[Heidegger]

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 Let me admit that your wife *may* be correct. I might have made a mistake. I was just experimenting with the gain switch on the bottom of the amp and noticed that at 0dB and 10dB the amp becomes slow-sounding, diffuse, and unengaging to me. When I set it at 18dB and 20dB it picks up speed and focus. I find that, for my HD650 headphones, 18dB is what works best. The difference I heard *may* very well have been due to the fact that I reset the gain switch several times. Although I'm not yet ready to totally rule out break-in, I at least see how it could have been something else.
 

 
When you compare 2 equivalent and competently designed solid state components (leaving aside the special case of components where the transfer response has been tweaked) the single most likely cause of perceived difference is level difference. I have 3 (broadly similar) CD players, the loudest is 0.7db louder than the quietest, not a lot in absolute terms but enough so I can easily (20/20) dbt them apart. However, when I adjust the levels to be within about 0.1 I can no longer tell them apart. Most of the time slightly louder is perceived as better until it gets too loud of course. So when we listen casually it is easy to mistake a simple level difference for something more fundamental. That is why for serious tests level matching is important and why audio sales staff can sometimes convince you to buy the more expensive item by upping the volume

 
 

It's not just sheer volume though. The music gains clarity, vitality, and speed when set to 18dB as compared to 10dB on this particular amp.

 

[3X0]

Quote:

If you stopped theorizing and actually purchased more audio equipment you would know better. The engineer who designed the Black Cube Linear recommends you break it in. The person who actually designed the machine should know.

 
Yeah, most "high-end audio manufacturers" (

) will recommend you break in their equipment for at least three months because the conventional credit card protection mechanisms lasts for 60 days. The psychology of (irrationally) perceived improvement has followed since this clever marketing implementation.

 

[EthanWiner]

Quote:

It's not just sheer volume though. The music gains clarity, vitality, and speed when set to 18dB as compared to 10dB on this particular amp.

I think you're missing the point of volume matching, in this case as it relates to Fletcher-Munson. When music is played louder you can better hear the highs and lows in relation to the mids. So even a small volume increase makes the music both clearer and more full sounding.
 
Also, as regards gear break-in, human auditory memory is very short. Measured in seconds or even fractions of a second. So small changes in clarity and presence etc simply cannot be perceived over periods of hours or days.
 
--Ethan

 

[nick_charles]

NM

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

I'm not against science, only against theories that are totally divorced from reality. The history of science is studded with emendations, corrections, alterations, and reassessments. New things are learned, theories revised, predictions updated, things once thought scientifically impossible were later scientifically confirmed, old scientific beliefs have been replaced by new ones. Those who rely exclusively on the way something "should" be (I "shouldn't" be able to hear a difference before and after burn-in) and don't even take the time to see and hear something for themselves can deny the obvious only to themselves.

 
You show little understanding of what science is.  Science is not an authority which tells you what to believe.  Science is not a body of knowledge.  Science is a process.  Science it a verb.  Science is self correcting.  Science changes when new and credible evidence is discovered.  If you think you have heard a difference because of some tweak then all that it indicates is that you should now do a proper test to provide evidence that the difference you heard is not just in your own mind.  If you provide us with evidence then we will believe your claims.  That's how the scientific method works.
 
You also seem to misunderstand where the burden of proof lies and when a belief is justified.  The person making a positive claim is the one who is required to present evidence if he wishes for anyone else to believe him.  If he cannot present such evidence then no one else is justified in believing him and the person making the claim may not even be justified in believing it himself.  These conditions apply even if the claimant turns out to be right when further evidence is discovered!  The time to believe a claim is when evidence to support it is discovered and not a second before.
 
