Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[BDWoody]

Thanks. Everything is said then I guess.

I'll just move this to a more appropriate thread. Been covered too many times.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes, it is a myth. Just now I have a Topping D30 Pro here next to a brand new S.M.S.L M500 mk III and they couldn't sound more different. The Topping is much punchier, faster. Compared to it the S.M.S.L sounds thin and boring. Not small differences but very obvious. I'm not a bass head at all, but the S.M.S.L just cannot deliver. I had even hooked up one DAC to the left speaker, the other one to the right speaker and I made sure levels are the same (SPL meter). The S.M.S.L just sounded thin, flat and unnatural compared to the Topping. The sound overall was very unbalanced using different DACs for both channels.
I really wonder if people just repeat what other people here say ("DACs all sound the same") or if they ever actually do comparisons. I don't believe they do. And I just said it in another thread, but a DAC (device) is much more than just a converter chip. The ignorance in this forum sometimes is really upsetting.

Matching levels with SPL meter was probably not accurate enough. Would you describe your matching procedure?

 

[lashto]

Do you also find analogue to be more emotional? Is it a sad or happy emotion?

Yes. Both (depends on the music and the quality of the whisky)

I can even DBT this anytíme but you have to provide the place & accommodation. Including lots of quality tissues cause crying with my eyes closed would be tough

/sarcasm aside, I do not understand why objectivism has to be so agressive.

 

[fpitas]

/sarcasm aside, I do not understand why objectivism have to be so agressive.

We should be more polite here, but we live in a world of silver-tongued snake-oil salesmen who will literally say anything to clinch the sale. It makes one cynical.

 

[MrSoul4470]

Matching levels with SPL meter was probably not accurate enough. Would you describe your matching procedure?

I even gave the S.M.S.L a good boost in the end and it was noticable louder than the Topping. Still it sounded not as punchy or powerful.

It's pretty simple how I level matched the two: I put my SPL meter right in-between the speakers and left it in that position. Then I played test tones 1kHz, 2kHz and a few more (just to make sure) with both DACs. For example both DACs delivered the same SPL (+- 0.5dB) when set to -16dB. And no, even if the Topping was 0.5dB louder it doesn't explain the huge differences (even when I played the S.M.S.L louder on purpose).

I'm not saying my comparison was perfectly done, but the differences were obvious. I read here on ASR "If you hear differences then prove it". Yet I haven't found a single prove here that those that claim that there are no audible differences are right. Amir could do it. People would believe what he says. "Prove it!" should go for both sides.

 

[Galliardist]

Yes. Both (depends on the music and the quality of the whisky)

I can even DBT this anytíme but you have to provide the place & accommodation. Including lots of quality tissues cause crying with my eyes closed would be tough

/sarcasm aside, I do not understand why objectivism has to be so agressive.

As the target of the line, I concur with it. The question was whether analogue playback has a constant emotion compared to digital, and it doesn't.

To put it another way, if you listened to an LP and a digital player playing a 1kHz sine wave, would the LP playback give you more emotion? If not, there is nothing intrinsic about it, no matter how much whisky is involved.

And if someone makes the point assertively (it wasn't aggressive, maybe a bit sarcastic), nothing wrong there.

 

[lashto]

As the target of the line, I concur with it. The question was whether analogue playback has a constant emotion compared to digital, and it doesn't.

To put it another way, if you listened to an LP and a digital player playing a 1kHz sine wave, would the LP playback give you more emotion? If not, there is nothing intrinsic about it, no matter how much whisky is involved.

And if someone makes the point assertively (it wasn't aggressive, maybe a bit sarcastic), nothing wrong there.

Not sure about the emotions in the 1kHz test but I'd bet the headache will be very strong (even without whisky).
The so called emotions of LP playback might not even have anything to do with the sound itself. Nothing wrong with that (at least for me).

Ghandi's "eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" applies very well to all obj vs. subj debates. Yes, it's a lot easier to just say such things but driving that noise down seems to be the only way forward..

 

[Galliardist]

I even gave the S.M.S.L a good boost in the end and it was noticable louder than the Topping. Still it sounded not as punchy or powerful.

It's pretty simple how I level matched the two: I put my SPL meter right in-between the speakers and left it in that position. Then I played test tones 1kHz, 2kHz and a few more (just to make sure) with both DACs. For example both DACs delivered the same SPL (+- 0.5dB) when set to -16dB. And no, even if the Topping was 0.5dB louder it doesn't explain the huge differences (even when I played the S.M.S.L louder on purpose).

I'm not saying my comparison was perfectly done, but the differences were obvious. I read here on ASR "If you hear differences then prove it". Yet I haven't found a single prove here that those that claim that there are no audible differences are right. Amir could do it. People would believe what he says. "Prove it!" should go for both sides.

But I don't see how that test could possibly be considered blind.
The assertion is only that if we remove all known points of difference in the sound, and test blind to prevent you knowing the difference during the test, that the devices will be indistinguishable.

You are playing the devices through different speakers (we'd need to know the pair matching), you can locate them in space, you can I presume see them, you operated the equipment. We don't know if equivalent digital filters are in use. Those are variables I can think of off the top of my head, there may well be others.

While we appreciate you trying, I can only and regretfully conclude this test does not meet the high standard required for you to conclude 100% that there was a purely audible rather than a perceived difference: the level matching is the least of my concerns about the way you did this.

As for proving a negative, well, we can't. All we can do is take a hypothesis that something sounds different and fail to prove difference. That's actually pretty pointless. It's up to you people to prove that an "unknown" difference exists, and it's a hard ask, which is why we keep going around and around the issue.

