Kudos to Arny Krueger
Ethan Winer
Last week at the Home Entertainment Show in New York Arny Krueger
participated in a panel discussion with John Atkinson, editor of Stereophile
magazine. Arny is well known for his support for the scientific method to
test what is audible and what is not. John is known for, um, - well, let's
just call it an anti-science bias.
You can read about the discussion and also download an MP3 file (30 MB, 1
hour long) here:
www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate/
Way to go, Arny!
--Ethan
Steven Sullivan
And kudos to you, Ethan, for your article
about audiophile voodoo in the current issue
of Skeptic magazine.
> www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate/
> Way to go, Arny!
> --Ethan
--
-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee
William Sommerwerck
> participated in a panel discussion with John Atkinson, editor of Stereophile
> magazine. Arny is well known for his support for the scientific method to
> test what is audible and what is not.
The scientific method is not foolproof. Simply removing certain obvious forms of
bias does not mean the test results are accurate or are correlated to what we
"actually" hear when we sit down to listen.
> John is known for, um, -- well, let's
> just call it an anti-science bias.
John isn't anti-science -- he just wants to believe what he wants to believe. In
that respect, he's no different from Arny, or 99% of the human race.
By the way, like Steven Sullivan, I very much appreciated your Stereophile
essay. I was flabbergasted that JA actually published it.
Chris Hornbeck
<will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>The scientific method is not foolproof. Simply removing certain obvious forms of
>bias does not mean the test results are accurate or are correlated to what we
>"actually" hear when we sit down to listen.
My worthless personal take, based on trying those "tests" quite
a lot at one time, are that the correlation problem is a bitch.
>John isn't anti-science -- he just wants to believe what he wants to believe. In
>that respect, he's no different from Arny, or 99% of the human race.
You're percentage is a little low.
>By the way, like Steven Sullivan, I very much appreciated your Stereophile
>essay. I was flabbergasted that JA actually published it.
Looking forward very much to reading it. Arny is particularly
elegant and well thought out in his structure, and can express it
convincingly if one accepts his premises. (Which in turn, are all
quite reasonable, well accepted, likely, and internally consistent.)
Chris Hornbeck
Raul Goyo-Shields
subjectivists analysis that refuses to explored by any form of objective
methodology.
"William Sommerwerck" <will...@nwlink.com> wrote in message
news:118535k...@corp.supernews.com...
> The scientific method is not foolproof. Simply removing certain obvious
forms of
> bias does not mean the test results are accurate or are correlated to what
we
> "actually" hear when we sit down to listen.
The publication that he is chief editor of would indicate otherwise.
Furthermore, his poor attempts at justifying a lack of rigourous study of
most subjectivists claims published within Stereophile is further indication
to the contrary. Attempting to dismiss his attitude as nothing more than
closed mindedness that reflects the majority of the population does not deny
the above facts.
Phil Allison
"William Sommerwerck"
>
>>
> The scientific method is not foolproof. Simply removing certain obvious
> forms of
> bias does not mean the test results are accurate or are correlated to what
> we
> "actually" hear when we sit down to listen.
** Pure gobbledgook.
>> John is known for, um, -- well, let's
>> just call it an anti-science bias.
>
> John isn't anti-science -- he just wants to believe what he wants to
> believe.
** Believing what you want to believe in spite of what the evidence
indicates is about as anti-science as it gets.
> In that respect, he's no different from Arny, or 99% of the human race.
** Your assertions are based on fallacies, use false logic and are plain
wrong.
.............. Phil
huwg...@my-deja.com
I listened to most of this (as a part-time engineer, a subscriber to
Skeptical Inquirer, and a long-time user of some of your software
products).
Clearly, if one can't tell the difference between two pieces of
equipment, then, for the purpose of that listener, the two pieces of
equipment are identical under those circumstances.
Those who criticise DBT testing on general principles are on such
non-scientific ground that they might as well join a church.
What I don't get, and what I thought that Atkinson was getting at until
he veered off into mysticism, is why the tests have to be conducted
with short pieces of sound. If Atkinson's claim is that he can
differentiate between different power amps when listening to them for
an extended period, then let's design an experiment that tests this
hypothesis, but remains double blind. How long does he need? A half
hour on each? Ten minutes? An hour? Shouldn't be difficult - certainly,
far more time has been spent arguing over this than would be necessary
to conduct a *scientific* experiment as to whether two pieces of
equipment can be differentiated under these circumstances.
Kudos to Arny, indeed, for perservering when most others would have
given up. I have long taken the view that the more idiots there are in
the world, the better it is for me, so I don't try to educate them. I
might even sell them some $2,500 power cables for them to plug into the
Romex cable feeding their power outlets.
Joe Sensor
> It may not be foolproof, but it is certainly more reliable than
> subjectivists analysis that refuses to explored by any form of objective
> methodology.
For concluding what sounds good to the human ear? Nope.
ceedub
news:OO6dne89EYl...@giganews.com...
As one with preconceived notions about the superiority of the scientific
method, I have to say...
Rock on, Arnie! Keep up the good fight!
Craig
Steven Sullivan
> > Last week at the Home Entertainment Show in New York Arny Krueger
> > participated in a panel discussion with John Atkinson, editor of Stereophile
> > magazine. Arny is well known for his support for the scientific method to
> > test what is audible and what is not.
> The scientific method is not foolproof. Simply removing certain obvious forms of
> bias does not mean the test results are accurate or are correlated to what we
> "actually" hear when we sit down to listen.
That you think it *should* correlate to that, suggests you don't get why
blind tests are needed in the first place. What you 'actually' hear
when you sit down to listen is *NOT* a good reference point, when differences
are 'actually' subtle or nonexistant.
This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
are, when they aren't allowed to be the *only* arbiters of what you are
hearing. What you 'actually' perceive when you sit down and listen in casual
evulation, is an amalgam of truly audible plus other non-audible 'confounding'
factors. Science may not be foolproof, but the existnce of such factors
has been proved about as well as *anthing* has been. It's why scientific
investigations of all sorts routinely employs bias controls. Cognitive/perceptual
confounding factors are *insidious* and *pervasive*.
> > John is known for, um, -- well, let's
> > just call it an anti-science bias.
> John isn't anti-science -- he just wants to believe what he wants to believe. In
> that respect, he's no different from Arny, or 99% of the human race.
> By the way, like Steven Sullivan, I very much appreciated your Stereophile
> essay. I was flabbergasted that JA actually published it.
Stereophile essay? I'm talking about an article in *Skeptic*. I highly doubt
JA would have published it! If he did, my respect for Stereophile would
increase radically.
Steven Sullivan
They don't *have* to be. That recommendation comes from work in
psychoacoustics, where short snippets as samples were found to increase
discriminatory success, due to the nature of audio memory.
The whole idea behind using them is to *increase* the chance of detecting
real difference, not make it harder. But a testee is
certainly free to use longer
samples, long switchgn intervals, etc.
The only problem is that if those results turn out negative, then
one must retest for the possibility that those conditions themselves
masked a real difference (because scientific work suggests they can).
If someone *passes* a DBT using longer samples, though, there's no basis
for challenging the result due to the sample length. I think most
objectivists would be 'OK' with such a report. There's no 'rule' that
says the samples have to be short.
> If Atkinson's claim is that he can
> differentiate between different power amps when listening to them for
> an extended period, then let's design an experiment that tests this
> hypothesis, but remains double blind. How long does he need? A half
> hour on each? Ten minutes? An hour? Shouldn't be difficult - certainly,
> far more time has been spent arguing over this than would be necessary
> to conduct a *scientific* experiment as to whether two pieces of
> equipment can be differentiated under these circumstances.
I think the idea is that 'living with' the amps revealed a difference, that
doing an DBT while unfamiliar with the amps didn't show. Fine! By
all means, let's see if it made a difference. Now having formed quite
definite 'feelings' about the difference in sound..to the point of being
*sure* that one sounds better than another -- do another DBT. Should be
easy to pass if you're right! And if so, you have valid grounds to
start agitating for long 'acclimation' periods before doing DBTs
of audio stuff. (Actually, researchers already routinely recommend and
employ pre-DBT training sessions to sensitize the testees to differences...
Arny K also recommends this on his pcabx site)
Steven Sullivan
Since self-report of 'what sounds good' varies vastly across
the spectrum of listeners, one can hardly call it a reliable
indicator of much at all.
Meanwhile, it's incredibly easy for people to convince themselves
that a tweak makes something 'sound better' -- even when the
tweak does NOTHING AT ALL to the sound. I think Mixerman
told one of those stories in his diaries...twiddling gear that
wasn't even in the signal path, to assuage a record company
exec who wanted to hear more 'air' or 'body' or somesuch.
Chris Hornbeck
<ssu...@panix.com> wrote:
>This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
>reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
>are, when they aren't allowed to be the *only* arbiters of what you are
>hearing. What you 'actually' perceive when you sit down and listen in casual
>evulation, is an amalgam of truly audible plus other non-audible 'confounding'
>factors. Science may not be foolproof, but the existnce of such factors
>has been proved about as well as *anthing* has been. It's why scientific
>investigations of all sorts routinely employs bias controls. Cognitive/perceptual
>confounding factors are *insidious* and *pervasive*.
