[Arny Krueger]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:41:08 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in
message

This type of person is often the type who participate in
DBTs as well, rank laymen.

Simply not true. The DBTs I've been involved with
involved experienced audiophiles, some youngsters, some
who went back to the days of tubes.

So, you feel that you can speak for all DBTs?

That's not what I wrote. I feel no need to respond to made-up statements.

People like him and college
students who were weened on MP3s and ear-buds are the
average "listener".

Here we go again, another set of self-serving audiophile
myths. Where are the peer-reviewed paper that shows that
people who listen to MP3 and personal listening devices
necessarily have any deficiencies when it comes to
reliably detecting audible differences?

They can listen to low-data rate MP3s

They could. Heck, I listen to low bitrate files frequently because that is
how most spoken word recordings are distributed. It doesn't sound lifelike
or even good, but the goal is communicating information, not tickling the
inner ear.

Fact is that many audible differences are easier to
detect with earphones and/or headphones.

And it seems that a large majority of the younger
generations DON'T CARE about these "differences" AT ALL
or they wouldn't be listening to really low-bit rate MP3s
and would insist in ripping their music at higher bit
rates.

Straw man argument because it has already been generally agreed upon that
the vast majority of music listeners aren't audiophiles and never will be.

OTOH, there is a rapidly emerging market for music encoded in high-bitrate
compressed files, uncompressed and lossless-compressed files, and even music
files with 24 bit data words and sample rates up to 192KHz.

There has been a major explosion in sales of high priced and in some cases
high quality earphones and headphones. Traditional vendors like Sennheiser
and Etymotics are bringing out new extremely expensive high performance
headphones and earphones. Non-traditional vendors are doing similar things
in even greater volumes. If not for the young, mobile music listener, then
who?

I have a number of friends with teenaged and
college aged kids with iPod-like devices. They listen to
them constantly. When I ask them what bit-rate they use,
the answer is always the same: "The one that allows me to
put the most songs in the available space". I.E.
quantity instead of quality.

These are choices that they get to make. This is also just the mass market,
not the already large and rapidly emerging market for high quality mobile
listening experiences. Remember that most of our parents were happy
listening to AM radios when they were young, and as a rule they had no
viable alternatives until the 1950s.

On balance the low and rapidly falling prices for flash memory make crushing
music in order to store huge amounts of it in portable devices more
nonsensical than ever.

[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 1 Apr 2011 07:30:11 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:41:08 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in
message

This type of person is often the type who participate in
DBTs as well, rank laymen.

Simply not true. The DBTs I've been involved with
involved experienced audiophiles, some youngsters, some
who went back to the days of tubes.

So, you feel that you can speak for all DBTs?

That's not what I wrote. I feel no need to respond to made-up statements.

People like him and college
students who were weened on MP3s and ear-buds are the
average "listener".

Here we go again, another set of self-serving audiophile
myths. Where are the peer-reviewed paper that shows that
people who listen to MP3 and personal listening devices
necessarily have any deficiencies when it comes to
reliably detecting audible differences?

They can listen to low-data rate MP3s

They could. Heck, I listen to low bitrate files frequently because that is
how most spoken word recordings are distributed. It doesn't sound lifelike
or even good, but the goal is communicating information, not tickling the
inner ear.

But that's a totally irrelevant side issue on your part, which, I believe, is
designed to obfuscate the debate.

Fact is that many audible differences are easier to
detect with earphones and/or headphones.

And it seems that a large majority of the younger
generations DON'T CARE about these "differences" AT ALL
or they wouldn't be listening to really low-bit rate MP3s
and would insist in ripping their music at higher bit
rates.

Straw man argument because it has already been generally agreed upon that
the vast majority of music listeners aren't audiophiles and never will be.

Again withe the deliberate obfuscation. We are TALKING about the fact that
the average listener is NOT an audiophile. That's the whole point of my
bringing up the fact that most young people don't care about sound. If they
did, they wouldn't be satisfied listening to low bit-rate MP3s. When this
type of "listener" is pressed into service to participate in a listening DBT,
I don't wonder that they return a null result. They likely don't even
understand what they are supposed to be listening FOR, and probably wouldn't
recognize these differences even if they existed. THAT'S THE POINT.

OTOH, there is a rapidly emerging market for music encoded in high-bitrate
compressed files, uncompressed and lossless-compressed files, and even music
files with 24 bit data words and sample rates up to 192KHz.

But again, that;'s NOT the discussion.

