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And as such, a pointless strawmanly interjection, since no one is claiming that different loudspeakers aren't likely to sound *different*. (No one is saying it's impossible for them to, either). The question is whether 'sighted' loudspeaker preference is based primarily on these differences, as often asserted by the person doing the comparing, or not.
No, that's not what the test did. The experment tested whether what was ostensibly a listener preference for loudspeaker 'sound' formed from sighted comparison, reliably predicted the preference when sound was in fact the only criterion for formation of preference. The results indicate that factors other than 'sound' play a big role in the formation of loudspeaker 'sound' preference, during sighted comparison. In other words, when listeners believe they are picking a loudspeaker based *just* on its sound, they're probably wrong.
It 'implies' that difference was assumed to exist. Determining whether A and B were audibly *different* would have been a different test, and used a different, though still blind, method.
It would be improbable in the extreme for two devices to get significantly different *preference* ratings in a blind test, when they are audibly the same in a difference test. But it's quite possible for
there to be no statistically clear *preference* even when two devices pass a sonic difference test.
One would expect report of 'preferred' to correlate to report of 'superior', unless some specific criteria for 'superiority' were mutually established. Ditto a word like 'accurate', which would necessarily require either some reference to be 'accurate' too, or some training to hear same. If you actually familiarized yourself with Olive's work, you'd understand this and you'd understand that many of his experiments *did* involve listener training -- a he himself mentions on that page, where he refers to subsequent work.
....in the *sighted* tests. Such biases are *controlled for* by blind comparison...and as a result the supposed sound-based preference for the big, pricey loudspeakers over the others ones went away -- suggesting it wasn't due to the sound in the first place. THAT IS THE POINT.
He doesn't need to. Can you not read the graphs? There's a wealth of information in them, including the answer to your question. The statement refers to Figure 1 (which is the line graph on the RIGHT of the page, btw), which shows that during sighted comparisons there is no significant difference (at a 95% confidence level) between *preference ratings* for G&D , but a huge difference between them for G&D versus the other two; there's also a significant difference between T and S, with S coming in 'worst'. When the same loudspeakers were compared blind, G&D were *still* insignificantly different from each other in terms of relative sound quality -- there's your answer, quality difference between them was 'perceptually negligable' in both conditions -- but the real kicker is that when sighted bias factors are removed, the smaller, cheaper-looking, last-place S is now 'negligably different' in sound quality from former top performers G & D, and also from T. The only significant difference remaining was between T and D, and it appears small.
Silly blusterer. You confuse your own incomprehension with omission of details on Olive's part. The funny thing (besides your holding up 'good' salespersons, attorneys and priests as models for truth-tellers) is that, the more details Olive would add to this from his published work, the more your belief structure would be challenged, not supported. I can say with confidence this because I've read the work (including the paper cited on the page) -- have you?
We are audiophiles, is there such a thing as 'negligably different?'
The whole damned hobby is based on 'negligably different.'
Just how small is 'negligably different?'
I am I allowed to have preferences based on 'negligably different?'
LOL. There is *nothing* that isn't apoplectic and laughable about your ranting, you clown. And that's lucky for you, since otherwise your frothing at the mouth would amount to an accusation of professional fraud against Olive's peer-reviewed published work...legally a serious matter.
In the meantime, could you perhaps point me to your own, or someone else's, work that demonstrates that Olive's is nothing but pseudoscience, driven by a personal agenda? Because you haven't actually *shown* anything of the sort.
I'm glad you said it, not me. Oh, wait, Gordon Holt also kind of said it too.
If there is no measurable difference (e.g. two sound null out when one is inverted and juxtaposed to the other); if the measured difference is below well-established audibility thresholds; if it can't be validated in a blind test; if Fremer or Dudley or Harley or Atkinson say "I can't explain why or how , but it does make a difference!'. Those are pretty good indicators.
Yes, and I'm allowed to point and laugh when you claim that your preference is evidence for anything other than itself.
Ah, so now we have the new troll telling us he is the arbiter of what audiophiles hear.
In the study you love so much, you say there are negligable differences. They are therefore not identical, so your answer doesn't add up. The results do not 'null out.' There are also reported differences, so it's not that thsoe differences were below audibility, either.
To you, they were negligable, and evidence that the audio industry needs to get more honest. Quite a leap.
Tell me again how you shop for gear? What blind tests do you perform as you shop?
Perhaps tell us what you own and listen to?
Another question for the new troll:
Why are you following audiophile websites and "research" if it's all based on negligable differences?
How do you know the names of all those reviewers?
Is being a troll an avocation for you?
Do you also troll at wine websites telling people there aren't differences between wines?
This last part of yours makes no sense:
"Yes, and I'm allowed to point and laugh when you claim that your preference is evidence for anything other than itself."
My preference is evidence that I have a preference. Why would that be so funny? That's all any of us can claim. You OCD objectivists are the ones who think someone shouldn't be allowed to listen and shop as he pleases.
I would like to point out that such conclusions, of course, cannot be statistically derived from the results of a DBT. Or, indeed, from sighted comparisons for that matter. Statistically, you're never 100% certain one way or another. But, you know, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows....
We can make rational judgment calls on the nature and importance of the effect, even though, on a strictly measurement-based/ABX-based level, such justifications are not "true". Homeopathy has not been medically "proven" to be useless, but that doesn't stop many doctors from looking at the test results and stating that it is. I don't see anything wrong with that. I think that, when you look at the many test results and metaanalyses that have been done, and look at the theory of homeopathy and compare it to the theories of mainstream science and chemistry, to say that it never has a beneficial use is highly justified.
Similarly, one single, relatively small ABX test failing to tell a difference for a particular type of device (say power cables) may not in and of itself be all that authoritative as a rejection that such a difference ever exists - but when multiple tests show the same thing, with audiophiles, self-proclaimed authorities on the same level as the rest of the audiophile world etc being the testers, it requires ignorance, or misinterpretation, to claim that the results do not say quite a lot about power cables.
