True Audiophile

[ajinkya]

Would you have asked the same question if you would have auditioned it instead of me ?

Dr. Bass,
Anyone with a reasonably scientific and rational bent of mind would have asked exactly the question(s) that Thad, thatguy, and others in this thread have asked.
This thread, to me at least, has brought out the one thing that is afflicting our hobby to a very large extent that is preventing it from growing to many more people than it currently does. And that thing is, treating emotional experiences on par with rigorous experiments, theory, and a genuine understanding of the audio reproduction chain.

I do not deny that you may have heard something different after the CD cleaning. But before attributing it to the "anti-static" box or the laser being somehow affected, have you considered that "maybe" seeing your friend do this could have played on your mind as well? There are numerous psycho-acoustic experiments (some detailed articles have been linked to in this forum)
that show the effect of subtle cues both visual and otherwise, on our interpretation of the information we hear, see, touch. Being scientific, I do not discount the possibility of the anti-static *possibly* affecting the state of playback. However, being an engineer, I can also guesstimate that the effect may not be as pronounced. But I will not pass final judgement till there are measurements, identical experiments to validate or debunk that claim.

Throughout this thread, I have seen that often when someone asks an objective question, someone else comes up with the cliche that music is for the soul and what we hear is the ultimate benchmark. If all audio designers went by that dictat, nothing would get created. The equipment we listen to is based on science and engineering, not on emotional qualifications. Granted, once the equipment is designed well, the final tune-up is done by ear, and the final product's sound reflects the qualitative assessment of the designer's approach to sound reproduction and his/her feelings. But no one starts designing the equipment by feel and touch. Rigourous testing, assessment, engineering trade-offs are first made, before any kind of tuning is even possible.

The point of my post is: let's stop equating the asking of quantitative questions to lack of emotional feeling. One can be scientific, rational, and still have an emotional attachment to music. But the rational has to be present, because audio equipment is based on engineering, even though the music it reproduces comes from the musician's soul (or hopefully a high-fidelity rendition of that soul ;-) )

-Ajinkya.

 

[arj]

The point of my post is: let's stop equating the asking of quantitative questions to lack of emotional feeling. One can be scientific, rational, and still have an emotional attachment to music. But the rational has to be present, because audio equipment is based on engineering, even though the music it reproduces comes from the musician's soul (or hopefully a high-fidelity rendition of that soul ;-) )

-Ajinkya.

point is valid but is not easy to do this. Frankly you can measure/explain and give scientific explanation only if you understand the science or have the information to back it..if you dont you may just believe and go ahead. ..personally do not have the technical knowledge /info myself on many such phenomena and the only option remains forums and google which has too much of info to be of any use !

While i have only heard of tweaks like the CD demagnetisers (cds are supposed to have Al and not Fe ...so not sure how it can be magnetised) . but have had pretty serious audiophiles claim a difference, but in these cases would rather give that benefit of doubt to the audiophile..and check for myself to decide if my ears can really make out that difference or not.

not so many years back people used to laugh at the fact that Digital cables could make a sound difference while many "objectivists" were all arguing in as to how it was not possible and cable is a cable and "0" and "1" is unpollutable..untill the impact of JItter was understood. today it is a scientifically accepted phenomena..something which people who only used their ears were always claiming

the reverse also could be true...but my belief is that science itself gains if one gives that benefit of doubt to our basic senses rather than formulas and equations

 

[Dr.Bass]

Dr. Bass,
Anyone with a reasonably scientific and rational bent of mind would have asked exactly the question(s) that Thad, thatguy, and others in this thread have asked.
This thread, to me at least, has brought out the one thing that is afflicting our hobby to a very large extent that is preventing it from growing to many more people than it currently does. And that thing is, treating emotional experiences on par with rigorous experiments, theory, and a genuine understanding of the audio reproduction chain.

I do not deny that you may have heard something different after the CD cleaning. But before attributing it to the "anti-static" box or the laser being somehow affected, have you considered that "maybe" seeing your friend do this could have played on your mind as well? There are numerous psycho-acoustic experiments (some detailed articles have been linked to in this forum)
that show the effect of subtle cues both visual and otherwise, on our interpretation of the information we hear, see, touch. Being scientific, I do not discount the possibility of the anti-static *possibly* affecting the state of playback. However, being an engineer, I can also guesstimate that the effect may not be as pronounced. But I will not pass final judgement till there are measurements, identical experiments to validate or debunk that claim.

