Audio Blind Testing

[gmgraves]

15 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Yet a device such as a DAT player or even a Nakamichi Tape Deck sounds better when numerous soldered steel links are replaced by copper wire links !

Well, steel isn't the greatest conductor of electricity, after all.

[sandyk]

Just now, gmgraves said:

Well, steel isn't the greatest conductor of electricity, after all.

 

No, but the combined resistance of all the straps is likely to be way less than the less than the resistance of your copper interconnects, especially when you add in plug and socket resistances.

[gmgraves]

2 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

No, but the combined resistance of all the straps is likely to be way less than the less than the resistance of your copper interconnects, especially when you add in plug and socket resistances.

 

I have no experience with such modifications, so I can't really make an intelligent or useful comment. I'll just have to take your word for it that the improvement is audible in a DBT between two identical samples, one modified in the manner you outlined and the other left stock. I assume that this is how you ascertained that the unit with the copper straps sounded better than the unit with the stock steel ones. 

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

I have no experience with such modifications, so I can't really make an intelligent or useful comment. I'll just have to take your word for it that the improvement is audible in a DBT between two identical samples, one modified in the manner you outlined and the other left stock. I assume that this is how you ascertained that the unit with the copper straps sounded better than the unit with the stock steel ones. 

 

 A friend and myself had similar models.

No, we didn't feel the need to do pointless DBTs.

[gmgraves]

11 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 A friend and myself had similar models.

No, we didn't feel the need to do pointless DBTs.

 

I see. OK.

[marce]

10 hours ago, sandyk said:

  Marc

Yet you are still using an antiquated SBT with a SMPS ?

Are you afraid that you may learn something that unsettles you if you power it with a decent Linear PSU  or a low noise SMPS with the earth side of it's supply earthed ?

There is quite possibly another U.K. member who is willing to loan you a more suitable PSU to try with that mediocre SQ device.

Yes, I have heard a couple of SBTs owned by a friend who worked in I.T. , both before, and after modifications and a better PSU which did result in a very worthwhile improvement. The unmodified SBTs also sounded  a little lacking when compared with another I.T. friend's (Greg Erskine) Transporter which is still easily outperformed by more modern DACs.

 

Alex

Yes Alex,

for two reasons, one  I am renovating a old house and most of my stuff is in boxes and two, since July 2015 my focus has been on fighting the big C. So when I move and get my listening room set up correctly I will have the space to listen properly and assess gear properly. Untill then I have only my headphones and whatever I can plug them in...

What I have found is that even though some sources are lacking a bit in overall sound quality (Spotify) I am enjoying the music...

[sandyk]

Hi Marc

 Seems like you have the right priorities already.

The main thing is that you are enjoying the music .

All the best for the future.

 

Kind Regards

Alex

 

[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.

 

[Ralf11]

comparisons are nearly pointless without DBTs

 

- there is a huge cognitive psychology literature about this, including cross-modal sensory issues, not to mention "label whore" effects in wine tastings, food tastings, and on and on

 

- the effects are not limited to humans but are known in other mammals and birds

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

comparisons are nearly pointless without DBTs

 

Music is for enjoyment, not in depth analysis every time you hear improvements when  using different or better equipment.

Many Music lovers will, if the results aren't quite marked, use non sighted  testing to make up their mind.

That is all that is needed.

Music lovers have no interest in having their findings peer reviewed or published in Scientific journals !

 

[Ralf11]

Music lovers have no interest in DIY capacitor de-soldering either !!!

 

Your arrogance in attempting to make decisions for "Music lovers" is one of the things that earned you Audio Ayatollah status - a nom de diss I agree with.

[fas42]

19 hours ago, sandyk said:

Much of the testing I do after modifications involves listening to material where there is an excellent 3D type image.

Either the illusion sounds very real , or it is missing something compared with how well you know that it SHOULD sound. 

 Occasionally, I will be surprised at how good it sounds this time, and realise that it is a further improvement.

That is very different to the situation you quoted.

 

 

Alex, wanted to comment on this yesterday, but didn't make it! The "3D quality" of the presentation is another way of describing attributes of higher level playback; and this happens, automatically, when the low level detail in the recording is clearly rendered - the ear/brain can now make sense of what "all that muffled stuff" means - and full clarity of the sound field is perceived.

 

Do you have to remember what a violin sounds like in the flesh, versus the conventional representation by audio systems? If you do, you have my sympathies ... most people have never experienced a rig that does things like getting instruments so right that it is impossible to pick the fake; comparing two dodgy imitations of such is rather pointless, IMO - the only metric worthy of taking seriously is how close to achieving that convincing standard one is.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

comparisons are nearly pointless without DBTs

 

- there is a huge cognitive psychology literature about this, including cross-modal sensory issues, not to mention "label whore" effects in wine tastings, food tastings, and on and on

 

- the effects are not limited to humans but are known in other mammals and birds

 

The reason they work is because they not only eliminate sighted and conformational biases, but, at least in audio terms, they do not rely on a long term sonic memory, which humans do not have. The instantaneous switching between one DUT and another will show an equally instantaneous difference in SQ (if one exists). The caveat here is that the DBT must be scrupulously perfect to be useful. That's easy with passive components or ancillary components not actually in the signal path, but very difficult with active components due to the need to match the level between DUTs precisely. I've read where even a difference of a single dB will cause an invalid result. Add to that the necessity for the un-involved switching operator to also not know what he's switching, or indeed if his action switched anything at all, and that the involved listeners should not be able to see the operator initiate any action, and setting up a proper DBT becomes very difficult. If one participates in a DBT and tells others about it, or publishes the result of a DBT, It still doesn't actually prove anything because one rarely can have the assurance that the test was scrupulously set-up and carried out. Since Interconnects have no insertion loss, and switching between high-level inputs on an amp is straight-forward, those can be successfully carried out by a dedicated group of curious audiophiles, but all others, should be viewed with a very critical eye.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

Music lovers have no interest in DIY capacitor de-soldering either !!!

