[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

 
I've pointed out before that there never have been any rules set regarding the kinds of posts that are allowed in the Sound Science forum. There is a rule about keeping discussion on-topic, however.
 
 

 
And I'm just saying I think there should be. Otherwise, there's not much point. I mean, there's nothing preventing technical discussions from taking place in the other forums. There are however rules against the discussion of or demanding DBT's in some of the other forums. And as long as that's the case, I think Sound Science should be the compliment of that. People can talk about "how it sounds" in those other forums, but here they'll need to back it up with something more than "I trust my ears." Either that or they can post elsewhere.
 
I don't see why this should be such an unreasonable request.
 
Quote:

Maybe we should be strict, however, and the Sound Science forum should also be limited to discussion by people whom have either an appropriate degree relating to electronic engineering or whom have extensive experience designing audio electronics?

 
Why? An argument doesn't stand or fall based on the degrees or experience the person making the argument has. Arguments stand or fall on their own merits. And it doesn't require someone with a degree or extensive experience to legitimately question or challenge an argument.
 
se

 

[Magick Man]

Ok. But if you're going to talk about "how it sounds" without substantiating it with any sort of controlled listening tests, then I don't see how it's any less masturbation than the plots and mathematics. At least in the Sound Science forum.

se

Where did i say it was less mas****atory? In SS I try hard to include both, because from a scientific perspective, and for the benefit of all involved, one serves to support or challenge the other.

As was said earlier, many of the "top ears" on Head-Fi won't use the HD800 as their primary listening headphone, no matter how technically impressive it is. Because despite its beautiful graphs, for many it doesn't make beautiful music.

 

[purrin]

Well, it is measurably bright, in the lower treble, middle treble, and upper treble, at least with my FR graphs. 

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Where did i say it was less mas****atory? In SS I try hard to include both, because from a scientific perspective, and for the benefit of all involved, one serves to support or challenge the other.
 

 
"How it sounds" doesn't support or challenge anything unless it's backed up by some sort of controlled listening tests.
 
Quote:

As was said earlier, many of the "top ears" on Head-Fi won't use the HD800 as their primary listening headphone, no matter how technically impressive it is. Because despite its beautiful graphs, for many it doesn't make beautiful music.

 
Ok. But I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
 
se

 

[Magick Man]

Well, it is measurably bright, in the lower treble, middle treble, and upper treble, at least with my FR graphs. 

Not that much more than the SR-009s, really. But then, the 009s have truly shocking <.01% THD numbers...

 

[rhythmdevils]

You must not have looked at his FR graph of HD800 and SR009 if that's the conclusion you came to. 

 

[purrin]

Quote:

 
And I'm just saying I think there should be. Otherwise, there's not much point. I mean, there's nothing preventing technical discussions from taking place in the other forums. There are however rules against the discussion of or demanding DBT's in some of the other forums. And as long as that's the case, I think Sound Science should be the compliment of that. People can talk about "how it sounds" in those other forums, but here they'll need to back it up with something more than "I trust my ears." Either that or they can post elsewhere.
 
I don't see why this should be such an unreasonable request.

 
That might not be a bad idea. But you know that's going to piss off some "objectivists" who parrot other people's claims such as "op-amp based circuits sound no worse than discrete circuits", because they are going to have to back that statement up with actual blind tests rather than take the stance that such a null hypothesis is absolute truth to begin with (and beat people over their heads with such "truths".)
 
It seems the opposite of "I trust my ears" now on HF is "I know X because Y says so and has Z measurement (which in reality only relates a little bit to X) to conclusively prove so. And everyone who doesn't know X is a retard bourgeois subject to placebo and wasting their money. And BTW, I'm not trolling, I'm just calling it as it is." All you have you to do is to read the first two posts from the OP. I think you are arguing semantics with Currawong and not knowing where he is coming from as a moderator.
 
There's a reason why people who have the ability to take measurements don't post them here anymore nor even want to discuss them here. Inexperienced people, for whatever reason, come to all sorts of wild conclusions like dismissing important key measurements or overemphasizing very basic and simple measurements of limited scope. You are making an assumption that inexperienced or less knowledgeable people will ask intelligent questions rather than vomit assertions to "prove" their subject matter expertise when they in fact know very little about what they are talking about.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Not that much more than the SR-009s, really. But then, the 009s have truly shocking <.01% THD numbers...

 
Really?  
 
At 100dB?  Let's look at 90dB and the spikes and all the other metrics.
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SZ91278afterburnin.pdf

 

[ultrabike]

Quote:

Either way I think the importance of CSD gets exaggerated by few when most above average headphones decay more than fast enough IME.
 

 
Take two linear systems (like headphones) with similar FR magnitude (almost identical) but different FR phase. It is guaranteed that their IR will be different (very much so in some cases.) Given the differences in the IR due to the FR phase dissimilarities, and the process by which CDS plots are generated (successive FFTs of the time domain sliding windowed IR), I could intuitively see how CDS plots may convey the FR phase response missing information in a readable way.
 
More importantly, issues conveyed through CDS plots have been correlated to inaccurate sound reproduction. So I wouldn't be too quick at dismissing their importance.

 

[estreeter]

Can someone either confirm or deny the assertion made earlier in the thread  that full Class A amps take the power out of the equation (assuming you have a reliable 120V/230V source, of course) ?  Does that mean owners of class A amps can dispense with conditioners and expensive power cords etc ? 

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Take two headphones with similar FR magnitude but different FR phase. It is guaranteed that their IR will be different (very much so in some cases.) Given the differences in the IR due to the FR phase dissimilarities, and the process by which CDS plots are generated (successive FFTs of the time domain sliding windowed IR), I could intuitively see how CDS plots may convey the FR phase response missing information in a readable way.
 
More importantly, issues conveyed through CDS plots have been correlated to inaccurate sound reproduction. So I wouldn't be too quick at dismissing their importance.

 
Well, obviously measurements don't mean very much to an objectivist that can't hear a difference.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Can someone either confirm or deny the assertion made earlier in the thread  that full Class A amps take the power out of the equation (assuming you have a reliable 120V/230V source, of course) ?  Does that mean owners of class A amps can dispense with conditioners and expensive power cords etc ? 

 
Removing the components in question from consideration, why would noise in the PS be affected/negated by a Class A amp?

 

[Magick Man]

"How it sounds" doesn't support or challenge anything unless it's backed up by some sort of controlled listening tests.

Actually it does, because there are people on this forum whose ears I trust, and both sources of information are worth more together than apart.

Ok. But I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

If a person buys HD800s solely based on what they perceive to be flat compensated measurements, they'll:

A. Be surprised to find their ears bleeding?
B. Think, "so this is what neutral really sounds like?"
C. Get frustrated over the graphs and start assigning blame? (I've seen this happen a couple times around here.)
D. All of the above?

However, if they had just asked, "I've seen the charts, but do they tell the whole story?" They would have been better informed.

 

[Magick Man]

Really?  

At 100dB?  Let's look at 90dB and the spikes and all the other metrics.

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SZ91278afterburnin.pdf

I'm saying the 009's numbers are shockingly low, not high. At 90dB, they may be the lowest of all Tyll's measurements to date.

 

[purrin]

Departing thoughts...
 

• There should be nothing wrong with this approach: this is what I personally observe "take it or leave it" and this is what I measure. Because at least it's a qualifier for the subjective impressions. And it's a start in gathering more data points, however unreliable each individual data point could be.
• Everything would sound like that fricking O2 amp if no one ever dared to say "I trust my ears" and relied on their 'scopes. And that would be horrible, just absolutely horrible.