How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

3 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

If no change is detected by those taking part in the test, then one can pretty much figure that the point is moot because whether the cables have a sound or not the fact that instantaneous switching between the two test sample showed no immediate, identifiable difference demonstrates that even if there is a difference, it's too small and or subtle to mean anything in the real world!

 

Yes but the problem is generally when there is a difference supposedly heard.

[sandyk]

6 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

The evidence says no!

   It would appear that you may be a little out of practice these days?

I bet that you knew in advance what products your were reviewing for publication !!!

 Did that invalidate your published findings ? Of course it didn't !

 

[Ralf11]

55 minutes ago, sandyk said:

... so many members refuse to accept that the SQ of Audio from a typical SMPS Laptop is substandard due to internal electrical noise, and benefits greatly, not only from the use of cleaner power , but also from using software that plays from system memory.

After all, that is the CLAIMED advantage of using the PC solution over a typical cheap CD/DVD/BR  player, and the reason for being of Computer Audiophile forum.

MANY Mac owners in this forum have found this to be true too.

 

so, now it's many many on the other side??

 

how does the  internal electrical noise get past the galvanic isolation and into the DAC?

- or does it kill the nice unicorns INSIDE the computer??

- or what?

 

and.. how does software that plays from system memory improve SQ???

 

[davide256]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

I have Jelco SA-750-9 and I find it to be better than most arms I have owned. When I first got it, I thought that it looked an awful lot like something that came attached to a Pioneer direct drive turntable, but upon closer inspection, I found that the materials used and they way they were finished were head and shoulders above an inexpensive DD table from Japan. Many don't know this but the manufacturing company that makes Jelco arms is called Japan Jewel. They specialize in high quality jeweled thrust bearings. The  build quality on my SA-750-9 is actually better than that of the beautiful SME 3009 and I have been happy with it for about 8 years. It's a gem (no pun intended). 

hmm, better than Rega RB-300? I've modded my RB300 heavily but that internal coil spring for antiskate is a resonance magnet.

[sandyk]

9 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

and.. how does software that plays from system memory improve SQ???

 Try it for yourself , then ask suitably qualified members why the SQ was a little different.

 Perhaps you should try and have a listen to a player such as the PS Audio PerfectWave Transport and compare it with what you are currently using for playing music files  ?

[Ralf11]

I am asking YOU muffy.  WHAT is your proposed mechanism??

 

how does software that plays from system memory improve SQ???

 

How?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I am asking YOU muffy.  WHAT is your proposed mechanism??

 

how does software that plays from system memory improve SQ???

 

How?

 

I am answering for "muffy".

 

I don't know.......

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I am answering for "muffy".

 

I don't know.......

 

Not only doesn't Audiophile Neuroscience know, he also hears the same marked improvements. when playing from System Memory, as do many other C.A. members who also use jRiver ,who included that feature as a result of customer demands, many of which came from C.A. members with much

better hearing than yours apparently !

[Jud]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Engineering is like anything else. Some failure is inevitable. Same with medicine. We count on our physicians to make the correct diagnosis and we rarely question his/her sage advice. But mis diagnosis is actually fairly common. When engineers err, buildings collapse and bridges fall down in strong winds because the engineer on the project failed to take into account the strong winds in the Tacoma Narrows and designed his bridge span accidentally to resemble an upside-down airfoil. Bernoulli's principle then took over and a dog died! 

 

In my experience, most jobs, including the professions, grade out on a bell curve - a few really bad ones, most somewhere in the middle, a few really good ones.

[Ralf11]

7 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Not only doesn't Audiophile Neuroscience know, he also hears the same marked improvements. when playing from System Memory, as do many other C.A. members who also use jRiver ,who included that feature as a result of customer demands, many of which came from C.A. members with much

better hearing than yours apparently !

 

That's fine.  I don't insist on mechanistic answers and am willing to rely on epidemiological results to establish effects.

 

Now, where are the listening tests?  

