Mallette Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 He then councils that this is nothing to worry about since 3dB is considered the minimum audible difference. Yep, that's what I understood. Works for me. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Having a hard time with that. Thad was listening about something. PWK and company were looking about something. Not a matter of apples and oranges. More like apples and the price of rice. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) That's not the conclusion of the paper you posted by PWK. He definitively showed that wire choice affects accuracy of playback Because the cable changed the frequency response by .2dB. Edited February 5, 2014 by Don Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Suppose more/less "clarity between instruments" had been reported by a guy using a special speaker wire? How would any objective analysis address that comment? And yet, these sort of comments are commonly reported by ordinary people By measuring and noting the results. It would be necessary to use the same amplifier and same speaker the listener used for the test to be meaningful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Traveler Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) I love the internet! I am following another thread over at AVS on the Validity of Blind Testing and posted this: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1515576/validty-of-blind-testing/150#post_24314436 There is a thread going on at the Klipsch forum about cables and the only two people who seem to feel there is an audible difference don't believe in double blind testing. Here is an article written by one and on the others website: http://www.aletheiaaudio.com/Double-Blind-Testing.html Note: Here is page one of that thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1515576/validty-of-blind-testing Edited February 5, 2014 by tkdamerica Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest " " Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 its hard to judge a cable if you can't first calibrate it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 its hard to judge a cable if you can't first calibrate it The Pseudoacoustic Infector can be used for the calibration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Suppose more/less "clarity between instruments" had been reported by a guy using a special speaker wire? How would any objective analysis address that comment? And yet, these sort of comments are commonly reported by ordinary people By measuring and noting the results. It would be necessary to use the same amplifier and same speaker the listener used for the test to be meaningful. Measuring what? The same things PWK and Bateman measured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 I love the internet! I am following another thread over at AVS on the Validity of Blind Testing and posted this: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1515576/validty-of-blind-testing/150#post_24314436 There is a thread going on at the Klipsch forum about cables and the only two people who seem to feel there is an audible difference don't believe in double blind testing. Here is an article written by one and on the others website: http://www.aletheiaaudio.com/Double-Blind-Testing.html Note: Here is page one of that thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1515576/validty-of-blind-testing All these threads remind me of this: Still funny after all of these years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) Engineers do try to suss this stuff out. If someone said that to me about something I had made, I would drill down as far as possible into the meaning of the comment. What does clarity mean? Tone? Blurryness? Grunge? Noise? Loudness? I would keep asking trying to get some idea what to go look for. It could be combinations of many attributes causing this subtle difference. What I would not do is say, "I can't measure that, so you only imagined you heard it." I find myself in exactly the same position (at least consciously). However, I think there is another side to the coin... At some point, we start to notice a correlation between the audible subjectivity and the objective measure. For instance, when creating music I know I can usually get a more sparkly / bright / clear sound by using a high-shelf filter to boost the highs. I might even ask an assistant in the sound booth to make this change while I'm somewhere else in the room. I find that the communication to the assistant is better if I request "give me a +3dB boost with a 2nd order high-shelf at 10kHz" versus "give me more sparkle". Yes, I've tried both. When asking for sparkle, my assistant could apply any number of the tools available - like maybe a plate reverb, or maybe even cutting the lows. Using objective language, like put the HF knob at the second tick mark, is a better form of communication because it describes exactly my expectation. Both the assistant and myself can hear the difference between the knob at noon, and at 2 o'clock - did we hear the same change? That might be a more complicated discussion, but objectively I would argue that what we perceived was the same difference. Subjectively, maybe my assistant would describe it differently than I....in fact, I know that to be the case whenever my request for more sparkle doesn't match the same objective difference that I would have applied myself. All that to say, I don't see a problem with making a strong objective statement that describes relative magnitude. For instance, if we're measuring a 0.01dB difference at 40kHz between Cable A and Cable B, then I would describe that difference as very small. From a subjective perspective, I base that on the fact that I can wiggle an EQ knob +/-0.005dB centered at 40kHz and have never heard a difference. From an objective perspective, I define "small differences" as things which don't pass the ABX test. The only thing an ABX test proves is that a difference was in fact heard - it never proves inaudibility of the difference. This is important for the engineer because ultimately I get to choose how everything behaves, or at least I try to be aware of as much as possible. At the end of the day, it is rare to find a circuit that doesn't result in some attribute to be compromised that would be detected in an ABX test. Doesn't it make more sense to place the effort on mitigating the "very audible" artifacts first? I have a hard time with the "window cleanliness" arguments because we're talking about the color of mud on the 7th window when the first window is made out of poured concrete. That might be a bit dramatic, but it's really not that far from some of the discussions that crop up (like the cable debate). I have absolutely no problem