Why Do People Come To Computer Audiophile To Display Their Contempt For Audiophiles?

[mmerrill99]

Cheers!

[Ralf11]

7 hours ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Utter nonsense is a good point?

So it's blind test "bias" why audiophiles can't hear Santa and Uri Geller can't bend spoons under controlled conditions? Really?

 

you seem to be confused about what was said - please go back and read it again

[esldude]

9 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

I should have been more accurate in my request - how would you fully characterise noise to show that it is below audibility which I believe is what Fas42 was getting at? 

80 db below your normal listening level should be satisfactory.  I said the same thing somewhere in this thread.

 

If you want more detail I would want the quiescent noise level 80 db below normal listening levels.  I would want dynamic range at those levels or less. 

 

 

[esldude]

9 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

No, this your defensiveness kicking in - just because I point out possible flaws in your method doesn't mean I'm "intent on attacking the credibility of anyone choosing gear without extensive sighted listening." This seems a very biased view If one can't examine a methodology, objectively then it's much more of a belief system than an objective approach 

 

Don't have a problem examining methodology.  If anything you are tiresome in refusing to accept the methodology by using sophistry to act as if you have found some flaw in it. Then no examination satisfies you because you have decided you aren't going to be satisfied with it. 

 

9 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

You have inadvertently revealed the problem - your assumption is that your measurements have revealed everything that can be heard & therefore you have never heard anything (or returned a product) once you are happy with the measurements. So two questions:

- do you believe that your measurements have revealed ALL that can be heard - please tell us what set of measurements you use to qualify for this accolade

- do you think it's possible that your measurements have so biased you that you are convinced there is noting which you will hear that has not been revealed in the measurements & therefore you don't hear anything - it's self-fulfilling as all biases are!  

Yes, it's messier, less efficient & prone to error - so what - it has the advantage that it isn't approaching the real world with a theory of operation & therefore is open to being surprised & taught by experience.

 

 

Very strange ideas you imagine.

 

The old ridiculous claim about everything that can be heard. 

 

I won't go into the particular measurements as I have done so more than once.  Whether the measurements reveal everything that can be heard I don't know.  They reveal much of what can be heard.  Each measurement properly applied narrows down the area where remaining problems could be.  Our basic good set of measurements has narrowed that way down.  Anything that might get through undetected will not cause major differences in sound quality. They will  necessarily be much smaller.  These measurements already well exceed what can be detected by simple listening while knowing the identity of what you are listening to.  The noise in the measurement results of the sighted listener swamps out whole areas that can be measured very well by other means.  Measurements with measuring instruments don't have to be perfect to handily beat just listening. 

 

The business about measuring biasing me to not hear differences is one that can be tested.  I can do a test of things that are really different without knowing they are and someone can see if they are detected by me.  One inadvertent test of that was last year hearing files posted from what should have been virtually identical signals.  The details certainly made me believe that.  Others insisted they sounded different.  I listened using some ABX software and did indeed detect a difference.  I then looked at the files with more scrutiny and found a level difference and an FR difference (the latter being sizable).  In the end the details omitted information.  Yet I was biased to think they would sound the same and they did not.   As usual the answer isn't to worry about biases so much as it is to test in a way they aren't as likely to effect the results. 

 

Yes, it's messier, less efficient & prone to error - so what - it has the advantage that it isn't approaching the real world with a theory of operation & therefore is open to being surprised & taught by experience.

 

The other approach can be surprised as well.  Plus it makes good use of the experience of many people honing in on the truth beyond a single lifetime.  Approaching things without a theory of operation being a superior approach sounds stupid if you ask me.  And this an approach you approve of after stating the obvious that it is less efficient and prone to error.  Inefficient and prone to error is not a negative folks!  Now that is news.  Let us embrace the inefficient and prone to error approaches in all of life. 

 

[mmerrill99]

23 minutes ago, esldude said:

80 db below your normal listening level should be satisfactory.  I said the same thing somewhere in this thread.

 

If you want more detail I would want the quiescent noise level 80 db below normal listening levels.  I would want dynamic range at those levels or less. 

 

 

The point is that when I asked you for the full set of tests to characterise noise you left out a test for noise modulation so you cannot say noise is inaudible based on your previous list of measurements to run.

 

Have you left out any other tests?

