[Daniel Johnston]

“Stupid” is generally a bit harsh in the context of misunderstanding a study, depending on nature of the misunderstanding but then I personally very rarely use it and would never use it in the given example. I was really just quoting your use of it and along the lines of “even very smart people can occasionally do something stupid or fall into a stupid trap”.

Hmmm, not sure I can agree with that. You could *maybe* argue it’s partly true if one stretches the interpretation of the word “anecdotal” to its absolute limit but that would be “anecdotal at worst”, rather than “at best”. Clearly there’s a different level of scientific reliability/validity between a controlled study and an audiophile doing a sighted, uncontrolled test and reporting “even his wife could hear the difference”. Certainly a scientific study never provides absolute proof, however, in the context of a body of evidence (and the lack of reliable opposing evidence), it can provide “near absolute certainty”. For example, the audibility of HD vs 16/44.1; There have been numerous studies on this, of varying reliability/validity, indicating this difference is not audible but taken in context of “the body of evidence” we have near absolute certainty. EG. The only evidence against this conclusion is from purely anecdotal, uncontrolled tests plus a clearly manipulated meta-study. And, despite the obvious significant financial incentive, after quarter of a century or so there’s still no reliable evidence against this conclusion. In addition, everything we know about hearing thresholds dictates that 16/44.1 should be more than enough anyway. Taken with some other factors I haven’t mentioned there’s no rational reason to doubt the conclusion, although this doesn’t rule out the extremely remote possibility that it could never be disproved but it would require some extremely robust evidence to even start down that road.

I’m not sure that’s exactly what he was saying. Certainly the earnest scientific study of audio perception started in the late 1890’s and those findings are just as true/valid today but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of further growth/understanding. An analogy to hopefully explain what I mean: “1+1=2” is very likely one of the oldest scientific/mathematical findings in existence, probably older than 8,000 years. Obviously science/mathematics has moved on massively since the Stone Age but 1+1=2 is still absolutely true.

That’s not quite true. As a general rule with musical material, audibility of jitter is between 200-500 ns, although with certain pieces (with specific, rare properties) it has been demonstrated that a few individuals can differentiate down to just under 30 ns. Using test signals (not music), detectability has been demonstrated down to around 3 ns. The Benjamin/Gannon paper (“Theoretical and Audible Effects of Jitter on Digital Audio Quality”) is one of the best/most comprehensive sources.

Hmmm, the average threshold for an adult is about 16kHz. Even older teenagers can rarely hear above 17kHz, so 20kHz is already a pathological exception. Plus, the rare exceptions of hearing so high was with test signals (pure tones) at very high playback levels. In the presence of multiple tones this discrimination ability is significantly reduced. And lastly, with musical signals the >20kHz content is virtually always far lower in level than the content below 20kHz. For example, with a violin, only 4% of the energy it produces is above 20kHz. Taken together, with the other factors (air absorption of higher freqs for example), as a whole body of evidence, it does pretty much rule out that an adult can hear >20kHz when listening to the reproduction of music recordings.

See my 1+1=2 analogy above. Is that nothing more than historical reference or does 1+1 still equal 2? I’m sure some audio perception studies from those times have been superseded but many were surprisingly accurate considering the level of reproduction technology available at the time.

*Why* we hear what we hear is still not fully understood in some cases but what we hear (without the “why”), in terms of most of the thresholds, is fully understood.

It depends of course on exactly what/which claims you’re talking about. Certainly some/many of them should absolutely be dismissed. For example, I recall Rob Watts claiming to hear distortions at -300dB, which clearly is ludicrous. One ludicrous claim is enough to warrant a great deal of skepticism of any of his other claims but unfortunately he hasn’t restricted himself to only one ludicrous claim. Of course this doesn’t rule out the possibility that he/they might make a claim that is actually true but if he/they make claims contrary to “established norms” then dismissal is a reasonable default starting point (which *might* in some rare circumstances warrant further enquiry)!

G

Overall I mostly agree with your observations and reasoning. Thank you for stating your views and points eloquently and non condescending.

My sticking point is what studies are “1+1=2” and what studies could do with an update using modern equipment. I don’t have an answer. I’m still exploring and trying to understand what my ears and brain tell me vs measurements and other objective data.

