The ASR "objectivists tribe" ;) has to read the Keynotes at the AES160th by Lars Risbo

[AndyBell]

Surely if any of this were true then properly controlled double blind tests would verify it.

I am totally open to the idea that double blind tests COULD reveal something not yet measured/measurable.

In the absence of these or measurements showing something is different then it’s just conjecture.

 

[olieb]

I have a question about something in the text.

The dropped coordinate was time.

The proof is sitting in our own toolbox — and it is almost funny. The exponential sine sweep, the standard method we use to generate THD plots, works by spreading harmonics out across time. The harmonics of the sweep arrive at the listener’s ear at different times.

Temporally separated like that, people routinely detect distortion products even at minus 80 decibels. By ear and without effort.

I just don't understand what he is saying.
How do the harmonics get temporally separated from the fundamental (and each other?) during a sweep?
To me, he says that for a 1kHz tone (at the respective moment in the sweep) the 2, 3, 4 kHz harmonics will not reach the ear at the same moment as the fundamental. What is he talking about?
Are my ears broken, as I seem to hear the fundamental and harmonics all at the same time?

EDIT:
Nobody, who can explain Risbo's statement? After all this is an AES keynote, there should be substance. Genuinely confused and curious.

 

[Buckchester]

It would be very sad to see you go.

I believe that Lars Risbo is correct. He is essentially arguing that the field of psychoacoustics is underdeveloped, and many of our questions have not been answered. I too am FAR from a psychoacoustician, but I have read the papers. What I saw were a whole bunch of studies that try their best, but ultimately do not answer relevant questions. One example: we can not extrapolate studies done with headphones to listening rooms, yet we routinely do that. Not because we are stupid, but because we have no choice. There may be NO relevant studies done in listening rooms, as Dr. Risbo points out.

He is also correct to point out that the masking studies were done with simultaneous tones. Are the tones still masked if they are temporally separated? And if they become unmasked, what is the temporal threshold? Because, music does not just consist of tones, they also have transients. What then, if transient smearing separates the tones? Once again, nobody knows the answer because the studies have not been done!

My take-aways from that keynote:

1. Stop being so bloody dogmatic! Be more open-minded about what may be audible, and what may not be audible.
2. Be careful about what the studies say, and more importantly: what they don't say. Do not place too much weight on secondary endpoints. The study was not designed to look at those, and drawing conclusions from it may be misleading.

These are all points I wholeheartedly agree with. Dr. Risbo might call himself an engineer, but he is no mere engineer. He has proven that he understands science more than any of those people on ASR who are complaining about his talk. Let alone some of you who have clearly not understood what he said or skimmed the article before bloviating your half-baked thoughts on ASR. You are an embarrassment - when I see that, I sometimes feel like youngho and wonder why I am part of this community (the answer is, there is nowhere else to go ... otherwise I would have gone there ages ago!).

Hmmm, kinda sounds like you’re engaging in some “bloviating” of your own.

 

[Bjorn]

The part about acoustics and preferences and the weakness of a research, whether it's Harman or somewhere else, is obvious and something I've discussed here several times.

The result of such test only gives answers to that particular room with its acoustics and with the type of music is used.

When the speaker is far away from the side wall and there is also maybe absorption on the rear wall that will influence the result. With very close proximity to side walls and for instance proper diffusion on rear wall, you'll have a different result.

When someone claims objective truth about directivity preferences based on a test under mainly one acoustic circumstance without paying attention to the time of arrival of side wall reflections etc. it's clear it's not much science.

It does not help much either if the narrower speakers tested don't have broadband directivity. Or cleae abberations in the directivity like for instance JBL M2 has.

The way the the so called science of preferences are operating today, there will continue to be a major split between this community and a large part of the audiophile community.

What disappoints me the most is the lack of humility with the obvious weaknesses in the tests and the so quick attitude to claim objectiveness.

This probably doesn't reach many of you, but I personally have had speakers with broadband wide directivity and broadband narrow directivity for years and tested them against each other in several rooms with many positions and music genres .

For critical listening I generally prefer narrow broadband directivity speakers, though there are certain things you can achieve with a wide directivity speaker with especially the use of diffusion (phase altering) on opposite side walls. And clearly things change for a backround speaker in a very wide room. Music genres also plays a role.

 

[voodooless]

I applaud Lars, it's bold as a man of science to express hunch with such conviction without having any substantial science backing it (or maybe there is and Purifi just doesn't want to share it). Now, if Lars can provide such science, then we have advancement in this hobby. Until then, one tribe is still not convinced.

Just remember that, next to a scientist and an engineer, he is also a businessman.

 

[Sokel]

The irony is that what looks like an excommunication here, is really a family affair .

Yes, Purifi is a business and as such it needs a story, there's no way around that for survival.
Thing is though, that Lars is one of the people who absolutely belongs at this very community (who now seems in distress) and has built gear that this community pray to.

What's our problem? The words?
I haven't seen trashing Kef about Muon for example, even though is the pinnacle of the "old" way.

