pkane2001 Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 6 minutes ago, opus101 said: Why? I've not seen a claim, implied or otherwise about his motivations from him. Just a suggestion. Besides the water temperature is pretty high where I am right now, so the test will not work. -Paul DeltaWave, DISTORT, Earful, PKHarmonic, new: Multitone Analyzer Link to comment
Popular Post Audiophile Neuroscience Posted July 21, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 21, 2020 4 minutes ago, pkane2001 said: There's an old objective practice of tying up hands and feet and throwing the one being tested into a large, freezing body water. If they are pure of heart the water will support them and not let them drown. I suggest you start with AN. I don't think the methodology is very scientific. How about some independent validity tests first? Alternatively, you go first 😃🤷♂️ Audiophile Neuroscience and pkane2001 2 Sound Minds Mind Sound Link to comment
opus101 Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 1 minute ago, pkane2001 said: Just a suggestion. But it wasn't merely a suggestion, it was also a deflection. So - any evidence? Link to comment
pkane2001 Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 Just now, opus101 said: But it wasn't merely a suggestion, it was also a deflection. So - any evidence? Read again, I edited my response. It's an engineering decision. -Paul DeltaWave, DISTORT, Earful, PKHarmonic, new: Multitone Analyzer Link to comment
opus101 Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 An engineered deflection is still a deflection. So there isn't any? Link to comment
pkane2001 Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 Just now, opus101 said: An engineered deflection is still a deflection. So there isn't any? Hmm? No, he should really go first. It's winter time where he is. -Paul DeltaWave, DISTORT, Earful, PKHarmonic, new: Multitone Analyzer Link to comment
opus101 Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 Just now, pkane2001 said: Hmm? No OK. Audiophile Neuroscience 1 Link to comment
Popular Post SoundAndMotion Posted July 22, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2020 On 7/21/2020 at 3:28 AM, Audiophile Neuroscience said: Well, I will have to just survive the veiled slurs on my motivations and character #776 #780 #781 but that aside nothing here or in the other dedicated thread changes one inconvenient truth. In the spirit of an audiophile forum, let's "lift the veils". Speaking as the writer of #776 and #781, I can tell you that there was no desire to slur your motivation or character, but rather to question your motivation, albeit giving you the benefit of the doubt. I admit "chomps down like a pit bull" seems a slur on your methods - I'm sorry - I should have used "relentlessly persistent", and I regret the offensive tone. When it comes to controls and validation, you strongly and persistently argue the case for perfection. What is "perfect" should never be forgotten in discussions of experimental design (or software development). But realizing that in some cases "perfection is the enemy of the good" means often choosing not to halt progress, even if that means good methods over perfect methods. I have always assumed that the case you argue, even if extreme, is motivated by principle. I would call that "good faith". With that assumption, I expect to see the same argument with those you like and those you dislike. It is clear you dislike Paul. I assumed a good faith motivation, and that is supported by, IIRC, your never being reticent in describing exactly what you mean and expect in the case of controls. This thread has challenged my assumption, because you don't describe what validation looks like to you, even though that is essential to providing validation. I understand the need for validation in some cases: it was a big part of my creating a multi-sensory perception model a few years ago. I validated first by defining within which range of stimuli I would test, and then simulating standard published stimuli groups. I compared my model's output to the published perceptual responses; it was not identical, but demonstrated all the necessary features and was considered by others a success. It did not check for out-of-range inputs, so would easily provide GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). I used Simulink. The MathWorks validated the mathematical performance of Simulink, but would never consider validating it for perceptual models. I had to know what I was asking of it and set the simulation parameters (time step, ODE solver, etc.) correctly. I had to validate my choices myself, and did so successfully. DISTORT is analogous to Simulink. Paul (and others) have validated the basic mathematical performance, but not whether every person's uses and choices are correct. If you try to calculate your taxes with it, watch out! If you read all of #776, and got past the "good faith" phrase at the beginning, you'll see I offered to validate it for you and document it appropriately, if you spell out what you mean. (I also put the word "reasonable" in there. I won't spend a month on it... all subject to discussion). Peace 🕊️☮️ Jud and pkane2001 1 1 Link to comment
