[SP Wild]

I remember being in a Hi-Fi store browsing, when I swear I thought I heard someone playing an acoustic guitar and singing in the auditioning rooms - they were auditioning speakers.  I have jammed infinitely in my youth and was fooled.

 

[Shike]

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I remember being in a Hi-Fi store browsing, when I swear I thought I heard someone playing an acoustic guitar and singing in the auditioning rooms - they were auditioning speakers.  I have jammed infinitely in my youth and was fooled.

 
So?  You liked the sound and were fooled - still doesn't make it accurate to real life does it?  We could go as far as debate dispersion characteristics at this point.

 

[SP Wild]

Yup, if one was blindfolded one would believe there was an actual person singing whilst playing an acoustic guitar.  You'd have a blind man fooled - and if a blind man with improved sense of hearing is fooled.....just sayin thats all.
 
Admittedly these were unbelievably expensive speakers.
 
What I wanna hear is someone recording a bus or train passing by and replay that - there's no way I'd be fooled no matter what price the system is.
 
We can get remarkably close!

 

[Sumflow]

Bands used to practice at my house, so that my girlfriend could sing in. One day a band member came over and said he thought there was a real band playing, put it was just my studio monitors playing a few lads from England.
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Originally Posted by SP Wild /img/forum/go_quote.gif  I thought I heard someone playing an acoustic guitar and singing in the auditioning rooms - they were auditioning speakers.

Binaural recordings could do the train bit, try:  Thunder

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Originally Posted by SP Wild /img/forum/go_quote.gif 

What I wanna hear is someone recording a bus or train passing by and replay that - there's no way I'd be fooled no matter what price the system is.

 

[Sumflow]

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Probably Neil’s Barn down in Redwood City. 
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  Neil Young and Crazy Horse 'Ragged Glory'. You can hear they are playing together, live in a studio that must be a big shed going by the acoustics.

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You can see it in “Inside Greendale Bonus.”
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Not only does the audio cable industry need to come up with various measurements, they need to show a correlation between the measurements and sound quality.

See: The truth about speaker wire[size=18pt] [/size]

 

[fishski13]

 
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They are for subjective sound quality determination.

You're missing what I was getting at with him - he says there's accurate to recording and accurate to real life and is arguing that by listening he can get accurate to a real life performance via the same recording apparently.
 
That is simply not the case.  It's still inaccurate whether his subjective impressions lean one way or another - measurements prove that.  He's also not going to extract information that simply isn't there by changing his system - it may strike him as closer to a concert or a real life performance - but inherently isn't and won't ever be as long as mastering is present on the mix.  Unless he has the masters before they're modified this will always be the case - it will be a mere "interpretation" of the recording, or to the cynics in us it's just wrong (for reproducing the signal).

you sure are making a lot of assumptions and putting a lot of words into my mouth here.  i said it was a flip comment and was not attempting to argue one way or another. but i agree, hi-fi reproduction will never be the real thing.

 

 

[Shike]

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you sure are making a lot of assumptions and putting a lot of words into my mouth here.  i said it was a flip comment and was not attempting to argue one way or another.
 
What was the point of the "build and listen" for yourself comment then?  It's not like you quoted anything so that was all that made sense.
 
but i agree, hi-fi reproduction will never be the real thing.

At least we're on the same page here.

Responses in bold.

 

[fishski13]

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Responses in bold.

i can look at the measurements of the DAC1 and y2, but they tell me nothing about the sound differences.  both measure very well, but why do they sound different to me?   i know what the output devices and schematics are in the y2, but not the DAC1.  build, learn, and listen.   

 

[Shike]

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i can look at the measurements of the DAC1 and y2, but they tell me nothing about the sound differences.  both measure very well, but why do they sound different to me?   i know what the output devices and schematics are in the y2, but not the DAC1.  build, learn, and listen.   

 
Have you actually performed a level matched DBT with them?  If so what was the methodology?

 

[fishski13]

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Have you actually performed a level matched DBT with them?  If so what was the methodology?

no, i feel this would be a waste of my time as there are clear differences.  i'm indifferent and could care less if one sounded better than the other.  they actually sound equally excellent, but i prefer the presentation of the y2 with my HP gears, and the DAC1 is left serving it's duty in my speaker rig as a pre/DAC.  i don't feed the hype engine around here and there's no placebo.    
 
i don't want to get dragged into an argument about the validity of DBT - i do believe in it, but with caveats.  i have nothing to prove to anyone here, and don't wish to.  i merely replied/opined to the OP and said i agreed with you twice.  and here's three times for you: yes, the mini-3 will drive the K70x to ear-splitting levels without clipping. 
 

 

[Shike]

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no, i feel this would be a waste of my time as there are clear differences . . .

 

That's what every believer says whether it be amps, DACs, or cables.  There's multiple reasons for placebo beyond hype, such as accomplishment of building, wishing for a cheaper but also competent design to be better, etc.
 