with someone trying to polish a turd and get the right hue and finish that they prefer....but it competes with my own arrogance when I know I'm sitting on a diamond that admittedly hasn't yet been polished to the same level as that turd. Is it wrong for me to point out that it's still a turd, and that it would make way more sense to put that same polishing effort into the diamond instead? To be honest, I haven't been posting as much these days because I get tired of people throwing around objective descriptions for things they haven't spent the time to construct an audible correlation to. Most audiophiles can never leave it at "I prefer T over N" - there is frequently some illogical justification or reasoning behind their decisions, and they're typically not willing to be open minded and try to understand what exactly it is they prefer. That said, I would say real audiophiles do exist and they're far more interesting to debate subjective differences with. Usually because it's not surrounded in ignorant arrogance. Anyways, I digress. I need to get back to the "artless" engineering thing anyway... Edited February 5, 2014 by DrWho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Remember first, that AB/X testing of sound is a serial process. Information is presented to the listener not as a whole idea (like a photograph), but as a continuously evolving one. Presenting a song is not like presenting a photograph. By the time you get to the end of the song, the beginning is lost to history. Therefore any recollection of the sound of the song relies upon the reconstruction of an event which took place over say, a couple minutes. So, let's construct an analogy to that, using a different sense. Let's use the eyes. The reason to use this analogy is that photographs can be presented either as a whole experience, or a serial experience. And therefore it is easy to select an A and B that are close, and yet guaranteed to be different using nothing more than our senses. No instruments needed. Go here and see two photographs of the woman putting on makeup. There are two sliders under the photos. Move the one labeled "left" all the way to the left. Move the one labeled "right" two steps to the right. That would be under the third picture in the sequence. Now, those two photos are different. There is no question that they are different because you can examine them both carefully and see the difference. They were shot with a different f-stop, and therefore the depth of field is different on each photo. Now, let's play the AB/X testing game. I make a dozen 8 x 10 prints of each photo. One stack is A, the other is B. I construct now a special viewer. It is a tall wooden box 8" wide with a solid front, except that a slot has been cut out from the middle that is 1" tall and 8" wide. When the pictures moves through the box by some rollers, the viewer can only see a 1" x 8" portion of the picture as it slides by at any moment in time. The picture is just slowly moved through the device. Let's call it one minute to move the picture from edge to edge past the slot. You will see the entire picture, but only 1" visible at a time. That's an extraordinarily poor analogy; a photograph can be seen as a whole in a few seconds, while a piece of music must be listened to serially. In other words, a photograph has no time domain component such as the music has. A better analogy would be to use a video, a situation that has a time domain component to it's pictures, which are normally viewed in a serial manner. If a movie or video is viewed on a frame-by-frame basis it is easier to see details and differences. That's why slow motion replays are used in sporting events and for forensic purposes, to get the most accurate view of what happened. Music can be displayed in such a manner for the same purpose. By focusing on a segment of the music where small differences are claimed to have been heard between components, the details will jump out if they are truly there. BTW, the whole basis for your argument seems to originate from a presentation by Robert Harley to the AES, during which much snickering and laughter could be heard as he read his paper. Just because the paper was presented does not mean it was accepted as the truth or anything like that. It was presented and distributed for peer review. Why don't you present some of the responses to his paper? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Suppose more/less "clarity between instruments" had been reported by a guy using a special speaker wire? How would any objective analysis address that comment? And yet, these sort of comments are commonly reported by ordinary people By measuring and noting the results. It would be necessary to use the same amplifier and same speaker the listener used for the test to be meaningful. Measuring what? The same things PWK and Bateman measured. Ok, make your measurements between this wire and that. Now, using those measurements, how do you predict which will have "more clarity between instruments?" If you can't correlate a measurement to a sonic effect, then the objective approach won't help you get the sound you prefer. The subject in this little exchange is how to correlate measurements to sound qualities. You haven't shown how that is done. Because "more clarity between instruments" is gibberish, like someone saying, "That hamburger is better" than another hamburger without providing the means to differentiate between them. Does it taste different than the other one? If that is so, then what tastes better - the meat, the bun, the condiments? Or does it look more appetizing, or does it smell better, or is it larger? The details must be accurately described to make a sensible comparison. If "there is more clarity between the instruments" is all you have to go on, then general tests must be done to see what is causing the difference. Various tests can be run using a piece of music where differences were observed between components. If a spectrum analyzer determines more high frequency information is present when measuring one component versus another, that is a possible reason for the difference he heard. If the phase coherence is more accurate, that could be the reason. Distortion tests can be compared to see if that could be causing any audible differences. Many types of measurements should be done and after the data is collected it can be assembled and correlated to determine what is happening to cause the observed difference. There is no single "difference in clarity" meter that can be used to spot possible differences between sounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Here's a simple question: is there a point beyond which larger speaker cables cause a deterioration in the perceived sound coming from the speakers? I've found that I like the improved dynamics with larger-than-usual cables. 