There has been a major explosion in sales of high priced and in some cases
high quality earphones and headphones. Traditional vendors like Sennheiser
and Etymotics are bringing out new extremely expensive high performance
headphones and earphones. Non-traditional vendors are doing similar things
in even greater volumes. If not for the young, mobile music listener, then
who?

You are assuming that these expensive headphones are bought by people who
encode their ripped music at the lowest possible data rate (thereby expanding
their iPod-like device's capacity). And that is simply not in evidence. Every
audiophile I know has an iPod or similar device. They DO NOT use MP3 they use
FLAC or ALC and trade ultimate storage capacity for quality. They also tend
to listen with expensive headphones and many have outboard headphone
amplifiers which accompany their iPod devices

I have a number of friends with teenaged and
college aged kids with iPod-like devices. They listen to
them constantly. When I ask them what bit-rate they use,
the answer is always the same: "The one that allows me to
put the most songs in the available space". I.E.
quantity instead of quality.

These are choices that they get to make. This is also just the mass market,
not the already large and rapidly emerging market for high quality mobile
listening experiences. Remember that most of our parents were happy
listening to AM radios when they were young, and as a rule they had no
viable alternatives until the 1950s.

This just reinforces my point about the quality of listeners that take part
in these university level DBT studies such as the Meyer/Moran paper that you
are so fond of.

On balance the low and rapidly falling prices for flash memory make crushing
music in order to store huge amounts of it in portable devices more
nonsensical than ever.

While that might be true for those of us interested in sound quality. To the
average teen, larger memory means MORE low-quality music files on their
players. I know kids with libraries that include thousands of "songs", far
more than they will ever listen to, but to hear them tell it, that's not the
point. The point is to have everything. They trade songs, buy songs, rip
songs and steal songs from the internet. The game is MORE, not BETTER.

[Arny Krueger]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message


We are TALKING
about the fact that the average listener is NOT an
audiophile. That's the whole point of my bringing up the
fact that most young people don't care about sound. If
they did, they wouldn't be satisfied listening to low
bit-rate MP3s.

I agree.

When this type of "listener" is pressed
into service to participate in a listening DBT, I don't
wonder that they return a null result.

Who is silly enough to do that?

They likely don't
even understand what they are supposed to be listening
FOR, and probably wouldn't recognize these differences
even if they existed.


Who actually wastes their time doing that?

THAT'S THE POINT.

My point is that we never used people like that in our ABX tests, and AFAIK
neither does anybody else if sensitive results are the goal.

Looks like a straw man argument to me!



There has been a major explosion in sales of high priced
and in some cases high quality earphones and headphones.
Traditional vendors like Sennheiser and Etymotics are
bringing out new extremely expensive high performance
headphones and earphones. Non-traditional vendors are
doing similar things in even greater volumes. If not for
the young, mobile music listener, then who?

You are assuming that these expensive headphones are
bought by people who encode their ripped music at the
lowest possible data rate (thereby expanding their
iPod-like device's capacity).

Not at all. I'm saying that people who go to all that trouble and expense
are often far more demanding of their program material.

The fact of the matter is that even a minimal 2 GB Sansa Clip ( a device
with 24 GB max capacity today) can hold enough lossless FLAC files in 2G to
be a very enjoyable listening tool.

And that is simply not in
evidence. Every audiophile I know has an iPod or similar
device. They DO NOT use MP3 they use FLAC or ALC and
trade ultimate storage capacity for quality. They also
tend to listen with expensive headphones and many have
outboard headphone amplifiers which accompany their iPod
devices

Then we agree.

I have a number of friends with teenaged and
college aged kids with iPod-like devices. They listen to
them constantly. When I ask them what bit-rate they use,
the answer is always the same: "The one that allows me
to put the most songs in the available space". I.E.
quantity instead of quality.

These are choices that they get to make. This is also
just the mass market, not the already large and rapidly
emerging market for high quality mobile listening
experiences. Remember that most of our parents were
happy listening to AM radios when they were young, and
as a rule they had no viable alternatives until the
1950s.

This just reinforces my point about the quality of
listeners that take part in these university level DBT
studies such as the Meyer/Moran paper that you are so
fond of.

The Meyer Moran tests were done "With the help of about 60 members of the
Boston Audio Society and many other interested parties.."

(quote from page one of the Meyer JAES Peer-reviewed paper.

Your claim is totally flasified.


BTW the rest of the sentence I quoted said:

"a series of double-blind (A/B/X) listening tests were held over a period of
about a year"

Thus we have recent confirmation of the validity of ABX testing in a
peer-reviewed paper.

