Popular Post Archimago Posted February 21, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted February 21, 2020 I figure it might be good to take a discussion about the importance and utility of "objectivism" to this forum instead of getting embedded in the "Boycott the sub-forum" thread. Personally, I've found running measurements and writing about my findings over the years one of the most rewarding experiences in this hobby. It challenges how/what I hear, how I think, and has shaped my "world view" about the audiophile hobby in a way I had not for years before (I started playing with audio stuff and visiting stores in the late 90's, only writing about it in 2013). Anyhow, here's a response to a comment (not directed at me and not implying anything about @lucretius' position, which I'm sure is very reasonable 😉, just using it as a point to discuss what I believe is true) and I'll talk about what Chris said as well... I keep hearing that measurements do not necessarily predict sound quality and I have to take that at face value. But it would help me immensely if you can provide some examples from currently produced equipment. Thanks. 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. DuckToller, JimCo06, lucretius and 9 others 10 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 21, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 21, 2020 Chris' reply: Quote Hi Archi, your paragraph above made me think about people's desire for a black and white world, where decisions don't need to be made, one can't be judged by a decision, and one doesn't have to use his/her brain to decide something. I obviously know this isn't what you're getting at, but I can't help but believe some in the objective crowd are this way. Life is easy when it's 1+1=2. Nobody risks anything and there is no need for discussion. Thus, one possible reason for people to love objective measurements in audio because they are being told that the decision has been made for them and there is nothing more to think about. Again, this is just a stream of thought that just came to me and needs to be fleshed out much more. I'm not directing this at anyone and don't mean to be negative toward any one or group. I think it's human nature to desire simplicity and measurements are one way of taking the brain out of the equation. Perhaps part of what I'm getting at is the status of measurements in many peoples' eyes. To me they mean something, sometimes. I like them, but always read them with a "how does this effect me" type of lens. There are just so many variable in life when humans are involved, that it's hard for me to look at a measurement and make a decision. I don't think this is true or fair Chris. In fact, I believe objectivism makes the decisions harder because one has to use one's intellectual and "best judgment" resources to decide what to measure and judge for oneself whether the results apply to how "I" understand the world. Ultimately whether that result applies to my home/system and how well I can perceive the difference. This is precisely what you're getting at I think but gauging it differently. Objective attempts at "reality" often intrude into our experience and makes life uncomfortable especially if it pricks at our beliefs and psychological biases! The Industry also gets uncomfortable because then we can also speak about whether the price of something relates to quality/fidelity/accuracy - value as it might be directly related to sound quality rather than appearance, prestige, or luxury. No... "Life is easy when it's 1+1=2" is often not true for the objectivist. It's "harder" to read graphs and understand what they mean than divining what a pure subjectivist might be implying about whether something has "presence", or if a "veil is lifted", or the sound is "faster". Those vague descriptions IMO can be tossed aside with little repercussions whereas if we know that a DAC has strong jitter for example, I think we'd pay a little more attention and consider what this means about audibility and the abilities of the company that makes the product. Compared to the challenges of writing my articles with measurements in mind, the "subjective" world of audiophilia for the years before were comparatively unchallenging. I believe it is the objectivists that "have to use his/her brain to decide something" way more because there is often actual data to wrestle with. Yes, I know this might be inflammatory to some, but hey... This is Objective-Fi 🤪. The Computer Audiophile, John Dyson, Teresa and 4 others 3 2 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 22, 2020 Author Share Posted February 22, 2020 On 2/21/2020 at 12:05 PM, tapatrick said: As you seem to be a helpful person I have some basic questions as I have very little understanding of measurements or their meaning. I know what a frequency curve is and the importance of low jitter and noise levels etc. but I'd much rather read a review by someone who knows how to interpret the measurements presented. Apart from the obvious (noise spikes or reduced frequency range), opinion seems to be that these are open to interpretation or only show a partial picture of what constitutes the sound coming from system. I spend time on DIY forums and I put together basic components and modify them following the advice or example of those more qualified - changing wiring, building cables, replacing capacitors and replacing clocks etc as I like to tinker then try them by listening carefully over several weeks of trial in order to hopefully enhance my system. For instance my reference source is a $50 chinese SD card player heavily modified and powered by LifePO4/Ultracaps. So my interest in measurements is in relation to things like this. For myself and other non techies could you please list the types of measurements everyone is referring to and any good resources to understand the relationship between these and sound quality? Thanks in advance Hi @tapatrick, Yeah, very good question but a broad one also... 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 In it, I speak about some of these basics. Then perhaps we can touch on each of these measurement parameters and see if together we can discuss the implications and where we can find evidence of audibility and significance then look at the hi-fi gear we own and see if these characteristics may be inadequate. Some of this I've discussed in my blog and will point there as appropriate... tapatrick 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 22, 2020 Author Share Posted February 22, 2020 22 hours ago, fas42 said: 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. Sure, it's good to one-by-one look at issues and sort them out in our systems. Over time, this should lead to optimization as the system "evolves" to resolve audible issues... Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 23, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 23, 2020 4 hours ago, Bill Brown said: As a direct answer to the topic line I would say that we need them to continue to attempt to seek out/try to develop a body of measurements that correlate with perception (positive, negative, and euphonic), identify equipment with significant engineering flaws, and to help us identify components from the huge number that we think are worthwhile to audition. Bill Hi Bill, I certainly agree that many things we measure today are either minor or do not lead to audible differences. A great example I think is JITTER. Yes, we can measure this with all those sidebands down below -100dBFS in modern asynchronous DACs, but seriously, who can hear them unless VERY severe - basically "broken", "engineering flaw" gear? (See my DEMO post awhile back.) Despite this, notice how "jitter" continues to be claimed by various companies as being important... Go talk to Paul McGowan and Ted Smith and their PS Audio DAC. Isn't it more than a little suspicious that they never provide measurements/evidence to show the audible issue despite their verbal claims!? Of course, this doesn't mean that jitter should not be measured. We can and I think should still look at stuff like the J-Test because it gives us an idea if the company paid attention even if not severe enough to be called a "flaw". Your comment "develop a body of measurements that correlate with perception (positive, negative, and euphonic)" is insightful. Nice. I believe that it is only with objective testing and controlled listening (measurements of the subjective experience while minimizing non-sound-related biases) that we can differentiate "positive, negative, and euphonic". I think in fact we are getting to the point where of the three, "euphonic" is becoming most important. Having said this, we need to remember the slippery slope of "euphonic" and what it means. For example, in my blind testing years ago, I found a group of people who preferred MP3 over lossless FLAC. I personally have no problems with this (since I don't think high bitrate MP3 sounds bad at all) but it would be very much "counterculture" to various "purist" forms of audiophilia (including strict objective ideal of "high fidelity" and absolute "transparency") that seeks less manipulation of the sound. Would be rather unexpected if audiophiles ever advocated for such a thing because for some it's "euphonic"! Then again, some audiophiles already are strict vinyl listeners so maybe that's a good example where for some "euphonic" is all that really matters even if it's not to my taste personally... pkane2001 and John Dyson 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 23, 2020 Author Share Posted February 23, 2020 37 minutes ago, fas42 said: Howdy, just curious whether you're familiar with Bregman's "Auditory Scene Analysis", and subsequent research? Not familiar with this Frank. I see there's a review here that seems like a good read perhaps: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00158/full What are your thoughts on this? Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 23, 2020 Author Share Posted February 23, 2020 15 hours ago, fas42 said: 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/ Thanks Frank, I'll take a look at the review first and consider. The thread looks pretty unwieldy and will need to have a look at the basics first to see if the topic seems to correlate significantly towards audiophilia... Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 23, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 23, 2020 14 hours ago, Bill Brown said: Thank you for the long reply, Archimago. It is interesting. I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but there are some subtle differences, even just in context, or history, or something. I'll try to explain. I do agree with the above in the sense that Jitter is a "solved" problem and should not cause audible problems or be an issue in a competent design. I can't think that I would ever consider buying a DAC that tested poorly in this regard. I have to think back, though to the (?) 80s when this problem wasn't being addressed by designers of audio components (as opposed, possibly, to the users of digital circuits in other fields). Objectivists at the time thought digital as it existed was "solved." DACS, I think it is clear to see in retrospect were "tweaked," or "kludged" by "high-end" designers in the search for "better sound" (?euphony). As things evolved I learned about jitter via Stereophile, saw early measurements being conducted and how poorly some DACs measured (as well as some of the tweaky boxes that were designed to fix this and didn't): https://www.stereophile.com/content/2020-jitter-measurements A subjectivist provocateur would say that before jitter was fixed in DACs that they were being told by objectivists that they were "crazy," that digital was "solved," and that no additional measuring techniques were needed as all important parameters could be characterized with the current state of the art...... Good points there Bill. I was but a lad back in the 80's (especially early to mid 80's) before having the resources to own or explore hi-fi so can't really speak to what the debate was like between objective and subjective folks... From our vantage point today, we can say that there have been many parameters improved over the 80's when it comes to digital reproduction. For example, the first DACs were not true 16-bit even, much less the hi-res-capable low noise floor devices of today. Linearity was poorer back then. Quality of the filtering with the earliest devices would not have been as good. All these things I suspect would have been significant and IMO more important than jitter right from the start. Today, we can see that some companies prefer to roll back the clock in a number of those areas. For example Audio Note CD/DACs do not apply a filter. Various less-than-stellar multibit DAC chips have been used by companies like Border Patrol, or Schiit. Discrete resistor ladder that would measure poorly used in others. Regardless of other measured performance parameters, I believe all these designs actually worsen jitter yet so many audiophiles are fine with it and pay quite a bit of $$$. Among all that can be anomalous and "imperfect" about digital reproduction, I don't think jitter is or ever was a big deal. Nothing like the time domain anomalies of audible turntable wow & flutter for example. Quote But yes, I agree jitter is solved and am not holding my breath for another clear, measurable area for improvement in digital-reproduction to be found. Yeah, not sure I get what is going on there, to say it politely. I have seen the measurements on Sphile and ASR and am not terribly impressed. Some people that I respect like them, so....heck, I don't know. As a consumer I don't really care if they don't provide measurements, it's up to them. Would I buy one? No. Would I try to "save" someone from being "fooled" into buying one? No. Would I take the opportunity to discuss the facets if they wanted? Sure. If they are happy and enjoying their music, more power to them. I am not a crusader. Don't think it would work anyway, people are so, so variable. Right. I say things but I too am not all that interested in the "crusade". No need to "fight" or force anyone's personal beliefs. Best to hopefully speak one's position, offer insights to consider, and even better, provide evidence where one can and invite others to partake if this could add to our collective understanding and experience (DEMO's and BLIND TESTS for example). As in many other areas of life, it's important to aim for "higher ground" when it comes to these debates. The "how" and "why" are just as important as the "what" or "who" is being debated. Quote Again, I agree to some degree :). Objective testing? Yes! I'll take all the sources of information I can get! Controlled testing? Sure, but..... I like the blinded testing at Harman as an example. I am simply not yet convinced that it is universally applicable to the testing of all audio gear, though hopefully, as a physician you won't find me too hypocritical for believing in blinded, placebo-controlled trials for medicines, etc...... It's OK man... As above, no need to force everyone into the same mindset or methodology! In the "art" of medicine, let's just say that the placebo effect is very much a tool just as much as objective investigations and well-researched therapeutic options. Likewise, there are things we might believe in that "works" but it would be impossible to do blind testing due to ethical reasons. I will say one thing about the importance of blind tests though. When we come across a claim by a "pure subjectivist" that he/she "can easily hear the difference between the two USB cables" (or whatever contentious issue), I would consider that person as a prime candidate for blind testing. We know we cannot trust everyone. We know that some people are not very insightful. And yes, we know that there is a range of hearing acuity as well so it's good to keep an open mind that maybe the person truly has "golden ears" and knows what to listen for. A blind test is a tool to confirm their claim, especially when it's supposedly "easy". Quote Not sure if you recall, but decades ago JA organized a carefully controlled DBT of amplifiers. One a tube amp, the other SS. The tube amp had an output impedance that would have to produce frequency-response changes into the varying impedance v frequency of the speakers that were audible by anyone's criteria. Null result. Why? I don't know. I have some guesses but I don't know. Yes, euphony the way you describe it is huge. Are subjectivist reviewers now simply describing differences in euphony? Certainly possible (thought not exclusively, my gut says). We obviously cannot speak authoritatively about JA's test, and many others where DBT failed to show a difference unless we were there. All kinds of things like hearing ability of participants, room acoustics, ambient noise, music chosen, whether the procedure respected the limits of echoic memory are all significant. Also, the speakers would clearly have a huge part to play in audibility; what is the effect of the tube amp's lower damping factor on the frequency response? What we can say from the result is at least that the listeners must have thought the devices sounded "equivalent" within the confines of that test procedure. Presumably this means the listeners would have been happy with either the SS or tube amp at home. I know some subjective folks will say that after 6 months, the solid state didn't give them as much joy as the tube amp or something like that based on longterm listening... Maybe, but then again, people fall out of love after 6 months all the time for all kinds of reasons not related to audio quality 😄. Quote Some, probably. I hope others, though, are more self-aware and consider it a possibility. Or maybe not I suspect you are familiar with Nelson Pass' work in this regard. He is fairly matter-of-fact that he knows 2H HD is euphonic, this informs his designs, and has even produced a gizmo that allows manipulation of its phase and level and told folks to have fun. Re TTs.......In the 90s I built one using Well Tempered Reference components (arm, motor, platter, bearing). I used multiple levels of Aluminum alternating with Isodamp for CLD, all mounted on a Newport laser table (just the base), pneumatically isolated and self-leveling. Enjoyed lots of good sound. Now, though just listen to music from an HD, having sold off most of our stuff (not just audio) in a wonderful, simplifying way. I still have lots of files I recorded digitally, though Thanks again, Bill Yup, I've had this discussion with @mitchco over the years and some local audiophiles about adding euphonic distortion including Pass' amp discussions. The cool thing is that with @pkane2001's Distort program you can easily do the same digitally by adding some low order harmonic and hear for yourself. Have fun! jabbr and Bill Brown 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 25, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 25, 2020 On 2/23/2020 at 12:16 PM, Bill Brown said: I was 14 in 1982 when the first CD players came out(?). I began reading everything about this hobby that became my lifelong love then, went through all the normal stages (gear-lust, reading the Audio Magazine annual equipment catalog like a kid used to read the Sears catalog before Christmas, etc.). I would watch the mailbox for the latest issues of Audio, Stereophile, and, I must confess, Stereo Review and inhale all of them in less than a day, then resuming the month-long wait. Can't believe this all makes me feel old at 51! This was basically the ONLY way to get info on the hobby except for the one friend I found in college that shared my passion! An AMAZING contrast with today. Wow! Hey Bill, cool man, we're similar in age... I think Chris here is about the same. Fellow Gen X cynical slackers 😉. Yeah, those were the days with magazines and waiting a month before the next "hit". For better or worse, we have everything at our fingertips yet so much of what we argue about remain the same! On 2/23/2020 at 12:16 PM, Bill Brown said: History is important to me. Subjective reviewing grew from JGH for Stereophile, and a bit later HP from TAS as a reaction to the measurement only era preceding it, seen in magazines like High Fidelity(?). JGH swung the pendulum towards subjectivity and I think it was needed. Remember, though, that he used measurements as able at the time- find one of his old reviews and check out a primitive FR measurement of a phone cartridge! He was in pursuit of "high fidelity," in, I think, the truest definition of the term, and actually decried the further swing of the pendulum towards the subjectivist-only, "how the sound makes me feel," "if it sounds good to me" type of pursuit. Yes, I sense a healthy, pragmatic, non-judgemental approach to your writing and the engineering chops you bring to the table- whoever the heck you are! That's an interesting perspective Bill. And I think it does jive with JGH's latter comments like this about the lack of "honesty controls" in audio. Certainly sounds like it went too far for the man. A subjective-only perspective ultimately leads us down the path of solipsism. All that matters is "me". What "I" think. How I "feel". Where I spend my money. For the most part, how a person "feels" about consumer devices isn't all that interesting to me, nor where the money is spent; this is a hobby so by all means have "fun". But if we as hobbyists are interested in moving forward beyond aesthetics and appreciate that there should be "function over form", then it's essential that we examine the actual "function" and objective methods of course will allow us to quantify this. I'm ultimately just one of the audiophiles you run into at the audio show with enough time to stick an ADC to some audio gear and spent some time reading, writing and interacting with other audiophiles... 