"Things that cannot be measured"

[DarkKoala]

Something the subjectivist crowd often brings up. "There are things we cannot measure but the human ear/brain can hear it."

We retort, an analyzer can hear much better than any human can. Which is the truth. But thinking about the question I did being to wonder... Could it be possible for there to be a form of measurement we have not found yet? Is science completely clear on this point? Or is there possibly another measurement out there be to found. Usually in my experience science is evolving.

Of course, I am not saying that the measurements used are not valid, they have helped me personally assemble some amazing sounding systems. I'm not as well versed in the science of audio as others in this forum. But I was wondering if there is a possibility, that there could be other measurements "underdiscovered". Or at this point are we just increasing our abilities to further analyze (as well as improve the actual technology) in the ways we already know how?

yeah. coolness. how special it makes you feel. drugs. .... drugs effects are measurable ... forget that one

 

[sandeep_s300]

Nobody is saying you didn't experience what you experienced. The issue is that your personal experience is yours and yours alone. For every person that says they heard a difference there is someone else who says they can't hear a difference. Disputing a scientifically reproduceable measurement based on a personal experience is pointless.

I have a certain degree of colour blindness. To me some colours look the same. My experience is that they are the same even though the colours measure differently. It would be foolish of me to try to convince everyone around me the colours are the same because I experience them to be the same. No amount of personal testimony can alter the fact that the colours are in fact different.

Mate - consumers don’t live in lab

 

[xray]

Mate - consumers don’t live in lab

Consumers don't live in cave either.

 

[sandeep_s300]

Consumers don't live in cave either.

Exactly . A6 sounds different to A8 - period. Prove me wrong with evidence of yours otherwise it’s all waste of internet bandwidth and storage .

 

[Siltech]

Exactly . A6 sounds different to A8 - period. Prove me wrong with evidence of yours otherwise it’s all waste of internet bandwidth and storage .

A8 sounds so beautiful. I bought a few new electronics pieces. Now deciding how to put things together. I just added new Nordost V3 power cables on Eversolo A8 and Musical Fidelity A1 amp. Maybe make custom rack for everything.
I’ll feed digital signal fromMarantz CD60 to Eversolo A8 internal dac. I’m assuming Eversolo dac is better than Marantz.

Peace and harmony man

 

[xray]

Exactly . A6 sounds different to A8 - period. Prove me wrong with evidence of yours otherwise it’s all waste of internet bandwidth and storage .

Now I understand your bottom line and why you are here.

 

[Purité Audio]

Both units measure extremely well, and when compared level matched (their outputs are slightly different) and unsighted they are indistinguishable as their measurements would suggest.
I really don’t understand the subjective nonsense and Nordost power cables unbelievable, you are just lining the pockets of snake oil manufacturers and retailers.
Keith

 

[thegeton]

Exactly . A6 sounds different to A8 - period. Prove me wrong with evidence of yours otherwise it’s all waste of internet bandwidth and storage .

The fundamental tenet of most legal systems, logic paradigms, and this scientific community is that "he who asserts must prove."

You assert that they sound different - YOU prove it. No one here has that burden of proof but you.

 

[Doodski]

I think one audio reviewer is using power grade hospital cords on the audio gears.

When I was purchasing instrumentation like a Tektronix mainframe lab scope, HP oscillator, HP 0-30V 50A power supply, analogue storage scope and others the metrology lab that I was purchasing the gear from used conventional power cables for their metering gear but for sold gear they included hospital grade power cords because the price difference in bulk was not that large.

 

[Jimbob54]

Did some housekeeping. Moved the generic back and forth to this https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...are-measurements-everything-or-nothing.29062/

Lets try and keep this thread focused on the devices in the OP please. Thanks

 

[pseudoid]

Thread subject is "Things that cannot be measured".
I got one that just came to my attention:
HDMI input::Analog output.
Maybe it can be measured but please show me proof.

