Ahhh, something I can acutally respond to :-)
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
Your arguments are much too complicated.
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I have many arguments, some simple and some complicated. But complicated doesn't mean wrong.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
It's not about the degree of perfection of an equipment category.
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You need to define the "it" we are talking about. When I talked about the possible fidelity of a DVD player's video signal vs. the fidelity of a high end audio system it was to point out that the higher fidelity of audio systems means that the can have more near threshold of detection differences. Whereas the lower fidelitiy of DVD systems put their differences primarily within the range of human physical sensitivity because of the lower visual resolution and color gamut.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
It's simply about different sensitivity with different people.
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Again, you need to define what the "it" is in this argument. We can go back and forth over and over and not get anywhere because we are both talking about a different, undefined "it."
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
While it's harder to prove this point with audio (where some sonic or measuring criteria are disputed),
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Yes, it is. The audio differences--if they exist--may or may not be within the physical range of hearing of an individual and
separately may or may not be within their ability to psychologically perceive.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
it's easier to make a video analogy.
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Yes, it is easier to make the analogy. But to what end?
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
Your implication that the variations of perception thresholds among different people (e.g. with different degrees of experience) are fundamentally different for video and for audio is arbitrary.
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I only mentioned
physical range of perception not psychological range of perception--which can be trained. One of my points was that the differences in DVD signals were all within the
physical range of average human perception which implies that, perhaps, almost anyone could learn to see the differences since they are within the range of our senses. In high end audio the differences can be within the range of
average human physical perception, above average human physical perception, or entirely beyond human physical perception. This means that in some cases ordinary people can learn to hear the differences, in some cases only extraordinary people can learn to hear the differences, and in some cases no human can learn to hear the difference. Thus, the difference I posit is that generally differences in DVD player visual artifacts are within the normal
physical range of perception but at least some of the audio differences are beyond normal
physical perception and some are beyond all human perception. In
that sense the the two phenomena are different. You can argue that the analogy is right in some other nuance, perhaps, but my argument with your position does not, I think, result from a fundamental misunderstanding of your argument but a disagreement with it. When you use analogy you can gain from its strengths but you also lose from its weaknesses.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
Moreover to think that audio reproduction be perfect, in contrast to video reproduction, is arbitrary as well.
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I don't think that audio reproduction is perfect, nor can you point to
anywhere that I have said so. (This may be the reason that rsaavedra didn't think to argue a point I never made.) I was, however, presuming high quality consumer systems. For instance I mentioned the phrase "high quality sound systems." I didn't think I needed to expand on that but clearly I was wrong. It is merely factual, not arbitrary, that technology allows for higher relative fidelity in audio reproduction than video production. The physics and data required are dramatically different. There is no such thing as an un-compressed consumer playback format, for instance. And even "un-compressed" video can still have "compression" in the form of color sub-sampling and less than adequate color-space.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
Your only criterion (IIRC) seems to be the high (enough) bandwidth.
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Not my only criterion. It just happened to be one that made my explanation obvious.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
Now audio isn't just about frequency response -- there are other criteria, such as harmonic and intermodulation distortion, transient and phase response -- where audio reproduction is far from perfection. But in fact these points don't really matter in the context of rsaavedra's analogy.
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Then there is no point for you to mention them.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
Just take the video analogy as example for how different people have different perception thresholds.
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Here is where you are, perhaps, inadvertently oversimplifying. Perception has at least two fundamental components. The
physical range of our senses and our
psychological ability to interpret that physical perception. You can not train your psychological ability to exceed the physical potential of your eyes or ears. The video analogy does show how people can be more or less observant in their psychological perception but it ignores the fact that audio differences can exceed our physical limits. This is important because we can train people to see the differences in DVD playback and hear certain differences in audio. But with audio, people will always be able to claim that even a trained person may not be able to hear the difference because their physical hearing ability isn't up to the task. This complicates testing cables because in makes "falsification" harder to do because you can never be sure if the difference might be audible to
someone. In such a case, you test with people who claim to hear a difference and you have to make conclusions from that. Science is always open to new data, albeit slowly.
It could just be that we were thinking about different parts of the analogy for different reasons.
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Originally Posted by JaZZ
And take it easy!  . |
Always
