| Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
| Loudspeakers Amplification Digital Sources | |
Analog Sources Accessories Featured | |
Music Columns Retired Columns | |
Show Reports | |
Features Latest News Community | |
Resources Subscriptions |
© 2024 StereophileAVTech Media Americas Inc., USA
All rights reserved
New rule: Everyone has to post while naked, with their finacial data open and facing one of those online camera things.
It's the only solution. And, other than the finacial part, many people are already likely to be in compliance!
Sorry, Buddha, that is more likely to make me unwilling to watch this forum.
Ewww...
(My emphasis)
And there lies the heart of the matter.
So I'm haling you across the desk by your three dollar tie, JJ, and telling you and your self appointed truth to take a long hard suck on my ass.
nothing personal ---just get the point.
If you are unaware that you are doing it-that's 'delusional', at best.
If you are aware you are doing it, then that's purposeful 'baiting' which is not discussion, it's personal and emotional childish attacks on others for amusement.*
Both positions are untenable, inexcusable, incorrect, and unethical for anyone who purports to be scientific in outlook or basic orientation.
To take some of the sting out of that particular truth, I will say that I think that DTS is one of the better if not the better surround standard out there..but the folks who utilize such are still attempting..for the most part..to amuse monkeys with ping-pong sounds. They are getting better at it to the point that surround is not as distracting (as opposed to the proper point of being engrossing) as it was in the earlier years.
The problem being, as you may or may not understand better than I (my biz partner has done acoustics work on 44 major films or thereabouts, utilizing his own devices and standards)...to create a sound field that is analogous to the original image. The problem being that recording spaces for films in the larger (physical shots) are designed to be myopic for the camera and not 360 degree sound fields. to have the sound engineer, for the fist time in his life..and the set people..AND the director and the rest of the crew spend 2x-4x as much time and effort at the filming stage to create the acoustic space for the full surround? I've been on the film sets before. The budget for time shots and set up would have to be doubled or trebled, and that isn't gong to happen. Ever. Post production is the way it goes and that is a fake electronically derived acoustic...and it barely suffices, at best.
It's damned near impossible for anyone but the best sound engineers (few and far between, even at the $150M+ film budget stage) to pull a single voice (live film sync) off the production/set floor that agrees with the minimal bits that have been filmed.
It's a heck of a dilemma.
*To add, I have also been accused of such. My failure is to forget to state that is is my opinion, not a fact.
Of course then follows the truth of the matter that there is only the derived capacity to reflect upon the ideas of reality and... that there are no facts of any kind, except one. And that singular fact is that-there are no facts.
Then 'we' state that 'we' must start from somewhere and that is the tripping point that we all fall down on.
The only point we can make here is that Descartes (the historically elected posterboy for realism) was an idiot for thinking himself real, even as a point of premise and that premise has been distorted and used to cart our foolish monkey asses around ever since.
Ultimately? It's the 'as above-so below' reflection of science and philosophy both banging their heads on the same quandary. One is the reflection of the other..meaning..we can only move forward in science when our philosophical underpinnings and psychology allow us to do so.
Newtonian-quantum = Realism-spiritual. Same-same. The point being the dilemma that spans both (separately) is the same identical thing in it's two separate-yet-identical forms.
The eventual fallout from that was Heaviside's delusional modification of Maxwell's equations down from 20 equations in 20 unknowns..to the well known 4 equations. The ORIGINAL works allowed for about 0.5% more energy in the outlier field polarizations and Heaviside shortened it up so that it could be used to easily design electric motors, for example..as who could do the full 20 equations -back then?
Well, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater and we lost gravity, space, time and dimensional aspects of aetheric polarization at the same time and we've been screwed on attempting to figure it out-ever since. The original equations would not sum out, as it were. The point is the egress of 'other' dimensional energy in a 2-d polarized planar stress field 'infinite amplitude' way (aether) which allows for continual flow and continual creation/maintenance of reality and atomic decay. Ie, very slightly unidirectional. The piece everyone has been looking for. Casimir gets his ass explained to the universe, etc. All of the thousands of 'fudge factors' in scientific formulae and musings goes away..and all the thousands of anomalous points that science cannot explain go away in a puff of logic. Logic that was lost.
Yet it lies there, in wait..in Maxwell's original works. Which have only recently become 'found' again.
Synergistic Research products do not have any affect on room acoustics.. they may affect other aspects(physio/psychological) but "room acoustics"..no. If one were to take a poll of those persons that made purchases (acoustic treatment) in the last year(specifically by asking where they had purchased them)...id bet my right nut that SR would have a showing of fuckall..
They are fringe products, much like Chia Pets, Pet Rocks, cock rings, penis pumps, velvet elvises.., air ionizers, tesla coils, . for fringe buyers.
http://www.x4labs.com/
Brings new meaning to 'having your dick in a vise'.
Well, there is the assertion. but what about supporting evidence or even a meaningful supporting argument based on what is known about the products and what is known about room acoustics....
Which would prove nothing nor support your assertion. besides that a "bet" aint evidence. I could "bet" that you have a second head growing out of your neck. Wouldn't mean a damned thing.
