Bob: I'm not sure that people who "experience" live music more often
than I
do could really tell me much about the quality of audio reproduction,
unless they'd done some really specific and detailed training in
listening to the latter.

Why? If I were looking for the best steak in town, I would tend to
talk to the person I know who has eaten at the most steak houses.

Look at the kind of training that Sean Olive
puts his listening panel through for an example of what I mean.
There is some research suggesting that trained experienced musicians
can hear some things better than us mere mortals, but I don't know of
any evidence that they can hear the kinds of things that would
distinguish audio gear. And even if they could, that wouldn't help us
mere mortals anyway.

As I said in another post (which hasn't appeared yet, at least on my
server), I basically listen for a living. It's what I do. I have to
listen for very small details. I hear live music, not played by
myself, around 150 days a year. It seems to make sense that when I
hear two audio systems, I have a pretty good idea of whcih one sounds
more like live music.

Your preference for vinyl over CD is just that--a preference.

Of course! I've never said anything else.

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On 12 May 2005 14:29:46 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

"Chung" wrote in message
...

Harry, please provide some evidence that there is a bunch of guys who
seem to take great pleasure in "taking newbies down". Otherwise please
retract that snide attack.

I'll do no such thing. It is apparent to anybody who frequents here for
any
length of time, and in the comments of those who return after having been
disgusted and left at times previously, as well as the reputation that
this
forum has obtained in the usegroup community at large. It is not just
what
is said, but how it is said, how frequently it is said, and with what
arrogance it sometimes is laced with that reveals that it is an agenda,
not
just a "help".

I entirely agree, and I wish you 'subjectivists' would stop doing it.
Jenn was in danger of joining your group, with her presumption that
because she *plays* music, she must therefore have 'better' ears than
the rest of us, but I hope she now has a more balanced view.


Since when have you head me say that I have golden ears, or hear better than
anybody else. They only thing that I have claimed here (which is true) is
that I have been at it for a long time (my dad was in the business in the
fifties and I was an audiophile before heading off to college) and that I
did a lot of semi-pro recording of acoustical music in the seventies and
have a pretty good understanding of live music as a reference and of the
recording process itself.

Nor have I heard others here say they have "Golden Ears". Basically, you've
just erected another strawman.

Contrast it, for example, to the genuine help given most
newbies in rec.audio.pro, even though that is an unmoderated forum and
there
are occassional "flames". The experienced members offer help and
perspective...but they also pay attention to people's sensibilities and
tend
not to beat people over the head with their "much superior wisdom" and
"irrefutable laws of science".

That's because the 'pro' stands for production. It's all too often
obvious that it does *not* stand for 'professional'. Take the unlovely
Fletcher as a prime example................


That's because most of them don't have to wear their "expertise" as a
peacock; they are "pros" and comfortable in their knowledge and status
within the audio world. Most of them are decent guys who seem to have a
genuine interest in helping as opposed to showing off. Perhaps working in
or owning a studio reflects somebody who actually enjoys helping people make
music.

wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
And developement of the design will be painstaking, as every
underlying
premises must be exhumed and examined to make sure that the test is
not
interfering with what it attempts to measure. Social science and
psychological research skills will doubtless prove more useful than
engineering in this endeavor.

Which is why a good engineer will defer to the findings and
methodologies of perceptual psychologists. Which, in turn, is all any
of us have been saying here.


Exactly. Which is why "objectivists" have no problem defering to the
findings and methodologies of perceptual psychologists, unlike
"subjectivists".

Stewart: Jenn was in danger of joining your group, with her
presumption that
because she *plays* music, she must therefore have 'better' ears than
the rest of us, but I hope she now has a more balanced view.

WELL., I guess that there's a need to address this! I would never say
that I have "better" ears, but it's pretty certain that I have more
"trained" ones than the average poster. If I don't, I'm in the wrong
line of work! People who are trained to be conductors (actually,
classical musicians in general as well, to some extent) Listening is
the essance of what I do for a living. It is nessasary for me to be
able to disern very small differences in timbre, pitch, balance, tone
quality, and so forth. I need to hear, for example, if the 14th
violinist is playing with a different part of the bow than are the
others, thereby making a different tone color. I hear live, acoustic
instruments probably 150 days a year. I hear them up close, and I hear
them from the patron's seats. I know what horse hair vs. synthetic
hair sounds like. I know what a .547 bore trombone vs. a .580 sounds
like. The diference in sound between a silver trumpet and a brass one
is clear to me, and must be. If one person out of a hundred, I must
not only hear the note, I must know what section, and which player or
singer is doing it, instantly. That's what I do. So, better ears?
Probably not... I wasn't born with unusual hearing ability. Better
trained ears? Yeah. I don't do math as well as others here, I would
guess. We all have different skills.

Ban: No, this is not true. The amplification and reproduction of
music is a
technical process, which requires understanding to evaluate and
eventually
improve. The same is true of the technical acoustics of your listening
environment.
And it is possible to buy pieces of equipment based on specs. For
example
you need 30ft 14gauge speaker wire or you need a CD- or DVD player or
even a
7 x 50Wrms amplifier. All these items are "transparent" to the sound
and
another made or model will just sound identical.
Then there are turntables with arms, carts, and other accessories. Or
speakers. These items require careful audition, because they have a
particular "Eigensound" which might or might not suit your taste or
even be
annoying.

Do you honestly believe that CD and DVD players and amplifiers are
"transparent"? They all sound the same and can be bought by viewing
specs alone? Yo uwouldn't LISTEN to one of these items before purchase?

Steven Sullivan wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

*THAT* is my beef here. Not that I think nothing
is known and everything is possible. That's the limsiest of
strawmen.

