[George Graves]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:09:19 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Peter Wieck" wrote in message


MY OPINION ONLY FOLLOWS: As it happens now, there are
three "high end industries",

one consisting of long lines of vastly over-priced,
poorly made but very well packaged Chinese goods
attempting to cash in on the yiches of tubes and so forth.

Agreed.

There is the "Name Brand" section
of the industry that does what it can to convince one
that price actually drives quality in a linear relationship (it
doesn't, of course),

Agreed, but it may overlap industry number one.

and then there is that part of the industry that
has very nearly vanished... the actual cutting edge of wild
(mostly) individuals and small groups who are actually trying to
make something better and different vs. repackaging old
designs with more-or-less
chrome, fancy wood trim and matte-finish plexiglas detailing.

Also agreed.

99-44/100ths percent of the stuff developed by the first
two groups is sold to individuals who would not know a
transistor from a triode or a toroid from a taurus.

Interestingly enough, some of them think that they are extremely
well-educated. As I showed for example in another post where someone tried
to pontificate expertly about Slew Rate Distortion and Dielectric
Absorbtion, their knowlege is often obsolete, based on that which has been
proven to be urban myth, or they just plain have things wrong.

I think that's a matter of opinion. I know, for instance, that Belcher and
Hirata very ably addressed these distortions and methodologies to measure
them back in the 1980's. Various postings found by "googling TIM and SID
bring up many pages of which the following URL is representative:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...audio/amp.html

So if these distortion types are, indeed myths as you assert, there are an
awful lot of electrical engineers (not excluding yours, truly) who haven't
been told about it.

I also know that before these distortion types were characterized,
solid-state amplifiers, especially, were virtually unlistenable, and after
these distortion types were "discovered" and the limitations in amplifier
design which gave rise to them were overcome, that solid-state amplifiers
became much less objectionable. Nowdays, it's difficult to tell a good tube
amp from a good solid-state amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a Dynaco
Stereo 120, a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an Acoustat 1 Amp will tell you,
they sounded TERRIBLE as well as being unreliable and unstable.

They would not understand bias, Class A, AB, AB1
and so forth other than the flash and hype sold to them
in the showroom. Nor would they understand specifications with
specific reference to what they *DO NOT* mean.

Also agreed.

That last 56/100ths will be purchased by those, whatever
it might be,
who in short order start to wonder what all the fuss is
about. And in nearly equally short order, they will start
to concentrate on the
output from the third class of suppliers. And this class
also and generally publishes their output such that a
reasonably skilled and patient person might duplicate
them for him or her self. And this last class is anathema
to the first two groups.

I call this the "High Performance Audio" segment of the market. These people
are often well enough heeled, and tend to own high performance cars, high
performance cameras, guns and other techno-esoterica. While they may have
signficiant investments in audio, they don't seem to gravitate to the most
expensive components, with the possible exception of loudspeakers.

I agree with that.

So, yeah, the majority industry as it is now constituted
is something between a farce and a joke, about as honest
as a career politician with the general ethics of an archbishop.

Some who have posted on this thread have even mentioned some of the high
priests of high farce audio.

With that in
mind, none of us have the means or the right to dictate what is 'good'
or 'bad' to someone else or their ears.

I don't find that this follows from the premises presented.

It doesn't. The sound of real music in real space is the only "real" goal
here. It is simply not important that different people might perceive live
music differently. If a system were to sound exactly like live music, it
would sound like live music to everyone, irrespective of how he or she
perceives it because the music itself consists of certain physical elements
that exist in space whether there is anyone there to hear it of not.
Individual perception does not enter in to the existence of those physical
elements. If those elements are reproduced exactly, then anyone who has ever
heard live music would recognize that perfect reproduction for what it is. It
wouldn't matter, that a clarinet, for instance, always sounds like a trombone
to you or a flute to me. If that clarinet is reproduced perfectly, both you
and I will recognize that fact irrespective of the differences in our
perception of it.

[Peter Wieck]

There is much going on here, and much that is vastly oversimplified.
Please note the strong infusion of opinion in the interpolations
below.

Sure, there IS a standard for "Good Audio Taste" but it's predicated upon a
fairly narrow set of criteria

1) The "Absolute Sound" refers, of course, to the sound of real,
live music, played in real space (as opposed to some nebulous
notion of "it sounds good").

That may well be true. But it is far too simplistic to apply to *most*
real-world situations. Removing entirely for discussion purposes all
music that is 'reinforced' when delivered live, most venues where it
is delivered are not able to be duplicated in the average listening
room. It may well be coming from a "real space", but with very few
exceptions that space is not the space where an electronic version of
it will be delivered again.

2) The purpose of "High-Fidelity" is to recreate, in the
listener's space the sound of this "real music, played in real space"
in as close an approximation as is technologically possible.

This is a complicated way of saying that "high-fidelity" equipment
should as closely as possible deliver back *exactly* what is put into
it, with the only deliberate and inherent difference possible being
"volume". For the sake of clarity, that means all settings "flat"
means IN = OUT +/- volume-only.

3) That this goal is the ONLY goal of High-Fidelity sound
reproduction and the industry that supports it.

And here is where vast over-simplification applies. That may be the
goal, but it cannot, by definition, be the only one. Were that the
case, the "Industry" would require that every user of its products
understand deeply the science of acoustics, the effect of their
listening space on the sound they achieve, and a bunch more things
that they mostly and carefully and deliberately ignore... excepting
those that also design "listening rooms". And they would also (if
honest) make sure that any user understood that unless he/she had the
means to build a rather large and nearly acoustically perfect
listening venue, Symphonic music would be impossible to achieve in
small rooms. Period. Too much stuff going on otherwise... One might
get close with very-nearly-perfect headphones, but otherwise, not
hardly.

One of the things the Industry *must* also do is create means for
their users to overcome the damage to the "absolute" sound created by
the recording and mastering process, the delivery process and finally
the reproducing process in whatever venue that might be. Just as if
all roads were perfectly banked, perfectly smooth and perfectly
curved, and all other drivers were equally perfect, vehicles would not
need springs or shock-absorbers and a host of other items made to
overcome the imperfections of the everyday environment. So, we have
tone/equalizers, balance controls and other electronic means to alter
the shape of the sound.

OTOH, this is likely not the average Joe's goal at all. Many
people who buy audio systems have never heard (or actually paid any
attention to - or, indeed, even care about) live music. Most people's
perception of live music is a rock band heard through sound
reinforcement equipment and herein lies the fallacy of the above. If
your goal is a system which sounds like a rock concert, then the above
lofty set of goals means nothing because sound reinforcement equipment
is not designed to be accurate. Of course, then we get into the area
of contention which says that the sound system that a rock group uses
IS that rock roup's "Absolute Sound" and if one's playback system
doesn't sound like the PA system that the group uses on the road, then
it's not reproducing the group the way one would hear it in the flesh.

Yes, absolutely. Again the premise is vastly over-simplified. Any home-
audio system should be capable of very-nearly reproducing what was put
into it. The computer term GIGO applies equally to symphonic music and
to highly compressed rock music... what goes in should come out, if
garbage goes in, so should it come out. If the system cannot do this,
it cannot be "High Fidelity".

Then of course, one would need a different sounding system for each
rock group's recordings being played. Quite a can of worms.

This is so wrong in so many ways as to be absolutely fascinating as an
approach to "High Fidelity".

Listening to a live concert of real musicians playing real acoustic
instruments in real space is a common experience that all can share
equally. Assuming that as the criteria for establishing goals for an
industry striving to make equipment to reproduce music seems a logical
course. After all, a rigid set of criteria for any endeavor is needed,
if for no other reason than to be a point of departure. Remember, a
man walking in a blinding snow storm which deprives him of references
will ALWAYS walk in circles.

If you are going to limit your universe of "High Fidelity" equipment
to that which is only capable of reproducing acoustic instruments
under certain conditions, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that
approach except that you must consider that much Acoustic Music has a
much higher Peak-to-Average such that it is far harder for any given
system to reproduce it than the average compressed R&R source. Saint-
Saens and his Organ Symphony, if properly recorded, with a (sustained)
30dB P/A in the last movement is the acid-test for any reasonable
system. Any system capable of making that at a reasonable volume
without turning it into mud is more than capable of fully and
completely reproducing _any_ R&R Album ever recorded.

As to the snow thing, well... not always. Those trained (properly) in
the military will march in a straight line as they have been trained
to compensate for their 'strong side'.

But you have taken many words to convey the simplest of concepts: Let
the equipment from the microphone in the concert venue to the speakers
in the listening venue come as close as possible to putting out what
was put in. _ANYTHING_ more than that is the purest of speculation on
the part of the designer/engineer and also then entirely *and
necessarily* within the realm of "taste" on the part of a listener.
They either like it or they don't.

Now, move on a few seconds and allow the complication of
'impossibility' to color your opinions. Due to multiple potential
failure-points between the initial 'playing' of the music and the
actual delivery of the music to the listener, what gets out at the
south end of the chain is very most likely not much better than the
first cousin of what went into the north end. And what happens to what
comes out at the south end once it hits the listening venue adds
further potential failure points. So, it is all very well to write in
absolutes.... but those absolutes are simply not real. Holding them
dear "in principle" precludes one _ever_ achieving even reasonable
sound 'at home'.

It gets down to what we like in the end. We (my wife and I) go to
perhaps a dozen (at least) sometimes more live musical events in a
given year. Many are entirely unreinforced... no mike, no speakers, no-
nothing... small-venue events with perhaps a half-dozen (or less)
individuals in the room, listeners included. Some are large concerts
in a large hall or open-air venue. What we listen to at home has the
means to convey the emotion, color and intensity of what we hear
'live', but we would never fool ourselves into believing that it is
'the same thing'.

Now in response to another post, there is equipment that manages to
"test" very well yet sounds like glass in a blender. The Dynaco ST-120
is a favorite culprit here, and quite often taken as the
'representative' SS amp for all arguments between tube and SS... it
ain't necessarily so. And that entirely apart from citing a kit-
designed item which, just like the Saturn 5B rocket consists of a
bunch of parts all supplied by the lowest bidder and (at best)
assembled by (relatively experienced) Drexel students on piecework, at
worst by ham-handed consumers with acid-flux solder. Due to the _MANY_
design compromises and flaws in its early years, it blew up with great
enthusiasm, early and often. Others similarly of the era had similar
problems. Now, and at the same time, if the ST-120 is the
representative sample of "high-end" SS equipment, I would posit that
the Trabant should be the representative sample for the "high-end"
Automobile. Just keep in mind that when the ST-120 was released, Tube
Equipment was coming off more than 40 years of evolution. What is
wonderous about it all is that Tube stuff has about stayed still, SS
stuff has moved on considerable.

Please pass the Sno-Balls.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

p.s. Just to clarify my position, here is a brief list of active
equipment in our households (two houses):

Amplification:

Scott LK-150 **
Dynaco ST-70 *
Dynaco ST-35 **
Harmon-Kardon Citation 16 *

Integrated:

Dynaco SCA-35
AR AU amp **
Revox B251 *
Dynaco SCA-80Q
HK Citation integrated tube amp on the bench being restored.

Pre-Amp:

Dynaco PAS-3 *
HK Citation 17
Revox A720 **
Dynaco PAT-4
Dynaco PAT-5bifet

Receiver:

AR Model W and model R Receivers (one *)

CD:

Yamaha 5-disc changer *
Philips (Holland) 5-disc changer
Revox B225 **
Original 'very first' Sony discman w/transformer pack adaptor. (bench-
test unit) **

Cassette:

Revox B215 *
HK2000
Tascam 3-head

TT:

Rabco ST6 *
Rabco ST8
Revox B790 **
Revox B795

R/R

Revox A77 "road deck" (amp & speakers included). *

Speakers:

AR3a **
AR4x
AR M5
AR Athena sub-sat (vanishingly few were made before AR was shut down
by Jensen). **
Revox Picollo sub-sat
AR TSW 110 *
AR 622 active sub-sat system (bench-test unit) *

Tuners:

AR tuner **
Dynaco FM-3 heavily modifed *
Dynaco FM-3 full-factory
Dynaco FM-5
Dynaco AF-6
(repeat) Revox A720 **
HK-500
HK Citation 15
Grundig Satellit 700 (OK, a full-band portable radio with a very nice
stereo FM 'front end'). **

Of that bunch, about the only thing that I would consider by any
measure "high end" in terms of what is commonly perceived as such
would be the Revox A720.

Seems like a lot, but there are at-present no less than five (5)
active systems which are constantly changing. Ask me for line-up in 6
months, and only those items marked * are certain. In a year, **

[Arny Krueger]

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:09:19 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

Interestingly enough, some of them think that they are
extremely well-educated. As I showed for example in
another post where someone tried to pontificate expertly
about Slew Rate Distortion and Dielectric Absorbtion,
their knowlege is often obsolete, based on that which
has been proven to be urban myth, or they just plain
have things wrong.

I think that's a matter of opinion. I know, for instance,
that Belcher and Hirata very ably addressed these
distortions and methodologies to measure them back in the
1980's.

That was then, this is now.

Various postings found by "googling TIM and SID
bring up many pages of which the following URL is
representative:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...audio/amp.html

Just because its on the web doesn't mean that it is true or even accepted by
anybody but the page's author.

So if these distortion types are, indeed myths as you
assert, there are an awful lot of electrical engineers
(not excluding yours, truly) who haven't been told about
it.

It is true that education is always an unsolved problem.

I also know that before these distortion types were
characterized, solid-state amplifiers, especially, were
virtually unlistenable,

Simply not true.

and after these distortion types
were "discovered" and the limitations in amplifier design
which gave rise to them were overcome, that solid-state
amplifiers became much less objectionable.

Fact is that classic power amps such as the Crown DC300 are still in use in
professional applications, and within their power and load-handling limits,
sound pretty darn good.

Nowdays, it's
difficult to tell a good tube amp from a good solid-state
amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a Dynaco Stereo 120,
a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an Acoustat 1 Amp will
tell you, they sounded TERRIBLE as well as being
unreliable and unstable.

I don't know about the other two, but I have a Dyna 120 (from eBay) that
appears to have 100% original parts, and still 100% meets its original specs
on the test bench. I challenge anybody to pick it out in a straight-wire
bypass test with a difficult speaker load in a blind test. I use it as part
of a casual music listening system driving a pair of KEF speakers. It sounds
good.

It doesn't. The sound of real music in real space is the
only "real" goal here.

But you've already agreed that this is an impossble goal.

It is simply not important that
different people might perceive live music differently.

Yes, lets that be your straw man, not mine.

If a system were to sound exactly like live music, it
would sound like live music to everyone, irrespective of
how he or she perceives it because the music itself
consists of certain physical elements that exist in space
whether there is anyone there to hear it of not.

I agree with that, and its a very good point.

Individual perception does not enter in to the existence
of those physical elements. If those elements are
reproduced exactly, then anyone who has ever heard live
music would recognize that perfect reproduction for what
it is. It wouldn't matter, that a clarinet, for instance,
always sounds like a trombone to you or a flute to me. If
that clarinet is reproduced perfectly, both you and I
will recognize that fact irrespective of the differences
in our perception of it.

Are you saying that the concept of "good to your ears" is not all that
relevant, because an accurate sound system would sound lifelike to
everybody?

[Mike]

On Jul 20, 7:20 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.

I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things. Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

Statistics can't help that.

-Mike

[Mike]

On Jul 21, 8:45 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
Mike wrote:
They are based on the brain being able to
construct a conscious experience out of that signal.

Not necessarily. DBTs don't make any assumptions about how sound is
perceived, only that its perceptions have results that can be perceived.


An ABX test requires the test subject to consciously choose X=A or
X=B. Therefore it depends on being able to construct a conscious
experience.