In the context of the G/D crossover difference in Sean's test, Sean is the first person to say (as he has on another forum) that he didn't prove they were identical, or even negligible! - only that listeners could not ascribe a preference between the two speakers to a sufficient statistical accuracy. Certainly, one can argue from that result quite directly that whatever difference may exist is relatively small, and that it was small enough that Hardon had no problem eliminating the distinction between the two crossovers. Without knowing more about the crossovers in question, I would say that if the numerical measurements between the two did not justify a good psychoacoustic reason for an audible difference - ie if there were reasonable theoretical reasons for the impossibility of audibility - and the type II error for the blind test was sufficiently low, it could be reasonable to state that the differences were in fact negligible or nonexistent. But at the very least, from the sound of it (heh), the differences were so small that I would certainly not care about them even if I could hear a difference.
LOL. There is *nothing* that isn't apoplectic and laughable about your ranting, you clown.
Listen fool, don't come on an audio forum you just joined, and start insulting established members left and right, while you pretend to be interested in debate. Unless you plan to get booted out on your ass faster than whence you came in, troll. You have 5 posts to your name, all of which are stupid rants defending your fraud God, Sean Olive. And if you were smart or otherwise able enough to defend him to me instead of launching these temper tantrum tirades of yours, you'd have done so a long time ago. Judging by your neutrality on the issue, you may indeed be one of this pseudoscientist's bootlicks, but I suspect that if he knew what you were doing here to defend him, he'd smack you in the head a few times.
As I already alluded to, Sean Olive's so-called DBT "research" has been discounted some 15 years ago by real audio researchers, when he was found to have "cooked the books" as it were. So his DBT tests are about as credible as you and your troll status. And they hold no sway with audiophiles, here or anywhere, chump. I know that's what makes you so angry, that you came to this forum specifically to attack anyone who doesn't belong to your little "Sean Olive Audio-DBT Cult". I'm sorry you don't have more of a life than that.
El Trollo continue el gusto windo....
And that's lucky for you..... frothing at the mouth...accusation....frothing at the mouth... Sean Olive is a professional fraud...legally a serious matter.
Well look guy, if you admitted that "Sean Olive was a "professional fraud" earlier, you'd have saved me a lot of typing. Your asinine legal threats are about the funniest thing I've heard all day. Don't stop there, by all means. Ratchet up the rhetoric. Make me laugh some more, fool. I'm sure you will, before you get booted or bored of having your ass kicked all week long.
BTW trolly, you're making a really good case for why the forum should just declare these useless DBT flame wars "off topic". Or at least for the mod to close this thread. Doesn't look like it's heading anywhere good.
Not necessarily true. If there is/are fundamental flaw(s) in the tests, not individual procedures but the philosophy itself, the results would all be skewed, so all the testing over time would become useless. Just one fundamental flaw is all it would take.
I would suggest continued research into the medical field, NASA/top scientists, engineers, PHDs etc. yourself. It will take some time and effort, but I am sure you can accomplish it.
I would suggest that some of the skepticism by some is due to the recent past in which some so called "objectivists" have posted misleading/deceptive information including clearly manipulated data and lack of critical information in their post that allowed the "objective" poster to skew his conclusions. Of course such posting is unethical if not outright fraud and causes confusion as to what is really the truth. (A federal investigator was kind enough to look into this matter for me.) Such have labeled themselves "scientific", using it as a "front" to manipulate the unsuspecting public using such data. I am sure you would concur that this kind of activity is unwarranted, and does nothing but hurt the scientific community's reputation.
Hope this helps and is all I have to say on the matter.
There are many roads to travel in our hobby and most audiophiles have a vision of what road they want to travel (ss/tubes, vinyl/cd, horns/electrostatics) and we decide on which road to travel based on technical parameters, listening, our own inbuilt prejudices and sometimes because we just want to be
> Listen fool, don't come on an audio forum you just joined,
> and start insulting established members left and right,
> while you pretend to be interested in debate.
Yes, you should wait until you have been around longer to toss around the insults. Like Frogman.
Bill
Not necessarily true. If there is/are fundamental flaw(s) in the tests, not individual procedures but the philosophy itself, the results would all be skewed, so all the testing over time would become useless. Just one fundamental flaw is all it would take.
Exactly. I made this point too, earlier in the thread:
MJF wrote:
That's because blind tests skewer everything, and introduce all kinds of new stresses into the equasion, that change the nature of how you listen. I know all this very well from who and what I've tested in the past. Bad so-called "audio scientists" (right! very prestigious!) don't want to know this. Doesn't serve the agenda. If you blindfold someone, spin them around 20 times, then give them a forward shove, chances are they're not going to walk in as straight a line as before you'd done that, either.
Many "fundamental flaws" about audio DBT's have been revealed (in fact, this joke methodology has never even been scientifically validated) over the last few decades.
Sean Olive and his dittoheads won't ever acknowledge that, because its not in their agenda to acknowledge that. It would be like asking a priest to acknowledge there's no such thing as God, because his evidence for such is flawed. What do you expect him to do? Thank you for proving there's no God, admit there are flaws in his belief system , then pack it in and go home and open up a t-shirt shop on the boardwalk? Of course not. No matter how flawed, illogical or unreasonable, he'll argue with you that his belief system is "scientifically proven" (ie. they found pieces of the ark on a mountain somewhere...), until he draws his last breath. And so it is with the pseudoscientific self-proclaimed "objectivist" hacks, who try to convince you with a straight face that absolutely nothing in audio matters; and even loudspeakers all sound the same under blind conditions. It is to laugh. But to try to debate the issue in the hopes of getting anywhere with ideologues like Sean Olive, or his saddle boys who troll high end forums (e.g. "Steven Sullivan"), that will never happen.
You just can't take these people seriously, for that would be an egregious mistake.
I would suggest that some of the skepticism by some is due to the recent past in which some so called "objectivists" have posted misleading/deceptive information including clearly manipulated data and lack of critical information in their post that allowed the "objective" poster to skew his conclusions.
Of course such posting is unethical if not outright fraud and causes confusion as to what is really the truth. (A federal investigator was kind enough to look into this matter for me.) Such have labeled themselves "scientific", using it as a "front" to manipulate the unsuspecting public using such data. I am sure you would concur that this kind of activity is unwarranted, and does nothing but hurt the scientific community's reputation.