14AWG sounds better than 18, 10 AWG sounds better than 14. Other than cost and weight, is there a point at which other factors (capacitance, inductance, etc.) become more significant than lowered resistance/impedance, and make the sound less appealing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldenough Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Mark, I will say up front that I do not understand most of the technical aspects of this discussion, nor do I understand the argument you put forward as regards testing methods(AB/X). Hopefully this will not void me from being allowed to ask a question of you. You seem (to me) to dismiss such testing because of the failings of the humans mind, and I get that, you say that you can discern these differences in your own system, and I will take your word on that. Now I hope this isn't to simplistic approach, but if those same cables that you say made an audible difference to you were removed from the system would you immediately realise it, or would it dawn on you only over time? I hope this makes sense to you, not trying to be argumentative, I just had a thought flash through my simple mind and wanted it answered in a simple way, please answer so as this layman can understand, but don't spare on the details. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Because "more clarity between instruments" is gibberish, like someone saying, "That hamburger is better" than another hamburger without providing the means to differentiate between them. Does it taste different than the other one? If that is so, then what tastes better - the meat, the bun, the condiments? Or does it look more appetizing, or does it smell better, or is it larger? The details must be accurately described to make a sensible comparison. Do you know what "subjective analysis" means? Yes, do you remember that you asked me how one could correlate measurements to sound quality? I answered that in the rest of my post. Did you finish reading it? Apparently not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 If "there is more clarity between the instruments" is all you have to go on, then general tests must be done to see what is causing the difference. Various tests can be run using a piece of music where differences were observed between components. If a spectrum analyzer determines more high frequency information is present when measuring one component versus another, that is a possible reason for the difference he heard. If the phase coherence is more accurate, that could be the reason. Distortion tests can be compared to see if that could be causing any audible differences. Many types of measurements should be done and after the data is collected it can be assembled and correlated to determine what is happening to cause the observed difference. There is no single "difference in clarity" meter that can be used to spot possible differences between sounds. The entire point of this argument is that there are no such tests which can point to, or predict, these kinds of differences. You wanna bet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldenough Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 So Mark, would it be safe to say that these "differences" which are imperceivable to most, are "barely" perceivable to you and other discerning listeners, even in there own system, when under no stress to try and determine a difference? Or have I got this wrong and the differences are apparent to you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) I wouldn't start with randomly picked junk "turds" or "solid concrete" as components. But how do you determine when it is a turd or solid concrete? That's kinda what I'm getting at here....there is absolutely some level of subjective perception that correlates to an objective measure. In this case, we know we shouldn't be starting with turds and solid concrete...I totally agree with you here. My point (getting back to a much earlier topic) is that I think it's fair to call BS on someone's lavish claims when there are in fact turds in the signal path. What is the motivation for calling BS? I have no idea...probably because if it's true, then one's version of reality must be false and that's a pretty intense confrontation when you think about it. I dunno, I just think it's crazy to talk about the validity of caring about minuscule changes in light of much larger problems. For instance, that 0.01dB difference from your cable is swamped by your speaker's +/-3dB variation, which is then +10/-60dB for steady state signals in the room. Then you gotta consider the time variance: from both the room, and other things like thermal memory, or drifting bias points, etc... I absolutely agree with the argument that you could justify being 0.01dB closer to the ideal, but my point is that -3.00dB and -3.01dB are both still ~3dB away from the 0dB ideal (just to make a simple analogy). We're sitting here discussing the audibility of a 0.1% error when there is more than 1000% error to begin with. I'm sorry, but that's just fake refinement...which on a totally different subject is an interesting paradigm happening in America. People are actually quite proud of the image of wealth / refinement despite the actual experience being anything but refined. The image is all that matters and I think that's true with the audiophool (not to be confused with the audiophile). I actually think some people are more excited about hearing tiny changes rather than actually getting as close to the ideal as possible.....so I could be 10dB off target, but I'm going to greatly enjoy what it takes to bring that up to 9.9dB off target by manipulating the wrong system in the chain.....and I don't care because I'm hearing a difference and it's fun to hear a difference. Maybe I really shouldn't rain on their parade? I guess I can see some merit in that approach because it doesn't require having the best of everything? My problem with that is that it flies in face of my goals of exploring the engineering challenge to bring that 10dB error up to a 1dB error - or sometimes we can stumble on topologies that get us to a true 0dB error - now that's fun when that happens. Edited February 5, 2014 by DrWho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldenough Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Ok Thanks, glad I got that outta my head.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 IMHO, we've all come together here about as close as we are going to get, and are fundamentally in agreement. There would be peace in the Middle East if the Israeli's and Palestinian's could get this close... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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