Mike

[George Graves]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:54:55 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:09:19 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

Interestingly enough, some of them think that they are
extremely well-educated. As I showed for example in
another post where someone tried to pontificate expertly
about Slew Rate Distortion and Dielectric Absorbtion,
their knowlege is often obsolete, based on that which
has been proven to be urban myth, or they just plain
have things wrong.

I think that's a matter of opinion. I know, for instance,
that Belcher and Hirata very ably addressed these
distortions and methodologies to measure them back in the
1980's.

That was then, this is now.

Various postings found by "googling TIM and SID
bring up many pages of which the following URL is
representative:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...audio/amp.html

Just because its on the web doesn't mean that it is true or even accepted by
anybody but the page's author.

So if these distortion types are, indeed myths as you
assert, there are an awful lot of electrical engineers
(not excluding yours, truly) who haven't been told about
it.

It is true that education is always an unsolved problem.

I also know that before these distortion types were
characterized, solid-state amplifiers, especially, were
virtually unlistenable,

Simply not true.

Very true. Transistor amps in those days sounded hard, gritty and fuzzy with
tremendous amounts of odd-order distortion. Nasty sounding stuff. So bad that
many listeners pulled their old tube amps back out of retirement because they
couldn't stand the so-called "transistor sound". If early solid-state stuff
didn't sound so bad, I expect that tubes would have gone away in the Hi-Fi
field the way they went away in most other fields. The perception, "back
when", that solid-state amplifiers and preamps were so bad is probably the
reason why the tube industry is still with us and healthy (although the
differences between a good tube amp and a good solid-state amp are fairly
miniscule now, they still do exist and mostly show-up at the frequency
extremes and clipping characteristics).

and after these distortion types
were "discovered" and the limitations in amplifier design
which gave rise to them were overcome, that solid-state
amplifiers became much less objectionable.

Fact is that classic power amps such as the Crown DC300 are still in use in
professional applications, and within their power and load-handling limits,
sound pretty darn good.

I think that both of the Crown amps, the DC150 and the DC300 were among the
worst sounding amplifiers I've ever heard. Add to them the companion IC150
pre-amp and you have good-looking but simply atrocious sounding music system.

Nowdays, it's
difficult to tell a good tube amp from a good solid-state
amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a Dynaco Stereo 120,
a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an Acoustat 1 Amp will
tell you, they sounded TERRIBLE as well as being
unreliable and unstable.

I don't know about the other two, but I have a Dyna 120 (from eBay) that
appears to have 100% original parts, and still 100% meets its original specs
on the test bench. I challenge anybody to pick it out in a straight-wire
bypass test with a difficult speaker load in a blind test. I use it as part
of a casual music listening system driving a pair of KEF speakers. It sounds
good.

I don't doubt that it meets specs. Of course, as usual, those specs have
little or no correlation to how the amp actually sounds. The Dyna 120 is
slow, has VISIBLE (on an o'scope) notch or crossover distortion and the
2N3055 output devices have woefully inadequate gain-bandwidth for the job.
These output transistors were also being stressed to their ragged edge at the
time, and Dynaco had to hand select them for V (sub) CEO (again IIRC). If you
replaced them with off-the-shelf units available from the repair supply chain
at the time, (instead of directly from Dynaco), they would promptly blow out
taking the NPN/PNP driver pair (the numbers of which I've forgotten) with
them. In fact, that was the usual failure mode for these amps (which is the
reason that I also said that they were unreliable), but I digress. I have to
say that I seriously must question the hearing acuity of anyone who thinks
that any early transistor amps sounded acceptable and I would gladly accept
the challenge to pick a Stereo 120 out in a bypass test. I sure listened to
one long enough - when I first got out of college, my room mate had a Stereo
120 and a PAT-4 preamp driving a pair of Altec 15-inch co-axial speakers in
home-made cabinets.

The first SS amp that I heard that I thought sounded OK was one of Jim
Bongiorno's G.A.S. "Ampzilla" amps. The first one I owned that I thought was
OK was the original Hafler. Even the Hafler stuff sounded hard by modern
standards, but I suspect that swapping-out capacitors in the audio path would
solve at least some of that.

It doesn't. The sound of real music in real space is the
only "real" goal here.

But you've already agreed that this is an impossble goal.

It is simply not important that
different people might perceive live music differently.

Yes, lets that be your straw man, not mine.

If a system were to sound exactly like live music, it
would sound like live music to everyone, irrespective of
how he or she perceives it because the music itself
consists of certain physical elements that exist in space
whether there is anyone there to hear it of not.

I agree with that, and its a very good point.

Individual perception does not enter in to the existence
of those physical elements. If those elements are
reproduced exactly, then anyone who has ever heard live
music would recognize that perfect reproduction for what
it is. It wouldn't matter, that a clarinet, for instance,
always sounds like a trombone to you or a flute to me. If
that clarinet is reproduced perfectly, both you and I
will recognize that fact irrespective of the differences
in our perception of it.

Are you saying that the concept of "good to your ears" is not all that
relevant, because an accurate sound system would sound lifelike to
everybody?

I'm saying that an accurate (read that "perfect", a goal that we all agree is
impossible) audio system would sound like real music and that fact would be
apparent to anyone who knows the difference between live and reproduced
music, their own hearing peculiarities notwithstanding. Since everything a
person hears is "filtered" by their own auditory performance and perception,
they would hear both live music and canned the same way. If they notice the
difference between live music and reproduced music, then a perfect system
would sound like live music to them just as it would to anyone else with
different hearing performance and perceptions. Notice that the single
criterion that I have imposed is that the person be able to distinguish live
music from reproduced. If one's hearing is so faulty that one can not do
that, then of course, the point is moot.

The concept of "good to your ears" is generally not relevant unless the
phrase means "sounds close to live music to me." People who think that loose,
thumpy, one-note bass and strident, piercing highs sound "good to their ears"
are totally irrelevant to this conversation because making the music sound
real is obviously not their goal. They're certainly welcome to their opinion,
just don't expect anyone who knows better to share it.

[[email protected]]

On Jul 22, 10:43 am, George Graves wrote:
Sure, there IS a standard for "Good Audio Taste" but it's
predicated upon a fairly narrow set of criteria

1) The "Absolute Sound" refers, of course, to the sound
of real, live music, played in real space (as opposed to
some nebulous notion of "it sounds good").

Yeah, right.

This is the same Absolute Sound that, in a review of
some piece of equipment, stated that it was so
detailed that, on a recording of a harpsichord, the
reviewer could clearly distinguish the difference in
the heights of the strings between the lower and
upper keyboards. What was clear is that this reviewer
had never seen or heard a live harpsichord.

The is the same Absolute Sound that had Enid Lumley,
or whatever her name was, one of the people least in
touch with the sound of live music, at least as indicated
by her, well "writing," if it could be justified as such.

Absolute Sound can be held responsible as a major
force in retarding the art and technology of sound
reproduction indeed as a firce far removed form the
reproduction of music instead concentrating on the
physical and emotional jewelry of high-end audio.

[George Graves]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:51:15 -0700, Peter Wieck wrote
(in article ):

There is much going on here, and much that is vastly oversimplified.
Please note the strong infusion of opinion in the interpolations
below.

Sure, there IS a standard for "Good Audio Taste" but it's predicated upon a
fairly narrow set of criteria

1) The "Absolute Sound" refers, of course, to the sound of real,
live music, played in real space (as opposed to some nebulous
notion of "it sounds good").

That may well be true. But it is far too simplistic to apply to *most*
real-world situations. Removing entirely for discussion purposes all
music that is 'reinforced' when delivered live, most venues where it
is delivered are not able to be duplicated in the average listening
room. It may well be coming from a "real space", but with very few
exceptions that space is not the space where an electronic version of
it will be delivered again.

2) The purpose of "High-Fidelity" is to recreate, in the
listener's space the sound of this "real music, played in real space"
in as close an approximation as is technologically possible.

This is a complicated way of saying that "high-fidelity" equipment
should as closely as possible deliver back *exactly* what is put into
it, with the only deliberate and inherent difference possible being
"volume". For the sake of clarity, that means all settings "flat"
means IN = OUT +/- volume-only.

3) That this goal is the ONLY goal of High-Fidelity sound
reproduction and the industry that supports it.

And here is where vast over-simplification applies. That may be the
goal, but it cannot, by definition, be the only one. Were that the
case, the "Industry" would require that every user of its products
understand deeply the science of acoustics, the effect of their
listening space on the sound they achieve, and a bunch more things
that they mostly and carefully and deliberately ignore... excepting
those that also design "listening rooms". And they would also (if
honest) make sure that any user understood that unless he/she had the
means to build a rather large and nearly acoustically perfect
listening venue, Symphonic music would be impossible to achieve in
small rooms. Period. Too much stuff going on otherwise... One might
get close with very-nearly-perfect headphones, but otherwise, not
hardly.

One of the things the Industry *must* also do is create means for
their users to overcome the damage to the "absolute" sound created by
the recording and mastering process, the delivery process and finally
the reproducing process in whatever venue that might be. Just as if
all roads were perfectly banked, perfectly smooth and perfectly
curved, and all other drivers were equally perfect, vehicles would not
need springs or shock-absorbers and a host of other items made to
overcome the imperfections of the everyday environment. So, we have
tone/equalizers, balance controls and other electronic means to alter
the shape of the sound.

OTOH, this is likely not the average Joe's goal at all. Many
people who buy audio systems have never heard (or actually paid any
attention to - or, indeed, even care about) live music. Most people's
perception of live music is a rock band heard through sound
reinforcement equipment and herein lies the fallacy of the above. If
your goal is a system which sounds like a rock concert, then the above
lofty set of goals means nothing because sound reinforcement equipment
is not designed to be accurate. Of course, then we get into the area
of contention which says that the sound system that a rock group uses
IS that rock roup's "Absolute Sound" and if one's playback system
doesn't sound like the PA system that the group uses on the road, then
it's not reproducing the group the way one would hear it in the flesh.

Yes, absolutely. Again the premise is vastly over-simplified. Any home-
audio system should be capable of very-nearly reproducing what was put
into it.

In this case, "very-nearly" means "not by a country mile". And, it's not even
that simple. If one had a microphone feed of the very best available
microphones set-up in a perfect stereo pair from a concert hall into one's
listening room and one fed that feed through the best, most neutral-sounding
electronics to the very best, most accurate loudspeakers available, it still
wouldn't and couldn't sound anywhere close to the real thing. It would
doubtless sound damned good, but it would be a poor second to actually being
in the hall with nothing between the music and your ears except air.

The computer term GIGO applies equally to symphonic music and
to highly compressed rock music... what goes in should come out, if
garbage goes in, so should it come out. If the system cannot do this,
it cannot be "High Fidelity".

The problem is that everything that goes in is "garbage" because even
recordings aren't perfect facsimiles of the performance that they are
capturing.


Then of course, one would need a different sounding system for each
rock group's recordings being played. Quite a can of worms.

This is so wrong in so many ways as to be absolutely fascinating as an
approach to "High Fidelity".

Listening to a live concert of real musicians playing real acoustic
instruments in real space is a common experience that all can share
equally. Assuming that as the criteria for establishing goals for an
industry striving to make equipment to reproduce music seems a logical
course. After all, a rigid set of criteria for any endeavor is needed,
if for no other reason than to be a point of departure. Remember, a
man walking in a blinding snow storm which deprives him of references
will ALWAYS walk in circles.

If you are going to limit your universe of "High Fidelity" equipment
to that which is only capable of reproducing acoustic instruments
under certain conditions, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that
approach except that you must consider that much Acoustic Music has a
much higher Peak-to-Average such that it is far harder for any given
system to reproduce it than the average compressed R&R source. Saint-
Saens and his Organ Symphony, if properly recorded, with a (sustained)
30dB P/A in the last movement is the acid-test for any reasonable
system. Any system capable of making that at a reasonable volume
without turning it into mud is more than capable of fully and
completely reproducing _any_ R&R Album ever recorded.

You take things too literally. these are IDEALS and we understand them to be
unobtainable. But the need to strive for them keeps the industry and, indeed,
the hobby honest. You are also way-off base if you believe that a system
which accurately reproduces acoustical instruments will not also accurately
reproduce any instrument or ensembles of instruments. Perfect reproduction
means just that, so electric guitars and pipe organs would be equally
perfectly reproduced.


As to the snow thing, well... not always. Those trained (properly) in
the military will march in a straight line as they have been trained
to compensate for their 'strong side'.

But you have taken many words to convey the simplest of concepts: Let
the equipment from the microphone in the concert venue to the speakers
in the listening venue come as close as possible to putting out what
was put in. _ANYTHING_ more than that is the purest of speculation on
the part of the designer/engineer and also then entirely *and
necessarily* within the realm of "taste" on the part of a listener.
They either like it or they don't.

Now, move on a few seconds and allow the complication of
'impossibility' to color your opinions. Due to multiple potential
failure-points between the initial 'playing' of the music and the
actual delivery of the music to the listener, what gets out at the
south end of the chain is very most likely not much better than the
first cousin of what went into the north end. And what happens to what
comes out at the south end once it hits the listening venue adds
further potential failure points. So, it is all very well to write in
absolutes.... but those absolutes are simply not real. Holding them
dear "in principle" precludes one _ever_ achieving even reasonable
sound 'at home'.

It gets down to what we like in the end. We (my wife and I) go to
perhaps a dozen (at least) sometimes more live musical events in a
given year. Many are entirely unreinforced... no mike, no speakers, no-
nothing... small-venue events with perhaps a half-dozen (or less)
individuals in the room, listeners included. Some are large concerts
in a large hall or open-air venue. What we listen to at home has the
means to convey the emotion, color and intensity of what we hear
'live', but we would never fool ourselves into believing that it is
'the same thing'.

Neither would anybody else. But I think you miss the point here. It's not
whether or not an audio system sounds like live music (it doesn't) it's
whether or not SOME of the emotional connection with live music makes it
through the chain. To do that, it is often necessary to introduce some
colorations into the playback system to "simulate" in some way, that
emotional connection. Why do you think that so many people believe that vinyl
phonograph records sound more like live music than do CDs of the same
performance? Obviously, the CD should be a lot less "colored" than a record
with all of its mechanical components and the fact that it's adding another
transducer into the chain. But many people find the colorations inherent in
phono playback to be more consonant with live music. It's obviously not more
accurate, but it provides something that makes these listeners feel closer to
the real event. None of this means that the industry's goal shouldn't be
perfection even though we all agree that such perfection is impossible.

Now in response to another post, there is equipment that manages to
"test" very well yet sounds like glass in a blender. The Dynaco ST-120
is a favorite culprit here, and quite often taken as the
'representative' SS amp for all arguments between tube and SS... it
ain't necessarily so.

I never said it was. I merely used it and the Citation 12 and the Acoustat 1
as representatives of an era where SS equipment measured great and sounded
lousy.

And that entirely apart from citing a kit-
designed item which, just like the Saturn 5B rocket consists of a
bunch of parts all supplied by the lowest bidder and (at best)
assembled by (relatively experienced) Drexel students on piecework, at
worst by ham-handed consumers with acid-flux solder. Due to the _MANY_
design compromises and flaws in its early years, it blew up with great
enthusiasm, early and often.

And I pointed out in another post, that was because the 2n3055 output
transistors had to be hand-picked by Dynaco due to their marginal-for-the-job
specifications. Also, the gain bandwidth of the transistors used was woefully
inadequate for audio.

Others similarly of the era had similar
problems.

The H-K Citation 12 being one of those.

Now, and at the same time, if the ST-120 is the
representative sample of "high-end" SS equipment, I would posit that
the Trabant should be the representative sample for the "high-end"
Automobile.

There was no "high-end" as we now know it in those days. There was just
"component" Hi-Fi and "brown goods". The "high-end" came about as a reaction,
a backlash, if you will, to the horrible sound being perpetrated on an
unsuspecting and unassuming public as the "new sound of transistors". It's
the reason why tubes enjoyed a renaissance back in the seventies that they
are still enjoying to this day even though there is probably little to choose
between them in absolute terms.

