Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[dc655321]

When one is timid to engage in the substance of the debate and resort to insults. . .

Please share with us your background and your expertise of understanding in the material and it's application and engage in the discussion in a civil and intellectual manner.

I think you're a fool. Or a troll. Maybe both.

Look again at the questions you've repeatedly posed, here and in the thread that precipitated this one. You've been handed good information and repeatedly failed to absorb. You've failed to even use the search facilities. Or, are you looking for a particular answer that agrees with your misunderstandings?

 

[gallantus]

It's not what's said, it's the way it's said... a stark difference between a genuine question and a troll question designed to push certain ASR buttons, the issue is the latter in review threads.


JSmith

BTW, I am just a very direct guy and I will question anyone and everyone, but I will try my best to do so in the utmost respectful way, though direct and no beating around the bush. If you see me getting out of line please message me and I will dail it back.

 

[gallantus]

I think you're a fool. Or a troll. Maybe both.

Look again at the questions you've repeatedly posed, here and in the thread that precipitated this one. You've been handed good information and repeatedly failed to absorb. You've failed to even use the search facilities. Or, are you looking for a particular answer that agrees with your misunderstandings?

More insults and nothing about your credentials nor expertise and nothing substantial. I will block you as a matter of courtesy to ASR.

 

[gallantus]

No. It isn't BS, but you'll get a bunch of people here who will fiercely argue with that position. The loudest noises will be heard from the people who have never performed a level matched, instant A/B comparison at elevated levels.

I promise I am not playing both sides. But I'm an inquisitor. Do you have and have you found blind ABX evidence that "sound signature" is legit? If it's just your personal experience, I can live with it but others here can't.

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

Let me say this about that:

Treat her Right-Roy Head and the Traits
The Healer-John Lee Hooker (featuring Carlos Santana)
Java-Al Hirt
Baby Come Back-The Equals
Rock House-Roy Orbison
One Foot in the Blues-Johnny Adams
Get Away-Georgie Fame
Heartland-Triana
Jungalero-Les Baxter
Out of Sight-James Brown
Unloveable-The Smiths
Twist and Crawl-English Beat
Holding Back the Years-Simply Red
Butcher Baby-Plasmatics
Anything,Anything-Buckcherry
Blue Spanish Sky-Chris Isaak
Dirty Back Road-B-52's (foot on the pedal, feet in the air)
Job To Do-Contol
Sugar On Sunday-The Clique
Gallow's Pole-Willie Watson
Old World-Modern Lovers
Whole Lotta Rosie-AC/DC
The Beginning of the End-Eddie and the Hotrods
I Can't Explain-The Who
Gloria (mono version)-Them
Gut Feeling-Devo
Party Fears Two-Heaven 17
53rd & 3rd-Ramones
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face-Roberta Flack

 

[gallantus]

That’s a straw man. Features such as equalization, bass management, automated room correction, loudness compensation don’t show up in the standard measurement battery but they matter more than 90% of the measured stuff.



Do you have any grounds to imagine otherwise?



Most people shouldn’t buy DACs because that is a simple function often built into other equipment.



Because that would be a basic system that sounds terrible compared to one with some degrees of freedom.



IMO those results are more disqualifiers than qualifiers.

Best, honest, logical, direct, grab the bull by the horn answer.

"Do you have any grounds to imagine otherwise?" <- Yes. My experience with two int amps on the same speaker, one I eventually returned because it sound "warm" (I know some audiophool jargon), the low mids and the upper bass seemed to be accentuated and the detail was a bit lacking. Say by side A/B, not blind but same volume level measured by a DBA meter. One will argue that I might have been blinded by bias, it could very well be true, no arguments there.

 

[Doodski]

Do you have and have you found blind ABX evidence that "sound signature" is legit?

I have found some HK stuff to sound a little different compared to other amps and receivers. A very subtle difference but it is there. Not enough of a difference for me to pay the premium over a Yamaha piece.

 

[JSmith]

I am just a very direct guy and I will question anyone and everyone,

No worries I am the same.