Nope, it's a concise description of the subjectivist standpoint.

And as an example of *that sort* of subjectivist, I give you
Stereophile's
newest correspondent, and 'reporter' for the Kruger/Atkinson debate,
Jason
Serinus:

http://www.planeteria.net/home/whistler/

"Jason is a certified bodyworker and hypnotherapist with certificates
in
massage from the Massage Institute of California, Advanced Postural
Integration from the Center for Release and Integration, Hypnotherapy
from
the Hypnotherapy Training Institute, and Reiki II from Gabriel
Cousens,
M.D. He is a Minister in the Church of the Gentle Brothers and
Sisters."



Well gosh if he is a massage therapist he must be irrational. Is it
part of the objectivist methodolgy? To dimiss reporters and/or
correspondents for audio journals becuase of their profession outside
of audio journalism? There is nothing objective or nice about this sort
of denegration of people. It's called prejudice and it's not something
I suscribe to.





I could be wrong, and if such
testing proved you right and we subjectivists wrong, so be it.

DBTs have been tested to death for many decades, and remain the
gold
standard. Where is *your* single shred of evidence that there is
something better?

Looking into my crystal ball, I see..Scott 'theporkygeorge' Wheeler
coming
over the horizon, waving the 'it doesn't matter, it's not science,
it's
just a hobby' banner.


Better yet. Lets look at a quote from an audio journalist, Howard
Ferstler, describing how he gathered data for a dbt that he published
in an audiophile journal that sort of competes with Stereophile.

" The data you are referring to was but a small part of the series. It
was a
fluke, because during the last part of that series of trials I was
literally
guessing. I just kept pushing the button and making wild stabs at what
I
thought I heard. After a while, I did not bother to listen at all. I
just kept pressing the same choice over and over."

This is a direct quote by Howard regarding his published dbts. Nothing
has been altered or taken out of context. When this sort of data
(basically false data) is being used for published dbts in audio
journals I have to agree. "It's not science." There are reasons why
science demands peer review and there are reasons why this sort of
thing is considered junk. When "science" steps in to test the claims of
audiophiles in the ojectivist v. subjectivist debate let me know.





Scott Wheeler

Chung: BTW, if you really enjoy anecdotes and preferences without
any
technical
discussions to back them up, you might also try to visit some of the
AudioAsylum groups.


Scott: I would second that recomendation. You might find the vinyl
section
quite enlightning.

I do visit there as well, thanks. In fact, my original question which
brought me here also took me there. It's a fun group.

wrote in message ...
Harry Lavo wrote:

You are the one who said he was engaging in sound bites. *He* said he
read
the books. And as a Caltech engineer he certainly had the intellectual
potential to absorb what was there. He quoted excerpts here that you
call
"sound bites" but only to illustrate that the books in many cases seemed
to
contradict the convential wisdom of the objectivists here.

Sound bites that were extracted from context.

The idea that the authors of such material support the subjectivist
positions of the high end audio community is delusional.

Would you care to find and quote three such "sound bites", and then put the
missing "context" around them, quoting the surrounding text to show that he
misrepresented what was said?

"josko" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
And developement of the design will be painstaking, as every
underlying
premises must be exhumed and examined to make sure that the test is
not
interfering with what it attempts to measure. Social science and
psychological research skills will doubtless prove more useful than
engineering in this endeavor.

Which is why a good engineer will defer to the findings and
methodologies of perceptual psychologists. Which, in turn, is all any
of us have been saying here.


Exactly. Which is why "objectivists" have no problem defering to the
findings and methodologies of perceptual psychologists, unlike
"subjectivists".


Okay, you might convince me. Find please the writings of three perceptual
psychologists who hold that blind DBT's are the best way to do open-ended
evaluation of audio equipment (sound reproducing devices).. And while you
are at it, please provide a brief profiles of both their psych and their
audiophile credentials, please.

Jenn wrote:
Bob: I'm not sure that people who "experience" live music more
often
than I
do could really tell me much about the quality of audio reproduction,
unless they'd done some really specific and detailed training in
listening to the latter.

Why? If I were looking for the best steak in town, I would tend to
talk to the person I know who has eaten at the most steak houses.

As would I. But I would know that I was only getting his opinion, and
if I went there myself and got a cold, leathery slab of meat I would
discount his opinion immediately--as I would discount the opinion of
anyone who told me he thought piano solo sounded more life-like on
vinyl than CD. For all your self-proclaimed expertise, the only thing
you've actually told me is that you prefer vinyl. So what?

Look at the kind of training that Sean Olive
puts his listening panel through for an example of what I mean.
There is some research suggesting that trained experienced musicians
can hear some things better than us mere mortals, but I don't know of
any evidence that they can hear the kinds of things that would
distinguish audio gear. And even if they could, that wouldn't help us
mere mortals anyway.

As I said in another post (which hasn't appeared yet, at least on my
server), I basically listen for a living. It's what I do. I have to
listen for very small details.

Not by audio standards. By audio standards, you listen to huge
differences, differences that are undeniably well above known
thresholds of human hearing. If that experience had relevance to audio,
Sean Olive wouldn't have to put his listening panel through strict
training; he could just recruit a bunch of conductors.

I hear live music, not played by
myself, around 150 days a year. It seems to make sense that when I
hear two audio systems, I have a pretty good idea of whcih one sounds
more like live music.