Brilliant; possibly the best I've ever read. But now define "hearing".
And then define the color red.
Ya just can't get there from here, is the problem. I'll be very
interested in your comments; thanks; and please don't take my
comments negatively; anything but.
But perhaps the "cognitive/perceptual confounding factors" actually
matter for music?
Just some thoughts. We human beans have such a desperate need to
quantify and simplify the overwhelming complexity of the external
world that the need can overwhelm the better angels of our modeling
nature. "Trust, but verify".
Chris Hornbeck
Ricky Hunt
news:d5uqqt$hr3$2...@reader1.panix.com...
> Since self-report of 'what sounds good' varies vastly across
> the spectrum of listeners, one can hardly call it a reliable
> indicator of much at all.
>
> Meanwhile, it's incredibly easy for people to convince themselves
> that a tweak makes something 'sound better' -- even when the
> tweak does NOTHING AT ALL to the sound. I think Mixerman
> told one of those stories in his diaries...twiddling gear that
> wasn't even in the signal path, to assuage a record company
> exec who wanted to hear more 'air' or 'body' or somesuch.
Even science knows that if the mind thinks something to be so then it might
as well be in some instances. And since music enjoyment is purely subjective
this makes doing whatever goofy things some people do (I'm not one of these
people BTW) even if it's totally immeasurable or worthless to others just as
justifiable as anything else. Even if two models of amps have been "proven"
to be equal in a DBS once the person gets it home, if he "wished he had
bought the other model", this will in fact interfere with his enjoyment of
it (and that is a FACT). So just look at DBS as a good way for YOU to find
what works for you and let the other guy go his way. You won't be able to
change him and if he finds joy in it (and he's not hurting anyone) who
cares?
Kevin Aylward
The dude claims to hear differences in power cables. Nothing more needs
to be said on his credibility. He is so deluded, further discussion is
pointless.
Kevin Aylward
informati...@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.
Anahata
> This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
> reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
> are
Ironic, considering that "trust your ears" is a perfectly valid summary
of how ABX works too...
Anahata
Anahata
>
> But perhaps the "cognitive/perceptual confounding factors" actually
> matter for music?
I'm sure thay do. It only worries me when these factors might persuade
me to part with $2500 for a pair of interconnects because those factors
have persuaded me that they sound better.
Has anyone tried a non-blind "trick" test where the cheap and expensive
cable were disguised as each other, or the guts of the amplifiers
swapped between the boxes so the listener really thought he was
listening to device A when it was device B?
Anahata
Bob Cain
On the contrary, it tells you in short order just how much
trust you dare have in your ears.
Bob
--
"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."
A. Einstein
Arny Krueger
As usual Joe, you've missed the point.
<begin over Joe's head>
The point is that much of what these high-end snake-oil
artists claims sounds better, doesn't even sound different.
How can something really sound better, if it sounds no
different?
<end over Joe's head>
Joe, take as much time as you need to come up with a
well-thought-out answer, instead of your typical childish
hip-shots.
Arny Krueger
Thanks Ethan.
The Stereophile article comes to a logical conclusion about
half way down, when it says:
"By the end of the hour, if you had been a recent arrival
from another planet and had oriented yourself to life in the
USA by watching action flicks and video games, you would
have been certain that Arnold B. Krueger was God and John
Atkinson was a pathetic girly man."
While no doubt tongue-in-cheek, the debate really routed
Atkinson. He looked just as tired and bedraggled in person
as the pictures show, bad hair included. he was not
prepared, as typified by the failure of the promised
PowerPoint equipment. I pulled a lot of punches at the
debate because I'm really not into kicking whipped dogs.
BTW, the other half of the Stereophile article follows the
pattern of the "Enjoy The Music"
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hifi2005/atkinsonkrueger.html
article which attempts to argue against me in a vain attempt
to offset the points I made.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8885.html
Julian
I listened to most of the debate. It was weird how the other guy didn't get
how an amp isn't flat because you can tell a signature after multiple
passes, but digital conversions can be done many times without a signature
and are by far flatter.\. My question is what sample rate and bit depth are
you using for this?
Julian
"Raul Goyo-Shields" <audio###for...@yahoo.com###> wrote in message
news:5Qyge.33650$B82.9...@news20.bellglobal.com...
Arny Krueger
> I listened to most of the debate. It was weird how the
other guy
> didn't get how an amp isn't flat because you can tell a
signature
> after multiple passes, but digital conversions can be done
many times
> without a signature and are by far flatter.
Yes, its interesting that good converters can be that much
better than even really good amps.
> My question is what sample rate and bit depth are you
using for this?
I did the work I described at HE2005 with a Card Deluxe
running at 24/96.
I first established the transparency of the Card Deluxe with
these tests:
http://www.pcabx.com/product/cardd_deluxe/index.htm
and moved on to these amplifier tests:
http://www.pcabx.com/product/amplifiers/index.htm
If I did it all over again today, my candidate cards would
be the M-Audio Audiophile 24/192 and/or the LynxTWO. Not
because there's anything wrong with the Card Deluxe, but
these are better price-performers, one much more expensive
but with far better performance, and one with similar
performance, but about half the price.
William Sommerwerck
> subjectivists analysis that refuses to explored by any form
> of objective methodology.
Double-blind testing is a subjective form of testing. There is no proved
correlation between what one hears in the tests and what one hears when actually
listening to music. (The same thing is true of "subjectivist" reviewing, as
well.)
William Sommerwerck
> equipment, then, for the purpose of that listener, the two pieces of
> equipment are identical under those circumstances.
Exactly... "Under those circumstances." Double-blind testing, as it is currently
implemented, is not equivalent to simply sitting down and listening to music.
Nor is "subjective" testing, for that matter.
> Those who criticise DBT testing on general principles are on
> such non-scientific ground that they might as well join a church.
Not at all. Calling something "scientific" does not make it so. (The word itself
implies a degree of "truthfulness" that is not fully justified.) Simply because
double-blind testing is useful in other areas does not mean it provides useful
or valid results when judging hi-fi equipment.
What most people conveniently ignore when criticizing my views is that I don't
agree with either side in this issue. Both sides are "wrong," because their
testing procedures have not been proven to be correct. Simply removing bias does
not guarantee accurate, valid, or useful results.
> What I don't get, and what I thought that Atkinson was getting at until
> he veered off into mysticism, is why the tests have to be conducted
> with short pieces of sound. If Atkinson's claim is that he can
> differentiate between different power amps when listening to them for
> an extended period, then let's design an experiment that tests this
> hypothesis, but remains double blind. How long does he need? A half
> hour on each? Ten minutes? An hour? Shouldn't be difficult - certainly,
> far more time has been spent arguing over this than would be necessary
> to conduct a *scientific* experiment as to whether two pieces of
> equipment can be differentiated under these circumstances.
What is needed -- and I could name several well-known people who agree with
me -- is long-term blind listening tests in which people simply sit down and
listen for pleasure. Properly conducted, such testing would would provide useful
information about "how" people listen, what they think they hear, and establish
a baseline for judging "subjective" and "objective" testing. But such testing
would require many listeners, take a lot of time, and be difficult to implement
and run correctly. Not to mention the fact that both subjectivists and
objectivists have a vested interest in believing what they want to believe.
People are uncomfortable changing their world views.
William Sommerwerck
> blind tests are needed in the first place. What you 'actually' hear
> when you sit down to listen is *NOT* a good reference point, when differences
> are 'actually' subtle or nonexistant.
See my other post.
SSJVCmag
<crab...@emagic.net> wrote:
Hehee... And in a word 'yes' (unless you;re doing the Orwell Thing)
Define
design a testable hypothesis
Test
examine results
peer review for others to attempt to duplicate results
Reassess
refine
Repeat
It's what got HiFi started in the ~30's professional engineering world
It's what keeps us refining and getting closer
It works reliably
NOTHING else does.
SSJVCmag
Sullivan" <ssu...@panix.com> wrote:
> This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
> reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
> are,
Not so, if we want to keep this a working discussion (and leave no loopholes
to wilgle throuhj semantically!) then it's about letting
'Trust Your Ears'
stand in for
'Trust What You Interpret'
DBT indeed is BIULT around the sole idea of Trusting Your Ears... And not
allowing in your eyes or other evidiciary confusing elements
Your ears are damned good...
Along with the processing parts of the brain and the emotional and
pattern-addicted parts of the brain and mind it's a system that is
INCREDIBLY good at resolving anomolies but indeed can be fooled easily IF WE
LET IT.
Maybe these folks need to watch Rashomon...
Arny Krueger
This sounds similar to a key point from the Debate, but I
think it overstates the relevant facts by quite a bit.
