[mironathetin]

  @mironathetin you're right, some people are not permeable to reason and rational arguments. but letting his posts go unchallenged and not showing that what he said is wrong would let other members to maybe mistake that for him being right. and that troubles me a great deal. it should be a civic duty when someone is BSing a crowd, to tell that crowd what is going on and give them enough information to make their own informed decisions. after that they can believe whatever they want, it will be from their own decision.

Yes agreed, but that has been done now and we start to repeat ourselves. In fact, putting together other threads, this has been done numerous times.

 

[krismusic]

aladeen.

 @mironathetin you're right, some people are not permeable to reason and rational arguments. but letting his posts go unchallenged and not showing that what he said is wrong would let other members to maybe mistake that for him being right. and that troubles me a great deal. it should be a civic duty when someone is BSing a crowd, to tell that crowd what is going on and give them enough information to make their own informed decisions. after that they can believe whatever they want, it will be from their own decision.

Totally agree with this.
I also do not understand why Headfi vetoes various perfectly sensible tests and psychological effects. I guess it caused too much argument from the subjectivists amongst us.

 

[Ruben123]

Well it brings endless discussions at some places where they dont really belong and cause fights. I can see mods dont like that. I find it highly needed though that potential buyers have to know WHAT they buy not what others think/find they buy. Like some magic. If you tell them it's no analogue sound, no digital harshness, no warmth etc., but just impedance, volume, placebo etc., there's no other reason to buy new stuff so.............................. that also means those who did spend lots on their equipment get pissed off. Causing war. And so on. But only FFB comes to Sound Science which is a good thing. Unfortunately he is the only one coming over here to discuss things. That means that no one interested in buying something actually comes here to find the science behind it as the science of the product cannot be discussed at the product forums. That helps potential buyers and owners to keep blind. Well done.

 

[bigshot]

I also do not understand why Headfi vetoes various perfectly sensible tests and psychological effects. I guess it caused too much argument from the subjectivists amongst us.

 
I was around when the Sound Science forum was created. None of us wanted to be isolated in a group of our own. It was created for us as a banishment group to keep us from upsetting folks with delicate sensibilities in the rest of the site. Now the sensitive ones march into our group and spew nonsense, derail threads, start bawling, and end up getting perfectly good threads locked. There's no winning.
 
It's the same trolls over and over. This Bookman guy comes back every six months or so just to cause trouble in here. Now, every time he comes back, he will get a polite reminder of the test in his PM box he agreed to take to prove his claims. Until he does that, there really isn't much more for him to say.

 

[headwhacker]

 
as I got locked out of the pono topic for talking about that very feature using too many words like "biasaladeen" "blind testaladeen" and "methodaladeen", for currawong's taste. maybe I can still say it here in the headfi ghetto where it's ok to try and tell the truth without being flagged for using words necessary to explain it... 
each time I get a post deleted for saying blind testingaladeen or abxaladeen, I feel like headfi is ruled by supreme leader Aladeen. how can it be considered ok to limit freedom of speech like that is beyond me. headfi should just script a replacement for all the words they don't like just like that, they already do it for swearing it's not hard to implement at all, less people would end up being deleted or banned and at least it could make some of us laugh.
 
 
so the test in the pono works with that logicaladeen
it's not a test of anything as you have a nice screen telling you what you're listening to and you are in controlaladeen so it's in fact a sighted testaladeen trying to pass for some unbiased testaladeen. of course it's better than nothing, but it's certainly not the kind of stuff that would attenuate prejudice and placeboaladeen.
 
 @mironathetin you're right, some people are not permeable to reason and rational arguments. but letting his posts go unchallenged and not showing that what he said is wrong would let other members to maybe mistake that for him being right. and that troubles me a great deal. it should be a civic duty when someone is BSing a crowd, to tell that crowd what is going on and give them enough information to make their own informed decisions. after that they can believe whatever they want, it will be from their own decision.