Meaningless points that are, well, probably also a bit mistaken. I'll "bet" most of those items outsold anything produced by Ethan. What does that say about his products?
Put enough Chia Pets in the room and they will make an audible difference. I'll "bet" on it.
I'd say that's more the manufacturer's responsibility.
We should be able to expect support of his assertion, which he seems to have made, then run away.
Unfortunate choice of words to make your point, IMO. These "fringe" products are sold in every Lane Bryant kitsch catalog right next to tea cozies and ShamWows. Servicing sexual dysfunction is the new American pastime- along with collecting junk bric-a-brac .
"Synergistic Research products do not have any affect on room acoustics.. they may affect other aspects(physio/psychological) but "room acoustics"..no. They are fringe products, much like Chia Pets, Pet Rocks, cock rings, penis pumps, velvet elvises.., air ionizers, tesla coils, . for fringe buyers."
Let me offer some tips. First introduce yourself as an industry insider, very mainstream and all, and point out that you've been doing this audio stuff since Jesus was in diapers. Make sure to proclaim that science will not allow it, it's just too friggin' small. Furthermore, point out that it hasn't been peer reviewed by any reputable scientific publications. That will fix their wagon.
JJ
I agree with you with regards of the behavior exhibited here is creating unreasonable and useless dissention, as well as the rhetoic, as you said, tending to keep the two groups apart.
IMO having the two groups is an artificial division that creates the feeling that only one of the groups is 'right'. If you are making testable and verifiable claims, either objectively or subjectively, then that should help advance the state-of-the-art, and be interesting in a forum like this one.
I have made a claim (as had others) that substituting different, so-called improved or audiophile capacitors make the sound different, and better, in repeatable ways. I have not run a true scientifically-controlled experiment, but the results appear to me to be clear and convincing nevertheless. I'll bet that it's testable in a scientific way, but have not done so, and I'm not sure if anyone else has, other than those in the articles on this subject I read many years ago (I think by Jung and Marsh, but not sure). What ususlly happens is that this tweak works so well that I just wind up sitting back and enjoying the improvement that lets me get closer to the musician's playing, e.g. nuances come out.
I also have read on-line a scientific simulation using Spice software of capacitors and the simulation of additional ESR, L, R, etc., to show that the effects are way outside the audio band or of such low levels, therefore should not be audible. If that's so what am I hearing in a *repeatable* way, as a musician might report hearing the same effect? (rhetiorical question)
IMO the Spice simulation may be correct but incomplete. For this issue, I work backwards, that is describing what I hear and then trying to figure out what effects could cause what I hear, then look at what the 'capacitor change' really did; it's not just the dielectric change, the lead length change or the re-soldering of the joints.
As for the 'scientific societies, I don't know what experience may have soured some of the forum members. I am in several of those societies, but have not seen or know of any conflict of interest between corporate sponsors and the scientific societies, and definitely not to the degree that has been described by some here.
Regarding the AES, I'm not a member. I did attend one meeting of a local chapter on behalf of a friend who is a member and he's also a member of IEEE. (I was honored to have sat next to the late Richard Heyser and got a chance to talking to him for a short while). Since I was mostly an observer, I noticed that there were differences of opinion similar to what we see here regarding what one hears versus what one measures. As far as I can tell from that one evening, AES is not composed of people who are all in the 'objectivist' camp.
Going back to the beginning of my post, and the subject of this thread, it's really not 'subjectivist vs. objectivists', it's 'subjectivists and objectivists - two perspectives'. Both contribute to understanding of audio, IMO.
The very heart of the problem is that science may measure but it only measures in specific ways with specific limitations.
Since we do not, to a large extent (UNARGUABLE..otherwise this discussion,and frankly the vast majority of any audio forum would not exist), specifically know what to measure and therefore do not know how to measure it, it is possible to say that nature has presented us with a bit of a poser.
For man hears the differences or the differentials clearly, and easily. Some refuse to consider that science cannot measure what the audiophiles say they hear. Some refuse to consider that the things the audiophiles say they hear has any importance whatsoever. Some refuse to look at the question due to internal bias or lack of capacity to hear these differences. Some can't hear it as their ears and mental training aspects might be up to the task, but their audio systems fail to have the capacity for subtlety for them to be able to hear it.
Reasonable people, in situ, ie deep in the relevant debate, will readily admit these things to one another.
The basic reality is that the audiophiles, who number in the millions, do actually hear what they say they hear.
It is up to a real scientist or honest investigator (not dumbass screechy pundits like Arny or similar) who are on forums..to investigate and if the result is in the negative, to not dismiss the millions of audiophiles..but to re consider the test applied and possibly re-invent the testing regimen.
For it is obvious the two are not meeting in a meaningful repetitive manner, with regards to testing and scientific credibility in that area.
If I, as a manufacturer, can give 350 audiophiles the same cable and they each individually with no interaction or any prompting..with their 350 different audio systems..and their 350 different minds, ears and origins..can ALL unanimously come up with the same sonic evaluation of the cable....and that science can in no way shape or form find ANY measurement that correlates with with what they say....well science is wrong, not the audiophiles.
