just sine waves and music is different", or any other of the host of misconceptions that we see every day, I'll happily count that as a win, and my interest in the normative judgements of those not in the arena is not very high.
 
It's not often that a device gets a very high SINAD and then totally craps the bed on some other metric (ignoring things like reliability which a review has no way of determining objectively).
In case of amps it can.They can have a very nice 90dB SINAD for example and at the same time not able to do 20's at their rated power.Remember,they are power amps,that's their job,that's why we get them.On top of that as I said above they can have load dependency.Or unable to do 3 Ohm which a big majority of today's speakers go.
And so on.
Totally ok for DACs ,agreed.But this race have made people having 5 of them each and get a new one every 6 months just to feel that they don't fall short and no other reason whatsoever (I exclude the ones that break,their displays become unreadable,they do clicks and pops at any given chance,etc) .
 
Yes, it does seem that way - but it seems to be only given so much focus by those people complaining about how much focus is put on it.
It is, it must be noted, the only measured parameter which can be sorted by on the master index. It would be a strawman of ASR to assert that people only care about SINAD here, but surely we can accept that it is something people on here are commonly ranking by?
 
The sad part is that so many people are convinced in such a way and only tend to read/watch that what confirms their belief that there is no point to inform them.
This for the simple reason that they already 'know' they are right.
It is like trying to convince a religious person that what they belief is 'besides the truth'.

All we can do is post info that is correct (that is the difficult part) and explain it like they are 5. They can either learn from this or brush it off like they usually do... and hope that maybe you planted a seed that makes them think.

The goal is noble but just like the search for 'better sound' it is never ending ... until one accepts good enough is good enough.
 
Does an audience of independent, critical-thinking people who self-educate on the topics they hold strong opinions on exist? Sure, absolutely. However, I must ask, how much time have you spent "in the trenches" talking to the hoi polloi? For me, it's been the better part of a decade talking to people with very little filter with regards to who they are about audio science, trying to counter the spread of misinformation and improve the community's understanding. There hasn't been a week where I haven't tried to explain how someone is going wrong on Reddit, Youtube, or one of the countless forums on this topic, and in that time, the pool of people I've found who are not coming at audio science from a perspective of profound misinformation is tiny. Not non-existent, but tiny.

ASR has a lot of them, including folks whom I very much look up to like JJ, Floyd, and Sean - so too do a few small audio science minded communities on platforms like Discord. In those places, I generally don't employ this style of rhetoric because people are more skeptical of "look at that misinformed strawman over there", and I try to address people more as peers - the results are mixed, if I'm being honest, relative to the propagandizing style, but I don't think that would be improved by changing to be more propagandistic, so I'm sticking with the more peer-like approach here.

But for the masses? 90% being profoundly misinformed would be a very heavy understatement of my own experiences trying to directly inform people on these topics over years of my life. And among the profoundly misinformed, unless you wish to devote many hours of your life to a dialectical analysis of where their misconceptions come from, you will typically encounter outright rejection if you say "You, sir, are wrong, let me explain why". The goal of videos like this is not to address people who have read any of the primary literature on this topic, and certainly not to address people who are in the industry, it's to address people who see it pop up on YouTube recommended and, hopefully, we pray, will walk away Somewhat Less Wrong than they came in.

If you have such faith in your fellow man, you are of course quite welcome to make content on the basis of this Rousseauian view - in many long years of trying to educate the public, I have found very little to make me believe in such a view, at least for mass media. Yes, this is extremely cynical, and I fully and openly accept that label. If a cynical approach can help dispel misinformation like "the Harman research just tested public preference, it doesn't have anything to do with high fidelity", "frequency response isn't related to what we hear, because it's just sine waves and music is different", or any other of the host of misconceptions that we see every day, I'll happily count that as a win, and my interest in the normative judgements of those not in the arena is not very high.
Thank you for the thorough answer.

I have no business educating people on these topics. I just like to hang out here for the affable banter, and the chances to learn stuff, and sometimes the opportunity arises in which I can help people with their questions, which I enjoy. Idk what you do but judging from this post it seems maybe educating broader audiences is part of your business. If it's the case as you say that there are very widely believed falsehoods then there can be a basis of truth to the myth-busting style, as opposed to in the egregious Gladwellist inventions I dislike. So I'll defer on that with, for me personally, Bartleby the Scrivener's reservation. Rhetoric's success is measured by outcomes in changing beliefs and judging if ends justify means is not a scientific question.
 
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