If you are correct about something and you have no evidence to support your belief, you are essentially only correct by chance.  For example, if you lived 3000 years ago you would not be justified in believing in quarks even though they certainly existed and your body itself contained a very large number of them.  You would not and could not have any knowledge which would imply their existence and such non-evidence would support any number false ideas equally.  In the case of solid stage electronics "burning in" and pretty much every other audiophile tweak the only evidence that you, or anyone else, has exists only in your/their mind(s) and has not been independently confirmed.  Because of the well know failings of human perception, such anecdotal evidence must be almost entirely disregarded until it is confirmed independently.
 
For these reasons no one else is justified in believing your claim is true based on your story and even you, the person who experienced it, should be skeptical about the accuracy of your own perceptions.  Unless you have more money than sense, you shouldn't just "trust your ears."
 
tl;dr
 
You are obligated to prove your claim is true, we are not obligated to prove it false.

 

[terriblepaulz]

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Quote:

I'm not against science, only against theories that are totally divorced from reality. The history of science is studded with emendations, corrections, alterations, and reassessments. New things are learned, theories revised, predictions updated, things once thought scientifically impossible were later scientifically confirmed, old scientific beliefs have been replaced by new ones. Those who rely exclusively on the way something "should" be (I "shouldn't" be able to hear a difference before and after burn-in) and don't even take the time to see and hear something for themselves can deny the obvious only to themselves.

 
You show little understanding of what science is.  Science is not an authority which tells you what to believe.  Science is not a body of knowledge.  Science is a process.  Science it a verb.  Science is self correcting.  Science changes when new and credible evidence is discovered.  If you think you have heard a difference because of some tweak then all that it indicates is that you should now do a proper test to provide evidence that the difference you heard is not just in your own mind.  If you provide us with evidence then we will believe your claims.  That's how the scientific method works.
 
You also seem to misunderstand where the burden of proof lies and when a belief is justified.  The person making a positive claim is the one who is required to present evidence if he wishes for anyone else to believe him.  If he cannot present such evidence then no one else is justified in believing him and the person making the claim may not even be justified in believing it himself.  These conditions apply even if the claimant turns out to be right when further evidence is discovered!  The time to believe a claim is when evidence to support it is discovered and not a second before.
 
If you are correct about something and you have no evidence to support your belief, you are essentially only correct by chance.  For example, if you lived 3000 years ago you would not be justified in believing in quarks even though they certainly existed and your body itself contained a very large number of them.  You would not and could not have any knowledge which would imply their existence and such non-evidence would support any number false ideas equally.  In the case of solid stage electronics "burning in" and pretty much every other audiophile tweak the only evidence that you, or anyone else, has exists only in your/their mind(s) and has not been independently confirmed.  Because of the well know failings of human perception, such anecdotal evidence must be almost entirely disregarded until it is confirmed independently.
 
For these reasons no one else is justified in believing your claim is true based on your story and even you, the person who experienced it, should be skeptical about the accuracy of your own perceptions.  Unless you have more money than sense, you shouldn't just "trust your ears."
 
tl;dr
 
You are obligated to prove your claim is true, we are not obligated to prove it false.

Well said mav, esp. the part I bolded above.  That assertion is often taken as a big dis, when it is nothing of the sort, but merely a well-established observation about human nature that goes back to Descartes.
 

 

[upstateguy]

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Quote:

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I'm not against science, only against theories that are totally divorced from reality. The history of science is studded with emendations, corrections, alterations, and reassessments. New things are learned, theories revised, predictions updated, things once thought scientifically impossible were later scientifically confirmed, old scientific beliefs have been replaced by new ones. Those who rely exclusively on the way something "should" be (I "shouldn't" be able to hear a difference before and after burn-in) and don't even take the time to see and hear something for themselves can deny the obvious only to themselves.

 
You show little understanding of what science is.  Science is not an authority which tells you what to believe.  Science is not a body of knowledge.  Science is a process.  Science it a verb.  Science is self correcting.  Science changes when new and credible evidence is discovered.  If you think you have heard a difference because of some tweak then all that it indicates is that you should now do a proper test to provide evidence that the difference you heard is not just in your own mind.  If you provide us with evidence then we will believe your claims.  That's how the scientific method works.
 