And I can do this day in, day out, all day long, all year long, all life long. You can even rotate the audiophiles that receive the cables to the tune of a complete new set each time the cable is handed out. To the tune of 100,000 different audiophiles. I can change the cable slightly and give them all -all 100,000 of them- another shot at the MODIFIED cable. They will all unanimously say the same thing about the differences between the new cable vs the old. This has always been the case.
Yet SCIENCE and the given testing regimen will find NO DIFFERENCE between the two cables.
This much is clear.
Therefore: the testing regimen or it's sensitivity...or both ----- are wrong.
I have, long ago, stated clearly what needs be done to correct the situation, with regards to fixing the testing so it shows. On this forum, on other forums, and on the DIYaudio forum.
The problems comes when the disbelief of the complexity of the human hearing mechanism is tackled by the scientific community, with regards to acceptance of possibilities and human capacities therein.
How could humans and their hearing and ears..possibly even understand the differences in picoseconds of jitter created by different cables and even differentiate the spectrum of said jitter?
Yet they do. By the thousands. Every day.
Which is why, in the end, after the thousandth argument about their daily fare being entirely bullshit.....the subjectivist will finally tell the given attacking linear minded pundit - to fuck right off.
1001 irreconcilable arguments....is just one time too many.
The point being that the measurement has to work like the ear and linear weighted simple tests are wholly inadequate.
New methods need be devised that mimic the way the ear hears. then some testing may be done that might show these differences that the millions of people say they hear. (yes the wives and children, and the friends of audiophiles. hell I can train a man off the street to hear the differences in cables in hours, most likely. A few days at most.) Those millions are not wrong.
The test is.
Count me in that camp. We *can* measure anything we can hear and more.
Isn't that the oldest job on the earth?
I believe that's where I come in, Mr. K....
Interesting. Any conspiracies shown up to haunt you lately, then?
You need a tinfoil hat? Did Frog mind-control you into spewing hate at me?
Lemme quess. More bass and bigger soundstage? How precise and exacting. Probably something about a veil being lifted as well.
Just once I'd love to hear one fuckin' golden ear say he felt like he had stepped in it!
RG
Good for you. Now how many years have I been saying that to people, making such measures, and getting hooted at by SNR weenies?
Eh?
Let's see, now. 1989. A talk to a bunch of IEEE folks. About slide 4 or 5 says "SNR IS USELESS".
Hmm, what you think?
What isn't useless? Well, it won't give you ONE answer, so you'll have to live with that. We've seen some attempts at summarizing everyone's preferences in one measure, and you can probably guess exactly where that went, and how fast.
These measures (PESQ, PEAQ, etc) are still around, but I dare you to find a stereo image quality metric in them, or a way to determine if a particular listener prefers more spatial sensation or more dynamic range, for instance. (That's only two of many tradeoffs.)
So I've put MY work where your mouth is.
As to the comments elsewhere about doing movie sound. Yeah, I have some clue about it. Sound for cinemas simply can not be as good as sound for home theatres, because of the very elementary physics of the two places, BUT it takes a lot more care, and different production methods, to produce something for home theatre.
More I won't say at the minute.
If you go to www.aes.org/sections/pnw/ppt.htm and look for the "home theatre vs. cinema" deck, you might even recognize some simple issues.
Btw, DTS's current products haven't been much affected at all by my work, we got bought by DTS on December 30 last year. The comments to DTS's algorithms are misaimed, polite, kind or not.
Single minded over-simplification of the quandary does nothing to help solve it. It only raises ire where none should exist.
You are backing the issue up, back into primitive rock throwing, not moving it forward.
Your statement was apparently blinkered and ill thought out.
I'm only giving back which I just received.
Think about it for awhile. I will attempt to take your statement as a neutral offering but some will not. Some will amplify it and thus ----it begins again.
JJ, I can't believe you're taking this guy seriously. LOL!
That's unsuprising, since the whole heap of baloney about AES corporate members is most kindly described as a completely paranoid, nutcase-level conspiracy theory.
I mean the IEEE has corporate members, too, and (to use me as an example) I'm also an IEEE Fellow, but we haven't seen any tinfoil-hatting about the IEEE.
Sean Olive is a VP in the AES. But we don't see any tinfoil-hatting about that, either.
This suggests that the individual making the absurd accusations simply has a problem and needs to get over it.
Yeah, and as long as the (few) extreme objectivists, and the larger community of rabid anti-scientific "subjectivists" continue to fight it out, the longer we have less fun and less of a good experience LISTENING TO MUSIC.
I mean, holy I*&(*&( batman, WHAT ABOUT THE MUSIC?
Doesn't anybody CARE ABOUT THE MUSIC?
How about what the recording industry is doing to all of us, with their "keep their 1950's business model or kill the recording industry" policy?
How do we expect to get music with no artists?
Hello, there are a lot bigger problems in this world, and frankly, it's time to dismiss both the people who reject personal preference AND the people who reject DBT's FOR SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES. All either camp does is create a whole lot of **** to shovel.