This is what Olive had done as well, years ago, with his DBT tests, and he was taken to task on it. Looks like he's still up to his old tricks again. Well, there's no law stopping him from publishing skewered tests. I'm not even sure there should be, because any audiophile gullible enough to fall for his silly 3-card monty game, dare I say, deserves to. It's just silly how easy it is to manipulate data like this, make it "presentable", give it an air of authority, and sell it to an unsuspecting public -- when you are paid to do so, and are on an agenda to do so. Those who fall for this fake-"DBT" crap (as if there even can be such a thing in audio!) simply lack the confidence in their own listening abilities and judgement. Likewise, those who don't, don't care about DBT's.
I've said it many times before and I'll say it again: the only way you can avoid being taken in by these pseudoscientific agenda-pushers and have no confusion at all about the truth, is to simply use your own ears and judgement, and listen to them instead of false data from "data magicians" trying to manipulate your judgement. It's a practice that has worked for audiophiles since the beginning of time, and that will never change.
Just to make this perfectly clear: I more or less invited Steven to come here because of the sheer vitriol I perceived you and others slinging Sean's way. And I ain't no noob. And now that I apparently misinterpreted Jan, and I don't see many other people slinging mud around here... basically, if you hadn't posted while suffering a massive, debilitating stroke, Steven wouldn't be here. Doesn't mean it's your responsibility, but, y'know. He who casts stones...
References? Proof? Anything? You keep hammering this home, and yet you do not back it up.
Or is the PWB Newsletter your idea of a journal of record?
Seems to me like, compared to this tripe, Steven is not a "professional troll". He just knows how to play ball.
Obviously. However, I do assert that the flaws commonly ascribed to blind tests - that the listening test is unnatural, that the type II error is too large, that the quality of testers employed, etc - are simply not meaningful enough to consider DBT results as a whole to be compromised.
Moreover... how is sighted listening any better in this regard? I can rattle off a multitude of different effects, cited in the sociological literature, which can skew such results. Like I said above, whatever flaws blind tests may have, sighted tests have far graver ones.
I don't know about you, but I trust my listening skills in an ABX test far more than I trust them in sighted listening. I simply experience the music at a far more detailed level, and I am better able to estimate the magnitude of specific effects, from inaudibility all the way up to gross distortion. The idea that I'm somehow more "blinded" in such an environment to "real" differences runs not only directly contrary to my beliefs, but also my evaluation of my perceptions - and those of many other people I know.
I'll repeat the same question I asked Frog: "Look it up" is simply not a valid response. Please point me to something specific. I'm sure you understand that many/most people have a tendency to trump up their knowledge on such matters. (Hell, my wife would use me as a prime example...)
Do you have any evidence of this? Were charges pressed? Did you file a cease and desist?
I'm halfway just incredulous that such a thing happened, abut also halfway just curious about it. I know about the whole 1990 AES convention cable fiasco, but this sounds like something else.
Regardless... blind test results, like any statistics, are just tools. They can be used for good or evil. Just because a few bad apples use it for malicious ends doesn't mean blind testing as a whole is fundamentally flawed (and it especially doesn't mean that Sean is behaving maliciously).
And quite a few obviously non-malicious people have conducted DBTs over the years. Or are y'all going to accuse JVS of being evil?
So, if music contains emotion, does "Helter Skelter" contain the same naive emotion that it did when it was first released? Is Nirvana's "In Utero" lacking the pathos resulting from Cobain's suicide, simply because he was still alive when he wrote it - and therefore, the emotions "in" the music itself were not affected? Given Wagner's well-known antisemitism in his works, will I start hating Jews after I listen to a Ring cycle? Is it actually wrong to laugh at the Anvil Chorus in Il Trovatore?
Or even more directly: was Bbmaj7 always "boring"? Even before rock or jazz was invented?
No. But what you are implying is that all of those statements should be answered in the affirmative. I think you are taking the idea a little too literally that all communications channels - movies, novels and of course recorded music - are "capable" of "expressing" human emotion. Nobody disputes that general notion - and that people can interpret a lot of that emotion when listening to music - but at the same time, nobody disputes that people can, and often do, reinterpret the meaning of recorded works on a regular basis. In the context of my questions, the emotional meaning of works is constantly, infinitely reinterpreted and rewritten.
The emotions of the musician do not necessarily have any bearing on the emotions of the listener - even if the musician is attempting to convey emotion, and the listener is attempting to search for it. But while their interpretations are subjective, their emotions themselves are objective. They have a definite character. They might even be measurable. The same work of art can convey absolute happiness or absolute anger to two different people, but the same person cannot both be absolutely happy or absolutely sad at the same time!
So... no. Music doesn't "contain" emotion. It contains things which trigger emotions in us, yes. Those emotions might even be very similar across different people - but the emotions are certainly not universal. It doesn't mean the emotion is actually in the music.
Wow!
The guy who started this one sure made the nuts fall out of the tree in a hurry, didn't he...lol.
As for the idea that price has anything to do with anything, you should have been there when I compared the sound of a new NAD 3020 (for $198) against a Yamaha Integrated back in 1980 or so. The Yamaha sold for four times as much money and was rated at 3 times as much power and you didn't need much listening at all to tell which one sounded better.... The Yamaha more or less sucked, and the NAD sounded pretty good; end of story.
Frankly we are not interested in what you think or your few flaws mentioned. We are interested in if you know more, of any other and all flaws. That is why I mentioned looking into other fields etc.
Switching topics is not your forte. Do you have a problem looking at DBT and ABX testing deeply?
Depends upon the type of listening/testing you do.
I suggested you do some research. Sounds like you do not want to learn more.
By the way, you demand proof from others. So we demand proof from you. But we don't see any, just your typical parroted response. Show us proof that dbt and abx is accurate.
Do you have any evidence of this? Were charges pressed? Did you file a cease and desist?
I do not know if there is an investigation, but the evidence is quite compelling and clear.
I am talking about on this forum.
Got to go. As I stated before, do some more research in other fields, as I suggested and you might find out some interesting things. I won't give it to you on a platter. As your previous posts indicate, you don't seem interested in learning, and your first post, among other things, appears to make an attempted to intimidate. Not a good idea Axon and Sullivan.
