500+ Member: Building amps and assuring water resistance.
Phase Distortion
Yes this shows how previously accepted theory are later shown to be less that correct however I maintain still useful for study,
See Toole, Floyd E., "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms - The Stereo Past and the Multichannel Future," 109th AES Conv., Los Angeles, Sept 2000.
Lip****z, Stanly P., Pocock, Mark, and Vanderkooy, John, "On the Audibility of Midrange Phase Distortion in Audio Systems,' J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 30, No, 9, Sept. 1982, pp 580-595.
An interesting reconciliation game here would be to have a design contest for the simplest DIY circuit that lit up a green LED when you plugged in a Burr Brown OPA-627, and a red LED when you plugged in an Analog Device AD-8610. People would of course divide on whether such a circuit is even possible in theory, how accurately anyone could separate into bins a few dozen such chips by listening, and so forth. I'm of the opinion that if you staked enough money on this, there'd be a few dozen different working "discriminator" circuits submitted as entries. I'd love to see how they worked. Someone could then turn this around into a better amp design.
This reminds me of the advent of computer shuffling in duplicate bridge tournaments: Rather than shuffling one deck by hand, writing out the deal, and making copies of the deal for the remaining tables, tournaments started printing out the deal by computer, and making copies for all the tables. Very sensitive bridge players noticed differences in the play of the hands. The computer experts rolled their eyes at this; the computer algorithms for shuffling were drop dead simple and had to work. What was really going on? I proved a theorem with Persi Diaconis on how hand shuffling worked, leading to the recommendation that people should shuffle seven times to achieve a reasonable approximation of randomness. People weren't shuffling enough; the bridge players who noticed something were right.
Here, I have complete faith in the conflict discussed in this thread. I have faith that the subjectivists who notice something are right, and I have faith that the objectivists can come up with better measures that capture what the subjectivists are hearing. Knowing just enough about differential equations to be a danger to myself and others, I read the PSpice links in horror. The objective measurements for audio amps are like sticking a thermometer somewhere in the ocean. Nothing wrong with the theory, but it only goes so far.
Member of the Trade: Rudistor Sound Systems US/Canada Proved that despite its huge size, the CD3000 can be shoved down one's throat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Syzygies
I have faith that the subjectivists who notice something are right, and I have faith that the objectivists can come up with better measures that capture what the subjectivists are hearing.
The only problem is that according to some "audiophiles", the differences in audio quality are there, EVEN, when they are not mesurable by any instrument to the date, nor by anybody, that leads to a couple of conclusions, or they are not hearing absolutelly nothing and all is in their heads due to placebo effect, or what is being measured to the date, is not what really shows that difference.....I'm personally and nothing wrong on that, inclined to believe the first one, as I know that placebo effect exists, and is real, and I have seen (and read) of many cases of well known and good "audiphiles" fail miserably in a really double blind test....
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For the ones concerned about my affiliation with Ultrasone, just read here ...
I do love the Edition 9, and that is my only affiliation with them...and you know what that means, so you have been warned...!!!
Disclaimer: Please assume every single of my statements, to mean: “in my system”, “to my ears”, "in my experience", “in my opinion”, etc...(otherwise stated).
Neutrality, accuracy? OK, just ask yourself first: Do you know for sure how the recording is supposed to sound? So for me euphony is all about!!! Please do yourself a favor, stop listening your gear, and begin to feel the music instead!!!
Home setup: Sony DVP-NC555ES => BJC IC's => RPX-33 MKII/RPX-31 => UE9
"On the go" setup: Panasonic SL-CT570 => Lisa III => Klipsch Images/Sleek SA6
Proved that despite its huge size, the CD3K can be shoved down one's throat...
And how about now the Ultrasone Edition 9?
EQUIPO HEAD-FI HISPANO: DILE ADIOS A TUS AHORROS!!!
Look, the most appropriate measurement is, and it should be obvious, that of the human ear, and this is a point many audio objectivists miss. Measuring by electronic equipment is merely for practical convenience, but listening tests are a must for truly meaningful and comprehensive results. In the sciences where humans are part of the system, from drug testing to psychology experiments, testing on subjects is a given. Specifically regarding perception, companies and researchers working on new video and audio codecs know that the final test that must be passed is that of perception rather than some measured statistic.
On the other hand, this does not really support the subjectivist positions since these perception-based tests must be conducted rigorously to be valid, and they are thus inevitably blind tests (better yet, double blind tests). The frequent objection from the subjectivist camp that a negative in a test doesn't prove lack of difference is correct; however, a series of negatives probabilistically implies that. Of course, the assumption here is that such tests are conducted properly, which generally has not been the case in audio equipment testing. For some good discussion of methodologies that try to satisfy both camps see Jon Risch's comments on the AudioAsylum forums.
One obvious thing has been missed. If the placebo effect really exists why spoil it. If someone swares by the use of a certain power cable that makes drastic improvments to how his system sounds, then why spoil it for him.
Does my Gilmore amp sound better because I spent months building it? Possibly and subjectivly it would. Why ruin it with a double blind test.
The real point in audio is how people enjoy it. I don't care much about mathematics as long as it sounds good to me. Let me keep my placebo. Just don't tell me that in a double blind test it's identical.
/NOTE: Author of above posts does not believe power cables make a difference
Yes and no. This has been discussed at length at the diyaudio forums by people like Steve Eddy and myself. The problem is that many people, if they knew it was only placebo, wouldn't spend the money on it. Therefore subjectivist reviews, by not acknowledging the placebo effect, do a great disservice in spreading their misinformation, making consumers believe there is a difference not accounted by placebo. There is a word for making money based on false claims: scam.
This directly contradicts Lipsh!tz:
Harwood, H. "Audibility of phase effects in loudspeakers." Wireless World, January 1976, pp.30-32.
User wimms at diyaudio also criticizes Lipsh!tz: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showt...853#post518853
However, the following shows that some localization cues are monaural:
"Temporal Localization Cues and Their Role in Auditory Perception." 95th AES Conference, Preprint #3798
Although phase cues between ears are used for localization, some have argued that phase distortion identical to both channels is not perceptible. However, the above article doesn't say monaural localization cues are only amplitude dependent, so I it leaves the possibility that monaural phase cues matter for localization.
Linear Mode