Throughout this thread, I have seen that often when someone asks an objective question, someone else comes up with the cliche that music is for the soul and what we hear is the ultimate benchmark. If all audio designers went by that dictat, nothing would get created. The equipment we listen to is based on science and engineering, not on emotional qualifications. Granted, once the equipment is designed well, the final tune-up is done by ear, and the final product's sound reflects the qualitative assessment of the designer's approach to sound reproduction and his/her feelings. But no one starts designing the equipment by feel and touch. Rigourous testing, assessment, engineering trade-offs are first made, before any kind of tuning is even possible.

The point of my post is: let's stop equating the asking of quantitative questions to lack of emotional feeling. One can be scientific, rational, and still have an emotional attachment to music. But the rational has to be present, because audio equipment is based on engineering, even though the music it reproduces comes from the musician's soul (or hopefully a high-fidelity rendition of that soul ;-) )

-Ajinkya.

Everything is possible and everything is questionable.

I cannot prove whether my psychoacoustics were at play or not. You are free to question that and dismiss the topic. I dont lose anything, you dont gain anything.

 

[ajinkya]

but my belief is that science itself gains if one gives that benefit of doubt to our basic senses rather than formulas and equations

Arj,
Our basic senses are notoriously easy to fool. The simplest and most telling example is our eyes and brain interpreting parallel lines as non-parallel in the famous black-white bricks picture (easily found online). Only geometric analysis would prove those lines to be parallel (at least in the Euclidean sense).

And speaking of Euclid, our "senses" and "common sense" would tell us that two parallel lines should never meet, according to Euclidean geometry. A fact that was questioned, and later made into another geometric system, a la Riemann. Which then went on to describe the "real" world, according to Einstein's mind.

Trusting only your senses is a path fraught with pitfalls. Trusting only numbers leads to the same. You have to observe, understand, postulate a theory, verify within limits, and then use that as a "belief" for the next stage. Otherwise everything becomes an opinion, and everyone is entitled to one legitimately.

 

[arj]

Arj,
Our basic senses are notoriously easy to fool. The simplest and most telling example is our eyes and brain interpreting parallel lines as non-parallel in the famous black-white bricks picture (easily found online). Only geometric analysis would prove those lines to be parallel (at least in the Euclidean sense).

And speaking of Euclid, our "senses" and "common sense" would tell us that two parallel lines should never meet, according to Euclidean geometry. A fact that was questioned, and later made into another geometric system, a la Riemann. Which then went on to describe the "real" world, according to Einstein's mind.

Trusting only your senses is a path fraught with pitfalls. Trusting only numbers leads to the same. You have to observe, understand, postulate a theory, verify within limits, and then use that as a "belief" for the next stage. Otherwise everything becomes an opinion, and everyone is entitled to one legitimately.

It's a philosophical difference, so no sense discussing it here.... Maybe in a different forum


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Dr.Bass]

Arj,
Our basic senses are notoriously easy to fool. The simplest and most telling example is our eyes and brain interpreting parallel lines as non-parallel in the famous black-white bricks picture (easily found online). Only geometric analysis would prove those lines to be parallel (at least in the Euclidean sense).

And speaking of Euclid, our "senses" and "common sense" would tell us that two parallel lines should never meet, according to Euclidean geometry. A fact that was questioned, and later made into another geometric system, a la Riemann. Which then went on to describe the "real" world, according to Einstein's mind.

Trusting only your senses is a path fraught with pitfalls. Trusting only numbers leads to the same. You have to observe, understand, postulate a theory, verify within limits, and then use that as a "belief" for the next stage. Otherwise everything becomes an opinion, and everyone is entitled to one legitimately.

Music can be created, comprehended and enjoyed only through our senses and not by any other scientific process or device. A computer even with the best algorithm fed to it can neither create music nor understand music. Only our senses can listen to a mixture of instruments played at the same time at different pace with a particular rhythm and timing, and make a holistic sense out of it which we call music. If this was measurable then every CD would have come labelled with a "Musicality" rating and every equipment should also have a rating like that. After all everything is measured.