The reality is that the price quality relationship is more perceived than in reality when it comes to high end hi-fi. Just look at all the Ayre owners who threw a fit when Stereophile reviewed the new Meridian and named it as THE top CD player. Those who purchase components based on price and price alone are doing themselves an injustice as everyone seems to agree that your ears should guide you not a brand or price relationship. There are many people within the forum who believe that if a component is inexpensive than it can't be good. I recommended Emotiva in this forum because I believe the price quality relationship is excellent but a lot of people dismissed it because they are inexpensive and not sold at audio dealers. On top of this forum is an add of a 5 speaker system for $299.95 but regardless of how good they may be I am sure that people hear feel that there is no way that you can get good quality at that price.
When everything is said and done all that matter is your ears and audio enjoyment. If you have to justify you spend to others than you're missing the the point
"On top of this forum is an add of a 5 speaker system for $299.95 but regardless of how good they may be I am sure that people hear feel that there is no way that you can get good quality at that price."
Don't laugh. That $299.95 system beat out the big Wilsons in a double blind test.
Did those listeners have their hearing aids IN or OUT...?
I have heard very good speakers that cost $300; the Epos ELS-3 is a good example.
On the other hand, a person would have to be a total moron to honestly believe that the garbage you are talking about could best Wilson speakers in any sort of properly set up meaningful comparison test. What a joke!
There are also people who believe if its 'expensive', it can't be good. This kind of bias cuts both ways and is in the end just another whim.
Back to the original post and the Harman Test, I like to imagine two of the testers as a couple. When they go home after a long day of listening to the same four tracks over and over and over and are sitting together relaxing on the couch one says to the other "You know, even though S sounded a little better than D, I liked the way D looked. S was a cheap ugly plastic box and I don't want to stare at that for the rest of my life." And the other responds "Oh darling, you're so daring, so subjective, so dishonest. I guess that's what I love about you. But please don
The rule we established soon after the start of this forum, in order to reduce the ignition of flame wars, was to restrict discussion of DBTs etc to threads, like this one, which specifically involved this subject.
I have a great deal of respect for Sean Olive, BTW, and have visited the impressive facility Harman established for his work a couple of times (though I hasten to add that I was _not_ one of the reviewers who took part in his tests and who, as a group, performed so dismally compared with "expert" listeners).
One thing that that seems often to be overlooked in these discussions is that Sean's work is mainly conducted in mono, with one speaker being compared with another. It can be argued that mono listening is more sensitive to things like coloration, but it is a step removed from how audiophiles listen to speakers, of course.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Just to make this perfectly clear, this message you're responding to was addressed to Stereophile's newest troll (or sock), "Steven Sullivan". I don't need to hear from you on it, and I don't know what makes you think I want to hear from you. Let the troll speak for itself. Unless what you're desperately trying to defend here, is your sockpuppet. You both seem to share the same brain, and it's not much to start off with, so you're really stretching things. You make exactly the same ad hominem attacks, the very same lame insults. What your responses have shown is, you can't even think up of different insults between the two of you.
This leads me to conclude that the troll "Steven Sullivan" has to be either your sockpuppet, or someone as obtuse and deluded as you are. I refuted Sean Olive's pseudoscientific bullshit in my first post. Unable to address that, or as your sock Sullivan admitted, unable to even read responses longer than 3 lines, both of you responded with lame ad hominem attacks. Totally unprovoked, I might add.
So it's clear there's no "debating" you and your fellow bootlickers of The Sean Olive DBT Cult you belong to. That would be a joke, like Sean Olive's tests. Your only hope is "deprogramming". But even that's not possible without some serious shock therapy.
But don't worry. It's not gonna hurt as much as you think it will, brother Axon.
It'll hurt much more.
Just to make this perfectly clear: I more or less invited Steven to come here because of the sheer vitriol I perceived you and others slinging Sean's way.
I see. So instead of being able to respond to the criticisms of Olive's tests that I and others have given, intelligently, you decided you were just going to respond with "vitriol". Because we insulted your cult leader. Who's fraudulent pseudoscientific bullshit has no place on this group, and has been rejected by the high end audio community ever since Olive has been in the business of disseminating his anti-high end propaganda.
So you perceived that the sheer vitriol you attack people with here on your own, wasn't enough to counter the vitriol slung at Sean Olive? Mr. Asson, I'm glad you're admitting your intentions are to troll the group, invite fellow cult members to troll the gorup, and start DBT FLAME WARS.
You just put another nail in the coffin to this thread being killed for good.
basically, if you hadn't posted while suffering a massive, debilitating stroke, Steven wouldn't be here. Doesn't mean it's your responsibility, but, y'know. He who casts stones...
If I "posted while suffering a massive debilitating stroke".... I wouldn't be able to finish the post, fool. It sounds like you don't even know what "a massive debilitating stroke" is, anymore than you know what "apoplexy" means. The other thing that makes me laugh at you so much, is this idea that the other fool; your fellow cult member/sockpuppet troll, "Steven Sullivan", is some kind of a threat to me. What you fail to realize is that whatever credibility Sean Olive might have generated for himself on these tests, both of you clowns here are doing a most excellent job of smashing that to bits, for everyone watching. You tag team trolls should keep the ad hominem attacks coming, because it's fun to watch you cultists crash and burn like that.
The gist of my argument against Sean Olive is that he was not just an impartial observer in it (just the title alone of his article should give that away, as someone else pointed out). But that he assumed the sighted results were due to "visual bias" (which I argue reveals -his- bias more than anything, if looked at objectively), and that the blind results were due to the absence of such. When they could have been due to any number of other factors, again, if looked at objectively, with a complete absence of bias.
If you or anyone wishes to weigh in on that, you are encouraged to do so. It might even advance this thread, but I personally have never seen a DBT thread on an open forum not devolve into a flame war (whether or not I participated!). Let alone one that actually changed anyone's mind on the issue either way, or the other, or advanced the cause of the audio DBT. (Which has nothing to do with advancing the cause of state of the art audio!).
I often use your anecdote of the DBT you participated in, told at the Stereophile debate against Krueger (where the short term DBT of amps told you one thing, but long-term listening revealed something else), as an example to people of why you should not trust in DBT's, over your own ears, and relaxed listening.