I'm afraid I have no reason to share your confidence in your own
discernment.

nbob

Bob: As would I. But I would know that I was only getting his
opinion,

Of course! But that opinion is based on a higher level of experience.

and
if I went there myself and got a cold, leathery slab of meat I would
discount his opinion immediately--as I would discount the opinion of
anyone who told me he thought piano solo sounded more life-like on
vinyl than CD. For all your self-proclaimed expertise, the only thing
you've actually told me is that you prefer vinyl. So what?

Allow me to ask you a question: What is the point of all of this if
not to gather and compare opinions? Shall we just gather some
testbench results, thereby determine what componets are "best", and
call it a day?

Opps, I forgot:

Bob: I'm afraid I have no reason to share your confidence in your
own
discernment.

You are entitled to your opinion. I would also suggest that you have
no idea of what conductors are trained to do.

Bob: Not by audio standards. By audio standards, you listen to huge
differences, differences that are undeniably well above known
thresholds of human hearing.

OF COURSE they are above the thresholds of human hearing, or I wouldn't
be able to hear them. I'm also fairly pretty confident that you
wouldn't be able to hear what I hear.

If that experience had relevance to audio,
Sean Olive wouldn't have to put his listening panel through strict
training; he could just recruit a bunch of conductors.

Or, if Sean's team could hear musical events better than Seiji Ozawa,
the Boston Symphony could have saved a lot of money!

Jenn wrote:

Do you honestly believe that CD and DVD players and amplifiers are
"transparent"? They all sound the same and can be bought by viewing
specs alone? Yo uwouldn't LISTEN to one of these items before
purchase?

Most of 'em are transparent, assuming they're decently designed and not
defective. In the case of CD players, there isn't any point in looking
at specs. Did you see the measurements of that $39 DVD player in the
"Little Comment" thread? If a unit that cheap can be that accurate,
what's the point of specs? The only thing I'd do is listen for any sign
that the unit is defective. (I can imagine a player designed so badly
that it would have audible jitter, something not reflected in those
measurements--though certainly measurable--but it costs a lot of money
to actually design something that bad.)

Amps are a slightly different story. I'd look for measurements that
assured me it could drive my speakers, and I'd listen for any signs of
strain or distortion--but I wouldn't expect to hear any in most cases,
assuming reasonable power.

Now, given that this $39 DVD player doesn't measure very differently
from your typical high-end CD player costing, say, 100 times as much,
do you honestly believe you could tell them apart without looking at
them? I do not believe that you or any other mortal could, no matter
how long you've been a conductor.

bob

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 May 2005 15:55:02 GMT, "Jenn" wrote:

Chung wrote:
Audio is about sound. Of course, you can talk
about how "musical" certain gear sounds, but without some
objectivity
based on science and engineering, it's all preferences and
anecdotes.

Is there something wrong with "preferences and anecdotes"? At the
end
of the day, all listening at home is anecdotal. I would never
suggest
to a friend, for example, that he or she audition a piece of gear
because it has "superior measurements."

Neither would we - very common strawman hereabouts.



You might want to tell that to Ban who just did.




I would opine that a piece of
gear allows for the enjoyment of listening to music because it
resembles the actual sound of music as I experience it, or not.
Taking
your statement to the other extreme, would you recommend that a
friend
buy a piece of equipment based soley on the measurements? When you
get
right down to it, ALL of this is "anecdotal."

No, it can also be the result of carefully controlled *listening*
tests, not anecdotal at all.


She is talking about the fundamental experience of an audiophile. That
being stting down infront of one's system and listening to music for
the joy of listening to music. All acounts coming from *that*
experience are in the end anecdotal.





Harry and his 'subjectivist' cohorts
always resort to the 'meter beater' insult at some point, but the
reality is that the 'objectivists' are the ones who really do *trust*
their ears, and don't insist on *knowing* what's playing when making
comparisons.



Some of us subjectivists use blind listening for comparisons too. We
just don't pose as scientitists. Some of us know the merits of our
blind listening as well as sighted.





You will *never* see a subjectivist suggest that you should pick some
piece of gear based on its measurements.


Naturally. We pretty much always defer to experience via practical
usage.




Mind you, you can certainly
*exclude* many pieces based on their *bad* measurements!


And narrow the possibilites to the point of mayby excluding something
you might very well prefer, like ....vinyl playback.



Scott Wheeler

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 May 2005 15:52:53 GMT, "Jenn" wrote:

Stewart: Lifelike and musical are not the same thing.

Jenn: What would be your definition of "musical"?

Stewart: Pleasant to listen to.

I see. My definition is a little different. It would be, "Sounds
like
acoustic music performed in a real space, with the timbres of the
instruments sounding like actual instruments do."

That would be my definition of 'lifelike'. Ah well...... :-)



Some people find "life like" to be the most "musical" sound possible.




Scott Wheeler

"josko" wrote in message
...
"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
...
..A true scientist would
at least wonder how so much of the universe of listeners could come to
such
radically different conclusions than they do...

They already know why that is the case.


Sorry, they *think* they know. Knowing what is possibly true is not the
same thing as it being true.

...But short of
that, I find offensive for you to brainwash newbies here and attempt
to
bully those who dissent, rather than tackle with some humility the
challenge
of dissonance from the larger audiophile community.


I'm not sure who does brainwashing on audio-related web sites, including
RAHE.

Can't speak for other sites, but I know who does it here.

Jenn wrote:
Bob: As would I. But I would know that I was only getting his
opinion,

Of course! But that opinion is based on a higher level of
experience.

More importantly, it's probably the best information I could
gather--not the case with audio.

and
if I went there myself and got a cold, leathery slab of meat I would
discount his opinion immediately--as I would discount the opinion of
anyone who told me he thought piano solo sounded more life-like on
vinyl than CD. For all your self-proclaimed expertise, the only thing
you've actually told me is that you prefer vinyl. So what?

