Measurements & Sound Quality

[Jud]

15 hours ago, Em2016 said:

Is the current line of AP measurement gear already as sensitive/accurate/precise as  our ear/brain system?

 

I know some will say yes but I guess my next question to them is how do you know?

 

Specifically the AP measurement gear commonly used for our gear - not NASA's or Intel's measurement gear.

 

In most ways measurement gear is far more sensitive, accurate and precise.  However, for detecting patterns in signals, as distinct from detecting the signals themselves, the ear/brain is so far much better at most of this.  (Though AIs are making inroads - for example, there's a phone app that detects what stage of sleep you're in [REM, light sleep, deep sleep, lying awake] acoustically.)

[Ralf11]

7 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

True.

 

But I also feel this discussion needs an expert Physiologist ...

 

 

ahem...

 

OTOH, you did not specify the type of physiologist

[asdf1000]

30 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

ahem...

 

OTOH, you did not specify the type of physiologist

 

Hehe the type that knows most about the ear and ear/brain system?

 

What's the name given to that type? And are you that particular type?

 

[Ralf11]

No, I'm not.  I do have an interest in sensory physiology however.  There are 2 guys on here who would be closest to that, but I will let them drop by and post if they want.

 

A further complication is that sensory- or neuro-physiology of the auditory system quickly get you involved in cognitive issues, so then you need a cognitive psychologist.

 

Ultimately, it is all about fizziology anyway...

[Allan F]

12 hours ago, iaval said:

Some did, they'd say "use your ears", but I can't even find the service manual for that to check for input parameters. I tried all sorts of plugs, all sorts of configurations, impedances, standards and Vrms but I'm still getting no sound, only microsonics from the unstable connection. So I figured the best way to enjoy music is with a scope. 

 

Perhaps you were plugging into the wrong end of the horse.

[MetalNuts]

Irrespective of what measurements can be made or how good the measurements are, they can only serve the purpose of showing the capability of the equipment to produce good SQ.  There is no guarantee that an equipment with very good specification in all aspects can produce good SQ that appeals to everyone.  IMHO, the choice of equipment is more subjective than objective though we may deceive ourselves that we made an objective decision.

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, MetalNuts said:

There is no guarantee that an equipment with very good specification in all aspects can produce good SQ that appeals to everyone.

 

That should be so because the specifications are not high enough.

Not that I could come up with anything ...

[PeterSt]

On 12/11/2018 at 9:11 PM, Ralf11 said:

Which aspects of or factors in sound quality have no measurements that correspond to them?

 

Which do ?

[Mario Martinez]

Which "sound quality" are we talking about? Are you referring to the quality of the sound that reaches your ears?

 

The quality of that sound would be the end product of a chain formed by "recorded material"+"playback system"+"room acoustics".

 

In my opinion, everything that is measurable falls in the realm of "playback system sound quality" and "room acoustics sound quality" and everything that is not measurable falls in the realm of "recorded material sound quality"

 

I would say that all those aspects of sound that have to do with psychoacoustic perception really have to do with the sound quality of the recorded material more than anything else.

 

 

[Ryan Berry]

Good topic.  While we can measure signals extremely accurately, how that translates to how the unit is going to sound is often not as straightforward.  It gets really complicated when you run into places where the "less perfect" measurement is what sounds better to everyone that's heard the unit - which tends to happen quite a bit.  All of a sudden, shopping by specifications in a magazine ends up being relatively meaningless, which is only frustrating to most people.  Being able to eliminate potential candidates before going through the effort of listening to them certainly has it's draw, but I think that people end up missing out on some of the best sounding products on the market shopping for specs like that.

[Jud]

10 minutes ago, Ryan Berry said:

It gets really complicated when you run into places where the "less perfect" measurement is what sounds better to everyone that's heard the unit - which tends to happen quite a bit.

