[Roly1650]

Two words: Sighted evaluation.

Three more: and from memory.

From your two and my three, there was not the slightest chance of fooling himself there, was there?

 

[Me x3]

Something I would like to say is that we all know Head-Fi is always trying to (somehow) promote the gentle tone.
While too gentle for some, I think it's probably spot on for many people, especially for beginners.
 
Same might apply to the Sound Science sub-forum. 
 
I think we should maintain the gentle tone here and understand that a newcomer willing to learn is surely going to make mistakes at the beginning since rules here are not everyday rules for most people.
 
In other words, I encourage you to remain gentle instead of ready to jump off when newcomers arrive.
Take the time to explain things, and if you don't have the time, best chances are someone else will.
 
Making jokes of some else's posts or implicitly saying:
"You don't belong here. You are no more than a bloody subjectivist"
is not that useful. We end up pushing good people away and that means pushing knowledge away in the long run.

 

[jcx]

except for the increasing in the past year or two frequency of people coming here to Sound Science with an abusive, aggressive, "you suck" or "can't prove me wrong" tone
 
if you have a way of sorting misled sheep from goats let us know

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Two words: Sighted evaluation.

Three more: and from memory.

From your two and my three, there was not the slightest chance of fooling himself there, was there?

 
Eleven words: dramatic difference that cannot possibly be placebo, unlike subtle perceived differences.

 

[SunTanScanMan]

Quote:

  Something I would like to say is that we all know Head-Fi is always trying to (somehow) promote the gentle tone.
While too gentle for some, I think it's probably spot on for many people, especially for beginners.
 
Same might apply to the Sound Science sub-forum. 
 
I think we should maintain the gentle tone here and understand that a newcomer willing to learn is surely going to make mistakes at the beginning since rules here are not everyday rules for most people.
 
In other words, I encourage you to remain gentle instead of ready to jump off when newcomers arrive.
Take the time to explain things, and if you don't have the time, best chances are someone else will.
 
Making jokes of some else's posts or implicitly saying:
"You don't belong here. You are no more than a bloody subjectivist"
is not that useful. We end up pushing good people away and that means pushing knowledge away in the long run.

 
This may just be just semantics, but my implicit take in the SS sub-forum is usually: "As this is the sound science part of the forum, it is appropriate to provide reliable proof to support your claims."
 
I rarely read insults thrown from the regular members here - at least to the degree that is insinuated.
Some of the mocking and humour though they exist, are rarely crass - and are in response to illogical aspects encountered.
 
As a SS lurker, on the whole I find the tone remarkably restrained.
Some members go out of their way to explain, correct inaccuracies, and provide information to new / old members alike. Their time, effort and patience for the most part goes unnoticed or unrecognised.

 

[Me x3]

  Quote:
 
This may just be just semantics, but my implicit take in the SS sub-forum is usually: "As this is the sound science part of the forum, it is appropriate to provide reliable proof to support your claims."
 
I rarely read insults thrown from the regular members here - at least to the degree that is insinuated.
Some of the mocking and humour though they exist, are rarely crass - and are in response to illogical aspects encountered.
 
As a SS lurker, on the whole I find the tone remarkably restrained.
Some members go out of their way to explain, correct inaccuracies, and provide information to new / old members alike. Their time, effort and patience for the most part goes unnoticed or unrecognised.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Sound Science is not a gentle place on the net.  
That's why I wrote things like "maintain the gentle tone" and "remain gentle"
 
I've wrote:

 Making jokes of some else's posts or implicitly saying:
"You don't belong here. You are no more than a bloody subjectivist"

Can't deny the word 'implicitly' can be tricky and also subject to personal interpretation.
 
I'm not here criticising the state of this sub-forum and I'm not criticising their regular members.
Far from that, I'm just writing something that I think is useful to keep fresh in mind.

 

[Me x3]

  Two words: Sighted evaluation.

Three more: and from memory.

From your two and my three, there was not the slightest chance of fooling himself there, was there?

 
Quote:

 
Eleven words: dramatic difference that cannot possibly be placebo, unlike subtle perceived differences.

That probably deserves a dedicated thread.

 

[sonitus mirus]

  I am a mediocre musician, a decent musical listener, (my mom was a musician) and an excellent scientist and physician and cook.   Years ago, when CDs were replacing vinyl LPs, I did try to compare the two to see if there was a difference to MY ear, and could not hear any, although many people could hear a difference.  So out went the vinyl, as it was a nuisance to keep clean and take care of.  Then came lossy music, and it sounded empty to me, did not sound like a voice, or a specific instrument, it just did not.  That was a training for me, as now I know what to listen for.  I am not sure whether it is harmonics, wave interference, etc, but just as one can tell a difference between live and recorded, I can tell a major difference between lossy formats and CD quality (44 hz16bit), a small but significant difference between CD 16 and CD24, and  DEPENDING ON THE QUALITY of the recording, subjectively more pleasure and more like live music, with a good quality HD recording.  I personally cannot tell a difference between 96 and 192 Hz, and I do not know if I can tell a difference between vinyl and HD, because I have not listened to vinyl since I learned how and what to listen for in the music.  But I am not a highly trained musician and do not work in that field, so I do believe someone who says they can tell the difference.