There's a smell of old, sheltered/settled people who refuse to even doubt, and that's a shame either scientifically or humanly.

(if this forum wants a real scientific tag to it, it must ban one single word: "my" .
This "my" is the fountain of all evils.

 

[Hayabusa]

"One mechanism we focused on was magnetic hysteresis distortion in loudspeaker motors. You may have heard this in a system without knowing what it was. A granular texture in the sound."

Please explain what is wrong with this? I don't get it..

 

[whereisbrian]

I also want to point out that the thread title is whimsical and well-chosen from a marketing perspective.
The objectivist will be provoked and will automatically dive into the topic.
The subjectivist will be delighted and will use it as a new argument.
Perfect!

 

[voodooless]

What's our problem? The words?

Words matter.. Practice what you preach.

I haven't seen trashing Kef about Muon for example, even though is the pinnacle of the "old" way.

Is it? They are very much engineering-driven, optimizing their speakers in all kinds of details that might or might not be audible in practice. They don't seem to imply that we're missing critical parts in our measurement systems. Likewise, Topping isn't claiming that their 125 SINAD DAC sounds much better than their previous 124 SINAD DAC.

Please explain what is wrong with this? I don't get it..

The problem is that the facts are not in evidence. There is no research indicating that magnetic hysteresis distortion leads to a granular texture in the sound.

 

[Buckchester]

The irony is that what looks like an excommunication here, is really a family affair .

Yes, Purifi is a business and as such it needs a story, there's no way around that for survival.
Thing is though, that Lars is one of the people who absolutely belongs at this very community (who now seems in distress) and has built gear that this community pray to.

What's our problem? The words?
I haven't seen trashing Kef about Muon for example, even though is the pinnacle of the "old" way.

There's a smell of old, sheltered/settled people who refuse to even doubt, and that's a shame either scientifically or humanly.

(if this forum wants a real scientific tag to it, it must ban one single word: "my" .
This "my" is the fountain of all evils.

I don’t see any distress. Many are simply looking at this critically.

Seems like this company has made some products that perform remarkably well. Let’s next ask for some evidence as to their audibility. Seems fair to me.

 

[Putter]

Words matter.. Practice what you preach.

Is it? They are very much engineering-driven, optimizing their speakers in all kinds of details that might or might not be audible in practice. They don't seem to imply that we're missing critical parts in our measurement systems. Likewise, Topping isn't claiming that their 125 SINAD DAC sounds much better than their previous 124 SINAD DAC.


The problem is that the facts are not in evidence. There is no research indicating that magnetic hysteresis distortion leads to a granular texture in the sound.

Please define "granular texture". If I have a pile of sand I can explore the grain sizes, but no such properties exist for sound.

In other words, you can't design a scientific experiment unless you can actually define the end point.

 

[NTK]

The part about acoustics and preferences and the weakness of a research, whether it's Harman or somewhere else, is obvious and something I've discussed here several times.

The result of such test only gives answers to that particular room with its acoustics and with the type of music is used.

When the speaker is far away from the side wall and there is also maybe absorption on the rear wall that will influence the result. With very close proximity to side walls and for instance proper diffusion on rear wall, you'll have a different result.

When someone claims objective truth about directivity preferences based on a test under mainly one acoustic circumstance without paying attention to the time of arrival of side wall reflections etc. it's clear it's not much science.

It does not help much either if the narrower speakers tested don't have broadband directivity. Or cleae abberations in the directivity like for instance JBL M2 has.

The way the the so called science of preferences are operating today, there will continue to be a major split between this community and a large part of the audiophile community.

What disappoints me the most is the lack of humility with the obvious weaknesses in the tests and the so quick attitude to claim objectiveness.

This probably doesn't reach many of you, but I personally have had speakers with broadband wide directivity and broadband narrow directivity for years and tested them against each other in several rooms with many positions and music genres .

For critical listening I generally prefer narrow broadband directivity speakers, though there are certain things you can achieve with a wide directivity speaker with especially the use of diffusion (phase altering) on opposite side walls. And clearly things change for a backround speaker in a very wide room. Music genres also plays a role.

The claim by Dr Toole that we "listen through rooms" is supported by results from studies. If you assert otherwise, please bring supporting data.

That a pianist doesn't seem to have different favorite pianos for different concert halls, for example, also seems to support Dr Toole's notion.

 

[Buckchester]

The claim by Dr Toole that we "listen through rooms" is supported by results from studies. If you assert otherwise, please bring supporting data.

That a pianist doesn't seem to have different favorite pianos for different concert halls, for example, also seems to support Dr Toole's notion.

View attachment 536559

Exactly.

 

[voodooless]

Please define "granular texture". If I have a pile of sand I can explore the grain sizes, but no such properties exist for sound.

In other words, you can't design a scientific experiment unless you can actually define the end point.

I'm not going to do any such thing; it wasn't me making this claim.

 

[Buckchester]

If they designed a speaker (or an amp) that has objectively lower distortion, can we subjectively hear the difference, in a reliable, statistically significant manner?

How many of us can get behind a statement like that?