Allow me to ask you a question: What is the point of all of this if
not to gather and compare opinions? Shall we just gather some
testbench results, thereby determine what componets are "best", and
call it a day?

You've created a false dichotomy. Opinions are fine and often useful.
Testbench results are also useful. The crux of the matter here is, what
do we do when the opinions conflict with the testbench results?

When the testbench results tell us that CD recording/playback is far
more accurate to the original than vinyl, and a poster asserts that
vinyl is more life-like, are we supposed to just throw out the
measurements because the poster assures us he has more "listening
experience" than the rest of us? Or should we instead try to square the
two, perhaps by suggesting that some of the inaccuracies of vinyl might
lead some listeners to conclude that vinyl *seems* more lifelike?

When the testbench results tell us that two CD players are so similar
in performance that they will be audibly indistinguishable, and a
poster asserts that they are audibly different, are we supposed to just
throw out the measurements because the poster assures us he has more
"listening experience" than the rest of us? Or should we instead try to
square the two, perhaps by suggesting that this poster has compared the
two in a way that has allowed non-sonic differences to affect his
perception?

bob

Jenn wrote:
Bob: Not by audio standards. By audio standards, you listen to
huge
differences, differences that are undeniably well above known
thresholds of human hearing.

OF COURSE they are above the thresholds of human hearing, or I
wouldn't
be able to hear them. I'm also fairly pretty confident that you
wouldn't be able to hear what I hear.

I am equally confident of that. But many of the supposed differences
between audio components are NOT above threshold. And just because you
can hear the difference between, say, bowing one way and bowing another
way (to take one of your own examples) does not mean that you would be
a better judge of what constitutes "life-like" audio reproduction. You
are trained to do the former, not the latter. In fact, I would argue
that no one COULD be trained to do the latter, because no standard
exists against which to train them.

If that experience had relevance to audio,
Sean Olive wouldn't have to put his listening panel through strict
training; he could just recruit a bunch of conductors.

Or, if Sean's team could hear musical events better than Seiji Ozawa,
the Boston Symphony could have saved a lot of money!

Well, Ozawa brings a lot more to the job than the ability to hear. But
he and Olive's panel are trained for very different tasks.

bob

wrote:
Chung wrote:

Harry Lavo wrote:


"Chung" wrote in message
...

Harry Lavo wrote:

"Chung" wrote in message
...

You are welcome to stay. Not sure how much you will learn,

since you

said many times that you are not interested in technical

details. This

is an audio forum, and audio is about engineering and science.

In case you hadn't noticed, Chung, it is an audio forum devoted

to

high-end,

high-fidelity reproduction of *music*, including emotional

response

thereto,

as reproduced via home audio systems. The forum does and should

contain

much more than "engineering and science" despite your and others

attempts to

make it so.


I doubt very much if Jenn could learn without showing interest in
technical details. You can wax poetic all you want about emotional
response, but audio is first and foremost audio reproduction based

on

science and technology. Audio is about sound. Of course, you can

talk

about how "musical" certain gear sounds, but without some

objectivity

based on science and engineering, it's all preferences and

anecdotes.

Whoever dictated that it must be something else, hmmm??


No one has said that it must be something else. But I certainly hope
that Jenn can try to understand some of the technical principles
supporting (and sometimes challenging) those preferences and

anecdotes.

Otherwise, it is difficult to assign relevances to a lot of them.


Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? If a technical principle
is in conflict with a preference doesn't that call into question the
consideration being given to the technical principle?

That is certainly a possibility if you do not have a firm grasp of
technical principles. And that's exactly why it is helpful to try to get
some understanding of technical principles so that you do not mis-apply
such principles.

Such understanding also helps you appreciate your own preferences, and
more importantly, others' preferences so that you assign the proper
relevance to them. For instance, if you understand the shortcomings of
vinyl and the advantages of digital audio, it lets you deal
intelligently with why some people may develop preferences for vinyl,
instead of believing in someone's cluesless explanation like vinyl has
infinite resolution.

It is a serious mistake to believe that understanding of technical
principles interferes with one's preferences.

...Im mean shouldn't
the technical apsects of audio service the enjoyment of it rather than
the other way around?

Of course the techincal aspects service the enjoyment of audio. Who do
you think design audio equipment? Music conductors?





Scott Wheeler

Harry Lavo wrote:
"Chung" wrote in message
...

Harry Lavo wrote:


"Chung" wrote in message
...

Harry Lavo wrote:


"Jenn" wrote in message
...

Jenn: If people want to leave, I
will.

Sorry... I meant to write: "If people want me to leave, I will."

Nobody wants you to leave. You have simply joined a forum that has a

bunch

of guys who seem to take great pleasure in "taking newbies down", all

in

the

name of educating them. Just thicken up your skin, stay loose, and

join

in

when you fell strongly that you have something you wish to say, and

learn to

appreciate the good info that surfaces on this form between and among

all

the posturing.


Harry, please provide some evidence that there is a bunch of guys who
seem to take great pleasure in "taking newbies down". Otherwise please
retract that snide attack.

I'll do no such thing. It is apparent to anybody who frequents here for

any

length of time, and in the comments of those who return after having

been

disgusted and left at times previously, as well as the reputation that

this

forum has obtained in the usegroup community at large. It is not just

what

is said, but how it is said, how frequently it is said, and with what
arrogance it sometimes is laced with that reveals that it is an agenda,

not

just a "help". Contrast it, for example, to the genuine help given most
newbies in rec.audio.pro, even though that is an unmoderated forum and

there

are occassional "flames". The experienced members offer help and
perspective...but they also pay attention to people's sensibilities and

tend

not to beat people over the head with their "much superior wisdom" and
"irrefutable laws of science".