 

[ajinkya]

Music can be created, comprehended and enjoyed only through our senses and not by any other scientific process or device. A computer even with the best algorithm fed to it can neither create music nor understand music. Only our senses can listen to a mixture of instruments played at the same time at different pace with a particular rhythm and timing, and make a holistic sense out of it which we call music. If this was measurable then every CD would have come labelled with a "Musicality" rating and every equipment should also have a rating like that. After all everything is measured.

You seem to have completely misunderstood my post. Musicality (and most things artistic) are created by and admired by human beings. Yes, no measurable quantification of the beauty of any form of art exists, nor do I believe it ever will exist.

However, no engineer (or anyone with a rational bent of mind) will claim that any well-engineered piece of equipment (whether it is a superlative amplifier or a turbo-charged super car) can ever be created through emotions alone. There is a well-defined process that relies on measurements, quantifiable data, repeatable performance, and industry-standard criteria. As I've mentioned before, the final "magic" to the finished product comes from the designer tuning the equipment to their intuitive feel, that has come through years of experience. However, no designer starts with a badly measured, badly constructed piece of equipment and claims to make it magic by hearing/seeing/touch alone.

This is true of any product, any area, any discipline. All automotive companies tune their cars with a "calibration driver" who tells the controls engineers what is right and what is wrong with the final performance, and what subtle things need tweaking. But no calibration driver is given a car that has a two-minute delay between steer command and the wheels turning (to give an exaggerated example). The car is given as a well-designed, well-measured device, created to the best controls practices. The driver's magic then comes in making the product even better, as only a human being can do, since we are masters at dealing with lots of cues concurrently and filtering them by relevance. But give such a driver a badly-designed (measured) car, and he'll walk out of the test rig without a word.

That was the meaning and intent of my original post.

 

[mahiruha]

Well researches has been done to see what constitutes a hit song I mean to say mathematical pattern wise. I don't see why we can't build a machine learning algorithm which can classify eletronic components according to their music reproduction ability. There has to be a well defined objective function we are trying to maximize. If there is none our hobby is bit random.

Here is the link.

Algorithm Judges Musical Hit Potential : Discovery News

Thanks.

 

[Dr.Bass]

But give such a driver a badly-designed (measured) car, and he'll walk out of the test rig without a word.

That was the meaning and intent of my original post.

The audio analogy for this is, even the best musician cannot tune a badly constructed musical instrument.

My point is, there are many well measured audio equipments which do not reproduce good music and there are equal number of ill-measured products that produce good music. The equipment one ends up choosing in such a scenario depends on how he evaluates, "measurements" or "senses" !!
There are many parameters which exists in music but cannot be measured scientifically, for example PRAT, timbral accuracy, coherence. Any of this lacking can make music sound unnatural. You ask me to prove it, I cannot.

 

[Dr.Bass]

Music is a universal hobby then why are audiophiles such a niche community ?
It is because we appreciate the "reproduction" of music more than non-audiophiles. It was a born quality, we did not learn it. Even as kids we appreciated audio quality when we heard it somewhere by chance. We never knew the science. Today if we cannot justify some aspects of our hobby through science doesnt make that aspect doubtful but rather the science which deals with it is questionable.

Well researches has been done to see what constitutes a hit song I mean to say mathematical pattern wise. I don't see why we can't build a machine learning algorithm which can classify eletronic components according to their music reproduction ability. There has to be a well defined objective function we are trying to maximize. If there is none our hobby is bit random.

Here is the link.

Algorithm Judges Musical Hit Potential : Discovery News

Thanks.

So here we have an algorithm which can tell you which songs are hit. What next ? Lets download the algorithm and run it on our PCs and choose the next CD to buy !! Possibly no one is going to question us because there is an internet article written on it .

 

[mahiruha]

So here we have an algorithm which can tell you which songs are hit. What next ? Lets download the algorithm and run it on our PCs and choose the next CD to buy !! Possibly no one is going to question us because there is an internet article written on it .

