Audio Blind Testing

[mansr]

11 hours ago, gmgraves said:

I seriously doubt that you are a liar. All psychoacousticians agree that human memory of how something in a musical performance sounds is extremely short (strangely though, this does not apply to voices. We recognize voices that are familiar to us almost instantly and we never forget them. This is tied to some primordial survival skill). Oh, you can concentrate on one aspect of the sound and remember it as a general impression, but not in fact. What I mean by that is something like: "I went to the symphony last night and I couldn't get over how smooth the strings sounded." Now you will remember your impression of the strings, but you won't be able to remember what the strings actually sounded like, just your reaction to what they sounded like. In your case you have a mental impression of some aspect of past imaging, and you are comparing that to a current impression of imaging, but here's the rub. Your remembered impression of anything really specific, might be inaccurate. Specific impressions are very subject to the vagaries of human memory. An excellent example of this is the eye witness to a crime who is sure that he saw the defendant commit the crime, and is later found out to have fingered the wrong man. A lot of research has been done in this field recently. It turns out that memory in humans doesn't work like a recording (which was supposed for decades), that is to say, it's not continuous. The brain "refreshes" the memory every time it is brought to consciousness. IOW, it recalls it and refiles or 're-writes" it. When this happens, all kinds of non associative forces creep into it changing it subtly. Not saying that this is happening in your example, but it's possible simply because you are human.

 

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, sandyk said:

"The overwhelming majority [of audiophiles] have very little knowledge, if any, about the most basic principles and operating characteristics of audio equipment...........

-- Bruce Rozenblit of Transcendent Sound

Truer words were never spoken.

[mansr]

4 hours ago, MetalNuts said:

Are you saying that you cannot tell the difference between a $90 dollar wine from $5

Almost any two wines will taste differently regardless of price. While some characteristics are more commonly found at one end or the other of the price range, correctly identifying which is which from a single cheap/expensive pair is fraught with peril. There simply isn't enough correlation.

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Then why haven't you shared this remarkable achievement with the rest of the world?

He does, in every single post here on CA.

[mansr]

23 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Well, you must know that's not what I mean. Let's see his wonderful inventions that make the impossible possible. Why doesn't he get a patent on his mikes and his speakers and his amplifying and recording equipment and start manufacturing it so as to give this gift of perfect sound reproduction to the world?

Haven't you read his posts (one is enough). Apparently, he can make any old boom box play sublime music just by looking at it sternly.

 

Obviously, he's full of crap and a waste of time. I recommend ignoring him.

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

C. S. Lewis.: "You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong."

That makes no sense.

[mansr]

35 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Ummm ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism

Ummm... showing that a man is wrong and explaining why are one and the same. What Lewis calls Bulverism is more commonly termed the genetic fallacy. The snippet you quoted is, by itself, quite meaningless.

[mansr]

12 minutes ago, sandyk said:

No. I am not missing the point.

No, you are the point.

[mansr]

17 minutes ago, esldude said:

Well I don't think anyone believes you for a multitude of reasons. 

 

To change someone's mind you could tell us how we can manage the same trick, what methodology would get us there.  Yet whenever I have asked for this in the end it is a Frank thing only Frank can do with Frank's years of experience. 

That's Frank the rabbit from Donnie Darko, right? Or Frank from the Talk to Frank anti-drug campaign. I always get the two confused.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

What are we to glean from this lack of disclosure? 

That he's best ignored.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

Perhaps he hopes to use his knowledge one day for commercial reasons ?

Maybe. Either way, there's nothing to be learned from him.

[mansr]

55 minutes ago, esldude said:

Curious to know what your thinking is to lead you to such a conclusion.  

I can tell you what it isn't.

[mansr]

41 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

so that's how they found those big phaaat bosons!!

Did you mean bosoms?

 

41 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Standard Model Rules!    String "Theory" Drools!!

G-string?

[mansr]

20 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

the opposite sex does not appreciate their mate spending hours in front of an electronic contraption

Sounds about right.

[mansr]

6 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I suspect we could find some music where few could tell mp3 from Redbook

That's easy. The simpler the music, the better mp3 fares. Complex music with many simultaneous sounds tends to get muddled losing much of the low-level detail. Percussive sounds often suffer from a pre-echo effect (nothing to do filter ringing). Solo piano usually comes out OK, jazz and orchestral less so.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

Well for some pieces of gear when you can insert or remove it from the chain of reproduction and hear no change.

Like USB de-evilizers?

[mansr]

15 minutes ago, esldude said:

Yeah.  Lifted veils.  Layers removed. 

 

Brings up a point worth making.  The analogy of the transparent system is like looking thru a glass.  If the glass is dirty or tinted, or shaped to create optical distortions  then getting cleaner flatter glass lets you have that transparent view.  One should remember however even if the glass is clean changing the lighting of what is on the other side of the glass can look cleaner, clearer etc when that glass is no better than before.  Or even worse if the scene beyond the glass is too bright, a tinting might make the viewed scene clearer than if the glass were clear.  

The audiophile equivalent prefers looking at stained glass windows over viewing the scene on the other side.