Arny Krueger
> What is needed -- and I could name several well-known
people who
> agree with
> me -- is long-term blind listening tests in which people
simply sit
> down and listen for pleasure. Properly conducted, such
testing would
> would provide useful information about "how" people
listen, what they
> think they hear, and establish a baseline for judging
"subjective"
> and "objective" testing. But such testing would require
many
> listeners, take a lot of time, and be difficult to
implement and run
> correctly. Not to mention the fact that both subjectivists
and
> objectivists have a vested interest in believing what they
want to
> believe. People are uncomfortable changing their world
views.
FWIW most if not all the original ABX partners did exactly
what is described here. They picked out two components to
compare, did long-term ABX testing, and compared their
results to shorter term tests. There have also been some
more-formal tests that David Clark did with I think it was
Larry Greehill.
Bottom line - no joy from the long term tests. If you can't
hear a difference in a well-done short term test, listening
for hours, days or weeks per trial hasn't been found to
help.
In fact, long trials can be shown to hurt listener
sensitivity, because they temporally displace the listening
experiences being compared even more, and that is known to
be a bad thing.
tym...@hotmail.com
mucian happy when I knew I was already at the feedback threshold.
In my experience the differences in transducers far far outwiegh
differences in electronics. If you don't like the sound change your
speakers, mics, placement or room acoustics.
As far as amps in a professional setting, durability and reliability
trump super specs almost every time.
Mark
I'd like to coin a new phrase for the audiophools....
the placebo-audio effect
Mark
Joe Sensor
>>For concluding what sounds good to the human ear? Nope.
>
>
> As usual Joe, you've missed the point.
>
> <begin over Joe's head>
>
> The point is that much of what these high-end snake-oil
> artists claims sounds better, doesn't even sound different.
>
> How can something really sound better, if it sounds no
> different?
>
> <end over Joe's head>
Extremes. I am not for the snake oil cables and such either. That ain't
me. Over my head? w.t.f. is that?
> Joe, take as much time as you need to come up with a
> well-thought-out answer, instead of your typical childish
> hip-shots.
You mean such as you did? Could you be any more hypocritical?
Anahata
> Just try a simple A-B-C test:
> [snip description of random blind switching test]
I think you missed my point.
My hypothesis is that the subjectivists really believe that the golden
cable (or amp etc.) sounds better, but only while they "know" they are
listening to the expensive one.
To test this: instead of randomly switching so the listener didn't know
which was which, let them know quite clearly which is the cheap one and
which is the expensive one, but actually tell consistent lies about it,
and see if they still show a marked preference for the one that they
*think* is the fancy one. (you can't do this with speaker because the
trick would be obvious)
Better still, repeat with several victims, telling some the truth and
others the opposite. See if there's a better correlation between their
assessments and what they've been *told* they were listening to, than
between their assessments and what they were *actually* listening to.
I'm sure the psychology works: thousands of Bose customers think their
stuff sounds wonderful...
Anahata
Ben Bradley
<ssu...@panix.com> wrote:
>huwg...@my-deja.com wrote:
> ...
>If someone *passes* a DBT using longer samples, though, there's no basis
>for challenging the result due to the sample length. I think most
>objectivists would be 'OK' with such a report. There's no 'rule' that
>says the samples have to be short.
>
>
>> If Atkinson's claim is that he can
>> differentiate between different power amps when listening to them for
>> an extended period, then let's design an experiment that tests this
>> hypothesis, but remains double blind. How long does he need? A half
>> hour on each? Ten minutes? An hour? Shouldn't be difficult - certainly,
IIRC he lived with that transistor amp he hated for six months.
>> far more time has been spent arguing over this than would be necessary
>> to conduct a *scientific* experiment as to whether two pieces of
>> equipment can be differentiated under these circumstances.
>
>I think the idea is that 'living with' the amps revealed a difference, that
>doing an DBT while unfamiliar with the amps didn't show. Fine! By
>all means, let's see if it made a difference. Now having formed quite
>definite 'feelings' about the difference in sound..to the point of being
>*sure* that one sounds better than another -- do another DBT. Should be
>easy to pass if you're right! And if so, you have valid grounds to
>start agitating for long 'acclimation' periods before doing DBTs
>of audio stuff. (Actually, researchers already routinely recommend and
>employ pre-DBT training sessions to sensitize the testees to differences...
>Arny K also recommends this on his pcabx site)
If it takes long-term listening to show the difference, then do a
test using long-term listening.
How about having a large locked box (large enough for heat buildup
not to be a problem) in the listening room that contains the
amplifier. Once a day a 'maintenance person' comes in, and without the
testee seeing (send him to the shower or something), opens up the box,
spends five minutes doing something, tests the system so see that it
works, locks the box, notifies the listener that he is through, and
leaves until the next day. The listener then has 23 hours and 55
minutes of listening time until the maintenance person comes in again.
During each visit, the maintenance man might or might not have
changed out the amplifier (all amps used are precisely gain-matched).
He might swap it at every visit for a week, then go two weeks just
checking at each visit to see if the unit functions ok (off-site
records are kept of what amp is in the box when). This should give
adequate listening time at least for the listener to decided "like it"
or "hate it" as Atkinson said of the transistor amp he had for several
months that had passed a DBT (been indistinguishable from another good
amp). With that sort of time frame (especially several weeks at a
time) he should be able to say when the amp has been changed out.
Sorry, with the above, the maintenance person knows what's what.
Leave both amps in the locked box, make a switchbox driven by a
microcontroller, the maintainer turns a keyswitch to activate it, it
switches (inaudibly of course) or not, and displays a five-digit
number that encodes the switch setting, the maintainer writes it down
but doesn't know how to decode it into a switch setting. For longterm
listening (several days of one amp at a time), make the chances of
switching much less than 1/2. So it's a good DBT.
But then, what was that Presidential quote, "We have nothing to
fear but truth itself..."
And now I wonder why I just spent my time typing all that...
Ben Bradley
<arc...@arcanemethods.com> wrote:
>
>
>Anahata wrote:
>> Steven Sullivan wrote:
>>
>>> This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
>>> reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
>>> are
>>
>>
>> Ironic, considering that "trust your ears" is a perfectly valid summary
>> of how ABX works too...
>
>On the contrary, it tells you in short order just how much
>trust you dare have in your ears.
Both camps rely on what [they believe] their ears percieve, they
just use different circumstances and methods to decide what that
perception is.
>
>
>Bob
tym...@hotmail.com
units. It could be run from a PC with a form to fill out with your
opinions and ratings of the days listening. Pretty simple to implement.
Serial control of a couple good relays. You could test any reasonable
number of amps in a month. You could even make it interactive. As long
as the tester has no clue as to which amp it being listened to at any
time. Just ABC&D in a sealed black box and some sort of switching.
Ethan Winer
> What is needed ... is long-term blind listening tests <
I have to agree with Arny. I can't see why listening long term increases
someone's ability to discern small differences. If anything I'd say it's the
other way around. But even if that were so, if you have to listen for a
month to detect some tiny improvement, how important really is that
improvement?
I know that when I A/B stuff where the differences are very small (not
blind, just fooling around) I need to hear the exact same short passage over
and over. A friend once asked me to listen for a change in a song his client
sent out for mastering. The ME claimed he made it "better" but my friend
couldn't hear any difference. I couldn't either, but I also "couldn't tell
if I could tell" until we took both versions of the tune and lined them up
in his DAW. Before we did that, one version might be playing a verse while
the next was at the chorus. Just having a different chord was enough to
throw off any perception of low end clarity and fullness from one version to
the next. But once I set up each tune to play the exact same 5 second
passage - over and over while switching back and forth - I was then able to
conclude with certainty that there was no meaningful difference.
Also, it is well known that the ear adjusts to changes in sound pretty
easily. So if anything, long term listening (live with a new power cable for
a month) will tend to *mask* real differences rather than reveal them
better.
--Ethan
Ethan Winer
> And kudos to you, Ethan, for your article about audiophile voodoo in the
current issue of Skeptic magazine. <
> like Steven Sullivan, I very much appreciated your Stereophile essay. I
was flabbergasted that JA actually published it. <
Thanks. But just to be clear, my Audiophoolery article is in the current
issue of Skeptic, not Stereophile. Big difference! :->)
--Ethan
Ethan Winer
> you would have been certain that Arnold B. Krueger was God and John
Atkinson was a pathetic girly man. <
Yeah, I saw that and I almost quoted it in my initial post above.
> http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hifi2005/atkinsonkrueger.html
> http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8885.html
Thanks again, Arny. You definitely da' man!
--Ethan
Ethan Winer
> let them know quite clearly which is the cheap one and which is the
expensive one, but actually tell consistent lies about it <
Excellent idea. I like that a lot. Then you can correlate the answers from
those who were lied to and those who were told the truth.
--Ethan
Arny Krueger
> Better still, repeat with several victims, telling some
the truth and
> others the opposite. See if there's a better correlation
between their
> assessments and what they've been *told* they were
listening to, than
> between their assessments and what they were *actually*
listening to.
