Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[Killingbeans]

How the hell do you know? A concert musician is able to discern the nuances in music better than the layman. If you do something regularly you get better at it. Stop making assumptions.

Because if there's a 50/50 chance of your experience being a false positive, it won't actually teach you anything, no matter how may times you repeat it.

You say there's no evidence showing that being an audiophile will not heighten the auditory abilities of that person. And I say there's no evidence to the contrary. I think my assumption is fair and reasonable.

 

[SIY]

You just don't know that! Again comparing it to something else.

Russell's Teapot.

Bring evidence.

 

[flz]

What audiophile have ever bought a DAC without neither hearing nor reading a word about it, and then listening to it without ever seeing it or having any physical interaction with it?

I think the same applies to the subjectivist reviewers. How many of them review a product without knowing anything about what others have said/written about the product before them, or without knowing anything about the claims made by the brand itself?

 

[BDWoody]

Just moved a bunch of posts.
Trying to keep it contained.

 

[mccririck]

Like I don't know you can't jump 20' high. I'd still bet a lot against it.

Comparing it to other claims that aren't accompanied by evidence beyond anecdotal. They are all in the same 'uh huh' category.

You're making comparisons that you don't know match. Very unscientific. Like I said listening tests are the way to decide this and it needs to involve people who are seriously into this as a hobby. Making crazy comparisons online doesn't make you look good. It's just disrespectful.

 

[Killingbeans]

It's not a comparison. It's an analogy.

He's trying to make it clear to you, that if a claim seems very unlikely to be true, it can be dismissed without worry. Otherwise the burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.

Nothing tells us that the mere exposure to music reproduction will make us more sensitive to its nuances.

And it most certainly won't make you immune to perceptual bias.

 

[sonitus mirus]

It's not a comparison. It's an analogy.

He's trying to make it clear to you, that if a claim seems very unlikely to be true, it can be dismissed without worry. Otherwise the burden of proof lies on the one making the claim.

Nothing tells us that the mere exposure to music reproduction will make us more sensitive to its nuances.

And it most certainly won't make you immune to perceptual bias.

A 20' obstacle for audible noise to hurdle would be an unassuming SINAD-rated device, though still quite audibly transparent. Most equipment, today, would provide an obstruction for audible noise to overcome that would be similar to a human having to jump several miles high in an environment relative to Earth's gravity.

 

[Killingbeans]

There's also a massive gap between:

A. Proving that something can be heard if you know what to listen for and concentrate hard enough.

B. Claiming that this will have a decremental effect on the listening experience in any noticeable way.

Just because something can be heard, doesn't mean it will stand out when listening to music.

 

[Xulonn]

The humour gets a bit old. I've been in this hobby for over 25 years, and remember these type of discussions back in the 90s on audio asylum.

Ha! I was a Senior Network Administrator (corporate contract work) in San Francisco in the late 1990s, and helped a bit to manage the first Audio Asylum servers. I also replaced JackG as moderator of three vacuum tube forums at AudioAsylum in the late 1990s when he got fed up and nasty with forum commenters who riled him up. At that time, I had already been involved in the hobby of audio for 40 years - since 1958.

And I still do not tire of decent snark aimed at audio idiocy, but I do tire of audio idiocy based on unverified and known false audibility claims.

 

[Robbo99999]

That's literally a great idea, creating forks that make steak taste better. Just look at the massive amounts of effort around the world at designing wine glasses to make wine taste better. This may be no different! Getting right the angle of how the piece of meat hits the tongue at the right spot, VC money will come your way!

I'm probably not carrying the metaphors all the way back to work out what's originally being talked about in terms of what point was trying to be made, but I really do think nice wine glasses make wine taste better, likewise nice forks or cutlery/plates with steak(food). Nice forks (cutlery) that is a pleasure to hold & use & see meshes with the eating experience better making you "think" the steak tastes better than it really does, but it's just a change in your brain perhaps because it's overall a more positive/enjoyable experience. Same goes for good wine glasses, but there may also be something in the shape of wine glasses that helps hold & release vapours as you bring it to your nose & mouth to drink it that might add to the real experience. What we talking about now.........

There are obvious parallels with sighted listening experiments of audio gear, in terms of expectations and aesthetical joy of the design of said audiophile products, I suppose that's the parallel. I say screw that side though when it comes to audio, but I'll still eat my steak with nice forks and try to find a nice wine glass for my wine!

 

[flz]

Ha! I was a Senior Network Administrator (corporate contract work) in San Francisco in the late 1990s, and helped a bit to manage the first Audio Asylum servers. I also replaced JackG as moderator of three vacuum tube forums at AudioAsylum in the late 1990s when he got fed up and nasty with forum commenters who riled him up. At that time, I had already been involved in the hobby of audio for 40 years - since 1958.

