Audio Blind Testing

[gmgraves]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The goal of sounding like real, live music I achieved over 30 years ago

 

Permit me to doubt. Nobody has done that, nobody ever will do that. It's not possible.We can get close, I could explain to you some of the reasons why this is so, but I'm too lazy today to spend the time. maybe another day. 

[fas42]

Just now, gmgraves said:

 

Permit me to doubt. Nobody has done that, nobody ever will do that. It's not possible.We can get close, I could explain to you some of the reasons why this is so, but I'm too lazy today to spend the time. maybe another day. 

 

It's rare, but it has been achieved by a number of people, over the years. I keep my eyes peeled for accounts which match my own experiences, and they correspond, exactly.

 

The conventional reasons that AES people have written hundreds of papers about is only part of the story - there's a whole extra level that the mind works at, all the time - we always engage it, but are completely unaware of such happening - it's automatic. This aspect is currently being studied in the field of Auditory Scene Analysis, kicked off by the work of Bregman.

[gmgraves]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Luckily, t'is otherwise ... I know that, but you don't know - because you haven't experienced it ...

 

What makes it hard is that the human hearing system is very fussy - it can easily pick a poor effort, and immediately rejects it, because the playback keeps reinforcing the fact that it's 'fake'. But there is a line of quality which is good enough for the ear/brain to accept being fooled, and it then goes with the illusion. To the point where one's hearing refuses to give up believing in it, it can't be shown the error of its ways! Truly remarkable, is the human mind ...

 

You do realize what you are asserting? You are saying that you have done something that is physically impossible! First of all, there are no speakers that can perfectly reproduce every nuance of a live sound field. Secondly (and this is key) there are no microphones that can perfectly pick-up a live musical event without altering it. No recording technology can transcribe a performance without altering it.  Every link in the chain would have to be perfect in order to synthesize the phenomenon of there being nothing but air between the musicians's instruments and the listeners' ears. You are right, I haven't experienced it and neither has anyone else. Because it's not possible - at least it's not possible within the laws of physics as we know them on this planet. Maybe your planet is different (Twilight Zone music plays)...

[fas42]

Just now, gmgraves said:

 

You do realize what you are asserting? You are saying that you have done something that is physically impossible! First of all, there are no speakers that can perfectly reproduce every nuance of a live sound field. Secondly (and this is key) there are no microphones that can perfectly pick-up a live musical event without altering it. No recording technology can transcribe a performance without altering it.  Every link in the chain would have to be perfect in order to synthesize the phenomenon of there being nothing but air between the musicians's instruments and the listeners' ears. You are right, I haven't experienced it and neither has anyone else. Because it's not possible - at least it's not possible within the laws of physics as we know them on this planet. Maybe your planet is different (Twilight Zone music plays)...

 

Ummm, it's an illusion ... enough of the information is there for one's mind to "fill the gaps" - of course it's not a "perfect" reproduction, but it doesn't have to to be - the power of the mind kicks in, and subjectively the transformation happens.

 

You see, I have had systems on the edge of the necessary quality for years - on a bad day, it's conventional stereo; on a good day, a full illusion forms. I know how fine the balance is to get a rig to a good enough level, because I've wrestled with this for years.

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

It's rare, but it has been achieved by a number of people, over the years. I keep my eyes peeled for accounts which match my own experiences, and they correspond, exactly.

 

The conventional reasons that AES people have written hundreds of papers about is only part of the story - there's a whole extra level that the mind works at, all the time - we always engage it, but are completely unaware of such happening - it's automatic. This aspect is currently being studied in the field of Auditory Scene Analysis, kicked off by the work of Bregman.

 

Then why haven't you shared this remarkable achievement with the rest of the world? It would make you rich! What kind of speakers do you use that are perfect transducers with a frequency response from DC to daylight, and infinite dynamic range, zero distortion and pin-point sound source image specificity? What kind of amp could you have that was truly the proverbial "straight wire with gain" ? What playback system is perfect, and here's the stinger: Where do you get your perfect recordings? Do you make them yourselves? Then what kind of recording system do you use? I've used everything available and none of them are perfect, none capture a performance that is indistinguishable from live. Ditto with microphones. None are perfect. Like speakers, none have perfectly flat frequency response from DC to daylight, none have zero distortion, none have a perfect pick-up pattern, and none have infinite dynamic range or instantaneous transient response. Then there's the mike preamps. Again, unless you've found some new electronic technology, they aren't distortionless, noiseless and perfect either, yet to do what you claim, all of the above must be true and it can't be. End of story. It's nice that you're trying, though!   ?

[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.

[gmgraves]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Ummm, it's an illusion ... enough of the information is there for one's mind to "fill the gaps" - of course it's not a "perfect" reproduction, but it doesn't have to to be - the power of the mind kicks in, and subjectively the transformation happens.

 

You see, I have had systems on the edge of the necessary quality for years - on a bad day, it's conventional stereo; on a good day, a full illusion forms. I know how fine the balance is to get a rig to a good enough level, because I've wrestled with this for years.