😃 On 2/23/2020 at 12:16 PM, Bill Brown said: I was thinking of the things this morning that would lead me to a "righteous crusade." There are some, perhaps, but certainly none in this realm. Yes, why someone would set themselves up for that is a mystery to me. I am confident about some stuff, but........ I try to minimize the possibility of getting even close to Hubris. No need for any crusade in this realm, I agree. If we want to be "righteous", there are plenty more important and useful causes to devote time to in the real world! As for why one would "set themselves up" to saying that certain things are "easy" to hear or they "clearly" can tell a difference, I think for the most part it's because this sells, and looks good for companies that want a positive review. Obviously I'm talking about stuff like cables, bitperfect streamers, bitperfect software, etc... where the chance of differences is highly unlikely (unless the device is very poorly made or broken!). Cable reviews are a perfect example of this. If a magazine has already reviewed many cables in their long and distinguished run, has all kinds of advertising banners for the latest and greatest cable company, isn't it essential that a $2000/ft cable "clearly" sounds different when compared to that $1000/ft cable reviewed recently? That whole construct is necessary for the confidence game. It's no good with Company C's $250/ft cable now suddenly sounds better than Company B's $2000/ft model. What if next month they "honestly" now report on a $50/ft model that trounces that $250/ft cable even!!! No... It has to be "measured" (not objectively obviously!) reporting for the sake of the class of devices/components by a "respected" golden ear no less. It has to roughly at least correlate to the price structure. And it would do no good for reviews to suggest anything less than "clearly audible difference" as there would simply be no hype generated and apathy in the readership is the last thing a cable company (or other questionable device manufacturer) wants to see in print about their product! The trap with this kind of writing of course is that they can't be "caught". Otherwise the whole "golden ear" facade comes crumbling down. The fantastical price structure collapses like a financial bubble that was unwisely "invested in" by those who followed. Hence... No blind tests. "It doesn't work." "It doesn't reflect actual listening situations." And the related cries of: "measurements don't capture everything we hear." "You can't measure cables." So on and so forth... On 2/23/2020 at 12:16 PM, Bill Brown said: I can't remember the exact numbers, but certainly differences that should be perceived as outlined in the relevant literature, my understanding of which suggests that narrow cuts and peaks are difficult to perceive, but that (even fairly subtle) frequency response changes that affect wider frequency bands are perceptible. Note that in this case, as suggested by JA's measurements of amps into a simulated load, that they should have been. Again....euphony? I don't want to overstate, though, the test as a "gold standard." I found it intriguing at the time and it remains in the back of my mind, especially with my personal experiments with blind testing. Bill As suggested above, I do believe that in the academic literature we can already find all kinds of work on audibility thresholds which we in the audiophile world just do not talk about. Until it becomes part of the lingo surrounding the products we consume, we often will not focus on esoteric details... For example, until around 2009/2010, we didn't talk much about digital filters, or pre-ringing, or impulse responses with DACs; not until Meridian started to market their "apodizing" filter, Ayre their "Listen" and "Measure" settings, and the magazines picked it up. Now days, it's part of our lingo even though for the most part, it's not a big deal. (Same too with stuff like "intersample overs" in the last few years.) jabbr, DuckToller and Bill Brown 1 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 25, 2020 Author Share Posted February 25, 2020 On 2/23/2020 at 9:10 AM, John Dyson said: For people who aren't tied up in with strong opinons, I see the disagreement between those who tend to be 100% subjective vs. those of us who tend (but not 100%) objective partially described in the following statement: it is mostly related to the fact that SOMETIMES it is difficult to measure certain impairments. I think that people move towards the subjective out of frustration caused by inadequate objective information. (There can probably be a lot of reasons for the incomplete/inadequate objective information.) 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. Example: on the case of TIM, which can really exist (and used to REALLY exist in older designs), we didn't initially 1) understand what caused the impairment, and 2) it can be tricky to measure, esp with techniques used in the '60s/'70s. TIM is a sibling of modulation distortion in gain control devices also, it happens when signals are changing character... It can take a while to understand,define, describe an impariment well enough to quantify it. TIM and siblings can be tricky to measure, and there more than 'one' kind of TIM in the sense it is dependent on lots of variables. This is ONE example that might have discredited 'measurements' in some peoples minds. This doesn't mean that objective measurement can be discredited, in fact when it is applicable, it must be a PRIMARY way of evaluating a design, and eventually the subjective becomes a double check. On the other hand, complex designs can demand certain kinds of testing where there is no appropriate measurement device. Subjective evaluation is needed until (if ever) an objective method is developed. Hi John, yes, well put! Many of the fights we get into originates from the "all or none", "black or white", "100%" mindset. As mature adults, we know that the only way to handle the complexities of life (of which the squabbles of audiophilia is but a tiny microcosm) is to find the middle ground... The "shade of grey" between the subjective and objective. Some things do need to be "more subjective" just as my preference is to be "more objective" when it comes to audiophile gear. It's sad to see how there was a time when at least we appreciated some of the "basics" of objective analysis (like Bill mentioned about JGH and phono frequency response). These days, the majority of online sites and at least a big proportion if not the majority of magazines have taken out even a simple frequency response; much less consideration for noise level or time-domain characteristics. In part, I think that as technology has progressed, we can often "assume" that most devices are quite "good" already. Or at least good enough that most listeners will not hear a problem. While technically not great, it's fine when the subjectivist reviewer doesn't hear a problem with a DAC but yet John Atkinson measures relatively high jitter... Since jitter (IMO) was never a terrible boogeyman, the device still "sounds good" assuming the rest of the performance is reasonable. The issue then becomes one of "value" for the price (given suboptimal engineering), and whether it would be appropriate for the company to hype up a product as "one of the best DACs in the world" for example. I can certainly agree with the idea that objective parameters should take primacy in design and then of course confirmed with listening. Sure, we have some products "designed by ear" and who knows, some will sound good as well. Probably best to at least double check with objective measures if something is designed by the ears of a man with many decades of life behind him 😲. When it comes to audible distortions, using multiple blinded listening tests to identify and verify audible anomalies then use objective testing to measure the problem probably is the best way to effectively weed out issues, and keep findings relevant (eg. audible TIM back in the day might be an example). These days, the "golden ears" who claim to hear differences but never bother to run a blind test to prove to themselves and others that the impression is anything more than a mirage would not be helpful in this endeavor. On 2/23/2020 at 9:10 AM, John Dyson said: I can give parallels to the situation on my current project -- but I do not want to divert attention from the matter at hand. The bottom line is that objective measurement and evaluation is critical for a design to be created and completed. A pure 'design by sounds good' is only going to work for the most simple design with simple interactions. A 'design by spec' and requirements to meet objective criteria is important for a non-trivial design to be workable. NOTE: design by finding 'sweet spots' and avoiding 'rabbit holes' is NOT the best engineering design method and can sometimes make the best of us into a sucker, wasting lots of time doing tweaking. If the tweaking can be avoided, then tweaking MUST be avoided and it is very worthwhile to sit down and do a real design -- the worst of time wasting chasing rabbits into rabbit holes can be avoided. On conventional circuitry and software, where the specifications, requirements and behavior can be accurately measured, almost pure objective design is best. Secondary subjective review is also important, sometimes specs and measurements miss details that are unforseen. On complex circuitry and software, that is, 'stuff that hasn't been done very often', then subjective review is so important, but objective focus is necessary -- the degrees of freedom and interactions could cause a 'design by sounds good' to become a random walk, falling into rabbit holes all of the time. I think your current project with the "feral" Dolby A material is a beautiful example and some of the results I've heard certainly speaks to this. A nice melding