How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent?

[ahofer]

see no concrete evidence that we can explain all sighted evidence using biases.

Nor could you, really. You can only control for and then eliminate potential causes, such as a discernible signal difference.

Ways to affect people's listening experience with non-auditory stimuli are underexplored, except perhaps in venue design, etc. This is probably due to the obvious misattribution habits of the industry. It would be too much to admit that looking at huge speakers is changing your perceptions - yet it does, doesn't it?

 

[voodooless]

This is probably due to the obvious misattribution habits of the industry. It would be too much to admit that looking at huge speakers is changing your perceptions - yet it does, doesn't it?

Exactly, we wouldn’t want to help the industry to scam the consumers even more effectively than they already do.

 

[Newman]

Exactly, we wouldn’t want to help the industry to scam the consumers even more effectively than they already do.

You wouldn't be telling them anything they don't already know.

 

[krabapple]

The science people seem to HATE the idea that pleasure could be had from something imagined.

Bullshit.

It's you who are imagining this.

 

[krabapple]

Really? Word of caution for you... don't EVER mention, subjectively, that you enjoyed listening to ANYTHING WITHOUT MEASUREMENTS.

If only posters *just* wrote that.

But they never do, do they, when it comes to audio posts? They have to write reasons, too. And that's where they fail.

Your ears are worthless and your opinion is "less than meaningless". This is not the place for subjective nonsense.

Often so. I'm looking at an example right now.

 

[krabapple]

If I were to say, "imagine the sound of a kettle drum being played in a cave", people would generally create an imagined sound. No sound waves were involved in the act of imagining. Nobody is telling themselves that they are actually hearing sound waves in the air at that moment.

That is why it can be misleading to tell someone that they are imagining, say, audible differences from two cables. There actually are sound waves in the room, so they are not imagining sound waves. They are making a mistake, sure, but that is not the same as imagining things. The mistake is called perceptual misattribution: they are definitely hearing some real sound waves (sensory data), and they are interpreting it in combination with some other sensory data (the visual appearance, the feel of it in hand, etc) and cognitive data (the memory of the other cable's sound a few moments ago (or longer), knowledge of price, personal biases (including unconscious biases) in relation to price, knowledge of claims made by the maker and repeated by the media including journalists the listener may respect, knowledge of reviews written by various people on the sound of the cable. But then something happens, and it is not imaginary, it is an important part of perceptual functioning: the summed interpretation of all the above is attributed to the sound waves as a sound. The perception is not imagined: it is misattributed.

cheers

or we could just call it 'faulty reasoning'

or even more old school: a 'mistake'

 

[Newman]

I may be wrong, but I had thought that biases were very active in human endeavors, but not that they applied to ALL sighted endeavors. If they were, could a steelworker walk a beam 20 stories up?

Yes, absolutely.

Look at it this way; is cognitive bias active in evaluating the difference between hot lava and glacial ice?

Yes, absolutely.

The idea that we are directly perceiving reality whenever survival is at stake, is not consistent with neuroscience. The map is not the territory. We only have maps. We survive only because we have functionally usable maps. They are still maps.

I had thought that bias came into play not in evaluating gross differences, but in evaluating fine values, that were difficult to measure accurately without instruments.

That is the line of thought that leads to the erroneous conclusion that speakers with strong differences in frequency response and radiation pattern will have the same evaluations and preferences blinded and sighted. When tested, it fails.

The problem occurs when the human brain wants a conclusion, and it wants it NOW. Isn't that how survival works ... quick assessments, allowing quick reactions? As long as the desired remedy is "good enough", the bias retains its value, and is even reinforced for further use.
However, that doesn't mean that the "good enough" value of those biases is "good enough" for the super-fine delineations subjectivists offer us. Our brain might be fast, but it's not that precise.

So .... I thought that there were examples of sighted evidence to which bias did not apply, simply because their values were so extreme.

Am I wrong about that?

Jim

There is an element of reductio ad absurdum in your argument, Jim. Sure, in some cases, blinded and sighted evaluations concur.

The main point to observe is that where people think the line lies, beyond which sighted and blinded evaluations merge, is very very far away from where it actually lies.

cheers

 

[ElJaimito]

Yes, as we age high frequency hearing loss is normal and expected and has nothing to do with speakers/systems sounding bright to you.
Note that 'brightness' in music is in the 2-5kHz part of the spectrum.
5-8kHz region is the 'sibilance' part of the frequency range.
8-12kHz region is 'sharpness'
As you can see only 'sharpness' is in the usually affected region for hearing loss.

