[RRod]

  That's exactly what your all doing here in Sound Science..perhaps without even realising it.

 
Oh look, the "sound science people are robots and don't love music" argument again.

 

[castleofargh]

 

   
3dB is about 2.9dB more variation than I'd expect from a DAC at least up to 18k or so. But keep on comparing apples to oranges. And really, people, stop bringing up cars.

It is technically impossible to measure music timbre, whether it is sounding real to the original. Yes, we can measure certain aspects, FQ response, distortion etc, but many components sound confused and muddled once things get complex on certain music types. How can this be? Because components sound different. Lets get back to real basics here, can anyone measure the differences between capacitors beyond charge rates and UF rating, voltage rating? Then why do they sound different. And we also have resistors that sound different. Yes, it is incredible, they do, tantalum resistors some say sound better, I agree, on the ones I have heard do. And then we have transformers, they sound different too, even ones with well beyond the FQ band of the human ear. Then we have copper wire v silver wire, hifi fuses v standard fuses, quality of the mains supplies to your house, acoustics in your room.
 
Yes we can cling onto the tech specs, and they give an outline, but it scratches the surface, the human ear and your OWN judgement is the last word. otherwise, you may have a a 'technically proven 'best' system that you may find you don't like and sell it a few months later as they don't synergies together. Many DS DACs are 'technically' perfect, but why do many users sell them and find they prefer an R-2R DAC, and vide-versa. It is not black and white. This hobby is all about technical basis but using the trained ear as a foremost tool. Remember some great components just don't sound good together in the whole system. You can't build a system on technical readouts.
 
Use your ears......

 
straw man argument now. it's getting better by the hour.  timbre is a series of cues that let someone recognize an instrument, it's a psycho acoustic concept. a human construct, so obviously a microphone doesn't care about it. but once again good old wikipedia says you 're wrong.

"The physical characteristics of sound that determine the perception of timbre include spectrum and envelope."

maybe you might want to look at it before posting?
 
and what about caps and cables and stuff? getting desperate? but to defend what argument? nobody here said that all DACs or whatever sounded the same. it's not hard to fail in fidelity and end up with a "coloration"(another psycho acoustic concept). success is when fidelity is such that we fail to hear a difference.
we're asking to prove that you can hear a difference, you answer trying to prove that there can be a difference. apples and oranges.
 
 
also any music can be expressed in totality by 1 voltage value per channel per instant T. so voltage per time, a super basic 2 axis graph can represent all that is in a record for that audio channel.  is that supposed to be a challenge? is that the amazing complexity you decide we cannot measure in totality? and here I though recording music was exactly doing that. so we would do it in a studio, but then fail to do it again a the output of a DAC?
the idea that we can't measure all that is sound is just another of those myths for bad kids. it's irrational from point one for anybody listening to records.

 

[sonitus mirus]

   
Oh look, the "sound science people are robots and don't love music" argument again.

 
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[castleofargh]

  Well take a faulty but still functioning amp and compare it to a properly working one. Would they sound the same? now way at all! So much fud spreading goes on in sound Science...my god what is the world coming to..

I have no idea what you're trying to say.

 

[RRod]

   
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Generally I agree, but the devil's in the details, right?

 

[Audioholic123]

   
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This is classic denial. Time and time again it happens when "robots" are proved wrong.

  Am i in the company of kids?

 

[cjl]

 
There's also a third possibility, which I have kept proposing and most people besides @castleofargh have seemed to be conveniently ignoring, that there are other aspects of how a DAC/amp reproduce sound which are not being measured, but should be.  Namely, decay-rates across teh frequency-range, like a waterfall-plot, and also possibly measurements of certain aspects of the handling of phase.
 
 

This is why I made sure to say that the measurements are wrong or incomplete (since failing to measure some parameter that could cause an audible flaw would indicate incomplete measurements), but I appreciate you explicitly pointing this out. I definitely agree with this, and I'd be curious to see the topic of exactly which measurements should be made to fully quantify amplifier and dac performance discussed further.

 

[Sal1950]

 

 
 
if you reject measurements, and don't want to hear about controlled listening, what is left to tell you when you're wrong?  nothing. maybe your observations are accurate, maybe you were completely fooled by the marketing guy, you will never know because you have closed yourself in a system where being right stops at having an opinion and then agreeing with yourself.
 

Castleogargh,  one of the best and clearest statements on the "just use your ears" crowd I've ever seen. Congrats and Thank You!

 

[Audioholic123]

  Castleogargh,  one of the best and clearest statements on the "just use your ears" crowd I've ever seen. Congrats and Thank You!

What would you know about circuit boards and what they do?! that's the major problem here in Sound Science... A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING
 
cheers

 

[OddE]

  However, I will get pretty aggravated if someone tries to make his recipe for enjoying music some objective standard; doubly so if said recipe flies in the face of established science.

