Audio myths and misconceptions

[Satanica]

19 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

I went through a stage there for 6 months where all I did was Blind tests on everything.

I ended up selling off a lot of very nice gear as in my tests, I could not reliably pick a difference. Roughly 10 second or so swaps.

What I found was, I was was not enjoying my music any more either.

I think the big crunch came when I had a very cheap cartridge and compared it to my digital side. I again could not pick a reliable difference.

Then updated to a Dynavector 17D3 cartridge and was mightily impressed. After a while, I compared to my digital side (unchanged from last time) and again could not hear a good difference.

Went online and looked up many many Blind tests and pretty well all of them had the same result. No one could reliably pick a difference. Could be cheap stereo vs expensive, different dacs etc but the results always seem to be the same.

Got me thinking that maybe doing these tests are hindering something in being able to really find a preference in what I like.

Went back to just listening for long periods and just enjoying trying new stuff without really making a conscious effort to compare. Everything seem to fall back into place as I bought new gear.

Not knocking that the tests could  be helpful for others but just not for me anymore. 

I can't fault your process, especially when compared to most others what you've done is well and truly above par!

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying listening to music recreated in HiFi; without doubt for those who are into it it's one of the best life experiences.

[rocky500]

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that DBT's done by others all over the net pretty well always seem to show not much difference?

Amplifiers for instance. There are so many that all seem to show no difference. Even offers for money if you could pick a difference. Looking at them, one could conclude there is no difference.

At home I hear a difference when I use one for a while and swap over to another.

[Cafad]

48 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

I went through a stage there for 6 months where all I did was Blind tests on everything.

I ended up selling off a lot of very nice gear as in my tests, I could not reliably pick a difference. Roughly 10 second or so swaps.

What I found was, I was was not enjoying my music any more either.

I think the big crunch came when I had a very cheap cartridge and compared it to my digital side. I again could not pick a reliable difference.

Then updated to a Dynavector 17D3 cartridge and was mightily impressed. After a while, I compared to my digital side (unchanged from last time) and again could not hear a good difference.

Went online and looked up many many Blind tests and pretty well all of them had the same result. No one could reliably pick a difference. Could be cheap stereo vs expensive, different dacs etc but the results always seem to be the same.

Got me thinking that maybe doing these tests are hindering something in being able to really find a preference in what I like.

Went back to just listening for long periods and just enjoying trying new stuff without really making a conscious effort to compare. Everything seem to fall back into place as I bought new gear.

Not knocking that the tests could  be helpful for others but just not for me anymore. 

This sort of thing happens far too often to me too.  Just recently I was about half way through a review on an amp and I swapped DACs, I came to the quick conclusion that the new DAC was much more punchy and dynamic than the old one (because that was pretty much what I expected having heard both the DACs in question many times).  Later that day I thought that maybe I should go through the motions, just to be sure, and I found that after about 12 changes of input selections on the amp I could not tell the difference at all between the DACs (I know both of these DACs well, and on most amps I can pick the difference without too much trouble, but not this time, not at all).  So I shook my head, deleted an entire paragraph while mumbling to myself, and kept right on going.

Of course this was a sighted comparison, and that makes it even more frustrating because it should be easier.

Doesn't it suck when reality doesn't meet your expectations of it?

Edited January 11, 2018 by Cafad

[Satanica]

40 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

At home I hear a difference when I use one for a while and swap over to another.

If you replace the word "hear" with "experience" then all arguments are pretty much put to bed I think.

We all must remember too that a difference doesn't imply an improvement.

[rocky500]

11 minutes ago, Satanica said:

If you replace the word "hear" with "experience" then all arguments are pretty much put to bed I think.

We all must remember too that a difference doesn't imply an improvement.

I have been swapping for over 6 months and still do not know which one I prefer.

[rantan]

30 minutes ago, Satanica said:

If you replace the word "hear" with "experience" then all arguments are pretty much put to bed I think.

We all must remember too that a difference doesn't imply an improvement.

Yup.

 

Differences are just that. They may or may not be pleasing or better.  In the end we all choose the difference that we enjoy.