There's always that legendary meeting of our audio club,
where the host bragged about and demoed his new audiophool
amp and preamp, not knowing that Tom Nousaine coached the
host's teenage son to wire up a Pioneer receiver instead.
Arny Krueger
It's the difference between naive perception (audiophool)
and informed perception (DBT).
Arny Krueger
> William,
>
>> What is needed ... is long-term blind listening tests <
>
> I have to agree with Arny. I can't see why listening long
term
> increases someone's ability to discern small differences.
In a way it does. Sometimes you have to listen a long time
before you set the stage for the audible difference to be
maximually audible. Stuff like a certain rim shot, etc.
Arny Krueger
It's my 15 minutes of fame! ;-)
huwg...@my-deja.com
I don't know why you think that objectivists are against changing their
views. I certainly consider myself one, but if someone demonstrated
that they could consistently distinguish two power cords then I would
believe that there were audible differences between them. It is easy
enough to design an experiment to do this - it only takes 1% of the
effort that has been spent arguing about it.
"Objectivists" (or "rationalists", as I would call them) do not believe
that there are no differences between components, so we don't have any
"world views" to be uncomfortable changing. I believe very strongly
that there are big differences between speakers and microphones, for
instance.
It is not part of my weltanschuung (sp?) that there are no differences
between good power amps. I believe that there are audible differences
between mic pre amps, so I don't see why there wouldn't be audible
differences between power amps. But until people can distinguish good
power amps there's no reason to suppose that they sound different.
R GS
> to be equal in a DBS once the person gets it home, if he "wished he had
> bought the other model", this will in fact interfere with his enjoyment of
> it (and that is a FACT). So just look at DBS as a good way for YOU to find
> what works for you and let the other guy go his way. You won't be able to
> change him and if he finds joy in it (and he's not hurting anyone) who
> cares?
This is a valid point that its ignore a little too often by both parties.
The subjectivists ignore it because their claims are about auditory
differences, not experiential differences. Objectivists ignore it because
they are merely concerned with auditory differences. That being said,
objectivist reviewers do recognize value as measured by quality and sound
difference (e.g. PA from TAC). The question becomes what cost difference
can be justified. If one recognizes one is talking about aesthetics,
perceived quality, status, jewellery, etc. (i.e. factors related to
experience as a whole, but not to auditory differences), then whatever price
one feels comfortable paying (like any other luxury). However, if the price
differentiation is based on auditory superiority where there is no
difference, then strong dissentient is justifiable; i.e. it is not a debate
about perceived value, but about ignorance, duplicitousness, greed, and to
paraphrase Bloom, the closing of the American mind to any form of objective
search for truth. So yes, experience in a phenomenological context matters,
and for people who are affected by factors other than sound (which one would
expect is most people since reliability matters, and aesthetics has value),
that should not be denied. Just don't take the next step and have
experience supersede true sonic differences to the point where the latter
becomes irrelevant.
PS. Although one can argue that science some times behaves as a form of
religion (i.e. as a means for deriving meaning), to just dismiss it is the
quintessential example of throwing out the baby with the bath water. If the
standards subjectivists want to impose were to be imposed on subjectivism,
it would conclude that nothing is valid, and all conclusions about equipment
and sound are meaningless. Furthermore, if the standards of subjectivism
were applied to all other areas of human existence, then nothing would have
validity, and by extension true meaning.
pa...@nospam.net
wrote:
>Has anyone tried a non-blind "trick" test where the cheap and expensive
>cable were disguised as each other, or the guts of the amplifiers
>swapped between the boxes so the listener really thought he was
>listening to device A when it was device B?
I think this is the point of calling it snake oil. They are cheap
stuff wrapped in expensive packaging and pricetag.
Buster Mudd
"Double-blind testing is a subjective form of testing. There is no
proved
correlation between what one hears in the tests and what one hears when
actually
listening to music. (The same thing is true of "subjectivist"
reviewing, as
well.)"
...and then later:
"Double-blind testing, as it is currently
implemented, is not equivalent to simply sitting down and listening to
music.
Nor is "subjective" testing, for that matter."
This strikes me as the crux of the biscuit. I'm perfectly comfortable
believing there could be some Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
variation that affects our perception of recorded music the moment we
try to quantify our perceptions of recorded music.
But regardless of whether we're doing it through rigorous double-blind
ABX testing, or subjective equipment reviews for audiophile magazines,
or just kicking back listening to tunes through our newly procured CD
player, that's what we are doing -- trying to quantify our perceptions
of recorded music.
None of us are innocent. None of us are immune to this "effect" (if it
indeed exists). In ALL of those circumstances our conscious perceptions
have been corrupted, coerced by the goal which we seek. The effort
[sic] required to make a choice between A & B in an ABX test is the
exact same manifestation of perverted perception as the effort Harry
Peason made when trying to decide whether a power amplifier was "taut"
or "robust".
Loren Amelang
ethanwiner dot com> wrote:
>I have to agree with Arny. I can't see why listening long term increases
>someone's ability to discern small differences. If anything I'd say it's the
>other way around.
>...
>I know that when I A/B stuff where the differences are very small (not
>blind, just fooling around) I need to hear the exact same short passage over
>and over.
>...
>Also, it is well known that the ear adjusts to changes in sound pretty
>easily. So if anything, long term listening (live with a new power cable for
>a month) will tend to *mask* real differences rather than reveal them
>better.
When I was designing equipment (for myself), and struggling daily with
the question of whether a tiny improvement was real, I came to the
following conclusion:
My brain is willing to suspend disbelief in any halfway decent
electronically created illusion of sound for about thirty seconds.
After that, it quickly begins removing trust in those aspects of the
illusion that are not sufficiently well reproduced. If I can A/B for
thirty seconds back and forth, I can (if there is a difference) hear
the increase and decrease in realism. (For awhile, then fatigue sets
in.)
If I listen to the less realistic sample for a minute or more, my
brain disables my ability to trust in those aspects of the illusion
that were changing. Both samples now sound the same, because I'm no
longer listening for those differences. It may take a half-hour or
more of listening to only the more realistic configuration (or only
real, not reproduced sound) before I can trust whatever aspect of
illusion was being varied.
So the procedure was listen for half an hour, make a change, and
decide within thirty seconds whether there was a decrease in realism.
If there was a decrease, go ahead and repeat the test in the other
direction, but don't be surprised when there is no audible increase in
realism.
Am I the only one whose brain works this way?
Loren
playon
>How many times I pretended to twist a knob on a monitor mixer to make a
>mucian happy when I knew I was already at the feedback threshold.
How many times have I pretended to adjust my amp to make a soundman
happy... and then have them say "great, thanks".
Al
tym...@hotmail.com
a
>>mucian happy when I knew I was already at the feedback threshold.
>How many times have I pretended to adjust my amp to make a soundman
>happy... and then have them say "great, thanks".
>Al
Been on both sides of that coin. That's why I like 30 watt tube amps
for guitar.
:>)
dale
and which mic pre and how they sound. we are claiming that we have
trained and experiences ears.
we argue about the sonic coloration's of mic pickup patterns and
speaker tweeter construction, the difference from tranisistor mic pres
and tube mic pres. we have trained to hear these things. our training
was experience with the issues how to use the electronics to get good
sound. this training and experience is why the pro does a better job
then the newbie.
there seems to be two attacks on the aesthetic approach to listening
for the details that every piece of electronics imparts to the audio
signal.
#1) I twisted a knob for some who has hired my ears and equipment,
which was connected to nothing and he was happy. this proves that
there is no difference in quality of the audio experience.
doesn't just prove that your client are lacking in the "ear training"
of how audio works?
that is why the trained engineer (you) is needed,.
#2) the use of ABX for comparing the sonic differences in equipment.
have you used an abx piece of electronics.
that switcher which allows you to "compare" some audio components.
it changes the nature of comparing sonic character by introducing its
sonic coloration into the equation.
kind of eliminates the ability to judge.
kind of like using a radio shack speaker to mix your clients recording.
better learn to listen better, that is what we are about as audio
people. that is what we sell.
dale
William Sommerwerck
> what is described here. They picked out two components to
> compare, did long-term ABX testing, and compared their
> results to shorter term tests. There have also been some
> more-formal tests that David Clark did with I think it was
> Larry Greehill.
That's not at all what I'm suggesting. The listeners would simply be relaxing,
playing their favorite music, without any knowledge of the electronics in use,
and without any attempt to make distinctions.
In other words, we simply want to know what they think they hear.
After a few months (!!!), components might be substituted -- without the
listeners' knowledge -- to see how they react.
> In fact, long trials can be shown to hurt listener
> sensitivity, because they temporally displace the listening
> experiences being compared even more, and that is known to
> be a bad thing.
Agreed (more or less). But that's one of the reasons for running such a test --
to see how such things change.
William Sommerwerck
> I have to agree with Arny. I can't see why listening long term increases
> someone's ability to discern small differences.
I guess I'm not explaining things clearly enough to overcome your
preconceptions.