Popular Post MarkusBarkus Posted July 22, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2020 Audiophile Neuroscience, sandyk, Patate91 and 1 other 4 I'm MarkusBarkus and I approve this post. Link to comment
pkane2001 Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 On 7/20/2020 at 10:56 PM, bluesman said: When I asked if you'd tested ("validated", a term at which you mysteriously took offense) your app to be sure it was not adding any distortions or other effects besides the desired one, you offered no answer other than that "DISTORT will construct a nonlinearity and that the same non-linearity will generate HD when applied to a single tone, and IMD when applied to multiple tones". And you may well have said this "at least a dozen times" - I didn't count. You also ignored my request for any explanation, no matter how simple, of how you could generate harmonic or intermodulation distortion by adding a nonlinear transfer function to the signal path without producing any other effects on the signal. Again, you ignored my question and gave the same answer. Today, SoundAndMotion offered what I believe is a more accurate response - that "...if you want to add anomaly X, you have to be aware that the compression comes with it". I, too, believe that you cannot add harmonic distortion to a signal without other secondary effects on it, e.g. compression, frequency response alteration, phase shift, etc depending on the exact transfer function used. BTW, y=f(x) can be a linear equation depending on the function. That’s why I asked how you do what you do with your app. I still do not understand how you can add a nonlinear transfer function to a signal chain with no resultant change in the signal except the production of harmonic / IM distortion. You still haven't explained it, if it's even possible (which, from what I know, is not the case). And compression is only the first unintended "side effect" that came to mind - there are many more. I'd hoped to learn something new from you - but that hasn't happened yet. I still live in hope, but I'm not as optimistic now. I'm sorry you choose to take umbrage at what I truly think are reasonable questions that are also very relevant to deciding if a measurement is useful or misleading. @bluesman, you clearly misunderstand what a non-linear transfer function does and how HD or IMD is produced by audio devices. I suggest you look into it, read about it. Plenty of textbooks, on-line courses, or even simple white papers and tutorials, some even have been mentioned in the new DISTORT thread by others. I'm not going to continue to try to explain the basics to you while being verbally abused. -Paul DeltaWave, DISTORT, Earful, PKHarmonic, new: Multitone Analyzer Link to comment
Popular Post John Dyson Posted July 22, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2020 Thought that I'd chime in about the confusion between 'harmonic distortion' and 'intermodulation distortion'. The term 'distortion' is prejudicial, because not all such nonlinearities are undesirable, even though they (harmonic/intermod) do distort waveshapes INCLUDING that of mixing freq of sine waves. In common audio terms, it appears that 'distortion' without a modifier is generally some kind of nonlinear amplitude/gain distortion, which can have the effect of 'intermodulatoin' or 'creation of harmonics.' Both 'intermodulation' and 'creation of harmonics' are kin, where intermodulation can be used to create harmonics. Perhaps, intermod is the mother/father (maybe aunt/uncle) of harmonic distortion... (for example, an extreme noninear gain curve of f(x) = x^2 (which is a distorted gain curve), is pretty much the same as m(x,y) = x * y (which is modulation of two waveforms, where x^2 is directly implented when x=y.) The modulation example simply gives an additional degree of freedom where two signals are used, but COULD be the same. No need to read much further unless interested in 'how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin' type argument -- because the two kinds of nonllinear signal operations are so related that arguing about differences is almost specious... Intermod tends to consider mulltiple frequencies/sources, while harmonic looks at only one frequency at a time. ------------------------ Intermod is mostly thought of as between two signals, while harmonic can be manifested by similar effects as intermod. In electronics, these effects mostly come from a bend (either constant or dynamic vs time or other parameters) in the gain curve. Such bends can directly create harmonics (or subharmonics) on a single tone (usually thought of as harmonic distortion), or multiple tones (usually thought of as intermod.) "modulation" or 'intermodulation" comes from a dynamic bending of a gain curve between different signal components. Usually, these distortions are fairly well-behaved for simple combinations of signal frequencies and small integer power functions comprising the nonlinear gain curve. In the physical world, there are always nonlinearities in the generating devices (behavior of a plucked string), or resonating components, or doppler effects. These create harmonics and can intermodulate, and as long as constrained by 