of the objective science of how the old analogue noise-reduction system worked with its various filter bands yet there is the need for subjective listening to get the variables sounding "right" - the "art" side of things... A reflection of how folks in the studio also used their ears to tweak the music for the best sound and would have applied customized settings here and there to achieve the ultimate goal. Needless to say, the moment we have real music involved (not just reproduction of "data" with high fidelity), there is no option but to integrate "art" and subjectivity into the equation. On 2/23/2020 at 9:10 AM, John Dyson said: WIth my mostly objective view, sometimes I must unfortunately depend on my hearing, or accept input from other peoples perception. Very often, the subjective feedback has been helpful in resolving actual bugs that I couldn't measure. Subjective feedback from uncontrolled experiments is notoriously unreliable though -- and must be considered on a statistical basis and not as a measurement with negligible error. Subjective review can become so distorted and become totally emotional. When feedback is too distorted by emotion and/or all of the human foibles that can affect subjective review, then that data source should be ignored. I run into that problem all of time, and must quit depending even on my own senses -- human perception is definitely unreliable, but good information can often be derived. Both subjective and objective review are necessary -- but each has it's limitations. In a way, after a person really considers and truly understands the complexity of their equipment, I cannot imagine why someone would be strongly biased away from objective review. It just doesn't make sense to disparage good objective review of any technical device. Subjective review is important also -- it is the attitude that disparages one or the other -- doesn't make sense. John "Subjective feedback from uncontrolled experiments is notoriously unreliable though". Yes, for sure. I suspect most audiophiles appreciate this fact even though strangely enough, it seems like some have unwavering faith in certain high profile "golden ears"... "In Mr. Purely Subjectivist Reviewer's ears we trust!" Without a fair amount of critical thinking, seems a little dangerous 😟. Thanks again for the work and thoughtful insights John. Bill Brown 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 26, 2020 Author Share Posted February 26, 2020 19 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said: The relevance of measurements in audio seems to be a popular theme at the moment. We know from other threads here and elsewhere that it is difficult to completely correlate objective measurements of an audio signal with subjective perceptions of what that measured signal will sound like to a human listener. Measurements of the audio signal are not direct measurements of perception. They are surrogates or indirect markers. In medicine such markers are used all the time but the difference is we know how that indirect marker compares to a gold standard test of what you think you are measuring. It's just calibration of one tool against another known, and more accurate, tool. Hmmm, let's hold off on the medical lab test analogy because I think we can make a case with examples of almost anything we want to argue about depending on which tests we're talking about! 😃 The way I see it, the measurements we do in audio are actually very correlated to what we hear already! Other than the rare birds like jitter and TIM which I agree can be surrogate measurements, key measured parameters like frequency response is highly correlated to sound quality of speakers and listener preferences (like the Harman research). Noise level likewise when high enough is clearly correlated to audibility and preference. Let's talk about something like THD+N which commonly gets brought up. We have the luxury in 2020 to be blessed routinely with <0.01% THD+N DACs and through our vantage point say: "Oh, THD+N is meaningless and doesn't correlate with sound quality!" Imagine if we lived in a time when source components went as low as 0.5% and often even went up to 5+% THD+N (still the case with low quality vinyl - anyone care to measure a Crosley turntable for example?). Back in those days, I imagine the objective number was seen as way more than a theoretical construct or questioned as to whether it made a difference! Of course it could be audible. Every one of the distortions we typically use for measurements would lead to unwanted audible issues when severe enough. Even the dreaded but most likely toothless jitter boogeyman when high enough (as demonstrated) ruins the sound. To a real degree, it is thanks to technological progress that we have the luxury of subjectively expressing our preferences! When devices often measured poorly say in the 40's to the early 80's, surely the focus on objective performance can be understood. Quote In my opinion, we haven't got that far in audio yet…….( this is despite blind testing. As a test tool, in my opinion it is not adequately calibrated and without known sensitivity, specificity, true and false positives/negatives, and positives and negative predictive values. Another topic). I think implied in my response above is the idea that we have actually gone far enough already in many ways - especially for 2-channel audio! While there may be some things here and there to find, I think the technology is well mature. To go beyond might not be the domain of the hardware audiophile hobby as I'll discuss below. Quote Still, in my opinion there is hope. By definition, irrespective of how complex a perception is, it must have an evoking stimulus. That is basic neurobiology. I am excluding things here like hallucinations and the huge topic of central modulation in the nervous system. So, the stimulus in this case is an audio signal followed by sound waves in air. The principle is pretty straightforward in that you can study that stimulus to observe what changes in the stimulus correlate, and are concordant with, some sort of change in perception. I mentioned elsewhere that I don't think it should be terribly difficult to study such things as dynamic range measurement and compare that with our subjective evaluation of compressed or dynamic sound perception. Similarly, frequency response that doesn't extend down into the bottom octaves of music is expected to sound a certain way, or at least lacking a certain sound. Actually, my hope for high fidelity products need not go this far. Beginning at the source, all we really have are our CDs, vinyl, and digital downloads (tapes, cylinders, etc...). All that we can ever recover or "hear" is in that data. If we can completely, transparently reproduce that "source" with a perfect turntable, perfect CD player, perfect DAC... No losses in the cabling... No losses in the preamp... "Perfect" amplifier to a perfect speaker/headphone that can "faithfully" (as in "high fidelity") reproduce what the data encoded in that source is, then that is all we can hope to do. "Transparency" to the source content is all that we can ever achieve. What happens in the mind neurobiologically is of no direct concern to high-fidelity audio reproduction or to hi-fi companies even though it would be very interesting academically. To go "beyond hi-fi" would be to research psychoacoustics, which I think is what you're starting to suggest. How do we measure or even create mental effects such as "virtual 3D sound", "being in a stadium", expand perceived dynamic range, enhance subtle details, etc... All of which likely is more than what's on the CD or vinyl or downloaded file (especially 2-channel material). But as a purist "high-fidelity audiophile", this is in the realm of perceptual enhancement rather than as an audiophile who wants the cleanest, uncolored, most direct, "shortest signal path" type of performance. Whereas we can objectively measure and know "fidelity" to the source recording (what goes in is exactly what comes out of the transducers and enters the ear), what constitutes as perception of the sound (neurobiologically measured so we can know that the person perceives it as "good" or even "better"), can only be defined based on individual preferences and that person's unique perceptual machinery. Suppose we even have that kind of capability to peer into the mind with some detail (IMO not possible in this generation including with EEG, MEG, and neuroimaging), what do we think DAC manufacturers or speaker manufacturers can do about it? Quote It seems to me that where we're at with objective measurements is to verify that a piece of audio gear is performing to spec and maybe explore better and alternative designs. There are measured levels of jitter, various distortions, frequency response and so on. Some of these measurements can give us some insight into what the gear might sound like, how it is "voiced". But frustratingly to most audiophiles there is often a disconnect between the measurement of the device's performance and how it sounds. To be honest, I don't feel this way at all! I typically listen to the gear, then put it on the test bench, then have another listen afterwards to see if I can hear significant anomalies found. More often than not, I agree with the measurements and where I am surprised, it's usually with the areas where I believe it makes little difference (again, jitter is a good example, and low level harmonic distortion and TIM might be another). Like I said above, performance of gear is already very good and if we have a concept of the threshold of our own hearing limitations, the magnitude of the anomaly on the measurements will make sense. Then there's no frustration at all because one can accept that the anomaly is there but it makes no difference because one's ears/brain/listening ability would not be able to pick it up. In time, as one accepts these limitations of the self, then some things become less important. People still ask me all the time if I prefer USB or SPDIF. To me it doesn't matter any more because the only difference unless there are bit errors or audible noise is jitter and even though TosLink has worse jitter, I believe it's inaudible. A person like Ted Smith can come along and claim his DAC sounds different because of "jitter"; well, unless he can show me evidence that his DAC has good jitter performance (which it does not), then it's probably fair to suggest he's wrong. Does it matter if my Emotiva amp has -80dB THD+N compared to my Hypex with less than -90dB? No, because both Class AB and D amps are very good now, that's