My response to "Boycott the sub-forum"

[Jud]

11 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

"true believers" should never be made to feel uncomfortable or have to justify their irrational beliefs.

 

Just wondering what the proper terminology is when asking audiophiles to justify their beliefs. "Stand and deliver!"?

[Jud]

2 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

I must say I'm a little surprised to see you trolling.  You know exactly what I mean.

 

But here's an example, "MQA is great because Bob Stuart is smarter than you".

 

Hi Sam. I wasn't trolling at all. What I was asking is that we actually consider what it would mean to have someone forced to justify what they are saying, both in terms of how one could possibly do that, and in terms of what it would mean to the opportunity for friendly conversation.

 

I hope for enlightening conversation. Pretty much everyone knows more than I do about something. But if someone insists on what I think is a counterfactual, then I suppose I'm going to try to aim for friendly conversation at least, because otherwise not only don't you learn anything, the whole place becomes a bit more unpleasant. And what's the good in that?

 

Before you say we need to be unpleasant to stop the snake oil purveyors, I hope you'll remember that I put together a couple of summary posts in the MQA thread that other people seemed to find helpful in determining that MQA was snake oil. And I didn't have to be unpleasant to anyone in order to do it.

 

Now in terms of the possibility of forcing someone to justify what they were saying, there are plenty of folks here who just believe in their ears and don't know or care much about the science. What's the value in browbeating them?

 

So I'm just not seeing either the possibility or the value of trying to force people to justify themselves.

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Keep in mind now that all the miscreants have been purged, your posts will begin to look more snarky.  You're next Jud!  😄

 

I'll take the risk. 🙂 Go in peace.

[Jud]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

Who the hell is Quint?

 

Wasn't he in Mutiny on the Bounty?

[Jud]

You keep doing that, guys, and I may have to leave from sheer embarrassment. No more of that stuff! (And grateful thanks to @AudioDoctor, sincerely, for laughing at the idea!))

[Jud]

59 minutes ago, esldude said:

I might be a jerk.

I might think my being here improves the place even though I don't like it.

I might be a plain old contrarian.

I might be crazy.

 

 

 

I do think your being here improves the place.

 

You're definitely something of a contrarian! 🙂

[Jud]

5 hours ago, jabbr said:

The flip side of this is that you cant expect that every aspect of SQ in every setting is predicted by a single set of measurements in a single setup. 
 

There are interactions between components and a measurement in one configuration may fail to predict the behavior of another configuration. 
 

For example, the speaker forms part of the electronic circuit with the amplifier. Measuring an unloaded amplifier is not accurate. 
 

Since we aren’t looking for new hadrons here, we settle for “good enough” measurements. The problem is that if you are trying to prove that all DACs sound the same, that’s not good enough. 
 

I do wholeheartedly agree that the possible measurements go well beyond the limits of human hearing. 

 

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

I think it's true that measurements do "not necessarily predict sound quality". But that qualifier "necessary" is a big one. With whose ears and brain are we going to judge that "sound quality" with?

 

If we're simply talking about "enjoyment" of the sound to the point of feeling good about it, heck I can enjoy an AM radio just fine. Does that mean all the "necessary" sound quality I need can be found in a Bose Wave radio because I can feel good about the song and the sound coming out of that? Of course not! We're arguing about much better devices, right? Things with "high fidelity" that achieve a level of transparency and accuracy to the recording, aren't we?

 

Objectivism is literally about taking this concept of the "sound quality" outside and consider whether it measures up to an "ideal". That "ideal" might not be for everyone but at least it provides a level playing field from which we can judge devices using a common yardstick. Furthermore, that ideal exists outside of whether a person's hearing might be failing, or if that person's perception is idiosyncratic, if that person is not an "expert listener", or even if that person lacks insight and may be biased toward a wonderful ad they saw an hour ago or what the salesman just said a few minutes ago before they changed to the expensive cable 🤨.

 

I have of course measured stuff over the years and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the two come together when you pay attention to what you measure and take time to listen both before and after the process:

 

Synergistic power cables like these sound no different than other power cords. They appear cheaply made and not good value.

 

A "Modded" Oppo like this is a bad deal. Some might like the sound but the measurements are terrible and they've ruined what was pristine high-resolution sound.

 

The highly praised Vitus Audio amplifier in Class A adds nothing to the sound. Despite high price, a 1:1 comparison even to my Emotiva amp, shows that it's noisier objectively and when listening to music in a quiet room.

 

Human perception has its limits and our attention to things also can be limited, missing out on what we actually CAN hear but didn't notice. For example, look at all the positive comments about the recent AudioQuest Dragonfly Cobalt. From my perspective, it totally sucks as a USB DAC at this price point. Good that Mans found similar issues with distortion that I saw. Once one is tipped off to these anomalies, one can start picking out examples and select music that can bring out the anomaly that one might have missed before. This is what "perfectionist audio" IMO is about.  If I am going to pay big(er) bucks, it certainly would be nice to be clear about what performance I'm buying.

 

The opinion of any specific listener is nice, but IMO, not as strong as what objective means might reveal.

 

 

I think measurements can be extremely useful, as you say, @Archimago, and also agree with @jabbr that use of components in particular systems/environments can introduce factors not present in some testing.

 

There are a couple of other things I think are worth considering with regard to measurements:

 

- What happens when two apparently technically proficient people use different sets of measurements? Is one set inadequate? Does the other include measurements that are superfluous? Compare for example Amir's and Miska's DAC measurements. How are we to tell?

 

- How can we tell if measurements based on, e.g., home computer equipment are correct, or whether the computer electrical environment swamps differences that might be audible?

 

- It can be difficult to tell which measurements are relevant in a given situation. I use software that eliminates the need for digital filters in DACs. I would be interested in DACs that have good noise rejection and a lack of self-noise; high quality components to do the final analog filtering from DSD to analog; and high quality output components. I don't care about fancy DAC chips, FPGAs, etc. What measurements should I be looking at? And/or should I be looking at internal componentry and PCB quality and layout, and where the heck do you find *that* info for most DACs?

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Tone Deaf said:

 

Wondering if we can move the politics discussions to the Politics-Fi sub forum?  

 

If you want to read @Shimei's audio comments, you have to go to Breitbart. 😉

[Jud]

Trinity Sessions always bored me. Margo Timmins' breathiness got old pretty quick. I know, sacrilege. Give me the artificial production of Abbey Road any day.

 

Obviously just my own preference, and no objection if anyone feels differently.

[Jud]

5 hours ago, Rexp said:

Which version do you have? My vinyl copy sounds good, all the versions on Tidal are DOA. 

 

Well, I don't have Tidal and I bought it long ago, whether too long ago for CD I don't remember. There was certainly no problem with the sound - half the time you were in the church, and the other half figuratively staring at Margo's epiglottitis.