'artful intent', aren't really 'distortions'. These characteritics can come from the same places as 'distortion', but aren't distorting the results, unless they create an undesirable artifact in the sound. (Distorting a sine wave might actually be a desirable result, even though the nonlinear process is still sometimes called distortion.) Things get more 'interesting' when the power functions are non-integer, where fractional power functions can easily create subharmonics (various kinds of parametric schems/similar to modulation can also be interesting in varying ways.) Because the non-integral power functions tend to create more random-looking frequencies, the distortion becomes less and less correlated (or correlated in an audibly confusing way.) When these intermod distortions become complex (lots of fractional aspects, but greater than 1), the sound devolves into a 'blur' rather than fuzz. When the distortions are mostly integral, then the power is more strongly concentrated at discrete frequencies, so the sound is more coherent, perhaps more grainy/gritty. When random looking generated components (from non-integral powers in a transfer function) below the fundamental frequency tend to sound uglier, while the higher frequency components tend to blur more. Basically, the lower sideband of audio intermodulation tends to be grainier/grittier, while the higher sidebands tend to be more smooth fuzz. This 'fuzz' is one of the causes of 'DolbyA fog'. One generally gets more or less intermod along with harnomic distortion, but depends on the shapes and gain parameteric effects along with the levels of each frequency components. Also, more 'pure' forms of intermodulation can be created if the various signal components are multiplied together in more controlled ways (e.g. true modulation, gain control, etc.) The 'sound' of electronic and mathematical nonlinear signal modulation can emulate real world effects -- but it is probably tricky to precisely emulate the real-world sound effects. Whether the intermod happens in 'air' or in a 'string', the underlying math is essentially the same as software & electronics emulations of the effects. I am NOT claiming that precise emulation of the real world is simple, but I don't think that is what we are worrying about. Software used in testing might use a precise emulation of real world signal components, but might also be a simpler implementation for testing purposes. Bottom line: intermodulation is intermodulation -- there is nothing special about real-world vs simulation, other than the specific impllementation and parameters used. Same goes for creation of harmnoics based upon nonlinear gain curves. 'modulation' and 'harmonic distortion' are closely related. There ARE some fine grained differences, but we even with all of this detail, we necessarily are speaking in generalities here. John Audiophile Neuroscience and bluesman 1 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Summit Posted July 22, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2020 For me, it is not the measurements that are misleading, it is what they are said to have for actual (SQ) effect that can be misleading. All measurements must be interpreted by someone and interpretations are based on preconceived ideas of what is audible and what is not. sandyk, Confused and Audiophile Neuroscience 3 Link to comment
Patate91 Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 1 hour ago, Summit said: For me, it is not the measurements that are misleading, it is what they are said to have for actual (SQ) effect that can be misleading. All measurements must be interpreted by someone and interpretations are based on preconceived ideas of what is audible and what is not. Sure and I think it's Computer Auduophile's position too. Measurements by themselve are not misleading. People that present them can have hidden agenda or personnal goals different than teachning and sharing neutral informations. There's people who use science badly (we have a couple of exemple here, as well as on ASR forum. I do agree that we have to do something about this. But removing the data available is not a good solution, this would be a step back. sandyk 1 Link to comment
Popular Post bluesman Posted July 22, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2020 2 hours ago, John Dyson said: Because the non-integral power functions tend to create more random-looking frequencies, the distortion becomes less and less correlated (or correlated in an audibly confusing way.) Excellent discussion, John. You're touching on the physics and psychoacoustics of the consonance-dissonance spectrum with this. One of the most interesting things about harmonics in music is that the less well aligned they are with each other and with the fundamentals being played (relative to the natural harmonic structure of those notes from those instruments), the more dissonant most of us perceive the mix to be. Interestingly, dissonance is not unpleasant to some humans despite the aversion most have to it. Schoenberg, Webern, and those who followed their lead not only understood this but used it in their music. This quote from a lecture by Stephen Errede (an emeritus professor of physics at