The purpose of long-term blind listening is not (initially) to make
distinctions, but to simply see how we listen, and how we react to a particular
system.
For example, if the system remains unchanged, but people report differences in
its sound (especially if different people report different differences), then we
start to have an idea, of the character and magnitude of what I call "perceptual
noise". This would be useful to know, as it has a significant effect on
subjective testing, and (I think) at least a little on ABX and similar
methodologies.
William Sommerwerck
> the question of whether a tiny improvement was real, I came to the
> following conclusion:
> My brain is willing to suspend disbelief in any halfway decent
> electronically created illusion of sound for about thirty seconds.
> After that, it quickly begins removing trust in those aspects of the
> illusion that are not sufficiently well reproduced. If I can A/B for
> thirty seconds back and forth, I can (if there is a difference) hear
> the increase and decrease in realism. (For awhile, then fatigue sets
> in.)
> If I listen to the less realistic sample for a minute or more, my
> brain disables my ability to trust in those aspects of the illusion
> that were changing. Both samples now sound the same, because I'm no
> longer listening for those differences. It may take a half-hour or
> more of listening to only the more realistic configuration (or only
> real, not reproduced sound) before I can trust whatever aspect of
> illusion was being varied.
> So the procedure was listen for half an hour, make a change, and
> decide within thirty seconds whether there was a decrease in realism.
> If there was a decrease, go ahead and repeat the test in the other
> direction, but don't be surprised when there is no audible increase in
> realism.
> Am I the only one whose brain works this way?
I doubt that you're unique, but the real issue is whether the differences you
think you hear really do exist. You are assuming that because you think you hear
a difference, you really do. You can't assume that, any more than those
supporting double-blind testing can assume it gives correct and complete
results.
Joe Sensor
>>>What is needed ... is long-term blind listening tests <
>
>
>>I have to agree with Arny. I can't see why listening long term increases
>>someone's ability to discern small differences.
>
>
> I guess I'm not explaining things clearly enough to overcome your
> preconceptions.
The problem is Arny thinks people's auditory memory is about 1/10 of a
second. I dunno, maybe his is. I can remember things I heard 40 years ago.
R GS
often, to ensure participants this fact is established first so that they
are satisfied with its transparency. In these cases, only after it was
determined that the device did not introduce "a coloration into the
equation" did they proceed to use it. I think it may have been Noussaine
who made one that would have made your average high-end techno tweak proud.
R GS
listening. Now as to being able to audibly remember 40 yr old sonic
experience, yes and no. Yes, you will be able to recollect certain aspects
of it, but you would not be able to recollect details that would
differentiate it in a blind test from a slightly different event (e.g.
differs by .2 dB). Yet this differentiation can be made by many in a blind
AB or ABX test that is only seconds old.
"Joe Sensor" <crab...@emagic.net> wrote in message
news:3ei6r0F...@individual.net...
Chris Hornbeck
<will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>and without any attempt to make distinctions.
Another biscuit crux. The *attempt* itself is contaminating.
We might not (I would say experientially *do not*) listen/ hear
the same for enjoyment as for "testing".
An oft-observed fact is that eye witnesses to catastrophic
events are amazingly unreliable. We're bred to interpret
the world through a maze of models, assumptions and
imagination. This discussion is about those things; let's
just not forget the "bred" part's true relevance.
Good fortune,
Chris Hornbeck
Chris Hornbeck
<will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>For example, if the system remains unchanged, but people report differences in
>its sound (especially if different people report different differences), then we
>start to have an idea, of the character and magnitude of what I call "perceptual
>noise". This would be useful to know, as it has a significant effect on
>subjective testing, and (I think) at least a little on ABX and similar
>methodologies.
It does make a lot of sense to work at establishing a noise floor
first. Glad to hear you're still working on the project; your new
posts sound very positive.
Chris Hornbeck
Harry Lavo
"William Sommerwerck" <will...@nwlink.com> wrote in message
news:1186g4q...@corp.supernews.com...
> > Clearly, if one can't tell the difference between two pieces of
> > equipment, then, for the purpose of that listener, the two pieces of
> > equipment are identical under those circumstances.
>
currently
> implemented, is not equivalent to simply sitting down and listening to
music.
> Nor is "subjective" testing, for that matter.
>
>
Your points are in total agreement with the argument I have been carrying on
in RAHE for the last 1 1/2 years. I've sketched out a "control test" with
one phase exactly as you mention...actually first a sighted listening long
term evaluative stage...then a blind stage otherwise identical, then a blind
short-term evaluative stage in a neutral environment, and finally a
short-term blind comparative stage in a neutral environment. This was
designed to provide all of the bridges between long term listening for
enjoyment all the way to conventional a-b or a-b-x testing as it is promoted
and practiced by Arny and others. If the correlation broke down, we would
know where and accordingly most probably why. If it didn't, it would
convert most subjectivists to objectivists. The drawback: expensive,
difficult to stage, time-consuming, and requiring several hundred people.
Only one of the objectivists there would even consider such a test...most
denied the need for any test. They basically state, as Arny did at the
Stereophile show, that he knows dbt works because it gives the same
audiometric results as previous blind tests. Talk about being impervious to
the underlying assumptions......
William Sommerwerck
in
> >its sound (especially if different people report different differences), then
we
> >start to have an idea, of the character and magnitude of what I call
"perceptual
> >noise". This would be useful to know, as it has a significant effect on
> >subjective testing, and (I think) at least a little on ABX and similar
> >methodologies.
> It does make a lot of sense to work at establishing a noise floor
> first. Glad to hear you're still working on the project; your new
> posts sound very positive.
I appreciate the compliment, but I have neither the time, the facilities, or the
money to set up such tests.
William Sommerwerck
> in RAHE for the last 1 1/2 years. I've sketched out a "control test" with
> one phase exactly as you mention...actually first a sighted listening long
> term evaluative stage...then a blind stage otherwise identical, then a blind
> short-term evaluative stage in a neutral environment, and finally a
> short-term blind comparative stage in a neutral environment. This was
> designed to provide all of the bridges between long term listening for
> enjoyment all the way to conventional a-b or a-b-x testing as it is promoted
> and practiced by Arny and others. If the correlation broke down, we would
> know where and accordingly most probably why. If it didn't, it would
> convert most subjectivists to objectivists. The drawback: expensive,
> difficult to stage, time-consuming, and requiring several hundred people.
> Only one of the objectivists there would even consider such a test...most
> denied the need for any test. They basically state, as Arny did at the
> Stereophile show, that he knows dbt works because it gives the same
> audiometric results as previous blind tests. Talk about being impervious to
> the underlying assumptions......
It's nice that people are finally starting to understand what I'm talking about,
and contributing good ideas of their own.
Harry Lavo
"Steven Sullivan" <ssu...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:d5upie$t6d$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> William Sommerwerck <will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
> > > Last week at the Home Entertainment Show in New York Arny Krueger
> > > participated in a panel discussion with John Atkinson, editor of
Stereophile
> > > magazine. Arny is well known for his support for the scientific method
to
> > > test what is audible and what is not.
>
> > The scientific method is not foolproof. Simply removing certain obvious
forms of
> > bias does not mean the test results are accurate or are correlated to
what we
> > "actually" hear when we sit down to listen.
>
> That you think it *should* correlate to that, suggests you don't get why
> blind tests are needed in the first place. What you 'actually' hear
> when you sit down to listen is *NOT* a good reference point, when
differences
> are 'actually' subtle or nonexistant.
>
> This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
> reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
> hearing. What you 'actually' perceive when you sit down and listen in
casual
> evulation, is an amalgam of truly audible plus other non-audible
'confounding'
> factors. Science may not be foolproof, but the existnce of such factors
> has been proved about as well as *anthing* has been. It's why scientific
> investigations of all sorts routinely employs bias controls.
Cognitive/perceptual
> confounding factors are *insidious* and *pervasive*.
>
Good science (as opposed to bad or pseudo-science) also pays excruciating
attention to the design and underlying premises/assumptions at work in the
test, to make sure that the scientist is measuring what he thinks he is
measuring. Arny and other DBT advocates have an almost-religious belief in
the efficacy of dbt's for any and everything audio..despite the huge
difference between measuring "sound" which is pretty much a physical
property, or "artifacts" which are discrete effects that one can train to
hear, and "music" which modern brain explorations have shown is hardwired in
some aspects into the brain and totally non-intuitive as to how things work.
Even the simple assumption that there are known thresholds that Arny and
Steven and others hold as "proof" that differences cannot exist if ABX
testing shows a null, now appears dubious as recent research suggest that
the brain "pre-conditions" the auditory nerves to focus on certain selective
affects depending on the context of what it is expecting and can exceed
previously thought thresholds in doing so (note that this is context
dependent and not likely to be operable in quick-switch "snippet" testing)..