Just keep in mind that when the ST-120 was released, Tube
Equipment was coming off more than 40 years of evolution. What is
wonderous about it all is that Tube stuff has about stayed still, SS
stuff has moved on considerable.

I agree, good SS stuff today is almost indistinguishable from the best tube
gear. In fact, I have 5 channel H-K A/V receiver (AVR-7000) in my video
system that I could easily live with as my only source of music reproduction
if circumstances dictated that I do so. Of course it was H-K's top of the
line at the time and wasn't cheap at over $2000. The point is that here's a
receiver, designed primarily for a surround system in a home theater, that
sounds better than probably the best solid-state high-end amplifiers of just
a decade or so earlier.

Please pass the Sno-Balls.

Nothing wrong with Sno-Balls. Always liked 'em.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

p.s. Just to clarify my position, here is a brief list of active
equipment in our households (two houses):

Amplification:

Scott LK-150 **
Dynaco ST-70 *
Dynaco ST-35 **
Harmon-Kardon Citation 16 *

Integrated:

Dynaco SCA-35
AR AU amp **
Revox B251 *
Dynaco SCA-80Q
HK Citation integrated tube amp on the bench being restored.

Pre-Amp:

Dynaco PAS-3 *
HK Citation 17
Revox A720 **
Dynaco PAT-4
Dynaco PAT-5bifet

Receiver:

AR Model W and model R Receivers (one *)

CD:

Yamaha 5-disc changer *
Philips (Holland) 5-disc changer
Revox B225 **
Original 'very first' Sony discman w/transformer pack adaptor. (bench-
test unit) **

Cassette:

Revox B215 *
HK2000
Tascam 3-head

TT:

Rabco ST6 *
Rabco ST8
Revox B790 **
Revox B795

R/R

Revox A77 "road deck" (amp & speakers included). *

Speakers:

AR3a **
AR4x
AR M5
AR Athena sub-sat (vanishingly few were made before AR was shut down
by Jensen). **
Revox Picollo sub-sat
AR TSW 110 *
AR 622 active sub-sat system (bench-test unit) *

Tuners:

AR tuner **
Dynaco FM-3 heavily modifed *
Dynaco FM-3 full-factory
Dynaco FM-5
Dynaco AF-6
(repeat) Revox A720 **
HK-500
HK Citation 15
Grundig Satellit 700 (OK, a full-band portable radio with a very nice
stereo FM 'front end'). **

Of that bunch, about the only thing that I would consider by any
measure "high end" in terms of what is commonly perceived as such
would be the Revox A720.

Seems like a lot, but there are at-present no less than five (5)
active systems which are constantly changing. Ask me for line-up in 6
months, and only those items marked * are certain. In a year, **


Wow! My circumstances are much more modest than that!

Audio - active system:

CD/SACD: Sony SCD-777ES
Pre-amp: modified Audio Research SP-9 Mk III.
Power amp(s): VTL 140 Monoblocks (Each uses six 807 transmitter tubes for
outputs!).
Speakers: Martin Logan Aeon i Hybrid Electrostatic/cone with two Sunfire
Super Junior subs.
R/R tape: Otari 5050 half-track, 15ips.
DAT: Otari DTR-8s
DVD burner: TASCAM CDRW-7000

Not currently in system:

Tuner: Yamaha T-85 (my satellite receiver has Sirius Radio, see no need to
listen to FM currently).
Amps: 2- Denon POA-6600A class A monoblocks, 2- RockFord-Hafler P-1500
'TransNova" amps strapped to produce 400 Watts RMS.

Other equipment includes previously mentioned H-K AVR-7000 receiver in home
theater system.

[bob]

On Jul 24, 6:00 pm, Mike wrote:
I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.

I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things.

This is just semantic nonsense. First of all, you do not "perceive"
music. You perceive a stimulus, which your brain then *interprets* as
music. Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not, because "music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct. The *perception* of music and
the *perception* of sound are one and the same.

If you have any evidence to the contrary, now would be a good time to
present it. I'm not holding my breath.

Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

It sure might, and it often is. There's no reason you can't use
different clips for each trial, or for different sets of trials within
a single test. The latter approach is very useful for narrowing in on
particularly revealing sounds. If you think this somehow doesn't work,
you need to provide some evidence, or at least a plausible
explanation. But remember that real scientists use this approach
everyday. They don't pay much attention to pseudo-philosophers
jabbering about "epistemology."

bob

[Steven Sullivan]

Mike wrote:
On Jul 20, 7:20 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.

I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things. Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

You keep stating this as fact, when it's clearly not.

In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B -- which one would expect
to be a common complaint, if the 'problem' you propose really
existed.

The fact that people can *pass* ABX tests also militates
against there being a 'problem' such as you cite. One would
expect ABX results to be random, by your scenario -- rendering the
test. They aren't.People tend to pass when measurable difference in level between
musical samples rises above a dB or so, for example (discrimination is even
better when test tones are used..suggesting that musical signals would
be *worse* for discriminating difference between gear, not better).

Statistics can't help that.

They aren't needed to.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Steven Sullivan]

Mike wrote:
On Jul 21, 8:45 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
Mike wrote:
They are based on the brain being able to
construct a conscious experience out of that signal.

Not necessarily. DBTs don't make any assumptions about how sound is
perceived, only that its perceptions have results that can be perceived.


An ABX test requires the test subject to consciously choose X=A or
X=B. Therefore it depends on being able to construct a conscious
experience.

As does *any* verbalizable decision about the 'sound' of two
pieces of gear.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[George Graves]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:08:28 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On Jul 22, 10:43 am, George Graves wrote:
Sure, there IS a standard for "Good Audio Taste" but it's
predicated upon a fairly narrow set of criteria

1) The "Absolute Sound" refers, of course, to the sound
of real, live music, played in real space (as opposed to
some nebulous notion of "it sounds good").

Yeah, right.

This is the same Absolute Sound that, in a review of
some piece of equipment, stated that it was so
detailed that, on a recording of a harpsichord, the
reviewer could clearly distinguish the difference in
the heights of the strings between the lower and
upper keyboards. What was clear is that this reviewer
had never seen or heard a live harpsichord.

I don't remember mentioning the magazine. The Absolute Sound refers to the
reference being live music. I.E. Live music, played on unamplified acoustic
instruments in real space IS the Absolute Sound

The is the same Absolute Sound that had Enid Lumley,
or whatever her name was, one of the people least in
touch with the sound of live music, at least as indicated
by her, well "writing," if it could be justified as such.

Absolute Sound can be held responsible as a major
force in retarding the art and technology of sound
reproduction indeed as a firce far removed form the
reproduction of music instead concentrating on the
physical and emotional jewelry of high-end audio.

It's just a magazine and its purpose is entertainment and the current TAS is
but a pale shadow of what it used to be. Neither TAS or Stereophile are as
entertaining to read as when HP and Gordon Holt were at each' helm
respectively.

[Mike]

On Jul 24, 4:28 pm, bob wrote:
On Jul 24, 6:00 pm, Mike wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.

I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things.

This is just semantic nonsense. First of all, you do not "perceive"
music. You perceive a stimulus, which your brain then *interprets* as
music.

Any stimulus can be interpreted in multiple ways, as evidenced by
optical illusions. Any stimulus has multiple aspects, each of which
can be brought to conscious foreground or allowed to lie in
background. Say we have a drawing of a person---you can regard it as
an image of a person, or you can focus on line thickness and texture.

So our stimulus for an audio DBT is music. Music has many aspects,
including emotional tone, and things like "bright sound" and "dark
sound" (i.e. a lot of highs or muted). And the list goes on endlessly.
If you want to generalize the results of your DBT to normal listening,
you have to show that the test subjects were able to perceive all
significant aspects of the signal. This is almost certainly false,
although the key point is that no evidence has been provided---it is
simply assumed that as the test subject switches rapidly between A & B
(to give one scenario) and tries to "zero in" on the difference, that
all aspects of the signal are available to consciousness. That's a
very poor assumption as evidenced by most psychological research.

Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not, because "music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct. The *perception* of music and
the *perception* of sound are one and the same.

The *perception of a stimulus* as music and the *perception of a
stimulus* as sound are different things.


If you have any evidence to the contrary, now would be a good time to
present it. I'm not holding my breath.

If you'd like to provide evidence they are the same thing, I'm
waiting.


Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

It sure might, and it often is. There's no reason you can't use
different clips for each trial, or for different sets of trials within
a single test.

You misunderstand. Each time the listener SWITCHES back to A to check
it against X. If that were a different signal each time, that's
analogous to the situation we have.

The latter approach is very useful for narrowing in on
particularly revealing sounds. If you think this somehow doesn't work,
you need to provide some evidence, or at least a plausible
explanation. But remember that real scientists use this approach
everyday. They don't pay much attention to pseudo-philosophers
jabbering about "epistemology."

Most smart people also know that in a debate, when you need to refer
to your opponent with negative qualifiers, you don't have much of
substance to say.

Mike

[Mike]

On Jul 24, 4:29 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Mike wrote:
On Jul 20, 7:20 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.
I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things. Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

You keep stating this as fact, when it's clearly not.

Okay, let's see your explanation...


In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B -- which one would expect
to be a common complaint, if the 'problem' you propose really
existed.

To say that A is a different signal each time you switch back to it is
an exaggeration, but shows the analogy. Now what's really going on is
that A is *perceived* differently each time you switch back. This adds
a kind of "noise" to the test. What you recognize each time you switch
back to A is a perception that involves only some of the aspects of
the signal. The unproven assumption is that the test subject somehow
has every meaningful aspect of the signal available to consciousness,
when that's not the case for even simple, common situations.

However, the test subject certainly has *some* aspect of the signal
available. "Brightness" or "darkness" would probably be a good example
in many cases. So as long as the difference between A and B is large
enough in an aspect which is available to consciousness, the test
subject will pass.


The fact that people can *pass* ABX tests also militates
against there being a 'problem' such as you cite. One would
expect ABX results to be random, by your scenario -- rendering the
test. They aren't.People tend to pass when measurable difference in level between
musical samples rises above a dB or so, for example (discrimination is even
better when test tones are used..suggesting that musical signals would
be *worse* for discriminating difference between gear, not better).

Explanation above.

-Mike

[bob]

On Jul 25, 10:30 am, Mike wrote:
So our stimulus for an audio DBT is music. Music has many aspects,
including emotional tone, and things like "bright sound" and "dark
sound" (i.e. a lot of highs or muted). And the list goes on endlessly.
If you want to generalize the results of your DBT to normal listening,
you have to show that the test subjects were able to perceive all
significant aspects of the signal.

No, I don't. In fact, I can guarantee you that no subject of a
listening test involving music EVER hears everything in the signal.
But that's not unique to listening tests. No one who listens to music
(or any complex sound) hears everything in the signal. That's due to a
well-documented phenomenon called masking. Note that you have failed
here to provide evidence that listening in a listening test is
different from listening generally.

This is almost certainly false,
although the key point is that no evidence has been provided---it is
simply assumed that as the test subject switches rapidly between A & B
(to give one scenario) and tries to "zero in" on the difference, that
all aspects of the signal are available to consciousness. That's a
very poor assumption as evidenced by most psychological research.

Given that you haven't cited a single shred of psychological research
yet, this is a pretty ballsy thing to say. But, as I've just explained
above, DBTs are fully consistent with that research. This should not
surprised you, because the research is, of course, _based in part on
DBTs._

Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not, because "music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct. The *perception* of music and
the *perception* of sound are one and the same.

The *perception of a stimulus* as music and the *perception of a
stimulus* as sound are different things.

Oh, dear. More vocabulary problems. You are simply misusing the word
perception here. You "perceive" a stimulus. You then "interpret" that
stimulus as music, or speech, or something else. You're trying to
confuse the two concepts in order to bolster a false premise. It's not
working.

If you have any evidence to the contrary, now would be a good time to
present it. I'm not holding my breath.

If you'd like to provide evidence they are the same thing, I'm
waiting.

The ear-brain mechanism perceives sound as changes in air pressure.
The ear-brain mechanism perceives musical sound as...what? You're
telling me it's not changes in air pressure? Then what is it?

Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

It sure might, and it often is. There's no reason you can't use
different clips for each trial, or for different sets of trials within
a single test.

You misunderstand. Each time the listener SWITCHES back to A to check
it against X. If that were a different signal each time, that's
analogous to the situation we have.

But it's not a different signal each time. It's the same signal. Do
you not understand how a DBT works?

The latter approach is very useful for narrowing in on
particularly revealing sounds. If you think this somehow doesn't work,
you need to provide some evidence, or at least a plausible
explanation. But remember that real scientists use this approach
everyday. They don't pay much attention to pseudo-philosophers
jabbering about "epistemology."

Most smart people also know that in a debate, when you need to refer
to your opponent with negative qualifiers, you don't have much of
substance to say.

I'm afraid if you want my respect, you're going to have to earn it by
providing some evidence for your so-far baseless assertions. Instead,
all you've been able to do is play semantic games and misuse words.

My point here was that scientists who have studied psychophysics
extensively have determined that these tests are in fact quite robust.
Now, that's an argument from authority, which I'll concede has its
vulnerabilities. But all you've been able to muster in response is the
unsupported assertion that DBTs are "invalid" because of "something
about the experience of music" which you haven't shown to be unique
either to music or to DBTs. IOW, you've been arguing from nothing more
than your own authority--which is not recommended unless you have
some.

bob

[bob]

On Jul 25, 10:31 am, Mike wrote:
On Jul 24, 4:29 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:

In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B -- which one would expect
to be a common complaint, if the 'problem' you propose really
existed.

To say that A is a different signal each time you switch back to it is
an exaggeration,

No, it's an outright false statement. Do you not know the difference
between an exaggeration and a false statement? Jeez, this vocabulary
problem is worse than I imagined.

but shows the analogy. Now what's really going on is
that A is *perceived* differently each time you switch back. This adds
a kind of "noise" to the test. What you recognize each time you switch
back to A is a perception that involves only some of the aspects of
the signal. The unproven assumption is that the test subject somehow
has every meaningful aspect of the signal available to consciousness,
when that's not the case for even simple, common situations.

Leaving aside your continued muddling of terms and concepts, you
haven't shown that this is in any way relevant, even if it were true.
In particular, you never answered Arny's point that the same problem
plagues you no matter how you try to evaluate audio equipment. If the
"experience of music" changes every time you listen to it, how do you
ever arrive at an assessment of what a component actually sounds like?
Doesn't it keep changing? Haven't you just rendered the entire high-
end pursuit pointless?

But wait--it gets worse. As you yourself have conceded, our response
to ANY stimulus changes each time we experience it. Not just music--
any sound, any sight, any taste, any smell. The crux of your
"argument," if we were to take it seriously, would be that it is
impossible for humans to understand anything about human perception,
because human perception is inconstant.

And yet, scientists have learned an amazing amount about human
perception, and more particularly about human hearing. We've
discovered a variety of thresholds for perception, for example. We've
also discovered phenomena like masking--which, we should note, is a
major reason why differences often fail to show up in listening tests
involving music, where there is a variety of tones and harmonics all
masking each other.

Finally, I should point out that we know about thresholds and masking
not only from a variety of types of listening tests, but also from
anatomical analysis of the hearing mechanism--more reason to be quite
certain that masking takes place when we are "experiencing music,"
just as much as when we are doing a DBT.

bob

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike" wrote in message

On Jul 20, 7:20 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the
sound reproduction abilities of various pieces of
equipment, not the perception of music.

I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the
perception of _music_.

So, you don't see any connection between this and the effect of equipment on
the perception of sounds?

Music comes in through sound; but
the _perception_ of sound as music and the _perception_
of sound as sound are two different things.