I see, it is so apparent that what you claim is happening, but you just
cannot provide any example to back it up. And of course, you will not
retract that claim, because, well, lack of evidence never stopped anyone
before.

Out of curiosity, you complained about how many times certain things
were said by the long-time posters here, but if there is a newbie on
board, don't you think that he/she might not have heard it yet?

I also am at a loss as to why you don't think there is genuine help
given here. Perhaps what you are really complaining about is the
straightforward way some of us respond to false technical claims. For
that reason only, rahe is one of the best places an audiophile newbie
should spend time in. He may not find everyone agreeing with his
opinions here, but at least he will get a direct, objective answer.


Give yourself this simple little test, Chung:

It's just so like you, Harry. We ask you for evidence to support your
claim, and you want us to find it for you! If it were that easy, why
don't you just give us the examples?


1) Do the newbies here ask for your help, or are they simply offering a
comment, opinion, or observation?. If the answer is usually not, then your
"offering" such help can be offensive and unwelcome, particularly if it
quickly turns insistant, argumentative, and somewhat hectoring.

Are you talking about me personally now? I thought youy were making a
blanket statement about the posters here.

What do you mean by "the answer is not"? You mean they are not offering
a comment, opinion or observation? Can you rephrase your question so
that we can answer it?

Whenever someone posts a message here, the assumption is that they want
a response from other posters. Why, I often see you offering "help"
without any prompting. Can you give an example to clarify what exactly
you are trying to say?


2) Do the newbies here have a right to hear alternative views presented,
without those views quickly being challanged in never-ending,
self-righteous, we are right and you are wrong battles where the
objectivists *must* write the last post? If so, it rarely if ever happens.

Can you give example of newbies not having such rights? Speaking of
writing the last posts, you seem to be as guilty as anyone here. It
seems to me that you cannot defend your views, and are simply frustrated
in how these discussions develop. Perhaps you should not speak for newbies.

BTW, it takes at least two parties to have these never-ending we are
right you are wrong battles!


3) Do the newbies here ever have any of the proponents of blind, comparative
listening tests list the possible weaknesses of those tests, in addition to
the strengths? If not, it is a brainwashing, not an education. Think about
it.


Any potential weakness of controlled tests are very likely to be
attacked by people such as yourself, at every conceivable opportunity,
ion this newsgroup. If I do think of some potential weakness of the
fundamental principle supporting controlled testing, however, I will
definitely keep you informed .

Jenn wrote:
Chung: Fair enough, if you think that you can learn without willing
to get into
technical details, be my guest.

A. I NEVER said that I am not willing to get into technical details.
I said that I had "little interest" in them, which is accurate. I'm
willing to learn more about technical aspects if it leads to more
life-like music in my home.

Great, progress is being made. Not too along ago, you wrote: "Oh, and
just for the record, I don't give a rat's patoey which is has (sic) the
greater technical merits."

B. Allow me to turn the tables, as it we Are you willing to learn
more about the sound of live music from someone who experiences it more
than do you?

Answer to B: I know a much better way to learn about the sound of live
music. I can play it, hear friends and relatives play it, or go to
concerts. On the other hand, I do not believe I can learn much about
live music by reading anecdotes in a newsgroup, especially those of
posters who think the the piano is much better reproduced by vinyl
technology!

Jenn wrote:
Chung: But I certainly hope
that Jenn can try to understand some of the technical principles
supporting (and sometimes challenging) those preferences and anecdotes.

Otherwise, it is difficult to assign relevances to a lot of them.

And I hope that others here would like to know more about the sound of
music. Otherwise, discussing technical data would seem to have any
relevance.

And I hope they learn about the sound of music by experiencing it
firsthand, and not through someone's anecdotes of what sound like live
music...

Jenn wrote:
Harry: In case you hadn't noticed, Chung, it is an audio forum
devoted to high-end,
high-fidelity reproduction of *music*, including emotional response
thereto,
as reproduced via home audio systems. The forum does and should
contain
much more than "engineering and science" despite your and others
attempts to
make it so.


Chung: I doubt very much if Jenn could learn without showing
interest in
technical details.

You doubt that I could lean WHAT? About technical details? That would
seem obvious. Otherwise, I don't know what you mean.

Chung: You can wax poetic all you want about emotional
response, but audio is first and foremost audio reproduction based on
science and technology.

Audio is also reproduction of music, based on how it sounds.

Audio is about sound. Of course, you can talk
about how "musical" certain gear sounds, but without some objectivity
based on science and engineering, it's all preferences and anecdotes.

Is there something wrong with "preferences and anecdotes"?

Preferences and anecdotes are just that: preferences and anecdotes.
Those may not apply to you, and in some cases, are so poorly arrived at
as to be totally useless.

A lot of people show preferences for certain expensive cables that
measure the same as Home-Depot zip-cords in a system. Some people have
anecdotes of how green pens greatly enhance their CD's. How valuable are
those preferences and anecdotes to you as a (hopefully) smart consumer?
Don't you want to be able to tell these worthless preferences and
anecdotes from something that has a chance of being applicable to you?

At the end
of the day, all listening at home is anecdotal.

How you conduct your listening is important as to whether those
anecdotes are reality based, or simply a figment of your imagination
that have no value for someone else. You need some technical
understanding to assign relevance of anecdotes is my point, and I am
*not* telling you to discard *all* anecodotes!

I would never suggest
to a friend, for example, that he or she audition a piece of gear
because it has "superior measurements."