 
Been there, done that here at headfi. once you call out someone for an outrageous claim you are instantly the villain. You will be attacked and each word you say scrutinize and labeled rude or anything unpleasant as a person.
 
If you are new to the forum you get very excited as you thought you are joining a community of audio enthusiast and will learn a lot of new things you probably won't learn by your own. As you get older you realize this place is not what you thought it was. (Full of misinformation), It just doesn't help that when googling stuff up audio related, top results always point you in this direction. If you get a a link outside of headfi it's from someone's blog or audio site regurgitating what is already existing here.

 

[dprimary]

When someone claims a night day difference, on the things that should be close to inaudible, my
 


BS meter is pegged.
 
I do learn a few things here, but you have to read a lot of noise to find a small nugget of real information. This is audio just when you think you have discovered something new you find out it was studied in depth in 1927.

 

[mironathetin]

 
I do learn a few things here, but you have to read a lot of noise to find a small nugget of real information. (…)

 
This is the freedom of the internet.
It shows that there is more than one interest in audio: for some it is to tinker, for others it is to understand sound and sound reception, for some it is buying dreams and trying to find buddies to share them. All is fine! You also get answers on all levels of experience and education, like it or not.
 
I wrote a while ago that this whole forum could be deleted if you were only talking sound science, because the last step of sound reception is always the brain. And it interprets according to its mood, the daytime, the number of hours you slept last night, blood sugar, hormone concentration, who knows what else. So all these discussions end at the ear. What's the point? Probably the guys (its mostly guys, isn't it?) who pay themselves into a peer group of expensive audio owning pals and who want to tell everybody how much they like what they hear, are much more reasonable (well, that's just a mind game, I don't share this, but I think the hypothesis as such is not entirely stupid). At least they do it for pleasure only. Anybody here who does it for something else?
 
My point is, there are valid opinions beyond sound science and they should be accepted - discussed, but also accepted. And if someone writes an opinion, please try to phrase answers in the same way you would, as if you were talking to someone personally. Even if this someone is 6 feet 4. 
If you analyze, how quickly the discussion with FFBookman got out of balance, you'll find words like 'troll', 'sucker', 'can't stop laughing' etc. This certainly has a history. But what I learned in many discussions with mostly educated people (many a*holes among them, imho) you'll never get someone to admit he's wrong, if you don't let him air to breathe.

 

[krismusic]

^^^ There is a lot of wisdom in that post IMHO.

 

[Roly1650]

This is the freedom of the internet.
It shows that there is more than one interest in audio: for some it is to tinker, for others it is to understand sound and sound reception, for some it is buying dreams and trying to find buddies to share them. All is fine! You also get answers on all levels of experience and education, like it or not.

I wrote a while ago that this whole forum could be deleted if you were only talking sound science, because the last step of sound reception is always the brain. And it interprets according to its mood, the daytime, the number of hours you slept last night, blood sugar, hormone concentration, who knows what else. So all these discussions end at the ear. What's the point? Probably the guys (its mostly guys, isn't it?) who pay themselves into a peer group of expensive audio owning pals and who want to tell everybody how much they like what they hear, are much more reasonable (well, that's just a mind game, I don't share this, but I think the hypothesis as such is not entirely stupid). At least they do it for pleasure only. Anybody here who does it for something else?

My point is, there are valid opinions beyond sound science and they should be accepted - discussed, but also accepted. And if someone writes an opinion, please try to phrase answers in the same way you would, as if you were talking to someone personally. Even if this someone is 6 feet 4. 
If you analyze, how quickly the discussion with FFBookman got out of balance, you'll find words like 'troll', 'sucker', 'can't stop laughing' etc. This certainly has a history. But what I learned in many discussions with mostly educated people (many a*holes among them, imho) you'll never get someone to admit he's wrong, if you don't let him air to breathe.

I think you've musunderstood the rational for the Sound Science forum, see @bigshot's explanation, (post #139), for why it was started, he states it much better than I can.