Furthermore, open ended evaluation of equipment reproducing music doesn't
come with flags or signs saying "listen for this effect" or "catch how well
I handle this". The open-ended evaluative process requires the context of
the music itself and relaxed, unconscious exposure to allow the relevant
felicities or abrogation from what sounds "real" to emerge. Then also
factor in that psychophysiological research has show that the emotional
response triggered involuntarily by some aspects of music (and presumably
with music reproduction as well) do correlate with statistically significant
accuracy to higher "ratings" for the musical experience. And they take as
much as twenty seconds to build or disappear and only develop "in context".
Finally, factor in as well the recent finding that the ear nerves themselves
apparently have a "memory" for music apart from the remainder of the brain
such that they literally can "fill in the blanks" of music which is known,
even when the sound is physically cut off, and you can see how dubious a
simple dbt test becomes as a suitable test for open-ended evaluation of
equipment quality when reproducing music. Vastly different than listening
for known artifacts or broadband signal levels. A real scientist would be
asking more questions than ever today, and exploring the implications for
testing protocols, not promoting a "one-size-fits-all" solution and its
accompanying web site.
Chris Hornbeck
<will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>> It does make a lot of sense to work at establishing a noise floor
>> first. Glad to hear you're still working on the project; your new
>> posts sound very positive.
>
>I appreciate the compliment, but I have neither the time, the facilities, or the
>money to set up such tests.
Of course not. But you have what's apparently otherwise lacking, a
conceptual framework. Is there *anybody* else making the effort?
You'd once talked about a "white paper" to begin to define the
possible methods, or at least the issues. THAT would be a big big
step. We're currently stuck in neutral; lotsa noise, no motorvation.
Good fortune,
Chris Hornbeck
Joe Sensor
>>>It does make a lot of sense to work at establishing a noise floor
>>>first. Glad to hear you're still working on the project; your new
>>>posts sound very positive.
>>
>>I appreciate the compliment, but I have neither the time, the facilities, or the
>>money to set up such tests.
>
>
> Of course not. But you have what's apparently otherwise lacking, a
> conceptual framework. Is there *anybody* else making the effort?
>
> You'd once talked about a "white paper" to begin to define the
> possible methods, or at least the issues. THAT would be a big big
> step. We're currently stuck in neutral; lotsa noise, no motorvation.
>
Well now that we have noise floor out of the way, we can continue on
with the test as to what sounds best. I've been involved in this testing
for many decades. Haven't come up with a concrete answer, quite yet. ;)
Chris Hornbeck
wrote:
>Well now that we have noise floor out of the way, we can continue on
>with the test as to what sounds best. I've been involved in this testing
>for many decades. Haven't come up with a concrete answer, quite yet. ;)
Perhaps I've phrased my response too personally. William was
writing about a perceptual noise floor, and I thought that *that*
might be a good place to start.
You might be interested in his earlier posts along these lines.
A Google search just on his name might not be too exhaustively
large, for the relevant thoughts.
Good fortune,
Chris Hornbeck
vinyl believer
> While no doubt tongue-in-cheek, the debate really routed
> Atkinson. He looked just as tired and bedraggled in person
> as the pictures show, bad hair included.
>
> http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hifi2005/atkinsonkrueger.html
>
And you look about as handsome as William F. Buckley in those photos
Arny....hehe
But I'm sure your "Presence" was greatly appreciated. And I'm sure you
were your usual charming self.
That AMP test is a no brainer..... Do the Vinyl vs. CD test next time
and show everyone how they've wasted the last 20 years on a picket
fence medium.
Enjoy your 15 minutes Arny!
VB
William Sommerwerck
> possible methods, or at least the issues. THAT would be a big big
> step. We're currently stuck in neutral; lotsa noise, no motorvation.
I started on it over a year ago, and never completed it. I found it difficult to
put into persuasive language what I intuitively knew to be "true".
Arny Krueger
> have you used an abx piece of electronics.
> that switcher which allows you to "compare" some audio
components.
I was the designer of several of them. I built the first one
ever built. I *melted solder* into every ABX swithbox that
was ever sold.
> it changes the nature of comparing sonic character by
introducing its
> sonic coloration into the equation.
I beg your pardon? Who are you? Do I know you?
> kind of eliminates the ability to judge.
What qualifies you to speak so authoritatively?
> kind of like using a radio shack speaker to mix your
clients
> recording.
Well then, I eliminated the switchbox all together, which
one and all can see at www.pcabx.com.
> better learn to listen better, that is what we are about
as audio
> people. that is what we sell.
Personally, I think you are selling broken wind. ;-)
Arny Krueger
> "Steven Sullivan" <ssu...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:d5upie$t6d$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>> William Sommerwerck <will...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>>>> Last week at the Home Entertainment Show in New York
Arny Krueger
>>>> participated in a panel discussion with John Atkinson,
editor of
>>>> Stereophile magazine. Arny is well known for his
support for the
>>>> scientific method to test what is audible and what is
not.
>>> The scientific method is not foolproof.
It depends on the quality of the application.
>>> Simply removing certain
>>> obvious forms of bias does not mean the test results are
accurate
>>> or are correlated to what we "actually" hear when we sit
down to
>>> listen.
Amen, brother!
Frankly, one of the easiest things to do is to do a test
that is blind, but otherwise so flawed that its just a demo
or an exercise.
>> That you think it *should* correlate to that, suggests
you don't get
>> why blind tests are needed in the first place. What you
'actually'
>> hear when you sit down to listen is *NOT* a good
reference point,
>> when differences are 'actually' subtle or nonexistant.
I think now we're talking about naive perception versus
informed perception. Golden-Eared audio is generally based
on the idea that if it is perceived, there is a specific
underlying physical cause, which is zippy new piece of
equipment at hand, say a SACD player + recording.
>> This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to
use as a
>> mantra, reflects a fundamental overestimation of how
'trustworthy'
>> your ears are, when they aren't allowed to be the *only*
arbiters of
>> what you are hearing. What you 'actually' perceive when
you sit down
>> and listen in casual evulation, is an amalgam of truly
audible plus
>> other non-audible 'confounding' factors. Science may not
be
>> foolproof, but the existnce of such factors has been
proved about as
>> well as *anthing* has been. It's why scientific
investigations of
>> all sorts routinely employs bias controls.
Cognitive/perceptual
>> confounding factors are *insidious* and *pervasive*.
Exactly. To believe otherwise is to be uselessly naive.
> Good science (as opposed to bad or pseudo-science) also
pays
> excruciating attention to the design and underlying
> premises/assumptions at work in the test, to make sure
that the
> scientist is measuring what he thinks he is measuring.
Exactly. So, lets do this with audiophile equipment
auditions as practiced by say Stereophile per their
"Listener's Manifesto". One of their underlying assumptions
exactly contradicts Mr. Sullivan's wonderful paragraph
above.
> Arny and other DBT advocates have an almost-religious
belief in the efficacy
> of dbt's for any and everything audio..despite the huge
difference
> between measuring "sound" which is pretty much a physical
property,
> or "artifacts" which are discrete effects that one can
train to hear,
> and "music" which modern brain explorations have shown is
hardwired
> in some aspects into the brain and totally non-intuitive
as to how
> things work.
This would be some baseless assertion by Harry Lavo, who
proved to the HE2005 debate witnesses that he doesn't even
know the difference between a question and a declaration.
Conside the source and dismiss it unless you have a lot of
time to waste.
> Even the simple assumption that there are known thresholds
that Arny
> and Steven and others hold as "proof" that differences
cannot exist
> if ABX testing shows a null, now appears dubious as recent
research
> suggest that the brain "pre-conditions" the auditory
nerves to focus
> on certain selective affects depending on the context of
what it is
> expecting and can exceed previously thought thresholds in
doing so
> (note that this is context dependent and not likely to be
operable in
> quick-switch "snippet" testing)..
Sorry guys,but this sentence is obviously written at or
above the 39th grade level. I only did made it through 2
years of graduate school, which puts me somewhere under the
20th grade reading level. Not only does Harry not know the
difference between a question and a declaration, he doesn't
know the difference between a sentence, a paragrpah, and a
hopeless run-on.
Harry, can you puhleeze give us the Classics Illustrated
version of this killer paragraph of yours? ;-)
>.. "listen for this effect" or
Reading Harry Lavo is like reading William S Burroughs. ;-(
Arny Krueger
>> FWIW most if not all the original ABX partners did
exactly
>> what is described here. They picked out two components to
>> compare, did long-term ABX testing, and compared their
>> results to shorter term tests. There have also been some
>> more-formal tests that David Clark did with I think it
was
>> Larry Greehill.
>
> That's not at all what I'm suggesting. The listeners would
simply be
> relaxing, playing their favorite music, without any
knowledge of the
> electronics in use, and without any attempt to make
distinctions.
Huh? That is what we did!
> In other words, we simply want to know what they think
they hear.
Been there done that.
> After a few months (!!!), components might be
substituted -- without
> the listeners' knowledge -- to see how they react.
Tell you what William, if you can get anybody with a life to
play by these rules, give me a call.