 
I see this all the time in SS, which is why I lurk at Hydrogen Audio for a more reasoned approach where proof is demanded.   Here, I often read about such abilities and claims by highly intelligent people that supposedly perform thorough testing in their own field of expertise and are extremely familiar with the scientific method.  Where placebo has been shown to have an almost "magical" affect on what we hear, how is it that a reasonable scientist would be so confident that they were actually hearing any real differences?   
 
I can understand the differences being identified with lossy, as there isn't enough information provided to suggest you aren't listening to poorly encoded music at extremely low bit rates, but between 16-bit and 24-bit music?  
 
This is where any further discussions need to cease unless additional information or proof can be offered.  Something stated a thousand times on the internet doesn't make it true, and these types of comments should be called out in a Sound Science forum, in my opinion.  I'm not suggesting that this type of participation should be banned or that the comments be deleted, but these get mixed into every single discussion and many people that are looking for solid information will come away believing there must be a difference, where none has been established at all.

 

[karrm]

Please, I just said that to have good science, you need to control all the variables but one.

I also stated that there is a learning curve for listening, just like for any skill.

I always try to go to the source for my actual information, and not reviews, and make my own judgements. This is for my work, and I showed my husband how to do this for his job when he was confused about two aeronautical engineering papers.

Placebos do work, and that is why you have to control for placebo. There is even a study that shows naloxone prevents the placebo effect, so there is a biochemical reason for placebo. I thought I did state there needed to be blinded study to prevent this, so will restate this.

One question, do think that listening to any CD or even any HD sounds as real as listening to a musician playing a real instrument?

 

[jcx]

   

...It is very easy to forget that our hobby is primarily about experiencing music as realistically as we can. The gear sometimes gets in the way of that (however expensive it may be).
 
 

 
-one of my hobby horses - "realism" is badly abused in this hobby
 
too bad the whole recorded music industry doesn't remotely buy that - recordings are made to "sound good" on (mostly loudspeaker) playback systems
 
many audio illusions, culturally accepted conventions, exaggerations, omissions are used in a recording - typically the whole "sound stage" is "painted on" by the mastering/production engineers at a mixing board/workstation from 1/2 dozen or more separate mic feeds, many not recorded at the same time, with musicians never having been in the same room
 
some of it is simply because the impossible physics of practical wavefront reproduction, Independence from microphone, loudspeaker, room limitations
 
others like dynamic range compression make for new sensations that could never be experienced in live acoustic performances
 
I am highly amused when discussions of high end equipment start appealing to "realism" - the "you've never heard a live cymbal" put downs, detailed "image depth" comments...
 
 

and more: http://www.head-fi.org/newsearch?advanced=1&action=disp&search=realism&titleonly=0&byuser=jcx&output=posts&replycompare=gt&numupdates=&sdate=0&newer=1&sort=relevance&order=descending&Search=SEARCH&Search=SEARCH

 

[sonitus mirus]

One question, do think that listening to any CD or even any HD sounds as real as listening to a musician playing a real instrument?  

 
I don't know.  There may have been an AES published test where a live sound was looped through playback equipment and the audio differences were transparent to the listeners.  I'm sure a link to something was posted before, but I'd have to dig it up later.  Maybe someone can help?
 
Before, I'd say there had to be a difference.  But knowing what I do now, and from conducting many of my own double-blind tests, I'd be skeptical that there was actually anything different that we would hear live compared to that same music/sound that was recorded. 

 

[RRod]

One question, do think that listening to any CD or even any HD sounds as real as listening to a musician playing a real instrument?

 
Seems like an attempt to move back into a "do you even lift, bro" kind of argument. The last things keeping a recording + playback chain from attaining live-hall realism are the sample format and bit depth, at least once we're at Redbook.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  That probably deserves a dedicated thread.

 
Already made one. (But I do admit that it could be due to something aside from the operating system itself. No idea what, since I looked into everything.)
 

  I don't know.  There may have been an AES published test where a live sound was looped through playback equipment and the audio differences were transparent to the listeners.  I'm sure a link to something was posted before, but I'd have to dig it up later.  Maybe someone can help?
 
Before, I'd say there had to be a difference.  But knowing what I do now, and from conducting many of my own double-blind tests, I'd be skeptical that there was actually anything different that we would hear live compared to that same music/sound that was recorded. 

 
bigshot mentioned it before, but I don't have the link to his post about it.
 
But obviously, how close a recording is to the real thing depends on the recording equipment and techniques used. For example, I performed in an orchestra recording that sounded amazing when I was there, but the recording of it sounded awful.

 

[sonitus mirus]

   
Already made one. (But I do admit that it could be due to something aside from the operating system itself. No idea what, since I looked into everything.)
 
 
bigshot mentioned it before, but I don't have the link to his post about it.
 
But obviously, how close a recording is to the real thing depends on the recording equipment and techniques used. For example, I performed in an orchestra recording that sounded amazing when I was there, but the recording of it sounded awful.

 
I would have thought that the recording would have sounded much better, as issues with the environment could be corrected.  To me, live venues do not sound great, but I guess it depends on the music.  

 

[RRod]

   
I would have thought that the recording would have sounded much better, as issues with the environment could be corrected.  To me, live venues do not sound great, but I guess it depends on the music.  

 
My Sony floorstanders that are behind a plastic gate next to my fireplace in a living room open to the whole house somehow never compete with the Met