Passive pre-stage / power amp / speakers.

[Wil]

I completely agree that measurements are essential to verify design and component performance. At the same time, decades of listening experience as a classical musician have taught me that subtle musical details — timbre, phrasing, and spatial cues — often go beyond what specs can show.


Years of musical training not only refine listening skills, but also develop the brain’s ability to perceive these nuances. In my view, combining measurements with attentive listening gives the fullest picture of an amplifier’s performance.


Even if some readers may disagree, I hope this perspective can be useful to those quietly observing and learning — sometimes, subtle listening skills are just as informative as measurements.

 

[LTig]

I completely agree that measurements are essential to verify design and component performance. At the same time, decades of listening experience as a classical musician have taught me that subtle musical details — timbre, phrasing, and spatial cues — often go beyond what specs can show.

And science has shown that measurements are much more precise than human hearing - we can measure differences which are inaudible.

Years of musical training not only refine listening skills, but also develop the brain’s ability to perceive these nuances.

Years of musical training (as a performing musician) usually impairs ones hearing sense - even violinists often suffer from hearing loss in one ear. I think it is still a good idea to take part in a controlled listening test to find out how good the hearing sense really is.

In my view, combining measurements with attentive listening gives the fullest picture of an amplifier’s performance.

Absolutely - but listening with proper controls.

Even if some readers may disagree, I hope this perspective can be useful to those quietly observing and learning — sometimes, subtle listening skills are just as informative as measurements.

If listening with proper controls. I cannot repeat this often enough.

 

[antcollinet]

Years of musical training not only refine listening skills, but also develop the brain’s ability to perceive these nuances.

It doesn't matter how much you are trained, your detection aparatus (your ear) has physical limitations regarding the absolute level and frequencies of sound it can detect. If it can't detect something, your brain has nothing to process.

Can training get you to the point that you can differentiate nuances that other people cannot - of course - but only if the human ear is capable of detecting them.

If it is not capable of detecting them then no amount of training can overcome that physical limitation. The structures of the ear are not like muscles that can become stronger with repeated use. (as @LTig points out - frequently the opposite is the case)

And guess what - measurements, combined with the bio sciences that cover psychoacoustics, tell us that the imperfections of most competently designed electronics - are below the levels the human ear (all human ears) can detect - yes, even those of highly trained musicians.

 

[peng]

The structures of the ear are not like muscles that can become stronger with repeated use. (as @LTig points out - frequently the opposite is the case)

That is true but probably not everyone knows the fact that hearing loss cannot be reversed, the only thing one can do to counter such loss is to use hearing aids, unfortunately. There are hifi grade hearing aids, but very expensive, and I don't know how well those really work.

 

[Wil]

I fully agree that measurements and controlled listening are essential. My point is simply that decades of musical experience can complement measurements by revealing subtleties in timbre, phrasing, and spatial perception that specs alone may not show.

 

[LTig]

I fully agree that measurements and controlled listening are essential. My point is simply that decades of musical experience can complement measurements by revealing subtleties in timbre, phrasing, and spatial perception that specs alone may not show.

Well, as I repeatedly said: first you must ensure through proper controlled environment that those subtleties are really caused by the device under test. Only if this is the case let's look at the measurements to see what may be the cause.

You see, when people here rightfully claim "all properly implemented DACs/amps sound the same" this does not mean that they measure the same - far from it. If someone nevertheless can hear a difference in a properly controlled test with proven statistical relevance (can't remember one) then let's all look hard at the difference in measurements to find the cause.