 

Chocolate or Vanilla?

 

 

[Newman]

@rocky That is the expected result of not understanding the process. You identify the wrong part of the process as the problem. All conclusions from that point are futile.

 

 

[Satanica]

3 minutes ago, rantan said:

In the end we all choose the difference that we enjoy.

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Hmmm I can't agree with this (surprise surprise) as I always seem to want more transparency at the end of day.

So I guess that's flavourless?

Note: Transparency means at the ear, most likely not at the electronics and speaker drivers.

[rantan]

8 minutes ago, Satanica said:

Hmmm I can't agree with this (surprise surprise)

 

Yeah. I am still in shock.

 

I reckon I will take a very long holiday from this thread. It hasn't been fun for a long time now.

Probably my fault but there you go, it is what it is.

 

Edit: this year is going to be a good one. no more politics threads and no subjective/objective revolving door arguments.

 

More time for music and socialising

Edited January 11, 2018 by rantan

[Satanica]

17 minutes ago, rantan said:

I reckon I will take a very long holiday from this thread. It hasn't been fun for a long time now.

Ciao. I've never found thinking and learning to be the most fun thing in the world either.

[rantan]

5 minutes ago, Satanica said:

Ciao. I've never found thinking and learning to be the most fun thing in the world either.

I am 100% over the patronising. I have learned much over the years and one of those things is to avoid people who cannot compromise or give an inch. Your idea of learning is to actually badger the crap out of anyone who disagrees.

 

You forgot this

Edited January 11, 2018 by rantan

[crisis]

1 hour ago, rocky500 said:

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that DBT's done by others all over the net pretty well always seem to show not much difference?

Amplifiers for instance. There are so many that all seem to show no difference. Even offers for money if you could pick a difference. Looking at them, one could conclude there is no difference.

At home I hear a difference when I use one for a while and swap over to another.

 

1 hour ago, Satanica said:

If you replace the word "hear" with "experience" then all arguments are pretty much put to bed I think.

We all must remember too that a difference doesn't imply an improvement.

I've come to this conclusion too. These days it should be fairly rare that one purchases equiptment that sounds "bad". There is obviously equiptment that sounds "better". I personally put "better" down to more transparency and accuracy but others choose "warmth" , "musicality" etc. We choose what we think sounds "right" and we have different points of reference. DBT I believe are the only accurate way to define differences but those differences manifest themselves differently to each individual. Take into account that us old farts hearing has lost HF to varying degrees and it may also explain personal preferences. That said anyone who chooses equiptment in sighted tests is entitled to make their own choice. Where it becomes questionable is when they make arbitrary recommendations based on that.

[Guest Muon N']

5 hours ago, Satanica said:

I'm convinced that those who don't believe in blind testing don't believe in it "because they need to know the answer".

Not in my case, I am fine with no answer and It's much preferable to my thinking than accepting what might be the wrong answer

 

So maybe you are working with a bad set of data there

Edited January 11, 2018 by Muon N'
typo

[MLXXX]

5 hours ago, rocky500 said:

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that DBT's done by others all over the net pretty well always seem to show not much difference?

Amplifiers for instance. There are so many that all seem to show no difference. Even offers for money if you could pick a difference. Looking at them, one could conclude there is no difference.

At home I hear a difference when I use one for a while and swap over to another.

With power amplifiers the specs available for even cheap models have been outstanding for many years. Negligible noise, distortion, and channel crosstalk. Very wide, and very near to flat, frequency response. It is no surprise to me that human beings cannot hear the different minor imperfections even when allowed to do so with immediate A B testing.

 

Quote

At home I hear a difference when I use one for a while and swap over to another.

For really subtle differences, my auditory memory lasts only about 10 seconds.  The longer the delay, the less likely it is I'll be able to recall the auditory sensation.

 

The same applies for colour. Put two closely related sample swatches of colour in front of my eyes one after the other and I will be able to pick even subtle differences if the delay is no more than about 10 seconds. With a minute's delay my ability would be less. With a whole day's delay, I wouldn't be in the race unless the colours were markedly different.

