[Pondoro]

This is so wrong. All of digital audio and video coding is based on psychophysics experiments. Are you saying that all of those decisions were wrong? Phones haven't worked, nor TV screens, ever?

There is a big difference between, "Can I hear and understand speech" and "That DAC is better" or "that interconnect is better." Phones and TV's work great. Audiophiles argue the minutia. Also not sure how many phone and TV manufacturers do statistical studies versus how many tweak things until they "sound right to Joe" (Or sound right to Mike, in the case of Schiit.) Maybe the successful companies have a "Joe" (or Mike) who likes stuff that sells well, and the failed companies have a Joe that likes stuff other people hate.

 

[Paladin79]

Paladin - I must have misstated my question. I don't think wood chassis components affect amplifiers. I wondered if you make two identical amps, same tube type, same transformer manufacturer, same capacitors, etc. - do they vary in sound from amp to amp? I've always suspected that might happen.

Thanks

I do not hear much difference myself if all other things are equal. I do not measure much difference either.

It is easier to tell on four I built for testing tubes. Each amp has the same amount of time on them. Caps, wires, etc.

 

[OldRoadToad]

2 out of 3 correct for Professor Higgins. The Bible was eventually translated into English and most other languages. But the written sources (coming after periods of oral transmission) are Hebrew and Greek.

Well said, sir! The King James version is perhaps considered the first "authorize" translation of the original manuscripts from the Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and perhaps Latin, if you will. I am no Biblical Scholar but then Jesus never said a degree was required for what he taught.

I do applaud your noticing that! Well done, indeed! I am listening to Wes Montgomery right now.

ORT

 

[earnmyturns]

What are you on about? Certainty not the same thing I am. You want to talk psychoacoustics? OK. Psychoacoustic effects are not universal, it is predictive and based on statistics. But they are based on electronics and acoustics. What does that have to do with telephones and TV screens (both based on electronics)?

All the digital codes using in telephony and video after the analog era were designed according to the results of psychophysics experiments. Here's a review of very early work written by Jont Allen, is a former Bell Labs colleague.

 

[earnmyturns]

There is a big difference between, "Can I hear and understand speech" and "That DAC is better" or "that interconnect is better." Phones and TV's work great. Audiophiles argue the minutia.

It's just a matter of degree. The former colleagues of mine at AT&T who worked on perceptual audio coding in the 1990s were very sophisticated in their measurements of human sound discrimination.

 

[OldRoadToad]

There is a big difference between, "Can I hear and understand speech" and "That DAC is better" or "that interconnect is better." Phones and TV's work great. Audiophiles argue the minutia. Also not sure how many phone and TV manufacturers do statistical studies versus how many tweak things until they "sound right to Joe" (Or sound right to Mike, in the case of Schiit.) Maybe the successful companies have a "Joe" (or Mike) who likes stuff that sells well, and the failed companies have a Joe that likes stuff other people hate.

I have no problem with someone saying they can discern differences between DACs, cables, codecs and the like. What I think wrong is when they tell me I am a deaf Philistine because I hear no difference and say as much. As I said before, I exposed a friend for his ego driven BS and near as I can tell, we remain friends. We were never close but neither were we driven further apart by my making him shut the hell up! For the same reasoning I despise the idiot known as "Darko". I have three audio writers whom I very much enjoy. I don't always agree with them but I disagree in an agreeable fashion. Those I loathe include Michael Fremer whom, like
"Darko", I find to be a blatant shill. Michael Lavorgna is another canard spewing maroon. I despise him and his site, "nit-twittering machines". So much so that I only see it once in a great while and that by noticing it on dailyaudiophile's site. I once asked a friend if he thought Lavorgna was guilty of trying too hard. His reply?

He said make that "lying too hard" and he would heartily agree.

I am am quite certain some here think the same or worse, of me. That's fine.

Looks are highly subjective and I won't buy anything audio, video and more, that does not please my eye. If I wanted to stare at physically ugly, then I would look in a mirror or simply take a walk downtown to one of the many tent-towns...Ugh.


Enough rambling.

ORT

 

[Timster]

I am curious, because I have always been interested in what test tracks people use to audition gear.