Well this kind of technology pretty much exixts and most of us use it everyday. When somebody is shopping in amazon or renting a movie from netflix they are using a machine learning algorithm which suggest us movies , music and book. Facebook has taken a step further to suggest us who will be our friends so there is nothing new. Basically unknowingly we all are looking for some patterns in our music or books to like them. If properly modeled it is not too difficult for an algorithm to know that pattern. These are trivial problems but to judge a song to be a hit or not is a daunting task and I find it interesting that some people are trying to answer this question. The basic problem is we have to know how we perceive things as good or bad and once we learn more about the science of perception, things will become much clear. Let me give you a simple example in India we eat fish but don't eat cockroach but in China they eat both fish and cockroach. So to us cockroach is not a food but to a chinese person it is a food. Now how do we know that cockroach is not a food because our parents told us not to eat it. Our hobby of music is simply like that in our journey we develop certain special tastes through which we judge our music so in a word we develop a pattern. So the music system that can match most pattern will be good perceived by most that doesn't mean your pattern is wrong but it doesn't go with the majority.This is the science behind it.

Thanks.

 

[prem]

Hi Mahiruha

What you are saying makes sense to me, that we are all in some way conditioned to what we perceive as good or bad and this applies to all walks of life, including music. Given the same song, a US mastering engineer will handle it differently from a Japanese or from a British engineer. The Japanese and most Asians like a little more treble, the Europeans like it a little laid back whereas the US guys like a big stage.

 

[ajinkya]

The audio analogy for this is, even the best musician cannot tune a badly constructed musical instrument.

My point is, there are many well measured audio equipments which do not reproduce good music and there are equal number of ill-measured products that produce good music. The equipment one ends up choosing in such a scenario depends on how he evaluates, "measurements" or "senses" !!
There are many parameters which exists in music but cannot be measured scientifically, for example PRAT, timbral accuracy, coherence. Any of this lacking can make music sound unnatural. You ask me to prove it, I cannot.

I am genuinely curious to see examples of ill-measured products that produce good music, and well-measured products that don't. I have read examples of ruler-flat frequency response amplifiers sounding "cold" to some reviewers, and that is a matter of taste and perception. But I have never come across some product which has horrible measured values and still sounded great. Do you have concrete examples of such entities?

Also, the analogy is not just for a musician. Even the best audio equipment designer cannot tune an initially badly designed product. That is an equally valid analogy.

 

[mahiruha]

Hi Prem,
that is precisely what I meant. That is why we need things like " Chammak Challo" in Ra one but nothing like that in Spiderman for them to make money. On a serious note researches are being conducted on how we hear and how we see. Which is another way of saying how our very own brain processes sound and vision. Here is an interesting article which talks about a device that helps the blind see with their tongues. If this is possible then I guess making a device which helps a deaf hear with his tongue is not impossible.
Thanks.

Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind "See" with Their Tongues: Scientific American

 

[arj]

I am genuinely curious to see examples of ill-measured products that produce good music, and well-measured products that don't. I have read examples of ruler-flat frequency response amplifiers sounding "cold" to some reviewers, and that is a matter of taste and perception. But I have never come across some product which has horrible measured values and still sounded great. Do you have concrete examples of such entities?

Also, the analogy is not just for a musician. Even the best audio equipment designer cannot tune an initially badly designed product. That is an equally valid analogy.

i believe most SET amps and many old school tube amps would fall into this category.
the Amp I used earlier ..the venerable Sugden A21 was just that. measured bad with 10% THD..but sounded glorious !

I believe (please do correct me) most of the fantastic violins were never "Measured" and made..they were made by the ear...it is the mass market violins which are measured.

But I do believe in measurements and do believe everything should be measured..the sad fact in audio is that measurements mean nothing as they are not comprehensive enough..there is no way you can compare 2 components by their measurement parameters as most parameters have not been defined/standardised, and what have been are often misrepresented.

As a side note: ruler flat is an unimportant measurement. no ear is Ruler Flat and a flat in room response would mean different things to different people...as their "Listening Curves" are too diverse. so if you and i hear the same setup , our brains will represent them differently.

 

[ajinkya]

i believe most SET amps and many old school tube amps would fall into this category.
the Amp I used earlier ..the venerable Sugden A21 was just that. measured bad with 10% THD..but sounded glorious !

I believe (please do correct me) most of the fantastic violins were never "Measured" and made..they were made by the ear...it is the mass market violins which are measured.

But I do believe in measurements and do believe everything should be measured..the sad fact in audio is that measurements mean nothing as they are not comprehensive enough..there is no way you can compare 2 components by their measurement parameters as most parameters have not been defined/standardised, and what have been are often misrepresented.