not what matters most anymore... Rather the difference in damping factor to control my speakers, the lower cost and the fact that the Class D uses much less electricity are objective parameters that matter to me now within normal listening levels. In terms of anomalies found, does it matter that the Hypex has a 400kHz switching noise? No, because I know from experience that I cannot hear it and there are easy ways to ameliorate the effect in the system... This IMO is the "offer" and power of having an objective perspective - this is an opportunities to experience, develop awareness, and understanding for oneself. It's simply part of the hobby. Subjectivists IMO should engage with the objective side because they will learn something about audio gear and themselves; in the process I suspect many will not be as influenced by peer pressure 😉 of what they're "supposed" to hear or like. Likewise, objectivists should recognize that our perceptual abilities are unique (personal, subjective) and embrace the emotional side including pride of ownership and luxury as the case might be. Quote The implicit suggestion/understanding/belief that the better the device's measured performance the better the potential sound quality has strong face validity but it is not always borne out in reality. It probably holds more true in the converse, in that lousy measurements are probably going to translate into poor sound quality but even this does not hold completely true. I agree this is not true that perfect measurements mean "better sound quality" to everyone. And this is because we can respect people's subjective opinions. There are those among us who love vinyl sound and will only partake of a purely analogue/vinyl feast 😀. Are they "wrong"? Of course not. But this doesn't mean that they are not listening to turntables with temporal distortions way "worse" than a few hundred picoseconds of jitter off the CD player. Or that their systems don't have relatively high noise levels and >1% THD. If a person considers this subjectively "better sound", so be it... No need to engage in a crusade. This is why to me it doesn't matter what neurobiology is saying when it comes to the hardware goal. For some, what I might call distortion is heard as being euphonic. I don't mind knowing about it or even modelling the sound quality to see if I might enjoy the coloration... These preferences are idiosyncratic in nature and not something that we need to chase. Some like beer, others wine, others whiskey. But if ya wanna get intoxicated, make sure the EtOH content is objectively adequate :-). It all comes down to what we're aiming for. Quote In my opinion therefore we need to establish measurements of the audio signal that not just informs us how the device is performing, as important as that is, but informs us how the sound/music will be perceived, i.e. what will it sound like. As above. I think that's important for neuroscience, not "hi-fi" audio engineering as per the hobby I believe I'm engaging in for the hardware sound reproduction side. Maybe one day when we can plug our brainstems into the system and hit the vestibulocochlear nerve, cochlear nuclei, inferior colliculi, or maybe directly to Heschl's gyrus, then we better know what's happening with neuronal firing patterns! "How the sound/music will be perceived" IMO is not the job of this hobby but yours, the neuroscientist 😉. Quote What I think most subjectivists sceptically reject is the notion that excellent device specs translates into sonic transparency and the corollary, that an excellent set of specs means that the device will sound like any other device with the same specs. I don't think it is an unobtainable goal just think we're way off reaching it, in my opinion. A man can reject all kinds of notions. The question is, does that man have a means to prove that his rejection is not based on biased opinion and variables outside of whatever governs the topic at hand? Suppose we have 2 amps to listen to. A subjectivist might reject that these two well-designed, well-measured amplifiers "sound the same" within normal operating parameters. I can listen for myself and walk away disagreeing with him. Since it is only his opinion, unless he shows me that this is indeed the case with "honesty controls" (ie. controlled trials, blind testing), otherwise with what faith am I to have that his opinion reflects reality? Iving 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 26, 2020 2 hours ago, jabbr said: It is true that the commonly measured parameters such as THD and frequency response are almost universally excellent. Yet products sound different. What is needed is a focus on measurements that highlight the differences between equipment, rather than measurements which are almost universally good. Let’s me highlight (again) the FirstWatt series of amplifiers because: 1) same quality/case/power supply/price 2) published schematics 3) each has unique sound So which measurements best explain the unique sound of each amp? Hey @jabbr, I dunno. Let me get back to you when I have a FirstWatt to measure on the bench... 🙂 If we are to compare objective performance, we cannot speak in generalizations but must specify devices and examples so everyone's on the same page. What THD and frequency response are you referring to specifically? Of course devices sound different including the FirstWatt amps, but notice that they do measure quite differently as well. Are there 2 FirstWatt amps that measure almost identically in detailed testing (not just FR, but also stuff like output impedance / damping factor across the audible frequency, relative amounts of odd/even and higher order harmonics...), and specified which speaker they're connected to? Remember, unless we can confirm load invariance with the amp, all bets are off. Furthermore, Pass makes no bones about appreciating that varying amounts of harmonic distortion might be preferable (and makes devices like the H2 Harmonic Generator to play with this). It's objectively demonstrable and yes, audible... I see no problem here. Bill Brown and lucretius 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 26, 2020 13 hours ago, Bill Brown said: Thanks for another good post, Archimago. Very happy you found the article with JGH. He was quite the curmudgeon, but I liked him. We have to remember that at the time he began publishing measurements were VERY primitive by today's standards (the HW and SW available to even hobbyists is astounding!). They certainly wouldn't have been conducive to the extensive work to correlate measurements with perception that now seems at least somewhat possible (perhaps by you!). He did his best in this context, and I think did it quite well. I agree with his references to acoustic music performed in a real place. Of course the circle of confusion can be evoked, but he recorded extensively, knew the sound of live music and the character of the mics he used. I hope you read the link to AD's article as well. It certainly elucidates the other possibilities, potential faults that you alluded to later..... It is certainly possible that we "lost our way." Maybe the pendulum will swing back. AD is interesting, he is a skilled writer. I still read his stuff based on that (and am always on the lookout for music to seek out). Perhaps there is a lot of "synergy" and "euphony" involved, this providing the sound he prefers. I have a lot of thoughts about this in the context of the equipment he likes. And the room he listens in! I am frequently fairly disappointed with the rooms subjectivists reviewers describe....so much that can be done in this regard! Hey @Bill Brown, yeah, the descriptions of JGH over the years do suggest quite a "character". 🙂 I'm not sure which AD (Art Dudley?) article you're referring to Bill. I agree that I am disappointed too when I see pictures of many of these rooms used for highly subjective reviews. Recently on the Steve Hoffman Forum, there was a thread discussing Guttenberg and Fremer's rooms. I would hope that folks who spend so much time "listening" should be demonstrating the importance of this. (In comparison, @The Computer Audiophileclearly spent much time and efforts.) Quote I agree a lot with your response to John's as well, very nice! But also very strongly with "Neuroscience's" that followed. Seems like there has to be a synthesis of Neuroscience (the field, not the man) and the engineering to move forward. I think we also have to remember that the former, while strides are being made, is a bear! So much we don't know yet! So complex! Yeah, as you can see, I've written a detailed response to "Neuroscience" above. Ultimately, understanding human perception, cognition, consciousness, and sentience is no doubt one of the many "ultimate questions" which humankind will explore in science in the measure of time. But I'm pretty sure we don't need to understand the human mind to that depth just to be confident in determining whether hi-fi equipment like an amplifier is "more than good enough for human hearing" while reproducing some music retrieved off some disk or data storage... And I for one definitely thinks there is no need to go to such depths to understand if expensive ethernet cables or USB cables "sounds different" 🤔. Quote I was waxing philosophic in my thoughts last night, but my posts are already cumbersome in length so will list bullets of my thinking (my office network is down this morning....I still miss paper charts): - I am not interested anymore in ridiculously expensive equipment of any sort; if I had unlimited resources I still wouldn't purchase it. It is not a part of my ethos. I grew up poor, lived overseas as a child, and spent 3 years in the "developing world" as a volunteer (not hyping myself in any way, just background). I feel guilty enough sometimes with my current equipment. Likewise, I was born overseas and have seen what the world can be like... We often forget about the privileged positions we might be in. To have disposable income, to talk about audiophile toys, to have a sound room, to have time to engage in forums like this... All privileges. Quote - I rarely read entirely subjective reviews. Their value has decreased for me over time. With the amount of information available to us now in so may fields that interest me I feel like I have to be selective. Me too. Used to read Stereophile almost cover to cover. Stopped by the early 2000's when I got into SACD and DVD-A and realized that much of the time, these guys were just "hearing thing" 🙂. Now days, just target device reviews I might be interested in or curious about objective