Latest Thread Images

Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up
Jun 8, 2015 at 5:33 AM Post #6,706 of 149,821
Just to understand... You are saying that the CLT only says whether or not you had a large enough sample size for the particular test (although I guess the specific test has nothing to do with it) and population? So if the data is not normally distributed - i.e. the shape of the curve is not roughly binomial you just don't have a large enough samplesize. This is what i believed... I was utterly dumbfounded when people said a normal distribution says things happen according to chance. I might be mistaken, but it seems to be what is said.
 
Here are the experiments - I don't believe any of the experiments are actually set-up ideally. I think there are some assumptions about what is audible and what is not that already featured in the experimental design. And I believe by asking people to get an answer correct, you are probably inducing stress, I would rather test two equal-ish amps and see if people trend in personal preference. I.E. here are two similar amps, we tweaked one, and want to know if it made a difference... blindly select which version of the song you like better, if at all. Then you could probably make it a normal ABX too - but there is such history about this, it is unlikely you will find people who don't care about the results
http://www.stereophile.com/features/113/index.html
http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/
 
I am not sure I will hear a difference in such carefully controlled tests. I do BELIEVE i hear them otherwise... 
 
 
 
Quote:
sunbyrne said:
Warning: This is going to get technical. If you're not interested in statistics, just go ahead and skip this one.
That's not actually what the CLT says—the CLT is actually pretty complicated. What the CLT says is that if you are randomly sampling from a population, the sampling distribution of the mean will approach a normal distribution with parameters that are a function of the mean of that population, the standard deviation of that population, and the sample size. This will be true regardless of the shape of the population—as long as the sample size is large enough, the population need not be normally distributed, but the sampling distribution will be.

What makes this complicated is that the notion of "the sampling distribution of the mean" is itself not a simple idea. Most of my grad students really struggle with this concept at first, so unless people really want a seriously long post, I'm not even going to attempt it here.

What it sounds like you're talking about is not actually the CLT, but the normal approximation to the binomial. When responses are independent and binary with a stable probability, the outcomes are described by the binomial distribution. If the sample size is large (say, > 30 or so), then (almost) nobody actually uses the binomial distribution, they approximate it with the normal.
A normal distribution of what? I apologize but I don't remember the details of these tests.
I'm lost. It's possible to construct a statistical model where "experience" is a predictive factor, and then test it. If this wasn't what was done, it's very hard to justify such a conclusion based only on the descriptives of the shape of the outcome distribution.
Maybe. Depends on how they ran the test. In principle, if you test 100 people, you would expect to reject the default null on 5% (or whatever your alpha leve is) of those people. However, this is a well-understood problem and there are similarly well-established ways to correct for this.
That certainly sounds right. The claim that "on average, people don't hear a difference" is very different, statistically, from "nobody hears a difference."
Hmm. The use of the "just by chance" phrasing in statistics is usually an indicator of the tenability of a conclusion based on some hypothesized overall population parameter (usually a mean). The presence of extreme values doesn't tell you anything about the stability of the individual measurements, only the population mean. If anybody is trying to draw conclusions about the prevalence of extreme values based on a hypothesis test of the mean, well, yeah, that's almost certainly wrong.


Truer words were never written! Though I'd modify that to "any" stats, not just "normal" stats. Most of the scientific manuscripts I reject when I peer review, I reject on the basis of incorrectly performed statistical analyses. This is indeed hard, and the complexity of the issues involved are really easy to not fully appreciate, even for people who do this kind of thing for a living.
If you want to test "does this specific subgroup score differently, on average, than this other subgroup?" that's actually pretty easy to test, assuming adequate sample size. However, asking "are there specific individuals in the distribution who score in a way that is systematically deviant from everyone else?" is much harder.


Again, I heartily agree!
Click to expand...

 
Jun 8, 2015 at 9:07 AM Post #6,707 of 149,821
jason stoddard said:
 
  1. Speaker amps. The hardest thing here is doing something meaningful…for a non-eye-bleeding price. Do we shoot above Emotiva (in price) with big, heavy, impressive boxes filled nifty circlotron designs and intelligent amp management? Or do we try to go head-to-head with this behemoth price-wise, but with smaller and more efficient amplifier designs (think small Class AB, not D, think fan)? Neither approach is particularly appealing. Above Emotiva, there’s about ten billion small manufacturers, all with their own spin…and some with very compelling products. At Emotiva, well, there’s Emotiva. Would something that doesn’t look big and impressive sell well against their iron? I don’t know. If you have thoughts, I’ll be glad to listen.
 
 
Click to expand...

 
Just catching up with this thread and am responding to an older post.
 
A solid 2 channel speaker amp built upon the design and concept of the Rag (i.e. balanced circlotron topology) that can output over 350W is high up on my wist list for Schiit.
 
While there may be other manufacturers in this category, I think many may not even come close to the sound quality, at a reasonable price, that has gave Schiit its success over the past 5 years. I think if Schiit can design an amplifier costing below $4k that can give the likes of other amps costing many times over a run for the money, you'll have a solid product offering right there that fills a void in the speaker amp category. Emotiva may perform decently for its price range, but it sure isn't the go-to amp for high end speakers. If you think about it, Schiit seems to be becoming the go-to amp/dac for high end headphones, regardless of looks and the lack of remote functionality.
 
Or consider a modular amp which has the option for 3 channel output for home theater applications. That would certainly rock.
 
I'll be all in for the above, which I hope will eventually make it on Schiit's product list. There will be a market, you just have to trust your instincts. 
smile.gif

 
Jun 8, 2015 at 9:41 AM Post #6,708 of 149,821
Could Schiit bring anything new to the humble radio receiver?
 
I'd buy an AM/FM/DAB+ schiit radio receiver. Bandwidth where I am in Australia is pretty limited (for reference i get 4Mb down and 800Kb up at home on ADSL) so streaming can be spotty. Being able to listen to some over-the-air radio might seem dated, but I still enjoy it! 
 
Jun 8, 2015 at 1:25 PM Post #6,712 of 149,821
darknightdk said:
  ...A solid 2 channel speaker amp built upon the design and concept of the Rag (i.e. balanced circlotron topology) that can output over 350W is high up on my wist list for Schiit.....
Click to expand...

 
Yeah, that'd be cool but lets make it simple for starters.  The guts of the Rag sans the preamp would make a great 2ch amp I'm guessing. Especially if you could keep the final price below $700. For that price include the balanced inputs. That would still be a little high for a 60-100w entry level amp, but it would be a better amp than what you normally see in that <$500 range.
 
Jun 8, 2015 at 2:23 PM Post #6,714 of 149,821
crazychile said:
   
Yeah, that'd be cool but lets make it simple for starters.  The guts of the Rag sans the preamp would make a great 2ch amp I'm guessing. Especially if you could keep the final price below $700. For that price include the balanced inputs. That would still be a little high for a 60-100w entry level amp, but it would be a better amp than what you normally see in that <$500 range.
Click to expand...


The more I think about it the $700 might be pretty tough to achieve. Guess it depends on how much of the Rags cost is in the preamp. But if you could squeeze the amp into a smaller chassis that Schiit currently uses for another model, then it might be possible.
 
Or sell mono versions in a Lyr/Asgard type chassis. This could also take care of the needs of the multichannel crowd.
 
Jun 8, 2015 at 4:52 PM Post #6,716 of 149,821
Doesn't look closed to me
 
Jun 8, 2015 at 5:10 PM Post #6,719 of 149,821
OK.  Hadn't looked yesterday, but was able to just post there today.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

  • ... and 10 more.
    • Total: 113 (members: 26, guests: 87)
    Back
    Top