I do my part in the taming of the types who can't cope with different preferences. Most of it is offline, but there is quite a bit of work involved here and there.
It would be good for some of the folks on the more subjective side to take their fanatics in hand, and do some work on settling down the other side.
There will always be a few. It's human nature, but even in things like dowsing, mindreading, etc, I see more sincerity than I really think I see in some of the more outre' audiophile "enthusiasts".
HOW ABOUT THE MUSIC, FOLKS?
No JJ, not really. I just love that line. It comes from a comedy team called 'McClean & McClean'... two Canadian brothers with very offensive mouths. They are legends in the Canadian comedy circuit, a pair of very funny guys. In one skit they were talking about what they would do if they won the lottery..and one says he would march into his Boss's office and....well...you now know the rest. With that extra personal touch, no less!
What is going on JJ, is that subjectivists are getting to be like neurotic dogs with respect to how they react, due to the constant and unrelenting attacks.
If you come in here - and suddenly, without warning..reach for your comb and whip it out and start combing your hair..don't be surprised if we flinch and think that we are going to be hit. So we step out...and BITE. HARD.
For your words, for the most part, head in that exact direction. I, in my guise as a reasonable person, who is looking for it, do sense a bit of reasonableness in your posturing at times, but then it descends -again. I think we all need a breather or truce.
I think we all just found out that we are on the same page when we look at how this thing needs to go in order to explain this all on paper. however, getting there under the current extant scientific methodologies in place* is not going to happen.
It needs to be presented as a finished work, a 'fait accompli', if you will. And that takes money, thought, invention..and time.
If you've been at it since 1989 (as being on record, etc), then... I think you know that already.
*I said it in triplicate! How many people can mangle the English language like that? Any contenders?
Actually, that's true. It's a good thing that some feel I'm a nutbar - It's safer that way. I helped John and Jack shut down Mike's blathering with a dose of the realities surrounding the situation and we all got to 'stay out of trouble'. Mike had no idea of the poo he was about to step into. I helped crystallize that for him.
You did notice I didn't introduce the word "simple" into this part of the discussion?
The time I started to deal with this dates back rather farther than 1989, but that was the first time I had the standing to actually beat people over the head with it and have handy, useful results in hand to do the beating with.
You've heard, I suspect, the "13 dB miracle". It's not quite a miracle, but it shows two versions of a bit of music, both with 13.6dB SNR, one that sounds &*(& close to perfect, and the other that you couldn't play in a stock car at a racetrack in a high wind without getting glared at.
It kinda does make the point.
Hi KBK,
I see I have been attacked with cheap shots multiple times by more than one individual in the last two+ pages, and see you have also been attacked as well. Maybe I should respond because of those attacks.
As KBK indicates there are some real double standards going on. Oh my, just a few days ago these same guys were against Dr. Kunchur and his papers because he dared to improve the musical experience, a more lifelike, natural experience(Interesting papers string). In fact 3 national mainstream organizations concurred with Dr. Kunchur's papers/conclusions [Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Association of Research in Otolaryngology (ARO), and American Physical Society (APS)], so why are these "scientists" going against mainstream science organizations.
They must have gotten hurt bad because now these same people are clamoring for us to care about and enjoy the music. And they are even attempting to distance themselves from the scientific/objectivists to create a third "party". But on at least one other forum, something quite different is being stated.
Oh how positions change when it serves one's purposes. Where a few days ago Dr. Kunchur was wearing milk bone underwear, these same aggressive individuals are now proclaiming
Let's see if they really want to improve the music or simply put on a pretty face. One can always find the answer by what they do, not what they say.
If these same people are so interested in the musical experience and caring about music, why did they just waste 50 some pages in "Interesting Papers" attacking Dr. Kunchur's reputation and his papers (University of South Carolina professor). Dr. Kunchur's work was/is improving musical reproduction by encouraging higher than 16/44. In fact here is one such attack on the peer reviewed paper on page 2 of that string.
Quite insulting and demeaning to a PhD whose paper was not only extensively peer reviewed, but three national organizations concurred with its conclusions. Let's take a look at another deceptive post from this group who posted on another forum.
Arnold Krueger posted this on another forum.
We will see this quote later and expose at least 3 misleading/deceptive statements therein to dupe the public.
Of course the big names like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Hitachi etc are all producing higher res machines inspite of this negative attitude by some (who work with inferior quality like MP3s). So much for some helping those aspiring to higher quality reproduction by pushing inferior quality.
Dr. Kunchur explained the problem using both digital analog and photography examples and why anti-aliasing causes audio problems (see below). I also provided photos that helps one visualize Dr. Kunchur's comments. However, some few attacked them as well. Once again, here is a quote from one of the "gang" who posted on another forum, to get a real sense of how these guys really feel, their real attitude.
Arnold Krueger
There are at least three misleading/deceptive comments in that statement.
1) Who appears to be a genuine PhD? You posted on page one of Interesting Papers and you knew the PhD was Dr. Kunchur, professor at the University of South Carolina.
