Absolute Sound
From: chung
Date: 7/19/2004 7:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

S888Wheel wrote:

From: chung
Date: 7/18/2004 2:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: 1DBKc.114777$IQ4.80972@attbi_s02

Ban wrote:
S888Wheel wrote:

Measurements "pejudicing" (sic) customers? That's a new one.

No, It's nothing new.( except my unique spelling perhaps) Heck, just
look at all the folks that jumped on the band wagon with the very
early SS amps of the sixties. Some of them were really quite awful
but the meter reasers thought they were the cat's meow based on the
measurements.

If the sound was awful, they will have also measured bad. Maybe in those
times a distortion measurement was difficult to execute, but never the
less
it would have shown the low level distortion. The main reason people
bought
SS amps then was the affordable price and the overall satisfying
performance. And that moment tubes disappeared from one year to the next.

I think the measurements in those days were acceptable in terms of
distortion, but the consumer might have put too much emphasis on a
single number: THD at 1 KHz at max. power Certainly some manufacturers did.


And it seems certain magazines did as well. unfortunately for some
consumers
who took them at their word.

But that is an example of a consumer prejudiced by a poor review, *NOT*
an example prejudiced by a set of measurements. See the difference?



Measurements cannot "prejudice" customers.

Sure they can if they are lead to believe that they tell a story that they
don't really tell. funny how history repetes itself.

That's an example of a customer not being careful in understanding the
measurements, or putting too much faith in reviews.

It is an example of a customer being biased by measurements. If the customer
was not aware of the THD the customer might not assume that the awful sound he
is hearing should be assumed to be better as in more accurate. If one is under
the assumtion that they know something they don't really know based on a
measurement one can easily write off bad sound as the old garbage in gargage
out situation. Unfortunately one is settling for garbage out because they are
assuming something based on a measurement. Apparently in the early seventies
this was a common thing and a lot of people happily took home some pretty awful
sounding electronics.


Measurements cannot prejudice customers.

Sure they can. Just about anything that gets into a customers head can do so.

Measurements are facts. Facts
do not prejudice customers.

Sure they do this is a proven fact. Just look at the old blind speaker
comparisosns that tested for sighted bias of speakers. The size and looks of
the speakers created bias in at least 20% of the listeners enough to cause them
to prefer the speaker they did not prefer in blind comparisons. The size of the
speaker is a *fact*. One can measure it for size over and over again for
varification. It is an empirical fact. It is also a source of bias. facts can
bias people.

Only those who have incomplete facts or draw
the wrong conclusion from facts can prejudice themselves. Big difference
there.

You are still wrong. One can still be biased by measurements even if they have
every known measurement to mankind in their hands. It can still bias them.





It's the lack of
understanding of what measurements mean that could potentially mislead
customers.

THD did really seem to mean much with early SS amps did it? Yet it was the
king
of all measurements.

Not to me. Perhaps you meant to certain marketing types and certain
reviewers?

Yes it was king via popularity. Maybe I should have said the *president* of all
measurements.


How long have we known about cross-over distortion, and slew-rate
induced distortion? Since the '50's at least.

Unfortunately that didn't prevent the meter readers from endorsing crappy SS
amps adn leading audio into what some consider the dark ages. I suppose one
could say the subjectivist magazines exist because they were a reaction to the
dissatisfactory service provided by objectivist review magazines of the time.
That is a bit ironic.



On the other hand, subjective reviews can definitely
prejudice customers.

Oh I see, only that with which the objectivists disagree is capable of
creating
prejudice. Anything that a person associates with quality can prejudice a
customer. That can be a review or measurements depnding on the person's
mind
set.

How can facts prejudice?

See above.

Subjective reviews are not facts, they are
opinions, and expressions of personal impressions

So? No one has said otherwise have they?

.. A subjective review
says that an amp sounds great. The fact is that amp may not sound great
to everyone.

At least that is acknowledged in Stereophile. But the same is true apparently
with the WAVAC. Some say it should sound bad based on the measurements yet it
seems some people like what they hear.

On the other hand, measurements are repeatable and objective.

That doesn't mean they are not a source of bias.