[Audio Empire]

On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 06:29:48 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message


We are TALKING
about the fact that the average listener is NOT an
audiophile. That's the whole point of my bringing up the
fact that most young people don't care about sound. If
they did, they wouldn't be satisfied listening to low
bit-rate MP3s.

I agree.

When this type of "listener" is pressed
into service to participate in a listening DBT, I don't
wonder that they return a null result.

Who is silly enough to do that?

They likely don't
even understand what they are supposed to be listening
FOR, and probably wouldn't recognize these differences
even if they existed.


Who actually wastes their time doing that?

THAT'S THE POINT.

My point is that we never used people like that in our ABX tests, and AFAIK
neither does anybody else if sensitive results are the goal.

Looks like a straw man argument to me!

Tell that to Meyer/Moran. Many of their participants were just university
students (although most were Boston Audio Society members, and that's to the
good). The paper made no differentiation between experienced listeners and
non-experienced except to say that in their tests, it didn't seem to matter.




There has been a major explosion in sales of high priced
and in some cases high quality earphones and headphones.
Traditional vendors like Sennheiser and Etymotics are
bringing out new extremely expensive high performance
headphones and earphones. Non-traditional vendors are
doing similar things in even greater volumes. If not for
the young, mobile music listener, then who?

You are assuming that these expensive headphones are
bought by people who encode their ripped music at the
lowest possible data rate (thereby expanding their
iPod-like device's capacity).

Not at all. I'm saying that people who go to all that trouble and expense
are often far more demanding of their program material.

The fact of the matter is that even a minimal 2 GB Sansa Clip ( a device
with 24 GB max capacity today) can hold enough lossless FLAC files in 2G to
be a very enjoyable listening tool.

And that is simply not in
evidence. Every audiophile I know has an iPod or similar
device. They DO NOT use MP3 they use FLAC or ALC and
trade ultimate storage capacity for quality. They also
tend to listen with expensive headphones and many have
outboard headphone amplifiers which accompany their iPod
devices

Then we agree.

Only if you concede that the average iPod toting teen wouldn't know decent
sound if it came up and bit them in the arse!

I have a number of friends with teenaged and
college aged kids with iPod-like devices. They listen to
them constantly. When I ask them what bit-rate they use,
the answer is always the same: "The one that allows me
to put the most songs in the available space". I.E.
quantity instead of quality.

These are choices that they get to make. This is also
just the mass market, not the already large and rapidly
emerging market for high quality mobile listening
experiences. Remember that most of our parents were
happy listening to AM radios when they were young, and
as a rule they had no viable alternatives until the
1950s.

This just reinforces my point about the quality of
listeners that take part in these university level DBT
studies such as the Meyer/Moran paper that you are so
fond of.

The Meyer Moran tests were done "With the help of about 60 members of the
Boston Audio Society and many other interested parties.."

(quote from page one of the Meyer JAES Peer-reviewed paper.

Your claim is totally flasified.

The paper also says that they used over one hundred participants, "of widely
varying ages, activities, and levels of musical and audio experience.'

BTW the rest of the sentence I quoted said:

"a series of double-blind (A/B/X) listening tests were held over a period of
about a year"

Yep.


Thus we have recent confirmation of the validity of ABX testing in a
peer-reviewed paper.

I didn't see the peer-review info noted in that paper.

[Arny Krueger]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 06:29:48 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in
message

This just reinforces my point about the quality of
listeners that take part in these university level DBT
studies such as the Meyer/Moran paper that you are so
fond of.

The Meyer Moran tests were done "With the help of about
60 members of the Boston Audio Society and many other
interested parties.."

(The above is a quote from page one of the Meyer JAES Peer-reviewed
paper. )

Your claim is totally falsified.

The paper also says that they used over one hundred
participants, "of widely varying ages, activities, and
levels of musical and audio experience.'

Thank you for presenting more evidence that is contrary to your previous
statements about the listening panels being compsed of just university
students.

While there may have been *some* university students in the listening
panels, it is abundently clear that the listeners were people of "of widely
varying ages, activities, and
levels of musical and audio experience."

BTW the rest of the sentence I quoted said:

"a series of double-blind (A/B/X) listening tests were
held over a period of about a year"

Yep.

Thus we have recent confirmation of the validity of ABX
testing in a peer-reviewed paper.

I didn't see the peer-review info noted in that paper.

I'm sorry that you are so unfamiliar with the protocols that are used to
qualify papers that are published in the JAES.

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 3 Apr 2011 07:34:26 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 06:29:48 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in
message

This just reinforces my point about the quality of
listeners that take part in these university level DBT
studies such as the Meyer/Moran paper that you are so
fond of.

