[scompton]

Quote:

 
Definitely not as simple as that.  Let us say you paid $10 000 US for a brick to put on top of your power amplifier to improve the sound quality.  And the improvement is incredible!  The rhythm and pace is better.   The soundstage is expanded.  It is more musical.  It is smoother.  It is clearer.  The bass is tighter.  The bass is deeper. 
 
When you regain consciousness and are allowed to leave the hospital, you rave to all your audiophile buddies.  They all agree that the improvement is a night-and-day difference.  Everyone opens their wallet.  And then someone tells you that you have been had.  There is no way that a brick placed on top of a power amplifier can improve the sound quality.  He offers to provide proof.   What do you do?

Even better is the Teleportation Tweak.  It's only $60 and improves your system using tones over your phone.  And the phone doesn't even have to be in the same room as your gear. 
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina60.htm
 
There's even a thread here started by someone who's had it done. http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/274685/another-happy-teleportation-tweak-customer

 

[Djini]

Create a controversial standpoint to generate hits to a blog. Wow, never seen that tactic before!!!

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Create a controversial standpoint to generate hits to a blog. Wow, never seen that tactic before!!!

If that's in response to my post, what blog?  I've never blogged.  I linked to a thread here and the page for the stupid tweak.

 

[nwavguy]

Quote:

Create a controversial standpoint to generate hits to a blog. Wow, never seen that tactic before!!!

If you mean my blog, I'm rather late to this discussion and there was plenty of controversy in this thread before I came along. And I don't get anything out of more hits to my blog. It's there for those who find it useful and those who don't can ignore it. It's just easier to reference information there than repeating it over and over in forums like this one.

 

[nwavguy]

Quote:

Why is the only way of creating a level playing field turning off all EQ? You place players that have EQ at a disadvantage over players that offer none.

Because few players have the same EQ. Even Apple changes their EQ from model to model and generation to generation. So it makes comparing measurements fairly impossible.
 
And your second sentence is generally wrong. EQ turned off, in any decently designed player, is the generally the same as not having EQ. So there is no disadvantage. All the players we're likely discussing already need DSP processing to decode compressed audio. So, even in a player with no EQ (like say some of the Zune's), the signal is still run through the DSP engine in the player it just doesn't get any EQ DSP. And this is exactly what happens when you turn the EQ off in a player that does have EQ.

 

[Djini]

So rate players on their own in isolation, not against each other.

My second sentence is not generally wrong. You're suggesting removing from a objective opinion about a player some of it's function because you can't compare it to another player because their implementation is different (or non existent).

You should either rate one system against another in it's whole and complete or not at all. Once you start selecting bits to exclude you give potential for a biased rating.

I fail to see how you can't see this! You are suggesting you skew the results by eliminating a function that for some systems is the very thing they are best known for!

And you do this in the name of making an objective comparison?

O_o

 

[estreeter]

Go and read the reviews on anythingbutipod.com, where the reviewer usually avoids direct comparisons to other players (usually, although he wears his heart on his sleeve with the Clip ..).
 
Read those reviews - occassionally glowing, often less so - then come back and tell us how objective you think his impressions are. IMO, there is no such thing as objectivity in a review, but I'd rather read his reviews before making a decision than rely on a set of electrical measurements.

 

[nwavguy]

 
Quote:

So rate players on their own in isolation, not against each other.

My second sentence is not generally wrong. You're suggesting removing from a objective opinion about a player some of it's function because you can't compare it to another player because their implementation is different (or non existent).

You should either rate one system against another in it's whole and complete or not at all. Once you start selecting bits to exclude you give potential for a biased rating.

I fail to see how you can't see this! You are suggesting you skew the results by eliminating a function that for some systems is the very thing they are best known for!

And you do this in the name of making an objective comparison?

O_o

I think I see your point, but it's simply not possible to *objectively* evaluate EQ in meaningful ways that can be *compared* to other players. And if objective data can't be compared, it's generally considered relatively worthless. What's the point if I test the 0-60 time of a Camaro on level ground and 0-60 of a Mustang going up hill or pulling a trailer. It's a pointless comparison. So, instead, we test them both under as similar of conditions as possible. Then you know which car really outperforms the other.
 
The same is true with portable players. You have to level the playing field to get meaningful comparisons.
 
It's true you can provide supplemental information like how the EQ works--i.e. how much boost and cut it has, what frequencies it works at, etc. And that might be useful information to some, but that's not what's mainly being discussed in this thread.
 
You're suggesting I, or someone else in this thread, would rate a player lower because it didn't have EQ. And I've not seen anything that indicates that. What many of us are saying is we'd just turn the EQ off, if the player has it, to level the playing field for fair testing.
 
EQ is mostly subjective. You're intentionally letting the user alter the sound to their preferences. So even providing some objective data isn't much use. It's like publishing the chemical components in a bottle of wine. Yeah, it's objective data, but it's also relatively useless in describing what it will taste like to the average Joe. And some of BBE's supposed snake oil isn't easily measured anyway (they like it that way).