performance when a device is hyped or just to see how things perform (like some of the R2R DACs these days). Quote - I do read subjective reviews that are followed by measurements in my ongoing attempt to correlate them with perception, though frequently go introduction -> conclusions-> measurements. Ditto. Once awhile this happens... Quote - Most of my audio interests for a long time don't involve the equipment discussed in depth on this forum. I have a Mac, never learned enough about Windows to be effective (the first time I used a computer at all was age 30!) running Audirvana, to an RME DAC with the USB cable that came with it (and no interest in exploring others). I taught myself vacuum tube design (though have only built for my son a guitar amp), have read "The Master Handbook of Acoustics," Geddes ""Audio Transducers" (mainly the waveguide stuff, the math is more up your alley!), and others. I dream of DIY loudspeaker design, tube amplifier topology, current transmission between components, other stuff. As to the last I built a DAC/headphone amplifier using the "Twisted Pear" Buffalo DAC from diyaudio powered by SLAs and connected the DAC chip outputs to a fancy transformer, to headphones (sort of using the voice coils as the I/V resistor) and used parametric EQ to correct the FR variations calculable from their impedance curve. Good stuff! Some of the best (subjective) sound I have ever experienced. Wow. Fantastic work on the building! Quote - I found this recent AES article timely http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=20455, it reflecting my thoughts: It isn't the dynamic range that increased bit-depths allows or the high-frequency extension that higher-sampling rates allows (though I wonder about some of the studies on possible other mechanisms that may provide benefit in "Neuroscience's" realm), but instead to allow different filtering options. I like and buy high-res material (though am too often very disappointed when, from old recordings, they squash the dynamics in the re-mastering). Right, as the paper says, these days the 24-bit dynamic range is more than enough and the limitation is the music itself; this is why severe dynamic compression IMO is a disaster for audiophiles. What's the point if we have awesome hardware but barely any new music to enjoy that can utilize the system's abilities? Filtering options are good. Just make sure to curb our enthusiasm of course 😄 and remain realistic. Quote - I was intrigued by Ayre's "Listen" filter and was excited to learn the settings in iZotope provided by "Audinventory" (?) in the long iZotope thread on this site that would closely replicate it (with measurements). I liked the sound, eventually blind-testing my "golden ear" son who picked them out and described it subjectively in the exact terms I had in mind (that I hadn't biased him with by sharing). I upsample in Audirvana and apply this filter, bypassing the RME's. As discussed awhile back on my blog with settings for piCorePlayer, we can try out Chord-like, MQA-like, NOS-like, Meridian-like settings (plus my favourite filter setting of course!). "Computer audio" and the iterations of software have really provided opportunities for audiophiles to experiment and learn without needing to spend a lot of money! Quote "Many of the fights we get into originates from the "all or none", "black or white", "100%" mindset. As mature adults, we know that the only way to handle the complexities of life (of which the squabbles of audiophilia is but a tiny microcosm) is to find the middle ground... The "shade of grey" between the subjective and objective. Some things do need to be "more subjective" just as my preference is to be "more objective" when it comes to audiophile gear." Amen!!! Best, Bill Cheers Bill. Iving, The Computer Audiophile and tapatrick 2 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 26, 2020 3 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said: Hi Archimago thanks for the very considered reply. I doubt that you and I will come to the same conclusion at the end of the day but I am okay with that. I appreciate learning your perspective Yup. No sweat @Audiophile Neuroscience. It's a hobby. There are no final exams. And let's have fun thinking about this... 😀 Quote This is what I want to know. If you're making a case that the test reveals an abnormality how is that manifest to the listener. If it is not manifest to the listener then why is it important? This brings us full circle to the title of your thread. If an abnormality does not manifest to a listener, I agree that it then does not make a significant difference to the sound quality. But that doesn't mean knowing about the presence of the abnormality is worthless. It tells us when there are bugs. For example, I know that the ESS9038Pro DAC is capable of very low levels of distortion and jitter. Yet, I measured unusually high jitter when I first looked at the Sonica DAC back in 2017! I then E-mailed Oppo, they looked into it and indeed fixed the problem (this is all written here). These days devices are complex and who knows if that Sonica firmware would have been fixed if an objective person didn't run a J-Test and check the filters used. Bugs can show up and things can be missed. Perhaps nobody would have ever heard the difference, but it is nice to know that it's fixed and the DAC can be used to its full potential. Low level anomalies provide a learning opportunity. I've seen enough harmonic distortion FFTs to recognize where my standards lie when it comes to quality and a sense of value. I can say that I have measured enough DACs to tell the difference between a robust piece of gear with one that's "finicky" and prone to pick up hum because the procedure I follow sometimes will create distortions which excellent gear is able to reject. As I wrote recently, there's almost a "subjective opinion" one can form about the device while doing the test, reflective I think of the engineering that went into the machine. Finally, it's just good to know about these things sometimes 😉. I might never hear a Class D amp's 400kHz switching noise, but knowing it's there, and at what amplitude, will allow me to understand future generations of the device and how this manifests as characteristics of future progress. Quote I fully accept things like frequency response and sufficiently high noise levels can be correlated with audibility and at least in the case of spectral anomalies it can be characterised with subjective descriptions like "warmth" or "air". I would like to learn how each of the other measurements translate to the listening experience. I don't typically use terms like "warmth" and "air", but if I had to... "Warmth" to me is a type of high frequency roll-off (perhaps a loss from the "presence" region like 5kHz up), possibly a mid-range prominence around 1kHz and below, a "tilt" in the EQ. Unless a recording is meant to be "warm", I don't like this. At RMAF 2019, a speaker system I heard being too warm was the unusual looking Endow Audio "Point Array Technology" speaker. Like "warmth", some recordings are meant to be "airy" (think Enya). But air can be an exacerbation of that higher treble or one can hear it exaggerated with some low quality gear that causes a lack of high-frequency focus, and possibly noise above 5kHz. A good example of "air" for me is the cheap Yeeco Class D based on the TI TPA3116D2. Some audiophiles like this sound but it was "too airy". When I measured it later, I found quite an inconsistent output impedance with quite significant drop-off from 2kHz onward resulting in poorly controlled high frequencies when presented with a reactive load - you can see a frequency accentuation at 7kHz when I hooked it up to my bookshelf speaker for example. Furthermore this amp has quite a bit of higher order harmonic distortions even at 1W (we're talking 8th order harmonic of equal amplitude to 2nd and 3rd order). Which of these is more important is hard to know but clearly the objective results are not telling me that this is good performance and that I should pay attention to the higher frequency abnormalities! Quote I get your point that THD+N and jitter may no longer be the culprits that they used to be thanks to clever engineers and designers. As I understand it noise induced jitter like in the PHY of Dacs was not even recognised until relatively recent times and thanks to the work of engineers like John Swenson. Show me one objective piece of data John Swenson provided about the 8kHz PHY noise. How about one piece of data that his USB Regen actually reduces jitter or noise with a DAC's ouput. I've asked for this years ago... The USB Regen is basically a 1-port USB hub. Just because he brought attention to the fact that USB high-speed bus clock runs at 8kHz (125μs) and that in special circumstances we might be able to detect this noise doesn't mean it was ever much of a problem. It's a talking point that contains truth but I have yet to see evidence that the actual product sold delivered on the promise. (I don't think ASR ever found evidence of benefit either.) Quote I agree that being faithful and transparent to the source is all that a perfect reproduction system can do. At this stage I haven't seen your evidence for the other statements. With great respect it almost echoes the claims of CDs when they first came out of "perfect Sound forever". The trouble is it sounded terrible. Then Julian Dunn and others started talking about jitter and after this noise. Not sure what other statements you're referring to here... I don't think jitter ever explained the "terrible" sound of CDs in the 80's. Not sure if Julian Dunn ever said jitter explained much of this either. My belief is that some early CDs sound bad not because of the hardware but the recordings themselves. Some of it was poorly transferred. Some used early ADCs that could not perform at 14-bits much less the full 16-bits. Also remember that a number of early CDs had pre-emphasis applied and might not be played back properly (especially these days if one rips one of these CDs and not correct it for computer playback!). Also, @John Dyson's work on decoding Dolby A might also play a role. But remember too that there were sonic gems from those days. Donald Fagen's The Nightfly was fantastic for 1982 (an early digital recording using 3M machines, tracks laid down from 81-82) and still sounds great today even if the production is a bit dated! So is Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms in 1985. They always sounded great even back in the 80's... As usual, be careful about painting with