 

And, no, anecdotes are not adequate.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, accwai said:

Unless there is a big breakthrough in battery technology in the future, EVs would have a serious weight disadvantage.

 

https://www.axios.com/battery-pioneer-1528047409-d0515380-1881-4e96-891f-3763eaa84666.html

 

It smells more than a little of snake oil, though.

 

But that's not saying there won't be considerable improvements in years to come, perhaps eventually something that from the vantage point of today would look like a breakthrough.

 

P.S. Apologies for the continued OT, though since the thread has gone back to playing the third least fun unwinnable game after tic-tac-toe and rock, paper, scissors (subjective vs. objective, that is), I don't feel too bad about it.

[sandyk]

Just now, Ralf11 said:

 

That's fine.  I don't insist on mechanistic answers and am willing to rely on epidemiological results to establish effects.

 

Now, where are the listening tests?  

 

And, no, anecdotes are not adequate.

 

I have better things to do than play your silly games . Do your own research !

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Now, where are the listening tests?

 

Listening tests are nowhere.

[fas42]

The ongoing drama occurs because the engineering that is done by the more mainstream manufacturers is never quite good enough to render the audio playback chain fully robust - that is, the perceived SQ is invariant when reasonable things are done in the nearby environment; for example, changing what electrical devices are plugged in and operating nearby.

 

Until this is sorted the debate will continue - it costs money, or effort, to get high robustness - and many are disturbed that such is necessary, or claimed to be necessary.

[Ralf11]

37 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

I have better things to do than play your silly games .

 

 

Yes, Science is a silly game to you.

[Blake]

The greater of: (a) 15% of your annual adjusted gross income, (b) 3% of the fair market value of your principal residence, or (c) Pop Tarts.  

[sandyk]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

Yes, Science is a silly game to you.

I will reword what I said. 

I have better things to do than play your childish games .

There are quite a few  reports on this subject in this forum alone, if you bothered to search for them, and undoubtedly even more in the jRiver forum where customers asked for this facility to be made available.

[esldude]

2 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

so, now it's many many on the other side??

 

how does the  internal electrical noise get past the galvanic isolation and into the DAC?

- or does it kill the nice unicorns INSIDE the computer??

- or what?

 

and.. how does software that plays from system memory improve SQ???

 

These deviant unicorns are sneaky, and not so noticeable inside a computer. 

 

 

However, these rainbow breathing unicorns can force them to exit.  

 

 

The evil unicorns don't like to be noticed as they do their dirty work.  They especially dislike being remembered.  So they naturally shy away from memory chips.  Play from memory chips keeps the dark unicorn forces at a distance, and good things like LPS and super power cords unleash the rainbow breath that can vanquish the dark unicorns completely. 

 

It is when you abandon the ideas carefully inculcated into the heads of EE students at university with the intent of enforcing permanent blind spots that you can make progress using real science like this.  

 

 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Listening tests are nowhere.

 

So is this now here or is it no where?????

 

Curious unicornologists want to know.  

 

Perhaps it is the linguistic version of yin-yang.................nowhere.......................

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Aren't we all living in a nowhere land, seeing what he wants to see ? Ah, ok , thats Frank. I'll have to get back to you...

 

[semente]

7 hours ago, GUTB said:

I’ve read somewhere that IQ has gone up over the decades (correcting for factors like changes in economics, ethnic demographics, etc). But when I look at the technology developed with nothing but slide-rulers and scribbled math I can’t help but wonder if our measure of IQ is full of crap.

 

[semente]

8 hours ago, gmgraves said:

C'mon Alex. Your attempts to obfuscate the simple facts of this debate notwithstanding, the question is very simple. Flying in the face of electronics theory, and ignoring the fact that it is HIGHLY unlikely that short lengths of coax can alter any low-frequency AC signal passing through it and even more highly unlikely that something can affect a low-frequency signal such as audio and yet have absolutely no observable effect on higher frequency signals or more complex waveforms, what is the probability that cable sound is real? Casual, empirical evidence to the contrary, I'd say that the odds against it are astronomical. How, for instance is the wire to "know" that it must alter the audio signal it's carrying but not alter that video signal or that radar scope images at the airport, or that target acquisition data on that missile system? 