(Here's the transcript of that event, for those who want more details:
http://www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate/)
If the test people are supposed to be "debating" about here was done with one speaker (mono), then I would say it has even less relevance to audiophiles as I believe it already does.
Wow! The guy who started this one sure made the nuts fall out of the tree in a hurry, didn't he...lol.
As for the idea that price has anything to do with anything, you should have been there when I compared the sound of a new NAD 3020 (for $198) against a Yamaha Integrated back in 1980 or so. The Yamaha sold for four times as much money and was rated at 3 times as much power and you didn't need much listening at all to tell which one sounded better.... The Yamaha more or less sucked, and the NAD sounded pretty good; end of story.
For the 20 years or so I've been debating this silly issue of the significance of DBT's, I've seen stories like yours. That reflect stories like mine, that reflect stories like my friends and colleagues.... that reflect the reality of 97% of audiophiles out there. The story, according to the ideologues, is that we're supposed to be influenced by the cost of components. Yet many blind tests I've conducted on non-audiophiles, the costs of the components were never revealed beforehand. The brand names were meaningless to them, because they're not even known by them. And their preferences consistently showed they were not dependent upon cost or brand names. Sometimes they preferred more expensive units, sometimes cheaper ones. Sometimes the preferred brands were esoteric. Sometimes they were more common ones.
I came to the conclusion long ago, that if you're more concerned about "data" (which can be manipulated any of 5 million ways*) than you are about trying to reproduce the full experience of music in your home, you should swallow the same blue pill that the objectivist ideologues do. I suppose it's a great thing to take for some, because now with Sean Olive saying that even speakers sound about the same, it makes a shrine to Pioneer sound every bit as good as a $500,000 system. Saving you about $499,500 dollars.
Much as I would like to save that kind of money, the Sean Olive/Floyd Toole/Peter Aczel/AES-approved DBT dogma has never succeeded at convincing my ears, my brain, my soul or my heart, that a cheap Best Buy system is every bit as good as a kilobuck high ender. Nor has it ever convinced anyone else I've ever known, even where they couldn't afford high end systems.
* (One of those 5 million ways is a method DBT'ers are awfully fond of, known as "rapid switching". Which confuses the listener and decimates lunar-sized differences between DUTs. It's kind of like winning a shopping spree, but you're given a sock instead of a shopping cart, to put your preferred items into.
Of course, Olive doesn't even mention in his blog how he allowed subjects to listen, or whether he even used two loudspeakers for the test!)
Being reduced to ad hominem attacks is not like you man. Looks to me like Steven has "tweaked" you where it hurts.
Dude, did you even read Sean's article? What specifically do you disagree with, or believe is less than highly rigorous science?
--Ethan
OK, I don't intend to go anywhere near another DBT thread any more than I intend to hold a M80 in my hand to see what happens next, but I'll do this part.
To begin with, if you care to do this too, please tell me whether or not you play a musical instrument.
You are wrong here.
Let's begin with the emotions of the performer. The emotions of the performer are not the emotions of the performance or those of the text. An actor does not need to loose a parent to know how to play a scene in which a parent is dead. A musician does not need to constantly feel the emotional tidalwave of "The Planets" to play the music with emotional impact. They are both following the emotions laid out in the text. However, to be a good performer they both must learn how to separate themself from those emotions - to step back and become an impassionate observer - in order to accurately convey the feelings of emotion. If the actor or the musician allowed themself to be swept away by those emotions, they would loose control and be ineffective at their art and craft. That is lesson number one in any performance style. Even a "Method" style actor is always in command of the moment if they are to be successful in their craft. Though they may be portraying the consumate evil of Iago night after night after night with a matinee on Wednesday and Saturday, they do not need to be evil to do so. They must only know how to effectively portray the emotions laid out in the text. However, to effectively follow the emotions provided by the text, the performer cannot decide to play the role as if Iago were Corky the Clown in drag on a Saturday night in South Side East St. Louis.
We know the actor portraying Spiderman cannot climb walls or lift cars above his head with one hand just as we know the musician playing the music is not so torn apart by one selection that they cannot proceed to the next. That doesn't make the actor or the musician immune to the influences of the text, it only makes them another instrument in conveying the emotions that are within the text.
Emotions can only be "subjective". If you have yet to loose a parent, there is no way you can actually feel the emotions of the moment when that happens. What you feel would not be the same emotion as that parent's sibling who has lost a brother or sister and not a parent. Each person would have their own subjective response to the situation.
We can watch Nicholas Cage go through the functions of his craft(?) and a few of us will laugh and a few will empathetically connect to his performance. For each one of us, including Cage, those emotions are our own and belong to no one else. Even if we "objectively" react to Cage's display, we have our own "subjective" emotions about that performance. Emotions must be "subjective", they cannot belong to anyone else.
I hope you see exactly how you were wrong in your statements.
How bad is the performance of the Anvil Chorus in Il Trovatore? How much angst is being wrought from the performers to achieve such a disaster? IMO, no, it is not wrong to laugh at amateurish displays if the performers are not amateurs. To laugh at another's best efforts, even when they miserably fail, can in most cases be considered wrong. However, if they took themself so seriously that there was no other opportunity for emotional release on your part, then you might be forgiven a momentary indiscretion.
Obviously, what you have confused is the text and the performance. The performance exists within its own monent and cannot extend beyond that time.
Give someone who has magically been transported to 2009 a first listen to "Helter Skleter" (I do suppose you are referring the the music and not the book) and they would have the exact same reaction in 2009 as the rest of us did in 1969. You are confusing constantly shifting societal styles with the inherent emotions of the text.
Does the Tom Cruise version of "War of the Worlds" have the same emotional impact as the Welles' production of 1938? No, different times, different styles and different societal fears. Would that make a first read of the original text any less convincing? Probably not. What it reflects is the ineptitude of the TC production and the emotional detachment today's audience has to such a display and has no bearing on the emotional impact of the original text which remains brilliant, prescient and frightening.
