In rec.audio.opinion George Middius wrote:


The redoubtable SillyBot impales himself on a spike of hypocrisy.

Before I answer this, just assure me you're serious, that this is the
limit of your understanding.

Oh, you'll answer anyway, I have no doubt. You're thrilled just
to be getting the attention.

I?ll take that as a Yes to the serious question.

BTW, I?ve demoted you from cyborg to robot. You earned it. ;-)

Yes, your little Napoleon hat fits you quite nicely. Feel free to
demote or promote at will, general.


That seem perfectly sensible given the patent flaws
of sighted comparison. And then for not making unqualified claims
about the sound? That too seems perfectly in line with what
I've advocated about claims from sighted comparison.

This is exemplary of the "jerk" part, Your High Exalted Jerkness.

It's not hypocritical, though.

It sure is hypocritical. You see, Silly, on the one hand you claim only ?tests?
can tell you how something sounds, but you don?t do any yourself. Where?s the
honesty? Where?s the integrity? Do I hear a flushing sound? ;-)


No, because generally I don't talk about how something sounded to
me, do I?


1. You rant on and on and on about "tests", but you've never performed
any, never sat for any, and certainly never designed any. In short, you
have zero experience and therefore, in my opinion, zero knowledge.

Your opinion is foolish, since it's foolish to insist that someone
perform standard scientific tests *themselves*, before they can
ever understand and accept their rationale.

That?s still zero knowledge. (By knowledge I mean *direct* knowledge, not
hypothetical understanding of what knowledgeable people have done. You cannot
know what the ?tests? in question are really like until you?ve actually done
them.)

If it were true that such 'direct' knowledge was the only valid basis
for accepting the rationale for a method, then it would be pointless
to cite scientific work. The only
allowable cites would be from those who actually have repeated the
particular experiment, which isn't what happens, of course.
Certainly actually *doing* it could *help* a dullard understand it, but
it's not *necessary*. Some people are smart enough to grasp
the facts and reasoning behind DBTs without actually doing them.

Btw, if your claims about 'real' knowlege were true,
it would also mean that *you* must acknowledge the validity of say,
Tom Nousaine or Arny Kruger's *direct* experience with gear DBTs.

And too, it would mean that your dismissal of my, or anyone's,
sound system and/or hearing abilities would be invalid,s ince you've
never experienced them firsthand.

Somehow, I don't see you doing either any time soon.

However, you ranting that it's 'zero knowlege' alas doesn't make it
true in the real world.



I have, however, performed DBTs of sound files, so your objection
doesn't even stand on *that* flimsy leg.

That doesn?t count because it?s only practice, not real. You have zero
experience and zero knowledge of your precious ?tests?.


Curious. How is doing a DBT only *practice* for doing a DBT? You're flailing
here, generalissimo.


In my view, there?s no point in you actually participating in any tests. You?re
not motivated to discover the truth because you don?t care at all how any system
sounds.

Gosh, then why castigate me for not having done gear DBTs? You wouldn't believe my
results if I did.


Do you recognize the usefulness of ANY method or activity you
haven't personally experienced yourself, George?
Like, say, sexual intercourse?

Did you make a joke, Silly? Better apply some WD40 to your rictus muscles.

I'll take that as a 'no', then.


2. It turns out you don't give a rat's ass about the quality of your
system, which means your prattling about "tests" was simply empty
posturing. Most likely, it was also a projection of your insecurity or
fear of high-performance audio gear, and a shoddy rationalization of your
pecuniousness and/or penury.

I certainly do care about the quality of my system.

No, all you care about is how much it cost. You said so yourself, two or three
times.

No, I didn't say that. However, if you're going to simply lie about what I've written,
you'll make it back into my killfile that much faster.


That's why I didn't buy just any gear. I want it to deliver all the features
that I
specifically bought it for. This includes, but isn't confined
to, good sound.

You don?t mean ?includes good sound?. You mean ?regardless of how it sounds?.
You bought a commodity box without auditioning it.