Music is a kind of sound, so music is a subset of sound. It seems like
limiting the discussion to just music is unecessarily narrow.

Conventional
ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music.

Say what?

Almost every ABX test ever done was based on the listener's perceptions of
sound as music, the claim that ABX testing is irrelevant to the perception
of sound as music makes no sense at all.

Since the test signal is
perceived differently each time you listen, you might as
well use different test signals each time you listen.

I sense that the figurative baby is being thrown out with the wash water.

It is true that every perception is at least a little different, but this
does not justify using a different test signal for every listening test.

In other words, it might as well be a different clip of
music each time you listen to A.

This ignores the fact that listeners need the opportunity to improve their
accuracy by learning a little more about the music and its effects on the
equipment every time they listen to it.

Statistics can't help that.

Excluded middle argument noted.

[Steven Sullivan]

Mike wrote:
On Jul 24, 4:29 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Mike wrote:
On Jul 20, 7:20 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.
I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things. Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

You keep stating this as fact, when it's clearly not.

Okay, let's see your explanation...


In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B -- which one would expect
to be a common complaint, if the 'problem' you propose really
existed.

To say that A is a different signal each time you switch back to it is
an exaggeration, but shows the analogy. Now what's really going on is
that A is *perceived* differently each time you switch back. This adds
a kind of "noise" to the test. What you recognize each time you switch
back to A is a perception that involves only some of the aspects of
the signal. The unproven assumption is that the test subject somehow
has every meaningful aspect of the signal available to consciousness,
when that's not the case for even simple, common situations.

First, it is *your* unproven assertion that someone has to have 'every
meaningful aspect of the signal available to consciousness' in order
to identify sameness or difference of sound. That's an absurdly loaded
statement, especially in that what constitutes 'meaningful' is not defined.

Second, you are not limited to how many times you switch between A, B, and X,
before you actually make a decision as to whether X is A or B. Not to
mention that you repeat this process for every trial.

Third, why would DBT work AT ALL for ANY reason, if 'all meaningful
aspects' of the things under consideraton, had to be 'available to
consciousness'. In a blind trial, there is one rather 'meaningful' -- in that
it certainly can influence perception -- 'aspect' that is purposely
hidden from the subject: that's the identity of the object under consideration
(whether it's a drug, a piece of audio gear, or a musician auditioning
for an orchestral seat).

However, the test subject certainly has *some* aspect of the signal
available. "Brightness" or "darkness" would probably be a good example
in many cases. So as long as the difference between A and B is large
enough in an aspect which is available to consciousness, the test
subject will pass.

"Brightness' and 'darkness' are terrible examples, unless you define
what they mean -- such as, a range of treble frequencies, or bass
frequencies. And yes, differences in EQ certainly ARE often ABX-able.

The fact that people can *pass* ABX tests also militates
against there being a 'problem' such as you cite. One would
expect ABX results to be random, by your scenario -- rendering the
test. They aren't.People tend to pass when measurable difference in level between
musical samples rises above a dB or so, for example (discrimination is even
better when test tones are used..suggesting that musical signals would
be *worse* for discriminating difference between gear, not better).

Explanation above.

Your explanation parses to: some differences are big enough to heard.
These are also likely to be differentiated in an ABX test.

Yes, we know.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike" wrote in message

On Jul 21, 8:45 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
Mike wrote:
They are based on the brain being able to
construct a conscious experience out of that signal.

Not necessarily. DBTs don't make any assumptions about
how sound is perceived, only that its perceptions have
results that can be perceived.

An ABX test requires the test subject to consciously
choose X=A or X=B. Therefore it depends on being able to
construct a conscious experience.

All that is required is that the listener be conscious of his decision. He
can reach that decision by conscious or unconscious means.

[Arny Krueger]

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:54:55 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:09:19 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

Interestingly enough, some of them think that they are
extremely well-educated. As I showed for example in
another post where someone tried to pontificate
expertly about Slew Rate Distortion and Dielectric
Absorbtion, their knowlege is often obsolete, based on
that which has been proven to be urban myth, or they
just plain have things wrong.

I think that's a matter of opinion. I know, for
instance, that Belcher and Hirata very ably addressed
these distortions and methodologies to measure them
back in the 1980's.

That was then, this is now.

Various postings found by "googling TIM and SID
bring up many pages of which the following URL is
representative:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...audio/amp.html

Just because its on the web doesn't mean that it is true
or even accepted by anybody but the page's author.

So if these distortion types are, indeed myths as you
assert, there are an awful lot of electrical engineers
(not excluding yours, truly) who haven't been told about
it.

It is true that education is always an unsolved problem.

I also know that before these distortion types were
characterized, solid-state amplifiers, especially, were
virtually unlistenable,

Simply not true.

Very true.

Just saying its so does not prove a thing.

Transistor amps in those days sounded hard,
gritty and fuzzy with tremendous amounts of odd-order
distortion.

You mentiones some specific amps, and I've measured the distortion in many
of them over the years. As I mentioned I have a sample of one of the
allegedly worst-sounding amps around - the Dyna ST-120. The levels and
kinds of distortion you mention was not characteristic of them. As a rule,
they had less odd-order distortion than the better tubed amps of the day.

Nasty sounding stuff.

So goes the urban legend.

So bad that many
listeners pulled their old tube amps back out of
retirement because they couldn't stand the so-called
"transistor sound".

Speaking as one such person, what made me regress to tubes was the
reliability situation for very early germanium output power amps, which was
very poor until silicon transistors became readily available. The amps you
previously mentioned all used silicon transistors, as does the ST-120.

If early solid-state stuff didn't
sound so bad, I expect that tubes would have gone away in
the Hi-Fi field the way they went away in most other
fields.

They did. I don't think that SS amps killed off tubed amps quite as fast as
CDs killed off vinyl, but tubed equipment dropped out of the mainstream
quickly enough.

The perception, "back when", that solid-state
amplifiers and preamps were so bad is probably the reason
why the tube industry is still with us and healthy

It is a heathy tiny niche, particularly if you ignore tubed MI equipment.

(although the differences between a good tube amp and a
good solid-state amp are fairly miniscule now, they still
do exist and mostly show-up at the frequency extremes and
cipping characteristics).

The main difference between tubed and SS power amps is the tremendous
price/performance advantage of the latter. Ever price a 2,000 watt tubed
power amp?

came much less objectionable.

Most SS power amps of quality level mid-fi or better will pass a straight
wire bypass test with any reasonable load. Only a minority of tubed power
amps will pass a straight wire bypass test with a tough but reasonble
speaker load.

Fact is that classic power amps such as the Crown DC300
are still in use in professional applications, and
within their power and load-handling limits, sound
pretty darn good.

I think that both of the Crown amps, the DC150 and the
DC300 were among the worst sounding amplifiers I've ever
heard.

That's your opinon and you have every right to keep it. Fact of the matter
is that those amps are still found in professional use, from time to time.
I've heard them many times over the years, and other than their slightly
limited reactive load-handling abilites, they sound fine.

Add them to the companion IC150 pre-amp and you
have good-looking but simply atrocious sounding music
system.

I don't have any recent experience with the IC150, but when it was new I
heard it in some fine-sounding systems.

Nowdays, it's
difficult to tell a good tube amp from a good
solid-state amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a
Dynaco Stereo 120, a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an
Acoustat 1 Amp will tell you, they sounded TERRIBLE as
well as being unreliable and unstable.

I don't know about the other two, but I have a Dyna 120
(from eBay) that appears to have 100% original parts,
and still 100% meets its original specs on the test
bench. I challenge anybody to pick it out in a
straight-wire bypass test with a difficult speaker load
in a blind test. I use it as part of a casual music
listening system driving a pair of KEF speakers. It
sounds good.

I don't doubt that it meets specs. Of course, as usual,
those specs have little or no correlation to how the amp
actually sounds.

Easy to say, but also easy to disprove.

The Dyna 120 is slow, has VISIBLE (on an
o'scope) notch or crossover distortion and the 2N3055
output devices have woefully inadequate gain-bandwidth
for the job.

That must have been a broken Dyna 120, as detailed tests show no crossover
notches on my ST120. The test equipment used for the tests had residuals in
the 0.001% range.

These output transistors were also being
stressed to their ragged edge at the time, and Dynaco had
to hand select them for V (sub) CEO (again IIRC). If you
replaced them with off-the-shelf units available from the
repair supply chain at the time, (instead of directly
from Dynaco), they would promptly blow out taking the
NPN/PNP driver pair (the numbers of which I've forgotten)
with them.

Interesting how my amp survived with factory outputs. It continues to
survive driving some speakers that actually constitute a tough load, being
rather reactive and dipping well below 4 ohms within the normal audio range.

In fact, that was the usual failure mode for
these amps (which is the reason that I also said that
they were unreliable), but I digress. I have to say that
I seriously must question the hearing acuity of anyone
who thinks that any early transistor amps sounded
acceptable and I would gladly accept the challenge to
pick a Stereo 120 out in a bypass test.

You're safe because your posting IP address traces to one coast or the
other, and I'm in the midwest.

I sure listened
to one long enough - when I first got out of college, my
room mate had a Stereo 120 and a PAT-4 preamp driving a
pair of Altec 15-inch co-axial speakers in home-made
cabinets.

A composite system - so you don't know which part of it made sound bad.

The first SS amp that I heard that I thought sounded OK
was one of Jim Bongiorno's G.A.S. "Ampzilla" amps. The
first one I owned that I thought was OK was the original
Hafler. Even the Hafler stuff sounded hard by modern
standards, but I suspect that swapping-out capacitors in
the audio path would solve at least some of that.

Capacitor magic - another one of those urban audiophile myths.

Individual perception does not enter in to the existence
of those physical elements. If those elements are
reproduced exactly, then anyone who has ever heard live
music would recognize that perfect reproduction for what
it is. It wouldn't matter, that a clarinet, for
instance, always sounds like a trombone to you or a
flute to me. If that clarinet is reproduced perfectly,
both you and I will recognize that fact irrespective of
the differences in our perception of it.

Are you saying that the concept of "good to your ears"
is not all that relevant, because an accurate sound
system would sound lifelike to everybody?

I'm saying that an accurate (read that "perfect", a goal
that we all agree is impossible) audio system would sound
like real music and that fact would be apparent to anyone
who knows the difference between live and reproduced
music, their own hearing peculiarities notwithstanding.

Agreed.

Since everything a person hears is "filtered" by their
own auditory performance and perception, they would hear
both live music and canned the same way. If they notice
the difference between live music and reproduced music,
then a perfect system would sound like live music to them
just as it would to anyone else with different hearing
performance and perceptions. Notice that the single
criterion that I have imposed is that the person be able
to distinguish live music from reproduced. If one's
hearing is so faulty that one can not do that, then of
course, the point is moot.

Agreed.

The concept of "good to your ears" is generally not
relevant unless the phrase means "sounds close to live
music to me." People who think that loose, thumpy,
one-note bass and strident, piercing highs sound "good to
their ears" are totally irrelevant to this conversation
because making the music sound real is obviously not
their goal. They're certainly welcome to their opinion,
just don't expect anyone who knows better to share it.

Agreed.

[c. leeds]

Steven Sullivan wrote:

In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B...

You must be joking. Many abx trials result in the listener being unable
to distinguish X as A or B.

How many abx trials have you proctored?

[c. leeds]

nabob wrote:

This is just semantic nonsense. First of all, you do not "perceive"
music. You perceive a stimulus, which your brain then *interprets* as
music.

This can't be proven, because it is opinion stated as fact. It is
comparable to the claim, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is
there, it does not make a sound."

Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not,

Again, opinion stated as fact. Arguably, perception certainly does
change dependent on the nature of sound, and music is based on that premise.

because "music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct.

This is false. In fact, music exists in the physical world completely
independent of humankind. Can you think of a few examples?

remember that real scientists use this approach
everyday. They don't pay much attention to pseudo-philosophers
jabbering about "epistemology."

If you want to align yourself with "real scientists," you might confine
your remarks to "real science," rather than engage in the sort of
jabbering and pseudo-philosophizing to which you object.

[bob]

On Jul 25, 7:11 pm, "c. leeds" wrote:
nabob wrote:
This is just semantic nonsense. First of all, you do not "perceive"
music. You perceive a stimulus, which your brain then *interprets* as
music.

This can't be proven, because it is opinion stated as fact.

I'm not stating it as a fact. I'm defining terms. In particular, I'm
pointing out that my interlocutor is using the word "perception" in an
ambiguous, and ultimately misleading, way in order to bolster a flawed
argument.

It is
comparable to the claim, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is
there, it does not make a sound."

Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not,

Again, opinion stated as fact. Arguably, perception certainly does
change dependent on the nature of sound, and music is based on that premise.

Arguably? I'd like to see that argument. Does the ear work
differently? Does the resulting nerve signal encode the frequency and
amplitude of the sound differently? Pray tell us how this works.

because "music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct.

This is false. In fact, music exists in the physical world completely
independent of humankind. Can you think of a few examples?

No, I can't think of any examples, because there aren't any. Nothing
is music until some human says, that is music. Note that different
cultures have different definitions of music. For that matter,
different musicologists have different definitions of music. Whereas
scientists agree on what sound is, for example.

remember that real scientists use this approach

everyday. They don't pay much attention to pseudo-philosophers
jabbering about "epistemology."

If you want to align yourself with "real scientists," you might confine
your remarks to "real science," rather than engage in the sort of
jabbering and pseudo-philosophizing to which you object.

Philosophizing? Moi? No, I'm trying to carry on a technical
conversation with someone (maybe now more than one) who resolutely
refuses to acknowledge that it IS a technical conversation.

bob

[George Graves]

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:07:43 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:54:55 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:09:19 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

Interestingly enough, some of them think that they are
extremely well-educated. As I showed for example in
another post where someone tried to pontificate
expertly about Slew Rate Distortion and Dielectric
Absorbtion, their knowlege is often obsolete, based on
that which has been proven to be urban myth, or they
just plain have things wrong.

I think that's a matter of opinion. I know, for
instance, that Belcher and Hirata very ably addressed
these distortions and methodologies to measure them
back in the 1980's.

That was then, this is now.

Various postings found by "googling TIM and SID
bring up many pages of which the following URL is
representative:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...audio/amp.html

Just because its on the web doesn't mean that it is true
or even accepted by anybody but the page's author.

So if these distortion types are, indeed myths as you
assert, there are an awful lot of electrical engineers
(not excluding yours, truly) who haven't been told about
it.

It is true that education is always an unsolved problem.

I also know that before these distortion types were
characterized, solid-state amplifiers, especially, were
virtually unlistenable,

Simply not true.

Very true.

Just saying its so does not prove a thing.

Transistor amps in those days sounded hard,
gritty and fuzzy with tremendous amounts of odd-order
distortion.

You mentiones some specific amps, and I've measured the distortion in many
of them over the years. As I mentioned I have a sample of one of the
allegedly worst-sounding amps around - the Dyna ST-120. The levels and
kinds of distortion you mention was not characteristic of them. As a rule,
they had less odd-order distortion than the better tubed amps of the day.

Nasty sounding stuff.

So goes the urban legend.

So bad that many
listeners pulled their old tube amps back out of
retirement because they couldn't stand the so-called
"transistor sound".

Speaking as one such person, what made me regress to tubes was the
reliability situation for very early germanium output power amps, which was
very poor until silicon transistors became readily available. The amps you
previously mentioned all used silicon transistors, as does the ST-120.

If early solid-state stuff didn't
sound so bad, I expect that tubes would have gone away in
the Hi-Fi field the way they went away in most other
fields.

They did. I don't think that SS amps killed off tubed amps quite as fast as
CDs killed off vinyl, but tubed equipment dropped out of the mainstream
quickly enough.