With all due respect, given your lack of interest in technical
measurements, that would be the right thing to do since you may not be
able to tell "superior measurements" from merely meaningless specsmanship.


I would opine that a piece of
gear allows for the enjoyment of listening to music because it
resembles the actual sound of music as I experience it, or not.

And no one stops you from doing that, obviously, in this newsgroup. I
think I have heard this several times by now.

Taking
your statement to the other extreme, would you recommend that a friend
buy a piece of equipment based soley on the measurements?

I would highly recommend certain equipment based on the measurements, if
I trust the measurements, or if I did the measurements myself. Now
whether that equipment is the right thing for a friend to buy is a
different question, since there are many factors that go into the
purchase of certain gear, and you have to take things like aesthetics,
costs, features, etc. into account. You see anything wrong in
recommending equipment that truly measures well?

When you get
right down to it, ALL of this is "anecdotal."

Nothing can be further from the truth, I am afraid.

Jenn wrote:
Norman: With the cross talk, (channel separation characteristic)
of
any phono
cartridge, I'd pick CD over vinyl any day; no matter how any one, or
even 10
violin/saxophone recordings happen to sound.

Jenn: If the majority of LPs allow violin or saxophone to sound as
they
really do, would you keep the same opinion? I'm just curoius.

Steven: What if one's perception was that LPs do *not* allow violin
or saxophone
to sound as they really do?

If a person believes that, then that person should listen to another
medium if there is a superior one, in my opinion.

Your'e talking about purely subjective impressions, with no attempts
at
accounting for non-audible 'confounding factors' that could influence
those impressions. How would you elevate such a 'discussion' to
something
more substantive than 'he said, she said'?

By listening to a variey of equipment and sources through a variety of
systems.

And how would that move the discussion out of the realm of the purely
subjective?




--

-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee

wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:


Able to deal with it, certainly (and uncertainty is at
the core of practical engineering, you always want to know the
size of
the error band before finalising a design, hence the Monte Carlo
analysis), but definitely not *comfortable*.

One of the goals of engineering is to reduce uncertainty.

Yes, indeed.

I would be
uncomfortable with an engineer that wasn't always trying to reduce
it.

Quite right - that's how Toyota got to the top.

Uncertianty is an enemy of the engineer.

No, uncertainty is your friend, you just need to know how big is your
friend.................. :-)


I disagree. One does not try to reduce one's "friends" to nonexistance.

I can understand why you feel that way since you are not an engineer or
a scientist. Uncertainty can definitely be an ally: the way it is
handled differentiates the good engineers from the bad ones. Let me give
you an example:

In any process, there is uncertainty. You design an amplifier, and the
parts you use all have uncertainties, like resistor are only accurate to
1%, capacitors to 10%, etc. A good engineer can design a product to
minimize the effect of uncertainty on performance of the product. A bad
engineer will design products with unacceptable yields or poor
reliability. Good engineers understand uncertainties, and in some cases,
actually take advantage of uncertainties.

An example of how an uncertainty actually improves performance:
dithering. By adding noise, which is uncertainty, we are able to modify
the spectrum of quantization noise from finite resolution ADC's and
DAC's so as to effectively minimize its impact in the audio band. In
fact, today's digital communication (from GPS to cellphones) will simply
*NOT* work if there is no uncertainty.







Scott Wheeler

Jenn wrote:

Stewart: Lifelike and musical are not the same thing.


Jenn: What would be your definition of "musical"?


Stewart: Pleasant to listen to.


Jenn: I see. My definition is a little different. It would be,
"Sounds like
acoustic music performed in a real space, with the timbres of the
instruments sounding like actual instruments do."

Stewart: That would be my definition of 'lifelike'. Ah well...... :-)


:-) Ah! Lifelike IS musical!

Not so fast, Jenn! *His* definition of "musical" is what *you* call
"lifelike".

Jenn wrote:

Stewart: Jenn was in danger of joining your group, with her
presumption that
because she *plays* music, she must therefore have 'better' ears than
the rest of us, but I hope she now has a more balanced view.

WELL., I guess that there's a need to address this! I would never say
that I have "better" ears, but it's pretty certain that I have more
"trained" ones than the average poster. If I don't, I'm in the wrong
line of work!

Seems like you are splitting hair here, Jenn.

People who are trained to be conductors (actually,
classical musicians in general as well, to some extent) Listening is
the essance of what I do for a living. It is nessasary for me to be
able to disern very small differences in timbre, pitch, balance, tone
quality, and so forth. I need to hear, for example, if the 14th
violinist is playing with a different part of the bow than are the
others, thereby making a different tone color. I hear live, acoustic
instruments probably 150 days a year. I hear them up close, and I hear
them from the patron's seats. I know what horse hair vs. synthetic
hair sounds like. I know what a .547 bore trombone vs. a .580 sounds
like. The diference in sound between a silver trumpet and a brass one
is clear to me, and must be. If one person out of a hundred, I must
not only hear the note, I must know what section, and which player or
singer is doing it, instantly.

Sound like you believe you have better ears!

That's what I do. So, better ears?
Probably not... I wasn't born with unusual hearing ability.

Better ears do not mean born with better hearing ability necessarily. If
that's true, most of us do not have better ears than babies! I don't
think that was the intention that Stewart had when he used that phrase...

Better
trained ears? Yeah.

Now you have got it!

I don't do math as well as others here, I would
guess. We all have different skills.

Harry Lavo wrote:

"josko" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
And developement of the design will be painstaking, as every
underlying
premises must be exhumed and examined to make sure that the test is
not
interfering with what it attempts to measure. Social science and
psychological research skills will doubtless prove more useful than
engineering in this endeavor.