"The Text" itself is timeless as can be seen in the blues and in the ragtime music from which musicians birthed jazz in all its styles and which, along with arguably every style of modern popular music, all sprang from the roots of a common ancestor's heritage. There probably would have been no flatted fifth as we know it in today's music if there had been no oral text full of emotions intact and meaningful handed down through the generations of a culture. Thankfully we do not personally need to know of the slave experience to appreciate Muddy Waters. The culture that passed on those flatted fith emotions existed because they had been separated from the constrictions placed on the "Devil's Note" within European musical styles and they knew only the emotions of that flatted fifth as a natural expression of their own experience. Today that same experience is our own thanks to a flatted fifth and twelve bars of blues, rock and Hooker style boogie.
Simply changing 4/4 time to 2/2 time has an emotional implication.
We do not need the riots that accompanied Tchaikovsky's Sym. 4 premiere to hear the emotions of the text that brought forth those riots. Those emotions are within the text and it is the conductor's and the musicians' task to bring them forth for an audience hearing the music for the first or the fiftieth time. If the emotions did not exist within the text, how would a conductor know what the music inferred or how to perform it after the original performance had died? By reading the text and understanding the emotions of tension/release that are on the written page the conductor finds the emotional content and then hopes to relay that sense of emotion to his/her musicians who in turn hope they are up to the task set forth by the text. If the conductor and musicians were not capable of this, if the emotions did not exist within the text, then Bach would be played the same as Tchaikovsky and Count Basie would be the same as Nirvana.
That isn't the case and therfore you should see where you have erred.
What has gone before only serves as a prologue to our present day understanding of the text. Emotions can no more be relived than can the first performance of The Ring Cycle. The emotions of 1888 are not the emotions of 2009.
Here you have asked the wrong question.
The correct way to think of this would be to ask whether a Bbmaj7 had always expressed the emotion of unresolved tension. The answer to that would be, yes, since the days of the Greeks and even before a 7th chord in a progression always had the same emotional hold over the listener, one of a need to return to a safe place, a resolved position.
A Bb9sus4 can be thought of as a chord based upon a modal scale. Modes existed long before Art Tatum or Elvis. If you do play an instrument, play a scale consisting of the notes of the Phrygian-dominant mode, the Dorian mode, the Lydian and the Harmonic Minor. Even without the context of a chord progression those modal scales will all have their own emotions intact. Use them in a text and they bring with them their own emotional bearing.
There are, in Western music, twelve notes, eight whole steps to an octave and only three of those need to be sounded to define a chord. If emotion were not within the text of the music, then with only twelve notes to work with "Happy Bithday To You" would sound the same as "Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby". It doesn't.
Unfortunately, you are wrong once again.
You wish to make your mistake into my mistake.
Ain't gonna happen!
Can you tell me what form of effective communication has no emotion expressed within it? Even a one word "Yield" sign on the roadway has some amount of emotion embedded within its text.
You are correct that performers and listeners constantly re-interpret the emotional content of the orignal text. That is how the same emotions are made fresh or made to be timeless. Read "Oedipus Rex".
That re-invention is the idea of a "send up", you take a torch song and show the overwrought nature of the effort. Ernie Kovacs was a master of this sort of humor. But, if Kovacs' audience had not been already intimately familiar with the emotions existing within the original text, the send up would have fallen flat rather than being hailed as genius. It is taking the emotions within the text and turning them on their ear that makes the send up work.
All that and you are still wrong.
Music contains emotion within the text, within its DNA. It must or else there is no diversity. The performer doesn't get to make this up as they go along - not if they are being true to the text. If they are intentionally subverting the text, then that is a different matter. However, to do so they must first be capable of extracting what is within the text for further examination and possibly to hold it up for ridicule when desired. They must be able to take the text of Cruddup's "That's Alright, Momma" and turn it into Elvis' version of the same text.
It would appear you are arguing this simply because you care to argue and not because you have thought this out. I suspect if I had said, "Music does not contain emotion", you would have easily turned your argument around to suit the situation.
Sorry, consistency is more important than merely beating the other guy.
If you play an instrument, go examine the text of a simple song within a minor key. If you cannot find the emotion within the time and key signature, within that arrangement of twelve notes and twelve bars, you've missed a very important lesson.
Sorry, Frog, you're wrong on this one. The guy who started this BS only spent $150 for his Pioneer receiver.
Or was that $150 retail?
Probably doesn't matter, he's still asking around to see if anyone in the industry got their's for less.
Just replying at his level of joy.
Hey, if mono listening tests are your definitive kind of 'proof,' tell me how they've gone in your one-speaker listening trials.
This Sullivantroll is alot like those he rails against - refusal to discuss the gear he uses himself.
Funny, that.
Ain't _that_ the truth!!! :-)
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I'm just sorry I didn't start this shit with my TEAC receiver.
[quote=sasaudio]snip
I thought that your previous post(with your tired alluding to Mr. Winer once more as apparently you are obsessed with him) was "all you had to say on the matter"
are you the arbiter of good sound? if you think you can make sweeping claims as to anyone's preferences but your own, I suggest that you are a fool. high price is no qualifier of sound. everyone hears different. I dont give a damn if you are talking about wilson vs white van vs verity vs fergeson hill vs tannoy vs audioengine vs kmart whateverthehell period. finis. end. this is a basic truth ..as such,just how some of you fail to *get* it is the question of the day.
aint a damn one of you qualified to tell me (or anyone else) what we will hear.
Friggin' kindergarten.
You might be interested to know it's an argument that's been made historically by some rather famous musicians too -- ever hear of a dude named Stravinsky?
Music itself is just organized sound. And the emotion it evokes is in *you*. That may or may not be the emotion the composer intended to evoke...assuming there was any intention there in the first place
But there is some interesting work being done on the idea that some musical sounds which partake of characteristics of natural sounds -- like a baby's cry -- can have more 'universal' emotional effect.
Again, such things are largely culturally determined. It's not objective 'fact' that one has more 'emotion' in it than the other.
Are you familiar at all with the philiosophies behind abstract art -- including abstract music?
And given all the possible different reactions to a piece of music, how can you know you've correctly interpreted the 'communication' ? How can a communication be called 'effective' if the 'message' can be so different to different people?
To be even clearer, though, I've been a member here for several years...and a participant in the 'Great Debate' for much longer online. Some may know me as 'ssully' on RAHE, 'krabapple' elsewhere. Mr. Atkinson and I have certainly exchanged views before, for example. No n00b here.