To clarify, I’m only going on study design. In my profession, a randomized, double blind, demographic matched, case controlled study that is confirmed and reviewed by qualified and credentialed peers is as close to scientific fact as we can get. Even then, when parameters change or technology changes, these “facts” can be disproved or changed. I’ve seen it happen multiple times.

Some science is irrefutable fact (earth is round, 1+1=2, etc…), some is more pliable. Anything dealing with the brain and human senses is particularly difficult to randomize or control for bias or other factors. For example, if a study subject is stressed or angry the day of the study, this could negatively affect their perceptions.

Lastly, anecdotal evidence isn’t bad, nor weak by any means. It’s evidence that can’t necessarily be exactly reproduced or applicable to a different population, person, or test group. It’s often evidence like this that leads to larger, more powerful studies. I don’t mean to suggest that an an audiophile saying they hear a difference in a sighted, biased ABX vs one who set up a more scientifically sound level matched, blind test are equivalent.

 

[The Jester]

Scratch my previous, I answered for the first line of the first paragraph, my bad.

The first line of the last paragraph I’m not referring to any example. Just stating that dismissing a claim obviously depends on exactly what the claim is. Even someone who repeatedly makes false claims typically also makes numerous true claims. Same is true of audiophile marketing, even in the worst cases it’s very rare that every single claim/assertion in a bit of marketing is false. Usually it’s mostly true assertions with just a few falsehoods or omissions which invalidate it. The old example of skin effect in analogue audio cables is a typical example, often everything or most of what they state about skin effect is true but it’s all invalidated when they omit the fact it only affects freqs beyond the range of human hearing.

G

Silly me,
It’s a really long time since I learned English grammar, composition and comprehension but if I recall correctly when someone starts a sentence with
“For example”, “ie” or “eg” what follows is usually an example of something.

 

[gregorio]

My sticking point is what studies are “1+1=2” and what studies could do with an update using modern equipment.

Some science is irrefutable fact (earth is round, 1+1=2, etc…), some is more pliable.

True but this raises an important point, one that is routinely deliberately omitted, misrepresented or dismissed in the audiophile community, because it is so potentially detrimental to the sale of most audiophile products:

Sure, my example of 1+1=2 is an irrefutable fact, while a study of human perception, using a statistical analysis of some sample size never is. At best, all it can provide is some probability <100% of a fact. In many cases though, the issue actually has little or nothing to do with human perception, it’s actually an issue of proven, irrefutable math/physics. Unlike medicine and many other fields of study, electromagnetism was fully described/proven by science many many years ago, long before there even was an audiophile community and audio recording and reproduction technology only exists because science does know. Of course, we could argue that science doesn’t know everything, there maybe more to learn and that’s probably true but we’re not dealing with science or technology that doesn’t yet exist, we’re ONLY dealing with current and past science and technology, which by definition does exist. In other words, we can only record and reproduce what we can measure, if there is something we can’t measure (and there’s no hint that there is), that’s an issue for future technology which cannot affect our current technology. Psychologists or behavioural scientists might be interested but audio science doesn’t care what an audiophile thinks they experience, hear or feel when comparing say two different cables, nor how sure they are about it or how many of them share that experience, if the measurable properties of that signal are the same then the signals are the same and there’s no difference to hear regardless of what anyone thinks they are experiencing. In the case of cables, assuming several conditions which should be obvious, the only connection to perceptual studies is the simple threshold of hearing, done back in the C19th and confirmed daily all over the world by audiologists and sound/music engineers. For “cable believers” to be right, all this wealth of science/data regarding the threshold of audibility doesn’t have to be just a bit out, it has to be wrong by one or two orders of magnitude at least! With certain pathological exceptions, the same is broadly true of all DACs and Amps as well.

In short, much/most of the time, audiophiles are refuting the irrefutable, because it’s basic electromagnetic signal and sound science that has nothing to do with perceptual studies (beyond simple level threshold determination which hasn’t changed in over 120 years). Isn’t it madness to try to refute the irrefutable? Well “yes” but it’s mitigated by the fact that virtually ALL the material to which the audiophile community is exposed is designed to at least imply that the “irrefutable” isn’t irrefutable, it’s just opinion that hasn’t been studied much and isn’t well understood (except by golden-eared audiophiles in their sitting rooms).