 

[antcollinet]

Thread subject is "Things that cannot be measured".
I got one that just came to my attention:
HDMI input::Analog output.
Maybe it can be measured but please show me proof.

Why are you thinking that cannot be measured? If you know what data is on the HDMI, you can measure the difference between that and the analogue output.

 

[shion_ca]

Hello All from Canada,
new here, and newer to audio....signed up as a result of this thread while researching the offerings on the Buckeye website

I have a question for Dylan at Buckeye that I thought might be better posted here instead of direct email so others in my shoes may benefit somewhat

Dylan I'm seeking a fast and energetic sounding amp.

I was looking at a pair of your Hypex NCX500 monos until I discovered your 1ET9040BA mono option

Can I expect the Purifi to be better for speed and liveliness? Am I even on the right path considering either option in my search for a fast sounding amplifier?

Please forgive my lack of technical knowledge and descriptions and thanks in advance

I will get yelled at for this, but these amps are liquid and effortless and neutral (but not in a lean way). The best way to characterize their sound is to say they don’t sound like anything. Although very powerful they sound quite delicate and finessful. A lot of this comes from the system I’m playing it in. Tracks that sounded shoutier before don’t irritate on the highs as much, there’s dead silence between instruments. They don’t seem to add anything but the aren’t lean by any means. I suspect if you fed them with a tube pre, they’d sound a lot like tubes without adding their own signature.

I’m quite happy. Now if you want something lively and fast, these amps will do it if your upstream and speakers sound like that. They certainly won’t inhibit it. I like laid back, so I tuned my system to do that and these amps then sound like that.


I’ll have to A/B them against some top end solid state amps but I am not sure where they’d lose out or if they would. They’re good.

Alright I broke down and used audiophile terms, feel free to have at me all

 

[shion_ca]

"Speed" and "liveliness" are nonsense words cultivated by the audiophile press. What they tend to mean is actually a certain amount of coloration and distortion, and if that is what you like, the Purifi will probably be a disappointment for you, as it is simply neutral and transparent.

I'd generally say that when people talk about the liveliness of a system they're talking about the high frequency response. You get more zing off your cymbals and more shine off your guitar strings when you have a more tipped up system in the top end. It is not nonsense... it's a matter of trying to describe the effect of the sounds you're hearing. If someone says a system sounds lively, and you roll off the top at 15khz and beyond, they'll probably tell you it sounds less lively. It is the perception of the sound, which is hardly nonsense, just describing the perception in how you actually understand the sound you are hearing. And yes there is some imprecision in that sometimes people mean slightly different things by the terms they use, but perception is inherently subjective so it's bound to happen.

Please try to be a bit less dismissive and rabid.

 

[Julf]

I'd generally say that when people talk about the liveliness of a system they're talking about the high frequency response. You get more zing off your cymbals and more shine off your guitar strings when you have a more tipped up system in the top end. It is not nonsense... it's a matter of trying to describe the effect of the sounds you're hearing. If someone says a system sounds lively, and you roll off the top at 15khz and beyond, they'll probably tell you it sounds less lively. It is the perception of the sound, which is hardly nonsense, just describing the perception in how you actually understand the sound you are hearing. And yes there is some imprecision in that sometimes people mean slightly different things by the terms they use, but perception is inherently subjective so it's bound to happen.

Please try to be a bit less dismissive and rabid.

Thanks for confirming my point. "Liveliness" and "speed" are just vague terms for certain frequency response errors and perhaps a bit of harmonic distortion.

Please try to avoid telling people how they should behave.

 

[tmtomh]

I'd generally say that when people talk about the liveliness of a system they're talking about the high frequency response. You get more zing off your cymbals and more shine off your guitar strings when you have a more tipped up system in the top end. It is not nonsense... it's a matter of trying to describe the effect of the sounds you're hearing. If someone says a system sounds lively, and you roll off the top at 15khz and beyond, they'll probably tell you it sounds less lively. It is the perception of the sound, which is hardly nonsense, just describing the perception in how you actually understand the sound you are hearing. And yes there is some imprecision in that sometimes people mean slightly different things by the terms they use, but perception is inherently subjective so it's bound to happen.