Add to that the fact that the hearing is constantly 'calibrated' due to hearing all day sounds and easily adapts to changes.
This means that because age related hearing loss is gradual the brain compensates for this.
It also explains that even older audiophiles 'miss' nothing and are also bothered by 'sharpness' and 'sibilance' in recordings/systems and can still tell if something is 'bright' or not.

This is why I recommend training which helps with identifying frequency bands (in a blind-test manner) so one can recognize where possible issues are.

People (of all ages) generally prefer a little boosted upper treble and bass but usually dislike sharpness, sibilance. Some prefer more brightness than others as well as it 'highlights' details in music. 'Details' in music is not in the 12-23kHz region.

It is interesting to me that with my 11kHz upper cut off, I can still (I believe!) detect changes in EQ I make significantly above that, and I am reasonably certain that this is down to transient (re)shaping. Of course there'd be a bit of work to proving that I am not fooling myself here, but since I discovered that factor I am less worried about my mixes! Of course there's a lot of detailed listening experience there in the background which may give me the basis to hear those changes... but whatever, I still can't hear signals at sensible levels above 11 kHz and it doesn't affect my pleasure quotient much, if at all.

 

[solderdude]

It is interesting to me that with my 11kHz upper cut off, I can still (I believe!) detect changes in EQ I make significantly above that, and I am reasonably certain that this is down to transient (re)shaping.

This is most likely due to the bell curve (Q) of an EQ band. When you adjust a 13kHz slider you are also affecting 10kHz (depending on the Q factor of the filter) even when your hearing would cut-out sharply above 11kHz then you can still hear an effect from an EQ with a center frequency higher up than 11kHz.
When your hearing cuts out sharply above 11kHz you have quite extensive hearing damage or are way above 75 y.o.

 

[antcollinet]

Yes, absolutely.


Yes, absolutely.

The idea that we are directly perceiving reality whenever survival is at stake, is not consistent with neuroscience. The map is not the territory. We only have maps. We survive only because we have functionally usable maps. They are still maps.


That is the line of thought that leads to the erroneous conclusion that speakers with strong differences in frequency response and radiation pattern will have the same evaluations and preferences blinded and sighted. When tested, it fails.


There is an element of reductio ad absurdum in your argument, Jim. Sure, in some cases, blinded and sighted evaluations concur.

The main point to observe is that where people think the line lies, beyond which sighted and blinded evaluations merge, is very very far away from where it actually lies.

cheers

Great post.

Here is a thought experiment that might help with understanding of some of this.

Sit down. Look around. See that beautifully detailed 3d world around you. That doesn’t exist. Your perception of that 3d world is generated 100% inside your brain from two tiny blurry images on your retinas. Even those have only two even tinyier fully detailed sections towards the center. And it only consists of a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum we can see. There is a whole world that is simply invisible to us. (Same audibly of course). What you are perceiving is a limited representation of reality (A 3d model of it in computer terms) - not reality. A map, as @Newman calls it, and the brain will play around with it as it sees fit.

Now turn around so you are looking in the opposite direction. You can still visualise what is behind you. You are still aware of where things are even though you can no longer see them, the 3d model is maintained. Of course - 100 inside your head - nowhere else.

 

[multichannel_guy]

So a Youtube review of the FiiO K-11 R2R DAC/Amp just caught my eye, and within the first couple of sentences, i'm saying to myself "what's an R2R DAC?!"
I've already just briefly researched on them, so now I understand their topology and differences, but after being in this hobby for about the last five years, i'm surprised i've never heard of them before. Somewhere said R2R is like the equivalent of tube amps but for DACS, so I thought that's probably why I haven't heard of them (higher distortion), but then I read this from https://sw1xad.co.uk/technology_post/delta-sigma-vs-non-oversampling-r2r-dac-designs/
"In the right design, a great R2R DAC in non-oversampling mode presents music in way more deeper, more organic and natural way than any DS type of DAC. The analogy is akin to comparison of pictures taken with a) a camera equipped with proper optical lens (non-oversampling R2R DAC) and b) with a camera taken with a digital zoom and a lot of DSP post-processing, done by the software and hardware of a camera (DS DAC). Pictures taken with a) have sense of depth, are more natural in their textures and are smoother in their transients. There is no post-processing and all original data is presented more or less as captured. Pictures taken with b) are flatter, textures are more synthetic and are edgier in the transients as post-processing was applied to interpolate the missing data and all results heavily depends on post-processing algorithm chosen."
I know DAC's shouldn't have a "sound" in the first place, but after reading that, i'm led to believe that DS DAC's are technically inferior, but all the best DAC's (if not most) reviewed here are non-DS right, like my well-measured Topping D10s? I've searched on here to see if Amirm has reviewed an R2R DAC but don't see one? What am I missing?!