The perception, "back when", that solid-state
amplifiers and preamps were so bad is probably the reason
why the tube industry is still with us and healthy

It is a heathy tiny niche, particularly if you ignore tubed MI equipment.

It's not so tiny. I suspect there are as many manufacturers of tube gear out
there as there are of transistor stuff. Just off the top of my head:

Audio Research
Vacuum Tube Logic
Manley
VAC
Cayin
Cary
Conrad Johnson
Atmosphere

and at least a score more. But these are probably the major ones.

(although the differences between a good tube amp and a
good solid-state amp are fairly miniscule now, they still
do exist and mostly show-up at the frequency extremes and
cipping characteristics).

The main difference between tubed and SS power amps is the tremendous
price/performance advantage of the latter. Ever price a 2,000 watt tubed
power amp?

Not lately. But OTOH, who needs 2000 watts in their home audio system? Yeah,
tube equipment can be pricey. My VTL 140s were about six grand a pair when
new (and that was in the early nineties). But they do something that SS
equipment doesn't do so well. They hold their value.

came much less objectionable.

Most SS power amps of quality level mid-fi or better will pass a straight
wire bypass test with any reasonable load. Only a minority of tubed power
amps will pass a straight wire bypass test with a tough but reasonble
speaker load.

I think most modern amps of either stripe are probably very low in
coloration. But if I were to guess, I would suspect a well-designed tube amp
to do somewhat better in that regard due to the fact that most tube gear is
MUCH simpler, with fewer active components, than has an "equivalent" SS amp.

Fact is that classic power amps such as the Crown DC300
are still in use in professional applications, and
within their power and load-handling limits, sound
pretty darn good.

I think that both of the Crown amps, the DC150 and the
DC300 were among the worst sounding amplifiers I've ever
heard.

That's your opinon and you have every right to keep it. Fact of the matter
is that those amps are still found in professional use,from time to time.

Professional use? You mean sound reinforcement? Since when is that a
recommendation for sound quality? Robustness, yes; power output, yes. But
sound quality? I don't think so.

I've heard them many times over the years, and other than their slightly
limited reactive load-handling abilites, they sound fine.

I'm beginning to suspect that our respective definitions of what sounds
"fine" are wildly different. :-

Add them to the companion IC150 pre-amp and you
have good-looking but simply atrocious sounding music
system.

I don't have any recent experience with the IC150, but when it was new I
heard it in some fine-sounding systems.

I had one. The heart of it was an LM-301 op amp which sported, if memory
serves, something like 1v/microsecond slew rate and an asymmetrical slew to
boot. I finally replaced it with a pin-compatible LF-357 op amp (a Bi-Fet
design) with symmetrical slew rate of more than 50 v/microsecond and a
bandwidth of more than 20 MegaHertz

Nowdays, it's
difficult to tell a good tube amp from a good
solid-state amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a
Dynaco Stereo 120, a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an
Acoustat 1 Amp will tell you, they sounded TERRIBLE as
well as being unreliable and unstable.

I don't know about the other two, but I have a Dyna 120
(from eBay) that appears to have 100% original parts,
and still 100% meets its original specs on the test
bench. I challenge anybody to pick it out in a
straight-wire bypass test with a difficult speaker load
in a blind test. I use it as part of a casual music
listening system driving a pair of KEF speakers. It
sounds good.

I don't doubt that it meets specs. Of course, as usual,
those specs have little or no correlation to how the amp
actually sounds.

Easy to say, but also easy to disprove.

Not by me.

The Dyna 120 is slow, has VISIBLE (on an
o'scope) notch or crossover distortion and the 2N3055
output devices have woefully inadequate gain-bandwidth
for the job.

That must have been a broken Dyna 120

Then they were all broken

, as detailed tests show no crossover
notches on my ST120. The test equipment used for the tests had residuals in
the 0.001% range.

Take a 400 Hz test tone run it through the amp with a dummy load at a fairly
low level. Put a 'scope on the output, sync it and crank up the sensitivity
at the zero-crossing point. You'll see it. This was first demonstrated to me
by no less than Bob Orban of Orban Associates (designer of the Optimod and
other broadcast signal processing equipment).

These output transistors were also being
stressed to their ragged edge at the time, and Dynaco had
to hand select them for V (sub) CEO (again IIRC). If you
replaced them with off-the-shelf units available from the
repair supply chain at the time, (instead of directly
from Dynaco), they would promptly blow out taking the
NPN/PNP driver pair (the numbers of which I've forgotten)
with them.

Interesting how my amp survived with factory outputs. It continues to
survive driving some speakers that actually constitute a tough load, being
rather reactive and dipping well below 4 ohms within the normal audio range.

In fact, that was the usual failure mode for
these amps (which is the reason that I also said that
they were unreliable), but I digress. I have to say that
I seriously must question the hearing acuity of anyone
who thinks that any early transistor amps sounded
acceptable and I would gladly accept the challenge to
pick a Stereo 120 out in a bypass test.

You're safe because your posting IP address traces to one coast or the
other, and I'm in the midwest.

Well, while that's true, its not why I agreed. I'm that confident that I
could tell the difference.

I sure listened
to one long enough - when I first got out of college, my
room mate had a Stereo 120 and a PAT-4 preamp driving a
pair of Altec 15-inch co-axial speakers in home-made
cabinets.

A composite system - so you don't know which part of it made sound bad.

That's an assumption on your part. When I replaced the ST-120 with a Marantz
9 that I bought used (tubes), the sound improved considerably. When I further
replaced the Dyna PAT-4 with a Acrosound Preamp (also tubed) the rest of the
nastiness went away. Of course, the Altecs still sounded like crap, but
that's another issue (could never figure out how a 15" speaker in a cabinet
built from Altec's own "application notes" could have so little bass).

The first SS amp that I heard that I thought sounded OK
was one of Jim Bongiorno's G.A.S. "Ampzilla" amps. The
first one I owned that I thought was OK was the original
Hafler. Even the Hafler stuff sounded hard by modern
standards, but I suspect that swapping-out capacitors in
the audio path would solve at least some of that.

Capacitor magic - another one of those urban audiophile myths.

Not at all a myth. Swapping out capacitors in the audio path with low DA
types like Wonder caps or Sidereal caps makes a tremendous, and instantly
noticeable difference. Walt Jung did extensive research in this area in the
late 1970's and his results are fairly well described (if in a somewhat
abbreviated fashion) at the following Tiny URL.

http://tinyurl.com/3dr97v

His work in this area is seminal and widely acknowledged (just not by you,
apparently :-).

I first heard the difference when a friend of mine swapped out the crossover
network caps in what were then my Magnaplanar Tympani 3's (I was a skeptical
non-believer, he insisted, so I let him do the swap. The caps are very
accessible on Maggies and no harm would be done). The audible distortion
level dropped so dramatically that it was astonishing. Since then I've
modified preamps (like the Citation I and and the AR SP3) and power amps
(McIntosh 260's, for instance) as well as numerous CD players' analog stages,
with incredible results.

Individual perception does not enter in to the existence
of those physical elements. If those elements are
reproduced exactly, then anyone who has ever heard live
music would recognize that perfect reproduction for what
it is. It wouldn't matter, that a clarinet, for
instance, always sounds like a trombone to you or a
flute to me. If that clarinet is reproduced perfectly,
both you and I will recognize that fact irrespective of
the differences in our perception of it.

Are you saying that the concept of "good to your ears"
is not all that relevant, because an accurate sound
system would sound lifelike to everybody?

I'm saying that an accurate (read that "perfect", a goal
that we all agree is impossible) audio system would sound
like real music and that fact would be apparent to anyone
who knows the difference between live and reproduced
music, their own hearing peculiarities notwithstanding.

Agreed.

Since everything a person hears is "filtered" by their
own auditory performance and perception, they would hear
both live music and canned the same way. If they notice
the difference between live music and reproduced music,
then a perfect system would sound like live music to them
just as it would to anyone else with different hearing
performance and perceptions. Notice that the single
criterion that I have imposed is that the person be able
to distinguish live music from reproduced. If one's
hearing is so faulty that one can not do that, then of
course, the point is moot.

Agreed.

The concept of "good to your ears" is generally not
relevant unless the phrase means "sounds close to live
music to me." People who think that loose, thumpy,
one-note bass and strident, piercing highs sound "good to
their ears" are totally irrelevant to this conversation
because making the music sound real is obviously not
their goal. They're certainly welcome to their opinion,
just don't expect anyone who knows better to share it.

Agreed.

[Mike]

On Jul 25, 9:55 am, bob wrote:
On Jul 25, 10:30 am, Mike wrote:

So our stimulus for an audio DBT is music. Music has many aspects,
including emotional tone, and things like "bright sound" and "dark
sound" (i.e. a lot of highs or muted). And the list goes on endlessly.
If you want to generalize the results of your DBT to normal listening,
you have to show that the test subjects were able to perceive all
significant aspects of the signal.

No, I don't. In fact, I can guarantee you that no subject of a
listening test involving music EVER hears everything in the signal.
But that's not unique to listening tests. No one who listens to music
(or any complex sound) hears everything in the signal. That's due to a
well-documented phenomenon called masking.

I'm not talking about masking which occurs at a fairly low level in
the perceptual mechanism, well before consciousness. Rather, the
problem is that you have many places to put your conscious attention,
choosing among those aspects of the signal which are available to
consciousness.

Note that you have failed
here to provide evidence that listening in a listening test is
different from listening generally.

You haven't provided evidence they are the same. It's obvious that
people put their attention on different things in different
situations, and most people describe that their listening changes to
an analytical mode in a listening test. Listening to something many
times is a very "strong" context in the sense that it has known
effects on how we perceive music. So I'm waiting to see some evidence
that particular listening test conditions make all significant aspects
of the signal available to consciousness.


This is almost certainly false,
although the key point is that no evidence has been provided---it is
simply assumed that as the test subject switches rapidly between A & B
(to give one scenario) and tries to "zero in" on the difference, that
all aspects of the signal are available to consciousness. That's a
very poor assumption as evidenced by most psychological research.

Given that you haven't cited a single shred of psychological research
yet, this is a pretty ballsy thing to say.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946

But, as I've just explained
above, DBTs are fully consistent with that research. This should not
surprised you, because the research is, of course, _based in part on
DBTs._

Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not, because "music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct. The *perception* of music and
the *perception* of sound are one and the same.

The *perception of a stimulus* as music and the *perception of a
stimulus* as sound are different things.

Oh, dear. More vocabulary problems. You are simply misusing the word
perception here. You "perceive" a stimulus. You then "interpret" that
stimulus as music, or speech, or something else. You're trying to
confuse the two concepts in order to bolster a false premise. It's not
working.

What's curious is that you have a very well defined epistemology
yourself, but don't have an interest in investigating it. Your use of
these words, and your conception of perception, are your personal
theories.

Actually, you can't perceive something separately from your
interpretation of it. Research in hypnosis shows this, for example.


If you have any evidence to the contrary, now would be a good time to
present it. I'm not holding my breath.

If you'd like to provide evidence they are the same thing, I'm
waiting.

The ear-brain mechanism perceives sound as changes in air pressure.
The ear-brain mechanism perceives musical sound as...what? You're
telling me it's not changes in air pressure? Then what is it?

I'm talking about the process of forming the conscious impression, and
whether you've focused your attention on the music or on the sound. If
you are listening for musical feelings and expressiveness, that's a
different way of using your attention than listening for brightness/
darkness. You need to prove this is NOT true if you wish to claim
generality of a particular blind test.

Mike

[Mike]

On Jul 25, 9:59 am, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Mike wrote:
On Jul 24, 4:29 pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Mike wrote:
On Jul 20, 7:20 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

I thought that we were discussing differences in the sound reproduction
abilities of various pieces of equipment, not the perception of music.
I'm interested in the effect of equipment on the perception of
_music_. Music comes in through sound; but the _perception_ of sound
as music and the _perception_ of sound as sound are two different
things. Conventional ABX testing is almost totally irrelevant to the
perception of sound as music. Since the test signal is perceived
differently each time you listen, you might as well use different test
signals each time you listen. In other words, it might as well be a
different clip of music each time you listen to A.

You keep stating this as fact, when it's clearly not.
Okay, let's see your explanation...

In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B -- which one would expect
to be a common complaint, if the 'problem' you propose really
existed.
To say that A is a different signal each time you switch back to it is
an exaggeration, but shows the analogy. Now what's really going on is
that A is *perceived* differently each time you switch back. This adds
a kind of "noise" to the test. What you recognize each time you switch
back to A is a perception that involves only some of the aspects of
the signal. The unproven assumption is that the test subject somehow
has every meaningful aspect of the signal available to consciousness,
when that's not the case for even simple, common situations.

First, it is *your* unproven assertion that someone has to have 'every
meaningful aspect of the signal available to consciousness' in order
to identify sameness or difference of sound. That's an absurdly loaded
statement, especially in that what constitutes 'meaningful' is not defined.

Actually, this statement makes explicit something that scientists
normally keep implicit. Yes, it's hard to define "meaningful", but the
scientist solves that by never making the concept explicit.

Whenever you make a recommendation for or against a piece of equipment
based on a blind test, you are implicitly referring to your belief
that the test subject heard all the aspects of the signal that are
part of a normal listening experience.

[Steven Sullivan]

c. leeds wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:

In an ABX, X *must* be either A or B. The listener knows this
going into the test. I can't recall people ever complaining that
X was unrecognizable as either A or B...

You must be joking. Many abx trials result in the listener being unable
to distinguish X as A or B.

You must not be understanding what I wrote.

I'm not saying they couldn't tell whether X was A OR B. I'm talking
about someone saying X is neither A NOR B.

If they claim that, then the test would be stopped right there.

How many abx trials have you proctored?

Several. You?

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[bob]

On Jul 26, 7:43 pm, Mike wrote:

I'm not talking about masking which occurs at a fairly low level in
the perceptual mechanism, well before consciousness. Rather, the
problem is that you have many places to put your conscious attention,
choosing among those aspects of the signal which are available to
consciousness.

Indeed. So your argument, I take it, is that DBT results aren't
generalizable to other listening situations because, unlike in those
situations, in a DBT "you have many places to put your conscious
attention, choosing among those aspects of the signal which are
available to consciousness."

The trouble with this argument is that it contains a flawed premise.
I.e., that in other listening situations, you do NOT "have many places
to put your conscious attention, choosing among those aspects of the
signal which are available to consciousness."

In fact, you've already implicitly admitted that this is a false
premise, with your (narrowly correct, in this case) claim that we
experience music differently each time we hear it. The very reason we
experience it differently is that we concentrate on or note different
aspects of the music.

So, if we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music" in
DBTs, and we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music"
when we're aren't in DBTs, then how is a DBT different from other
forms of listening? Once again, you've bolstered my argument, not
yours.

snip

What's curious is that you have a very well defined epistemology
yourself,

Yes, I do. It's known colloquially as the scientific method. I gather
you don't believe in it.

but don't have an interest in investigating it. Your use of
these words, and your conception of perception, are your personal
theories.

No, they are definitions that I've applied in order to demonstrate
that you are using vague and misleading terminology, and trying to use
the same word to mean different things, when it suits your "argument."

snip

I'm talking about the process of forming the conscious impression, and
whether you've focused your attention on the music or on the sound. If
you are listening for musical feelings and expressiveness, that's a
different way of using your attention than listening for brightness/
darkness. You need to prove this is NOT true if you wish to claim
generality of a particular blind test.

You are asking me to prove a negative. Obviously, I cannot, and it is
not my obligation to do so. You've made the assertion that there are
"significant aspects of the signal" that are not "available to
consciousness." You need to tell us what those "aspects" are, and why
they are not "available," whatever that means.

I do not advise that you try, for you will fail.

bob

[c. leeds]

nabob wrote:

This is just semantic nonsense. First of all, you do not "perceive"
music. You perceive a stimulus, which your brain then *interprets* as
music.