 

Your arrogance in attempting to make decisions for "Music lovers" is one of the things that earned you Audio Ayatollah status - a nom de diss I agree with.

 

Of course, this is the big problem, in the industry - Alex and I don't hesitate to make changes to equipment, to solve problems - and this often is the only way to resolve the underlying weakness. If a quality bottleneck exists, and can't be sorted external to the components, then those who don't have DIY skills or inclination are in a bind! A change in attitude, in the audio field overall, is needed - and hopefully this will come about down the track ...

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

Music is for enjoyment, not in depth analysis every time you hear improvements when  using different or better equipment.

Many Music lovers will, if the results aren't quite marked, use non sighted  testing to make up their mind.

That is all that is needed.

Music lovers have no interest in having their findings peer reviewed or published in Scientific journals !

 

 

On one level you are correct, Alex. If you think some change, no matter how dubious, has improved the sound of your system, then it has because it's increased the amount of pleasure that you get from listening to music on your system. OTOH, such a lassis-faire attitude toward reality only encourages charlatans to sell ever more expensive doo-dads; the function of which in actually improving sound quality is extremely dubious. Now people have a right to believe what they will, but that doesn't mean that these scientifically challenged products can't be, or shouldn't be debated in an open forum like this one, or that curious people shouldn't apply the best available tests to prove or disprove the efficacy of some of these products. 

[gmgraves]

14 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Alex, wanted to comment on this yesterday, but didn't make it! The "3D quality" of the presentation is another way of describing attributes of higher level playback; and this happens, automatically, when the low level detail in the recording is clearly rendered - the ear/brain can now make sense of what "all that muffled stuff" means - and full clarity of the sound field is perceived.

 

Do you have to remember what a violin sounds like in the flesh, versus the conventional representation by audio systems? If you do, you have my sympathies ... most people have never experienced a rig that does things like getting instruments so right that it is impossible to pick the fake; comparing two dodgy imitations of such is rather pointless, IMO - the only metric worthy of taking seriously is how close to achieving that convincing standard one is.

 

Again you seem to miss the point of the discussion on long-term sonic memory.

[sandyk]

5 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

On one level you are correct, Alex. If you think some change, no matter how dubious, has improved the sound of your system, then it has because it's increased the amount of pleasure that you get from listening to music on your system. OTOH, such a lassis-faire attitude toward reality only encourages charlatans to sell ever more expensive doo-dads; the function of which in actually improving sound quality is extremely dubious. Now people have a right to believe what they will, but that doesn't mean that these scientifically challenged products can't be, or shouldn't be debated in an open forum like this one, or that curious people shouldn't apply the best available tests to prove or disprove the efficacy of some of these products. 

George

 You have already demonstrated in the quote from you below, that it is virtually impossible for members of a forum like this to effectively use DBTs that will be accepted as proof of anything.

It also shows why Ralf 11's incessant demands for DBTs to be performed are simply his arrogant way of putting down all subjective reports.

Alex

17 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

The caveat here is that the DBT must be scrupulously perfect to be useful. That's easy with passive components or ancillary components not actually in the signal path, but very difficult with active components due to the need to match the level between DUTs precisely. I've read where even a difference of a single dB will cause an invalid result. Add to that the necessity for the un-involved switching operator to also not know what he's switching, or indeed if his action switched anything at all, and that the involved listeners should not be able to see the operator initiate any action, and setting up a proper DBT becomes very difficult. If one participates in a DBT and tells others about it, or publishes the result of a DBT, It still doesn't actually prove anything because one rarely can have the assurance that the test was scrupulously set-up and carried out.

 

[Ralf11]

Dear Audio Ayatollah - please don't mischaracterize me or my position

 

it just makes you look worse than usual

 

BTW, people can use meters to match levels.  Not hard.

[gmgraves]

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

George

 You have already demonstrated in the quote from you below, that it is virtually impossible for members of a forum like this to effectively use DBTs that will be accepted as proof of anything.

It also shows why Ralf 11's incessant demands for DBTs to be performed are simply his arrogant way of putting down all subjective reports.

Alex

 

 

No Alex, not "virtually impossible",  just very difficult for anything where level differences can occur.

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Dear Audio Ayatollah - please don't mischaracterize me or my position

 

 Everybody already knows your position. You state it in every single post.

You have a hatred of Audiophiles !

 

Quote

"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

 

[Ralf11]

you know who Bruce Rozenblit is, don't you???

 

 

maybe we should say Audiofools

 

you know, people who reject science and rely on speculation

 

 

[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.

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

No Alex, not "virtually impossible",  just very difficult for anything where level differences can occur.

Sorry George, but it is virtually impossible for members of a forum like this to set up any DBTs that would be Scientifically recognised, let alone accepted by members of other forums.

Even the Professionals have problems organising such DBTs where the results will be accepted by all ,other professionals.

[Ralf11]

Really??? Care to make a bet on that?   

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

Truer words were never spoken.

 Whether it is true or not, is not the point.

 It demonstrates his utter contempt for the vast majority of members of this forum, and begs the question as to his motives for becoming a member of an Audiophile forum, just as it does for you as well to some extent .

Admittedly though, you can be quite helpful to other members when you decide to be.