 

You see the problem? The range of tests run are determined by tester & this can be one of the limitations of the reliance on measurements

[Ralf11]

esl, he is essentially saying that one might be biased to look only in certain places for something

 

thus, a bias in the design of an experiment could result in a bias that affects the outcome

 

a bit similar to the classic joke of a guy looking for his car keys under a light pole, a passerby asks about them and helps look only to find out he lost them in a dark spot several yards away ("but it's light over here")

[esldude]

9 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

Again, you reveal the shortcomings of measurements - you don't really know what is the complete set of measurements needed.

 

Example: You suggested on Audioscience review that you would like to see measurements which reveal noise modulation issues - you don't itemise this here?

 

I asked you  a while back for these noise mod measurements of the 3 or 4 DACs you own - you didn't reply so I take it you have not done these measurements.

 

Do you therefore consider that you have fully qualified the noise behaviour of these DACs?

 

So let me get this straight.  A measured approach is bad because it isn't capable of being surprised and people who use it think they know all that there is to know. 

 

Then if they instead (contrary to your mischaractarization) express the possibility of surprise or at least curiosity about whether something could stand more scrutiny it is an indictment of their approach.  You probably even think you win arguments this way don't you?

 

Whether I have fully qualified noise behaviour of DACs, I have well measured the quantity of the noise and put limits upon how much it might matter.   Perhaps noise floor modulation could matter a little or not.  It would be nice to see additional info. 

 

So far noise modulation appears to be a relatively small effect except when the signal has significant jitter (like over HDMI) or when people use leaky filters that let aliasing modulate the noise floor as the level of the 20 khz range changes.  Leaky filters are seen in gear that does so to prevent pre-ringing and in gear which is cheap and they are simply not doing good filtering. 

 

I must have missed where you asked me about the noise previously.  Yet again you seem to think I have to claim perfect knowledge in every aspect for it to have validity or if I admit less than perfect knowledge this throws into disarray the whole idea of measuring.   I neither claim perfect knowledge nor need to. 

[mmerrill99]

20 minutes ago, esldude said:

Don't have a problem examining methodology.  If anything you are tiresome in refusing to accept the methodology by using sophistry to act as if you have found some flaw in it. Then no examination satisfies you because you have decided you aren't going to be satisfied with it. 

What sophistry - simply pointing out a possible flaw.

Thank you for telling me what I'm not going to accept - I needed your insight

 

20 minutes ago, esldude said:

I won't go into the particular measurements as I have done so more than once.  Whether the measurements reveal everything that can be heard I don't know.

Well we had focussed on noise & your claim about it's inaudibility based on your measurements. I pointed out a test that you left out which you had stated on another forum you would like to see being done on a more regular basis. So your claim of inaudible noise cannot be made based on lack of measurement data that you already identified

 

[esldude]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

esl, he is essentially saying that one might be biased to look only in certain places for something

 

thus, a bias in the design of an experiment could result in a bias that affects the outcome

 

a bit similar to the classic joke of a guy looking for his car keys under a light pole, a passerby asks about them and helps look only to find out he lost them in a dark spot several yards away ("but it's light over here")

Sounds more like the subjectivist approach to me.  It is easy to simply sit and listen without trying to really understand anything.  And it makes me feel like I can know something much easier.  So we'll just do that instead of all the bother of doing more. (or bother looking over there where it is a bit dark even though the keys are there).

 

Bias can of course influence where you look and what you look for.  Good measured approaches that have found success and testing of those results that as much as possible control for bias have a much better track record than those who simply make no effort.  So sure with no controls anything is possible, but then anything is possible.  Doesn't exactly guide anyone to what is important does it?

[AJ Soundfield]

14 minutes ago, mmerrill99 said:

  On 7/6/2017 at 4:08 AM, esldude said:

You might find understanding my approach easier if you remember, it is my opinion, other than gear designed to have a particular sound, everything between the transducers is not detectable with a slight exception for matching amps to speakers. And exceptions for low quality gear which has sub-standard measured performance.

 

  On 7/6/2017 at 10:06 AM, mmerrill99 said:

  22 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

Sure, I know your approach & many others is that all gear, except transducers, sounds the same but this isn't borne our in reality so I don't subscribe to your approach.

If you can't judge the sound without measurements then it's a sad state of affairs

 

You see the problem? 

Sure do

[plissken]

You will all quickly find out why mmerrill made my ignore list a long time ago.