I would inquire though if you have explored the topic of psychoacoustics and perception bias. Unfortunately humans and not good measuring devices and this is where the "mystery" in audio stems from.



JSmith

 

[Blumlein 88]

True, but respectfully, that is a cop out answer.

So let me ask the question in another way. If two amps measured damn close from two different manufacturers with different design, will they sound damn close alike. Keep in mind, once you hit a certain SINAD, it makes no difference to our human ears anyway.

Is the concept of "sound signature" BS?

Richard Clark Amplifier Challenge FAQ

Maybe the parameters of the Richard Clark amp challenge can fill in some blanks. He required amps being compared to have the same power without clipping, no EQ or other response differences, 30 db channel seperation over the whole audio band, and no more than 2% THD. You had to get 12 of 12 correct twice to collect the money. Yet over more than 2000 attempts no one even got enough right to meet a p-value of 5% which would require 17 out of 24. These tests are all done with music.

 

[gallantus]

No worries I am the same.

I would inquire though if you have explored the topic of psychoacoustics and perception bias. Unfortunately humans and not good measuring devices and this is where the "mystery" in audio stems from.



JSmith

I have, but I am no expert in it. I do know the best way to eliminate such bias, is a proper blind ABX. However, it's not always that simple for most average Joe, when they have just one set of speakers or their amp only has one set of balanced XLR.

 

[restorer-john]

This rudeness was really uncalled for by the way.

It was not directed at you, hence the person non-specific employment of the word "their". Please don't take offence.

Broken and sometimes the even more amusing, 'not broken' are just words thrown out in threads all the time, and mean little. Another one is 'pathological'. Hardly objective, quantifiable, specific or appropriate to describe any electrical behaviour of a piece of HiFi.

When quizzed on what exactly people mean when they use 'patholical', 'broken or 'not broken' the sound of crickets is most often heard.

Check this out. Basically the word is used as disclaimer for most posts where it appears.

Search results for query: pathological

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Blumlein 88]

I have, but I am no expert in it. I do know the best way to eliminate such bias, is a proper blind ABX. However, it's not always that simple for most average Joe, when they have just one set of speakers or their amp only has one set of balanced XLR.

Yes, and it isn't uncommon where people start threads wanting to know at what SINAD or other spec gear is no longer transparent. That becomes a sticky wicket. It can be answered, but never with a blazing hot thin red line. Such metrics involving people and complex systems come with a wide gray area. That gray isn't the same thing as saying the question is unanswerable and all kinds of opinions count however.

 

[gallantus]

Richard Clark Amplifier Challenge FAQ

Maybe the parameters of the Richard Clark amp challenge can fill in some blanks. He required amps being compared to have the same power without clipping, no EQ or other response differences, 30 db channel seperation over the whole audio band, and no more than 2% THD. You had to get 12 of 12 correct twice to collect the money. Yet over more than 2000 attempts no one even got enough right to meet a p-value of 5% which would require 17 out of 24. These tests are all done with music.

Wow, super interesting. Thank you for sharing.

And this is not a gotcha, I promise. But "He doesn't keep detailed logs of the responses because he said they always show random responses." Would have been nice to see the data. But I see no reason to question the truth of this.

Now. . .(again, I promise, this is not a I gotcha), then why the hell do we care about 100 vs 110 SINAD? This Richard Clark experiment just proved it makes no damn difference. I don't need no Benchmark, nor Hypex, a $400 Sony will do.

 

[amirm]

Do you think part of that is that human anatomy varies so much compared to the test fixtures?

That's an additional complication. The main issue is that measurements themselves are variable and essentially unreliable above around 8 kHz or so. We don't have this problem with speakers.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

. I don't need no Benchmark, nor Hypex, a $400 Sony will do.

I think that's the whole point of ASR. If you can afford the best, then go for it. But if you can't, and if you need to pinch pennies, then wouldn't it be nice to have an advocate? Jim

 

[amirm]

I understand your reply is off the cuff and not to be taken ultra literally, so don't think of this as some kind of attempt at a gotcha, but with speakers and headphones what would you say makes up the 20-50% which isn't shown in the measurements?