I answered:

This can't be proven, because it is opinion stated as fact.

nabaob answers:

I'm not stating it as a fact. I'm defining terms. In particular, I'm
pointing out...

Sorry, but your emphatic assertion about "semantic nonsense" and your
rigid insistence that we do not "perceive music" was clearly written as
a statement of fact. It's fine if you now want to frame that as an opinion.

nabob also claimed:
Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not,

I answered:

Again, opinion stated as fact. Arguably, perception certainly does
change dependent on the nature of sound, and music is based on that premise.

nabob answered:
Arguably? I'd like to see that argument. Does the ear work
differently? Does the resulting nerve signal encode the frequency and
amplitude of the sound differently? Pray tell us how this works.

You made the claim, you provide the proof. You can't, because you stated
opinion as fact. My response, unlike your assertion, wasn't stated as
fact. It's just an opinion. There's nothing to prove.

nabob wrote:
..."music" has no meaning in the physical world. It is
entirely a social/cultural construct.

I answered:
This is false. In fact, music exists in the physical world completely
independent of humankind. Can you think of a few examples?

nabob responds:

No, I can't think of any examples, because there aren't any. Nothing
is music until some human says, that is music.

Well, again, that's your opinion. You're welcome to it. But music does
exist outside of the human world. That you cling so tightly to your
beliefs that you can't understand that is your problem. And since you
reserve for yourself the right to define all terms, you can "prove"
anything you like... but only to yourself.

Philosophizing? Moi? No, I'm trying to carry on a technical
conversation with someone (maybe now more than one) who resolutely
refuses to acknowledge that it IS a technical conversation.

Sorry, but you're not speaking technically. You're repeatedly insisting
that your opinion be accepted by all as fact.

[Michael Mossey]

On Jul 26, 6:59 pm, bob wrote:
On Jul 26, 7:43 pm, Mike wrote:

I'm not talking about masking which occurs at a fairly low level in
the perceptual mechanism, well before consciousness. Rather, the
problem is that you have many places to put your conscious attention,
choosing among those aspects of the signal which are available to
consciousness.

Indeed. So your argument, I take it, is that DBT results aren't
generalizable to other listening situations because, unlike in those
situations, in a DBT "you have many places to put your conscious
attention, choosing among those aspects of the signal which are
available to consciousness."

The trouble with this argument is that it contains a flawed premise.
I.e., that in other listening situations, you do NOT "have many places
to put your conscious attention, choosing among those aspects of the
signal which are available to consciousness."

In fact, you've already implicitly admitted that this is a false
premise, with your (narrowly correct, in this case) claim that we
experience music differently each time we hear it. The very reason we
experience it differently is that we concentrate on or note different
aspects of the music.

So, if we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music" in
DBTs, and we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music"
when we're aren't in DBTs, then how is a DBT different from other
forms of listening? Once again, you've bolstered my argument, not
yours.

A basic fact about listening to music is that context affects what you
can perceive. Musicians exploit this. MAGICians exploit this too in
the visual realm. Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw

and for a demonstration how you can completely miss important signals
if you are tied up looking for something else:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946

In the face of evidence like this, the burden is on DBT advocates to
show that they _don't_ skew perception, if they wish us to believe
they are relevant to other listening contexts.


snip

What's curious is that you have a very well defined epistemology
yourself,

Yes, I do. It's known colloquially as the scientific method. I gather
you don't believe in it.

Believing that "perceiving" and "interpreting" a signal are
independent is not science. The article about hypnosis above
contradicts this.

In fact, your position is anti-scientific. From your own experience,
it seems to you that "perceiving" and "interpreting" are two separate
things, so you then define the terms as you like and insist that's
scientific, though you provide no evidence that "perceiving" and
"interpreting" are two separate things.


but don't have an interest in investigating it. Your use of
these words, and your conception of perception, are your personal
theories.

No, they are definitions that I've applied in order to demonstrate
that you are using vague and misleading terminology, and trying to use
the same word to mean different things, when it suits your "argument."

One of the semantic games you're playing is to insist that a concept
have a precise definition or else it's not real. That's fine if we are
talking about, say, organic chemistry, but when we are talking about
the perception of music---sorry, nothing is precisely defined. In
fact, when audio research takes as its premise that it will only
investigate quantifiable things, then that research has much less
relevance to music listening.


snip

I'm talking about the process of forming the conscious impression, and
whether you've focused your attention on the music or on the sound. If
you are listening for musical feelings and expressiveness, that's a
different way of using your attention than listening for brightness/
darkness. You need to prove this is NOT true if you wish to claim
generality of a particular blind test.

You are asking me to prove a negative.

I'm just asking you to provide some evidence in the face of all the
reasons why DBT listening should skew perception that it does NOT skew
perception. After all, that's what you assume when you make equipment
recommendations based on DBT results. You're assuming this is true;
now let's see you provide some evidence for it

Obviously, I cannot, and it is
not my obligation to do so. You've made the assertion that there are
"significant aspects of the signal" that are not "available to
consciousness." You need to tell us what those "aspects" are, and why
they are not "available," whatever that means.

The experiment with the gorilla above shows in a general way why this
can happen. I'm not sure why you need to ask this question. Are you
someone who's aware of everything presented to your senses all the
time?

I do not advise that you try, for you will fail.

LOL.

Mike

[Michael Mossey]

On Jul 26, 4:34 pm, bob wrote:
On Jul 25, 7:11 pm, "c. leeds" wrote:

nabob wrote:
This is just semantic nonsense. First of all, you do not "perceive"
music. You perceive a stimulus, which your brain then *interprets* as
music.

This can't be proven, because it is opinion stated as fact.

I'm not stating it as a fact. I'm defining terms. In particular, I'm
pointing out that my interlocutor is using the word "perception" in an
ambiguous, and ultimately misleading, way in order to bolster a flawed
argument.

It is
comparable to the claim, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is
there, it does not make a sound."

Perception doesn't change depending on the nature of the sound--
and it certainly doesn't change based on whether the souond is music
or not,

Again, opinion stated as fact. Arguably, perception certainly does
change dependent on the nature of sound, and music is based on that premise.

Arguably? I'd like to see that argument. Does the ear work
differently? Does the resulting nerve signal encode the frequency and
amplitude of the sound differently? Pray tell us how this works.

Any definition of "perceive" that I can find involves "awareness". You
have to be "aware" of something before you perceive it. And you are
not aware of the signals traveling down the aural nerve. You are only
aware of how you interpret those signals. Furthermore, the act of
interpretation can change completely, right down to the lowest levels,
depending on your intention and past experience:

http://tinyurl.com/3aleg6

As one further note, you become aware of only a very small part of
that information. A quick-switch DBT creates the illusion that you
have all the information laid out in front of you, everything you need
to make the comparison. Science contradicts that. I often think that
DBT advocates are arguing from personal experience: their own
experience that it "seems" to be valid when you carry it out.

Mike

[Arny Krueger]

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:07:43 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:54:55 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

It is a heathy tiny niche, particularly if you ignore
tubed MI equipment.

It's not so tiny. I suspect there are as many
manufacturers of tube gear out there as there are of
transistor stuff. Just off the top of my head:

Audio Research
Vacuum Tube Logic
Manley
VAC
Cayin
Cary
Conrad Johnson
Atmosphere

The largest of these vendors probably make a few hundred pieces a year.
Compare that to the jillions of pieces of solid state equipment that is sold
for the purpose of reproducing music.

No comparison!

and at least a score more. But these are probably the
major ones.

There are no doubt manunfacturers of mainstream audio gear that make more
equipment by accident than any of these major tubed equipment manufacturers
make on purpose.

(although the differences between a good tube amp and a
good solid-state amp are fairly miniscule now, they
still do exist and mostly show-up at the frequency
extremes and cipping characteristics).

The main difference between tubed and SS power amps is
the tremendous price/performance advantage of the
latter. Ever price a 2,000 watt tubed power amp?

Not lately.

I don't believe there ever was one on the regular commercial market. The
biggest commercial tubed hi fi amp I know of was the 300 watt McIntosh, that
attained popularity driving disc cutting lathes.

But OTOH, who needs 2000 watts in their home
audio system?

Someone with very competent but inefficient subwoofers. I have two friends
who had the need and filled it.

Yeah, tube equipment can be pricey. My VTL
140s were about six grand a pair when new (and that was
in the early nineties). But they do something that SS
equipment doesn't do so well. They hold their value.

Yes - audio is not about the enjoyment of music, it is about residual values
for resale. Thanks for helping me clear that up! ;-)

came much less objectionable.

Most SS power amps of quality level mid-fi or better
will pass a straight wire bypass test with any
reasonable load. Only a minority of tubed power amps
will pass a straight wire bypass test with a tough but
reasonble speaker load.

I think most modern amps of either stripe are probably
very low in coloration.

Without evidence, that is a statement of faith.

But if I were to guess, I would
suspect a well-designed tube amp to do somewhat better in
that regard due to the fact that most tube gear is MUCH
simpler, with fewer active components, than has an
"equivalent" SS amp.

Yes - audio is about making a series of guesses, not about the investigation
of real-world evidence. Thanks for helping me clear that up! ;-)

Fact is that classic power amps such as the Crown DC300
are still in use in professional applications, and
within their power and load-handling limits, sound
pretty darn good.

I think that both of the Crown amps, the DC150 and the
DC300 were among the worst sounding amplifiers I've ever
heard.

That's your opinon and you have every right to keep it.
Fact of the matter is that those amps are still found in
professional use,from time to time.

Professional use? You mean sound reinforcement?

No, I mean driving studio monitoring speakers for mixdown and mastering.

I've heard them many times over the years, and other
than their slightly limited reactive load-handling
abilites, they sound fine.

I'm beginning to suspect that our respective definitions
of what sounds "fine" are wildly different. :-

Yes, that seems to be the case. I base my equipment choices on sound
quality, not residual values. I base my equipment choices on real world
evidence gathered using the most reliable methods available, not a series of
guesses.

Add them to the companion IC150 pre-amp and you
have good-looking but simply atrocious sounding music
system.

I don't have any recent experience with the IC150, but
when it was new I heard it in some fine-sounding systems.

I had one. The heart of it was an LM-301 op amp which
sported, if memory serves, something like 1v/microsecond
slew rate and an asymmetrical slew to boot.

Ah, so you fell for the slew rate myth as well as the residual values
distraction. I presume that you arrived at this conclusion by means of a
series of guesses.

I finally
replaced it with a pin-compatible LF-357 op amp (a Bi-Fet
design) with symmetrical slew rate of more than 50
v/microsecond and a bandwidth of more than 20 MegaHertz

If you would bother to do a solid technical job of evaluating the job that
the LM 301 had to do, you'd know that 1 v/uSec is overkill. The slew rate
of 2 volts at 20 KHz is .355 v/uSec.

Nowdays, it's
difficult to tell a good tube amp from a good
solid-state amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a
Dynaco Stereo 120, a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an
Acoustat 1 Amp will tell you, they sounded TERRIBLE as
well as being unreliable and unstable.

I don't know about the other two, but I have a Dyna 120
(from eBay) that appears to have 100% original parts,
and still 100% meets its original specs on the test
bench. I challenge anybody to pick it out in a
straight-wire bypass test with a difficult speaker load
in a blind test. I use it as part of a casual music
listening system driving a pair of KEF speakers. It
sounds good.

I don't doubt that it meets specs. Of course, as usual,
those specs have little or no correlation to how the amp
actually sounds.

Easy to say, but also easy to disprove.

Not by me.

That's right - you've already said that you base your decisions on guessing.

The Dyna 120 is slow, has VISIBLE (on an
o'scope) notch or crossover distortion and the 2N3055
output devices have woefully inadequate gain-bandwidth
for the job.

That must have been a broken Dyna 120

Then they were all broken

That would be a baseless insult. Guessing doesn't count here.

, as detailed tests show no crossover
notches on my ST120. The test equipment used for the
tests had residuals in the 0.001% range.

Take a 400 Hz test tone run it through the amp with a
dummy load at a fairly low level. Put a 'scope on the
output, sync it and crank up the sensitivity at the
zero-crossing point. You'll see it.

Been there, done that. In fact I've run tests of power amps at such low
levels that I use a mic preamp to amplify the signal prior to analysis.

This was first
demonstrated to me by no less than Bob Orban of Orban
Associates (designer of the Optimod and other broadcast
signal processing equipment).

Then his amp was broken, or you're misremembering the occasion. I have a
real ST120 that does not show any evidence of that performance fault. I've
heard this sort of posturing about all kinds of amps. I've currently got a
QSC USA 850 on the bench looking for non-existent crossover notches. People
say the darndest things, but test benches don't lie.

These output transistors were also being
stressed to their ragged edge at the time, and Dynaco
had to hand select them for V (sub) CEO (again IIRC).
If you replaced them with off-the-shelf units available
from the repair supply chain at the time, (instead of
directly from Dynaco), they would promptly blow out
taking the NPN/PNP driver pair (the numbers of which
I've forgotten) with them.

Interesting how my amp survived with factory outputs. It
continues to survive driving some speakers that actually
constitute a tough load, being rather reactive and
dipping well below 4 ohms within the normal audio range.

That's right - I routinely use my ST-120 with KEF Q-10s. Not a speaker that
is tolerant of amps that aren't clean. Their impedance curve goes well below
4 ohms in the upper bass.

In fact, that was the usual failure mode for
these amps (which is the reason that I also said that
they were unreliable), but I digress. I have to say that
I seriously must question the hearing acuity of anyone
who thinks that any early transistor amps sounded
acceptable and I would gladly accept the challenge to
pick a Stereo 120 out in a bypass test.

You're safe because your posting IP address traces to
one coast or the other, and I'm in the midwest.

Well, while that's true, its not why I agreed. I'm that
confident that I could tell the difference.

I think you've already admitted that you are confident in guessing. I'm
confident in reliable testing.

I sure listened
to one long enough - when I first got out of college, my
room mate had a Stereo 120 and a PAT-4 preamp driving a
pair of Altec 15-inch co-axial speakers in home-made
cabinets.

A composite system - so you don't know which part of it
made sound bad.

That's an assumption on your part. When I replaced the
ST-120 with a Marantz 9 that I bought used (tubes), the
sound improved considerably.

The sound changed because of the appreciably poorer damping factor of the
Marantz 9. As usual, a well-known audible variable was not considered.

When I further replaced the
Dyna PAT-4 with a Acrosound Preamp (also tubed) the rest
of the nastiness went away. Of course, the Altecs still
sounded like crap, but that's another issue (could never
figure out how a 15" speaker in a cabinet built from
Altec's own "application notes" could have so little
bass).

I'm not making any excuses for PAT-4s since I don't have one, and never did
own one. But I do own a PAT-5 that uses one of your favorite LF 357 op amps.
Its a cheap part.

The first SS amp that I heard that I thought sounded OK
was one of Jim Bongiorno's G.A.S. "Ampzilla" amps. The
first one I owned that I thought was OK was the original
Hafler. Even the Hafler stuff sounded hard by modern
standards, but I suspect that swapping-out capacitors in
the audio path would solve at least some of that.

Capacitor magic - another one of those urban audiophile
myths.

Not at all a myth. Swapping out capacitors in the audio
path with low DA types like Wonder caps or Sidereal caps
makes a tremendous, and instantly noticeable difference.

Well that may be true in sighted evaluations, but it all falls apart on the
test bench and in proper listening tests.

Walt Jung did extensive research in this area in the late
1970's and his results are fairly well described (if in a
somewhat abbreviated fashion) at the following Tiny URL.

http://tinyurl.com/3dr97v

Debunked many times, perhaps most solidly by Robert Pease of National
Semiconductor:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...05/ai_n7909454

His work in this area is seminal and widely acknowledged
(just not by you, apparently :-).

To bad you don't know many real engineers, you know the ones who design
audio gear that sounds great and sells by the 100,000s.

