[sander99]

the audio performance was clearly affected, both in terms of clarity, timing and leading edge attack and trailing edge decay

That is not an established fact, that is what you think you heard.

that individuals can reliably hear differences in their own systems that allow them to tune their system to their room and liking, even when evaluating things like cables and digital front ends? Because I can

No, you think that you can, it is not an established fact.

 

[bigshot]

You are wasting my time. Move along.

 

[XTF1]

So, there is (was?) a “knownothing” member on ASR. Same polite, relentless, DDOS-type attack, punctuated with “likes”, on any member willing to engage.

So, how do you measure soundstage?
Answer: 813 !!! …813 posts, including this one!

 

[gregorio]

[1] In general, it is interesting that everyone on this forum seems to know more about my personality and state of mind than I do with regard to all things audio. [2] Again, I come for the technical advice and get a free lesson in psychology.

1. Firstly, it’s not “personality and state of mind”, it’s psychoacoustics 101. Secondly, yes, we are assuming you are a human being, are therefore subject to psychoacoustics and presumably you do experience the stereo illusion and music? And lastly, yes “it is interesting” that you would come to a science discussion forum and argue about psychoacoustics without apparently even knowing you’re arguing about psychoacoustics, let alone knowing/understanding about psychoacoustics!!
2. Exactly, you come “for the technical advice” on a subject that is NOT technical, it’s psychoacoustical and then complain that you’re getting a free lesson in psychoacoustics instead of technical advice?!

This is interesting and informative but does not really explore at what point an overtaxed switching power supply could produce noise/errors that are non-fatal (I.E., resulting in complete loss of signal) but nevertheless audible.

Correct, it does not explore at what point a switching power supply could produce noise/errors that are non-fatal because it makes no difference. The whole point of inventing digital in the first place and the way it works in practice is that it makes no difference! Noise has no effect on digital data transfer unless it is great enough to cause errors, in which case those errors are corrected. The only potential concern is so many errors that the error correction is overwhelmed but then you get a fatal “complete loss of signal”. So, what conditions exist under which noise/errors are non-fatal but are “nevertheless audible”?

[1] What if the jitter produced in the Node under these conditions were greater than 500ns? [2] What if other noise is transferred to the DAC via the SPDIF connection that is audible? [3] What if the overtaxed switching supply in the Node server is feeding added noise over typical background into the mains and that is affecting other components?

Exactly, just another bunch of nonsense “what ifs”!
1. I provided you with reliable evidence that even cheap CD and DVD drives from ~30 years ago produced jitter on average at around 0.15ns. So if the Node, which is a current/modern device that costs ten times more, produces 500ns of jitter (over 3,000 times more jitter) then obviously it’s faulty!
2. Noise has no effect on digital audio unless it is great enough to cause errors!
3. Then it is very seriously defective, even to the point of it potentially being an electrical hazard!

Do you have any reliable evidence for any of the above “what ifs” though, for 500ns of jitter, for noise in the SPDIF signal magically being output by the DAC at audible levels or noise feeding back into the mains and affecting other components? What if when you power up your HDD it generates a couple of microscopic invisible pixies that head straight for your eardrums and start stretching it, wouldn’t that cause your HDD drive to sound flat? Is that a possibility, can you reference any scientific papers disproving it, do you have any “technical advice” about it?

But I do get a sense of unusually energetic defense of the Castle of “science” in this forum that comes off as both condescending and a little bit paranoid. If you’re right, you’re right, and you should be happy in that knowledge. If you’re not right, you might want to be more curious, at least when nobody else is looking.

It’s proven math and digital data transfer could hardly be more exhaustively researched or demonstrated in practice, so how would even the most energetic of defences not be warranted? “If we’re not right”, then digital data transfer would be so unreliable that the digital age would not exist and there would be no digital audio, internet or consumer digital devices of any type.

… the audio performance was clearly affected, both in terms of clarity, timing and leading edge attack and trailing edge decay in comparison with solid state drives.

If the “audio performance was clearly affected” (to audible levels) in ANY terms, why can’t you provide ANY reliable evidence to support that assertion?

Is it possible to hold two potentially opposing concepts in your head at the same time - those being that the results of well designed ABX/DBT tests show no statistical difference between components A and B in group settings are real and valid, and that individuals can reliably hear differences in their own systems that allow them to tune their system to their room and liking, even when evaluating things like cables and digital front ends? Because I can, and if that makes me a “troll” in your eyes, then so be it.

How many times? We are not holding those two opposing concepts in our heads at the same time, only YOU are, the two opposing concepts we’re holding in our heads are:

1. At least a basic knowledge of: How digital audio works, how analogue signals work and what sound is. Of the actual objective measurements of DAC performance, of how those measurements relate to analogue signals and sound (or in fact do not relate!). Of the thresholds of human hearing, of psychoacoustics, perceptual errors and being affected by biases. And additionally, of well designed ABX/DBT tests that corroborate all that knowledge/facts.