 

[Anomaly2]

Quote:

Even better is the Teleportation Tweak.  It's only $60 and improves your system using tones over your phone.  And the phone doesn't even have to be in the same room as your gear. 
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina60.htm
 
There's even a thread here started by someone who's had it done. http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/274685/another-happy-teleportation-tweak-customer

This, unfortunately, is the result of all the subjectivist audiophile magazines and websites.  When one only cares about money and have no ethical standards, snake-oil sellers flourish.  It is all about subjectivism taken to extremes.
 


Quote:

So rate players on their own in isolation, not against each other.

 

[size=11pt]Cannot be done.  To rate is to compare.  To compare means more than one.

[/size]

My second sentence is not generally wrong.[size=11pt]  [You place players that have EQ at a disadvantage over players that offer none.][/size]

 

There is no disadvantage.  Let us say MP3 player A sounds about the same as MP3 player B with their equalizers off.  But let us say you prefer MP3 player B’s equalizer over MP3 player A’s equalizer.

 

[nwavguy]

Quote:

Go and read the reviews on anythingbutipod.com, where the reviewer usually avoids direct comparisons to other players (usually, although he wears his heart on his sleeve with the Clip ..).
 
Read those reviews - occassionally glowing, often less so - then come back and tell us how objective you think his impressions are. IMO, there is no such thing as objectivity in a review, but I'd rather read his reviews before making a decision than rely on a set of electrical measurements.

I've read many there, and I agree they can be useful reviews. Some things, like EQ, user interfaces, etc, are very subjective. Reviewing those areas of a player is not unlike reviewing food, wine, music or movies. If you find a movie critic with similar tastes to yours, you're likely to read their reviews more often. Nothing wrong with that. And there's more to a player than just the pure sound quality.
 
But when people make strong "night and day better" statements about Product A vs Product B, including very common statements like "much more low frequency extension" and "much cleaner highs" they're implying those things are true. When, in reality, it can be readily shown they're often *not* true.
 
I personally feel such statements can be misleading--especially to the person new to all this who say Googled and landed on a highly subjective review that appears to be based in fact. Such reviews are often more about psychological bias and have little to do with the actual performance of the device.

 

[estreeter]

If the engineering team behind the 6G Nano came out in print (yeah, right ..) and admitted that they had applied a 'base EQ' to the out-of-the-box sound signature of the DAP, I would be neither surprised nor upset. I dont know that every Head Fier would feel the same degree of apathy if similar disclosures were made about their DAP of choice. As Uncle Erik has pointed out several times, being prepared to go to battle for the sake of a multinational corporations piece of plastic makes absolutely no sense, but we see it here all the time.

 

[nwavguy]

Quote:

If the engineering team behind the 6G Nano came out in print (yeah, right ..) and admitted that they had applied a 'base EQ' to the out-of-the-box sound signature of the DAP, I would be neither surprised nor upset. I dont know that every Head Fier would feel the same degree of apathy if similar disclosures were made about their DAP of choice. As Uncle Erik has pointed out several times, being prepared to go to battle for the sake of a multinational corporations piece of plastic makes absolutely no sense, but we see it here all the time.

My "battle" is more about misleading subjective information that ends up being accepted largely as fact on the web. I don't have any particular grudge any particular corporation but I try to be as honest as possible--good or bad. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple did something like that either--especially given how awful most people think their supplied earbuds sound.

 

[macrocheesium]

 
Quote:

 
I think I see your point, but it's simply not possible to *objectively* evaluate EQ in meaningful ways that can be *compared* to other players. And if objective data can't be compared, it's generally considered relatively worthless. What's the point if I test the 0-60 time of a Camaro on level ground and 0-60 of a Mustang going up hill or pulling a trailer. It's a pointless comparison. So, instead, we test them both under as similar of conditions as possible. Then you know which car really outperforms the other.
 
The same is true with portable players. You have to level the playing field to get meaningful comparisons.
 
It's true you can provide supplemental information like how the EQ works--i.e. how much boost and cut it has, what frequencies it works at, etc. And that might be useful information to some, but that's not what's mainly being discussed in this thread.
 
You're suggesting I, or someone else in this thread, would rate a player lower because it didn't have EQ. And I've not seen anything that indicates that. What many of us are saying is we'd just turn the EQ off, if the player has it, to level the playing field for fair testing.
 
EQ is mostly subjective. You're intentionally letting the user alter the sound to their preferences. So even providing some objective data isn't much use. It's like publishing the chemical components in a bottle of wine. Yeah, it's objective data, but it's also relatively useless in describing what it will taste like to the average Joe. And some of BBE's supposed snake oil isn't easily measured anyway (they like it that way).