 

Similarly with hefting two oranges of almost equal weight to tell which is the heavier. I do that best with a short time delay.

 

Loudness too. Play two sounds one after the other and I can identify a 0.5dB difference pretty easily. But try me after a 24 hour delay, and I will struggle to tell whether the sound is softer or louder than what I heard the day before unless it is perhaps 3dB different.

 

Musical tempo or , pitch: I can remember these for a few seconds. Am pretty hopeless after 5 minutes of doing something else and then trying to come back and resume singing a song unaccompanied and matching the previous key of let's say A 444Hz (a bit sharper than standard pitch) and a tempo of let's say 118 beats per minute.  Human beings, most of us anyway, are not skilled at keeping exact pitch or exact tempos in our brains.

 

Without any reference, try counting from 1 to 10 taking 10 seconds exactly. How close to 10 seconds were you?  A 1% error, a 20% error? Again, we as human beings have no ability to remember time intervals absolutely. 

 

Speed: Ride a bicycle along a flat road at 10kph by its speedo. Then try to continue at that speed for 10 seconds without watching the speedo. Glance at the speedo again. You may well still be doing 10kph. Dismount. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Get up the next day. Then try to ride the bike at 10kph without using the speedo. After you feel comfortable, glance at the speedo. Are you doing 10kph?

 

Temperature: ask me to tell whether one cup of coffee is a few degrees hotter than the other and I will be able to do that fairly well if I can touch each cup with a delay of no longer than a few seconds. Ask me what that temperature is in degrees Celsius and I would struggle. I can sense "hotter" or "cooler" in the short term, but I cannot sense exact temperatures.  Ask me whether the coffee I have been served today is as hot as the coffee I was served yesterday, and I will probably be unable to say; even though the actual temperature difference might be several degrees.

 

 

@rocky500, I think you need to ask yourself whether you can trust your ears to recall accurately what something sounded like to you 24 hours in the past, especially if you could hear no differences in short-term testing at that time in the past.

Edited January 11, 2018 by MLXXX

[LHC]

20 hours ago, Newman said:

@Eggcup The Daft "Secondly, I just don't get the claim that blind testing doesn't work "because I need to know the source". "

 

Goodness me, did someone actually say that? Do they not grasp the fundamentals?

 

Of course they grasped the fundamentals, Paul explains blind testing very well on his blog page. I thought you wrote that you read it a few years ago? Or maybe you didn't? 

 

This is the full transcript of what John Curl wrote about ABX:

 

"Paul, I completely agree with you on this. About 40 years ago I was introduced to ABX double blind testing. I got completely confused right away. I HAVE to know what specific source that I am listening to, over the listening test, by some symbol, at least. I don’t have to know WHAT the source is, just which source I am using over the listening test. I also believe it is the right brain reaction to the source that determines my response, not minor changes in amplitude, etc that can be easily controlled. Every time that I state this, I get the same as you from the ABX crowd.
But it is important that I can hear differences in order to do my job of designing better audio equipment. It is like a wine maker not allowed to taste his wine or compare it to others without a double-blind test. Some might do OK, but others might just give up altogether. I know of some good audio designers at the time (forty years ago) dropped out of audio design altogether, because they could not hear differences though the same test box (Spiegel) that I used. My partner at the time, and a better listener than me, actually insisted the the test box was interfering as much as the listening test, and insisted that it be removed from the audio system. And so it goes. I came to the reluctant conclusion that ABX testing was not for me, and I stand by my decision after all these decades past."

Edited January 11, 2018 by LHC

[MLXXX]

2 hours ago, LHC said:

"I HAVE to know what specific source that I am listening to, over the listening test, by some symbol, at least. I don’t have to know WHAT the source is, just which source I am using over the listening test."

I read  that part of J Curl's post earlier today and thought it a little odd as a criticism given the way ABX tests are so often conducted.

 

Typically in an ABX test you can call for A to be played and then for B to be played, over and over again until you have found a difference (well at least in your own mind!). Which source is being played is clearly "identified" at this point in the test.