You also seem to misunderstand where the burden of proof lies and when a belief is justified.  The person making a positive claim is the one who is required to present evidence if he wishes for anyone else to believe him.  If he cannot present such evidence then no one else is justified in believing him and the person making the claim may not even be justified in believing it himself.  These conditions apply even if the claimant turns out to be right when further evidence is discovered!  The time to believe a claim is when evidence to support it is discovered and not a second before.
 
If you are correct about something and you have no evidence to support your belief, you are essentially only correct by chance.  For example, if you lived 3000 years ago you would not be justified in believing in quarks even though they certainly existed and your body itself contained a very large number of them.  You would not and could not have any knowledge which would imply their existence and such non-evidence would support any number false ideas equally.  In the case of solid stage electronics "burning in" and pretty much every other audiophile tweak the only evidence that you, or anyone else, has exists only in your/their mind(s) and has not been independently confirmed.  Because of the well know failings of human perception, such anecdotal evidence must be almost entirely disregarded until it is confirmed independently.
 
For these reasons no one else is justified in believing your claim is true based on your story and even you, the person who experienced it, should be skeptical about the accuracy of your own perceptions.  Unless you have more money than sense, you shouldn't just "trust your ears."
 
tl;dr
 
You are obligated to prove your claim is true, we are not obligated to prove it false.

Well said mav, esp. the part I bolded above.  That assertion is often taken as a big dis, when it is nothing of the sort, but merely a well-established observation about human nature that goes back to Descartes.
 

 

1. "The person making a positive claim is the one who is required to present evidence if he wishes for anyone else to believe him."
    
2. "If he cannot present such evidence then no one else is justified in believing him and the person making the claim may not even be justified in believing it himself."
    
3. "... even you, the person who experienced it, should be skeptical about the accuracy of your own perceptions. "

 
 

 

[Heidegger]

Quote:

Quote:

It's not just sheer volume though. The music gains clarity, vitality, and speed when set to 18dB as compared to 10dB on this particular amp.

I think you're missing the point of volume matching, in this case as it relates to Fletcher-Munson. When music is played louder you can better hear the highs and lows in relation to the mids. So even a small volume increase makes the music both clearer and more full sounding.
 
Also, as regards gear break-in, human auditory memory is very short. Measured in seconds or even fractions of a second. So small changes in clarity and presence etc simply cannot be perceived over periods of hours or days.
 
--Ethan

Yet increasing the volume does nothing to improve the 10dB setting. On the other hand, even listening at low volumes on the 18dB sounds better than listening to louder volumes on the10dB setting.
 

 

[Heidegger]

Quote:

even you, the person who experienced it, should be skeptical about the accuracy of your own perceptions.  Unless you have more money than sense, you shouldn't just "trust your ears."
 
tl;dr
 
You are obligated to prove your claim is true, we are not obligated to prove it false.