It can't be mentioned enough, but placebo can have physiological impact too on a person.  This is why it's important to test under scrutiny as yourself may be responsible for the differences you hear without them existing in actuality.
 
While this thread IS based on opinion to some extent - it's also in the sound sciences.  Surely you can understand opinion formed without some level of empirical evidence does not really fit.
 
 
More importantly, if the differences are so profound than DBT should be perfectly fine by you without caveats.  After all the differences are clear (large I presume) right?

 

[fishski13]

duly noted.  i want the best possible sound in my HP kit and i get to make the choice between the DAC1 and y2.  if i still had my DT990/600 and only an M3 for amp, the DAC1 would be the one.  just different flavors, not a "OMG!!!! this XYZ pisses on that ABC from a high cliff and you're tinned-eared for thinking otherwise".
 
profound and large differences, hell no.  i'm by no means proclaiming golden ears, but people may have different listening habits and have different biases.   
 
the caveats mean that you have ample hours of comparison in a familiar system before the DBT - totally valid.
 
i'm done arguing.  PM en route. 

 

[Currawong]

Quick thoughts on this are: An upgrade to a component will make a significant difference if it's (significantly) the weakest component in a rig.  You can't generalise that one particular type of component always make the biggest difference.  You could upgrade something and have it make little or no difference for one reason or another.  As well, the difference could just be in the tonal balance, so what is just a change may come across as an improvement, or even sound worse.
 
You've posted this in (Un)Sound Science too, so now you'll get all the religious zealots posting, drowning out anything useful.  Have fun. 

 
Oh, I vote music too, by the way.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

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So?  You liked the sound and were fooled - still doesn't make it accurate to real life does it?  We could go as far as debate dispersion characteristics at this point.

I have also had an experience thinking there was a band playing, but it was a hifi. I do understand your point Shike. I think that our difference is that you say we cannot know the actual recorded sound and what is real. But I say we can have a very good representation of it, based on having heard live music and what the various instruments sound like and what sounds accurate to my subjective ears.

 
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Probably Neil’s Barn down in Redwood City. 

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You can see it in “Inside Greendale Bonus.”
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See: The truth about speaker wire[size=18pt] [/size]

Wow, that is exactly what I was imagining it to be like. It is also the exact opposite of Pink Floyd and their 1970s albums. Going by Nick Mason's story of life in the band, they often recorded their music individually, with tracks taking days of recording and re-recording and mixing etc. So their sound, whilst superb, is clearly not one take in a shed.

 

[Shike]

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I have also had an experience thinking there was a band playing, but it was a hifi. I do understand your point Shike. I think that our difference is that you say we cannot know the actual recorded sound and what is real. But I say we can have a very good representation of it, based on having heard live music and what the various instruments sound like and what sounds accurate to my subjective ears.

That's what I was getting at.  However, what sounds realistic to one person may not sound like it to another - the only way to be sure is for the quality of the recording to convey it and accurately reproduce the recording.  Taking something that's already not true to the world so to speak, then going even further away, can only make the situation more convoluted.  Thus, I believe if one's going to go for even a shadow of accurate to life they need a recording recorded for the purpose, with minimal mastering, and a transducer that follows the signal rather than trying to shape it.  A transducer will never be able to reproduce the exact characteristics of a person at a piano singing in a room for example though, we can only get so close.
 
What makes this situation worse with trying to shape by transducer is the closer to real life the recording is, the further away you'll get by using such a transducer making the efforts counter-productive.
 
As for the "mistaken band or singing", I've had relatives and friends that thought someone was singing in my room back when I had a crappy pair of JBL E60s if I remember right.  Heck, I've had it happen with a set of Logitech's - so I can't be surprised if someone mistook an even better setup yet.  No one would mistake it for a band in my room though for obvious reasons - it's just not expected.  Whereas a room used for gigs or recording it would be expected, and as such leaves room for more imagination that someone may indeed be in there.  Maybe I'm being overly cynical though, who knows?
 
Regardless, I understand having transducers you like the sound of for fun though.  I have a Stax set I know isn't accurate, and some dynamics are surely faster as shown on some waterfall plots amusingly.  Nonetheless I still enjoy them despite this for fun listening.  In fact, my K601 is my only true "reference" pair in terms of desirable attributes for reproduction (picked for specifically that reason).
 
I guess my point is:  I rather spend my time looking for a better recording itself that is more "real to life" to play on an accurate system than chase a unicorn by guessing on something you can't know (I think the odds of getting it are worse than winning the lottery ten times straight )   There's only one form of accurate in this context, but you can try and find what you subjectively consider "realistic", which is much more plausible than "accurate" so to speak.  Maybe it's just an argument over semantics now that I think about it, heh.
 
I'll leave it at that though, as my write-up is probably long enough as is