The Meyer Moran tests were done "With the help of about
60 members of the Boston Audio Society and many other
interested parties.."

(The above is a quote from page one of the Meyer JAES Peer-reviewed
paper. )

Your claim is totally falsified.

The paper also says that they used over one hundred
participants, "of widely varying ages, activities, and
levels of musical and audio experience.'

Thank you for presenting more evidence that is contrary to your previous
statements about the listening panels being compsed of just university
students.

You're welcome, except that I never said that the panel was composed of JUST
university students.

While there may have been *some* university students in the listening
panels, it is abundently clear that the listeners were people of "of widely
varying ages, activities, and
levels of musical and audio experience."

BTW the rest of the sentence I quoted said:

"a series of double-blind (A/B/X) listening tests were
held over a period of about a year"

Yep.

Thus we have recent confirmation of the validity of ABX
testing in a peer-reviewed paper.

I didn't see the peer-review info noted in that paper.

I'm sorry that you are so unfamiliar with the protocols that are used to
qualify papers that are published in the JAES.

Since I'm not a member of JAES, It shouldn't be surprising. However, you are
addressing a forum that I dare say has very few participants who are members
of the JAES. Therefore it is incumbent upon you to enlighten us about these
matters when you make such a statement as you do above. Otherwise, your
statement is merely empty rhetoric.

[Arny Krueger]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Sun, 3 Apr 2011 07:34:26 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in
message

I'm sorry that you are so unfamiliar with the protocols
that are used to qualify papers that are published in
the JAES.

Since I'm not a member of JAES, It shouldn't be
surprising. However, you are addressing a forum that I
dare say has very few participants who are members of the
JAES.

The fallacy here is the idea that only AES members have access to AES
papers. For years I relied on a local library's JAES collection. In fact I
haven't been an AES member for over 20 years.

[Harry Lavo]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Audio Empire" wrote in message

On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:41:08 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in
message

This type of person is often the type who participate in
DBTs as well, rank laymen.

Simply not true. The DBTs I've been involved with
involved experienced audiophiles, some youngsters, some
who went back to the days of tubes.

So, you feel that you can speak for all DBTs?
That's not what I wrote. I feel no need to respond to made-up statements.


He's simply saying that the groups you've been involved in are not (or may
not be) representative of the group tests that have been done (which often
use university students, from what I've seen).

People like him and college
students who were weened on MP3s and ear-buds are the
average "listener".

Here we go again, another set of self-serving audiophile
myths. Where are the peer-reviewed paper that shows that
people who listen to MP3 and personal listening devices
necessarily have any deficiencies when it comes to
reliably detecting audible differences?

They can listen to low-data rate MP3s

They could. Heck, I listen to low bitrate files frequently because that is
how most spoken word recordings are distributed. It doesn't sound lifelike
or even good, but the goal is communicating information, not tickling the
inner ear.

I'm not sure ANYBODY listens to music for the "information content" rather
than enjoyment. This would seem to negate your point.



Fact is that many audible differences are easier to
detect with earphones and/or headphones.

And it seems that a large majority of the younger
generations DON'T CARE about these "differences" AT ALL
or they wouldn't be listening to really low-bit rate MP3s
and would insist in ripping their music at higher bit
rates.

Straw man argument because it has already been generally agreed upon that
the vast majority of music listeners aren't audiophiles and never will be.

OTOH, there is a rapidly emerging market for music encoded in high-bitrate
compressed files, uncompressed and lossless-compressed files, and even
music
files with 24 bit data words and sample rates up to 192KHz.

There has been a major explosion in sales of high priced and in some cases
high quality earphones and headphones. Traditional vendors like Sennheiser
and Etymotics are bringing out new extremely expensive high performance
headphones and earphones. Non-traditional vendors are doing similar things
in even greater volumes. If not for the young, mobile music listener, then
who?

The well-heeled audiophile who wants to be "with it"?


I have a number of friends with teenaged and
college aged kids with iPod-like devices. They listen to
them constantly. When I ask them what bit-rate they use,
the answer is always the same: "The one that allows me to
put the most songs in the available space". I.E.
quantity instead of quality.

These are choices that they get to make. This is also just the mass
market,
not the already large and rapidly emerging market for high quality mobile
listening experiences. Remember that most of our parents were happy
listening to AM radios when they were young, and as a rule they had no
viable alternatives until the 1950s.

On balance the low and rapidly falling prices for flash memory make
crushing
music in order to store huge amounts of it in portable devices more
nonsensical than ever.

And your point is....?