G

 

[gregorio]

Silly me,
It’s a really long time since I learned English grammar, composition and comprehension but if I recall correctly when someone starts a sentence with
“For example”, “ie” or “eg” what follows is usually an example of something.

The first line of the last paragraph that you quoted is: “It depends of course on exactly what/which claims you’re talking about.”, there is no “For example”!

G

 

[The Jester]

The first line of the last paragraph that you quoted is: “It depends of course on exactly what/which claims you’re talking about.”, there is no “For example”!

G

Not the first or second sentence, the first line ….. at the end ….

 

[T 1000]

Back in the day, both bigshot and gregorio were banned from head-fi for an extended period of time. I hope knowing that makes you feel better.

Actually no, but I laughed out loud when I read it.

 

[gregorio]

Not the first or second sentence, the first line ….. at the end ….

The only “For example” in the last paragraph is in the 3rd sentence where I did actually give an example, of a claim made by Rob Watts. And, it’s wasn’t of someone else’s vague recollection but of my own vague recollection of a post by Rob Watts elsewhere on head-fi quite a few years ago and a subsequent thread we had about it in this subforum.

G
EDIT: If it’s not that example, why don’t you just quote the specific part you’re referring to?

 

[The Jester]

That’s the one !

 

[gregorio]

Back in the day, both bigshot and gregorio were banned from head-fi for an extended period of time.

Not sure I’ve ever been banned from Head-Fi, maybe a long, long time ago but if so I don’t remember it. I was censored for an extended period a while ago, all my posts were postponed until a mod approved/censored them. I think it was for posting the actual facts/science in another subforum where that’s not allowed or it might have been for posting a troll’s insults back at them, don’t recall exactly.

G

 

[chef8489]

Not sure I’ve ever been banned from Head-Fi, maybe a long, long time ago but if so I don’t remember it. I was censored for an extended period a while ago, all my posts were postponed until a mod approved/censored them. I think it was for posting the actual facts/science in another subforum where that’s not allowed or it might have been for posting a troll’s insults back at them, don’t recall exactly.

G

I was temp banned for posting facts and tests from a cable outside of sound science. They really dont like that. I gave up posting facts outside of sound science after that.

 

[gregorio]

I was temp banned for posting facts and tests from a cable outside of sound science. They really dont like that.

They sure don’t! Presumably because they get a worthwhile revenue from cable advertisements and/or from advertisers/sponsors who also sell audiophile cables.

It’s a bit surprising they allow it in this subforum but then the people here are only those who aren’t suckered by the marketing BS anyway, plus the occasional troll or two.

G

 

[T 1000]

Because I’m/we’re not contradicting the scientific evidence! If every factual statement I made had to be backed up with references to the relevant scientific papers, it would take days/weeks to write each post. This is just a sound science discussion forum, not a forum where every assertion has to be fully Harvard Referenced.

So therefore, the question (if there is one) becomes; how do you know that my (or others) assertions do not contradict the scientific evidence? And the obvious answer is that either you already know the scientific evidence (and therefore whether it’s in agreement or not), you ask or you cross-reference it with an encyclopaedia (such as Wikipedia), which is why encyclopaedias exist in the first place. If you can’t find a cross-reference then ask, I or someone else will try to provide you with one. If the cross-reference doesn’t appear to support the claim, then that’s a perfectly good avenue to further the discussion. But this next example isn’t!:



G

I can accept the first part, but the second part is your recognizable logic, which I have to read 3-4 times to understand the point, and in the end I roll my eyes that I'm even trying.

Obviously that is a fallacy! Not being alone with what you are sharing (your experiences/beliefs) is not proof or evidence of anything. Presumably you don’t believe the earth is flat? What if a member of the Flat Earth Society told you the earth was flat, that many others shared that experience/belief (demonstrated by studies/reports and the fact that The Flat Earth Society actually exists), that in fact only a tiny minority of the world’s population had actually experienced the curvature of the earth, so the experience of billions is that the earth is flat. According to your justification, wouldn’t you HAVE to believe the earth is indeed flat?