 
You say that to make a proper comparison you must first "level the playing field", but it looks pretty level to me. It almost sounds to me like you're going to take away from one player and add to the other, until they are almost equal and then compare them. Are you really going to cripple one player until it's comparable to one that was inferior, just so it's "fair"? That you need to turn off EQ on both, even though EQ is an essential component of the sound. IMO, this is nothing like how fast a car speeds up compared to the smell of the leather; EQ and raw sound are much more relevant to each other than that. I see your points, but the one thing that bothers me is that you're rating one player less than another because it sounds better without EQ. What is a player is better because of the EQ?

 

[nwavguy]

Quote:

You say that to make a proper comparison you must first "level the playing field", but it looks pretty level to me. It almost sounds to me like you're going to take away from one player and add to the other, until they are almost equal and then compare them. Are you really going to cripple one player until it's comparable to one that was inferior, just so it's "fair"? That you need to turn off EQ on both, even though EQ is an essential component of the sound. IMO, this is nothing like how fast a car speeds up compared to the smell of the leather; EQ and raw sound are much more relevant to each other than that. I see your points, but the one thing that bothers me is that you're rating one player less than another because it sounds better without EQ. What is a player is better because of the EQ?

It's long been an established standard to measure audio equipment with the EQ, tone controls, etc. set to "off". That way you're measuring the true performance of the equipment, rather than how the EQ colors the sound. And with some players, there are almost an infinite number of different possible EQ settings, so it's impossible to evaluate them all in any meaningful way.
 
Comparing portable players with the EQ turned on would be like comparing digital cameras with the special visual effects turned on. You'd have no idea how good of normal pictures the camera can take, and because the effects differ from camera to camera, you couldn't even compare (with words at least) say the poster effect on a Canon to the poster effect on a Nikon. What good is that?
 
And it's also not practical to record hundreds of sample sound files from each player for users to listen to the various EQ settings so they can decide for themselves. The recordings, to not degrade the sound, would have to be very high quality so they'd collectively be huge. And then there's still the issue of all the different hardware people would *listen* to the recorded samples on and what EQ they had enabled on the playback end. So they might be trying to evaluate EQ on top of EQ. See the problem?
 
As I said several posts earlier in this thread, if you want to rate players based on the sound of their EQ, that's a very *subjective* criteria and we're back to tasting wine or the smell of leather. One man's pleasure is another man's poison.
 
I also acknowledged previously that Cowon, for example, has more EQ options than many players. And that may well be part of the reason they get good ratings for sound quality. So I'm not trying to ignore the issue.
 
Those who master and mix music typically use as accurate of monitor speakers or headphones as they can justify for exactly the same reasons. They don't crank in a bunch of EQ into their monitoring rig--even if they personally like lots of EQ--because they have no idea if whoever listens to their material will have similar EQ. It's highly unlikely they won't. So their music would end up sounding way different than intended virtually everywhere but in their own studio. So most master their music to some known reference not a system tweaked with their own personal EQ bias.
 
As Anomaly2 and others have correctly said, the only fair way to objectively compare the *accuracy* of various players--i.e. how true they are to the original source material--is with the EQ turned off. So that's how it's done. That way you're comparing Apples with Apples. There is no handicap. There is no unfair advantage. There is no subjective sound altering EQ that one may find pleasant and another horrible. There's just the source material with whatever unavoidable distortions the player has.
 
If you want to bring EQ into the picture, you turn this entire discussion from being objective--i.e. hard numbers that are easily compared--to being almost entirely subjective--i.e. what kind of EQ JUST ONE person prefers. Which is more useful to a third party looking for information on which player to buy? They have no idea if they have the same tastes in EQ as the person writing the review. But they can easily compare how Player A starts rolling off below 50 hz and is missing the really deep bass entirely compared to Player B that's virtually flat to 20hz. Or they can compare distortion levels (which are typically degraded with EQ turned on), etc.

 

[macrocheesium]

 
Quote:

If you want to bring EQ into the picture, you turn this entire discussion from being objective--i.e. hard numbers that are easily compared--to being almost entirely subjective--i.e. what kind of EQ JUST ONE person prefers. Which one is more useful to a third party looking for information on which player to buy? They have no idea if they have the same tastes in EQ as the person writing the review.

I can see where you're going with this and I agree to a point. Measuring with EQ is one thing, without EQ is another. However, the theme of the thread is what sets portable players apart and makes them better then one another. All I'm saying is that EQ can make one player better than another (at least to some people), and it's definitely a factor to consider, and it seemed like you weren't acknowledging this. I apologize if you were trying to get this across and I didn't see it.
 
 
 
Quote:

As I said several posts earlier in this thread, if you want to rate players based on the sound of their EQ, that's a very *subjective* criteria and we're back to tasting wine or the smell of leather. One man's pleasure is another man's poison.

 
It's not like EQ only gives you one sound, quite the opposite. I don't really think this is a point you can bring up, considering the entire point of EQ is to change the sound to your preference. If the sound isn't to your liking, you can change it from poison to pleasure.