Same speakers - ATC SCM 12- high end amplifiers vs. lower quality amplifiers + cables: AB testing

[rwnano]

https://matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm

FROM THE LINK ABOVE: PLEASE SEE:--

The results speaks by itself:

How can it be possible that a basic system with such a price difference against the "reference" one, poorly placed, using the cheapest signal cables found, couldn't be distinguished from the more expensive one?

And, most of it all, how come the cheap system was chosen by so many people as the best sounding of the two?

Shouldn't the differences be so evident that it'd be a child's game to pick the best?

Well, we think that each can reach to its own conclusion...

 

[rwnano]

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/

Another excellent link with various ABX tests.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

https://matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm

FROM THE LINK ABOVE: PLEASE SEE:--

The results speaks by itself:

How can it be possible that a basic system with such a price difference against the "reference" one, poorly placed, using the cheapest signal cables found, couldn't be distinguished from the more expensive one?

And, most of it all, how come the cheap system was chosen by so many people as the best sounding of the two?

Shouldn't the differences be so evident that it'd be a child's game to pick the best?

Well, we think that each can reach to its own conclusion...

Iam sure the hand picked audience must have all been half deaf buggers like me , who have absolutely no business being at the judging end of things, irrespective of price .

 

[chander]

Shouldn't the differences be so evident that it'd be a child's game to pick the best?

Well, we think that each can reach to its own conclusion...

Please note I am no expert, just talking from a little experience. I am one of those "believers" in - "most of it is snake oil" so I feel a little validated when "can't tell in blind test" is validated.

However, to be fair I have personally tried to do a few of these blind tests over the years & I am a huge fan of blind tests. But I feel there are a few issue that creep up when testing blind & it has a huge impact on outcome.

1 - UNLESS you are able to switch A to B to A instantaneously it is very hard to tell the difference. As your brain tries to compare a sound that is currently playing VS a sound that it heard a while back while listening to the sound that is playing right now in your ears. It is very hard. So whenever cables have to be changed or you have to listen to one clip & then listen to it again on another system. It is VERY HARD.

2 - The pressure to make a decision. You are there to judge & judge you must.

3 - This one is important. I have a system in my office that I chose after auditioning for almost 2 years, again and again, same system pitted against multiple others in similar price range or higher. I Absolutely Adore my system. HOWEVER...
There are days I am grooving on every beat - every thing is perfect, then there are some days I can't deal with how energetic it is, then there are days I can't deal with how lifeless it is, some days the bass is not right, some days it is sublime.
Same system, same music, same ears, same room, same furniture, same drapes, same me in the same spot - absolute "control setup".
Whatsup with that?

Blind testing tells you a lot & I am all for it, has saved me a lot of money but it doesn't tell all. So do your blind tests, involve a few friends & make informed decisions. Also remember no one has your ears.

 

[mbhangui]

However, to be fair I have personally tried to do a few of these blind tests over the years & I am a huge fan of blind tests. But I feel there are a few issue that creep up when testing blind & it has a huge impact on outcome.

1 - UNLESS you are able to switch A to B to A instantaneously it is very hard to tell the difference. As your brain tries to compare a sound that is currently playing VS a sound that it heard a while back while listening to the sound that is playing right now in your ears. It is very hard. So whenever cables have to be changed or you have to listen to one clip & then listen to it again on another system. It is VERY HARD.

Your experience is same as mine. And what I have found out that if you can't switch A to B to A instantaneously, you end up chosing what other say is the better one. IME the speakers make the biggest difference, followed by the amp. I just cannot differentiate any DACs and cables regardless of their cost or pedigree. Yes I have made switches to instantaneously switch the input or the output. Either my ears are too old or I'm not smoking the weed that others smoke when they hear a difference especiallly with cables. And yes, anything with a DSP or a graphic equalizer will make remarkable difference and that's no brainer.

NOTE: It is impossible to AB speakers because two pair of speakers cannot be at the same position at the same time unless it is a cat named Schrödinger and have identical geometry.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Room > speaker > amplifier > dac > Transport

In my well sorted and treated room, with decent quality speakers, amps and dacs, upgrading the weak link streamer was a big improvement. So for someone else it could be the dac or the amp. And if everything else is at a commensurate level of quality, then upgrading the speakers is the next logical jump.