Univ of Illinois) describes it well: "For dissonant tones, the harmonic(s) of the higher frequency tone do not perfectly/exactly line up with the harmonics of the original lower frequency and/or higher frequency tones. Additionally, quadratic non-linear responses present in the human ear / brain generate / create sum & difference frequencies, e.g. (fL-x+ fx) and |fL-x – fx| that do not perfectly / exactly line up with the harmonics of these two original tones, and again the generated sum / difference do not have a time-independent / stationary phase relation relative to the fundamental of the lowest and / or higher original tones!" The entire lecture is well worth reading and, consistent with your observations, touches on the physics of atonal music. IMD and THD may even be quite misleading (or irrelevant) measurements to Schoenberg lovers. Not being one myself, I might even suggest that the concept of distortion is alien to them 😄 John Dyson, opus101 and Audiophile Neuroscience 3 Link to comment
fas42 Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 8 hours ago, John Dyson said: Whether the intermod happens in 'air' or in a 'string', the underlying math is essentially the same as software & electronics emulations of the effects. I am NOT claiming that precise emulation of the real world is simple, but I don't think that is what we are worrying about. What we're worrying about is whether recording the interplay of musical instruments, and then replaying that capture "doubles up" on some, nebulous, thing ... Assuming adequate accuracy of the devices used, the answer is ... that it doesn't. Link to comment
Audiophile Neuroscience Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 20 hours ago, MarkusBarkus said: A good tradesman never blames his tools but like most tools, sometimes a hammer works well and sometimes ...... 😄🤔🤣 Audiophile Neuroscience 1 Sound Minds Mind Sound Link to comment
Popular Post Blake Posted September 22, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 22, 2020 Speaking of the topic of this thread, I'm not sure if this has been posted about and discussed here on AS, but I found it to be an interesting read as I have always had some suspicions about ASR: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/audio-science-review-review.9827/ opus101, Confused, sandyk and 1 other 4 Speaker Room: Lumin U1X | Lampizator Pacific 2 | Viva Linea | Constellation Inspiration Stereo 1.0 | FinkTeam Kim | Revel subs Office Headphone System: Lumin U1X | Lampizator Golden Gate 3 | Viva Egoista | Abyss AB1266 Phi TC Link to comment
vmartell22 Posted September 24, 2020 Share Posted September 24, 2020 On 9/22/2020 at 12:01 PM, Blake said: Speaking of the topic of this thread, I'm not sure if this has been posted about and discussed here on AS, but I found it to be an interesting read as I have always had some suspicions about ASR: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/audio-science-review-review.9827/ Well, I do understand how ASR can rub people the wrong way. I remember when the fine peeps at ASR were losing their shit over the Yggy glitch.... Kept looking at the graphs and was thinking "well, this is obviously beyond any human's hearing thresholds - what is the big deal?" - yet well, it was a big deal over at ASR... ah well - nobody's perfect, but all in all, we need ASR - they help keep manufacturers honest... v lucretius 1 Link to comment
firedog Posted September 24, 2020 Share Posted September 24, 2020 On 7/4/2020 at 6:17 PM, semente said: This particular case is not so much that measurements are misleading but whether a couple of measurements are enough to characterise audible performance; I defend that they're not. Life would be very easy if a spinorama could characterise loudspeaker performance in full and predict preference. But this is the real world... Agree. I don't think measurements at ASR tell the whole story: For instance, does my -110db SINAD DAC sound audibly different from a -114db SINAD DAC of similar design from same company? I doubt it. Bruno Putzeys talked about how he thinks measurements can tell you what you need to know about an amp, but you have to run many different meaurements, and not just the standard ones, to see how an amp actually behaves. Some of the people at ASR seem caught up in the numbers for the numbers sake. Others seem to just be looking for good values - units that seem to have near state of the art performance - at least for basic parameters - and that aren't wildly expensive. They are appreciative of the engineering success. I think such measurements are useful if they reveal something like high levels of distortion, as has been found with some high end/well regarded DACs and amps. People or reviewers may like how they sound; I'd prefer to find a unit that measures well and sounds good - and not spend my money on euphonic distortion. Josh Mound 1 Main listening (small home office): Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments. Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three . Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup. Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. All absolute statements about audio are false Link to comment
