[nick_charles]

Quote:

 I see you have a problem with that, that someone actually understands something that you don't, has performed experiments that you haven't that allowed me to gain that understanding.

 
 
Lots of people know lots more about lots of different topics than I do or ever will do. I bow to their superior knowledge and skills when appropriate. Why only today I had to decline to review a conference paper as I did not have sufficient expertise in that subfield, in the words of Dirty Harry "A man's gotta know his limitations".
 
However magical thinking is still magical thinking  however well qualified/educated/skilled/dedicated or even intelligent the puryeror is !
 
Your posts imply "I can rememeber what it sounded like before" even if the before is days ago. To tell if two things are different you really need a direct comparison like a rapid swich between the two - relying on old memory is really weak evidence unless the differences are gross. When you tell me that two things measure the same but sound different ....well there are numerous possible interpretations, one is that there is some fundamental gap in our world knowledge , one is that the comparsion was badly done (not level matched and so on) and another is that , well you just imagined it - I'm not being rude here - nobody is immune from this !

 

[germanium]

Quote:

 
 
Lots of people know lots more about lots of different topics than I do or ever will do. I bow to their superior knowledge and skills when appropriate. Why only today I had to decline to review a conference paper as I did not have sufficient expertise in that subfield, in the words of Dirty Harry "A man's gotta know his limitations".
 
However magical thinking is still magical thinking  however well qualified/educated/skilled/dedicated or even intelligent the puryeror is !
 
Your posts imply "I can rememeber what it sounded like before" even if the before is days ago. To tell if two things are different you really need a direct comparison like a rapid swich between the two - relying on old memory is really weak evidence unless the differences are gross. When you tell me that two things measure the same but sound different ....well there are numerous possible interpretations, one is that there is some fundamental gap in our world knowledge , one is that the comparsion was badly done (not level matched and so on) and another is that , well you just imagined it - I'm not being rude here - nobody is immune from this !

You don't get it & appearantly never will just like Hot Shot  No usefull information at all.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

You don't get it & appearantly never will just like Hot Shot  No usefull information at all.

 
I get it perfectly well, you inhabit a magical world where you don't have to justify anything with rational explanations, where your subjective experience unfettered by careful comparison trumps the laws of physics and causality, did they not introduce the concept of rigour to you at University?. What little I remember of Physics/Electricity was full of rules and laws without which you could not make even a simple motor let alone create complex circuits - how did this wonderful education get lost on you ?
 
I keep giving you useful information which you choose to ignore.
 
One last attempt: cause and effect - you dont get an effect without a cause - you keep saying you experience an effect but cannot give the cause - does that not look irrational to you ?
 
You compare me to BigShot  - I am sympathetic with him on some issues but I disagree somewhat with him on his approach (Bigshot might say - all cables sound the same, I would say I have measured some cables and they measured the same and I tried DBTs with these cables and they sounded the same to me) - you are attempting to insult me by association - good luck with that - you tried to bait me once before (you do know that my early background is in Psychology ? - a dubious science at times but you almost always learn a few tricks from any discipline) 

 

[germanium]

Quote:

 
I get it perfectly well, you inhabit a magical world where you don't have to justify anything with rational explanations, where your subjective experience unfettered by careful comparison trumps the laws of physics and causality, did they not introduce the concept of rigour to you at University?. What little I remember of Physics/Electricity was full of rules and laws without which you could not make even a simple motor let alone create complex circuits - how did this wonderful education get lost on you ?
 
I keep giving you useful information which you choose to ignore.
 
One last attempt: cause and effect - you dont get an effect without a cause - you keep saying you experience an effect but cannot give the cause - does that not look irrational to you ?
 
You compare me to BigShot  - I am sympathetic with him on some issues but I disagree somewhat with him on his approach (Bigshot might say - all cables sound the same, I would say I have measured some cables and they measured the same and I tried DBTs with these cables and they sounded the same to me) - you are attempting to insult me by association - good luck with that - you tried to bait me once before (you do know that my early background is in Psychology ? - a dubious science at times but you almost always learn a few tricks from any discipline) 

 
 
You still are not providing any useful information.
 
I have done many experiments in my 55 some odd years & I for one can see why DBT sometimes misses even gross changes to audio. because people feel pressured to hear a difference they sometime even miss the obvious. I happen to know what changes I have made to the sound at different stages & not all changes were completely positive at all stages of my experimentation which I have admitted here , but I was able to fix what was wrong by carying on with what I was doing by modding the previous stage as well. My hearing may not be what it was as a teenager but is still fine enough to be able to ascertain what sounds correct when  I have a know source  from the recorded instrument all the way through to the reproduced end. The question should be does it sound realistic? Does it sound believable? The answer is that with my system it does to both questions.
 
I compared you with Big Shot because you both seem closed minded & won't accept the evidence that I have provided The only way to prove any thing sound wise is to hear it for your self which you are unwilling to even try. That I cannot provide unless you do what I have done. If you did I think your opinion would change radically.

 

[mikeaj]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall any (high quality, meeting the standards of peer-reviewed publications, or something like that) evidence that was provided.  Surely to make statements about small effects and expect everyone to believe them, one has to control for relatively large effects of memory degrading over time, expectation bias, etc.?
 
There's a difference between not considering evidence at all and not accepting it without reservation.  Since when is it close-minded to reject some evidence and not others?