The level of distortion at a speaker driver, due to the conversion from electrical to mechanical energy, is a few 10X times the distortion of the dac, which is only doing electrical to electrical conversion. Yet we have an entire forum and its bhakts dedicated to measuring distortion where it matters the least

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I also find it surprising that our recording engineers in the 70's and 80's were absolutely clueless what their microphones were picking up, and what all was being recorded. And newer dacs are still revealing sounds that reviewers are hearing for the first time, despite hearing the same track all their lives on one flagship dac of one generation, followed by the newer flagship of the next. I find it funny that we had the technology to capture these sounds 50 years back, but it took us so long to be able to hear it back. Sometimes this whole thing is just too much

 

[Hari Iyer]

As per psycoacoustics an A/B comparison to listen the difference has a very very narrow time window 0f 20sec. If switching takes more than 20sec our brain can't make out subtle difference.

 

[G401fan]

In 1981, Stereo Review magazine had a detailed cover story about AB-Xing 8 amplifiers ranging from a $200 receiver to a $8000 OTL monoblocks before a listening panel of 50 individuals. Using statistical jugglery with the test results, they concluded that "All amps sound the same".

In the 43 years since, nothing should have changed, right? If you believe that shit, your mobile is all you require for critical listening.

 

[keith_correa]

The level of distortion at a speaker driver, due to the conversion from electrical to mechanical energy, is a few 10X times the distortion of the dac, which is only doing electrical to electrical conversion. Yet we have an entire forum and its bhakts dedicated to measuring distortion where it matters the least

Try this: Using a DSP plugin (there are many out there) add distortion when playing music and tell us if you can hear a difference or not. I have cloth ears but can hear a difference.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Try this: Using a DSP plugin (there are many out there) add distortion when playing music and tell us if you can hear a difference or not. I have cloth ears but can hear a difference.

I do not contend that fact

But my gripe is that the 0.2% distortion we can add via dsp, is being magnified by the 10x distortion of the driver.. So instead of reducing distortion by 0.1% at the dac, reducing it by few percent at the driver will give better dividends

The modern Purifi drivers etc are getting raves, due to their spectacularly low distortion. Yet we dont see many speakers , even the newer ones being launched with these drivers. But we have tons of dacs coming out every few months with the same chip with another 0.1% knocked off somewhere in the measurements

 

[Hari Iyer]

Typically you can hear distortion only if ambient noise is low. Adding some white noise ( e.g. turning on your fan) you can easily mask the distortion ( if any).

 

[keith_correa]

I do not contend that fact

But my gripe is that the 0.2% distortion we can add via dsp, is being magnified by the 10x distortion of the driver..

I don't understand why that is a gripe in the first place. If as you say - the distortion upstream is being magnified at the speaker stage wouldn't it be the sensible thing to have as minimal distortion as possible upstream so that the speaker has less distortion to magnify?

The modern Purifi drivers etc are getting raves, due to their spectacularly low distortion. Yet we dont see many speakers , even the newer ones being launched with these drivers. But we have tons of dacs coming out every few months with the same chip with another 0.1% knocked off somewhere in the measurements

The logic here being that just because Y doesn't use Z drivers, X shouldn't improve itself? Again, it makes no sense to me since some (or all) faculty/ies of mine must be deficit in some way so, I give up!

Typically you can hear distortion only if ambient noise is low. Adding some white noise ( e.g. turning on your fan) you can easily mask the distortion ( if any).

Eh? I'm baffled on what distortion you are referring to that can be masked with white noise.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I don't understand why that is a gripe in the first place. If as you say - the distortion upstream is being magnified at the speaker stage wouldn't it be the sensible thing to have as minimal distortion as possible upstream so that the speaker has less distortion to magnify?

The logic here being that just because Y doesn't use Z drivers, X shouldn't improve itself? Again, it makes no sense to me since some (or all) faculty/ies of mine must be deficit in some way so, I give up!

By this stage of conversation, even Iam confused . Maybe too much distortion in my head, being magnified by my boredom

 

[keith_correa]

. Maybe too much distortion in my head, being magnified by my boredom

Use Purify!