I didn't audition in, true. But of course
if it had sounded broken to me when I heard it at home, I'd have
returned it. If DPL II hadn't functioned I'd have returned it. If the
ilink and USB inputs hadn't worked I'd have returned it. Etc.


I have news for you, Sillybot: Low-end receivers sound crappy in various
different ways. I?ve listened to a lot of different brands and I?ve owned a
couple too. All low-priced electronics make serious compromises. They try to do
well on one or two aspects of reproduction and they sacrifice the rest. It?s not
at all difficult to hear differences among them.

Those 'differences' tend to amount to differences in ability to power different
loads at different levels before clipping. They don't tend to be
intrinsic differences about sound quality (ie, at matched levels, below clipping).

However, there's a few thousand dollars waiting for you, if you can
prove I'm wrong by demonstarting your ability to distinguish such amps.
Are you brave enough to claim it? I suspect not. You're a miserable
tinpot coward, generalissimo.

And of course, you *haven't* listened to the 56txi (which isn't considered
part of a 'low end' line by audiophile mags, including Stereophile),
nor, if you did, would your anecdotal reportage about its sound be worth
the pixels you wasted on it -- even if your review was positive.

But you bought one without listening to any of them, even the one you
mail-ordered. You are a robot.

Clearly, robots are smarter than 'normals'. ;

Luckily that's rather a commodity as far as
amps are concerned. So then it becomes a matter of power, price,
processing, connectivity.

Low-end receivers are commodities in that they perform a basic function, but
they?re not interchangeable in terms of quality. But you wouldn?t know any of
this because you didn?t bother to find out.

Actually, I did quite a bit of research to find this out.
I certainly don't claim complete 'interchangeability' in all dimenstions
of quality -- some are *built* better than others, for sure, and are likely to last longer;
some have more sophisticated features than others, etc -- but I'm rather
confident that the evidence points to *intrinsic differences in sound*
being rather a non-issue.

Then again, you can ask people who *have* had direct DBT experience
with amps even you would have to admit are 'high end'. Their
experience seems to contradict yours.

The word for somebody who thinks that no audition at all is better than one in a
store is ?robot?. That?s you, Sillybot.

'Robot, robot , robot' -- gracious,
*you* look like the one stuck in a loop, General G.

In-store audition for solid state gear would be fine, *if* one could
be sure to do it double blind , level-matched, with all other
gear the same. Lacking that, one might just as well buy without
audition. Nothing unreasonable about that. Of course, make
sure you have a money-back return guarantee either way.

In-store audition of speakers, even 'blind', would not likely
predict how the speakers would sound in one's own home, except
as regards gross differences (e.g. full-range vs satellite)
-- certainly not at the resolution that appears to matter to
'audiophiles', where 'subtle nuances' are everything.



Can you prove that the $1700 Pioneer 56txi -- the AVR I
eventually bought -- *doesn't* offer good sound? Or even
one objective reason why it *wouldn't*?

Hey, that?s better than low-end. I?ll bet it sounds decent.

That's a good bet, but not for the reasons you think.

BTW, your demand that somebody else prove you do or don?t hear something is
idiotic. You da ?bot!

If I *did* make such a demand (and I haven't), it'd surely be no
more idiotic that your own spittle-flecked contributions to the
newsgroups.


Btw, the 'golden ear' Michael Fremer praised the 49tx -- the
first of the Pioneer Elite AVR line -- "one of the best, if not the best,
A/V receiver on the market today."

Oh, so you do base your decision on subjective reviews. How hypocritical of you.

Sorry, general, but I happened upon Fremer's review long after I bought the gear (and btw,
he's talking abotu a different model, the 49tx). So it couldn't have
influenced me. However, a review that did
was the one in Sound & Vision of the 59txi, which described its
ilink capabilities and room correction features. I suspect David Ranada,
who did that review, would take the high quality of the sound as a given,
as he is an objectivist -- but they also helpfully included bench test
info to back that up.