 

Since people do tend to latch on to certain patterns as being "right," is the fault in the better-measuring unit, or in the people who haven't listened to better measuring units enough, so that the "right" pattern doesn't correspond to the "accurate" one?  Or are the measurements not those that correspond to what most people match to the pattern that says "real"?

 

Is a puzzlement.

[Ryan Berry]

20 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Since people do tend to latch on to certain patterns as being "right," is the fault in the better-measuring unit, or in the people who haven't listened to better measuring units enough, so that the "right" pattern doesn't correspond to the "accurate" one?  Or are the measurements not those that correspond to what most people match to the pattern that says "real"?

 

Is a puzzlement.

 

It's a good question and not one easily answered, I think.  For me, it comes down to a bit of both, really.  There's some elements that are "impure" that people associate with good-sounding music that can give an product that doesn't look as good on paper an edge: the pops of the needle as it moves through the groove on a record, that "musical" sound of your favorite amp that ends up being distortion, etc.  But then there's also a point where designing something to be as measurement-perfect as you can make it turns out being something that just isn't pleasant to listen to, no matter how long you try and live with it.  Having taken more than a few R&D units home to try and live with a potential product for a few weeks that looked great in measurements, I'm convinced there's just some things that there's no getting used to. 

Often, it just doesn't sound natural.  Sessions are often cut short with you feeling exhausted after spending any decent amount of time listening to it, whereas something tuned to sound as good as possible with the measurements being secondary (not ignored!) winds up with wanting to spend hours playing music.  Occasionally, they both line up and you have something that sounds AND measures good, which further confuses matters.  I can only speak from our experience, but I doubt that we're unique in experiencing this.  It makes high-end an interesting market.  People love to shop online any more, but it really takes going into a shop and comparing different products to really know you're making the right call.  The gear isn't cheap, for the most part, so I think we owe it to ourselves to do more than compare some numbers on a spec sheet and call it good enough.

[Ralf11]

I mostly agree, I'll claim that going into a shop and comparing different products is just another cut to winnow the herd (following reading reviews, and/or feature/spec. comparisons).

 

I make the final decision in my own listening room with my other gear.  A local shop lost a speaker sale to me last year when he told me there was no in-home trial.  I appreciate his financial situation vis-a-vis that, but I'm not interested in subsidizing him - I'd rather subsidize the hard-working barista at the coffee shop.

[esldude]

4 hours ago, Ryan Berry said:

 

It's a good question and not one easily answered, I think.  For me, it comes down to a bit of both, really.  There's some elements that are "impure" that people associate with good-sounding music that can give an product that doesn't look as good on paper an edge: the pops of the needle as it moves through the groove on a record, that "musical" sound of your favorite amp that ends up being distortion, etc.  But then there's also a point where designing something to be as measurement-perfect as you can make it turns out being something that just isn't pleasant to listen to, no matter how long you try and live with it.  Having taken more than a few R&D units home to try and live with a potential product for a few weeks that looked great in measurements, I'm convinced there's just some things that there's no getting used to. 

Often, it just doesn't sound natural.  Sessions are often cut short with you feeling exhausted after spending any decent amount of time listening to it, whereas something tuned to sound as good as possible with the measurements being secondary (not ignored!) winds up with wanting to spend hours playing music.  Occasionally, they both line up and you have something that sounds AND measures good, which further confuses matters.  I can only speak from our experience, but I doubt that we're unique in experiencing this.  It makes high-end an interesting market.  People love to shop online any more, but it really takes going into a shop and comparing different products to really know you're making the right call.  The gear isn't cheap, for the most part, so I think we owe it to ourselves to do more than compare some numbers on a spec sheet and call it good enough.

I think you have the circle of confusion problem Toole has written about however. 

Most recordings are very compromised and tuned for the gear used in its recording and production.  The best cleanest highest fidelity reproduction of that often is not going to sound the best.  Not because measured linear results are somehow antithetical to musicality.  Just the whole polluted point of reference problem.  