One of the aims of the SS forum is to provide a means of education, for example, on another thread in SS yesterday, there was discussion of test methods to determine difference between two pieces of equipment. We had two posters proposing doctoral dissertations, long and tedious blind listening tests, with elaborate setup procedures, etc. etc. Another poster proposed a null or difference test, which would be faster, cheaper and just as valid. It's obvious to me at least, that neither of the first two posters were aware of what a null test was, until mentioned, but both agreed it was the way to go. Education works in SS now and again, but listening is required.

There's no problem with having an opinion, everybody has one, but in this forum, unlike the rest of Head-Fi we actually have a right to ask for support for the opinion being expressed. Coming into a SS thread, waving your arms around, making lots of noise and insulting everyone's intelligence, is likely to end up with over the top responses as reply. If you see FFBookman as more sinned against than sinning, then we'll have to agree to disagree. He has been asked, several times to take the test, that would remove all doubt as to whether he's right or wrong wouldn't it? Both @Ruben123 and @Castleofargh have explained why opinions without support are worthless but worse than that destructive, who could support an opposing view?

If you think every poster is here for pleasure, you need to go look up the definitions of sock puppet, troll and shill. All 3 types and more are alive and well, (unfortunately) and inhabiting Head-Fi.

Science knows quite a bit about the biases, to all the human senses, introduced by the brain, it's well documented.

If all you want to do is express opinions, discuss them and accept them, (why?), then the rest of Head-Fi is available to you as a blank canvas, go knock yourself out. If you're in the SS forum, then by definition every opinion would have some support in science wouldn't it? Or is it a free for all and we ignore all the rules, this is the only haven on Head-Fi where sane, logical and non subjective questions can be asked, answered and discussed, despite frequent attempts to pollute and thread crap.

When you open up the text editor on Head-Fi you have limitless room, (within reason), to breathe and admit you're wrong, or present a well reasoned argument, with credible support, worthy of discussion, or simply ask a question. Definitely not directed at you specifically, but posting in a moronic, insulting fashion is entirely optional, not necessary, but accept the consequences of doing so.

 

[RRod]

 
My point is, there are valid opinions beyond sound science and they should be accepted - discussed, but also accepted. And if someone writes an opinion, please try to phrase answers in the same way you would, as if you were talking to someone personally. Even if this someone is 6 feet 4. 
If you analyze, how quickly the discussion with FFBookman got out of balance, you'll find words like 'troll', 'sucker', 'can't stop laughing' etc. This certainly has a history. But what I learned in many discussions with mostly educated people (many a*holes among them, imho) you'll never get someone to admit he's wrong, if you don't let him air to breathe.

 
The problem is that people come to this site looking for advice on what they need to buy, and they have a right to know that so much of what people opine as being "improvements" in the audio chain disappear when you do things like blind testing. Besides, and opinion is something like "I prefer blue to green." A statement like "320 mp3 sounds like crap all the time" is NOT an opinion, because there are theoretical and practical arguments, and data, that can prove it untrue, or at least highly improbable. It gets even worse when the statement is justified by meaningless tautologies like "320 ≠ 4000." Why should such things get any air to breathe?

 

[krismusic]

I have next to no technical understanding.
I am or was a prime target for all kinds of snake oil and voodoo.
Some of it very expensive and I have limited disposable income.
I have SS to thank for introducing me to concepts such as placebo and expectation bias which has at least made me a lot less gullible. I
have been very grateful to find that despite my obvious lack of knowledge some very knowledgeable people here have offered me information and advice without condescension.
If people come here wanting to know and prepared to listen they are very likely to get a friendly reception. IME.

 

[mironathetin]

  Besides, and opinion is something like "I prefer blue to green." A statement like "320 mp3 sounds like crap all the time" is NOT an opinion, because there are theoretical and practical arguments, and data, that can prove it untrue, or at least highly improbable. It gets even worse when the statement is justified by meaningless tautologies like "320 ≠ 4000." Why should such things get any air to breathe?