2) Arny never mentions the backround of Dr. Kunchur nor that the project took 5 years, and was extensively peer/referee reviewed and that 3 national organizations concurred with Dr. Kunchur's conclusions. Here are links with credentials etc.
http://www.physics.sc.edu/kunchur/resume.pdf
And read this link
http://www.physics.sc.edu/kunchur/Acoustics-papers.htm
Notice the Conference presentations and abstracts, and
Colloquia and seminars.
So we get a good idea of what these gentlemen want you to believe about Dr. Kunchur VS the reality of Dr. Kunchur. (And they claim they are all about science. Hmmmm.)
Here is Dr. Kunchur's own words on the rigors of his 5 years of work to produce the papers. (I intentionally added more paragraphs for easier reading.)
So viewers at the other forum were clearly mislead by Arny. We saw the same thing here with arny and his friends.
As one can see, Dr. Kunchur is actually quite well known despite vain attempts to portray him as a "ghost", a "no name". He is also in his mid 40s, with at least 20 years post doctorate experience if one checks. He certainly is not young and inexperienced as some have misrepresented him to be.
3) The blatant attempt to outright mislead by this comment
Now this is what Dr. Kunchur actually stated in his email response. Notice the words I underlined, exposing the misleading and deceptive comment written by the poster and believed by his friends, who also attacked Dr. Kunchur.
I provided photos to demonstrate this blurring, lack of distinction. Of course both Dr. Kunchur and I were attacked.
On that other forum, one can see the obviously distorted/deceptive view the public was led to believe. Now they suddenly change spots on this string.
So while some are now touting what about the music, their record is clearly against improving the musical experience.
I presented a quote from obvious Mainstream RCA Radiotron Designers Handbook, a collaboration of 26 RCA engineers, and one actually trashed me as misunderstanding, yet later claims in the same reply that he did not understand the terminology (at least that is what he claims, maybe to discredit RCA???). How can one trash me when he did not even understand basic terminology used by 26 RCA engineers? I guess magic. I have also repeatedly asked one, if he had done any work in the ultrasonic field (above 20khz), yet he never has repled to that question. So evidently his "truth" is not based on any research, just his own "truth". However, Dr. Kunchur has investigated and reported after 5 exhausting years of research (and with many peer reviews, 3 national organizatins concurring etc.).
So my question is if they want you to enjoy higher quality musical reproduction, why are they denouncing scientific evidence from every source provided that would help in musical reproduction.
Yet they call themselves scientific, and even now are separating themselves from objectivists.
As Stewart Chase once quoted, which I will slightly modify.
For those who do not wish to believe, no proof is possible.
So they rejected mulitple pieces of scientific evidence provided by mainstream science. Kinda matches Stewart's "quote" doesn't it.
-----
Now Scott, I do not know KBK, but since you attempted to discredit both me and KBK, let's take a look at your resume. You are a "makeup artist" according to your homepage. Correct me if there is another Scott Wheeler, makeup artist.
Imdb info.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0923958/awards
So you do makeup for MADTV, different Star Treks Tv shows as well as other shows/movies. Is that correct?
I want to reproduce music to the best of my ability, not some halfhearted, inferior format or system. My suggestion to all is to continue to strive towards improved musical reproduction as well and don't settle for less.
I am going to have a happy holiday weekend and hope you do as well.
and you'd be crazy as all hell. if that is true, I will eat my whole row of habaneros, conveniently located about 20 foot from me.
no way, no how.
You are equating my assertion about audibility and measurability with your pure ad hominem blather? get a clue dude. Get back to me when you are ready to talk about audio.
"Pet Rocks were a 1970s fad conceived in Los Gatos, California by advertising executive Gary Dahl. The first Pet Rocks were ordinary gray stones bought at a builder's supply store and marketed as if they were live pets. The fad lasted about six months, ending with the Christmas season in December 1975. During its short run, the Pet Rock made Dahl a millionaire.[1]"
Start eating.
Hmmm.... something seems missing here. But what? Let me see....
1. Conspiracy theorist ad hominem attack: Check.
2. Tinfoil hat ad hominem attack: Check.
3. Unprovoked attack against Mr. Frog: Check.
4. Stalker ad hominem attack: Unconfirmed.
Yes, that's it. You're missing your usual "stalker" accusation. Maybe you just thought the "tinfoil hat" thing was so clever, even if it is the 5,000th time you've used this lame retort, that you didn't need your usual "stalker" accusation. Well you do. It's the only way we can recognize a "real j_j" post. Well that, and the paranoid "mind control" theories. (Don't forget: if I can control his mind, I can control yours as well.... Boo!). It almost seems as if you were determined to write a vacuous and utterly predictable knee-jerk response as dumb as K's rant was intelligent. Except for the fact that the choice wasn't intentional on your part.