Does that make us an objectivist or a subjectivist? Neither IMO.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

"THD as a “surrogate marker”
The article compares audio metrics like THD to surrogate markers in medicine. THD is useful, measurable, and worth optimizing, but it is not the final endpoint."

I have worked in many medicine areas where surrogate markers are used extensively. In many cases, these surrogate markers had demonstrated "HARD ENDPOINTS" as well, so even the regulatory authorities allow them.

To me a very striking example is vaccination for HPV. Theoretically, eliminating these viruses in the young would result in a lower incidence of uterine and related genital cancers. But you can't do a 40 or 50 year old study to show that giving the vaccine to kids would results in these adults having less cancers. So they chose "warts" as a "surrogate endpoint". The existence of genital warts was a good predictor of future genital cancers, so the trials had prevention of warts as an endpoint. When the vaccines were approved, they only had warts prevention as "data". Only decades later it was demonstrated that children who were vaccinated against HPV did not get genital cancers, and that warts did behave as an accurate surrogate marker.

Blood pressure control, LDL levels are good examples of useful surrogate markers.* But you will find these days that many people believe that GLP-1 weight loss is a good surrogate marker for preventing death or other complications. The science HERE is not completely settled. Maybe soon, but there are confounding variables of weight loss itself as a predictor of survival. The statistical analysis will be very tough and controversial. For example, some claim that GLP-1 drugs help with osteoarthritis but there is no biological plausibility for this. It is lower body weight that reduces the impact of osteoarthritis [pain], but people make claims...

When antivirals for hepatitis C were approved, the FDA wanted to know if viral eradication did prevent liver cancers and death. That was a very controversial subject, but now it is clear that viral eradication can be considered a cure.

If Lars wants to say that THD is not fully established, and he says that "listening experience" IS the endpoint, then he has to show the methods and demonstration for this argument. Otherwise, that statement is pure subjectivism. For now!

EDIT: * despite blood pressure control and LDL levels being widely accepted as good surrogate markers of survival (death), a drug manufacturer still has to conduct studies to demonstrate the hard point if they wish to make the claim. Otherwise, they can only claim LDL or BP control WITHOUT the hard endpoint. It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to do these studies. Many pharmacies companies try to take some shortcuts but in the end, a good study is what is needed.

Thank you. I found this helpful and informative.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I mean, he's not wrong to call for more science, but, like, so? The problems are (as is always the case) structural. The cost of doing that science is very high, those who are willing to finance it will only do so for material gain, so they will keep the results proprietary and the rest of us will never gain access.

 

[HalSF]

A number of people here are responding to this argument with defensiveness and a degree of butthurt. That’s fine, this is all openly intended to be debated and disputed and confronted rigorously as a blatant provocation.

But can we acknowledge that the keynote is far more damaging and challenging and contemptuous toward the subjectivist “tribe” and its untenable denialism and hostility toward centering engineering and hard science and measurement (including psychoacoustics)? It should land like a bombshell among the high-end trust-your-ears connoisseurs and cultists, and it should provide a guiding star to any new chapter in the history and evolution of an overly credulous subjective magazine like Stereophile, which should be charting its new course as a shakeup and a revolution that takes on the challenges of this keynote, rather than embracing mere “continuity.”

On a minor note, I understand Amir’s keen interest in LLM AI tools but I’m disappointed to see him deploy a bunch of verbose Chat-GPT slop as part of his response above, a poor choice which for me puts a chink in his leadership and seriousness as this crucial debate unfolds.

 

[Bjorn]

The claim by Dr Toole that we "listen through rooms" is supported by results from studies. If you assert otherwise, please bring supporting data.

That a pianist doesn't seem to have different favorite pianos for different concert halls, for example, also seems to support Dr Toole's notion.

View attachment 536559

How can you know when Toole hasn't really tested some quality treatment or done any comparisons here? This is exactly the problems with such studies, they are very limited.

And what exactly does "listen through rooms" mean? That the room has no influence on sound quality?
Clearly that's not the case considering how much the room influences, something everybody knows who either has experiences same setup in different rooms, been to hifi shows or tested different positions in rooms or experienced with treatment.

Do you speaker sound the same whether you place them in a naked 15m2 room with tiles vs a well treated 35m2 room? No, the difference is huge. Frequency response and time domain will be very different. The irony here is that Toole's research support the audibility of difference in frequency response.

I think what Toole is trying to say here is that we can still enjoy music under different conditions. But different conditions that has been tested are very limited. So it says very little about sound quality in regards to the influence of treatment and different types of rooms.

Supporting data? What about just using your ears at some of those YouTube videos where they compare untreated rooms to treated? The difference is striking, even when listening through a phone. "Listening through a room" with such major differences immediately becomes rather silly.

 

[waofner]

Nothing wrong with it, as an engineer you have to ask questions and try to find answers- sometimes you are right sometimes you are wrong or simply fail. The important point is to be open minded and to accept the result.

maybe there are some subtle translation errors, which i miss- reading the English text i translate it back to German.

(the measurements we have are good and all we have now- it only would be dumb to miss additional parameters)