With speakers we don't measure the strong influence of room on the speaker response (since this varies from room to room). We also don't have good data on wide vs narrow directivity of the speaker (how wide the response is). I find that on-axis response gives us proper data in majority of cases. But not always. Measurements of distortion can also be tricky to translate to audibility.

With headphones, as I explained above, how the headphone sits on the fixture changes the measurement. And response above certainly frequency is simply not reliable. So I use equalization and listening tests to determine what is, or is not real in the measurements. The combination provides a high confidence answer.

 

[gallantus]

Another honest question, Harman, the most scientifically intense HiFi company. (BTW, I have a Revel F226Be coming in, I'm sharing this to hopefully demonstrate that I have nothing against Harman.) If amps all sounds the same, given acceptable distortion level; why, why, why does Harman make and sell Mark Levinson? These thousands and thousands of dollar amps, why a scientifically intense HiFi company like Harman sell a $10k amp that sounds exactly like their $1,500 Arcam? Why? Why? Why? Is Harman cashing in?

EDIT: Alright folks, I think I brought enough taboo for the night. Signing off to rest. This is a super interesting and intellectual inquisitive thread for me. Thanks @amirm for setting this up and indulging some of us sticklers with nothing better to do.

 

[restorer-john]

Richard Clark Amplifier Challenge FAQ
Maybe the parameters of the Richard Clark amp challenge can fill in some blanks. He required amps being compared to have the same power without clipping, no EQ or other response differences, 30 db channel seperation over the whole audio band, and no more than 2% THD. You had to get 12 of 12 correct twice to collect the money. Yet over more than 2000 attempts no one even got enough right to meet a p-value of 5% which would require 17 out of 24. These tests are all done with music.

The 'challenge' is flawed and would not serve to 'fill in blanks' for anyone.

Let's assume voicing an amplifier is real and some manufacturers do make deliberate subtle changes to the FR of their gear. How does EQ'ing out those differences prove or disprove anything at all?

I take a Sansui from the 1970s with a deliberately warm mid bass bump and rolled off treble and eq it flat to match a Purifi ET400. Then I run the Purifi at 10wpc to match the little Sansui. What am I achieving, learning or testing? Maybe that I know how to tweak an EQ, but certainly not that amplifiers all sound the same.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The 'challenge' is flawed and would not serve to 'fill in blanks' for anyone.

Let's assume voicing an amplifier is real and some manufacturers do make deliberate subtle changes to the FR of their gear. How does EQ'ing out those differences prove or disprove anything at all?

If that changes the perception due to EQing flat, it indicates without unflat response these otherwise sound the same. I'm one of those guys who says, 85% of HiFI is frequency response. It also would indicate with added EQ the flat amp could sound "properly voiced".

As a long time owner of large electrostats, I've run across plenty of amps that do not respond the same to the loads of those speakers. There is a reason vacuum tube amps with transformers are often suggested for big ESL's.

 

[restorer-john]

If amps all sounds the same, given acceptable distortion level; why, why, why does Harman make and sell Mark Levinson? These thousands and thousands of dollar amps, why a scientifically intense HiFi company like Harman sell a $10k amp that sounds exactly like their $1,500 Arcam? Why? Why? Why? Is Harman cashing in?

Of course they are cashing in. The brand is valuable and Harman are good a plastering/licensing it on Lexus cars and HiFi. I expect it will end up adorning laptop speakers, headphones and mobile phones soon enough now Samsung has got it.

@amirm 's ML monoblocks were crazy money for 500/1000wpc amps. Out of the realm of value for money, they are statement products. Revel's top speakers are in the same league, well into the area of diminishing returns, but reasonable compared to many others out there.

Harman has always had Halo products. In the early 1980s, it was the Citation XX and XXP. The power amplifier was AUD$15,800 here in Australia (1.5million YEN in Japan in 1983) and I saw exactly 1 in Australia. It came with its own wooden crate.

Harman/Kardon Citation XX on thevintageknob.org

vintage 1980 h/k Citation XX reference power amplifier

www.thevintageknob.org