In fact, I was particularly skeptical precisely because of this thread. I had just spent well over a thousand dollars on a new amp and here I was being pretty much told that it would make no difference what I amp I had, as they all sounded the same. However, there is such a thing as something that is self evident, a difference that is so obvious that it can't be denied. That is what I found. Not only did I hear an undeniable difference between my old amp and the new one (such that I would have had to be crazy to deny the difference), but, over time, I heard a difference in the sonics of the new amp. Again, no matter what degree of skepticism I approached it with, the difference remained self-evident and obvious. No insistence that I was merely imagining the difference was going to change that fact. At first I attributed the difference to break-in. However, I later realized that changing the gain setting resulted in much fuller, faster, and more engaging sound. Hence I conceded that the improvement I heard may not have had anything to do with break-in. A healthy amount of skepticism is good; but when you start believing that the senses can never be trusted and that they always deceive you, and that moreover every little thing has to be scientifically proven before it can be accepted -- such a degree of skepticism is excessive and becomes counterproductive. Rather than always assuming that what somebody hears or perceives is imaginary, you would do well to at least consider the possibility that the report might be true. That way, you can better figure out why it might be true. For instance, had Nick not assumed that the difference I was hearing was imaginary, had he for the slightest moment entertained the possibility that I might indeed be hearing an actual difference, he might have asked himself why I was hearing this difference and helped me discover that it was probably due to the gain switch rather than break-in. But since he automatically assumed that what I was hearing was mere placebo effect, he thereby closed off all possibility at solving the problem and arriving at the truth. This is not to say that what I was hearing couldn't have been imaginary -- it might very well have been (so he shouldn't have assumed that it wasn't either); but the problem, as I see it, is that he (or you for that matter) did not allow even for the possibility that I might be hearing an actual difference since I couldn't prove it scientifically (i.e., to your satisfaction). It turned out I was hearing a difference and that there was also a rational explanation for that difference. But if I had listened to you people I would have convinced myself that I was imagining the difference due to the placebo effect.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Heidegger, this thread should reassure you more
 
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/513481/are-blind-tests-bogus-examples-of-blind-tests-with-positive-results
 
that there are differences between amps. If amps are equalised and line leveled then they can sound so similar that it is difficult to pick any differences. If you leave them alone and let the listener chose volume, use tone controls then they do sound different.
 
The big loser in this thread is cabling. Blind testing finds no differences with cables. The winner is speakers, where blind testing has found detectable differences.

 

[ShawnSmith]

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It's much deeper and all around much more expansive. Also there is no doubt that the sound of the BCL changed as it has gotten more play time. At first the sound was blurry and indistinct; now everything is much more focused.

Out of the box the BCL was a blurry, indistinct mess -- and slow as all hell. It has gained clarity and depth. It's much more focused. I wish one day you will own a brand new BCL and then you will know what I'm talking about.

I'm sorry, but what the heck? What are posts like these doing in the sound science forum? Especially given the title and directive of this thread, this is simply ridiculous.
 
 
I suppose I'll stick to AVS for reasonable audio discussion.

I'm warning people against the bad information that copiously lards this thread -- for instance, the claim that breaking in your amp does not result in better sound. If I had listened to the "science" being bandied about here, I would have packed my amp up and returned it to the store. Luckily, I let my amp burn in and was rewarded with wonderful sound. My amp did require a break-in period. It sounds much better now than out of the box.

you aren't warning people against anything. frankly your posts are complete and utter nonsense. Phrases like this: "sound was blurry and indistinct; now everything is much more focused" and this: "Out of the box the BCL was a blurry, indistinct mess -- and slow as all hell. It has gained clarity and depth. It's much more focused." literally mean absolutely nothing. None of those things are measurable. none of those things can be proven. You may as well have just said... but I swear it sounds so much more amazingly awesome now. It's nonsense and pretending that you are somehow refuting actual science with that is a joke.And frankly just the fact that you would use words and phrases like that to describe what you are hearing leads me to believe that you have spent far too long drinking in the audiophile kool-aid and buying into their marketing spin nonsense.

 

[nick_charles]

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It's much deeper and all around much more expansive. Also there is no doubt that the sound of the BCL changed as it has gotten more play time. At first the sound was blurry and indistinct; now everything is much more focused.

Out of the box the BCL was a blurry, indistinct mess -- and slow as all hell. It has gained clarity and depth. It's much more focused. I wish one day you will own a brand new BCL and then you will know what I'm talking about.

 

 
 


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Quote:

I'm warning people against the bad information that copiously lards this thread -- for instance, the claim that breaking in your amp does not result in better sound. If I had listened to the "science" being bandied about here, I would have packed my amp up and returned it to the store. Luckily, I let my amp burn in and was rewarded with wonderful sound. My amp did require a break-in period. It sounds much better now than out of the box.

