Why are objective assessments important...

[fas42]

6 hours ago, Archimago said:

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.

 

And that is how one can be "objective" in areas where the people usually will use the term, subjective ...what one does is use tracks of music whose content very strongly provokes the system playback to distort - the anomalies are obviously audible; so in that area it's a fail, for the setup.

 

The process of "sorting out" is eliminating each of the failure 'modes', one by one.

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

I think it starts at first principles which is that we need to appreciate the limits of human hearing; from there we can then talk about specifics like what makes a frequency response "sound different", what noise levels we need be concerned about, then the time domain parameters like phase shifts and related words like "group delay", etc...

 

I suggest making sure you read this first:

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/10/musings-meditations-on-limitations-of.html

 

 

Howdy, just curious whether you're familiar with Bregman's "Auditory Scene Analysis", and subsequent research?

[fas42]

Yes, would be worth diving in ... note a thread over on ASR, where John Kenny and I posted a lot of thoughts, and links on this area of research, https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/auditory-scene-analysis.236/

 

[fas42]

6 hours ago, John Dyson said:

 

Some of the problems with objective review might include: the impairments aren't adequately defined/described, sometimes the impairments are difficult to measure, and sometimes even the impairments come from multiple sources that meld together into something wrong with the sound.

 

 

Some of the impairments are easy to detect, and describe - my first good amplifier of 35 years ago, a supposed powerhouse, would start distorting in the treble, when its circuit reached a certain load into the speakers - I used the splashing of cymbals in a driving rock track to pick this; below the particular SPLs a very natural shimmer to the sound, above that sound level, they became saucepan lids - majorly distorted. To put this into context all other amplifiers I used this test on, that I came across, fared far worse - a Krell was particularly poor, 😜.

 

This was straightforward to resolve, though it took some time - for a couple of other reasons I suspected the amplifier's power supply, and after some major re-engineering of this area, this problem then disappeared.

 

The point is that it's not always hard - if one has the right test material, and a good understanding of electronics then the logical steps needed to resolve less than stellar SQ can be followed without too much difficulty.

[fas42]

In the 35 years I've been looking at getting subjectively convincing SQ, I have never once looked at it from the point of reducing THD, IMD, or TIM - yes, if I do my own design, then I very carefully assess what would be the best use of electronic parts to get measurably optimum numbers; but in the real world I have been startled too many times at hearing equipment that I know has very ordinary figures in this sphere perform way above what most would expect, to believe that worrying about such is going to be vital.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

Yes!  Heartbreaking that we have lost so much popular music to DR compression.  Almost unlistenable!  A tragedy, almost criminal.

 

Thank heavens my main musical loves are jazz and classical.  D*%*it Rick Rubin for massacring late Johnny Cash and RHCP, though there are many others.  Listen to Cash's "Hurt" and the clipping/overload at the peak.  Ridiculous.

 

Bill

 

I'm not fussed about this ... one can always get copies of original masterings, via CDs that come out in the early days of digital; and I've done my own experiments in reversing destructive compression, limiting and clipping - a perfectly listenable version of the material is possible to extract; it just requires someone to be sufficiently motivated to do the exercise. I suspect there will be a minor sub-industry down the track, who will make a business of undoing all the nonsense, and selling "cleaned up" versions of the bad stuff - the "data" is on the recording, it just needs to be, er, 'rearranged'.

[fas42]

This thread shows again the desire to approach the situation by looking at parts of the whole - and studying them in isolation - which IME will lead to a big fat zero, in terms of understanding "what's going on" ... I just shake my head at the pointlessness of this ...

 

Until someone!!! takes the business of measuring a complete system in operation, in every possible area that may be relevant, seriously - this will go absolutely nowhere.

[fas42]

32 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I have to say that I've never seen anyone!!! use exclamation marks in the middle of a sentence before.

 

It's known as, the Art of Audio Commenting ... 😉

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

 

I am afraid I am very skeptical.  Unless they have the original raw tracks I suspect we are in trouble.  When I look at the graphs of these tracks I cringe as everything is banged up against full scale, the tops squared off with clipping.