If you've proved that you subjectively prefer the Topping, then for practical purposes, fine. Keep using the Topping. We aren't going to dispute that: At the end of the day we are all stuck with this subjectivism: whenever I play music in "real life" I see and interact with my system, and I'm reasonably certain that even after proving something with a blind test, whatever goes on between my ears can come back to haunt me.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I even gave the S.M.S.L a good boost in the end and it was noticable louder than the Topping. Still it sounded not as punchy or powerful.

It's pretty simple how I level matched the two: I put my SPL meter right in-between the speakers and left it in that position. Then I played test tones 1kHz, 2kHz and a few more (just to make sure) with both DACs. For example both DACs delivered the same SPL (+- 0.5dB) when set to -16dB. And no, even if the Topping was 0.5dB louder it doesn't explain the huge differences (even when I played the S.M.S.L louder on purpose).

I'm not saying my comparison was perfectly done, but the differences were obvious. I read here on ASR "If you hear differences then prove it". Yet I haven't found a single prove here that those that claim that there are no audible differences are right. Amir could do it. People would believe what he says. "Prove it!" should go for both sides.

I went back and read all of your posts in this thread.

Let me say, yes in fact we do use our ears at ASR. Only our ears when we have something highly improbable. Given the measurements of the two devices you have it is incredibly unlikely you could hear a difference that is from the signal leaving the DACs.

So you hit all the audiophile check marks, the wife hears it and you hear it, and some youtuber heard it, we don't know everything there is to measure about sound, and you don't sound like you are familiar with how easily biased humans are. You, me, everyone. Nor do you seem to realize how once you've finalized your judgement about a sound difference how much it alters your perception of that device. Your description has all the hallmarks of those things.

I hate saying, "do a blind test or else". In this case if you did a blind level matched listening comparison I'm highly confident you would not be able to hear a difference. And nothing you've done going by your description is even close.

So being honest, I don't believe you are hearing it. Please try not to take offense, I'm not trying to be offensive just trying to cut thru the tangle of your experience and perception listening to these DACs. We've all been there or most of us. It seems incredibly real. Yet with these two devices, unless you've chosen radically different filters or one is malfunctioning there is very little chance of what you describe being anything other than sighted bias corrupting what you hear. You would like for us to prove it? You would need to listen in a blinded manner. Again I've even recently had a thread asking we not throw a blind test challenge toward posters everytime they post something unlikely. In this case I don't know what else would work. Also if you did one, you'll likely have a humbly enlightening experience.

By specs the SMSL looks to be about 1.5 db louder than the Topping. I didn't realize you were using active speakers. Easiest way to match volume is plug your XLR cable that goes to the speakers into an XLR to TRS adapter and measure across that adapter with a voltmeter. Get it matched that way and it will be matched in the speaker. Get voltage with a 1 khz tone within 1% between the two devices. Or at the very least less than 2%.

 

[DonR]

Yes. Both (depends on the music and the quality of the whisky)

I can even DBT this anytíme but you have to provide the place & accommodation. Including lots of quality tissues cause crying with my eyes closed would be tough

/sarcasm aside, I do not understand why objectivism has to be so agressive.

You are not the best judge of emotions if you thought that post was aggressive. If you want to see aggressive, go over to head-fi and mearly *suggest* that peoples' impressions of equipment can be subject to visual bias.

 

[Westsounds]

And plus there's always burn-in, was that accounted for

 

[Killingbeans]

IMO, burn-in is a mental component that allows both preference and reference to be smeared over time.

Shouldn't be a problem when fast A/B-ing looking for a difference.

 

[Westsounds]

I love this forum

 

[Killingbeans]

It's something that can be measured but why place so much emphasis on it if it cannot be heard?

Because it signals good engineering. I put my emphasis on the fact that it probably cannot be heard. I take it as snapshot of the state of things.

My personal take from it: Dirt cheap DACs have become so good, that even the most auditory savant person in the world would not be able to appreciate further improvement. DACs are not a thing I need to worry about anymore. I can safely shift my focus onto to parts of the reproduction chain, that makes an actual difference worth spending time and money on.

 

[ahofer]

Again I've even recently had a thread asking we not throw a blind test challenge toward posters everytime they post something unlikely

That's the problem - invoking our version of Hitchen's Razor, the ASR razor: Extraordinary claims require significant evidence.

or maybe "Scientifically unlikely claims require scientifically controlled evidence"

 

[Killingbeans]

It's definitely really difficult not to sound like a self-righteousness prick, when trying to get to the bottom of things.

 

[ahofer]

It's definitely really difficult not to sound like a self-righteousness prick, when trying to get to the bottom of things.

Or at least that you are policing people's comments. Certainly I must come off that way. The reality is some are trolls, and some really don't know better, having never encountered rigorous skepticism on this subject before, and it can initially be hard to tell.

 

[fpitas]

Or at least that you are policing people's comments. Certainly I must come off that way. The reality is some are trolls, and some really don't know better, having never encountered rigorous skepticism on this subject before, and it can initially be hard to tell.

Luckily, the bad trolls can't resist telling us how low-brow and ignorant we are.

 

[lashto]

If you want to see aggressive, go over to head-fi and mearly *suggest* that peoples' impressions of equipment can be subject to visual bias.

you'll be banned on head-fi for even writing "DBT" once. So what? Not sure what else do you expect from a site ran by audio-advertising money.

A 'beautiful' ear-for-ear game this one: people get banned on subjective sites like headfi/etc and come here to "kick subjective ass". How's that useful to anyone?

 

[ahofer]

you'll be banned on head-fi for even writing "DBT" once. So what? Not sure what else do you expect from a site ran by audio-advertising money.

A 'beautiful' ear-for-ear game this one: you get banned on subjective sites like headfi/etc and come here to "kick subjective ass". How's that useful to anyone?

That's my perception, although it must not always be the case.