 

Existing measurements still haven't explained @manisandher 's ABX results.

 

Perhaps we need new measurements, even if they challenge our current understanding of the laws of physics.

 

My wife is doing research in Neuroscience even though she's mainly a clinician.

A lot of our friends here in Oxford are either neurologists, neuroscientists or biochemists.

It is my understanding that the envelope is being pushed further because of new measurements, if I may call them that, new methods of diagnostic and the ability to work with ever smaller particles and use more powerful computation.

 

As accuracy in audio reproduction increases, the lowering of noise floor and reduced distortion could be and probably are exposing causes of noise and distortion that were previously unimportant or unknown.

 

I often talk about my reference system. Listening to it for the first time was a mind blowing experience and has convinced me that everything does matter even if the degree of influence varies massively depending on the element involved. Unlike most commercial electronics the amplifier has been a work-in-progress, suffering constant development for almost two decades. The level dedication, research and experimentation invested in the system would have made it commercially inviable.

 

Like @sandyk I feel that we cannot rely on the established standards for audibility.

@Jud 'often mentions his experience at the AP talk which I think is a good example of this.

 

 

[4est]

10 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Often when I think of the exactitude required in engineering, I'm reminded that it was not that many years ago when everything (including the Tacoma Narrows bridge design) was calculated using a slide rule. When I was in college, the slide rule was still a major part of the curriculum. Unlike scientific calculators, and computer programs, slide rules give the engineer, at best, an approximate answer, and I have often noticed with awe, how some engineers can look at a slide rule and extrapolate very little actual information into 5 or 6 figures! It's a lot like measuring something with a yard-stick graduated in 16ths of an inch and from looking between the graduations, coming up with a measurement out to a 10 thousandth of an inch! That inexactitude might be why common engineering practice is to over-design almost everything. Look at the hundreds of thousands of miles of interstate highway built in the 50's and 60's. All done with a slide rule and material stress specifications gleaned from a materials handbook chart. Very few overpasses in this vast network have ever failed (the ones that did fail, failed due to seismic activity, not engineering errors). Look at the Boeing B52. Designed with slide rule accuracy and still in service 60 years (this year) after the last one rolled off the assembly line. Now that's engineering for the ages!   

I find it interesting that on one hand you suggest that audio signals are readily 100% transferred unaltered while expressing the necessity to over engineer bridges and airplanes because of unknowns and in exact quantification. It would seem to me that you are displaying a bias towards what you think you "know" simultaneously giving deference when you don't. You even seem to applaud their over engineering by calling it engineering for the ages. IME and from what I have read, any and all systems should be designed in a way in which they are capable of handling an order of magnitude beyond their typical use case if they are to be durable and capable under stress.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, semente said:

 

I often talk about my reference system. Listening to it for the first time was a mind blowing experience and has convinced me that everything does matter even if the degree of influence varies massively depending on the element involved. Unlike most commercial electronics the amplifier has been a work-in-progress, suffering constant development for almost two decades. The level dedication, research and experimentation invested in the system would have made it commercially inviable.

 

 

Yes, listening to a setup getting it right is mind blowing - I would suggest that everyone will always remember the very first time they get to hear this - the fun starts when you decide you want to replicate the experience, at will, .

 

The causes of the noise and distortion that prevent this happening are no great mystery - as you state, it's all about having the right focus in tracking down every last one of the issues holding the SQ back. This is not a bottomless pit, and every time you succeed you learn a bit more - you just have to be prepared to consider everything, no matter how trivial it seems; for a particular rig, the last piece in the jigsaw could be almost anything, depending upon what has been done up to that point.

[Solstice380]

6 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Aren't we all living in a nowhere land, seeing what he wants to see ?

 

Remember, you are just a visitor in everyone else’s universe.