Wow, I think you just blinded me with that. "And the screechy pundit award goes to....". Well j_j, screaming on an audiophile board about "THE MUSIC" makes for nice copy I guess. If you're attempting to butter up to them, hoping to have them hail you as "one of their own". But it's so odd coming from you, I'm convinced that this latest "debating trade" tact is based on advice from your PR guy, who insisted you have to try to look less like a pseudo-objectivist dweeb on Stereophile, if you want to get anywhere with your "project". I've been reading you on audiophile forums for some 15 years. Which believe me, is about 16 years more than I've wanted to. And in that entire time, all I have ever seen you do is troll audiophile forums and launch attacks against high end audio and its audiophiles for caring too much about "THE MUSIC", and how its reproduced. As we've seen recently, you spent 50 pages ranting on this one about how even 16/44 Redbook audio is more than enough for audiophiles (where even Sony has moved past your old relic beliefs). This despite very compelling peer-reviewed science from a 5 year study by doctored researchers saying otherwise, and you claiming to believe in science (of course, as we have always seen with reactionary objectivists, not if its science that doesn't fit your beliefs). If you had your way, I think the compact cassette would have been our gold standard, for high fidelity sound reproduction. That combined with 45 loudspeakers, all wired with lamp cord, and a DSP unit that gives the illusion of having 50. "Doesn't anybody CARE ABOUT THE MUSIC?". LOL! Funniest line of the week. Please give my regards to the PR dude.
"J_J writes stuff.
But does he believe his words?
Who knows the answer?"
Scott,
How about things some claim to hear that cannot be measured (directly, apparently), such as image width or stability, image height, instrument separation, instrument interference with other instruments? From what you said, those have been measured. If so how?
Pardon my ignorance on audio professional literature, but I have not seen that in print in the lay magazines. Any good references?
I think you are confusing the ability to measure with the ability to corolate what is measured with what is percieved. If there is a change in the signal that leads to a change in the soundstage, that change in the signal is easy to measure. The thresholds of meausrment far excede the thresholds of hearing. We can meausre level differences that are more than an order of magnetude smaller than that of our thresholds to detect such differences by ear alone. Same is true of phase shifts, frequency response etc etc.We can measure differences that are well below the thresholds of audibility. I mean seriously, do you think sonar would be possible if our ears were more sensitive than our best instruments? So when someone uses the premise that we can hear things that "can't" be measured they are simply falling on their proverbial face on the first step.
"I mean seriously, do you think sonar would be possible if our ears were more sensitive than our best instruments?"
Don't navy personnel listen to the sonar signals on headphones? Pretty sure they did in Run Silent, Run Deep.
Scott,
I agree, and many of us well-know, that measurements can exceed the precision or resolution of the human ear in many respects. You gave several examples.
What I wrote about is what you distinguished as the difference between measuring and correlating measurement with hearing. If someone reports hearing wider soundstage, what is the measurement used to gauge that outside of the ear? How about reported image height (I still am skeptical about this one)?
If one cannot correlate *any* known measurement with, say, 'image height', then one has not "measured" image height no matter how precise or how high the resolution of the instrument(s) that were used. The same appears for other audible effects that don't appear to have good correlations.
Again, any good references to the above types of phenomena that can explain what people have reported to hear? Or were there no studies performed yet?
it's not like someone can look at a wavefrom and tell you how wide a sound stage will be. But someone can certainly measure a *difference* between two waveforms where there is an actual difference in soundstage width.
First off, I'm not so sure that there isn't already some corolation between perception of imaging and the measured output of a stereo system. But.....You are exchanging perception with hearing. We can measure everything we can *hear*. What our brain does with it is a different story. Again, if someone reports a *difference* in height of the image one can measure differences in the waveforms. Here is an analogy. Lets say we are talking about an image of a cat. We can measure everything we can see from that image. We can measure luminosity, color, size etc etc. But we can't take those measurements and determine the catness of the image. That is the brain working there not the eyes. really complicated stuff. Now when someone comes around and says we can see things that can't be measured my response is "wrong." we can measure everything we can see. Our eyes are nowhere near as sensitive as our best means of measuring light. But to turn around say you can't measure catness of an image or the beauty of an image means we can see things that are beyond measurement is plainly wrong. It just means we don't know everything about how the brain takes the information and puts it all together. We do know alot actually just not everything.
True enough. But that doesn't mean we hear things that can't be measured.
That would be a question for JJ. He, as much as anybody, is on the cutting edge of corolation between meausrements and perceptions.
Scott thanks for your thoughts. I was thinking along the same lines, and that means I did interpret what you wrote correctly. It seems you are dividing between hearing (the organ or mechanism) and perceiving (the integration of the auditory signals into soundstage, imaging, etc.).
I think most of us not directly working in the audio research field take the hearing and perceiving as one thing as "that's what I'm hearing". There does not appear an easy way for use as listeners to separate it, as you may have in research situations.
Been pondering this exchange for a few days. Yes, everything that contributes to the perception of a two- or even three-dimensional stereo image can be measured. But...it is not fully understood what that "everything" comprises. Obviously first-order differences between the signals carried by the two channels matter - timing and amplitude differences for something that appears in both. But so do apsects of the reproduction system: channel separation, obviously, but also how that separation varies with frequency and spectrum. And so do things like the level and spectrum of the noisefloor, the level and spectrum of any distortion that may exist, the timing uncertainty n the signal itself (jitter, wow, flutter, again with respect to level and spectra).