The non-anecdotal evidence for amp burn is simply non-existent - there are no controlled blind listening tests to support the assertion that here is any meaningful (audible) burn-in in amps. You could however buy another identical amp and then do some blind tests yourself.
 
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
 

 
 


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 Let me admit that your wife *may* be correct. I might have made a mistake. I was just experimenting with the gain switch on the bottom of the amp and noticed that at 0dB and 10dB the amp becomes slow-sounding, diffuse, and unengaging to me. When I set it at 18dB and 20dB it picks up speed and focus. I find that, for my HD650 headphones, 18dB is what works best. The difference I heard *may* very well have been due to the fact that I reset the gain switch several times. Although I'm not yet ready to totally rule out break-in, I at least see how it could have been something else.
 

 
When you compare 2 equivalent and competently designed solid state components (leaving aside the special case of components where the transfer response has been tweaked) the single most likely cause of perceived difference is level difference. I have 3 (broadly similar) CD players, the loudest is 0.7db louder than the quietest, not a lot in absolute terms but enough so I can easily (20/20) dbt them apart. However, when I adjust the levels to be within about 0.1 I can no longer tell them apart. Most of the time slightly louder is perceived as better until it gets too loud of course. So when we listen casually it is easy to mistake a simple level difference for something more fundamental. That is why for serious tests level matching is important and why audio sales staff can sometimes convince you to buy the more expensive item by upping the volume

 
 

 


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 Let me admit that your wife *may* be correct. I might have made a mistake. I was just experimenting with the gain switch on the bottom of the amp and noticed that at 0dB and 10dB the amp becomes slow-sounding, diffuse, and unengaging to me. When I set it at 18dB and 20dB it picks up speed and focus. I find that, for my HD650 headphones, 18dB is what works best. The difference I heard *may* very well have been due to the fact that I reset the gain switch several times. Although I'm not yet ready to totally rule out break-in, I at least see how it could have been something else.
 

 
When you compare 2 equivalent and competently designed solid state components (leaving aside the special case of components where the transfer response has been tweaked) the single most likely cause of perceived difference is level difference. I have 3 (broadly similar) CD players, the loudest is 0.7db louder than the quietest, not a lot in absolute terms but enough so I can easily (20/20) dbt them apart. However, when I adjust the levels to be within about 0.1 I can no longer tell them apart. Most of the time slightly louder is perceived as better until it gets too loud of course. So when we listen casually it is easy to mistake a simple level difference for something more fundamental. That is why for serious tests level matching is important and why audio sales staff can sometimes convince you to buy the more expensive item by upping the volume

 
 

It's not just sheer volume though. The music gains clarity, vitality, and speed when set to 18dB as compared to 10dB on this particular amp.
 
 
I did originally answer this one but in a rather sarcastic manner suggesting that an amp that performed fundamentally differently at different gain settings was broken and that you perhaps return it, but that was going too far and in any case Ethan did a far better job more succinctly.

 


Quote:

For instance, had Nick not assumed that the difference I was hearing was imaginary,
 
Please read what I actually said not what you think I said !
 
 
had he for the slightest moment entertained the possibility that I might indeed be hearing an actual difference,
 
You explicitly said you heard a  difference due to burn-in I merely said that this assertion was not supported by any evidence and if you wanted to prove the assertion you could get another amp unburned and test your theory - at this point you did not mention you had been messing about with gain settings, had you done so I would have mentioned the influence of volume levels which I did  once you mentioned the gain settings changes. You witheld vital data.
 
he might have asked himself why I was hearing this difference
 
see above
 
and helped me discover that it was probably due to the gain switch rather than break-in. But since he automatically assumed that what I was hearing was mere placebo effect,
 
I am not psychic I cannot know what you are doing that you do not report nor did you actually give me any actual evidence that you were hearing a real difference you just said so, this is called a self-report and just about the least reliable type of data.
 
he thereby closed off all possibility at solving the problem and arriving at the truth.
 