Which is why a good engineer will defer to the findings and
methodologies of perceptual psychologists. Which, in turn, is all any
of us have been saying here.


Exactly. Which is why "objectivists" have no problem defering to the
findings and methodologies of perceptual psychologists, unlike
"subjectivists".


Okay, you might convince me. Find please the writings of three perceptual
psychologists who hold that blind DBT's are the best way to do open-ended
evaluation of audio equipment (sound reproducing devices).. And while you
are at it, please provide a brief profiles of both their psych and their
audiophile credentials, please.


Well, Harry, you sometimes are really funny. Try this: find me three
engineers who hold that a philips screw-driver is the best tool to
remove a torx screw. Oh, and please provide a brief profile of each of
these engineers and their profiles please.

Jenn wrote:
Bob: As would I. But I would know that I was only getting his
opinion,

Of course! But that opinion is based on a higher level of experience.

and
if I went there myself and got a cold, leathery slab of meat I would
discount his opinion immediately--as I would discount the opinion of
anyone who told me he thought piano solo sounded more life-like on
vinyl than CD. For all your self-proclaimed expertise, the only thing
you've actually told me is that you prefer vinyl. So what?

Allow me to ask you a question: What is the point of all of this if
not to gather and compare opinions?

The point of what exactly?

Shall we just gather some
testbench results, thereby determine what componets are "best", and
call it a day?

Heavens no! We want you do your listening tests, by all means. And as
well controlled as possible. And we want you to become technically
knowledgeable so that you don't fall for the high-end myths like there
is a cable sound, or that cables need break-in, just to name a couple.

If there is one thing I wish any audiophile will learn, it is the
importance of understanding expectation bias. I think that is one of the
most important "points" in this newsgroup.

Jenn wrote:
Opps, I forgot:

Bob: I'm afraid I have no reason to share your confidence in your
own
discernment.

You are entitled to your opinion. I would also suggest that you have
no idea of what conductors are trained to do.

Now, interestingly, Herbert von Karajan, was a strong and vocal
supporter of the CD format. You think if the CD sounded less life-like
than vinyl to him, he would still be such a champion for the new format?

Hmmm, I wonder whether we should put more weight on your preference vs
von Karajan's.

wrote in message ...
Jenn wrote:
Bob: I'm not sure that people who "experience" live music more
often
than I
do could really tell me much about the quality of audio reproduction,
unless they'd done some really specific and detailed training in
listening to the latter.

Why? If I were looking for the best steak in town, I would tend to
talk to the person I know who has eaten at the most steak houses.

As would I. But I would know that I was only getting his opinion, and
if I went there myself and got a cold, leathery slab of meat I would
discount his opinion immediately--as I would discount the opinion of
anyone who told me he thought piano solo sounded more life-like on
vinyl than CD. For all your self-proclaimed expertise, the only thing
you've actually told me is that you prefer vinyl. So what?

Look at the kind of training that Sean Olive
puts his listening panel through for an example of what I mean.
There is some research suggesting that trained experienced musicians
can hear some things better than us mere mortals, but I don't know of
any evidence that they can hear the kinds of things that would
distinguish audio gear. And even if they could, that wouldn't help us
mere mortals anyway.

As I said in another post (which hasn't appeared yet, at least on my
server), I basically listen for a living. It's what I do. I have to
listen for very small details.

Not by audio standards. By audio standards, you listen to huge
differences, differences that are undeniably well above known
thresholds of human hearing. If that experience had relevance to audio,
Sean Olive wouldn't have to put his listening panel through strict
training; he could just recruit a bunch of conductors.

I hear live music, not played by
myself, around 150 days a year. It seems to make sense that when I
hear two audio systems, I have a pretty good idea of whcih one sounds
more like live music.

I'm afraid I have no reason to share your confidence in your own
discernment.


If the group wishes to have an example of how some objectivists here "put
down" newbies, you've just seen a good example. There is nothing Bob knows
scientifically to determine that the minor differences in tonality that Jenn
has spoken of would show up as anything but "null" on an open-ended
evaluation using DBT'ng among a cross section of ordinary human beings. And
yet he insists that she is wrong, that her ear training means nothing
(despite the fact that Harman does do it), etc. That defines hubris.

Bob: Now, given that this $39 DVD player doesn't measure very
differently
from your typical high-end CD player costing, say, 100 times as much,
do you honestly believe you could tell them apart without looking at
them?

Yes, I suspect that I could. When I bought my CD player 9 months ago,
I listend to 6 players in my price range. With one exception, they all
sounded unique to me.

On 13 May 2005 19:19:32 GMT, "Jenn" wrote:

Stewart: Lifelike and musical are not the same thing.

Jenn: What would be your definition of "musical"?

Stewart: Pleasant to listen to.

Jenn: I see. My definition is a little different. It would be,
"Sounds like
acoustic music performed in a real space, with the timbres of the
instruments sounding like actual instruments do."

Stewart: That would be my definition of 'lifelike'. Ah well...... :-)

:-) Ah! Lifelike IS musical!

That kinda depends on the performance, doesn't it? :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 13 May 2005 19:04:36 GMT, wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 May 2005 16:45:30 GMT, wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

BTW, I never yet met a real philosopher who was comfortable with
uncertainty.

How many philosophers have you met?

About fifty or so.

Have you ever met an
existentialist? Check this out.
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/ex_lexicon.html
They seem to embrase uncertainty.

That's because they are sloppy thinkers. Never did have any time dor
existentialists - they are all too often solipsists in cheap
existential suits.