 

[rhythmdevils]

Detailed is when you can hear the farts, revealing is when you can smell them too. 

 

[NimbleTurtle]

Quote:

Detailed is when you can hear the farts, revealing is when you can smell them too. 

That seems like a good way of describing them. 

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

 
 
You still are not providing any useful information.
 
I have done many experiments in my 55 some odd years
 
As a mere stripling of 54 I bow to your extra age, I too have done lots of tinkering with hifi over the years back from the days of trying out different turntable supports to braiding my own speaker cable from solid core mains cable - the endless TT adjustments the careful measurement , placement and toeing-in of speakers, swapping out turntable arms,stylii,  blah drone etc. Every change I made seemed to make a difference, but actual meaningful critical auditory memory is too short. It is impossible to remember exactly what something sounded like an hour ago let alone a day ago unless the differences are huge. In other words I sympathize with your thinking, I was afflicted by it myself, still am sometimes.
 
 
& I for one can see why DBT sometimes misses even gross changes to audio. because people feel pressured to hear a difference they sometime even miss the obvious.
 
1. This is an archetypal subjectivist response, along the lines of the "I know the Masters and Clark (Do All Amps Sound the same?, 1988) study is flawed as I know these amps sound different"
2. Stress is bad, sometimes. Big stress is almost always bad, but a small amount of stress can enhance performance. I like the challenge of DBTs, maybe that is just me, they tell me just what my perceptual limits are, sure it is touch depressing to know I'll never hear above 15K again but that is life.
 
 
I happen to know what changes I have made to the sound at different stages & not all changes were completely positive at all stages of my experimentation which I have admitted here , but I was able to fix what was wrong by carying on with what I was doing by modding the previous stage as well. My hearing may not be what it was as a teenager but is still fine enough to be able to ascertain what sounds correct when  I have a know source  from the recorded instrument all the way through to the reproduced end. The question should be does it sound realistic? Does it sound believable? The answer is that with my system it does to both questions.
 
Even Edison back in 1908 was able to hoodwink listeners to think his recordings were live performances (See Dr. Sean Olive's (Harman) Audio musings for a fascinating description) - granted Edison did load the dice but fooling people's senses is easy and we can just as easily fool ourselves - Wilson years ago demonstrated their Speakers with a $20K CD player and of course listeners thought the sound was wonderful. Then they removed the shell from the CD player and underneath was a 2nd gen iPod.
 
An amusing case I cite a a lot (from another forum) concerns a guy who compares his boutique amp against a cheapo Onkyo. When the Onkyo is playing he hears all the faults he expects from a poor amp, when his amp is playing he hears wonderful sound - when the Onkyo is turned off the sound continues, the crap cheap amp he was listening to was his own beloved boutique amp. Are you immune to this kind of bias ?
 
 
I compared you with Big Shot because you both seem closed minded & won't accept the evidence that I have provided The only way to prove any thing sound wise is to hear it for your self which you are unwilling to even try. That I cannot provide unless you do what I have done. If you did I think your opinion would change radically.
 
In my close-mindedness I joined the AES at my own expense to get access to their library of peer-reviewed papers on audio topics, I've spent years researching audio issues, evaluating evidence and doing my own "experiments"

 

[LizardKing1]

Quote:

& I for one can see why DBT sometimes misses even gross changes to audio. because people feel pressured to hear a difference they sometime even miss the obvious.
 
1. This is an archetypal subjectivist response, along the lines of the "I know the Masters and Clark (Do All Amps Sound the same?, 1988) study is flawed as Iknow these amps sound different"
2. Stress is bad, sometimes. Big stress is almost always bad, but a small amount of stress can enhance performance. I like the challenge of DBTs, maybe that is just me, they tell me just what my perceptual limits are, sure it is touch depressing to know I'll never hear above 15K again but that is life.

 
I'd like to add that if a difference is subtle enough to evaporate under pressure, it's probably not worth the hassle to eliminate it, let alone pay considerably for it.
Also all DBT audio studies I've seen, which aren't actually a lot, gave the participants as long as they wanted to make a decision, and the resuls were the usual.

 

[Deathwish238]

Revealing and detailed are related. Revealing headphones show the details of a recording. No such thing as good or bad details, they just are. Raw, less mastered tracks where the instruments may sound off to you can be greatly enjoyable if you simply appreciate the music as it is. Happens a lot with black metal where overmastering like most things are subjected to today is frowned upon.
 
 
Quote:

 
You are still refusing to show me any connection between objective measurable parameters where these changes make their presence known and your subjective experience. Unless I am missing something fundamental your answer above suggests you make changes which have no measurable effect but magically improve the sound in some way that cannot be objectively pinned down - what am I missing ?

 
I don't think you're missing anything. The changes are not measurable.
 
 
 

The purpose of science is not to analyse or describe but to make useful models of the world. A model is useful if it allows us to get use out of it.
 
It is obvious to me that something has to change in the way that people anylize & design amplification to take into account these losses that come from electrolytics.
 

 
The purpose of a model is to describe and analyse the world. To really do your experiment properly, you'ld need to have the unmodified unit and the modified unit to compare with using a variety of music you don't already critically listen to all the time(to help minimize expectation bias). What would make this more interesting is if changing caps on other units would yield similar changes. Then you can begin to make a positive correlation.