>> In fact, long trials can be shown to hurt listener
>> sensitivity, because they temporally displace the
listening
>> experiences being compared even more, and that is known
to
>> be a bad thing.
> Agreed (more or less). But that's one of the reasons for
running such
> a test -- to see how such things change.
We did it and it kinda left this bad taste in our mouths.
Null results from lont-term listening when quick switching
gives positive results can do that to a person.
Arny Krueger
Joe, thanks for showing that you don't really get what
auditory memory is.
I can remember things I heard 40 years ago, too. Sometimes
word-for-word or note-for-note. But that's not the same
thing as auditory memory for small diffrences at all.
I do have to admit that when I was listening to SETs at
HE2005 I did remember things I heard 40 years ago, like my
mother's Detrola AM radio.
Arny Krueger
> They basically state, as
> Arny did at the Stereophile show, that he knows dbt works
because it
> gives the same audiometric results as previous blind
tests. Talk
> about being impervious to the underlying assumptions...
Talk about distorting what you heard until it was what you
want to hear. I said other means - that they were also blind
tests would be yet another fabrication of your mind, Lavo.
The good news Harry is that I was able to reduce your
seemingly-endless post to just two fairly-brief sentences.
Arny Krueger
> It's nice that people are finally starting to understand
what I'm
> talking about, and contributing good ideas of their own.
Lavo?
No way!
I don't think he hears what others say at all.
Geoff Wood
"Anahata" <ana...@treewind.co.uk> wrote in message
news:428311b4$0$39061$ed2e...@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...
> Chris Hornbeck wrote:
>>
>> But perhaps the "cognitive/perceptual confounding factors" actually
>> matter for music?
>
> I'm sure thay do. It only worries me when these factors might persuade me
> to part with $2500 for a pair of interconnects because those factors have
> persuaded me that they sound better.
>
> Has anyone tried a non-blind "trick" test where the cheap and expensive
> cable were disguised as each other, or the guts of the amplifiers swapped
> between the boxes so the listener really thought he was listening to
> device A when it was device B?
All of the above.
geoff
Geoff Wood
"Kevin Aylward" <see_w...@anasoft.co.uk> wrote in message news:%
>
> The dude claims to hear differences in power cables. Nothing more needs to
> be said on his credibility. He is so deluded, further discussion is
> pointless.
For once, I agree with you.. More than once in reality, but the over-riding
attitude make the stance indefensible.
geoff
Geoff Wood
"Chel van Gennip" <ch...@vangennip.nl> wrote in message
news:3eh6r7F...@individual.net...
> On Thu, 12 May 2005 10:07:23 +0200, Kevin Aylward wrote:
>
>> The dude claims to hear differences in power cables. Nothing more needs
>> to be said on his credibility. He is so deluded, further discussion is
>> pointless.
>
> sensitive for differences in power cables. The solution is to remove that
> component and destroy it because it is an inferiour component. Replacing
> the power cable is not a sensible option.
Which component would this be ?
geoff
Geoff Wood
"Arny Krueger" <ar...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
>
> BTW, the other half of the Stereophile article follows the
> pattern of the "Enjoy The Music"
Which is a bit of a cop-out.
geoff
Geoff Wood
I can remember things 20 years ago, or 10, that are much better than they
were.
geoff
Arny Krueger
Yeah, but its what both magazines felt they had to do.
Geoff Wood
"SSJVCmag" <t...@nozirev.gamnocssj.com> wrote in message
news:BEA8D536.7BD5%t...@nozirev.gamnocssj.com...
> On 5/12/05 1:28 AM, in article d5upie$t6d$1...@reader1.panix.com, "Steven
> Sullivan" <ssu...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
>> reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
>> are,
>
> loopholes
> to wilgle throuhj semantically!) then it's about letting
> 'Trust Your Ears'
Please stiop cross-posting this stuff. We really are not remotely
interested in it.
geoff
anahata
> "Chel van Gennip" <ch...@vangennip.nl> wrote
>>Theoretically it is possible for a component in your audio chain to be
>>sensitive for differences in power cables. The solution is to remove that
>>component and destroy it because it is an inferiour component. Replacing
>>the power cable is not a sensible option.
>
> Which component would this be ?
Here's a suitably contrived example:
An unbalanced unscreened mic cable with a hi-z mic on the end of it,
running close to a normal unshielded power cable, so it picks up hum.
You could replace the power cable with a shielded one, and it might be
that there was no significant other source of interference in the room
so the hum goes away in that case - but of course the correct cure would
be to replace the mic cable with a screened one.
I said it was contrived :-)
--
Anahata
ana...@treewind.co.uk -+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827
pres...@aol.com
agree with
me -- is long-term blind listening tests in which people simply sit
down and
listen for pleasure. Properly conducted, such testing would would
provide useful
information about "how" people listen, what they think they hear, and
establish
a baseline for judging "subjective" and "objective" testing.>>
I think this is an important point. DBTs are great, and inarguably
valid from a certain point of view. But testers in these settings tend
to listen "hard", with the analytical part of their minds and their
sensory aparatus, and much less so with their intuitive, subjective,
emotional side. It's arguable that since music in particular is
generally consumed by listeners in the latter state, a rigidly
"objective" analysis may miss something.
It reminds me of some of my bad gear decisions through my life as a
music/audio enthusiast. Back in the 70s, I conducted a serious search
for better speakers to replace my very enjoyable but somewhat limited
KLH 17s (these were relatively affordable 60s era 2 way acoustic
suspension bookshelf speakers, well regarded but nothing particularly
special or expensive). After exhaustive research including many, many
hours of critical listening tests, dozens of magazine reviews and so
on, I chose the Advent "Large" speakers (their first product). They
sounded really wonderful to me, better than any of my other candidates,
and had received unanimously glowing reviews in the audio press. I
brought them home, set them up in place of the KLHs and prepared to be
very pleased. Initially, as I "evaluated" my choice, they proved to be
every bit as good as I had hoped; very wide frequency response, low
distortion, excellent dispersion and so on. I was rockin!
Or was I...
After passing my post-purchase evaluation process with flying colors,
of course the next thing was to just relax and enjoy music on them, and
that's where it all started to go wrong. No sooner had I switched off
my "objective", analytical mind when I began to realize I was no longer
enjoying my favorite music as much. Something was interfering with the
connection between the emotional intent of the musical performance and
my sense of it. Very disturbingly, the magic was somehow gone from my
favorite albums. I immediately isolated the speakers as the problem of
course, because they were the only element that had changed. The
curious thing though was that every time I put my analytical "hat" back
on. the Advents simply blew the KLHs away in every single way, and were
clearly excellent performers, as everyone else seemed to agree. Forget
the analysis though, put the "enjoy music" hat back on and...big
problem.
I never got past it, and ultimately sold the Advents and went back to
the KLHs. The magic came right back, and once again my favorite music
could take me to the joyous, transcendant places it had before. Similar
experiences happened other times with speakers and other hi-fi gear,
enough to make me painfully aware of the pitfalls of "critical"
listening.
There may also be an element in DBTs that, as a side effect of their
"objectivity", doesn't incorporate a level of sensory experience that
*transcends* the objective, and could thereby have significant
consequences in terms of judgements thus made.
Offerered respectfully for your consideration...
Ted Spencer, NYC
Ethan Winer
> The purpose of long-term blind listening is ... to simply see how we
listen, and how we react to a particular system. <
Okay, fine. But long term, like a month, includes effects such as:
* Your spouse is in a bad mood lately and bugs you all the time with petty
complaints.
* The restaurant where you eat lunch every day hired a new chef who uses
more garlic than the last chef.
* One of your kids just got admitted to the college she wanted, but it's
going to cost you twice as much as the college *you* wanted her to go to.
And so forth. And Yes, I am dead serious with these examples, and I'm sure
there are many more in that vein. For balance you can also add a few
"positive" life changes to the negative ones I listed. Like you finally got
the big promotion you've worked so hard for, and it comes with a $10k salary
increase. Yep, those new speaker cables are starting to sound mighty good
now that they've finally "broken in."
> if the system remains unchanged, but people report differences <
Yes, I'm sure this is the biggest factor. It's why so many otherwise
intelligent people think a new power cord made a difference. It's why even a
pro mix engineer can sometimes tweak a kick drum EQ to perfection, only to
discover later he was adjusting the rhythm guitar track.
I've made this point before, and it needs to be made repeatedly: One of the
things that astounds me is how audiophiles - and especially magazine
reviewers - claim to be able to discern tiny changes while listening in a
room where fully half of the SPL is dominated by ambience and early
reflections. When I read a reviewer comment on a particular loudspeaker's
imaging, and I *know for a fact* that the reviewer has no acoustic treatment
at all, I have to dismiss everything else from that reviewer. And a lack of
even minimal acoustic treatment probably dismisses 95 percent of all audio
reviewers, no?
--Ethan
Ben Bradley
<ge...@nospam-paf.co.nz> wrote:
>
>"SSJVCmag" <t...@nozirev.gamnocssj.com> wrote in message
>news:BEA8D536.7BD5%t...@nozirev.gamnocssj.com...