I see, so real philosophers are kind of like real audiophiles. Thier
merits are measured by the degree to which they agree with you. Nice.

Typical strawman argument from you. Where did I say anything about
agreeing with any particular philosophy? I simply expressed an opinion
that 'existentialists' are sloppy and undesciplined thinkers, and all
too often vainglorious puffed-up egomaniacs.

Uncertianty is an enemy of the engineer.

No, uncertainty is your friend, you just need to know how big is your
friend.................. :-)

I disagree. One does not try to reduce one's "friends" to nonexistance.

Disagree all you like - you're not an engineer.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 14 May 2005 00:15:28 GMT, "Jenn" wrote:

Bob: Not by audio standards. By audio standards, you listen to huge
differences, differences that are undeniably well above known
thresholds of human hearing.

OF COURSE they are above the thresholds of human hearing, or I wouldn't
be able to hear them. I'm also fairly pretty confident that you
wouldn't be able to hear what I hear.

Now, exactly what gives you reason to think that?

If that experience had relevance to audio,
Sean Olive wouldn't have to put his listening panel through strict
training; he could just recruit a bunch of conductors.

Or, if Sean's team could hear musical events better than Seiji Ozawa,
the Boston Symphony could have saved a lot of money!

Not really, since there's a little more to conducting than the ability
to distinguish tiny sonic differences, wouldn't you say? It's also
very unlikely that either you or Ozawa would be able to listen to two
speakers and know what was causing a particular sonic difference, but
Sean Olive can. Different people have different listening skills and
different training, and it does your argument no good to talk up your
own and denigrate others.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 14 May 2005 00:15:04 GMT, "Jenn" wrote:

Opps, I forgot:

Bob: I'm afraid I have no reason to share your confidence in your
own
discernment.

You are entitled to your opinion. I would also suggest that you have
no idea of what conductors are trained to do.

I think you'll find that most of us are quite well aware of what
conductors are trained to do. One thing is certain - it's *not* to
distinguish, among various reproduction media, which sounds most like
a live performance on any given system.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 13 May 2005 22:59:10 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

"josko" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
And developement of the design will be painstaking, as every underlying
premises must be exhumed and examined to make sure that the test is not
interfering with what it attempts to measure. Social science and
psychological research skills will doubtless prove more useful than
engineering in this endeavor.

Which is why a good engineer will defer to the findings and
methodologies of perceptual psychologists. Which, in turn, is all any
of us have been saying here.

Exactly. Which is why "objectivists" have no problem defering to the
findings and methodologies of perceptual psychologists, unlike
"subjectivists".

Okay, you might convince me. Find please the writings of three perceptual
psychologists who hold that blind DBT's are the best way to do open-ended
evaluation of audio equipment (sound reproducing devices).. And while you
are at it, please provide a brief profiles of both their psych and their
audiophile credentials, please.

Don't think so, Harry. *You* are the one who makes extraordinary
claims which fly in the face both of engineering knowledge and of
controlled listening test results, so *you* are the one who needs to
come up with some *evidence* to support your position.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 13 May 2005 21:46:07 GMT, "Jenn" wrote:

Ban: No, this is not true. The amplification and reproduction of music is a
technical process, which requires understanding to evaluate and eventually
improve. The same is true of the technical acoustics of your listening environment.
And it is possible to buy pieces of equipment based on specs. For example
you need 30ft 14gauge speaker wire or you need a CD- or DVD player or even a
7 x 50Wrms amplifier. All these items are "transparent" to the sound and
another made or model will just sound identical.
Then there are turntables with arms, carts, and other accessories. Or
speakers. These items require careful audition, because they have a
particular "Eigensound" which might or might not suit your taste or
even be
annoying.

Do you honestly believe that CD and DVD players and amplifiers are
"transparent"? They all sound the same and can be bought by viewing
specs alone? Yo uwouldn't LISTEN to one of these items before purchase?

Personally, I would always listen before purchase, as there are still
a few dogs out there. Having said that, I agree that the majority of
'mid-fi' amps and CD players are sonically transparent, and hence all
sound the same. As a practical example, I have a 'Chinky cheapy'
Pioneer DV-575A 'universal' player which sounds absolutely identical
to a SOTA dedicated Meridian CD player at twenty times the price, and
will play pretty much any silver disc.

OTOH, if I were contemplating a CD player or amplifier costing many
thousands of pounds, and having a seriously 'high end' badge on the
front panel, I would *definitely* listen before purchase! Why? Because
in order to make them sound *different* from the 'hoi polloi' of the
mass market, many of them are deliberately *degraded* from sonic
transparency, sometimes even lacking essential components such as the
reconstruction filter! As for tube amps, don't even get me started on
those.............

Meridian is one company which I'm pleased to say has never gone down
that route, and remains firmly engineering-led.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 13 May 2005 21:43:14 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...

Jenn was in danger of joining your group, with her presumption that
because she *plays* music, she must therefore have 'better' ears than
the rest of us, but I hope she now has a more balanced view.

Since when have you head me say that I have golden ears, or hear better than
anybody else. They only thing that I have claimed here (which is true) is
that I have been at it for a long time (my dad was in the business in the
fifties and I was an audiophile before heading off to college) and that I
did a lot of semi-pro recording of acoustical music in the seventies and
have a pretty good understanding of live music as a reference and of the
recording process itself.

Nor have I heard others here say they have "Golden Ears". Basically, you've
just erected another strawman.

Well, let's just recall your post of earlier today:

"I'm also fairly pretty confident that you wouldn't be able to hear
what I hear."

Care to explain that one in terms other than 'I have Golden Ears'?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering