SOtM Launches sMB-Q370 Motherboard

On 1/12/2022 at 5:27 AM, extracampine said:

I think saying that it is difficult to do is a cop-out. It would be easy, for example, to have a hifi setup with 2 source components, one with a standard mobo and one with this one. You could then easily switch source and listen for any differences. You would need a certain number of listeners ("n") to make the results statistically significant. 

 

If someone would set up a website, start doing this sort of thing and publishing the results, I think it would be very popular indeed!

What would happen if this were done, is as follows:

* A system, to get rid of the switching mechanism, would be duplicated: one with standard mobo; the other with the one discussed here. And it would turn out that the mobo variation does make an detectable difference, for a group of listeners; enough to be statistically valid.

* This would deeply disturb those of an objectivist bent; and at least one of those people  would assemble an matching rig - and measure, measure, measure. Leaving no stone unturned, he would unearth some anomaly, which he could link back to the mobo - perhaps, "The DAC that was used is poorly engineered; it reacts to a type of noise I can make this mobo produce!" - and be triumphant; he had demonstrated that the posted results were meaningless ...

* The objectivists would feel good, because their thinking had not been impacted; some of the subjectivists would despair - "Here we go again!!"

* And only a few individuals would realise, that this frantically digging objectivist had in fact demonstrated exactly what the other side always work with: that components always have flaws and weaknesses, and it's a balancing act, a journey, to assemble a combo of bits that overcome all the bottlenecks, to an acceptable degree.

* Nothing would be learnt. No progress would be made. And the world would keep turning ...

You should let the objectivist come up with a statistical justification for which measured parameter he thinks to differs across MBs is detectable at what threshold of change and then throw enough MBs with identical parameters at a crowd to see if that is true....

Correlating measurement data POST facto to an observation is not how science works. The scientist comes up with an a priori hypothesis and designs the experiment 

I agree you can fool me with quick comparisons, but over the long haul I trust what I hear  ... no need for DB testing here, or hear

47 minutes ago, bbosler said:

I agree you can fool me with quick comparisons, but over the long haul I trust what I hear  ... no need for DB testing here, or hear

As a person, who does science day in and day out, trust but verify. I do that with everything. 

This is all as bizarre as people arguing that changing the microphone won't alter how a person sounds, in a recording . The linkages are well in place: different mobos have different spectrums of interference noise that they produce; and audio chains are notoriously under-engineered to reject this sort of noise - it's trivially obvious that there can be a cause and effect thing going on ...

But one clan have taken it on as an article of faith, That This Can't Happen!!! It's all pretty silly, this need to hang on to such a belief - and they call themselves, scientists,

3 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

 

In Non-science world, a theory is considered a guess. In science it is based on fact and is reasoned by logic.

 

Hypothesis = Theory for non-scientists.

fact in your science therefore cannot be overturned by new information ? There are quite a few examples that have proven to be wrong, let's start with the 'fact' that the earth is flat, that the logic by which it was kept in place was flawed was not discovered until (much) later but flawed it was.

please read up on how science works before writing such nonsense

5 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

fact in your science therefore cannot be overturned by new information ? There are quite a few examples that have proven to be wrong, let's start with the 'fact' that the earth is flat, that the logic by which it was kept in place was flawed was not discovered until (much) later but flawed it was.

Enlightened man has known the world is round since the 3rd century BC.....

So how ‘bout that MBO?

Just so that this bit is not debated, https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/difference-between-hypothesis-and-theory-usage.

In daily life I try to keep a couple of scientist on track by making sure they don't get lost in the corridors of the things that happen in real life. If you want a pissing contest please organize it in a brewery of your choice, I have no issue with folks not believing there is more than what can be measured but I hate the pointless I am more right than you debates over this, especially when folks start  to throw in the their heritage as a justification for being right. 

7 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

I have no issue with folks not believing there is more than what can be measured

Is anyone in this thread actually saying this?

16 hours ago, botrytis said:

... my handle is what I worked on for my PhD.

Ahhh, you ol' noble rot maestro 😊  

8 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

You're making a very large assumption here....that the mobo variation makes a statistically significant detectable difference. I don't think that it would, but that is what the test would be set up to do. 

IME, everything you do in the electrical environment of a higher resolution setup makes an audible difference. For the simple reason that most designers and engineers assume that what they have done to avoid this, is "good enough". And this immediately unleashes the enormous tweaking, and snake oil industries we currently have ...

Whether a particular mobo does or doesn't is pretty irrelevant - it's just a grain of sand on the beach of all the things that can matter. I can alter how my current system sounds by making almost absurdly silly changes to how things are set up - and the reason for that is there is an extremely fine balance required for optimum SQ - disrupt that balance, and it's easy to hear the effect.

8 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

Second, you say "this would deeply disturb those of an objectivist bent". It wouldn't deeply disturb them - the whole point of a double blind trial is to provide objective evidence - where there is a difference, or not. And if someone can find out what is causing that difference, then that's a win-win isn't it! 

It's hard to do the DBT well enough to get meaningful results. And there is a powerful need in many objectivists to find any loophole which means they don't have think deeper about what's going on. And what's going on is exactly what scientists, etc, in any field which requires precision deal with daily - noise, interference makes their findings unreliable; they always have to be on the lookout for aberrations which render what they're trying to measure harder to get right. 

8 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

The fact remains, that when the results matter, this is how it is done. You can't argue with that. So if we really want to find out the answers, this is how, no matter how cumbersome to set up and how much certain audio manufacturers wouldn't like it. 

 

 

There have already been attempts to do this sort of thing more rigorously; and the backlash by those who, say, belong to the AES has been very strong. With the desire to push it under the carpet. When an attitude has built up over many decades, like this, it will take a great deal of effort to break it down  - no single experiment has got a hope of getting somewhere, no matter how well it's done ...

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

IME, everything you do in the electrical environment of a higher resolution setup makes an audible difference. For the simple reason that most designers and engineers assume that what they have done to avoid this, is "good enough". And this immediately unleashes the enormous tweaking, and snake oil industries we currently have ...

Well, that's your opinion and not what we were discussing here. We're talking about the objective stance, and double-blind controlled trials.

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

Whether a particular mobo does or doesn't is pretty irrelevant - it's just a grain of sand on the beach of all the things that can matter. I can alter how my current system sounds by making almost absurdly silly changes to how things are set up - and the reason for that is there is an extremely fine balance required for optimum SQ - disrupt that balance, and it's easy to hear the effect.

It's just as relevant as any other component is. Indeed, it's $550 of relevance, which is a lot to some. And whether "all the things that can matter" actually do matter, well, you'd have to do some double blind controlled trials to see if they do.....

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

It's hard to do the DBT well enough to get meaningful results.

Back to the "it's difficult" argument.... It's not prohibitively difficult - you just get 2 systems that are the same, except for the mobo, and compare them - in a controlled way in keeping with the trial protocol of course.

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

And there is a powerful need in many objectivists to find any loophole which means they don't have think deeper about what's going on.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. When we have the results of the trial, either they are statistically significant, or they are not. So we have an answer to our question either way.

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

There have already been attempts to do this sort of thing more rigorously; and the backlash by those who, say, belong to the AES has been very strong. With the desire to push it under the carpet.

Yes, all throughout history there have been backlashes to progress. When it was first suggested that our Earth is not at the centre of the universe, there was a backlash. So what?

20 hours ago, fas42 said:

When an attitude has built up over many decades, like this, it will take a great deal of effort to break it down  - no single experiment has got a hope of getting somewhere, no matter how well it's done ...

A single experiment will yield results on what it was designed to show, if done properly. That is all we are talking about here. If there are people with an "attitude" (presumably who don't understand scientific trials), that would be their problem. And of course, like in other fields, these trials would be repeated, and other trials would be done, to build up an "evidence base".

On 1/14/2022 at 2:44 AM, MarcelNL said:

In daily life I try to keep a couple of scientist on track by making sure they don't get lost in the corridors of the things that happen in real life. If you want a pissing contest please organize it in a brewery of your choice, I have no issue with folks not believing there is more than what can be measured but I hate the pointless I am more right than you debates over this, especially when folks start  to throw in the their heritage as a justification for being right. 

I worked in a big-name distillery as the 'grand pubah' of analytical and fermentation for 2 years. Trying to get management to get their heads out of their asses was the toughest job I had. It never worked and they had no clue what they were doing.

Been there done that. I also worked in the corn ethanol industry for many years.

2 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

Well, that's your opinion and not what we were discussing here. We're talking about the objective stance, and double-blind controlled trials.

Changing the configuration of a system, any sort of system, audio or otherwise, in any sort of environment, is highly likely to alter its behaviour in some area. Which may be easy or hard to detect, using the human senses, or measuring devices. It seems only in the audio world is there a bizarre need to prove that this can happen, using such methods as DBTs - for items which don't meet the approval of those with an objectivist leaning.

2 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

 

It's just as relevant as any other component is. Indeed, it's $550 of relevance, which is a lot to some. And whether "all the things that can matter" actually do matter, well, you'd have to do some double blind controlled trials to see if they do.....

So, if you make a change to your system, in any area, and you think it sounds better, then you're shortchanging yourself unless you do a comprehensive DBT to confirm this?

2 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

Back to the "it's difficult" argument.... It's not prohibitively difficult - you just get 2 systems that are the same, except for the mobo, and compare them - in a controlled way in keeping with the trial protocol of course.

Yes, this would be the way; if one was genuinely interested in getting a significant result.

2 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. When we have the results of the trial, either they are statistically significant, or they are not. So we have an answer to our question either way.

 

 

Yes, all throughout history there have been backlashes to progress. When it was first suggested that our Earth is not at the centre of the universe, there was a backlash. So what?

The "So what?" is that progress in thinking, and real changes how things are done is severely hindered for long periods of time, unnecessarily. Historically, you wait for those who have "bad thinking" to drop dead - because movement occurs in the youngest generation, who are not handicapped by "set in concrete" ideas .

2 hours ago, extracampine said:

 

 

A single experiment will yield results on what it was designed to show, if done properly. That is all we are talking about here. If there are people with an "attitude" (presumably who don't understand scientific trials), that would be their problem. And of course, like in other fields, these trials would be repeated, and other trials would be done, to build up an "evidence base".

That's the theory ... the reality is, if there is strong inclination to disbelieve then the human condition guarantees that this will be a long, drawn out process, which will fizzle out regularly ...

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

That's the theory ... the reality is, if there is strong inclination to disbelieve then the human condition guarantees that this will be a long, drawn out process, which will fizzle out regularly ...

A perfect example of this, happening currently, is "cold fusion" - whatever you wish to call it, there is something going on, which the majority of the "scientific" community wishes would just disappear from the scene. It takes a very brave experimenter to venture here; but enough meaningful results emerge, to keep those interested continuing to investigate ...

51 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Changing the configuration of a system, any sort of system, audio or otherwise, in any sort of environment, is highly likely to alter its behaviour in some area. Which may be easy or hard to detect, using the human senses, or measuring devices. It seems only in the audio world is there a bizarre need to prove that this can happen, using such methods as DBTs - for items which don't meet the approval of those with an objectivist leaning.

 

You've got things reversed. 

It is only in the audio world where there is a bizarre belief that the Sagan Standard ("extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence") doesn't apply.

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

You've got things reversed. 

 

It is only in the audio world where there is a bizarre belief that the Sagan Standard ("extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence") doesn't apply.

So, you consider the concept that most audio systems are sensitive to electrical noise and interference an "extraordinary claim"?

16 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

So, you consider the concept that most audio systems are sensitive to electrical noise and interference an "extraordinary claim"?

Certainly less extraordinary than your original claim:

Quote

 

everything you do in the electrical environment of a higher resolution setup makes an audible difference

 

8 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Certainly less extraordinary than your original claim:

 

Note, you left out the IME bit ... there will always be components engineered well enough so that they don't require that extra kid glove handling, to get the best from them; I just haven't come across them, so far .

Interesting discussion.

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

Changing the configuration of a system, any sort of system, audio or otherwise, in any sort of environment, is highly likely to alter its behaviour in some area. Which may be easy or hard to detect, using the human senses, or measuring devices.

But not necessarily likely to lead to reliable audible differences, hence the need for a DBT to answer that question properly.

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

It seems only in the audio world is there a bizarre need to prove that this can happen, using such methods as DBTs - for items which don't meet the approval of those with an objectivist leaning.

No, like I said, in any field where it actually matters (take developing medications as an example) there is a need to prove it can happen. It's not bizarre at all. And if you're looking at parting with hundreds or thousands of $ for audio equipment then it's not bizarre either that we would want to know if something is better or not. 

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

So, if you make a change to your system, in any area, and you think it sounds better, then you're shortchanging yourself unless you do a comprehensive DBT to confirm this?

No, of course not. Individuals are free to do what they like with their own systems. The point is that the fact that you think it sounds better could quite possibly be due to placebo/expectation bias/etc - so other people can not make any conclusions from it. This is fine for you in your own home if you're not bothered about that - but when we're talking about the consumer market and expensive purchases, then many will want reliable information to guide them. 

12 hours ago, fas42 said:

The "So what?" is that progress in thinking, and real changes how things are done is severely hindered for long periods of time, unnecessarily. Historically, you wait for those who have "bad thinking" to drop dead - because movement occurs in the youngest generation, who are not handicapped by "set in concrete" ideas .

I'm not entirely sure on your point; you had said that there had been attempts to do this sort of thing already (DBT) and that the backlash from certain groups (e.g. AES) has been strong. I had countered by saying so what if there is a backlash, it's all in the name of progress. You seem to be agreeing with me on this one.