 

Bill

 

Which is exactly the sort of tracks I've worked on ... pure clipping can be resolved by copying and pasting parts of the track that have the comparable waveform, at slightly lower levels, available to be used, as a template - the ears can't pick that you've 'cheated'. Compression can be guesstimated, and by a process of stepwise adjusting the right decompression parameters, a best fit can be selected - think of it like fine tuning the settings of a colour TV - there will be a combination that will give the "best picture".

 

It's trivially easy to hear how much has been gained, comparing the original, and a decent "fixing up" - it may not be technically perfect, but it makes a world of difference, subjectively.

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Every measurement that I do with a microphone measures the complete system in operation.  Without the amps, I cannot get enough signal from the speakers. 😜

 

And, in every possible area, too, I presume ... 😜.

 

Over the years, I've come across clips on YouTube which "compare" live with reproduction, in some way, at some point. Right, you've now got the raw material - line up the live moment with the replay ... oh dear ...

 

What's usually trivially obvious is that the transients, and treble energy are not even in the ball park - every time there's a "sharp hit" in the music, the reproduction version is way, way behind.

[fas42]

11 minutes ago, STC said:

 

Life is much simpler than that. 
 

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2019/3/20/we-test-3-top-declipper-plug-ins-that-quickly-restores-distorted-audio-listen-compare-amp-vote-for-the-example-you-prefer-the-sound-of

 

Yes, there will always be options ... which is why I'm not worried about "rescuing" modern mastering 'catastrophes'.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

Very important observation and why in my article a few years back, I devoted a portion on the COGNITIVE component of listening; beyond the physiological limitations of the human ear/mind. Our ability to ATTEND is limited and so when we listen to music, the attention wanders in and out depending on all kinds of factors. Moods change. Attentiveness changes through the day. A song might "speak" to me more after a busy day at work compared to a weekend, etc...

 

 

There's a remarkably easy way to assess overall competence of the playback - wind up the volume so that it's really LOUD - that is, mimic the levels that the equivalent live sound would be for the type of music - and then deliberately engage in earnest conversation with someone besides you, preferably about something that's nothing to do with music ... if you are at total ease doing this, and have no issues flicking your attention now and again to what's going on in the music - then it gets a tick. If OTOH the urge builds rapidly to run over and "turn the bloody thing down!" ... then it's a fail ...

[fas42]

9 hours ago, tapatrick said:

!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Which says it all, really ... people can't grok that why live, acoustic is so easy to "take in", is because the brain doesn't have to work hard to separate what's going on in the auditory world around it - if you're talking to someone, and there's music playing, there is merely the task of keeping the music separate from the conversation; if the music is distortion impregnated replay, then you're doubling the workload on our poor minds - it also wants to discard the anomalies it can hear in the music which is in the background ... "Overload, overload!!", and the poor Lost in Space robot starts spinning its arms wildly ...

 

There almost seems a perverse need to have reproduction be like solving a mathematical problem, amongst some  - unless the listener has to "work on it" when taking in the presentation, then it ain't good enough, 😜.

[fas42]

There's a huge amount of "I don't know" in audio - I spent decades scratching my head about what was going on; my current ideas are the integration, 😁, of my findings to date - I do know what the listening mind can 'see' in audio replay, but what are the key ingredients in terms of lack of anomalies that would be easily measurable, that guarantee this behaviour, I don't know; and why almost bizarre tweaking, which theoretically is almost of zero value, still has the ability to to ripple through and impact subjective SQ, I don't know.

[fas42]

43 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

I don't know but I want to know is a profound position to adopt....

 

Agree, but quite often life throws little obstacles in our way, 🙂 - the want may be there, but as has been said, “A man's got to know his limitations.” ...