 

Then, when ready, you call for X to be played. Your job is to identify X as being A or B.  If you're unsure, you can ask for A or B to be repeated, or X to be repeated. Only when you feel ready do you need to give an answer as to whether X is A, or B.

Edited January 11, 2018 by MLXXX

[LHC]

On 1/10/2018 at 7:20 PM, Eggcup The Daft said:

 

I suspect there is actually a lot MORE pressure when carrying out a sighted comparison in the presence of supposedly more knowledgeable people - I've certainly felt that down the years as I have a track record of preferring the "wrong" component.  Their presence need not be in person, but through past conversation or reading.

There is a LOT of pressure on you to "conform" in those circumstances, for example when there are two salespeople in the room telling you that you should prefer the more expensive source because it is "smoother", or because an authoritative reviewer has told you that a power cable is more "dynamic". Have you ever suddenly heard what they are telling you, or sat repeating the experiment until you "just start to hear" what you have been told to? I know I've done both on occasion.

 

 

I was also in a similar situation when I picked the "wrong" component in the presence of a knowledgeable salesperson doing a blind audition. He was visually upset, but I didn't feel any pressure. Why should I? After all it is my hard earn money that I am spending, and I have to live with the component I chose. 

[LHC]

8 minutes ago, MLXXX said:

I read  that part of J Curl's post earlier today and thought it a little odd as a criticism given the way ABX tests are so often conducted.

 

Typically in an ABX test you can call for A to be played and then for B to be played, over and over again until you have found a difference (well at least in your own mind!). Which source is being played is clearly "identified" at this point in the test.

 

Then, when ready, you call for X to be played. Your job is to identify X as being A or B.  If you're unsure, you can ask for A or B to be repeated, or X to be repeated. Only when you feel ready do you need to give an answer as to whether X is A, or B.

 

I agree. But I don't think it implies that they don't understand the fundamental of blind testing. It may just due to some poorly implemented ABX tests and that scarred his impression. He also mentioned some problems with test box that he have used in the past. I think he was just whinging about his poor experiences from decades ago.

[Guest scumbag]

7 hours ago, Satanica said:

Ciao. I've never found thinking and learning to be the most fun thing in the world either.

Now I remember why I have you as a blocked user!

Edited January 11, 2018 by scumbag

[Assisi]

Jim Smith in his book “Get better sound” is mildly supportive to some extent of some the matters that are considered to be myths in this thread.  In the chapter headed “Controversy Corner” he even says on the matter of power cords whilst initially sceptical that he discovered that some sound better than others.

Whereas Mark Waldrep in his now published 850 page tome titled “Music and Audio: A user guide to better sound” says in a summary on power cords in the Chapter titled “Tips, Tricks and Treachery”

“I have never purchased a dedicated audiophile grade power cord in over 40 years of recording, producing, mastering, or demoing high fidelity music. Even our demo room at AXPONA, which is a collaboration with DH Labs — a cable company — doesn’t use their AC power cords. They just aren’t needed. Once again, I think the audiophile industry and publications create issues where there aren’t any and then offer costly solutions — I can’t help but be reminded of the current effort by MQA, which is a solution looking for a problem.”

 

Interesting.  Waldrep has lot to say about MQA which to me is not supportive.

John

 

Edited January 11, 2018 by Assisi
words

[Newman]

42 minutes ago, scumbag said:

Now I remember why I have you (Satanica) as a blocked user!

And how does that block work? 

[Guest scumbag]

4 minutes ago, Newman said:

And how does that block work? 

Same way as it does for the block I have on you.

Edited January 11, 2018 by scumbag

[LHC]

42 minutes ago, Assisi said:

 Waldrep has lot to say about MQA which to me is not supportive.

 

 

He is not supportive at all. But to his credit, he did make a lot of effort to engage with the MQA people, and he didn't write it off from the get-go. 

[Assisi]

3 minutes ago, LHC said:

 

He is not supportive at all. But to his credit, he did make a lot of effort to engage with the MQA people, and he didn't write it off from the get-go. 

Correct

[Newman]

He gave it a fair go and then wrote it off.