2. Audiophiles’ claims that they can “reliably hear differences”, which is contrary to both the facts/knowledge and the controlled tests/studies and which in fact they cannot “reliably hear” under blind conditions. That they “energetically defend” with nothing except falsehoods and fallacies, typically ridiculous fallacies such not being subject to perceptual errors/illusions even though they routinely discuss soundstage (the stereo effect) which is a perceptual illusion.

These are the two opposing concepts we hold in our heads (or at least I do) but the second one is just marketing induced delusion, at least until there’s some reliable evidence to the contrary. But I’m not holding my breath, audiophiles have been promising such evidence for nigh on half a century and still not even a whiff of any, just ever more fallacies, falsehoods and nonsense “what ifs”!

G

Edit: At what point does just endlessly repeating fallacies and nonsense “what ifs”, even AFTER it’s been explained that they’re fallacies/nonsense, does it go from just understandable ignorance to wilful ignorance and then deliberate trolling?

 

[bigshot]

Irresistible force... meet immovable object!

 

[knownothing2]

1. Firstly, it’s not “personality and state of mind”, it’s psychoacoustics 101. Secondly, yes, we are assuming you are a human being, are therefore subject to psychoacoustics and presumably you do experience the stereo illusion and music? And lastly, yes “it is interesting” that you would come to a science discussion forum and argue about psychoacoustics without apparently even knowing you’re arguing about psychoacoustics, let alone knowing/understanding about psychoacoustics!!
2. Exactly, you come “for the technical advice” on a subject that is NOT technical, it’s psychoacoustical and then complain that you’re getting a free lesson in psychoacoustics instead of technical advice?!

Correct, it does not explore at what point a switching power supply could produce noise/errors that are non-fatal because it makes no difference. The whole point of inventing digital in the first place and the way it works in practice is that it makes no difference! Noise has no effect on digital data transfer unless it is great enough to cause errors, in which case those errors are corrected. The only potential concern is so many errors that the error correction is overwhelmed but then you get a fatal “complete loss of signal”. So, what conditions exist under which noise/errors are non-fatal but are “nevertheless audible”?

Exactly, just another bunch of nonsense “what ifs”!
1. I provided you with reliable evidence that even cheap CD and DVD drives from ~30 years ago produced jitter on average at around 0.15ns. So if the Node, which is a current/modern device that costs ten times more, produces 500ns of jitter (over 3,000 times more jitter) then obviously it’s faulty!
2. Noise has no effect on digital audio unless it is great enough to cause errors!
3. Then it is very seriously defective, even to the point of it potentially being an electrical hazard!

Do you have any reliable evidence for any of the above “what ifs” though, for 500ns of jitter, for noise in the SPDIF signal magically being output by the DAC at audible levels or noise feeding back into the mains and affecting other components? What if when you power up your HDD it generates a couple of microscopic invisible pixies that head straight for your eardrums and start stretching it, wouldn’t that cause your HDD drive to sound flat? Is that a possibility, can you reference any scientific papers disproving it, do you have any “technical advice” about it?

It’s proven math and digital data transfer could hardly be more exhaustively researched or demonstrated in practice, so how would even the most energetic of defences not be warranted? “If we’re not right”, then digital data transfer would be so unreliable that the digital age would not exist and there would be no digital audio, internet or consumer digital devices of any type.

If the “audio performance was clearly affected” (to audible levels) in ANY terms, why can’t you provide ANY reliable evidence to support that assertion?

How many times? We are not holding those two opposing concepts in our heads at the same time, only YOU are, the two opposing concepts we’re holding in our heads are:

1. At least a basic knowledge of: How digital audio works, how analogue signals work and what sound is. Of the actual objective measurements of DAC performance, of how those measurements relate to analogue signals and sound (or in fact do not relate!). Of the thresholds of human hearing, of psychoacoustics, perceptual errors and being affected by biases. And additionally, of well designed ABX/DBT tests that corroborate all that knowledge/facts.

2. Audiophiles’ claims that they can “reliably hear differences”, which is contrary to both the facts/knowledge and the controlled tests/studies and which in fact they cannot “reliably hear” under blind conditions. That they “energetically defend” with nothing except falsehoods and fallacies, typically ridiculous fallacies such not being subject to perceptual errors/illusions even though they routinely discuss soundstage (the stereo effect) which is a perceptual illusion.

These are the two opposing concepts we hold in our heads (or at least I do) but the second one is just marketing induced delusion, at least until there’s some reliable evidence to the contrary. But I’m not holding my breath, audiophiles have been promising such evidence for nigh on half a century and still not even a whiff of any, just ever more fallacies, falsehoods and nonsense “what ifs”!