 

I remember way back when comparing the same recordings on LP, CD, and reel to reel pre-recorded tape years ago.  Consensus was and in some areas is vinyl LP is the standard reference of musical great sound.  To my and my friend's surprise RTR and CD in the early days sounded very close to each other in general balance.  LP was the odd man out, way out.  Sometimes this was good, sometimes it wasn't, but it was clearly the most compromised medium.  

 

So do I make a product that is great with LP and fuss over the unmusicality of better measuring gear? I wouldn't.  It seems only a matter of degree vs making cassette an analog reference or 8 track.  LP could be better than those, but it wasn't a high fidelity medium like early RTR.  LP is more like the MP3 of its time.  

 

For most gear you really don't need to go into a shop.  That is why there are so few shops.  If the gear is clean and genuinely of high fidelity to the input.  You don't need to hear it. 

 

(exceptions are transducers.  On the replay end of it speakers.  You do need to hear speakers.)

[sandyk]

30 minutes ago, esldude said:

For most gear you really don't need to go into a shop.  That is why there are so few shops.  If the gear is clean and genuinely of high fidelity to the input.  You don't need to hear it. 

 

 You would be well advised to also check the reviews on several different sites, and don't buy just based on measurements and claims by the manufacturer/distributor. 

[iaval]

Different question - would sighted listening test with a switchbox be accounted as statistically valid as long as the listener is not aware of which switch position corresponds to which tested gear?

[STC]

On ‎12‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 4:16 PM, audiventory said:

Also there is issues with psychoacoustics' knowledges: how to interprete measurement results.

 

Human hearing is too complicated for measurements to be the final arbiter. We use sound for pleasure and survival. Audio measurements do not take into consideration our state of mind when we listen to music for pleasure. Humans generally are visually oriented. The sight plays a more significant role than audio for interpretation of an event. All the blind test and thousands of posts of disagreements between measurements and unknown measurements can easily be explained whether the evaluation is based on enjoyment or survival. Audiophile hobby falls in the category of enjoyment, and therefore measurements alone will not determine the SQ to an individual.

 

 

[Jud]

6 hours ago, iaval said:

Different question - would sighted listening test with a switchbox be accounted as statistically valid as long as the listener is not aware of which switch position corresponds to which tested gear?

 

Yes, that's "blinded" - in fact I would think double blinded, since neither the test administrator (you) nor the test taker (also you) knows which item is being heard each time.

[Jud]

7 hours ago, esldude said:

For most gear you really don't need to go into a shop.  That is why there are so few shops.  If the gear is clean and genuinely of high fidelity to the input.  You don't need to hear it. 

 

(exceptions are transducers.  On the replay end of it speakers.  You do need to hear speakers.)

 

Though as you've pointed out previously, if you don't have the technical knowledge base it's also useful to hear how a given amp, for example, drives a given set of speakers.

[wgscott]

On 12/12/2018 at 11:01 PM, PeterSt said:

 

Which do ?

 

Frequency. Phase. Volume. Impulse response...

[Ryan Berry]

9 hours ago, esldude said:

For most gear you really don't need to go into a shop.  That is why there are so few shops.  If the gear is clean and genuinely of high fidelity to the input.  You don't need to hear it. 

 

(exceptions are transducers.  On the replay end of it speakers.  You do need to hear speakers.)

 

I'd obviously tend to disagree here.  Especially when we're involved in a hobby that gets down to using material A vs. material B for shelves and components, whether cables need to be elevated off the ground, whether speakers need spikes, etc. to achieve the best sound quality.  We tweak our systems constantly to get that (what we perceive) 1% better sound.  So the idea of not comparatively listening to the different pieces available seems a bit ludicrous to me, especially considering how the closer to the source you go, the bigger the effect tends to be on the overall sound of the system. 