 

[Bland_username42069]

Put this between your phono stage and your DAC and just use your DAC as your preamp

PocketADC

The miniDSP Pocket ADC is an extremely compact high-resolution A/D (analog-to-digital) convertor that accepts a stereo analog input on single-ended (RCA) connectors and converts it to SPDIF coaxial and TOSLINK optical digital outputs. This pocket size converter supports high sample rate and...

www.minidsp.com

 

[Wil]

Over the past few weeks, I bought a second-hand NAD preamplifier and connected the Audiophonics 450 power amplifier to the new Quad ESL speakers. The potential of these speakers is clearly audible. The designer/builder of high-end equipment also came by with his passive preamp. That made a huge difference in sound quality—so much so that he’s going to build one for me. He’ll have to wind a large number of coils for it. He only does this for friends. What truly perfected the sound was his self-developed interconnect cable between the CD player and the preamp. This is what I want. You can “see” the musicians sitting in the recording space. A Proceed DAC is also coming in to compare with my Weiss. I’m curious.

 

[LTig]

Over the past few weeks, I bought a second-hand NAD preamplifier and connected the Audiophonics 450 power amplifier to the new Quad ESL speakers. The potential of these speakers is clearly audible. The designer/builder of high-end equipment also came by with his passive preamp. That made a huge difference in sound quality—so much so that he’s going to build one for me. He’ll have to wind a large number of coils for it. He only does this for friends. What truly perfected the sound was his self-developed interconnect cable between the CD player and the preamp. This is what I want. You can “see” the musicians sitting in the recording space. A Proceed DAC is also coming in to compare with my Weiss. I’m curious.

See my posting #46.

 

[voodooless]

Ignorance is truly bliss…

 

[john61ct]

I cannot listen to specifications. I listen to music.

Better to get your advice elsewhere then, many sources of misinformation will make you feel great about wasting your money.

 

[john61ct]

I fully agree that measurements and controlled listening are essential. My point is simply that decades of musical experience can complement measurements by revealing subtleties in timbre, phrasing, and spatial perception that specs alone may not show.

@Floyd Toole has spent decades, conducted thousands of scientific listening tests rating audiophile equipment.

Musicians as a group fell well outside the norm compared to hobbyists

mostly due to impaired hearing.

I suppose that reinforces your feeling that in the end it's your own personal judgment that matters most

no matter how that is swayed by non-acoustic influences.

 

[Wil]

Over the past few weeks, I bought a second-hand NAD preamplifier and connected the Audiophonics 450 power amplifier to the new Quad ESL speakers. The potential of these speakers is clearly audible. The designer/builder of high-end equipment also came by with his passive preamp. That made a huge difference in sound quality—so much so that he’s going to build one for me. He’ll have to wind a large number of coils for it. He only does this for friends. What truly perfected the sound was his self-developed interconnect cable between the CD player and the preamp. This is what I want. You can “see” the musicians sitting in the recording space. A Proceed DAC is also coming in to compare with my Weiss. I’m curious.

I realize that not everything I’m describing can be easily measured, and that’s fine. I’m simply sharing what I hear in my own system as a musician. I’m not looking to debate theory—just to describe the listening experience as it presents itself here. For me, the listening experience remains the final reference.

 

[Wil]

I realize that not everything I’m describing can be easily measured, and that’s fine. I’m simply sharing what I hear in my own system as a musician. I’m not looking to debate theory—just to describe the listening experience as it presents itself here. For me, the listening experience remains the final reference.

I’m not interested in debating or responding to sarcastic remarks. I’ve shared my experience, and I’ll leave it at that.

 

[antcollinet]

I’ve shared my experience, and I’ll leave it at that.

Which is fine - except when you do that here, your expereinces hold little to no value because they are not properly controlled.

It is vastly more likely that what you are hearing comes from perceptive bias. You have been told this before - and you will continue to be told it every time you post "experiences" based on uncontrolled listening. Being a musician - or trained - or any of the other things you claim. does not change this. It happens to all of us - all the time.

 

[voodooless]

I’m not interested in debating or responding to sarcastic remarks

It’s sarcastic, yes, but also literally true. If you don’t control for bias, level, and system interaction, you can keep interpreting every pleasing change as an upgrade. That feels great, but it isn’t knowledge, it’s ignorance made comfortable.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

I’m not interested in debating or responding to sarcastic remarks. I’ve shared my experience, and I’ll leave it at that.

