No kidding...This is the Ultimate Tweak!! The Audio Desk System - Page 9

No worries, Raul. We're still pals! Thanks for the link. It correctly points out that I forgot to use the central limit theorem in my listening tests. In fact, I didn't do any square roots at all.

But imagine that you're in a busy section of Manhattan and need to walk 5 block to get from one building to another; two blocks in one direction and 3 in the other. No matter how you might chart your course, the distance you need to travel is 5 blocks. You know it, and there is no way of refuting it because the big buildings all get in the way of the straight line that OLS regression suggests is the path you ought to walk. You know it's 5 blocks, but your measurement device keeps telling you that it's the square root of 13 (i.e., the square root of 2 squared plus 3 squared since those are how far the data points are off of the goodness of fit line). In other words, sometimes scientific measurement just doesn't fit with observable reality.

Or to put it another way, you can pull the wrong tool out of your tool kit. Worse yet, you might encounter a job for which you don't have the proper tool. Worse still, you may encounter a job for which the proper tool has not yet been created. Or to put it yet another way, I think that it's entirely possible and dare I say probable that there are things that we humans are capable of hearing with our own two ears (and rather effortlessly at that) for which science hasn't yet caught up.

Not saying that science is incapable of developing measurement devices that are as complicated and capable (or indeed much more complicated and capable) than the human ear in conjunction with the human brain, but it is at least possible (or so I surmise) that not everything that is measurable is being properly measured at this point in time. I'm not sure what relevance, if any, this proposition may have on the debate at hand, nor that it would even matter to anyone (on either side of the debate) if we could pinpoint what its implications might be. Just throwing out the possibility that science, too, has its limitations.

Kind reminds of when you and Guru and I were in Tampa many years ago after the first-ever Florida meet, doing some informal listening tests as we sat around a coffee table. You picked up on something really funky going on with the CD3000's. You were hearing it clearly and describing it well. I couldn't quite pick up on it myself, but you were convinced, so I nodded along. My not hearing it didn't mean that it didn't exist, or that you weren't hearing it, so I went along with the program. I could have just as easily argued with you, but you were hearing it with your own ears and were convinced of it, time and time again as you kept playing the same section of the song in question over and over again. How could I refute that?

You were trusting your ears and I trusted what you were telling me that your ears were telling you. But I was probably wrong, and I'm Ok with that. Except that it would mean that you weren't hearing what you thought you were hearing. Are you Ok with that?

I actually didn't get down to the significance calculations :P Lazy of me. I used "significant" in a loose informal way meaning "strong enough" support; not necessarily "statistically significant." Even though, of course, the statistical definitions are based on the same intuitions I was thinking of.


Of course we are Wayne!

Gee good memory! If I remember well the culprit was the bass, in the CD3Ks too overpowering (to my ears) when driving them with the Microzotl. Senn HD600's and R10's sounded absolutely great from the Microzotl, but the CD3K's to my ears were noticeably boomier on certain songs (Madonna, Perfect Circle.)

Raul, I've just edited the end of my last post (must have been while you were replying). Reread the last 2 paragraphs of that post. I'd be interested in your reaction!

Madonna, huh? That must have been the problem. Listening to that kind of c*** will mess up anyone's head! You know, it took me about 3 years in the early 80s to realize that Madonna and Cyndi Lauper were two different people. Ok, so I'm kidding, but that's about how much attention I paid to that attention seeking w****.

(Boy, that was a fun use of the **** key!)

Yes I'm ok with that Wayne. I'm aware of what's so commonly said here on Head-fi, that our hearing senses are all different; and I'm also aware of the fact that my senses, my hearing and my brain, can play very subtle tricks on me as well as other people's brains on them.

I'd like to quote part of the Critical Thinking entry in Wikipedia, which has lots of advice on becoming aware of our own cognitive bias, and how to try to overcome it:

I always try to avoid saying I know something, because indeed most things in our so called "knowledge" boil down to being matters of holding a belief, rather than having actual direct knowledge of a universally accepted truth on the subject in question.

LOL!

Still, that kind of c*** sounded great out of the Microzotl --> R10's and HD600's Not so from the Microzotl --> CD3K's; once again, to my ears.

Good post, and well put by both yourself and the source you quote. I think that often times this is essentially the nub of the "problem" (such that it really is a problem) in discussion forums such as Head-Fi.

You have one person who is tying to say, "Hey I really like the way these trimmed discs sound..." Then you have another person who is saying, "No, that can't be..." In truth, each is finding the thread to be interesting (at least initially) for an entirely different reason. One is sort of happy that he's not the only nut case that can hear the difference that the tweak in question produces, and the other is wanting to engage in an intellectual discussion about all sorts of other things (i.e., is in the critical thinking mode). Neither is trying to do any harm, and both believe in what they are attempting to point out.

But you don't have to forever remain in the critical thinking mode, lest you drive yourself nuts trying to figure out which way to turn every door knob you encounter. Try it a couple of different ways; one of them is bound to work just fine. I think that listening to music can have that same doorknob quality. You don't necessarily need to think all that much about it, and often the less you think about it the more enjoyable it becomes. Yet, there are of course times that you should question and "study" music (as well as musical reproduction) and to be "serious" about the whole process. Without cycling back and forth into those phases your knowledge and understanding of the hobby that you so love will never expand. But it's definitely a Catch 22.

How does all of this play out in a forum like Head-Fi? Well, we have a lot of people here who approach the hobby in a lot of different ways. Some take it all much more seriously than do others (whether they regard themselves as objectivists, subjectivists, or as being capable of looking at things with a healthy combination of each). So while one is just having fun and sharing his or her experiences, naturally someone else will come along and point out the potential (or even absolute) flaws in his or her logic, or that what is being proposed is a physical impossibility (at least as best that observer understands the situation).