 

  That's exactly what your all doing here in Sound Science..perhaps without even realising it.

 
-Again (and, if I can help myself, for the last time) - not quite. I don't think you will find anyone here in Sound Science claiming that you have to enjoy music this way or that. However, most regulars here will expect that when one presents statements as fact, they are backed by verifiable data. You know, all science-y.
 
Claiming that, say, resistors and power cables are audibly different does just that. Every time I am aware of that someone has tried to verify this claim (sighted tests do not count as 'try to verify') that I know of, they have failed miserably. Nobody says you cannot buy $5,000 power cables if that is what makes your hobby pleasurable to you. Telling others that power cables affect the sound, on the other hand, is quite likely to make people want to know more. Such requests for more info tend to quickly lead to the person making the claim saying something along the lines of 'The difference is so night-and-day that no blind testing is necessary.
 

  What would you know about circuit boards and what they do?! that's the major problem here in Sound Science... A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING

 
-Friendly suggestion: At the very least leave the ad hominems alone until you've proven your own credentials. Hint: Your posts doesn't exactly exude clues to a background in any kind of engineering, much less EE.

 

[prot]

Oh my, another thread lost into the astroholic trolling caves. Well, it was good as long as it did last. Guess I'll now use my ears to get out of here.
Someone ping me please when you are done "arguing" with the ears brigade.

 

[Audioholic123]

   
 
-Again (and, if I can help myself, for the last time) - not quite. I don't think you will find anyone here in Sound Science claiming that you have to enjoy music this way or that. However, most regulars here will expect that when one presents statements as fact, they are backed by verifiable data. You know, all science-y.
 
Claiming that, say, resistors and power cables are audibly different does just that. Every time I am aware of that someone has tried to verify this claim (sighted tests do not count as 'try to verify') that I know of, they have failed miserably. Nobody says you cannot buy $5,000 power cables if that is what makes your hobby pleasurable to you. Telling others that power cables affect the sound, on the other hand, is quite likely to make people want to know more. Such requests for more info tend to quickly lead to the person making the claim saying something along the lines of 'The difference is so night-and-day that no blind testing is necessary.
 
 
-Friendly suggestion: At the very least leave the ad hominems alone until you've proven your own credentials. Hint: Your posts doesn't exactly exude clues to a background in any kind of engineering, much less EE.

In my view anyone who doesn't understand what goes on inside an amp or dac or any type of electronic audio equipment, should not be telling me that i'm wrong when i present such claims. Because they don't understand it in the first place yet demonstrate bias

that's a bit strange IMO...
 
PCB (Printed Circuit Board) :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board
 
  Ohmm  my (pardon the pun)  what do we have hear ( pardon the pun) http://www.circuitspecialists.com/soungenkit
Read the first link i have here to get a better understanding, then take a look at the sound generator circuit boards in the second one. Have none of you considered that the components on PCB's vary in quality....what do they do? carry the signal - that's what! now higher quality components will be healthier for the signal's journey to our ears...ok?!

 

[Sal1950]

 
In my view anyone who doesn't understand what goes on inside an amp or dac or any type of electronic audio equipment, should not be telling me that i'm wrong when i present such claims. Because they don't understand it in the first place yet demonstrate bias

that's a bit strange IMO...

I know more than enough to recognize snake-oil salesmen. You don't need a EE degree to know when someones trying to blowing smoke up your rear like some huckster trying to sell me a $5,000 6 foot power cable. DUH

 

[astrostar59]

Hey, this thread is all silly and off topic. I m gone.....

 

[goodyfresh]

   
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You guys are aware this is actual text converted into binary and translates to "let the music play!" right?  Good going, man!
 
Anyway, @castleofargh made pretty much the best point here so far:  we're talking about sound-SCIENCE, and the essence of any scientific argument is FALSIFIABILITY.  If one makes arguments in such a fashion that they cannot be falsified, that is not real science.

  I know more than enough to recognize snake-oil salesmen. You don't need a EE degree to know when someones trying to blowing smoke up your rear like some huckster trying to sell me a $5,000 6 foot power cable. DUH

You ever seen those "Bybee Quantum-Purifier" products?  Now THEY are the best example of audio snake-oil I have seen so far.  They use "slipstream quantum purifiication" and "quantum proton alignment of the electrons" to "purify the signal" and also provide room-treatment.  Some of them cost as LITTLE as only $5000!  The guy who makes them is a "real quantum physicist" so you KNOW they must be TOTALLY LEGIT!  LMAO.
 
 

  Hey, this thread is all silly and off topic. I m gone.....

This was originally my thread, if I'm not mistaken doesn't that mean I'm the one who gets to say if it's a problem or not when it goes off-topic?  Personally, I don't mind the directoin it has gone in