Regarding this forum, there was a wilderness period where, for some odd reason, I was unable to actually log in, but Stephen Meijas kindly fixed that for me....after which point I simply didn't bother to do more than read the occasional post. The M. Frogs of the world may think of me as a sleeper cell, if it feeds their apparently dark worldview. Sometimes I forget how truly loony the 'phile fringe can be, and then I see things like accusation of professional fraud against Olive...
"The M. Frogs of the world may think of me as a sleeper cell, if it feeds their apparently dark worldview."
Feeds their Dark Worldview?! Yassir, you is a keeper!
What fields would those be, good sir? I'm a biologist, so I'd like to know...maybe I'm too blinkered by my own field. Blind methods are standard in biomedical research, experimental psychology, product testing. Any book on experimental method worth its weight in printing ink, will assert the need for controls against bias-induced errors.
Against this, you claim realms of science where blind methods are suspect. Tell me more, please.
None whatsoever, on my part. I know, for example, that ABX is a subset of DBT (though one could make a literalist case that in a self-test using an ABX switch, there is no 'double' there). ABC/hr is another DBT, and there are other kinds still. There are different DB methods to study different questions. But the double-blinding part is non-negotiable.
Well, broadly speaking, there are two: sighted, and blind.
To which of those do you refer? We'll start there.
No, sir, I suggest you point us to it, or retract. You are making an accusation of professional fraud, after all.
Let find out first, what proof will suffice for you?
Yet so far, invisible. Is it made of hot air?
Oh. (/rolleyes)
And what 'is' you? A disposable?
You know what? You don't to have to be so stupidly condescending, "ever hear of a dude named Stravinsky?" Geezus! What are you doing for your fourth grade graduation?
And you really should catch up with the rest of the class, that post is old news.
This, "Are you familiar at all with the philiosophies behind abstract art -- including abstract music?",
is what you consider "intelligent" repartee?
Really?! Come on!
Didn't your father ever tell you not to point that thing unless you intend to use it. You want to make a point with modern abstract art or music, go ahead and do so. But don't ask if I'm familiar with those theories unless you can explain them yourself. And don't pull this shit if you don't intend to go ahead and make a real point, not just some childish, schoolyard taunt that has nothing to back it up.
If you want to discuss music, then fine, let's do that and to hell with the DBT crap! Music is interesting. DBT's are crap! You might change my mind a little bit about music but not about DBT's. Though I suspect you've made your stand on both and have no intention of changing anything. That's so sad, that's so "teenager-ish", so truly adolescent.
Little boy, don't go asking questions you can't answer. Tell me about Stravinsky and how his music proves your point. Or did you not have a point? Just words - and names. LOL!
I look at what you have posted and you obviously have no idea how music is constructed. A minor third is not a major third even if you can slide between the two. 3/4 time is not 6/8 time. A Lydian mode is not a Phrygian mode. A 7th chord in a three chord progression has an intended effect. A turnaround is a turnaround. And a flatted fifth is not the same as an augmented 9th.
Those are the emotions of music, that is what is at the heart of the music - at least all Western music.
That you get to use those emotions supplied by the text and draw your own conclusions - possibly you are happy when Shostakovich paints a picture of the Russian military slaughtering unarmed innocents, I don't know - is the beauty of art. We all get to partake on our own level and with our own subjective emotions at play.
Like a post in a DBT thread, if you don't get what the author intended, it's not the fault of the author.
Tell me, do you play an instrument? Do you know the difference between a Phrygian mode and a Mixolodian mode? Between 3/4 and 6/8 time?
I mean, can you tell me this stuff without having to quote Wikipedia?
I use that anecdote too! But I use it as an example of the head-in-sand logic of the stereotypical audiophile, as regard reality-testing their claims.
Specifically, Atkinson couldn't tell two amps apart in a DBT, so he went with the cheaper one; decided a few weeks later it didn't sound good, and replaced it with the other one: et voila! Audio nirvana. And DBT thereby shown to be useless. It took 'living with' the gear to reveal its 'real' flaws.
Now, from a scientific viewpoint this conclusion is most curious. A scientist -- and Mr. Atkinson was , IIRC, trained as a physicist -- considering the hypothesis that long exposure reveals true sound, would surely run the simple experiment of *repeating the DBT after the acclimation period*. If the sound of the amp had really distinguished itself after a few weeks, surely it would be a piece of cake to identify it versus the 'good' amp, in a blind test.
I was *at* the Atkinson-Kruger debate. In the question period, I asked Atkinson why he didn't do that simple experiment to test his claim. (Seems to me, now and then, that if nothing else, 'passing' the DBT at that point would be a feather in the cap of subjectivists who aim darts at DBTs that use short exposure times)
His answer, more or less, was , 'why bother?'.
There's no transcript there; there's a far from impartial report on the debate by Jason Serinus, and some rather amusing whining on his part to defend his lousy subsequent cable test. And there's a link to an audio recording of the event.
I think, and perhaps Mr. Atkinson, would do well to read Floyd Toole's new book "Sound Reproduction", where studies using single and multiple loudspeakers, and their rationales, are discussed.
You might also consider that loudspeakers are measured in 'mono' too.
Goodness gracious...and I was actually trying to be *polite* in that post.
Yet it's a tactic you use later in your own post, curiously enough.
Anyway, what emotion or emotions is Bach aiming for in the first of the Two-Part Inventions?
What emotion or emotions is Beethoven communicating in the Grosse Fugue?
What emotion or emotions is Boulez trying to communicate to us in the first movement of his Second Piano Sonata?
Oh.
Have you considered that my intent may be not so much to change your mind, or minds as closed as yours, but to put arguments out there for the gentle lurking Stereophile Forum reader to ponder? I leave it to them to decide who makes the more persuasive case.
What emotion or emotions is the 'Dumbarton Oaks' Concerto intending to communicate?
Do tell. Actually, I wasn't aware I had claimed any of those things were true; I wish they were, it would make playing bass even easie. Going back to Pythagoras, musicians and scholars have tried to systematize a correlation between musical materials and emotions. I'm vaguely aware of this. There is a problem, though, in that these seem to be largely history/culture dependent. For example, do we still hold rigidly today to the emotional scheme attributed centuries ago to modal, intervallic, and harmonic relationships, or have they evolved too, as our culture has?