[AJ Soundfield]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

you seem to be confused about what was said - please go back and read it again

I'm quoting verbatim, no confusion or rereading needed on my part.

You thought nonsense was a good point

[mmerrill99]

3 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

esl, he is essentially saying that one might be biased to look only in certain places for something

 

thus, a bias in the design of an experiment could result in a bias that affects the outcome

 

a bit similar to the classic joke of a guy looking for his car keys under a light pole, a passerby asks about them and helps look only to find out he lost them in a dark spot several yards away ("but it's light over here")

Well yes but I'm also saying that measurements prior to listening can bias listening - it's not that difficult a concept, really!

[AJ Soundfield]

2 minutes ago, mmerrill99 said:

Well yes but I'm also saying that measurements prior to listening can bias listening 

Sure. John Atkinson always measures last just in case.

 

What does that have to with being totally one dimensional by being incapable of measuring and subsequently having zero trust in ears and avoiding trust ears tests at all cost? 

[mmerrill99]

5 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Sure. John Atkinson always measures last just in case.

Indeed but many, many posts used to try to deny this

 

And you yourself claimed it as absolute rubbish just above

[esldude]

14 minutes ago, mmerrill99 said:

What sophistry - simply pointing out a possible flaw.

Thank you for telling me what I'm not going to accept - I needed your insight

 

Well we had focussed on noise & your claim about it's inaudibility based on your measurements. I pointed out a test that you left out which you had stated on another forum you would like to see being done on a more regular basis. So your claim of inaudible noise cannot be made based on lack of measurement data that you already identified

 

Well, since the post about noise modulation on ASR, I in fact did some measurements of the DACs on hand to see how much it amounted to and therefore have new information.  Would still like to see more information in that area.

 

Is noise modulation audible?  At some level yes.  In fact if the modulation is considerable it will show up in the dynamic range test.  So your continued sophistry is to pretend complete knowledge is needed and lack of it destroys an entire body of useful knowledge. 

[mmerrill99]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

So your continued sophistry is to pretend complete knowledge is needed and lack of it destroys an entire body of useful knowledge. 

No, it destroys CLAIMS of inaudibility that you yourself made

[mmerrill99]

2 minutes ago, esldude said:

Is noise modulation audible?  At some level yes.  In fact if the modulation is considerable it will show up in the dynamic range test.  So your continued sophistry is to pretend complete knowledge is needed and lack of it destroys an entire body of useful knowledge. 

Again, can you qualify this claim? What level are you saying it is audible at & below what level not? What signal conditions cause audibility? 

[AJ Soundfield]

7 minutes ago, mmerrill99 said:

15 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

19 hours ago, mmerrill99 said:

Even if doing blinded listening tests, two devices which measure the same, will bias one towards not hearing any difference between these devices. 

And you yourself claimed it as absolute rubbish just above

Yep, but not a "claim". It is rubbish.

Maybe not quite as funny as the nocebo ABCHR flailing, but still pretty good 

[mmerrill99]

Just now, AJ Soundfield said:

Yep, but not a "claim". It is rubbish.

Maybe not quite as funny as the nocebo ABCHR flailing, but still pretty good 

It must be difficult for you to find your way out of your mind's labyrinth?

[mmerrill99]

9 minutes ago, esldude said:

In fact if the modulation is considerable it will show up in the dynamic range test. 

So, let's try to qualify this - are you saying that if noise mod is audible it will show up in the DR test?

Ergo, only when "modulation is considerable" will it be audible?

[AJ Soundfield]

4 minutes ago, mmerrill99 said:

It must be difficult for you to find your way out of your mind's labyrinth

I'm not the one exposing myself to components for weeks to "hear" them, remember?

I trust my ears 

[mmerrill99]

Just now, AJ Soundfield said:

I trust my ears 

It's just your logic that's in question

[AJ Soundfield]

4 minutes ago, mmerrill99 said:

So, let's try to qualify this - are you saying that if noise mod is audible it will show up in the DR test?

Put the cart back behind the horse, have "noise mod" show up audible in a trust ears test first, worry about showing correlated measurements later, no wild goose chases and shifted burden of proof.

[mmerrill99]

1 minute ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Put the cart back behind the horse, have "noise mod" show up audible in a trust ears test first, worry about showing correlated measurements later, no wild goose chases.

Ask esl

Do you know any such tests for noise mod?