Don't know about this camera analogy, but, my $300 Schiit modi multibit (r2r) just sounded more "relaxing" than more expensive DS dacs I had. The DS dacs just had a certain fatiguing "edge" to them and I sold them.

If some flubber scientist became the expert of what is relaxing or fatiguing to me...or said the DS and modi multibit were equally "relaxing" to me and the DS wasn't fatiguing (i just imagined it or whatever), I would just slap his fat face repeatedly to the beat of the music, fatigue his face and send him home to his momma.

 

[pkane]

Don't know about this camera analogy, but, my $300 Schiit modi multibit (r2r) just sounded more "relaxing" than more expensive DS dacs I had. The DS dacs just had a certain fatiguing "edge" to them and I sold them.

If some flubber scientist became the expert of what is relaxing or fatiguing to me...or said the DS and modi multibit were equally "relaxing" to me and the DS wasn't fatiguing (i just imagined it or whatever), I would just slap his fat face repeatedly to the beat of the music, fatigue his face and send him home to his momma.

Yes, science can be annoying when you don't understand it. But slapping a scientist because you trust your faulty perception more than logic is so middle-ages...

 

[Old_School_Brad]

 

[multichannel_guy]

Yes, science can be annoying when you don't understand it. But slapping a scientist because you trust your faulty perception more than logic is so middle-ages...

You are not getting it. For example, I have a friend who sits and plays these first person shooter games for hours. I can't even watch this guy playing for 3 minutes before I get motion sick nauseous.
If a flubber scientist told me, 'no, you are not getting motion sick, you are imagining it', I will fatigue his face again and send him home to his momma again.

People may have different biology, different sensitivities to things, what makes them feel sick or not.

 

[JeremyFife]

You are not getting it. For example, I have a friend who sits and plays these first person shooter games for hours. I can't even watch this guy playing for 3 minutes before I get motion sick nauseous.
If a flubber scientist told me, 'no, you are not getting motion sick, you are imagining it', I will fatigue his face again and send him home to his momma again.

People may have different biology, different sensitivities to things, what makes them feel sick or not.

not quite ... no-one (with any empathy) would deny that you experience motion sickness. Equally, no-one should expect that another person would also get motion sick. The effect is not produced by your game-playing friend but is in your perception and reaction to watching. Personal to you, real for you but not an objective effect that others would notice.

Sounds nasty btw, not nice for you.

 

[pkane]

You are not getting it. For example, I have a friend who sits and plays these first person shooter games for hours. I can't even watch this guy playing for 3 minutes before I get motion sick nauseous.
If a flubber scientist told me, 'no, you are not getting motion sick, you are imagining it', I will fatigue his face again and send him home to his momma again.

People may have different biology, different sensitivities to things, what makes them feel sick or not.

Oh, I get it. I also get that what can't be heard can't cause fatigue. You know, logic, critical thinking, all that jazz that makes you want to slap a scientist.

 

[voodooless]

You are not getting it.

We get it just fine.

The only problem here is that you don't want to accept that what you experience has very little to do with the actual sound waves reaching your ears, and everything to do with all the other conscious and subconscious senses mixing in with the experience.

Beating people is a poor way of trying to win an argument, btw

 

[JustJones]

Here's a better analogy.

Your friend has 2 identical gaming rigs. 1 causes you to get motion sick when he plays games the other doesn't.

 

[Koeitje]

Don't know about this camera analogy, but, my $300 Schiit modi multibit (r2r) just sounded more "relaxing" than more expensive DS dacs I had. The DS dacs just had a certain fatiguing "edge" to them and I sold them.

If some flubber scientist became the expert of what is relaxing or fatiguing to me...or said the DS and modi multibit were equally "relaxing" to me and the DS wasn't fatiguing (i just imagined it or whatever), I would just slap his fat face repeatedly to the beat of the music, fatigue his face and send him home to his momma.

Could be the higher distortion (depending on how bad the design is), or could be a placebo effect. There has always been the myth that r2r is more "warm" and DS "cold" and that is enough to have your brain make up things.

I firmly believe you heard a difference, I just don't believe it had anything to do with the actual sound waves reaching your ear.

Do you see the dots below? Yea? They aren't there.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I go to a doctor and tell them the symptoms that I am having and the situation they correspond to. If that doctor tells me I’m not having the symptoms, they are a bad doctor and I go to another doctor (no physical assault). If that doctor listens to me and based on some tests triggered by those symptoms, shows that what I correlated with my symptoms isn’t causing the illness but helps search for what is causing them, (including mental health issues) then they are doing their job, and I’d be best off listening to them, as it was expertise I was seeking in the first place.