Stereophile's Jim Austin disagrees w Atkinson; says tubes have something that can't be measured

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Even though I think measurements are the best decision support method we have, I think it's possible, remotely possible, that there are measurements we haven't discovered. There might be physical or electromagnetic stuff we don't know about. I also think the black box approach, double blind listening tests with carefully matched volume, is the best subjective tool we have because it it only asks and answers the question, "Do different sources sound different?" without considering the how or the why. The adjectives I see in subjective audio reviews are subjective. Words like "warmth" aren't precisely defined.

Science is always about the best explanation and predictive method we have based on the current state of knowledge. An important thing about science is that it bypasses the concept of absolute truth. To me that's the most wonderful thing about it. It's based on the idea that what we know now is probably imperfect.

I make subjective decisions about audio all the time at home. I know it's my personal preference. I'd love to see a compression/expansion control or controls on ordinary home audio. I wish all amps had variable loudness contour. I also know that personal preference tweaking doesn't mean I'm getting perfect linearity. I'm just adjusting the output to something I find pleasing.

 

[egellings]

Even though I think measurements are the best decision support method we have, I think it's possible, remotely possible, that there are measurements we haven't discovered. There might be physical or electromagnetic stuff we don't know about. I also think the black box approach, double blind listening tests with carefully matched volume, is the best subjective tool we have because it it only asks and answers the question, "Do different sources sound different?" without considering the how or the why. The adjectives I see in subjective audio reviews are subjective. Words like "warmth" aren't precisely defined.

Science is always about the best explanation and predictive method we have based on the current state of knowledge. An important thing about science is that it bypasses the concept of absolute truth. To me that's the most wonderful thing about it. It's based on the idea that what we know now is probably imperfect.

I make subjective decisions about audio all the time at home. I know it's my personal preference. I'd love to see a compression/expansion control or controls on ordinary home audio. I wish all amps had variable loudness contour. I also know that personal preference tweaking doesn't mean I'm getting perfect linearity. I'm just adjusting the output to something I find pleasing.

A 10-or more band equalizer could be just the thing for you.

 

[GXAlan]

There might be physical or electromagnetic stuff we don't know about.

The tricky part is that lack of expertise/knowledge doesn’t imply lack of know how.

Taking Occam’s Razor, among the following options, the simplest is to be true.
1) There is an undiscovered aspect of physics, likely warranting a Nobel Prize, which is only revealed through audio reproduction and appreciated by a select group of hobbyists
2) There is an imprecise aspect of bias, prejudice, and emotional context that influences the experience of art/recreational music.

Imagine two speakers, one that is wrapped is car audio carpet and one that is just beautiful. To double blind testing and measurements there is no difference. But the ugly one causes resentment from your spouse, or it looks cheap or it smells bad. Here, the better looking speaker is genuinely going to give you more satisfaction even though it is identical in blind testing.

In homes, cars, clothing, shoes, watches, jewelry, sunglasses, fine dining, and furniture we understand that you can pay more for better aesthetics. No one thinks that the “shadow line trim”, “leather covered dashboard”, or “upgraded paint” is doing anything for performance and yet we can still appreciate those upgrades.

It’s OK for speakers and audio electronics to charge for appearance too.

The bad part is when you have snake oil and where the upgraded paint is marketed as reducing drag/friction.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

The tricky part is that lack of expertise/knowledge doesn’t imply lack of know how.

Taking Occam’s Razor, among the following options, the simplest is to be true.
1) There is an undiscovered aspect of physics, likely warranting a Nobel Prize, which is only revealed through audio reproduction and appreciated by a select group of hobbyists
2) There is an imprecise aspect of bias, prejudice, and emotional context that influences the experience of art/recreational music.

Imagine two speakers, one that is wrapped is car audio carpet and one that is just beautiful. To double blind testing and measurements there is no difference. But the ugly one causes resentment from your spouse, or it looks cheap or it smells bad. Here, the better looking speaker is genuinely going to give you more satisfaction even though it is identical in blind testing.

In homes, cars, clothing, shoes, watches, jewelry, sunglasses, fine dining, and furniture we understand that you can pay more for better aesthetics. No one thinks that the “shadow line trim”, “leather covered dashboard”, or “upgraded paint” is doing anything for performance and yet we can still appreciate those upgrades.

It’s OK for speakers and audio electronics to charge for appearance too.

The bad part is when you have snake oil and where the upgraded paint is marketed as reducing drag/friction.