too wide a brush stroke! I wrote about "Pure, Perfect Sound - Forever" back in 2014. Digital medium remains the best quality we have. Hardware and software for audio production have clearly improved over the years. And to this day, I don't believe hi-res makes that much difference over pain-'ol 16/44.1 CD resolution (more below). Quote This is where we have the greatest disconnect but yes I understand your perspective. You are dealing with making a signal perfect to the extent that you can gauge that the signal is perfect. The trouble is we disagree as to the ability to ensure the signal is perfect without listening. It's like building a perfect aeroplane but never doing a test flight in reality, in my opinion. Right, but if the plans for the perfect aeroplane is a work of genius, the potential is captured and there is value and beauty in that even if never fully instantiated. That's hypothetical though. When it comes to audio, since I don't believe that the ear is "perfect", I don't ask it to do such a thing! All I ask is that the hardware be good enough that it does not corrupt the signal and the ear/brain/mind can be presented with a sound that is reflective of what's on the source recording I'm listening to. Quote I'm not asking for perceptual enhancement OK. Quote This of course can be confirmation bias (Regarding listening - measuring - relistening...) Maybe, but is it any worse than listening to an expensive audio cable with eyes wide open? I see it as a feedback mechanism. It actually teaches me what "clean" sounds like. I think this is beneficial because most subjective audiophiles never have the opportunity to balance the listening with objective performance indicators. Quote This sounds a bit like speculation (Regarding not being frustrated and whether brain/ear can pick up something...) Again, I'm coming at this as having the experience and I'm saying I'm not all that frustrated :-). Quote Alternatively one can accept that "limitations of the self" means we don't have an answer for everything at this present time and there are more discoveries to come with attendant improvements in transparency. Certainly this would appear to be the way of science. Sure. I'm open to it even though there is currently no evidence that one should expect much more transparency than what we've gained over numerous generations of products already especially with 2-channel recordings... After the years of reading magazines and being told that this "new generation speaker is much better than the last", "Is this the best amplifier ever?", or more perversely "this new cable sounds clearly better", I believe many audiophiles have that mentality of a strong expectation for even more... If you've been in this hobby for years, is it true that good speakers from 10 years ago sounds much worse than today's models? Is that vintage amp necessarily inferior to the best of today? Did the Squeezebox Transporter I bought before 2010 sound much worse than my Oppo UDP-205 UHD Blu-Ray? While I believe there have been improvements, I'd be lying if I were to say anything was "heads and shoulders" better... The push for "hi-res" sounding "much better" is a nice example of real technological improvement that should sound much better but alas our ears are not capable of this (literally, a "limitation of the self"). Despite the hype, at it's core, this is what the science has been saying. Remember the Reiss hi-res review paper that got the audiophile media buzzing in 2016? Well, if you read the paper I think you'd find what Mark Waldrep said to be much more accurate. The fact that the marketplace has not adopted hi-res to a significant degree is also telling. Quote Science really isn't about proof, it's about probabilities and evidence, test and retest and setting conditions to reject the null hypothesis. I totally agree that properly controlled trials that eliminate bias and confounders and using demonstrably valid tests is the way to go. This is a huge topic but would take us off topic for this thread. No worries. Agree that there's no need to get too deep into the philosophical discussions... We have the audio products before us, so let's just enjoy that and use examples where we can. Quote Archimago, for the sake of some brevity I have chopped down your responses and am aware that sometimes doing so can make it appear out of context. This was not my intention if it has occurred. Cheers David No problem. I typically don't write so much in forums but thought that this week it would be fun to engage with you guys. We can agree to disagree and so long as we mutually share interesting ideas and experiences, it's worth taking the time to chat. 👍 Cheers AN... Bill Brown, lucretius, jabbr and 1 other 4 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted February 27, 2020 Author Share Posted February 27, 2020 16 hours ago, tapatrick said: @Archimago Thank you for taking the time to write so fully and in detail which fleshes out the complex nature of listening to music. I have highlighted a few phrases from your linked post that were most meaningful as a starting point. A pleasure @tapatrick. Nice chatting with you guys :-). Quote A. “The music we hear adds to the quality of life” AMEN - the Alpha and the Omega B. ”...there is a difference between what our neural mechanisms hear, and whether we actually are listening to it” C. “This leads us into the broad, complex, and marvelous domain of cognition/psychology in hearing/listening. This is a topic which should really be on the forefront of audiophile discussions “ Well said and appreciate the space to now discuss your understanding of this. In relation to B. and in my experience I have found back and forth comparisons unsatisfactory (blind or not). Only longer term listening tells me whether I enjoy a setup. I can notice details between 2 setups/components or tweaks but the narrowing of attention through ‘listening’ restricts my ability to judge whether I like it or not. Like as in relation to A. above. Yeah, I can accept that we're going to have a broad variation depending on the person on how we experience longer term listening and ownership of a product. My personal feeling is that over time, we tend to form opinions about equipment that might also be unrelated to sound quality itself. Hard to prove this. Sort of related to how with consumer goods, there's a tendency over time to catch "upgradeitis" and want something "different", not necessarily "better" sounding. A "7 year itch" perhaps - in the case of obsessive audiophiles, maybe even every 6 months 🙂. Not sure how one would dissociate this longterm tendency from actual adjudication of sound quality! Quote This I would imagine is related to the modes of the 2 hemispheres in our brain as in C above. On one occasion I had an acquaintance round for a listening session and we were comparing DACs. Because he was there we were listening intently and the differences were difficult to tell. I knew there were differences as I had noticed them many times over extended periods of back and forth. I was intrigued by this as my attention was altered by someone else being present. In discussions about this where there was not the interest this was dismissed as ‘expectation bias’ and delusion! 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... I can imagine that the time with your friend represents a different state of mind compared to individual listening. The mental "mode" will be different. Your mind might be more attentive to the social atmosphere rather than engaged with critical listening to notice the difference. To me, this again speaks to the importance of controlled listening because we are not machines, if we are to find consistency, we must make some attempts at identifying the relevant variables and take steps toward a disciplined approach. Quote “Art and science, subjective enjoyment and engineering virtuosity are complementary and together represent the fulfillment of this hobby (not to mention modern life!)...” Absolutely... enough for now. Have fun! Enjoy the music... Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 27, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 27, 2020 15 hours ago, Iving said: At last - edifying debate! I'm aware that this thread is in "Objective-Fi". Here and recently on "When do measurements correlate with subjective impressions" I have demonstrated that I am neither Subjectivist nor Objectivist; indeed, I argued that these are limiting categories if "truth" is our goal. I am neither troll nor disrupter.... Good stuff @Iving. For me, life has to be lived in that gray zone between objectivism and subjectivism. There is no point depriving ourselves of the joys that each "dialectic" of life brings. While this thread might be in "Objective-Fi", there is no better place to talk like this IMO. To live in the "gray" zone means we have to look at both extremes and be ready to disagree with both sides at times; but always be reasonable. I find that these days, many audiophile forums will "ban" talk of DBT or measurements even. Banning opportunities to express when we think some subjective opinion is absolute BS, and likewise, when a "pure objectivist" robotically focuses on numbers (like which DAC has the lowest THD+N and call that "best") deprives the opportunity to find common ground. No need for that artificial polarity. Quote I am an advocate for mysteries! Yes - these "ultimate questions", particularly consciousness (although human language, subjective experience of pain, aesthetic appreciation including that for beauty, mathematics, music etc may be regarded philosophically as mutually bound with human consciousness - and thus all these ideas may be considered equally elusive) may be explored "in science" - but I doubt - at least for argument's sake - that science, as we understand science since the Scientific Revolution, is the paradigm in which humans will appreciate these things as fully as we may ever be able to do that. Right. And a part of me feels there is a beauty about the idea that indeed we shall never be able to explain all the intricacies of the human mind... And that's totally OK! It's good to "own" our own thoughts and actions rather than expecting some kind of mechanistic "predestined" nature to the universe to be revealed through science. Of course, consciousness is a much more complex question than whether a fancy USB cable transmits electrical signals "accurately" 🙂. What I do know is that at this current time, the idea that we're even approaching an understanding of consciousness is completely science fiction. Not in my lifetime unless