 

All audio playback is an illusion, but you've been asserting that you have built a system that actually sounds like real music playing in a real space. I make my own recordings and they sound damn close to the original performance, but they would never fool me into thinking that I was listening to live music. My playback system likewise gives me a decent approximation of what I heard as I was recording a symphony orchestra or a small jazz trio, but it would never fool me into believe me that I was at the real event listening! First of all it's the brass. Brass cannot be convincingly recorded or played back. Boys choirs are similarly impossible to record or reproduce. Those little bastards produce a rich harmonic structure with their high voices that simply cannot be captured by any microphone known, similarly, no speaker can reproduce them without gross distortion - irrespective of the technology used. 

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

He does, in every single post here on CA.

 

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?

[semente]

On 07/01/2018 at 9:59 PM, fas42 said:

 

That's the idea!

 

Immediately one can consider what needs to be addressed, having stated those concerns - as an example, a lack of dynamic force implies that distortion levels are building too fast as the volume rises, which could be due to a number of factors, each of which can be looked at in turn. Personally, I would now consider whether the speaker are sufficiently stabilised in their location, whether the power supplies of the amplifier were sufficiently sorted, and how well the components were isolated from each other's impact on power supply noise - as a couple of starters.

 

Small speakers are dynamically challenged by nature; adding a pair of subs could help.

[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.

[fas42]

36 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

First of all it's the brass. Brass cannot be convincingly recorded or played back. Boys choirs are similarly impossible to record or reproduce. Those little bastards produce a rich harmonic structure with their high voices that simply cannot be captured by any microphone known, similarly, no speaker can reproduce them without gross distortion - irrespective of the technology used. 

 

Wrong. It's all on the recording, and always has been ... one of my "show off" recordings would be a classic, full strength brass band recording - no funny games in the capture of such. This is fabulous to listen to, the grunt of what's happening is tremendous, and a basic speaker will do this, easy, peasy. If driven properly.

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

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.

 

Bulverism, by C. S. Lewis.: "You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly."

[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.

[fas42]

35 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?

 

What people find hard to understand is that normal systems are fully capable of doing this, but they are kneecapped by silly weaknesses, in the assembly and implementation, of the whole. That's

the point about the MB and BMW without shock absorbers - a stupid "mistake" is preventing the vehicles working as they should - and they are severely handicapped, in the job they are otherwise capable of doing.

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

That makes no sense.

 

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

[fas42]

34 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Small speakers are dynamically challenged by nature; adding a pair of subs could help.

 

Visually that seems to be the case, but I proved otherwise to myself over and over again ... Bose did a famous demo, dispelling that myth, decades ago. You only need size to move a lot of air, for very low bass - everything else is covered by having drivers capable of large excursion, handling the power, and amplifiers up to it - the latter is the most important, in fact.

[sandyk]

22 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Bulverism, by C. S. Lewis.: "You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly."

 

I am not buying into whether or not you have achieved what you claim, however this is a common modus operandi from several members here.

[fas42]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

I am not buying into whether or not you have achieved what you claim, however this is a common modus operandi from several members here.

 

A lot of people get very close - the more convincing the 3D presentation becomes, the closer one is. This steadily improves, and begins to work for every recording - the last step is that the speakers completely vanish.

 

My current rig, lying fallow at the moment, has never hit the "disappearing speaker" level - so far. But it gets so much of the rest right - e.g., it does big brass band ensembles beautifully, I'm impressed that NAD got so much right in the design of key circuitry.

[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.

[fas42]

Yes, but Bulverism has a better ring to it than, genetic fallacy, don't you think?

 

Bulverism is all about deciding straight off, that the other person is wrong, no matter what - and then just throwing enough stuff at them to shut them up - and anything is fair game, for doing that, .

[sandyk]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

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.

NO !

 Several members here regularly explain why a man is wrong, but it is quite often not correct.

It may be what they honestly believe due to being what they may have been taught years earlier at Uni., but it is not necessarily correct, as Science doesn't stand still.

You can't always prove somebody wrong without their active participation .Occasionally, they just may surprise you.

This is most evident in the USB Audio area where some have been insisting that theory says otherwise, than what people  report when using certain (not all do as claimed) USB widgets, improved PSUs and better implemented USB cables etc.

[Allan F]

21 minutes ago, mansr said:

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.

 

What C.S. Lewis meant is that is it a logical fallacy to assume that a man is wrong based on who he is  or his motive rather than showing that he is wrong based on the substance of his argument. Ad hominem arguments, which we see too often on this forum, are a good example.

[sandyk]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Yes, but Bulverism has a better ring to it than, genetic fallacy, don't you think?

 

Bulverism is all about deciding straight off, that the other person is wrong, no matter what - and then just throwing enough stuff at them to shut them up - and anything is fair game, for doing that, .

 

 That's not necessarily called Bulverism, although the first 3 letters may be the same !

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, Allan F said:

 

What C.S. Lewis meant is that is it a logical fallacy to assume that a man is wrong because of his identity or motive rather than showing that he is wrong based on the substance of his argument.

 

With Electronics, arguments don't always cut it these days. It often takes a personal equipment demonstration to prove someone wrong. Far too many E.E.s rely on debating, logical fallacies etc. instead of actually trying things for themselves.

In some cases they end up well qualified to be a Politician, and how many politicians, despite how high their I.Q. and how good their debating ( mass debating ?) skills may be, always get it right ?

[Ralf11]

yeh, that's why we need double blind listening tests