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And I still do not tire of decent snark aimed at audio idiocy, but I do tire of audio idiocy based on unverified and known false audibility claims.

Sorry for going off-topic but Audio Asylum was my go to audio forum in the late 90s & 2000s. It now seems like a shell of its former self. I wonder what happened over there.

 

[Mart68]

You're making comparisons that you don't know match. Very unscientific. Like I said listening tests are the way to decide this and it needs to involve people who are seriously into this as a hobby.

so you are accepting that any differences in sound quality that may exist between different DACs are so marginal that a civilian would have no chance of perceiving them?

That's a start at least. Then take into account that research shows that golden ears are no better than civilians at perceiving differences and where are you?

 

[mccririck]

so you are accepting that any differences in sound quality that may exist between different DACs are so marginal that a civilian would have no chance of perceiving them?

That's a start at least. Then take into account that research shows that golden ears are no better than civilians at perceiving differences and where are you?

I'm saying differences are going to be identified more consistently with people who are used to hearing such differences. You shouldn't have a problem with that - if there are audible differences, no matter how small or subtle, then a point will have been proven.

 

[Mart68]

I'm saying differences are going to be identified more consistently with people who are used to hearing such differences. You shouldn't have a problem with that - if there are audible differences, no matter how small or subtle, then a point will have been proven.

I would be happy for anyone to take the test but I think your faith in 'experienced listeners' is misplaced. We don't get any better at perceiving differences just because we spend a lot of time listening to music, or comparing the sound of different pieces of equipment.

When tested it has been demonstrated that audiophiles, audio dealers and audio reviewers are no better at this than random civilians. I also used to think that with my decades of listening to music and comparing equipment, that I had superior abilities of discernment. Until that was put to the test.

It's worth bearing in mind that most of the subtle differences that we perceive, and which audio reviewers write about, either exist only in the mind, or are the result of a lack of basic controls like accurate level-matching.

 

[SIY]

I'm saying differences are going to be identified more consistently with people who are used to hearing such differences. You shouldn't have a problem with that - if there are audible differences, no matter how small or subtle, then a point will have been proven.

Well, let's see some data from listening comparisons done ears-only.

 

[Killingbeans]

I'm saying differences are going to be identified more consistently with people who are used to hearing such differences.

That is correct, when the differences are real. But what part of identifying as an audiophile makes you immune to bias?

If your "training" mostly consists of confirming preconceptions of things that doesn't really exist, then what good does it do?

 

[zepplock]

If you have not compared them both by listening then you do not know that.

I'm an engineer, I don't do cults/religion/golden-ears/etc.
If you have any measurements to back up your claims - please show them.

There's nothing in home audio gear that can't be measured. From engineering/technology perspective it's very easy and well understood.

 

[_thelaughingman]

I'm an engineer, I don't do cults/religion/golden-ears/etc.
If you have any measurements to back up your claims - please show them.

There's nothing in home audio gear that can't be measured. From engineering/technology perspective it's very easy and well understood.

Well said. Science is quantifiable with evidence and measurements, there is no denying the facts and phenomena that can be observed and quantified.

 

[Ml2316]

Seems like so many review threads get challenged with:

1. Measurements are not everything.

2. You all never listen.

3. I trust my ears, not graphs.

4. I don't listen to graphs. I listen to music.

5. You all must not listen to music at all.

6. Why don't you all buy the best SINAD gear?

7. I have heard your best SINAD gear and they sound terrible. I don't like any of this Chinese stuff.

8. You don't trust your ears. I/we do.

9. All these reviewers/youtubers/audophiles say these amps, DACs, etc. sound different and you say they don't. They can't all be wrong.

10. Surely designers have created certain house sound for each equipment which your measurements don't show.

11. Your measurements are only at one frequency. You need to also measure X, Y and Z like impulse response, slew rate, etc., etc.

12. You guys run a cult here where you only go by measurements and no one is allowed to disagree.

On and on...

I have had to answer these so many times that I thought it is time to stop having them go into every review as they are not product specific. From here on, any such questions should be posted here. Answers will be given in this thread and simply referenced in future challenges in other threads.

@AdamG247 and @BDWoody, please direct any future posts in review threads to here and not allow discussions there.

Thanks. You all are free to discuss this topic, provide answers, argue, whatever, in this thread.

Well there are many speakers for which reviewer recs don't match the objective measurements. Sony sscs5 is one prominent example on this site. I noticed most reviewers are pretty lukewarm on the jbl a130 too, and a lot of reviewers laud the Dayton audio b652. So it does feel like objective measurements fail to capture something these reviewers care about. I know cost is a factor that partly explains the latter two cases, but b it still doesn't seem to quite add up. So maybe it's not the measurements themselves but the scoring formula. I.e. The weights assigned to different measurements.

 

[Killingbeans]

So it does feel like objective measurements fail to capture something these reviewers care about.

Looks, price points and reputation.