Here's some of my test tracks, and a list that I saw from a review of Tekton's MOAB..
ARTIST - Track (Album)
Loreena McKennitt - Dark Night of the Soul (The Mask and the Mirror)
Jennifer Warnes - Joan of Arc (Famous Blue Raincoat)
Enya - Watermark (Watermark)
Enya - The Longships (Watermark)
Deep Forest - Hunting (World Mix)
Deep Forest - Deep Folk Song (Boheme)
Tina Arena - Heaven Help my Heart (Don't Ask)
Tina Arena - I Want to Know What Love is (In Deep)
Taylor Swift - Exile (folklore)
Madonna - La Isla Bonita (Immaculate Collection)
Madonna - Vogue (Immaculate Collection)
Isaac Hayes - Ike's Plea/Life's Mood/Summer in the City (Branded)
Pink Floyd - Poles Apart (Division Bell)
Toto - Rosanna (IV)
Toto - Gift of Faith, The Road Goes On (Tambu)
Def Leppard - White Lightning (Adrenalize)
Steve Vai - Erotic Nightmares (Passion & Warfare)
Steve Vai - Still my Bleeding Heart (Sex and Religion)
Steve Erquiaga - Presto (Cafe Paradiso)
Level 42 - World Machine (World Machine)
Level 42 - Leaving me now (World Machine)
Papa Doo Run Run - California Project (whole album)
Amorphis - Brother and Sister (Queen of Time)
Threshold - Siren Sky (For the Journey)
Beyond the Bridge - The Call (The Old Man and the Spirit)
Darkwater - The Play Part 1 & 2 (Calling the Earth to Witness)
Soen - Lotus, River (Lotus)

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/789243bc-5965-44ee-b92f-a9a446b29276
I don't have Tidal, but still found most of these on other services.

 

[Plautus001]

I replaced my Modi 3 (pre-unison) with a Modius and I have been listening for a couple of weeks now and I have some (personal) impressions

Asgard 3 + Modius:

Headphones:

• DT770 – better detail, more “spread out” soundstage – did not like on low gain, high gain way better
• HD6XX – the “veil” has been lifted – I used to like these on the D30/Darkvoice combo better before, and I liked the DT770 on the A3/Modi 3 better than the HD6xx. But now… the A3/Modius combo is really doing something that opens the HD6xx up. I love what the Modius has added to my HP system.
• Beats my NightOwl? YES
• NightOwl – Really great on the A3/Modi3, with velour more detailed/audiophile, missing some bass. With the leather, more bass, loses some detail.
• NightOwl (Leather) with A3 and Modius, lots of bass, “bigger” sound than on Modi 3.
• NightOwl (Velor) with A3 and Modius, less bass than leather, but still plenty of bass. Larger soundstage, clearer vocals, and more details.

To sum up:

The Modius is a nice improvement over the Modi 3.

On the A3/Modi setup: NightOwl >>> DT770 Pro 80ohm >>> HD6xx

On the A3/Modius setup: HD6xx >>> NightOwl >>> DT770 Pro 80 ohm

PS: I am still waiting for a Modi Multibit Unison or Modius Multibit which will either join the A3 or go into my future HIFI system.

 

[tincanear]

wondering about the Gadget ... hopefully is this related to Mike's talking (on June 10 livestream a few days ago) about the port from (SHARC??) DSP processor to an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) which is almost completed.

 

[ev666il]

Can you provide more info on those music tracks?

I am curious, because I have always been interested in what test tracks people use to audition gear. [...] Nothing that was recorded for the purpose of showing off something or to test gear

I don't own any "demo" tracks either, in the sense of tracks recorded for the very purpose of demoing equipment.

The tracks I use vary every time depending on my mood, but I always include a few staples:

- Avenged Sevenfold, "Hail To The King"
- Guns N' Roses, "Welcome To The Jungle" and "Civil War" (from the MFSL CDs, which were digitized through Mike's GAIN system.)

I also always play some Iron Maiden tracks from their '80s and early '90s albums (of which I own the first Japanese edition, which is the best sounding.)

 

[wout31]

Then, I do hear differences between cables and other stuff.

Of course you can, because, there is difference in impedance, capacitance and inductance, therefor the way the gear on both end reacts can be different.
It has, however, nothing to do with price and looks. A cheap cable can very easily perform better in combination with your gear. The way to go is the best match regardless of price and looks, but hey, that doesn't impress visitors and fellow audiophiles, so no fun in that.