Ah, so you didn't want,or expect any response to your first post?

 

[Floyd Toole]

fully agree that measurements and controlled listening are essential. My point is simply that decades of musical experience can complement measurements by revealing subtleties in timbre, phrasing, and spatial perception that specs alone may not show.

If you care to seriously investigate the science that currently underlies the state of our audio technology you probably need to read my book. In it is explained the problem with subjective evaluations, including those of professional classical musicians, who certainly know the artistic side of the sound reproduction process, but are no better, often worse, than those from audience perspective when judging sound quality. Hearing loss is one problem, perspective is another. Musicians who are also audiophiles perform well, but no better than non-musicians with normal hearing. They very likely are able to appreciate subtleties in performance that are missed by non-musicians, but in terms of pure sound quality - lack of coloration, timbre changes, etc - they are no better in the most demanding form of double-blind, equal-loudness multiple loudspeaker comparisons.

If buying a book is a stretch, there is a PowerPoint slide show that summarizes the key points posted on ASR review. It is in the thread about the 4th edition of my book.
Watch it in slide show mode to see all the features.
Enjoy . . .

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/understanding-loudspeaker-measurements-asrforum-zip.528204/

 

[john61ct]

Musicians who are also audiophiles perform well, but no better than non-musicians with normal hearing.

Doctor Floyd, could you define what "better" means in this context?

Setting aside hearing loss for now.

Given a loudspeaker say, that is very highly rated by hundreds of panel testers, so we say it is objectively of high SQ especially if its measurements also conform to the usual "flattish, mostly smooth transitions" expectations.

Such consistency is of course great for manufacturers, and the industry as a whole.

If there is the usual bell curve of those subjective ratings, are we saying that the "long tail outliers" are just "worse" at judging the mainstream standard of good SQ?

Say there is a cluster of professional classical musicians with a "shared perspective" that causes them to prefer a certain sound profile different from the mainstream taste?

Go granular enough, we get back to "I like the way that sounds, so I will buy that, the mainstream be damned".

Which IMO of course is correct for them?

 

[Floyd Toole]

Doctor Floyd, could you define what "better" means in this context?

Setting aside hearing loss for now.

Given a loudspeaker say, that is very highly rated by hundreds of panel testers, so we say it is objectively of high SQ especially if its measurements also conform to the usual "flattish, mostly smooth transitions" expectations.

Such consistency is of course great for manufacturers, and the industry as a whole.

If there is the usual bell curve of those subjective ratings, are we saying that the "long tail outliers" are just "worse" at judging the mainstream standard of good SQ?

Say there is a cluster of professional classical musicians with a "shared perspective" that causes them to prefer a certain sound profile different from the mainstream taste?

Go granular enough, we get back to "I like the way that sounds, so I will buy that, the mainstream be damned".

Which IMO of course is correct for them?

As I have described somewhere, maybe in the 4th edition (I'm on vacation in Rome now), two performing musicians in my original test in 1986 deviated from the group ratings by occasionally preferring one or other of the lowest rated loudspeakers. When asked why, they had difficulty explaining, except to say that they liked the "performance" . In a later test another musician did the same thing, answering the question by saying that he thought it was a "valid interpretation of a cello" - his instrument. I concluded that musicians were judging on a different basis than those whose experience was listening in the audience and not being a performer. The musicians were not consistent in their deviant preferences so simply displayed very high standard deviations in their repeated ratings of the same products.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recording engineers, some of whom were also musicians, also displayed high standard deviations (reported in the 4th edition). There the reason was clearly correlated with hearing loss - how much was due to performing music and how much from on-job exposure to high sound levels we will never know.

However, since then we have not sought out musicians, but have not deliberately avoided them, but we applied a hearing loss criterion to our "selected and trained" listeners. Those in Sean's massive test described in the slide show and book were not filtered in any way, only categorized by occupation for interest. Their ratings differed considerably in standard deviations but very little in final average ratings.