So, again, my buying behavior is quite consistent with my recommendations,
general. So why the call to arms?


N.B. I'd certainly have bought a less expensive rig if it
had the same feature set. Your mention of 'penury and pecuniousness'
marks you as the most ludicrous (and easily fleeced)
of audiophool species: the price snob.

Hardly?.
You have no idea how much I paid for my stuff. I?m as pecunious as
anybody, but I shop for bargains. Ask your hero Ferstler about this. He shares
my philosophy, although he implements in the sleaziest way imaginable.

So, you're as pecunious as anybody?
Why, then, someone who is admittedly pecunious, would use that as a pejorative,
or assume its a sign of *penury*, is admittedly a question even my robot logic can't answer.
Unless it's that you're simply a *miserable creep*.


3. Your "objective factors" means you're lazy or half deaf or terribly
undemanding. In any event, it definitely means you have no desire to
actually distinguish one component from another because the sonic
performance IS NOT EVEN A FACTOR FOR YOU. (shouting to overcome the
density of your ossified mind)

These aren't arguments, George, they're rants. Sonic performance
*is* a factor for amps, but the good news is, if you ran them
level-matched and with controls from bias in place, sonic
performance is likely to be at THE SAME high level. The
technology is mature, even if you aren't.

But you bought a receiver, not an amplifier. Did you foolishly believe the
preamp section of a receiver is somehow sonically transparent, more so than a
separate preamp would be? If so, you?re the most ignorant robot ever.

Do you foolishly believe that preamps are likely to sound different
when auditioned with the proper controls in place? Permission to
disagree, SIR! Where's the evidence? Your own experience with
blind comparisons of preamps, perhaps?

The fact is, the supposed 'superiority' of high-end separates
may sometimes be measurable, sometimes audible, sometimes neither.


If I wanted to be *reliably sure* that my amp wasn't
underperforming sonically, I'd have to set up such a test.
And so would you.

0101011! 000111010, 001 1000011 00100110101101!

Garbage in, garbage out. ;


But you aren't *really* that motivated, and neither am I.
You, because you believe you can
depend on your sighted listening to tell you whether two things
are sonically different -- when in fact it's easily shown to
be unreliable for that purpose. Me, because I accept
that one amp isn't likely to sound intrinsically
different from another.

This is truly twisted. You?re a pervbot.

If reasoning annoys you, it's *got* to be good, clean fun.


I also accept that a perpetual motion machine isn't likely
to do what it's claimed to do. But silly me,
I'm just going by the scientific reasoning...I've never
actually *built* or *tested* one. I just kind of, you know,
have a grasp on reality.

Have you thought about having your metallic exoskeleton refurbished? It might
cost a few bucks, but it?ll stop the drunks from peeing on you.

Lacking any real arguments, you do seem to rely on your endless supply of bile
for 'rebuttals'. And I suppose that had to come from somewhere...


4. You have little or no understanding of the motivations of Normals in
choosing audio gear, but you fail to acknowledge your ignorance. Is that
because you're just plain dumb or because you're a pigheaded ideologue?

Well, I guess that should get you started. Have fun spinning, Sillyborg.


Consumers generally want something that sounds good to them, has the features
they want, looks good, and is affordable yet better than average.

But you bought your box without knowing how it would sound. Do you see the
fallacy, or are you having a binary seizure?

I made reasonable predictions that it would sound just fine, that its features
would be as advertised, and that it would look the way it did in the
photos. Wow, lucky me, I was right!

'Normals' don't want to be told that something costing far
less -- or which costs nothing -- stands a good chance of sounding
just the same than what they bought. But some of them might
appreciate being told that *before* their next purchase.

You don?t even know how human beings actually evaluate audio gear. Sad.

Human being, myself included, are fallible. Some of them are smart and
realize this. Others pretend it's not true or that it doesn't matter.
Sad.


--

-S