Please try to be a bit less dismissive and rabid.

Fair enough. In that case there will be no audible difference between the Purifi-based amp and the Hypex-based amp, since the high-frequency response of both is exceedingly linear, and both are load-independent, meaning their high-frequency response will not peak or dip depending on the impedance load presented to them by whatever speakers are attached to them.

If someone is looking for an amp that will display elevated response in the top octave, there are inexpensive Class-D amps that are load-dependent. If they are paired with a speaker that presents an 8-ohm load (or thereabouts) in the high frequencies, they will exhibit a modest bump up in their high frequency response.

 

[shion_ca]

Thanks for confirming my point. "Liveliness" and "speed" are just vague terms for certain frequency response errors and perhaps a bit of harmonic distortion.

Please try to avoid telling people how they should behave.

I have done exactly the opposite of confirm your point that the term liveliness is nonsense. I have explained to you what it is commonly used to describe and how you might go about testing that theory. And it is perfectly reasonable to ask you not to be aggressive and dismissive in your tone. My request remains.

 

[shion_ca]

For instance "sound stage" is a vague term that can mean many things, but it is still useful. On different equipment (and even different volumes) the positioning of an instrument in my room can sound further to the side of a speaker or more forward. You can say its nonsense because you can't directly relate it to a frequency graph, but it is describing how the mind perceives the sound.

If you hear the MQA stuff it tends to really float around the room, I'm told there is some sort of phase shift due to non-linear filters. Using terms like it sounds like phase shift is meaningless, explaining how it impacts the sound you perceive is more useful to understanding what that sounds like. Q sound if I recall from a long time ago also played with time alignment stuff and had a similar sort of tripiness. Anyway terms like soundstage and positioning of instruments in the soundstage are not nonsense, in some sense they are talking more about the actual experience of the sound.

 

[ryanosaur]

Moreover, giving credence to audiophool terminology only serves to muddy the water and make the measurements more meaningless and belittle the technological advancements which aim keep the signal clean from source to transducer.

I liken it to writing in code, so to speak, where a mystical practice is steeped in dense terminology or misleading prose so as to hide the actual practice from those not initiated in the sect. You see this in writing from ancient China, up through Biblical text, and even into more recent writings on the practice of magik, sorcery, or dog forbid, satanism.

 

[ahofer]

For instance "sound stage" is a vague term that can mean many things, but it is still useful. On different equipment (and even different volumes) the positioning of an instrument in my room can sound further to the side of a speaker or more forward. You can say its nonsense because you can't directly relate it to a frequency graph, but it is describing how the mind perceives the sound.

If you hear the MQA stuff it tends to really float around the room, I'm told there is some sort of phase shift due to non-linear filters. Using terms like it sounds like phase shift is meaningless, explaining how it impacts the sound you perceive is more useful to understanding what that sounds like. Q sound if I recall from a long time ago also played with time alignment stuff and had a similar sort of tripiness. Anyway terms like soundstage and positioning of instruments in the soundstage are not nonsense, in some sense they are talking more about the actual experience of the sound.

Honestly, I don't think you are helping your case here. You are asserting a lot of sound differences that are not readily identified or absent in electronics. I doubt, for instance, that you could identify MQA in a blind test (of music, not over-amplified residual noise). Not because I know anything about you, but because it is just very unlikely based on experience to-date. Soundstage is going to be dominated by room effects and speaker dispersion (presuming decent channel balance and flat FR, which is easily achieved in electronics).

At any rate, the usefulness of audiophile technology has been argued to a standstill in these pages. For the most part, when you can directly connect a measurable phenomenon with the term, it can be a useful shorthand with others who share that specific knowledge (as 'honky' and "shouty' typically describe specific frequency emphasis). Outside of that, as you say, they are "vague terms that can mean many things".