Svend P
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Please elaborate. Under which circumstances? Which measurements would show this?
-
Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
"Things that cannot be measured"
- Thread starter ShiZo
- Start date
If they add audible distortion or are forced into clipping.
Keith
Keith
Svend P
Addicted to Fun and Learning
And that is never what is meant when audiophiles talk about differences between amplifiers. You are giving them too much benefit of the doubt.
You are absolutely correct, but if there is a difference ( often it is just imagined ) it will be the amp adding distortion.
Not making the reproduction more like real musicians playing live in your front room!
Keith
Not making the reproduction more like real musicians playing live in your front room!
Keith
Measurements are a fantastic tool and a fairly reasonable place to start. They do not reveal everything that the ear can hear. Over the past week, I have been running in-depth comparisons of my Mcintosh C2300/Simaudio 680d combo the new Mcintosh C2800 with the DA2 module. After some time spent level matching the two DACs, I was able to sync the same Qobuz tracks for playback. At first, it was easy... incredibly easy to hear the difference between the two DACs. I then started to experiment with the tone controls on the C2800 and after some very minor adjustments, the two sounded like virtual twins. This is all audible and could likely be verified through bench testing, but here is where it gets interesting...
I am having a very hard time putting into words what I am hearing . From a tonal standpoint, the new Mac's DA2 module and the Simaudio 680d are in near perfect sync. There is no sonic difference that just jumps out they are both superb. What is apparent is a velvety blackness to the Simaudio. This manifests itself in the perception of a clean area around each instrument and vocalist instead of an incredibly soft haze. This helps with giving a deeper look into the soundstage, and into the musicianship of separate instruments such as acoustic guitar, Tenor Sax, or vocal texture.
Again, it is not a tonal thing, volume related or some psychosomatic effect. It is there. Once again, it is not genre related, as it is there for every track I listened to, and now that I have identified it, it cannot be unheard. The DAC module is housed in the power section of the preamp and I wonder how well it is isolated from interference.
It is hard to explain. The best way I can describe it is this.... If you are listening to a single performer, and nobody else is on the stage with them, you hear just that one sound source and all that happens within that acoustic space. Now add a guitar left and a bass guitar right. Each of those performers occupies their own space, but they also alter the acoustic space by being there. The more performers, the more crowded the space becomes.
Now... The DA2 within the Mcintosh does a fantastic job of painting a picture of the space. All of the tonality and sonic information is there and presented just as well as it appears to come from the Simaudio 680d, but this musical information is painted across a darker canvas. The haze of confusion in the space between individual performers is greatly diminished, allowing for the texture of the performance to shine through.
We have all experienced hearing things in a song that were passed over on lesser gear that we were shocked to hear when the upgrade was made. This is no different, except now I am listening and hearing the absence of false information that should not have been there in the first place. That false information is the noise (another name for it is "hash") that clutters the spaces between performers in an acoustic space.
Last edited:
Maybe someday measurements will exist that can quantify these nuances. Then even cheap mass-produced gear will be equal to great gear that is able to deliver flat frequency and phase response AND precise imaging AND that inky blackness that all the magic emerges from.
Until then "audiophools" will just have to endure ignoramuses pretending this technology exists NOW and all the important stuff has already been identified.
Sarcasm?
Svend P
Addicted to Fun and Learning
If it can't be measured, how can it be on the recording? What is it you think you can hear that can't be meassured?
Perhaps a better word than "hear" would be 'perceived'... The perception I am getting is that there is a definitive acoustic "bubble" that surrounds each performer within the soundstage. The separation this provides results in better imaging and adds realism to the listening experience. What cannot be measured at this time, is that sense of the acoustic space, and the clear separation between all of the elements within a recording... Show me one test that does this.
A sighted test does this. Quite convincingly. You should read up on human perception, bias, and the limitations of our hearing, all of which can be measured in many ways.
Perception requires stimulus. When that stimulus includes other non-acoustical things like sight, mood, anticipation, etc. then your perception will be influenced.
I went into this with a preconceived bias that the new preamp would be better than the 10 year old Simaudio/C2300 combo. I WANTED for it to be better, even by just a little bit. So to say I was predisposed to having the old setup sound better because I was biased one way or the other is rather dismissive of my ability to be objective on this. The C2800 was brand new out of the box, so perhaps a little bit of settling in is at play, but now a week in and some 45 hours of play time and the things I have picked up on are still there.
You confuse bias with desire.
I know what I wanted to hear vs. what was actually there. I have to ask... why is it that the real world experience of someone who has been in this hobby for 45 years get dismissed like a wet pair of socks? I agree 100 percent with the stated purpose behind this forum, and I respect it. That said, a test bench full of oscilloscopes and volt-meters does not always translate to the listening room. There is a human factor and experience as well. Relying only on lab results tells you only so much and gets only so far. Kind of like using a simulator to find the next Ayton Senna or Michael Schumacher. They may do well in the sim, but with a multi million dollar F1 car on a real track, perhaps not.
Last edited:
Jim Taylor
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2024
- Messages
- 1,256
- Likes
- 4,153
Technically, human beings cannot be objective. They can only be subjective.
Only non-human constructions (machines and instruments) can be objective. They, in turn, cannot be subjective.
Although I don't have a really high opinion of Wikipedia, I think they have a good explanation of the issue here. (The bolds are mine.)
" Something is subjective if it is dependent on minds. If a claim is true exclusively when considering the claim from the viewpoint of a sentient being, it is subjectively true. For example, one person may consider the weather to be pleasantly warm, and another person may consider the same weather to be too hot; both views are subjective.
Something is objective if it can be confirmed or assumed independently of any minds. If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being, then it may be labelled objectively true."
The mechanisms that prevent us from accurately evaluating subjectivity (much less controlling it) are explained in these two publications:
Tomorrow.bio
www.tomorrow.bio
I appreciate your post Jim, but I don't go for the psychobabble stuff.
Psychobabble? This is your interpretation of clearly defined, rationale definitions based on logic and science? Perhaps you are simply not up to the intellectual task.
MarkS
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2021
- Messages
- 1,800
- Likes
- 2,909
Because there are many, many, many people in this hobby, for that many years and more, who claim to hear things that absolutely positively cannot be there, as a matter of basic laws of physics (eg, changing the power cord of an amp). And then, on the rare occasions when they agree to do a level-matched blind test, they fail over and over again to be able to distinguish the devices that they swore up and down sounded completely different.
Similar threads