The problem mostly is the statements about high priced cables (there are no high-end cables, they don't exist) that they sound "way better", "night and day difference" and more of the like. That is a self fulfilling prophesy because you payed (way too) much money for it. Therefor it has to be great, or you are a fool in most people eyes. The trick to most so called high end gear, cables included, is price, looks and lots and lots of marketing nonsense. Pay attention to your transducers ( TT arm and cart, DAC and most important speakers) and the room, cables for any purpose are very very much in the margin, your money can be much better spend.
So glad that people like Jason and Mike are around to keep us sane in this mad audio world.
Remember Mike's saying: Don't spend money you don't have to impress people you don't like.

 

[Timster]

I also always play some Iron Maiden tracks from their '80s and early '90s albums (of which I own the first Japanese edition, which is the best sounding.)

I still remember the first time I heard Number of the Beast. There was a metal record store in Melbourne, in the shopping arcade in one of the train stations in the city back in the 80's. I always went in there on the weekends. It was a 1 hour train ride from home, back in the days when mums and dads didn't so much mind their kids going out and doing stuff on the weekends. I was already a Maiden fan and had their first two albums, but was really hard to find info.... not mainstream, no internet, not played on radio. NotB was playing as I walked in to the store one day.... wow! Later that year (or early the next?) I saw them live in the "Beast on the Road" tour from row three.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

There is a big difference between, "Can I hear and understand speech" and "That DAC is better" or "that interconnect is better." Phones and TV's work great. Audiophiles argue the minutia. Also not sure how many phone and TV manufacturers do statistical studies versus how many tweak things until they "sound right to Joe" (Or sound right to Mike, in the case of Schiit.) Maybe the successful companies have a "Joe" (or Mike) who likes stuff that sells well, and the failed companies have a Joe that likes stuff other people hate.

You comment made me think about Jason's recent June/21 Schittr-video-Meet. And his shoot-from-the-hip comment about chosing DACs based on how well they translate spoken word. The interview became a bit meta- when a cyber-audience member pointed out that we were watching/listening an interview (probably using Schiit DAC). It captured @Baldr 's signature crankiness (and the tinklily-tink metallic clicks of him fondling his cane [I loved that, sensitive mics, eh]). Bit perfect!

In my continuing quest to discover music that was around when I was born (1970), I'm driving deep into Motown. Holy crap... The Temptations. The Commodores. And the womyn quartets. Whoah!

 

[hearditontheX]

My world changed for the better when I was introduced to Cholula 20-ish years ago. All of their hot sauces are phenomenal.

The smoked chipotle is amazing. The best, imho.

Happy Record Store Day!

 

[macdonjh]

There can be a higher number of different answers but there are some who believe in the accuracy of large groups when you do an average. Check out the work of Francis Galton.

"The classic wisdom-of-the-crowds finding involves point estimation of a continuous quantity. At a 1906 country fair in Plymouth, 800 people participated in a contest to estimate the weight of a slaughtered and dressed ox. Statistician Francis Galton observed that the median guess, 1207 pounds, was accurate within 1% of the true weight of 1198 pounds.[6] This has contributed to the insight in cognitive science that a crowd's individual judgments can be modeled as a probability distribution of responses with the median centered near the true value of the quantity to be estimated.[7]"

Statisticians involved in some of my audio groups testing pointed out such things. It is rare for one person in the group to arrive at the same answer as the group average, but I have seen it happen.

One of the things my group hopes to learn is, are there some $20 tubes out there that are more well received than some of the extremely pricey ones. If you are handed two tubes and know one costs $1,000 many people think it must be better. Expectation bias. Blind testing gets us away from that. IMHO. I also own test equipment and have access to most anything I do not own but what fun is that? I would rather listen, and choose.

I've been thinking about this, too, with respect to our current sub-topic. It's interesting to me how much of a group's behavior can be predicted by statistical analysis (and somewhat disquieting to me). In your example above about the ox's weight, it would be interesting to know the distribution of the samples. Was the Bell curve wide and flat (the guesses/ estimates were "all over the place") which would make me think the average being close to the measured weight was a fluke? Was the Bell curve narrow and "spikelike", which would make me think lots of subjects in the sample were good at estimating?

Then there's that whole subject of cognitive science, which I find interesting, but can't speak about because I am only somewhat familiar with the "parlor tricks" examples. I haven't done any real studying about it.

Where this all gets disquieting to me is when the "wisdom of the crowd", cognitive science and behavior all come together. People really have to be on their toes to protect themselves from being swayed in directions they don't want to go by others taking advantage of things like expectation bias using data manipulated in certain ways to present "facts" which really aren't. Sadly, I think many people aren't on their toes.