The only point I was trying to make is that, given what has happened over the history of science, there may be some sort of audio property we don't know about yet. As far as the idea that only golden ears can perceive the currently immeasurable my thought is, "Beats me although I doubt it." The black box thing with double blind listening tests eliminates that one. I remember putting concrete blocks on amps and various other fantasies. High end speaker cable has been proved, over and over again, to have no perceivable or measurable difference when compared to ordinary zip cord at normal home lengths. Audio is far from the only area where people have been convinced to put money into things that just plain do nothing. Country singer Jimmie Davis, who was a two time governor of Louisiana, had a radio show sponsored by a patent medicine called Hadacol. Supposedly a reporter asked him, "How come you advertise that stuff? It's never done anyone any good." Davis said, "I don't know about that. It's done me $200,000 worth of good."

 

[ahofer]

Edit: I thought I should add that the opinions/beliefs I'm referring to are held by many of the most experienced, devoted, passionate audiophiles. I do not take that lightly.

Jim Austin, Editor
Stereophile

(I’m including the author of the line I am commenting on so nobody thinks @teched58 said it, which is the rather far-fetched reason my original post was deleted)

I continue not to take devoted passionate audiophiles lightly, just as I would devoted gamblers.

 

[thecheapseats]

Saying, "This is my personal preference." is fine. Saying, "This is my personal preference, and it proves that your puny science is incompetent." .... not so much.

Jim

is selling print ad-space science?...

 

[jsrtheta]

Yes, Jim is protecting the football. The ~$120k/yr + WFH + travel to audio shows football.

What you are proposing is very similar to the thinking behind the group of so-called "invisible colors" that only certain people can see, or the so-called "impossible colors" that we normal people can see with the proper conditioning.

The People Who Can See “Invisible” Colors

A small group of people has a condition that allows them to perceive thousands of colors that regular humans can’t see.

thescienceexplorer.com

"Impossible" Colors: See Hues That Can't Exist

People can be made to see reddish green and yellowish blue—colors forbidden by theories of color perception. These and other hallucinations provide a window into the phenomenon of visual opponency

www.scientificamerican.com

Impossible color - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The difference between the colors that only a very few people can see and the sounds that only a very few people claim to hear is that the colors, their detection and the detection and discovery of the people who have this ability was brought about by ....





...wait for it ....






... scientific examination.

Scientific examination has also been used to explore auditory phenomena. So far, there has been no indication that people who purport to hear exclusive auditory characteristics can actually do so.

Maybe next year ........

Jim

I can't say I wouldn't do the same, giving the paucity of decently paying jobs in publishing.

New breakthroughs in the science of Rationalization...

 

[mps]

ASR’s Record breaker: Raphaelite CS30-MKII tube amplifier review and measurements (not by Amir but promoted to review page by him) says that in spite of having an abysmal SINAD of 22db,

Honestly, it sounds great. With real speakers, the treble boost removes the rolled off highs that we hear in the recordings. The exaggerated dynamics are still pretty subtle. This is a testament to the engineers of the 1930's to have reached a point where you're pretty close to the audible performance.

and later that it provides an “enhancement” to certain content.

For subjectivists, the blind testing does validate that poor SINAD can still sound reasonable. By looking at the speaker-loads, we can see that synergy is not sighted bias, and that the "unique" sound signature is indeed present through a non-linear, content-dependent enhancement.

While I agree Stereophile is not an authoritative source, I find claims in an ASR review that terribly measuring tube amps can often enhance the listening experience harder to dismiss. I will note that the review does not claim the enhancements stem from something unmeasurable (in fact, it says the opposite), but still 22db SINAD sounding great was definitely an eye opener for me to and says there is a lot I need to learn about what makes for a good amp.

 

[BlackTalon]

A piece of equipment that 'sounds nice' does not need to be accurate/ transparent. Something about the deviations in that equipment results in a sound that -- while not being accurate to the recording -- the listener enjoys. Is that hi-fi? No, not at all. but it is listening for pleasure.

Ideally equipment would all be accurate/ transparent and there would be DSP, etc. to let the listener tailer the sound to their likes. And it would be dependent on the room, as well.

 

[amirm]

and later that it provides an “enhancement” to certain content.

If you change the frequency response with an amplifier, then all bets are off. I remember running a blind test once on my co-workers at Microsoft. The test was MP3 and just 64 Kbps. Everyone disliked that except one person. I asked that person what she liked about it, she said it was more mellow. That was because MP3 at 64 kbps was chopping half the high frequencies and she happened to like the less sharp sound. This, despite the fact that there were a ton of artifacts in said MP3 at 64 kbps.

So the issue here is not the 22 dB SINAD if what you quote is the net of it. Much of what stereophile reviewers talk about is not impacting the frequency response. And what distortion there is, is much less than 22 dB which brings into question whether any of their non-trained reviewers have the ability to hear these artifacts.