>> ...
>> 'Trust Your Ears'
>
>Please stiop cross-posting this stuff.
Huh? As far as I see, there's no crossposting, the original and all
followups are only on rec.audio.pro.
>We really are not remotely
>interested in it.
Oh, it's just the CONTENT you're objecting to. Well, "we" could go
back to talking politics...
>geoff
tym...@hotmail.com
>I never got past it, and ultimately sold the Advents and went back to
>the KLHs. The magic came right back, and once again my favorite music
>could take me to the joyous, transcendant places it had before.
You found your happy place. You were tuned to those speakers over time
and they became your reference. Nothing wrong with that. My Genesis 22s
have become my reference. There are better speakers out there I assume
but they're pretty darn good and make me happy. I'm just glad there's a
former Genesis employee out there still making and reconing the drivers
or I'd have to change them.
Kevin Aylward
I'l repost here what is relevent to this point
***********************
Taste. What tastes bad?
Suppose, when one is young, one eats something, but very shortly
afterwards, gets ill. What can happen is that that it can trigger a
dislike for that food. The body processing may attempt to link that food
taste with "bad", even if the correlation was incorrect, it may still do
this. There reason for this is that it is very difficult to have
hardware, i.e. genes, deal with all possible variations in the
environment. How does one know in advance that a certain taste should be
perceived as good or bad? evolution solves this problem by making all
perceptions and emotions, software programmable by the environment, i.e.
memes.
*****************
You have already been programmed as to what sounds "good" i.e. the KLHs.
If you had gotten your first shag while listening to the Advents rather
than the KLHs, things would have been different.:-)
Kevin Aylward
informati...@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.
pres...@aol.com
KLHs.
> If you had gotten your first shag while listening to the Advents
rather
> than the KLHs, things would have been different.:-)
>
>
> Kevin Aylward
> informati...@anasoft.co.uk
Nah. I've spent my entire adult life as an audio professional. I've
encountered many "new and different" pieces of gear that *do* rock my
world musically, immediately, and only a few (thankfully) that fit the
description I made earlier. It's not a matter of what I'm "programmed"
to like. I appreciate a very wide spectrum of audio gear, and of music
for that matter, and I know how to qualify what I hear and feel.
Another case: there was a certain brand of very high end mic
pre/eq/compressor I was invited to evaluate a couple of years ago, and
it measured and "objectively analyzed" sensationally. It also got rave
reviews in the pro audio press and by many here. It just never passed
audio in a musical way to my ears. I was offered a *really* great price
on this $3000 piece, which had been sent to me brand new, and I turned
it down. It always made me feel like I was listening to *equipment*,
not music. That's the best way I know how to put it. Trust me on
this...please...
Ted Spencer, NYC
tym...@hotmail.com
just never passed
>audio in a musical way to my ears.
So you didn't like it but many others did. It's all about personal
taste and preference then isn't it? Would you say all those who loved
it were wrong? Or just had a different set of likes and dislikes?
Kevin Aylward
>> You have already been programmed as to what sounds "good" i.e. the
>> KLHs. If you had gotten your first shag while listening to the
>> Advents rather than the KLHs, things would have been different.:-)
>>
>>
>> Kevin Aylward
>> informati...@anasoft.co.uk
>
>
> Nah. I've spent my entire adult life as an audio professional. I've
> encountered many "new and different" pieces of gear that *do* rock my
> world musically, immediately, and only a few (thankfully) that fit the
> description I made earlier. It's not a matter of what I'm "programmed"
> to like.
Of course it is. It can't be any other way. We are a Darwinian Machine.
>I appreciate a very wide spectrum of audio gear, and of music
> for that matter, and I know how to qualify what I hear and feel.
> Another case: there was a certain brand of very high end mic
> pre/eq/compressor I was invited to evaluate a couple of years ago, and
> it measured and "objectively analyzed" sensationally. It also got rave
> reviews in the pro audio press and by many here. It just never passed
> audio in a musical way to my ears. I was offered a *really* great
> price on this $3000 piece, which had been sent to me brand new, and I
> turned it down. It always made me feel like I was listening to
> *equipment*, not music. That's the best way I know how to put it.
> Trust me on this...please...
>
> Ted Spencer, NYC
None of this changes anything. Ones meme programming begins when one is
born. Ones gene programming begane billions of years ago.
Trust me on this.
http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/index.html
Joe Sensor
> Joe, thanks for showing that you don't really get what
> auditory memory is.
Oh but I most certainly do. I may have exagerated a bit, but I do get it.
Joe Sensor
> I can remember things 20 years ago, or 10, that are much better than they
> were.
>
Sure. And plenty of things that aren't, of even worse than they were.
Jay Kadis
I think we're approaching this all from the wrong end. Once the brain is
involved, we're not dealing with a cut-and-dried physical system. The brain is
extremely plastic, even in adults. The stability of the electronic systems over
time may be fine, but the system that's doing the perception is altering itself
continuously.
I have thought about controlled experiments with a cognitive psychologist friend
in an attempt to pin some of this down, but the experimental design needed to do
so convincingly seems impossible. The f-MRI is giving us a (somewhat crude)
look at the brain's function in auditory perception, but it's currently not
possible to provide high-quality audio stimuli in that environment. Without
monitoring brain activity, there are uncontrolled variables in the perception
system that rule out solid scientific exposition of the underlying "truth" of
how we perceive what we hear as sound.
The plastic nature of our auditory perception apparatus confounds attempts to
fully characterize what we can "hear" as differences in what would otherwise be
controlled listening trials. Statistical methods may give some idea of what a
population can discriminate, but it doesn't tell us what a particular listener
"hears" for a given stimulus.
-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x---------- http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jay/ ------------x
Joe Sensor
> It's why even a pro mix engineer can sometimes tweak a kick drum EQ
> to perfection, only to discover later he was adjusting the rhythm
> guitar track.
I've never understood this kind of stuff. I have done that, and been
frustrated because nothing was happening. And then discovered it was the
wrong control or the eq bypass was engaged and gone "D'oh".
Joe Sensor
Yeah, I wondered what THAT was about. I guess Geoff is not interested in
opinions that disagree with his?
Steven Sullivan
> On Thu, 12 May 2005 05:28:46 +0000 (UTC), Steven Sullivan
> <ssu...@panix.com> wrote:
> >This 'trust your ears' business that audiophiles tend to use as a mantra,
> >reflects a fundamental overestimation of how 'trustworthy' your ears
> >are, when they aren't allowed to be the *only* arbiters of what you are
> >hearing. What you 'actually' perceive when you sit down and listen in casual
> >evulation, is an amalgam of truly audible plus other non-audible 'confounding'
> >factors. Science may not be foolproof, but the existnce of such factors
> >has been proved about as well as *anthing* has been. It's why scientific
> >investigations of all sorts routinely employs bias controls. Cognitive/perceptual
> >confounding factors are *insidious* and *pervasive*.
> Brilliant; possibly the best I've ever read. But now define "hearing".
> And then define the color red.
Why? Such semantic exercises are beside the point...which is the
*fact* of the existence of 'confounding factors', and thus the *need*
to account for them as possible cause of a perception. That there can
be different subjective definitions of 'hearing' and 'red' doesn't seem to
halt the scientific study of perception in its tracks, does it?
> Ya just can't get there from here, is the problem. I'll be very
> interested in your comments; thanks; and please don't take my
> comments negatively; anything but.
> But perhaps the "cognitive/perceptual confounding factors" actually
> matter for music?
They *absolutely* matter in the sense they they can explain why
two of the *same thing* can be reported as *different*. They
*absolutely matter* in the sense that they can't be ignored...
alas, nor can they be *trusted*.
Orchestral auditions are often done 'blind' these days. Are
you suggesting the judges are 'missing out' on some
factor that 'matters' to the *sound*, by doing this.
Blinding simply means : making sure the listener cannot
know the identity of the souce, *other than* by what he *hears*.
> Just some thoughts. We human beans have such a desperate need to
> quantify and simplify the overwhelming complexity of the external
> world that the need can overwhelm the better angels of our modeling
> nature. "Trust, but verify".
'Doubt, unless verified' gives more reliable answers.
--
-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee
Steven Sullivan
> Ethan Winer wrote:
> > Folks,
> >
> > Last week at the Home Entertainment Show in New York Arny Krueger
> > participated in a panel discussion with John Atkinson, editor of
> > Stereophile magazine. Arny is well known for his support for the
> > scientific method to test what is audible and what is not. John is
> > known for, um, - well, let's just call it an anti-science bias.
> >
> > You can read about the discussion and also download an MP3 file (30
> > MB, 1 hour long) here:
> >
> > www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate/
> >
> The dude claims to hear differences in power cables. Nothing more needs
> to be said on his credibility. He is so deluded, further discussion is
> pointless.
it's not the only dubious belief of his...
http://www.planeteria.net/home/whistler/pages/healing.html