I first heard the difference when a friend of mine
swapped out the crossover network caps in what were then
my Magnaplanar Tympani 3's (I was a skeptical
non-believer, he insisted, so I let him do the swap. The
caps are very accessible on Maggies and no harm would be
done). The audible distortion level dropped so
dramatically that it was astonishing. Since then I've
modified preamps (like the Citation I and and the AR SP3)
and power amps (McIntosh 260's, for instance) as well as
numerous CD players' analog stages, with incredible
results.

Sighted evaluation, natch!

BTW one of the biggest capacitor dielelectric skeptics I know of uses
Maggies for his evaluation system. Last time I sat with him on the 4th he
was bragging about how he showed the engineering staff of a very large
Japanese audio manufacturer's that their so-called "good sounding"
capacitors were indistinguishble from caps they thought sounded bad.

All it took was a simple bias-controlled listening test.

[Steven Sullivan]

Michael Mossey wrote:
On Jul 26, 6:59 pm, bob wrote:
On Jul 26, 7:43 pm, Mike wrote:

I'm not talking about masking which occurs at a fairly low level in
the perceptual mechanism, well before consciousness. Rather, the
problem is that you have many places to put your conscious attention,
choosing among those aspects of the signal which are available to
consciousness.

Indeed. So your argument, I take it, is that DBT results aren't
generalizable to other listening situations because, unlike in those
situations, in a DBT "you have many places to put your conscious
attention, choosing among those aspects of the signal which are
available to consciousness."

The trouble with this argument is that it contains a flawed premise.
I.e., that in other listening situations, you do NOT "have many places
to put your conscious attention, choosing among those aspects of the
signal which are available to consciousness."

In fact, you've already implicitly admitted that this is a false
premise, with your (narrowly correct, in this case) claim that we
experience music differently each time we hear it. The very reason we
experience it differently is that we concentrate on or note different
aspects of the music.

So, if we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music" in
DBTs, and we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music"
when we're aren't in DBTs, then how is a DBT different from other
forms of listening? Once again, you've bolstered my argument, not
yours.

A basic fact about listening to music is that context affects what you
can perceive. Musicians exploit this. MAGICians exploit this too in
the visual realm. Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw

and for a demonstration how you can completely miss important signals
if you are tied up looking for something else:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946

In the face of evidence like this, the burden is on DBT advocates to
show that they _don't_ skew perception, if they wish us to believe
they are relevant to other listening contexts.

Actually following your logic, the burden is also on subjectivists
to show they their perception isn't skewed, as well. We know
very well that it can be -- that's the 'bias' that researchers
attempt to nullify by using blind protocols. So how do subjecivists
'know' that their interpretation of sense data, is accurate? How
do they know a difference isn't imaginary. THis is the very
crux of the issue.

FOr that matter, tell me, sir, why is DBT used routinely in
psychoacoustics research, if it is so crippled as you assert?
Do you actually imagine that no one has considered 'skewed
perception' before?

Believing that "perceiving" and "interpreting" a signal are
independent is not science. The article about hypnosis above
contradicts this.

Does the New York Times article about hypnosis -- or indeed, any actual
primary research into hypnosis -- call for abandoning
blind protocols? DOubt it. In fact, I doubt the researchers
you're indirectly citing, would support your interpretations of
your perceptions of their work, at all.

One of the semantic games you're playing is to insist that a concept
have a precise definition or else it's not real. That's fine if we are
talking about, say, organic chemistry, but when we are talking about
the perception of music---sorry, nothing is precisely defined. In
fact, when audio research takes as its premise that it will only
investigate quantifiable things, then that research has much less
relevance to music listening.

YOu and your ilk keep going on and on about 'perception of music'.
Does this mean that difference between cables won't manifest
when listening to recordings of, say, human speech -- whihc after all, is
the audio that we are perhaps most acutely evolved to perceive
accurately?

Are you aware that musical signals actually tend to *mask* some
real differences -- a phenomenon well known to psychoacoustics?

[George Graves]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 08:27:11 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:07:43 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"George Graves" wrote in message

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:54:55 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

It is a heathy tiny niche, particularly if you ignore
tubed MI equipment.

It's not so tiny. I suspect there are as many
manufacturers of tube gear out there as there are of
transistor stuff. Just off the top of my head:

Audio Research
Vacuum Tube Logic
Manley
VAC
Cayin
Cary
Conrad Johnson
Atmosphere

The largest of these vendors probably make a few hundred pieces a year.
Compare that to the jillions of pieces of solid state equipment that is sold
for the purpose of reproducing music.

No comparison!

False comparison. We're talking about high-end components here (at least I
am).The number of Onkyo, Panasonic, Samsung etc. receivers, rack systems and
boom-boxes made each year is irrelevant. There are no cheap "brown goods"
tube equipment made (AFAIK)

and at least a score more. But these are probably the
major ones.

There are no doubt manunfacturers of mainstream audio gear that make more
equipment by accident than any of these major tubed equipment manufacturers
make on purpose.

Mid-Fi gear is irrelevant. I'm talking about hi-end manufacturers.

(although the differences between a good tube amp and a
good solid-state amp are fairly miniscule now, they
still do exist and mostly show-up at the frequency
extremes and cipping characteristics).

The main difference between tubed and SS power amps is
the tremendous price/performance advantage of the
latter. Ever price a 2,000 watt tubed power amp?

Not lately.

I don't believe there ever was one on the regular commercial market. The
biggest commercial tubed hi fi amp I know of was the 300 watt McIntosh, that
attained popularity driving disc cutting lathes.

VTL makes a tube monobloc today called the "Siegfried". IIIRC, its 800 Watts.
They used to make an amp called the "Ichiban" which, again, if memory serves,
was 1KW, but that's about the largest tube amp I've ever heard of.

One thing that I'm greatfull for in modern tube gear is the fact that since
it was noted that the ear really cannot hear THD until it gets above about
2-2.5%, tube manufacturers bias output tubes further down the transfer curve
than they used to. Tube amps no longer have a string of zeros between the
decimal point and some number and usually are in the 0.1% category. This has
resulted in expensive output tubes lasting far longer than they did the in
the "tube era" with no compromise in audible performance. But still, I'd hate
to have to re-tube a 1KW amplifier!

But OTOH, who needs 2000 watts in their home
audio system?

Someone with very competent but inefficient subwoofers. I have two friends
who had the need and filled it.

With a 2000 Watt TUBE amp? Tubes aren't the greatest match for subwoofers due
to the poor damping factor afforded by output transformers. I'd go SS there.


Yeah, tube equipment can be pricey. My VTL
140s were about six grand a pair when new (and that was
in the early nineties). But they do something that SS
equipment doesn't do so well. They hold their value.

Yes - audio is not about the enjoyment of music, it is about residual values
for resale. Thanks for helping me clear that up! ;-)

No, it isn't! And I have no intention of selling my VTLs - EVER! They are
great amps with which I am quite contented. But If I did, I could sell them
before the day is out. Unlike the pair of almost new Rockford-Hafler solid
state amps that I tried to sell last year. Excellent amps by they way,
bridgeable to 400 watts RMS each. I listed them on Craigs List three
different times, each time at a lower price. No takers. Yet when I went to
sell an Audio Research modified Dyna ST-70, it sold, at my asking price,
within minutes of it showing-up on Craigs List. This merely shows that there
is a good market for used tube gear, and not so much of a market for used SS
gear. The market supposition seems to be that tubes are better for sound.

came much less objectionable.

Most SS power amps of quality level mid-fi or better
will pass a straight wire bypass test with any
reasonable load. Only a minority of tubed power amps
will pass a straight wire bypass test with a tough but
reasonble speaker load.

I think most modern amps of either stripe are probably
very low in coloration.

Without evidence, that is a statement of faith.

No, just observation. I take nothing on faith.

But if I were to guess, I would
suspect a well-designed tube amp to do somewhat better in
that regard due to the fact that most tube gear is MUCH
simpler, with fewer active components, than has an
"equivalent" SS amp.

Yes - audio is about making a series of guesses, not about the investigation
of real-world evidence. Thanks for helping me clear that up! ;-)

I don't know what you are talking about. Guesses are hypothetical
postulations at best, and blind chance at worst. Speculative thinking, while
possibly useful in conversation, is useless for actually evaluating anything.
At any rate I didn't guess, I said that "if I WERE to guess." I'm extremely
sorry that you misunderstood my words. Perhaps English is not your native
tongue, in which case I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Fact is that classic power amps such as the Crown DC300
are still in use in professional applications, and
within their power and load-handling limits, sound
pretty darn good.

I think that both of the Crown amps, the DC150 and the
DC300 were among the worst sounding amplifiers I've ever
heard.

That's your opinon and you have every right to keep it.
Fact of the matter is that those amps are still found in
professional use,from time to time.

Professional use? You mean sound reinforcement?

No, I mean driving studio monitoring speakers for mixdown and mastering.

No wonder so many modern recordings sound so bad. Thanks for helping me to
clear up THAT mystery!

I've heard them many times over the years, and other
than their slightly limited reactive load-handling
abilites, they sound fine.

I'm beginning to suspect that our respective definitions
of what sounds "fine" are wildly different. :-

Yes, that seems to be the case. I base my equipment choices on sound
quality, not residual values. I base my equipment choices on real world
evidence gathered using the most reliable methods available, not a series of
guesses.

That's a complete mischaracterization and I think you know it. I mentioned
that tube gear holds its value merely to show that used tube amps are more
highly regarded and sought after than is used SS gear. It's certainly not a
criteria for choosing them. Also, I choose my equipment by listening to it,
not by "guessing" about anything.

Add them to the companion IC150 pre-amp and you
have good-looking but simply atrocious sounding music
system.

I don't have any recent experience with the IC150, but
when it was new I heard it in some fine-sounding systems.

I had one. The heart of it was an LM-301 op amp which
sported, if memory serves, something like 1v/microsecond
slew rate and an asymmetrical slew to boot.

Ah, so you fell for the slew rate myth as well as the residual values
distraction. I presume that you arrived at this conclusion by means of a
series of guesses.

Not even worth a comment. Seems like all Usenet debates end up the same way.
The opponent with the weakest argument resorts to deliberate
mischaracterization and personal rancor.

replaced it with a pin-compatible LF-357 op amp (a Bi-Fet
design) with symmetrical slew rate of more than 50
v/microsecond and a bandwidth of more than 20 MegaHertz

If you would bother to do a solid technical job of evaluating the job that
the LM 301 had to do, you'd know that 1 v/uSec is overkill. The slew rate
of 2 volts at 20 KHz is .355 v/uSec.

Then why did the LF-357 sound so much better? I'll tell you why. It was
faster and had less distorted high frequencies, and it had symmetrical slew
rate (unlike the LM301 where each half of the waveform takes a different path
through the op-amp).

Nowdays, it's
difficult to tell a good tube amp from a good
solid-state amp. But as anyone who ever suffered a
Dynaco Stereo 120, a Harmon-Kardon Citation 12, or an
Acoustat 1 Amp will tell you, they sounded TERRIBLE as
well as being unreliable and unstable.

I don't know about the other two, but I have a Dyna 120
(from eBay) that appears to have 100% original parts,
and still 100% meets its original specs on the test
bench. I challenge anybody to pick it out in a
straight-wire bypass test with a difficult speaker load
in a blind test. I use it as part of a casual music
listening system driving a pair of KEF speakers. It
sounds good.

I don't doubt that it meets specs. Of course, as usual,
those specs have little or no correlation to how the amp
actually sounds.

Easy to say, but also easy to disprove.

Not by me.

That's right - you've already said that you base your decisions on guessing.

The Dyna 120 is slow, has VISIBLE (on an
o'scope) notch or crossover distortion and the 2N3055
output devices have woefully inadequate gain-bandwidth
for the job.

That must have been a broken Dyna 120

Then they were all broken

That would be a baseless insult. Guessing doesn't count here.

, as detailed tests show no crossover
notches on my ST120. The test equipment used for the
tests had residuals in the 0.001% range.

Take a 400 Hz test tone run it through the amp with a
dummy load at a fairly low level. Put a 'scope on the
output, sync it and crank up the sensitivity at the
zero-crossing point. You'll see it.

Been there, done that. In fact I've run tests of power amps at such low
levels that I use a mic preamp to amplify the signal prior to analysis.

This was first
demonstrated to me by no less than Bob Orban of Orban
Associates (designer of the Optimod and other broadcast
signal processing equipment).

Then his amp was broken, or you're misremembering the occasion. I have a
real ST120 that does not show any evidence of that performance fault. I've
heard this sort of posturing about all kinds of amps. I've currently got a
QSC USA 850 on the bench looking for non-existent crossover notches. People
say the darndest things, but test benches don't lie.

I think I might know why we're seeing such wildly different results. The
first ST-120's came out in 1966 and the ones with which I am familiar all
stem from 1966-1969. The amps were in production well into the seventies and
somewhere along the line, apparently, the circuit was modified and the
transistor complement was changed:

Q1 replace 40233 (100-250 beta) with BC108A (130-180 beta)
Q2, Q8 replace 2N3053 (100-200 beta) with 2N5320 (160-260 beta)
Q3 replace 2N3053 with TIP31C
Q4 replace 2N4037 with TIP32C
Q5, Q6 replace 2N3055 (17-25 beta) with 2N3772 (60-90 beta @ 1A)

Also a number of zener diodes, resistors and capacitors were changed, some of
which might have altered the bias on the driver and output transistors
(understand, that I do not know this as a fact I'm merely suggesting that
this could account for the fact that your amp doesn't exhibit the crossover
notch that I KNOW was there in the earlier units), to move the amp more into
class AB (the original Dyna ST-120 was apparently a class B amp due the
inability of the original transistors to handle that much collector current).
If this is indeed the case, then it would explain why the ST-120's that I was
familiar with had the crossover notch and yours does not. It would also
explain why the 120's I knew were frail and unreliable and you say that yours
is very robust. IOW, they fixed it!

These output transistors were also being
stressed to their ragged edge at the time, and Dynaco
had to hand select them for V (sub) CEO (again IIRC).
If you replaced them with off-the-shelf units available
from the repair supply chain at the time, (instead of
directly from Dynaco), they would promptly blow out
taking the NPN/PNP driver pair (the numbers of which
I've forgotten) with them.

Interesting how my amp survived with factory outputs. It
continues to survive driving some speakers that actually
constitute a tough load, being rather reactive and
dipping well below 4 ohms within the normal audio range.

That's right - I routinely use my ST-120 with KEF Q-10s. Not a speaker that
is tolerant of amps that aren't clean. Their impedance curve goes well below
4 ohms in the upper bass.

In fact, that was the usual failure mode for
these amps (which is the reason that I also said that
they were unreliable), but I digress. I have to say that
I seriously must question the hearing acuity of anyone
who thinks that any early transistor amps sounded
acceptable and I would gladly accept the challenge to
pick a Stereo 120 out in a bypass test.

You're safe because your posting IP address traces to
one coast or the other, and I'm in the midwest.

Well, while that's true, its not why I agreed. I'm that
confident that I could tell the difference.

I think you've already admitted that you are confident in guessing.

Correction, AGAIN. I said that if I WERE to guess. Different thing
altogether.

I'm confident in reliable testing.

Which doesn't, from your comments, seem to correlate with how stuff actually
sounds. Fancy that.

I sure listened
to one long enough - when I first got out of college, my
room mate had a Stereo 120 and a PAT-4 preamp driving a
pair of Altec 15-inch co-axial speakers in home-made
cabinets.

A composite system - so you don't know which part of it
made sound bad.

That's an assumption on your part. When I replaced the
ST-120 with a Marantz 9 that I bought used (tubes), the
sound improved considerably.

The sound changed because of the appreciably poorer damping factor of the
Marantz 9. As usual, a well-known audible variable was not considered.