(Personally I enjoy tritones,but still get off on a good V-I cadence too)
Ah, some qualification creeping in there...you'd best control that, you might find you have to add even more.
Shostakovich makes an interesting -- and I'm afraid for your case, rather damning - example against the idea that we can intuitively know what emotion is intended, since he seems to have 'hidden' the 'true' intentions of many of his pieces after his tribulations at the hands of nasty apparatchiks like Zhdanov.
Personally, I prefer his quartets to his large-scale works.
(I highly recommend Alex Ross' 'The Rest Is Noise' btw, which I happen to be reading this week, for a precis of poor Dmitri's story)
Yet you seem to claim there is a 'true' emotion that our subjective response can either 'get right' , or 'get wrong' to varying degrees. Yes?
Ah, the "intentional fallacy" rears its scruffy head.
Yes, in fact, I do, and I do, and I do. And it's 'Mixolydian'.
Yes, but how would you know?
Not fraud so much as drawing an overly broad conclusion from an inadequate experiment.
His blog obviously fits your bias or you wouldn't glom onto a one-speaker demo and decide it is definitive proof of your prejudice.
I do agree with you that too few audio people are interested enough in blind listening, however.
Still no description of your gear or how you shop?
Where is the real "Lamont Sanford"? And more importantly, why on earth would anyone want to impersonate him?
I'm 100% sure that the above quoted post was not written by the real Lamont Sanford since I read this post and several other posts by Lamont Sanford, each post with no name attached, while both my ears were completely covered, sort of a double deaf reading test, as you will, and I could clearly discern a difference between the above quoted post and the other Lamont Sanford posts so I've scientifically proven that the above quoted post was NOT written by the real Lamont Sanford.
"I've got these rubber models in my office with all the reproductive organs of both sexes that I keep locked up in separate cabinets to avoid a scandal."
Now that's more like it! Welcome back, LS
No problem. Except I'm not getting my graphs and articles in the mail. Patiently waiting.
I use that anecdote too! But I use it as an example of the head-in-sand logic of the stereotypical audiophile, as regard reality-testing their claims.
Give me the "head-in-sand logic" of the "stereotypical audiophile" than the head-in-ass logic DBT-cultists like you are so fond of.
Specifically, Atkinson couldn't tell two amps apart in a DBT, so he went with the cheaper one; decided a few weeks later it didn't sound good, and replaced it with the other one: et voila! Audio nirvana. And DBT thereby shown to be useless. It took 'living with' the gear to reveal its 'real' flaws.
Now, from a scientific viewpoint this conclusion is most curious.
It's only "curious" to someone who doesn't know the first thing about audio and science. Those who do, already know that JA is not an anomaly here. 95% of the audiophile community share that same experience. Of course, dogmatists like you would rather shove a square peg into a round hole and call it a perfect fit, because your plotting software, which couldn't possibly be wrong because it was designed by Sean Olive, told you it's a square hole.
A scientist -- and Mr. Atkinson was , IIRC, trained as a physicist -- considering the hypothesis that long exposure reveals true sound, would surely run the simple experiment of *repeating the DBT after the acclimation period*. If the sound of the amp had really distinguished itself after a few weeks, surely it would be a piece of cake to identify it versus the 'good' amp, in a blind test.
No, fool. I already rebutted your argument, a number of times, and I'm not even the only one in this thread who did so. But then, you admitted you start to get confused when you have to read past three lines of your subject's post. That might explain why you're still pretending your argument is relevant. One can't be too sure, because even if you could handle more than short sound bites and got far enough to read the rebuttals, it's evident that you and your fellow DBT-cultists have a mental block when it comes to hearing anything that conficts with your delusionary world view. I'm not one to bother to try to deprogram you.
I was *at* the Atkinson-Kruger debate. In the question period, I asked Atkinson why he didn't do that simple experiment to test his claim. (Seems to me, now and then, that if nothing else, 'passing' the DBT at that point would be a feather in the cap of subjectivists who aim darts at DBTs that use short exposure times)
His answer, more or less, was , 'why bother?'.
Good answer. I wouldn't have humoured you even that much.
MJF wrote: (Here's the transcript of that event, for those who want more details:
There's no transcript there; there's a far from impartial report on the debate by Jason Serinus, and some rather amusing whining on his part to defend his lousy subsequent cable test.
Yeah right, the only one I see whining here is you. I referenced that to readers who might want more specific details on John's DBT anecdote, than I could recite from memory. Now let's see you -prove- me and Jason both wrong, and back up your endless bluster. What in Jason's article that deals with the amp anecdote I mentioned is not accurate, and thus doesn't support my point? Show your work, be specific in your defense of your accusation. Don't just link to the audio portion.
I think, and perhaps Mr. Atkinson, would do well to read Floyd Toole's new book "Sound Reproduction", where studies using single and multiple loudspeakers, and their rationales, are discussed.
What is that, your DBT cult's version of The Watchtower? Keep dreaming. I'm sure one day you're gonna wake up and wonder how you could have been such a world-class idiot for all these years, going on a lifelong tirade against high end audio. Anyway, thanks for confirming what I suspected: that joke of a test you're defending by Sean Olive was done with a **single loudspeaker**. Before even getting to the irrelevant data, the inherent and obvious bias of Sean Olive in the employ of a consumer audio compnay in pursuing his agenda, and the trumped up conclusion, it has already made itself irrelevant by violating the scientific range rule.
You might also consider that loudspeakers are measured in 'mono' too.
Yeah, so? They're also measured in an anechoic chamber. I suppose now you want me to consider living in an anechoic chamber too? You might want to consider living in the real world of audio. Where loudspeakers are listened to, not just measured. Actually, you might want to consider pursuing a different hobby altogether. And if you don't mind me making a suggestion, banging pots on your head might be a more productive pursuit for you. Trolling other audio forums to tell its members they're all misguided because you learned from your cult that everything sounds the same in your pseudoscientific dreamworld, is probably not going to be as successful as you had hoped.
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