As a side note: ruler flat is an unimportant measurement. no ear is Ruler Flat and a flat in room response would mean different things to different people...as their "Listening Curves" are too diverse. so if you and i hear the same setup , our brains will represent them differently.

Arj,
Thanks for the concrete example of the Sugden A21. I was so curious to see how bad the measurements were that I went to a Stereophile article:
Sugden A21ai Series 2 integrated amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com

This measure the A21ai series, and I am not sure if this is substantially different from your original A21 series, since I am not an expert of this series of amps. However, if you notice the freq. response, it is almost ruler-flat for all real impedance loads (the green is a hard test of simulated load and all amps that I have compared have this performance curve for simulated load).

The difference is preamp channels is almost negligible, and the small-signal square-waves are quite clean. So all these measurements suggest to me a well-designed, well-behaved amplifier.

The bad measurement, which has affected all its subjective performance, is the high THD as you correctly point out. Even there, it is reasonable at 8 ohms, and gets worse at lower impedances. This seems to suggest that the Sudgen cannot drive low loads well and will struggle. That is also borne out by the review, which warns that careful equipment matching is needed, and that the sound has a distinct character which may not be liked by all.

So, I do not see how this is an example of a badly measured amp which has superlative performance. The measurements give an indication of possible shortcomings, and the review seems to be in line with the measurements. Am I missing something?

However, you are right about the fact that measurements do no encompass all the subtle behaviour of devices, and we cannot compare two devices side by side based on measurements alone, because many parameters we hear are coupled in different measurement plots.

What I am trying to point out is that anyone who says measurements are useless and we should only play by ear, is not completely cognizant of the important part that measurements (and quantitiative experiments) play in any engineered product, including audio equipment.

 

[cricfansd]

This is a time honored argument for Tube amps. Although distortions that people hear in a SS amp and Tube amps are not the same and the distortion does not even look the same on the scope. Also it has been well established that second order harmonics in Tube sound better than first order harmonics in SS amp. These days there are few SS amps/DACS that are mimicking second order harmonics to get the fabled tube harmonics. Though one thing people sometimes do not realize that tube amps mostly work in linear range of the triodes/pentodes rather than saturation and that is where the beauty is.
If you are inclined to read these two are the best descriptions I have ever read
http://hephaestusaudio.com/media/2008/11/distortion_aes_ii.pdf
http://www.archive.org/details/TubesVersusTransistors-IsThereAnAudibleDifference

Ruler flat is ruler flat. The amplifier is not supposed to compensate for listener's ear or room etc.

 

[ajinkya]

As a side note: ruler flat is an unimportant measurement. no ear is Ruler Flat and a flat in room response would mean different things to different people...as their "Listening Curves" are too diverse. so if you and i hear the same setup , our brains will represent them differently.

Completely agree that a rule-flat amp may not sound so to each person and in-room response plays an important part. However, other things being equal (or flat!), a ruler-flat amp response is a clear indication that the device is not artificially boosting certain frequency ranges, and that the input is being amplified faithfully. So, I do not think it is an unimportant measurement while designing and testing an amp. If the room response is really wonky, that is a problem at the user end, not something the designer can fix or should worry about.

 

[cricfansd]

The freq response of Sugden amp is not bad at all. It has rolled of highs and lows which are typical of most tube amps and ruler flat everywhere. Also the distortion is below 0.1% when it is driven at less than 10 W. All it means that you need a very efficient speaker may be in 98-100 db/W/m range which is exactly what it was tested on.
So taking one particular component of measurement and saying a 10% distortion sounds great is disingenuous. I am sure you never heard 10% distortion. Tube or no tube it will sound ugly.

 

[cricfansd]

Hi Mahiruha

What you are saying makes sense to me, that we are all in some way conditioned to what we perceive as good or bad and this applies to all walks of life, including music. Given the same song, a US mastering engineer will handle it differently from a Japanese or from a British engineer. The Japanese and most Asians like a little more treble, the Europeans like it a little laid back whereas the US guys like a big stage.

This is very true. I have been involved in designing some of the big name video equipments in my professional life. Japanese most of the time want "in your face" frequency response compared to the Europeans even to the extent that aliasing is desirable for them if it gives you every last detail. Europeans on the other hand will rather not have any enhancement lest it shows artifacts.