 
If you care to prove that 320 kbit mp3 is the same as 4000 kbit (lossless, mp3?), overplot both waveforms and show it. End of discussion. That the same waveform will drive speakers in an identical way should be easily acceptable. If you cannot plot, a correlation function that shows 100% correlation should be fine too.

 

[nick_charles]

   
If you care to prove that 320 kbit mp3 is the same as 4000 kbit (lossless, mp3?), overplot both waveforms and show it. End of discussion. That the same waveform will drive speakers in an identical way should be easily acceptable. If you cannot plot, a correlation function that shows 100% correlation should be fine too.

 
Nobody argues that mp3 does not remove some frequencies, the interesting question is to what extent the difference between lossy compression and lossless/uncompressed formats is audible. That is something that each individual can assess, but we know that sighted tests are unreliable as we can so easily fool ourselves or be fooled by all sorts of tricks. My favourite example of this is from linky
 

For a recent non-believer, I used an Onkyo SR500 Dolby Digital receiver--purchased reconditioned for $200 (they're $250 - $300 new) against some well regarded separates. It's rated at 65 watts x 2 stereo per the FTC guidelines into 8 ohms. Distortion is 0.08% from 20-20k from 1 watt to 65 watts into 8 ohms. It has a "direct" bypass feature that supposedly bypasses all the digital/DSP for analog stereo signals.

The Onkyo was put up against the well regarded Bryston 4B 300 wpc power amp and a Bryston 2 channel pre-amp. They were driving a pair of expensive floor standing KEF speakers and the source was a high-end Marantz CD player. The person who owns this system is very proud of it and has spent a lot of time getting what he considers to be the best sound possible.

I had the Bryston owner pick the level he wanted to do the comparison at while listening to his system. I then used pink noise to level match the Onkyo to his system while he was out of the room. The Onkyo was running in its "Stereo Direct" analog mode.

I called him back in to listen, he sat down in the sweet spot and I replayed the same CD track he'd used to pick the levels. He immediately started complaining about how bad the Onkyo sounded. He said it sounded thin, compressed, harsh and a few other things. I smiled and turned the Onkyo off and the music kept playing. He'd said all those negative things about his own Bryston gear!

With him red faced, we proceeded to do at least an hour of listening with me swapping cables, or only pretending to, when he requested a switch. He listened to his favorite audiophile CDs. I did lots of swaps and fake swaps and during each would ask him which he thought he was listening to. In the end, his answers were roughly 50% correct which is the same as if he'd been randomly guessing. He even finally admitted, he couldn't tell which was which and WAS only guessing! I took his place and also couldn't hear any difference between the lowly receiver and his prized Bryston gear.

 

[RRod]

   
If you care to prove that 320 kbit mp3 is the same as 4000 kbit (lossless, mp3?), overplot both waveforms and show it. End of discussion. That the same waveform will drive speakers in an identical way should be easily acceptable. If you cannot plot, a correlation function that shows 100% correlation should be fine too.

 
The thing about tautologies is that they are trivially true. Of course 320mp3 has a different waveform than a higher rate or the original WAV. The point isn't bit equality, the point is audible differentiation (we listen to music, after all). Care to show you can blindly differentiate 320mp3 from WAV with your favorite musical material?

 

[mironathetin]

   
The thing about tautologies is that they are trivially true. Of course 320mp3 has a different waveform as a higher rate or the original WAV. The point isn't bit equality, the point is audible differentiation (we listen to music, after all). 

 
Well, equality is the point. If the waveforms are different, you start the subjective thing that will lead to nothing. 
Then take lossless 320 and 4000. If that is not equal, you have to admit that someone may hear differences.
 

Care to show you can blindly differentiate 320mp3 from WAV with your favorite musical material?

 
I took bishots test. Please read the thread.