[fas42]

49 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

Very refreshing to discuss being objective about subjectivity. For sure 'upgradeitiis' is a big component and blinkers our ability to be honest and straightforward about sound quality especially in relation to our own systems. In relation to your last sentence, I would consider development has occurred when the itch has been out grown as in a maturation of desire combined with perfecting ones system to a sufficiently satisfactory point or one has run out of money!   

 

I had the remarkable good fortune that my first choice of 'bits' was good enough to do the job; it only required a touch of fiddling to get it to snap into shape. Hence, 'upgradeitiis' has never figured for me - when I checked out what supposedly better gear was doing, it was so far behind in key areas that changing anything I was using had zero appeal.

 

49 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

I will read your article.

I am aware of these modes and moods and how they change the experience. I have worked out that the only lingering dissatisfaction I have with my system has been narrowed down to lie in the region between 8-10khz. With some recordings I add a narrow sharp DSP cut in Roon at 8khz and then I can sink back in my seat and get lost in the music again. Some detail and 'air' is lost but the whole is made better. My interest in being objective about my subjectivity is so that I can get lost in the listening experience as one of life's great pleasures. As an artist I require this in order to set my imagination free. 

 

 

For sure, you too!

 

Yes, getting lost in the listening experience is what it's about ... where nearly every ambitious rig fails is that they make key playback anomalies too obvious - and it's impossible to "get lost". The 'objective' way to assess this is to have a selection of recordings which are 'difficult' - which immediately give the game away, when you try them on a system .. the end goal is to have every single 'difficult' recording you own trigger the "getting lost in the music" sensation.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Please provide evidence of this claim.

 

A trivially obvious fact to me, when I try to interact with a demonstrator in a hifi shop 😉 .. CPE, Cocktail Party Effect has been studied for over 50 years, there's a huge amount of research on myriad aspects of this - one particularly relevant is "A behavioral study on the effects of rock music on auditory attention", that popped up quickly, http://eis.bristol.ac.uk/~xf14883/files/conf/2013_hbu_musicattention.pdf

-

[fas42]

9 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

The machines we use to reproduce the music are conduits for the art and IMO the job is to transmit the signals that encode the art. And objective analysis is the primary way of determining that these devices are performing to expectations.

 

So, if I listen to a system, and I think it sounds awful, and that it's a long way from sounding convincing; but conventional objective analysis says it can't find any issues - then my hearing is the one in the wrong?

[fas42]

24 minutes ago, Archimago said:

FYI... Just posted some thoughts that originated in our discussions here.

 

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/03/musings-audio-music-audiophile-big.html

 

Right in the middle of a busy morning, so haven't yet digested the article ... but on a glance through, noted this,

 

Quote

I'm happy to spend time and disposable income to get things "right", what I've come to learn is that there's no need to sweat the small stuff

 

My thinking here this is completely on the other side of the fence - meaning that spending time and disposable income to get (the major) things right is only the start ... "sweating the small stuff" is the heart of the battle - IME, compromised SQ is all that can be accomplished, otherwise.

[fas42]

26 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

I disagree @fas42...

 

IMO, the need and incessant focus on the "small stuff" without insight I believe is a sign of the neuroticism which is the nidus at the heart of what over time eventually leads to madness 😱.

 

Careful, dear audiophiles. 😉

 

Ahh, that's the important bit - as highlighted ... you need to know what the point is of what you're doing, and be able to assess whether there is an audible improvement, as a result ... flying blind will not an efficient approach, 😉.

 

Speaking of flying, that's the sad thing about audio - it's not the power of the  engines, nor the shape of the wings that brings aircraft down - it's that the mechanic used the wrong size bolts when replacing something, or that the fuel needed was calculated using the wrong units, a mental glitch of the moment ... all the "small stuff" is vital for making planes safe in the air - and so it turns out to be in audio also, the best SQ only eventuates when all care is taken.

[fas42]

23 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

But I think it's important not to end up too far down in a state of self delusion especially when money is exchanged and some parties could be benefiting in less-than-honest ways!

 

 

And it's statements like this which will ensure that the chasm between the two sides will remain as deep, and rubble strewn as ever ...