I wrote about this back in 1992 (see http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/192west/):
"When we sit down in front of a stereo system and listen, say, to a recording of Beethoven's Symphony 6 - my current favorite is the Bruno Walter performance on CBS Masterworks MYK 36720 - we think that we hear violins, violas, and cellos, joined at measure 13 by double basses, making up the orchestral string section, spread out, as in real life, across the stage between and behind the loudspeakers. At measure 20, a lone bassoon quietly accentuates the phrase that rises up to the work's dominant, while a little later, the same phrase on the flute is echoed by the oboe to return the music to the tonic. This is what we perceive.
"In actual fact, none of this is real. There are no individual sounds of instruments being reproduced by the loudspeakers. Instead, you have two channels of complex audio-bandwidth voltage information that cause two pressure waves to emanate from the loudspeakers. The impression you get at measure 29 of the "Pastoral" - of an oboe positioned just right of center stage and set a ways back behind the violins stating the first movement's main theme - is something that exists only in your head, your brain back-interpolating from the twin pressure waves striking your ears that that must have been what happened at the original recording....your brain creates totally subjective "acoustic models" as a result of the acoustic information reaching your ears.
"You do this so naturally - after all, it's what you do when your ears pick up real sounds - that it doesn't strike you as incongruous that the illusion of the sounds and spatial aspects of a symphony orchestra can be reproduced by a pair of speakers in your own room. Yet there is no measurement or set of measurements that can be performed on those twin channels of information to reveal what I have just described and what you perceive with no apparent effort when listening to Beethoven's most accessible symphony. All the measurements that this and other magazines routinely practice examine changes in the voltage or pressure signals in normally just one of the information channels at a time, yet the defects of recording and reproduction systems affect not just one of those channels but both simultaneously. And the audible effect of those defects is not heard as their direct measurable effect on the signals but as changes in the perceived character of the oh-so-fragile acoustic models."
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Just to be clear. I am not working in audio. I am not a scientist.
This basic truth ought to be a revelation for everyone involved in these debates between subjectivism and objectivism. So much of the debate revolves around the idea of "accuracy." There is this issue of "measured accuracy" vs. "percieved realism." When one relizes that the whole thing is an illusion, smoke and mirrors, one realizes that "measured accuracy" and "percieved realism" don't have to go hand in hand.IMO so much of the debate comes from the idea (shared by most subjectivists and objectivists) that more accurate performance (up to the audible thresholds for objectivists) from each component does always directly coralate with better percieved performance/greater realism.
I've been thinking about this thread recently as well.
Given we are reconstructing from the presented audio facsimile, it seems reasonable that certain minute changes could result in a striking difference in perceived realism.
My analogy of the moment is visual: a screen of dots (similar to a sky full of stars, say) will appear to us a recognized (perceived) image. A slight adjustment to that array of dots could make that recognized image seem much more or less lifelike, while the correlation between the change in the array of dots could be hard to establish. It might be possible to measure the quantity of each little change, but difficult to attribute that change to the changed perception.
In an audio example - where source is a real soundscape - its easy to accept that there is a measurable correlation between the source, the data available on playback, and the perceived result. But because tiny adjustments can contribute to our inferring something dramatically different, we might not be able to accept a correlation between the measured adjustment to the playback and the increase in realism . It is like there is sort of leverage to small shifts in the playback data, that encourages us to fill in the gaps more vividly.
This reminds me of digital sound, which while seeming very clear, can sometimes seem less lifelike, perhaps because the elements of the sound are sort of arbitrarily placed in rigid (though very tiny)
They can be measured, particularly if a reference sample is available.
In general, the properties of complex signals, and their properties with respect to other signals can be measured.
For example, there are a number of ways to compare the left and right channels of a stereo signal, which can shed light on image width or stability, image height, instrument separation, instrument interference with other instruments.
Note that JA is on the public record as saying that imaging of a stereo signal can be reliably measured using a vector display.
Yes. It is very easy to measure the stereo information in the signal , most basic computer editing or recording software can measure the phase of the signal and tell you how stereo or mono the signal is. However, how wide and layered that same signal is at the listening chair having gone through your whole system and interacted with your room is a much more complicated thing.
To be sure, if the signal itself is mono, mono is all you'll get at the listening chair. If the signal is stereo, then you can easily measure how stereo that signal is. However, your perception of this image is a very different thing. Once that stereo signal hits your system then the system's ability to keep phase and time coherence within the various spectra of the audio bands comes into play. Then, the size, quality and quantity of the reflections in your room become a factor. Then, the shape of your ears' pinnae and size and of your head play a role in imaging the music you hear. THEN, it comes down your PERCEPTION of the sound image which includes things like you brain's attentiveness to stereo image or whether or not you are the type of person who even cares about such things or if you have other hang ups like rhythm and pacing or timbral accuracy.
In other words, measurement of the perception of sound staging at the listening chair might be possible but it is very difficult. And if you did all of the seperate electrical, acoustical, physiological and psychological measurements, what would it really tell you when looked at in total?