The reason there's so few shops, in my opinion, is because it's a very specific market.  Similar to the reason we don't have nearly as many camera shops as we once had, convenience has supplanted quality for the general public when it comes to audio.  It's more convenient to shop online than it is to go into a store and deal with a salesperson, so most consumers will gladly give up quality for ease of completing a transaction.

[esldude]

2 hours ago, Ryan Berry said:

 

I'd obviously tend to disagree here.  Especially when we're involved in a hobby that gets down to using material A vs. material B for shelves and components, whether cables need to be elevated off the ground, whether speakers need spikes, etc. to achieve the best sound quality.  We tweak our systems constantly to get that (what we perceive) 1% better sound.  So the idea of not comparatively listening to the different pieces available seems a bit ludicrous to me, especially considering how the closer to the source you go, the bigger the effect tends to be on the overall sound of the system. 

The reason there's so few shops, in my opinion, is because it's a very specific market.  Similar to the reason we don't have nearly as many camera shops as we once had, convenience has supplanted quality for the general public when it comes to audio.  It's more convenient to shop online than it is to go into a store and deal with a salesperson, so most consumers will gladly give up quality for ease of completing a transaction.

So will the dealer have your shelving material, and cable elevators, and spikes and speakers you have?  And if you are comparing two components suppose the shelving material perfect for component A is the wrong one for component B.  I don't see how this makes any sense.  If it all is so touchy and easily effected a dealer is even less useful.  You'll have to buy something and see what you can make of it to know. 

 

Consumers have always valued ease of transactions and use.  That is why LPs sold in the millions and RTR tape in the thousands only.  RTR was the higher fidelity medium, but LP was cheap and convenient. 

[Jud]

34 minutes ago, esldude said:

Consumers have always valued ease of transactions and use.  That is why LPs sold in the millions and RTR tape in the thousands only.  RTR was the higher fidelity medium, but LP was cheap and convenient. 

 

Online's often cheaper too, and consumers have certainly always valued that  (sometimes to their detriment, but then some brick and mortar dealer experiences can be detrimental as well).

[fas42]

What most people are quite unaware of is the dramatic improvement in the subjective presentation when the objective quality passes a certain point. So an improvement of 1% in some measurable parameter may result in a subjective improvement of 200%, to pull a figure completely out of the air - if the difference is a rig sounding like Yet Another Hifi, versus being 'convincing', then for some people large numbers like that may seem right.

 

Because the system is not actually "better". That 1% is actually transitioning from 99 to to the necessary 100 "points of competence", because the last key degrading "point of weakness" has been resolved.

 

Why this happens is because the human hearing system demands a certain standard of accuracy before allowing itself to be fooled - anything below the standard is immediately rejected; anything above permits an illusion to be sustained.

[Ryan Berry]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

So will the dealer have your shelving material, and cable elevators, and spikes and speakers you have?  And if you are comparing two components suppose the shelving material perfect for component A is the wrong one for component B.  I don't see how this makes any sense.  If it all is so touchy and easily effected a dealer is even less useful.  You'll have to buy something and see what you can make of it to know. 

 

Consumers have always valued ease of transactions and use.  That is why LPs sold in the millions and RTR tape in the thousands only.  RTR was the higher fidelity medium, but LP was cheap and convenient. 

 

Usually not, but a good number of dealers will let you demo a unit in your system, so you can get a real idea of what a few units will sound like in how you have your area set up.  That's essentially a non-option shopping online, even with satisfaction guarantee programs.  Demoing even a few units in your home will always be better than buying a product for its sound based on what its specs read on paper.  A lot of the dealers have been in this industry for quite a long tome as well, so they can help set up your room to sound its best.  Buying online won't get you that...but it is quick.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's the only way to get into high end.  We offer online sales for some of our products because we know there's people that just don't want to go into a store or don't live near one, but buying high-end components online is much like buying a car online -- you're really just taking a blind shot and hoping the reviews are right, because you're going to convince yourself you made the right choice either way.