How can I solve a problem without all the required data
 
This is not to say that what I was hearing couldn't have been imaginary -- it might very well have been (so he shouldn't have assumed that it wasn't either); but the problem, as I see it, is that he (or you for that matter) did not allow even for the possibility that I might be hearing an actual difference since I couldn't prove it scientifically (i.e., to your satisfaction). It turned out I was hearing a difference and that there was also a rational explanation for that difference. But if I had listened to you people I would have convinced myself that I was imagining the difference due to the placebo effect.

 

[terriblepaulz]

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Quote:

even you, the person who experienced it, should be skeptical about the accuracy of your own perceptions.  Unless you have more money than sense, you shouldn't just "trust your ears."
 
tl;dr
 
You are obligated to prove your claim is true, we are not obligated to prove it false.

However, there is such a thing as something that is self evident, a difference that is so obvious that it can't be denied.
 
I respectfully submit that I have experienced the same certainty, only to discover later that I was wrong.
 
Not only did I hear an undeniable difference between my old amp and the new one (such that I would have had to be crazy to deny the difference), but, over time, I heard a difference in the sonics of the new amp. 
 
The fact that your impression of difference occurred over time demonstrates the opposite of what you intend.
 
I later realized that changing the gain setting resulted in much fuller, faster, and more engaging sound. 
 
This should be telling you something about the importance of level matching when doing comparisons.  "[F]uller, faster and more engaging" = louder.
 
A healthy amount of skepticism is good; but when you start believing that the senses can never be trusted and that they always deceive you, and that moreover every little thing has to be scientifically proven before it can be accepted -- such a degree of skepticism is excessive and becomes counterproductive.
 
Such skepticism is the epistemological basis of the scientific method.
 
Rather than always assuming that what somebody hears or perceives is imaginary, you would do well to at least consider the possibility that the report might be true.
 
Not if it runs counter to well-established principles of electronics and psychoacoustics.
 
For instance, had Nick not assumed that the difference I was hearing was imaginary, had he for the slightest moment entertained the possibility that I might indeed be hearing an actual difference, he might have asked himself why I was hearing this difference and helped me discover that it was probably due to the gain switch rather than break-in.
 
Not to speak for Nick but he probably did not entertain the possibility that you glossed over something so obvious.
 
But since he automatically assumed that what I was hearing was mere placebo effect, he thereby closed off all possibility at solving the problem and arriving at the truth.
 
Again not to speak for Nick, but he used Occam's Razor.
 
But if I had listened to you people I would have convinced myself that I was imagining the difference due to the placebo effect.
 
Actually, you did listen and continued to explore until you found a plausible explanation.

 

[EthanWiner]

Quote:

Yet increasing the volume does nothing to improve the 10dB setting. On the other hand, even listening at low volumes on the 18dB sounds better than listening to louder volumes on the10dB setting.
 

Then you should next play a test tone CD or similar to see what is different. Maybe that setting acts as a sort of Loudness switch? If it really sounds different, and I'm not saying it doesn't, I'd hope you would want to know what is changing just for your own interest!
 
--Ethan

 

[nick_charles]

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Quote:

Yet increasing the volume does nothing to improve the 10dB setting. On the other hand, even listening at low volumes on the 18dB sounds better than listening to louder volumes on the10dB setting.
 

Then you should next play a test tone CD or similar to see what is different. Maybe that setting acts as a sort of Loudness switch? If it really sounds different, and I'm not saying it doesn't, I'd hope you would want to know what is changing just for your own interest!
 
--Ethan

Ethan,
          this would be trivial for Heidegger to test, just use a dmm to make sure the output levels are about the same and record samples, perhaps using white noise using the different gain settings adjusted to the same overall level, if such a loudness effect is there and it is not documented in the owners manual and personally I would call that a dubious design practice, but no matter,  then it would show up easily in a FR analysis using Audacity or similar.