we truly witness some kind of "paradigm shift" in the neurosciences! Quote These are the teasers of the day for me. In other words I'll probably find myself reflecting for a while on the psychology of individual differences in music appreciation given the *hypothetical* proposition of a perfectly transparent system. On the one hand I accept that proposition (i.e. "perfectly transparent") as a logical foundation for discussion - it's like twin studies in psychology - if DNA is identical then DV differences cannot be attributed to genetic differences and may plausibly be attributed elsewhere instead - on the other hand - I ask, "Where does that perfectly transparent system end?" And answer rhetorically, "At the DAC output?"; "Just in front of the speakers?"; "At the human eardrum?"; "In the afferent nerves?" - "In the yawning and unexplored - even unfathomable [?] - chasm between those impulses and the subjective experience of music?" For me, a perfectly transparent system as per the audio technology of today can only be "practically" defined starting at the medium (ie. the data on your CD) and ends at the level of the transducer (speakers, headphones) in being able to create sound waves that reflect "exactly" that data (even then we can debate how this should be measured - anechoic? on tweeter axis?). Beyond that, no audio company has control of your room acoustics, the air between you and the speakers/headphones, speaker orientation and positioning... That's for you to navigate. Remember that the recording itself can also dictate what kind of system it expects. For example, binaural recordings obviously expect headphone type systems. Q-Sound encoding has demands on how to best hear that "3D" sound, studios might make assumptions as to your speaker placement, etc... That room and "space" is where modern techniques of DSP room correction "lives". Whether that achieves "transparency" is a different type of objective analysis that's more complex. Quote But the OP's remarks suggest we may be straying beyond the scope of the Thread Topic here and so I shall stop any moment. Nah. This is good 🙂. All the best! Bill Brown and jabbr 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 27, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 27, 2020 6 hours ago, barrows said: The brain is plastic, that is it can compensate to an extent for changes in hearing acuity at the ear level. The ear/brain system is much more complex in how it works than just the signals received by the ears. Tthe Brain is essentially the worlds most powerful super computer using feedback and a continuously adaptive DSP systems to process signals from the ear and make them discernible as having musical meaning (or not, as the case may be) This is why if we are really to have the slightest understanding of how perception works, i believe brain imaging is going to have be part of that research. I know little about it, but just the amount I do know about brain imaging and how it is pushing understanding forward recently is amazing. Hello @barrows, Yes, the brain is "plastic" in that the neural networks obviously can readjust and learn, but there are limits and things like neurogenesis is cool but tends to be overhyped in media for what it really is. Neuroimaging technology is advancing and inferences can be made with stuff like diffusion tensor looking at anisotropy and connectivity maps can be made but remember that these too depend on assumptions and typically are based on group effects. A long way to go if we're aiming for understanding of detecting the perception of "high quality" sound versus "lower quality" when even for the most severe of neurological and psychiatric illnesses, the level of understanding is still rather marginal. Again. IMO completely science fiction in this generation unless some kind of major breakthrough can be made in the technology. barrows, tapatrick and lucretius 3 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted February 29, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 29, 2020 On 2/27/2020 at 11:50 AM, tapatrick said: A great read. if you haven’t come across it I highly recommend “The master and his emissary” by Ian McGilchrist. A masterpiece of both scientific research into the structure of our brains and philosophical implications. Does touch on some of the issues raised in this thread and beyond. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary Hi @tapatrickand @DuckToller. Nice article Duck and yes, tapatrick, McGilchrist's book is a great read and met him when he came for a lecture back in 2016. Smart man, talking about things hard to wrap our minds and words around... I agree with the "brain is not a computer" article. Well said... And a big reason why in terms of consciousness and perception, we're not going to truly understand the unique subjectivity "owned" by each "mind". Quite likely we will never truly understand each person even if we have great knowledge of how brains work materially / mechanistically. Yes, we're certainly wandering in to territory further away from audiophile stuff but I think that's good! The hobby and talking about this stuff ultimately must touch upon that which is ephemeral and emotional; some might even use the words "spiritual". Ultimately it is about nourishing our "souls" as human beings... BUT... Coming back to the thread title, we must still contend with the fact that the vast majority of that "nourishment" is a result of the art itself (ie. music), and not confuse that with the devices we're using to convey the sound. 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. DuckToller, Bill Brown, STC and 2 others 1 4 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted March 1, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 1, 2020 12 hours ago, tapatrick said: @archimago wondering what you think of this Genelec paper... questioning quick v slow listening.. Hi @tapatrick, just entered a response on the topic. I'd certainly be more impressed if the Genelec paper gave us a good example of a situation that proved their point about human hearing needing "slow listening". Like the issue with "break in" and also alluded to with our discussion about the human brain being plastic, evolves constantly based on experience, why should we not think that maybe over time what we perceive is actually a change within ourselves rather than a reflection of the true "difference" produced by the device being listened to? Referring to "break in" again, we have all kinds of examples where audiophiles claim a cable changed sound over hours and weeks, but what evidence is there that the copper/silver/dielectric actually changed over that time - typically allowing them to sound "better"? This last part to me is a nice hint that it was the listener's brain that changed and became more relaxed about the awareness that he spent $$$$ on some wires and now feeling better about the money he dropped (because he consciously/subsconsciously wants that to happen as well!). lucretius, jabbr and Ajax 3 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 FYI... Just posted some thoughts that originated in our discussions here. https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/03/musings-audio-music-audiophile-big.html Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted March 2, 2020 Author Share Posted March 2, 2020 47 minutes ago, fas42 said: Right in the middle of a busy morning, so haven't yet digested the article ... but on a glance through, noted this, 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. 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. 😉 Teresa 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted March 2, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 2, 2020 4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: But for many, the journey is as fun as the destination. Win some, lose some, but have fun the whole time. Sure @The Computer Audiophile... As I said in the post, there is for each of us a need to "regress in the service of the ego" once awhile and just have fun. Partake in the silliness of this world and irrational wish fulfillment that could be joyful. 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! Audiophile Neuroscience, lucretius, Ajax and 2 others 1 2 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted March 7, 2020 Author Share Posted March 7, 2020 On 3/2/2020 at 5:52 AM, tapatrick said: I think you have done a good job in your blog post of covering all the relevant areas involved from music production to listening. And maybe the conversation is now concluded. If only everyone would acknowledge and respect each others 'intent' as you put it then there would be a lot less misunderstanding. I am none the wiser which measurements matter but I have to say I'm now clear that measuring and analysing equipment outside of listening leaves me cold. I will leave that to others more qualified but I will keep an eye on developments.. . Hi @tapatrick, I have some thoughts about the "which measurements matter" question that I'll post on the blog in the next while... Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted March 7, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 7, 2020 On 3/2/2020 at 4:23 PM, fas42 said: 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 ... Regarding my comment: "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!" Sometimes we have to just be honest especially regarding some highly questionable companies. As "objectivists" and "subjectivists" we can certainly come to a point where we agree to disagree on what we believe depending on what we're after in this hobby. I still don't understand your "conjuring" for example but you're having fun and not asking folks for money... That's cool with me. A company like MQA is a beautiful example. They were asking to be paid for nonsense and was willing to take liberties with terms like "lossless", "deblurring", etc... That's not cool. And let's not delude ourselves into following along with Bob Stuart and his claims. IMO, as consumers, we always should be vigilant about questionable companies asking for money to purchase their products without presenting a case for the benefit. It would simply be naïve if we believe this is not true! This is NOT creating a chasm between the 2 sides (subjectivity and objectivity), it's simply stating a fact about being a consumer. The fact that you don't see it this way is a bit disturbing, actually. Ajax, tapatrick, lucretius and 3 others 3 2 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
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