 

[JSmith]

electromagnetic stuff we don't know about

Maxwell would not agree...

Maxwell's Equations

Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

JSmith

 

[Bob Olhsson]

Tube gear often has greater dynamic range if you measure between acceptable noise and acceptable distortion instead of absolute noise and a few tenths of a percent of distortion. I've never forgotten the time someone brought in a solid state microphone preamp that sounded like a tube preamp. It turned out to be all about more actual dynamic range.

 

[Galliardist]

Tube gear often has greater dynamic range if you measure between acceptable noise and acceptable distortion instead of absolute noise and a few tenths of a percent of distortion. I've never forgotten the time someone brought in a solid state microphone preamp that sounded like a tube preamp. It turned out to be all about more actual dynamic range.

This sounds like the "valve watt" concept that used to be common in the UK press. The issue is, what is "acceptable distortion". There;s no uniform level, and it's also speaker dependent. So, what do you do? Measure by ear?

The amp in question may be going through a stage where it sounds nice for some reason - the nature of the distortion - but eventually it will distort badly and clip, just like any other amplifier. It isn't really "greater dynamic range" at all, you're just accepting more distortion. To my mind, that's just playing with fire. The word that stuck out for me in the conclusion to that review was "unpredictable"...

 

[GXAlan]

The only point I was trying to make is that, given what has happened over the history of science, there may be some sort of audio property we don't know about yet.

No, no.

I am definitely the most subjectivist of the readership here, who still has (some) credibility among the objectivists.

All of the “audio property we don’t know about yet” is complete BS.

At least when audio is defined as
1) measured electrical performance
2) measured effects through the air

Suggesting otherwise is no different than the flat earth or Moon-is-made-of-Cheese belief. We genuinely live in the era of advanced semiconductors, actual quantum computers, etc.

The audio property which is not yet defined is the interface between ear and brain.

You can say sighted bias is horrible, but what if sighted bias means an extra $200 in cosmetic finish results in greater dopamine/seratonin/joy than $200 in fancier capacitors or components?

The uncharted area is the psychology…

 

[Axo1989]

So the issue here is not the 22 dB SINAD if what you quote is the net of it. Much of what stereophile reviewers talk about is not impacting the frequency response. And what distortion there is, is much less than 22 dB which brings into question whether any of their non-trained reviewers have the ability to hear these artifacts.

What did you hear, listening to the blind AB comparison tracks @GXAlan posted for that amp (and did you have a preference)?

 

[Newman]

Country singer Jimmie Davis, who was a two time governor of Louisiana, had a radio show …

Goodness me, doesn’t he have any positive credentials?

 

[beeface]

I'm still holding out for JA3

 

[Newman]

ASR’s Record breaker: Raphaelite CS30-MKII tube amplifier review and measurements (not by Amir but promoted to review page by him) says that in spite of having an abysmal SINAD of 22db,

and later that it provides an “enhancement” to certain content.

While I agree Stereophile is not an authoritative source, I find claims in an ASR review that terribly measuring tube amps can often enhance the listening experience harder to dismiss.

Talk about cherry-picking!

I presume the reviewer put his previous amp and speakers on the market, got some speakers that ‘synergise’ with the 300B, and declared happiness ever after…until he reviews an even-more-enhancing amp. Right? No? That’s right, no.

This is about variations in mastering. There is much variation in mastering so that, assuming perfectly neutral tonality of playback, some mastering is a bit light in the lower mids and treble, and this amp, being a tone control, might help them out. Other masters, having the opposite traits, might respond quite poorly to playing through this amp.

What is really needed is an actual tone control, so one can give a tweak when one needs to, in the right areas. Not a fixed tone control aka this amp.

cheers

 

[Axo1989]

Talk about cherry-picking!

I presume the reviewer put his previous amp and speakers on the market, got some speakers that ‘synergise’ with the 300B, and declared happiness ever after…until he reviews an even-more-enhancing amp. Right? No? That’s right, no.

This is about variations in mastering. There is much variation in mastering so that, assuming perfectly neutral tonality of playback, some mastering is a bit light in the lower mids and treble, and this amp, being a tone control, might help them out. Other masters, having the opposite traits, might respond quite poorly to playing through this amp.

What is really needed is an actual tone control, so one can give a tweak when one needs to, in the right areas. Not a fixed tone control aka this amp.

Or you could just read the thread. The dynamic effect of the amp isn’t limited to the static impedance-related FR change, and isn’t replicated via a tone or tilt control.

Don’t argue about it with me though, and keep in mind that liking it and understanding it are different things. Figure out what you’re addressing first, then proceed.

 

[Newman]

I read it. I got it. I said the most pertinent thing.