The careful audiophiles will read the Stereophile
subjective reviews for their entertainment values, and pay attention to
the measurements and feature sets to find out how the products really
behave.

One can be careful and find more than just mere entertainment value from
many
Stereophile subjective reviews.

I am sure some do.






I think it ought to be. I think there is some use for smoe
measurements for audiophiles such as me. Matching equipment can be
made easier via measurements. I'm still going to make my final
decisions based on listening though.

This "matching" is another myth invented by the Quacks. Exept the
loudspeaker impedance(4 or 8 ohms) there is little to observe, because
already in that time there were existing specs about input level(-10dBm),
RIAA EQ and impedance etc. In fact the HiFi criteria gives values for
almost
all important numbers. Any tuner, tape deck or amplifier can be connected
and will perform as stated if it was fulfilling the criteria. This is one
of
the reasons the HiFi gear gained such a popularity, as it was the case
with
the computer.

At this point I would like to quote what Siegfried Linkwitz (a respected
speaker designer and electrical engineer) said:

"Minimal alteration of the original should be the goal of sound
reproduction since anything else is a falsification. For many pieces of
recorded material it may not matter, because the performance is so
highly processed and the listener shares no common sonic reference.
Also, a listener may be so used to amplified music that the
characteristic sound of certain types of loudspeakers becomes the
reference. However, ultimately only a system with minimal distortion can
hope to achieve the reproduction of an original and, in particular, of a
familiar live sonic event such as a choral performance, a solo male
voice, or a car driving by. My motto is: True to the Original ...".

Linkwitz's summary of sound reproduction is well worth reading for
anyone interested in audio reproduction:


It's fine to have a philosophy for achieving goals. But then there is this
thing known as practical application. That is when the better designers
stick
with their philosophies until such a time as it does not wrought the best
result. Then one comprimises and finds the best practical solution. Wht
will be
the best solution foe one person will not ofr another because it involves
subjective choices.


http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reproduction.htm

A point often missed by those who believe in "matching" equipment: you
cannot undo non-linear distortion.

You cannot avoid it either.

Nowadays, with the exception of mechanical transducers, you can maintain
linearity to a level where errors are not audible. So you can clearly
avoid them, in electronics.

When one can bypass all transducers this may be of great value. We are not
there yet


That is, you cannot expect the
distortion created in one component to be undone by distortion created
by another.


I'm not sure that is true. The proof is in the final product though and not
in
the path chosen.

Let say you have a SET amp, with its characteristic distortion which is
a function of signal level, frequency, speaker loading, AC power
conditions, temperature, variations in parts, etc. You think there is
some other component in the chain that has the inverse behavior so that
when you connect the two together, the distortions cancel out?

Inverse? maybe on a few parameters if lucky. Sympathetic? Quite possibly.




You have to choose components that individually have low
distortion.

Some people like to look at the trees some people like to look at the
forrest.
I am a forrest kind of person.

You miss the point that you cannot have overall low distortion unless
the components themselves have low distortion.

I didn't miss that point. And when people come up with a complete recording and
playback chain that is distortion free we will have no debate. Till then...

Of course, perhaps what
you meant is that you prefer some type of distortion.

If a distortion creates a better illusion of live music with the majority of my
recordings of live music I would prefer it. Doesn't that make sense? Or is the
measurement more imortant than the listening experience to you?





Of course, someone may prefer certain types of distortion. But to think
that adding distortion in the reproduction path can somehow undo
distortion in the transducers (microphones and speakers) so that the
overall sound is "faithful to the live sound" is simply unrealistic.


I quite disagree. I think the pure path is a good starting point but that's
it.
there comes a point where the recording engineers and the makers of audio
equipment have to choose between serving their philosophies and serving
their
ears.

The best way to audio reproduction is to have the highest objective
fidelity possible, so that you can really hear what the artists and the
recording engineers want you to hear.

You can have the idealism and I'll take the work of the clever engineers who
are more practical in their approach.

And you want the audio equipment
to not inject *any* error.

I don't see a better creation of the illusion of live music as an error. But
again, I give priority to the listening experience over the bench tests.


You really ought to read Linkwitz's website.