 

[surfatwork]

There are definitely differences between different amps, or dacs, or whatever (assuming they are in the same listening environment). How much of it is audible depends on the person in front of the system. So it's impossible to make this decision (that there is a difference or not) on behalf of someone else.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Last week I had the opportunity to listen Wiess Minerva DAC and did an A/B with the RME ADI-2 for a cool 2 hours. Though the comparison was not fair as the Minerva is 8 times more expensive than the RME. Needless to say the Minvera beat the RME in all departments. No brainer there. The switching time was also around 5 minutes. So unless you can hear a significant difference the upgrade has worked or not worked for me. This was an eye (ear) opener for me because the difference between the Marantz internal DAC and RME would be 19-20, but between Minerva and RME was very significant. That's what is an upgrade - imo.

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

Instead of AB testing (which I used to do a lot earlier) now I judge differences more through prolonged listening (at least 3-4 days) over a number of songs/sessions after making a change. Instead of comparing specific details, I tend to go with whether the changed sound is more engaging (making me listen yo it more often and longer). Sometimes i get impressed in the first audition after a change, but start noticing the losses/limitations after a while.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Instead of AB testing (which I used to do a lot earlier) now I judge differences more through prolonged listening (at least 3-4 days) over a number of songs/sessions after making a change. Instead of comparing specific details, I tend to go with whether the changed sound is more engaging (making me listen yo it more often and longer). Sometimes i get impressed in the first audition after a change, but start noticing the losses/limitations after a while.

You are very on point @sachinchavan 15865 . I know we dont get long term or even short term home auditions. But my experience with the Kef LS50 meta's just proved the importance of long term listening as you rightly pointed out.

I got them for a desktop setup, and when I first fired them up, they were impressive for their size and price. But slowly it dawned upon me, that I was not keen on listening to them for more than 20 minutes. I inadvertently always used to switch back to my main DIY speakers, and then listen for hours on their end. This same thing repeated again and again. Till it dawned on me, I just would never listen to them even if they did'nt do anything noticeably wrong. I still dont have a bad word to say about them, except that they dont involve me, for reasons I cannot fathom.

I thought it was a lack of synergy, and rotated a few amps I had at hand. And none of them changed my enjoyment of the speakers. I've read that the Rotel RA-10 and Arcam SA-20 are great matches, but didnt want to invest in amplification again, just to find out.

I've spent almost 3 years in a love hate relationship with my setup, where I just didnt have the interest to switch on the system. Slowly with changes here and there, it has morphed into a all day listen, from sunrise to sunset. And this rekindled enjoyment of music is priceless, and more important than sounding impressive or technically correct to me. But we sadly only realize this on a longer term ownership or if we are particular and consciously checking the enjoyment metrics of the system or the speakers in question during an audition. If our feet dont tap or we dont feel like spinning to a dance track, then the whole point of hifi is lost for me.

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

You are very on point @sachinchavan 15865 . I know we dont get long term or even short term home auditions. But my experience with the Kef LS50 meta's just proved the importance of long term listening as you rightly pointed out.

I got them for a desktop setup, and when I first fired them up, they were impressive for their size and price. But slowly it dawned upon me, that I was not keen on listening to them for more than 20 minutes. I inadvertently always used to switch back to my main DIY speakers, and then listen for hours on their end. This same thing repeated again and again. Till it dawned on me, I just would never listen to them even if they did'nt do anything noticeably wrong. I still dont have a bad word to say about them, except that they dont involve me, for reasons I cannot fathom.

I thought it was a lack of synergy, and rotated a few amps I had at hand. And none of them changed my enjoyment of the speakers. I've read that the Rotel RA-10 and Arcam SA-20 are great matches, but didnt want to invest in amplification again, just to find out.

I've spent almost 3 years in a love hate relationship with my setup, where I just didnt have the interest to switch on the system. Slowly with changes here and there, it has morphed into a all day listen, from sunrise to sunset. And this rekindled enjoyment of music is priceless, and more important than sounding impressive or technically correct to me. But we sadly only realize this on a longer term ownership or if we are particular and consciously checking the enjoyment metrics of the system or the speakers in question during an audition. If our feet dont tap or we dont feel like spinning to a dance track, then the whole point of hifi is lost for me.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, it elucidates the point so well. ‘Love at first sight’ isn’t enough if you intend getting married to your system. A prolonged courting is required.