G

Logic again, I'm getting nervous.
But I understand that you want to make a point and that you are a little lost.

Because I’m/we’re not contradicting the scientific evidence! If every factual statement I made had to be backed up with references to the relevant scientific papers, it would take days/weeks to write each post. This is just a sound science discussion forum, not a forum where every assertion has to be fully Harvard Referenced.

Of course we do, because science long ago proved the existence of optical and aural illusions, as well as the impact of biases and placebo effect on our perception and roughly a century ago started developing ways to eliminate such biases when testing (double blind testing/ABX, etc.), which demonstrate it IS an illusion! So what have you got to counter these years/decades of scientific evidence, apart from the fallacy mentioned above?



G

If we ignore the fact that these changes in the sound are not small, and thus are not subject to illusion, for example, whether I heard it or not, I think I did, we have a more obvious situation that you do not accept, and it is an interesting phenomenon (but I have a partial explanation for it )*. Let me ask you a question, up on the forum, thousands of people are having conversations, exchanging experiences about all the things you claim to be fiction, how do you explain such a massive and fat illusion?
* I have already described the importance of reference equipment for detecting changes. On the same system - headphones A - do not show any changes, - headphones B - you have an accurate view of where the changes occurred.
Another case, On my Marantz HD-DAC I won't detect a change on most of the tested items, but on my carefully built 10K system and with headphones B I will find out if and where I have gained, or taken away from the sound.
These are some elementary knowledge known to many, and real engineers are light years ahead and discover new possibilities.
We live in modern times, the possibilities of sound presentation 50 years ago and today, earth and heaven.

 

[T 1000]

With my carefully assembled 10K system, the sound is starting to get fascinatingly good, and I haven't even scratched the surface of what's out there
The sound stage at the beginning of the construction of the system was 30% of what I hear today. Cables? Am I delusional about the upgraded 70%.
Note- Arbitrarily highlighted for % gain is imprecise and imaginary but most closely reflects progress

 

[chef8489]

I can accept the first part, but the second part is your recognizable logic, which I have to read 3-4 times to understand the point, and in the end I roll my eyes that I'm even trying.

Logic again, I'm getting nervous.
But I understand that you want to make a point and that you are a little lost.

If we ignore the fact that these changes in the sound are not small, and thus are not subject to illusion, for example, whether I heard it or not, I think I did, we have a more obvious situation that you do not accept, and it is an interesting phenomenon (but I have a partial explanation for it )*. Let me ask you a question, up on the forum, thousands of people are having conversations, exchanging experiences about all the things you claim to be fiction, how do you explain such a massive and fat illusion?
* I have already described the importance of reference equipment for detecting changes. On the same system - headphones A - do not show any changes, - headphones B - you have an accurate view of where the changes occurred.
Another case, On my Marantz HD-DAC I won't detect a change on most of the tested items, but on my carefully built 10K system and with headphones B I will find out if and where I have gained, or taken away from the sound.
These are some elementary knowledge known to many, and real engineers are light years ahead and discover new possibilities.
We live in modern times, the possibilities of sound presentation 50 years ago and today, earth and heaven.

Yet if your 10k system was set up with proper double blind test by someone else other than you and up against other systems properly I bet you could not tell a difference. YOu know when you are using your 10k system thus you have a perceived bias. Of course you will notice a difference. In the real world this is what is called a placebo and is used in just about every industry from the entertainment, music industry and medical industry to the food industry to confuse the consumer.

 

[T 1000]

Yet if your 10k system was set up with proper double blind test by someone else other than you and up against other systems properly I bet you could not tell a difference. YOu know when you are using your 10k system thus you have a perceived bias. Of course you will notice a difference. In the real world this is what is called a placebo and is used in just about every industry from the entertainment, music industry and medical industry to the food industry to confuse the consumer.

I'm not sure what you're telling me, that I shouldn't trust my ears. We're not asking questionable changes in the sound here, but drastic changes.

Your non-acceptance only harms you and some collateral victims who, without real experience, will sniff your suggestions and represent your position.
Nothing will change in the real world