When I further replaced the
Dyna PAT-4 with a Acrosound Preamp (also tubed) the rest
of the nastiness went away. Of course, the Altecs still
sounded like crap, but that's another issue (could never
figure out how a 15" speaker in a cabinet built from
Altec's own "application notes" could have so little
bass).

I'm not making any excuses for PAT-4s since I don't have one, and never did
own one. But I do own a PAT-5 that uses one of your favorite LF 357 op amps.
Its a cheap part.

Yes, it is a cheap part, and much better than the dinosauric 741 generation
of op-amp design of which the LM301 is a member. No op-amps are my
"favorites" I prefer discrete componentry for audio but sometimes, one can't
know before hand that a piece of equipment has them, and after all, its the
sound that counts, not the technology. Of course, where the technology cannot
supply good sound, such as in the case of the early ST-120...

The first SS amp that I heard that I thought sounded OK
was one of Jim Bongiorno's G.A.S. "Ampzilla" amps. The
first one I owned that I thought was OK was the original
Hafler. Even the Hafler stuff sounded hard by modern
standards, but I suspect that swapping-out capacitors in
the audio path would solve at least some of that.

Capacitor magic - another one of those urban audiophile
myths.

Not at all a myth. Swapping out capacitors in the audio
path with low DA types like Wonder caps or Sidereal caps
makes a tremendous, and instantly noticeable difference.

Well that may be true in sighted evaluations, but it all falls apart on the
test bench and in proper listening tests.

Walt Jung did extensive research in this area in the late
1970's and his results are fairly well described (if in a
somewhat abbreviated fashion) at the following Tiny URL.

http://tinyurl.com/3dr97v

Debunked many times, perhaps most solidly by Robert Pease of National
Semiconductor:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...05/ai_n7909454

That's interesting. I see nothing in that short piece of fluff that does
anything other than define the term. There is nothing there debunking DA as a
source of distortion.

His work in this area is seminal and widely acknowledged
(just not by you, apparently :-).

To bad you don't know many real engineers, you know the ones who design
audio gear that sounds great and sells by the 100,000s.

I am a real engineer. I actually have a sheepskin and a tassel from my
morterboard hat and graduation pictures, the whole ball of wax! :-)

I first heard the difference when a friend of mine
swapped out the crossover network caps in what were then
my Magnaplanar Tympani 3's (I was a skeptical
non-believer, he insisted, so I let him do the swap. The
caps are very accessible on Maggies and no harm would be
done). The audible distortion level dropped so
dramatically that it was astonishing. Since then I've
modified preamps (like the Citation I and and the AR SP3)
and power amps (McIntosh 260's, for instance) as well as
numerous CD players' analog stages, with incredible
results.

Sighted evaluation, natch!

You're jumping to conclusions again.

BTW one of the biggest capacitor dielelectric skeptics I know of uses
Maggies for his evaluation system. Last time I sat with him on the 4th he
was bragging about how he showed the engineering staff of a very large
Japanese audio manufacturer's that their so-called "good sounding"
capacitors were indistinguishble from caps they thought sounded bad.

All it took was a simple bias-controlled listening test.

Permit me to doubt.

[Keith Hughes]

Michael Mossey wrote:
snip

So, if we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music" in
DBTs, and we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music"
when we're aren't in DBTs, then how is a DBT different from other
forms of listening? Once again, you've bolstered my argument, not
yours.

A basic fact about listening to music is that context affects what you
can perceive. Musicians exploit this. MAGICians exploit this too in
the visual realm. Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw

Yes, and if I recall correctly, you made several similar posts,
concurrent with the publishing of that article, that similarly
misinterpreted what that 'top down' processing actually *means* in this
context.


and for a demonstration how you can completely miss important signals
if you are tied up looking for something else:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946

In the face of evidence like this, the burden is on DBT advocates to
show that they _don't_ skew perception, if they wish us to believe
they are relevant to other listening contexts.

The "evidence like this" you cite does not support your position. The
'top down' processing is about pattern recognition, and the filtering
effects it has on processing of new input (e.g. sound). When you listen
to music, whether DBT or otherwise, you will utilize your previous
knowledge of musical patterns in an attempt to recognize and interpret
the new data. That's all the NYT article says. For example, it says that:

"What you see is not always what you get, because what you see depends
on a framework built by **experience that stands ready to interpret the
raw information** - as a flower or a hammer or a face".emphasis added,
and further that it goes on with:

"The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
blue. For people who are literate for this discussion, read musically
literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it invariably takes them
a little bit longer to override the automatic reading of a word like RED
and press a button that says green. This is called the Stroop effect."

This infers, quite clearly, that the pattern processing (i.e. your
musical interpretation overlayed on the sensory input) will be very
difficult to overcome. Rather puts paid to the notion that the DBT is
*so* disruptive that the *music* can't come through.

And, again, you conflate "quick-switching" with short rapidly switched
snippets of A and B (your next post). Listen to each as long as you
like, in any manner you like, in any order you like, as relaxed or
intent as you like, in any setting you like, playing any music you like,
focusing on any parameter you like. *ALL* of these are clearly doable
in the context of DBT, ABX or otherwise. Just *exactly* the way you
listen to music at any other time, missing only the visual clues. This
has been pointed out, ad nauseum, so why keep pretending otherwise?

Keith Hughes

[bob]

On Jul 29, 11:03 am, Michael Mossey wrote:

A basic fact about listening to music is that context affects what you
can perceive. Musicians exploit this. MAGICians exploit this too in
the visual realm. Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw

and for a demonstration how you can completely miss important signals
if you are tied up looking for something else:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946

In the face of evidence like this, the burden is on DBT advocates to
show that they _don't_ skew perception, if they wish us to believe
they are relevant to other listening contexts.

Prove a negative? No, thank you. But once again, you marshal evidence
that supports my argument, not yours. Yes, human perception is quirky
in all sorts of ways, but it is quirky in ALL listening contexts. None
of the examples you've cited occurred in DBTs, after all. So again,
the claim that listening in DBTs is in any way different from
listening in other contexts remains unsupported. Not only have you no
support for your position, but you've shown us no reason why we should
doubt the relevance of DBT results.

snip

One of the semantic games you're playing is to insist that a concept
have a precise definition or else it's not real.

Please stop projecting your own misconceptions on me. All I've done is
to demand that YOU define the terms you use. After all, you can't
expect me to have a serious debate with someone who uses verbal
ambiguity to suit his "argument."

That's fine if we are
talking about, say, organic chemistry, but when we are talking about
the perception of music---sorry, nothing is precisely defined.

Exactly--you can't even define your own terms. So you're saying, "I
can't tell you what 'perception of music' means, but you have to prove
that DBTs don't inhibit it in any way." Can't you see how ridiculous
that is?

snip

I'm just asking you to provide some evidence in the face of all the
reasons why DBT listening should skew perception

What reasons??? You haven't provided a shred of evidence about DBTs at
all.

that it does NOT skew
perception. After all, that's what you assume when you make equipment
recommendations based on DBT results. You're assuming this is true;
now let's see you provide some evidence for it

Obviously, I cannot, and it is
not my obligation to do so. You've made the assertion that there are
"significant aspects of the signal" that are not "available to
consciousness." You need to tell us what those "aspects" are, and why
they are not "available," whatever that means.

The experiment with the gorilla above shows in a general way why this
can happen.

This is your evidence--the gorilla experiment? Let me try to explain
it to you: Everybody SAW the gorilla. The gorilla is not a black hole.
So it reflects light, which enters the eye and strikes the retina,
which sends a signal to the brain via the optic nerve. So the image of
the gorilla reaches the brain. If you doubt this, you have to tell us
which part of physics and/or biology you wish to deny.

The problem is that while the image reaches the brain, nobody NOTICES
the gorilla. Is that, then, your argument about DBTs--that subjects
don't notice everything about whatever they're listening to? But you
yourself admit that people never notice everything about whatever
they're listening to. So how are DBTs in any way deficient if they
share with other listening contexts the very attribute you say is so
critical?

This is why you have to be more specific. You have to tell us--or at
least hypothesize about--what specific aspect of musical sound can't
be perceived in a DBT but can be perceived in other contexts. If you
don't do that, then you're not only demanding that I prove a negative.
You're actually demanding that I prove something you already know to
be false. That is, if people *never* notice everything, then how could
I possibly prove that DBT subjects *do* notice everything? Again, do
you see how ridiculous your line of "argument" is?

bob

[Mike]

On Jul 29, 11:54 am, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Michael Mossey wrote:
On Jul 26, 6:59 pm, bob wrote:
On Jul 26, 7:43 pm, Mike wrote:

I'm not talking about masking which occurs at a fairly low level in
the perceptual mechanism, well before consciousness. Rather, the
problem is that you have many places to put your conscious attention,
choosing among those aspects of the signal which are available to
consciousness.

Indeed. So your argument, I take it, is that DBT results aren't
generalizable to other listening situations because, unlike in those
situations, in a DBT "you have many places to put your conscious
attention, choosing among those aspects of the signal which are
available to consciousness."

The trouble with this argument is that it contains a flawed premise.
I.e., that in other listening situations, you do NOT "have many places
to put your conscious attention, choosing among those aspects of the
signal which are available to consciousness."

In fact, you've already implicitly admitted that this is a false
premise, with your (narrowly correct, in this case) claim that we
experience music differently each time we hear it. The very reason we
experience it differently is that we concentrate on or note different
aspects of the music.

So, if we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music" in
DBTs, and we "concentrate on or note different aspects of the music"
when we're aren't in DBTs, then how is a DBT different from other
forms of listening? Once again, you've bolstered my argument, not
yours.
A basic fact about listening to music is that context affects what you
can perceive. Musicians exploit this. MAGICians exploit this too in
the visual realm. Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw
and for a demonstration how you can completely miss important signals
if you are tied up looking for something else:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946
In the face of evidence like this, the burden is on DBT advocates to
show that they _don't_ skew perception, if they wish us to believe
they are relevant to other listening contexts.

Actually following your logic, the burden is also on subjectivists
to show they their perception isn't skewed, as well.

Actually following your logic, the burden is also on subjectivists
to show they their perception isn't skewed, as well.

Sighted listening can be biased, I agree. However, it's DBT advocates
who claim they have the force of science behind their work, so they
are obligated to examine their assumptions.


FOr that matter, tell me, sir, why is DBT used routinely in
psychoacoustics research, if it is so crippled as you assert?

To restate something important, there's no single concept "DBT." There
are many DBT protocols, many test conditions. It's not surprising that
some aspects of a signal can be perceived well under some conditions.

Do you actually imagine that no one has considered 'skewed
perception' before?

Believing that "perceiving" and "interpreting" a signal are
independent is not science. The article about hypnosis above
contradicts this.

Does the New York Times article about hypnosis -- or indeed, any actual
primary research into hypnosis -- call for abandoning
blind protocols? DOubt it.

Neither do I call for abandoning blind protocols. I call for
understanding better their relationship to some of the subtler
qualities of sound, such as musical feeling.


YOu and your ilk keep going on and on about 'perception of music'.

Music is only one of the sounds and experiences provided by an audio
system, but it's a particularly interesting one. The way that context
affects perception of music, something exploited by musicians and
composers constantly, leads to a particularly difficult situation to
test.

Mike

[Mike]

On Jul 29, 6:39 pm, Keith Hughes wrote:

This infers, quite clearly, that the pattern processing (i.e. your
musical interpretation overlayed on the sensory input) will be very
difficult to overcome. Rather puts paid to the notion that the DBT is
*so* disruptive that the *music* can't come through.

But context affects musical interpretation, and many DBT protocols
highly distort the context. Basic facts about music suggest that
interesting and subtle qualities won't "come through".


And, again, you conflate "quick-switching" with short rapidly switched
snippets of A and B (your next post). Listen to each as long as you
like, in any manner you like, in any order you like, as relaxed or
intent as you like, in any setting you like, playing any music you like,
focusing on any parameter you like. *ALL* of these are clearly doable
in the context of DBT, ABX or otherwise.

I'm making no assumption about the test conditions. They can be
anything we like, and in fact we should all be working to find some
set of conditions that work. However, it's important to mention quick-
switching/snippet because a large number of claims are based on such
tests (i.e. Arny's web site). And I've been told a few tests under
other conditions were done---a few---but there was no attempt to
control the conditions or how the subjects used their attention.

Mike

[Mike]

On Jul 29, 6:40 pm, bob wrote:
On Jul 29, 11:03 am, Michael Mossey wrote:





A basic fact about listening to music is that context affects what you
can perceive. Musicians exploit this. MAGICians exploit this too in
the visual realm. Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw

and for a demonstration how you can completely miss important signals
if you are tied up looking for something else:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=490946

In the face of evidence like this, the burden is on DBT advocates to
show that they _don't_ skew perception, if they wish us to believe
they are relevant to other listening contexts.

Prove a negative? No, thank you.

That's a cop out. You have to provide *some* evidence that DBT
conditions are valid.


One of the semantic games you're playing is to insist that a concept
have a precise definition or else it's not real.

Please stop projecting your own misconceptions on me. All I've done is
to demand that YOU define the terms you use. After all, you can't
expect me to have a serious debate with someone who uses verbal
ambiguity to suit his "argument."

I started a discussion about the epistemology of audio testing. Maybe
you aren't interested in this kind of discussion.


That's fine if we are
talking about, say, organic chemistry, but when we are talking about
the perception of music---sorry, nothing is precisely defined.

Exactly--you can't even define your own terms. So you're saying, "I
can't tell you what 'perception of music' means, but you have to prove
that DBTs don't inhibit it in any way." Can't you see how ridiculous
that is?

It is ridiculous. It's also a strawman. Anyone can explore the
perception of music. It especially helps to sing or play an
instrument. Many of us find a common language and feel that we are
communicating about the experience of music on a common level. Many of
us find that music has a meaning only in context, and that many DBT's
will distort the context. Therefore, I'm interested in finding some
way of constructing a DBT that doesn't distort the context. It seems
you've already made up your mind there's no problem with DBT's (any
DBT?).

The experiment with the gorilla above shows in a general way why this
can happen.

This is your evidence--the gorilla experiment? Let me try to explain
it to you: Everybody SAW the gorilla. The gorilla is not a black hole.
So it reflects light, which enters the eye and strikes the retina,
which sends a signal to the brain via the optic nerve. So the image of
the gorilla reaches the brain. If you doubt this, you have to tell us
which part of physics and/or biology you wish to deny.

The problem is that while the image reaches the brain, nobody NOTICES
the gorilla. Is that, then, your argument about DBTs--that subjects
don't notice everything about whatever they're listening to? But you
yourself admit that people never notice everything about whatever
they're listening to. So how are DBTs in any way deficient if they
share with other listening contexts the very attribute you say is so
critical?

In the gorilla experiment, subjects were given a restricted focus. A
DBT likewise encourages a restricted focus. There are many reasons. A
test based on snippets will restrict the focus to one short moment of
sound. A test based on quick switching will restrict the focus to the
moment of switching. Even a test based on longer listening segments
requires that the subject try to remember sound in a way that foreign
to listening for enjoyment.

Mike

[bob]

On Jul 29, 11:03 am, Michael Mossey wrote:
Your INTENTION affects what you can perceive. Your
intention even affects how the lower neural circuits process raw
stimuli. For a discussion how your intention actually changes how you
process signals, see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?
ei=5070&en=968c0cb9ab848d69&ex=1185854400&adxnnl=1 &adxnnlx=1185702379-
xWx02NnMb9D0ytIAKCNlLw

Finally had a chance to go back to this article, and sure enough, your
statements about it are completely wrong. It's not about *intention*
at all. It's about expectation--something that has long been known to
affect perception.

Of course, DBTs are designed to minimize the effects of expectation,
compared to other listening contexts. So thanks for providing yet more
evidence for my side of the argument.

bob