Sorry to be a spoilsport but the Clever Little Clock proves that improvements to the sound can be heard but not measured, at least in this case. The battery powered clock has no affect on the electrical signal anywhere in the chain or on room acoustics so attempts to measure differences in the signal with and without the clock in the room will prove futile.
Your definition of the word 'proves' is broken, Mr. Kait.
If there is no difference in the signal then there is no difference in the sound coming out of the speakers. so unless the clever little clock is affecting the room acoustics it is not making a difference in the sound.
A vectorcope can tell you about the first-order effects, Mr. Krueger, ie, how correlated the signal is between the two channels. If there is 100% correlation, for example, then you can confidently predict that the channels carry dual-mono information. And the vectorscope can also tell you much about the nature stereo information. But it cannot tell you the kind of soundstaging details I described in my earlier posting. For that you have to use your ears and the brain that lies, one would hope, between them.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry to be a spoilsport but the Clever Little Clock proves that improvements to the sound can be heard but not measured, at least in this case. The battery powered clock has no affect on the electrical signal anywhere in the chain or on room acoustics so attempts to measure differences in the signal with and without the clock in the room will prove futile.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Your definition of the word 'proves' is broken, Mr. Kait."
Broken lines broken strings
Broken threads broken springs
Broken idols broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.
Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
Broken cutters broken saws
Broken buckles broken laws
Broken bodies broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath feel like you're chokin'
Everything is broken.
"If there is no difference in the signal then there is no difference in the sound coming out of the speakers. So unless the clever little clock is affecting the room acoustics it is not making a difference in the sound."
And you say that with such confidence. Perhaps you need to preface it with, "In my experience..."
nope.
Let's go all the way back to the start and head for the doorway of perception and internal mental modeling of the individual. Ie, the reflection of the self.
I said that, "The most foolish thing a man can do, is believe that the truth (reality) in the given noted world ends an the limits of one's intelligence." (or personal limits of perception)
Some people believe in an 'open' world that is constantly revealing itself..making itself anew in the mind... as perception and information changes..as it always does.
Like max Planck said, 'Science advances..funeral by funeral." Bury the old stalwarts, the soldiers of mediocrity who live in some strange world that is painted in never changing hues of imprisonment based on 'laws'.
Dummkopf!... no laws exist! Get Thee over thineself! Only models that 'work -- for the moment'. nothing more. Science is definable as a state of change based on new information..and that 'change', the 'new science' evolves from the works of the past..or it can even supplant it -completely.. Not laws! Jebus!!!
It really comes down to the internal psychological model that the individual carts around. Remember that thing that separates engineers from the scientific explorers. Engineers are specifically trained to not tolerate variance in models or application. Part and parcel of the entire engineering training, world, clique, and shtick.
Scientists, Real Ones, that is...are quite the opposite.
Even Lamont gets it, when he asks some of you, 'are you dead yet?" heh heh...
Oddly enough, may of the aspects of High End audio Do indeed hit the limits of scientific knowledge. High End audio itself is a design ON the limits of perception, engineering/design talents, innovation, and capacity.. all surrounding multiple considerations that are not fully explored.
Thus, these arguments erupt.
A final example,and pardon the language. Here it is: For all our posturing.... Just what the fuck is electricity? Riddle me that, Batman. When you find out what it really is, get ready for that Nobel prize. Most of you can model it, but in fact..we really don't know. In all seriousness, if you go looking to find that, you won't find out what electricity -is-. We have all kinds of application aspects surrounding some sort or reproducible effects (whatever those are and mean)...but not what electricity actually is. At the very core of the best models available today..and there are many of them....we are down to 'belief'. So much for science.
True..we have to start somewhere, but holy sweaty batsocks, Batman, there are no laws! Dammit! If I could find the ass who started calling things 'laws', I'd kick him in the balls so hard his grandchildren would explode. One of -if not the greatest- hidden and unrecognized sins in the world of science is the perpetuated idea of 'laws'.
It seems to me that there is this idea with some folks that since we don't know "everything" about everything that somehow know nothing about anything. There also seems to be this idea that what we know is in the constant state of flux and is being tossed out in total on a weekly basis by science. Fact is we have a pretty good handle on electromagnetism. No new evidence has come along recently that would give cause for us to toss out everything or anything we think we know about it. No laws? Heck then why not run the system unplugged. I mean what is electricity anyway? However if you do get the system sounding really good wihout the components powered up by whatever that stuff is then, just then, you might step back and consider that it might actually be in your head. new scientific discoveries often don't make old principles obsolete. Just because Einstein's general relativity superceded Newton's laws of motion doesn't mean that Force no longer equals mass times speed squared. It may not be *quite* as exact as general relativity but it will give you a good enough answer if you are considering stepping in front of a truck doing 80 mph. My point being.... I don't need to preface my statement about no change in signal means no change in sound from speakers with "in my experience" because it has nothing to do with personal experience and everything to do with what we actually do know about how things work. Just like we know we have to plug the ****ing equipment in to make it work.
Pages