Blake Posted September 24, 2020 Share Posted September 24, 2020 13 hours ago, vmartell22 said: Well, I do understand how ASR can rub people the wrong way. I remember when the fine peeps at ASR were losing their shit over the Yggy glitch.... Kept looking at the graphs and was thinking "well, this is obviously beyond any human's hearing thresholds - what is the big deal?" - yet well, it was a big deal over at ASR... ah well - nobody's perfect, but all in all, we need ASR - they help keep manufacturers honest... v But, was there really a glitch? That was the subject of debate as well. https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/yggdrasil-a2-measurements-deconstructing-asr-amirs-hack-job.6442/ Josh Mound 1 Speaker Room: Lumin U1X | Lampizator Pacific 2 | Viva Linea | Constellation Inspiration Stereo 1.0 | FinkTeam Kim | Revel subs Office Headphone System: Lumin U1X | Lampizator Golden Gate 3 | Viva Egoista | Abyss AB1266 Phi TC Link to comment
lucretius Posted September 24, 2020 Share Posted September 24, 2020 8 hours ago, firedog said: I'd prefer to find a unit that measures well and sounds good - and not spend my money on euphonic distortion. Without euphonic distortion, all DACs and amps sound the same. Speedskater 1 mQa is dead! Link to comment
Popular Post semente Posted September 24, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 24, 2020 9 minutes ago, lucretius said: Without euphonic distortion, all DACs and amps sound the same. It's the same with unpleasing distortion. lucretius, Speedskater and Audiophile Neuroscience 1 1 1 "Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256) Link to comment
Popular Post Audiophile Neuroscience Posted October 2, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted October 2, 2020 On 9/25/2020 at 6:47 AM, semente said: On 9/25/2020 at 6:37 AM, lucretius said: Without euphonic distortion, all DACs and amps sound the same. It's the same with unpleasing distortion. A "self-validating" App should sort this conundrum 🤣🤷♂️ Audiophile Neuroscience and semente 2 Sound Minds Mind Sound Link to comment
wbh Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 Quote Objectivists believe they know the threshold or level of audibility with respect to measurements. Rob Watts (Chord) had noted in his talks (RMAF, etc .... see YouTube), that it is only when he began pushing metrics WAAAAAAAAAYYYY above and beyond -- limits of measuring instruments (> 300db s/n, etc)-- that he finally began to notice subjective improvements (which, as he claims, above all, is depth perception). There are likely to more measured parameters added to scientific toolkit ... yet to come. Eg., (to test labs) linearity and data jitter came in well after the CD format was released to consumer. Also, known (measured ) parameters and unknown/unmeasured ones my well significantly matter if they are found to synergistic or interactive. In crude words, the pac-man exits the left side of the arcade screen and simultaneously pops in on the right. I am still a bit unclear on why certain D-S dacs, as their specs get more and more "unmeasurable", (esp. AKM), and the sound gets softer and smoother, but NOT more music or exciting. Or the NOS vs. OS crowd. You get the idea. Hard-core objectivists have very little genetic imagination ... so, eg., they can't IMAGINE a world outside the box of, say, a Univ. Physics textbook publ'd in 2008.... that even basic equations and laws will change or be added to in an edition a few decades from now. Think of all the "basic" science questions of day -- dark matter, dark energy, the "Hard Problem", etc. -- and then work back to how absurd objective complacency is in audio. Link to comment
fas42 Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 18 minutes ago, wbh said: I am still a bit unclear on why certain D-S dacs, as their specs get more and more "unmeasurable", (esp. AKM), and the sound gets softer and smoother, but NOT more music or exciting. Or the NOS vs. OS crowd. You get the idea. Hard-core objectivists have very little genetic imagination ... so, eg., they can't IMAGINE a world outside the box of, say, a Univ. Physics textbook publ'd in 2008.... that even basic equations and laws will change or be added to in an edition a few decades from now. Think of all the "basic" science questions of day -- dark matter, dark energy, the "Hard Problem", etc. -- and then work back to how absurd objective complacency is in audio. It's actually very simple ... no-one measures how robust audio systems are to resisting the influence of electrical interference, noise factors - these are just thrown into the "good enough to get a sticker meaning that it meets some EMC standard" box, and that's the end of it. Highly "over-engineered" components actually do enough to mitigate these effects - they that shall never be mentioned, 🙂 - and the SQ, works. The refusal of objectivists to take interference mechanisms seriously is a key factor of why so much nonsense exists in the audio world - at a practical level, this has to be dealt with, to get accurate reproduction of what's on a recording, irrespective of whether a rig costs $500, or $500,000 ... Link to comment
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