All to be expected, and nothing really "wrong" with either, as far as I'm concerned. In other words, so long as I'm being honest and not intentionally misleading when I say that in my experience this device works as described and improves sound quality and resolution (quite clearly, in my mind, to the point where there is no debate at all based on my observations), then that's fine. I'd be wrong not to share my experience since so few people here at Head-Fi have any experience with this device. Yet, at the same time, it's perfectly fine for those who don't believe it to state their reasons as to why they think it can't possibly work as described (even though they are wrong! he he). It's all a part of what we do here and is to be expected.

Of course when someone comes along and spams the thread with "snake oil..." and contributes nothing of substance, they shouldn't be surprised if they are greeted with a response like, "academic idiot..." or the like. But thankfully there hasn't been too much of that.

You believe so, based on your experience. Similarly, the skeptics believe that you are wrong, based on their experience and/or what they know (or believe they know) about CD reproduction technology.

I'm not saying much there. Just illustrating again, mostly we have beliefs instead of true verifiable and unquestionable knowledge. That's the case in particular with respect to questionable matters that haven't been settled and haven't achieved universal acceptance.

Regardless of how firmly we state our alleged knowledge, it's mostly just beliefs. Saying we know something, or that I am right and this or that person is wrong about such subjects just indicates how firmly fixed in our beliefs we are; says very little if anything about the subject under discussion.

Because if you don't try to figure out exactly what is causing your system to sound bad, you have no clue how to put together a plan of attack to correct it. Randomly flailing around trying to find what "sounds good" is great if you have unlimited time and unlimited money. For the real world, it makes sense to try to understand why you're hearing what you're hearing.

There's a fundamental disconnect between audiophiles of the 50s-70s and today's audiophiles. The old timers I learned about hifi from talked constantly about how to measure and improve specs. They understood what the numbers meant and they *used* that knowledge to put together great sounding systems. Numbers that didn't translate into good sound didn't matter. They knew the difference.

Today, that seems to have been replaced by a consumer model. You go out and buy the latest magical gadget that promises better sound. You don't try to understand how it works, or even determine *whether* it works... You just buy it and try it. If it doesn't work as well as you'd like it to, you just go out and buy some other magical black box to fix the fix. With every component, you get a ream of techno-double-talk to reassure you that someone has taken the time to think all that bothersome stuff out for you. No need to think! Just sign the credit card receipt!

These must be heady days for high end stereo salesmen!

See ya
Steve

You'd be surprised what was known as far back as the 1920s, when Bell Labs was doing the pioneering research on sound reproduction. There are fundamental principles of acoustics that every acoustician knows from his first year of college that the average audiophile has never bothered to understand and apply to his rig. Instead of throwing up our hands and saying, "Well there must be *something* we don't know yet", it's better to take what we *do* know and apply it intelligently. There are plenty of perfectly understood aspects of sound that remain unaddressed in most audiophile systems. Deal with those before you start chasing down the "plasma fields" and "fourth dimensional rifts".

When one takes the attitude that "science doesn't know everything- so therefore I won't give it credence", they're basically choosing to remain willfully ignorant.

And likewise, when someone spams a thread saying "you can't know until you've heard MY equipment with MY ears" they shouldn't be surprised if they get a similar response... except without the "academic" part.

See ya
Steve

Missed replying to that sentence in my previous post.

Your suggestion does go against the general advice with respect to when to remain in the critical thinking mode: basically, at all times. Once again, quoting Wikipedia:

Steve, I don't want to p*ss in your wheaties here, but this comes across as a bit of a personal issue for you. When were you so maligned by some young whipper-snapper that generation/age based issues became the culprit for the disintegration of good ol' fashioned audio? Did the Yuppie stereo salesman rip you off?

Get with it, and drop the blame game. Not relying on specifications has little to do with a "consumer model", nor is it some problem with the young folk.

I don't have to spend my time in an audio forum on the internet. If you want to know why I'm here offering my observations, it's simple. When I was starting out in hifi, there were some really experienced guys who took the time to explain things to me. They were patient. I was appreciative. Today, the equivalent of this sort of "passing the torch" goes on in internet discussion boards. I share what I know.

There is one difference though... When I was asking questions of the hifi guys back in the mid-70s, I was respectful and I didn't pretend to know more than they did. It's a lot easier to do that behind a keyboard and made up posting name. That's why the amount of noise to signal is so high today. But I'm sure there are those out there who are filtering out the crap and putting together useful information that they'll put into practice.

You're right about one thing though... Not relying on specifications isn't "the consumer model" and it isn't a problem peculiar to youth. It's just plain old willful ignorance. Willful ignorance knows no age or price bracket.

See ya
Steve

This tidbit plus some of the other discussion in the other threads reminds me of a quote by William James that I think is very applicable to what's being discussed:

"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

That means, sometimes, not trusting ones own perceptions until you figure out exactly why you are sensing what you do.

--Chris

Headfi just gets more entertaining day after day. 200 dollar recabling for 170 dollar headphones and now this. Cutting your CDs and adding "transparency, detail, and better bass"

Actually, I think the "snake oil" comments are pretty much accusing people who have shared their real life experiences (based on their equipment and their ears) as being idiots, so there is really no sense in being redundant.

I was using the word academic to be kind. I agree that it would be silly to ask someone to listen to my equipment with my ears. That we can agree would be a physical impossibility. It's their refusal to listen with their own ears that makes their arguments idiotic, except to the extent that they know it all. Hard to deal with those types even in the best of circumstances.