G

Edit: At what point does just endlessly repeating fallacies and nonsense “what ifs”, even AFTER it’s been explained that they’re fallacies/nonsense, does it go from just understandable ignorance to wilful ignorance and then deliberate trolling?

Thanks gregorio, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I will consider your comments carefully along with those from others here. And I can see how my posts here can come off as trolling. That was not my intention. Again, I appreciate your taking the time to respond in detail, you sound like a busy person.

kn

 

[Jhwong]

I believe most people just follow their feelings.

 

[gregorio]

I will consider your comments carefully along with those from others here. And I can see how my posts here can come off as trolling. That was not my intention.

I’m taking that as not your intention, if I thought it were I wouldn’t be wasting my time. It’s a very unfortunate situation, the audiophile community is a strange one, it’s a relatively tiny, niche community that is driven/controlled by a relatively tiny number of tiny manufacturers (and some departments of a handful of large companies), that effectively relies on consumers’ ignorance in order to sell audiophile products. What’s unfortunate about it is that it necessarily isolates itself, in order to control the narrative and frame the argument. For example, the discussion of science is banned on Head-Fi except in this one subforum. The audiophile community therefore only understands the skewed, misrepresented or outright BS facts and arguments as dictated to them by a relatively tiny number of marketers/influencers.

For example, the argument is typically framed as a bunch of dedicated knowledgeable audiophile experts, a few of whom are actually engineers and/or have decades of experience versus a similarly small bunch of scientists and engineers, who don’t really have the passion or sensitivity of audiophiles, and science doesn’t know everything any way. The actual truth couldn’t be more different but audiophiles simply don’t know, understand or even think about it. The actual reality is that analogue and digital data and signalling requires international standards otherwise analogue and digital devices from different companies and different countries would not work with each other, there would be no internet, no international media and no digital or analogue communications. The process of standisation is achieved by a complex structure of various international bodies that has evolved since the 1860’s (when standardisation was first required by the new technology of the telegraph). So, we have organisations such as the ITU, EBU, AES, ISO, IEC, SMPTE and IEEE as well as specialist/specific organisations such as the USB-IF. The USB-IF alone has over 1,000 member companies, including all the biggest ones (Apple, MS, Intel, Samsung, etc.), the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) employs around 20,000 scientists and engineers, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) employs around 60,000 scientists and engineers and the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) is comprised of 395,000 electrical/electronic engineers and scientists. So what we really have is a number of audiophile marketers, a handful of engineers who are primarily audiophile marketers anyway and a bunch of self-proclaimed audiophile experts/influencers with little or no formal training/education in the subject, none of whom have ever contributed even a single meaningful advancement to analogue or digital science/engineering verses more than half a million current, real engineers/scientists who are ALL formally trained/educated in the subject and millions more over the course of a century or so.

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

The audiophile community therefore only understands the skewed, misrepresented or outright BS facts and arguments as dictated to them by a relatively tiny number of marketers/influencers.

@castleofargh

Come on; you let despicable personal attacks and complete lies like this stay hourly without comment, and delete my post simply pointing it out as such?

Really?

 

[bfreedma]

@castleofargh

Come on; you let despicable personal attacks and complete lies like this stay hourly without comment, and delete my post simply pointing it out as such?

Really?

There’s a difference between observations made about a general population vs. personal attacks directed against named individual members.

 

[bigshot]

Thank you Castle

 

[FunkyBassMan]

There’s a difference between observations made about a general population vs. personal attacks directed against named individual members.

Ah, so it's ok to insult people by the millions as long as it's not at one...

(which by the way, it wasn't; it was remarking on the despicableness of the comment, not the person. I don't know the person, but highly doubt he's as despicable his comment)

 

[bfreedma]

Ah, so it's ok to insult people by the millions as long as it's not at one?

Actually, there is a difference between commentary about a group and directly insulting a named member.

“I think people who wear blue shirts are dumb” is quite different than “bfreedma is dumb”. I can choose to ignore/not associate myself with the former, while the latter is clear and directed.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

Actually, there is a difference between commentary about a group and directly insulting a named member.

“I think people who wear blue shirts are dumb” is quite different than “bfreedma is dumb”. I can choose to ignore/not associate myself with the former, while the latter is clear and directed.

So is the former if bfreedma (cool name btw) wears blue shirts.

Which gregorio knows he does.

 

[bfreedma]

So is the former if bfreedma (cool name btw) wears blue shirts.

Only if I choose to accept the generalization and/or see myself as a member of that group. Those options don’t exist with direct personal attacks.

I can always tell myself that the insult was directed at a shade of blue I don’t wear. It’s a fine line, but also an important distinction.