Fantastic thread! Thanks for sharing your knowledge Arkless!
Location: Stockholm
Posts: 12
I'm Edgar.
Fantastic thread! Thanks for sharing your knowledge Arkless!
Location: Crook, County Durham, UK
Posts: 48
I'm Christopher.
Marketing BS is just as harmful as 'deaf adherence' to measurements. 'This beats everything at up to ten times the price' style reviews and advertorial should set off alarms, as one example.
It remains that the test of objective measurement (and other areas of technical design) is subjective listening, not the other way round.
I don't disagree with the points you've made, Dennis.
However, at the end of the day, you are who you are, and some of us simply aren't predisposed to a solely academic way of learning. We learn in other ways (through practical experience), which can be just as beneficial and rewarding, particularly depending on how you live your life and/or make your buying decisions.
Also, as true as what you say is about living in a "fantasy world", there also comes a point where you must have the confidence to trust your senses and gut instincts, and simply go with that 'feels' right, and then make your own mistakes or not, or forever be a slave to certainty.
This continual 'fear of being fooled', in the absence of proof to confirm what we experience as real, which some folk seem to suffer from (often those of a scientifically minded bent), for me doesn't equate to having a healthy state of mind.
I prefer to act like a human being, no matter how fallible my actions are, and be in touch with my senses and emotions, than as some notionally 'perfect robot', programmed to function solely on serving 'scientific facts'.
Marco.
Main System
Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.
Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.
Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.
CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.
Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.
Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.
Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.
Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.
Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.
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Well yes, if you end up giving incorrect technical advice then that could certainly cause someone to waste time and money. Otherwise the hobby already has plenty of people saying 'My way is best', and most of them have no technical knowledge at all, so I'd argue that those two things are completely independent of each other.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.
Location: Crook, County Durham, UK
Posts: 48
I'm Christopher.
Arkless Electronics-Engineered to be better. Tel. 01670 530674 (after 1pm)
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ReVox PR99, Studer B62, Ferrograph Series 7, Tandberg TCD440, Hitachi FT-5500MkI, also FT-5500MkII
Digital: Yamaha CDR-HD1500 (Digital Swiss army knife-CD recorder, player, hard drive, DAC and ADC in one), PC files via 24/96 sound card and SPDIF, modded Philips CD850, modded Philips CD104, modded DPA Little Bit DAC. Sennheiser HD580 cans with Arkless Headphone amp.
Cables- free interconnects that come with CD players, mains leads from B&Q, dead kettles etc, extension leads from Tesco
Yes, I remembered this after I'd posted. Still, I think when they say a transformer has 20% regulation they're being a bit lazy with their language and they're actually saying it is 20% off perfect regulation, ie 80%, or the full load voltage is 80% of the no load voltage.
Regulator manufacturers specify the same way, eg the specs for the LM317 say the load regulation is 0.3%, but it would make more sense to me to call it 99.7%.
Still, I doubt my argument will convince the entire world of electronics to revise its wording
Location: Seaford UK
Posts: 1,861
I'm Dennis.
Marco, I don't think we have any conflict of views here.
Whilst I believe in the 'objectivist' philosophy to the extent of validating the established criteria, I also accept that they are not, and cannot, give an exhaustive account of reality.
I also accept that subjective listening is essential and central to audio, and that some objectivists may be so biased and bigoted in their belief in the objectivist stance, that without listening they could design something on figures alone which would sound abhorrent.
Science does not rule out human perception, in fact it relies heavily on it, but it also entails massive amounts of work via 'subjective' empirical testing as a part of the process to arrive at a hypothesis, then thesis, and then theory. This may last for years, but sooner or later a better model will be arrived at and adopted as 'truth'.
When we look at a voltmeter, we are each subjectively seeing a needle on a scale, and reading a value, which we then regard as an objective measurement.
Last edited by Pharos; 28-07-2017 at 15:39.
Location: Bacup
Posts: 502
I'm Andrew.
I might be convinced by the subjectivist argument if there was an example where an instinctive reaction managed to prove the physics wrong. Or rather the interpretation of the physics in that context. I have asked this before and have not been given an example. Here is a hypothetical situation. Someone says cable risers improve the sound quality of their speakers. A scientist says this cannot be true because the physics says it is impossible for the sound to change just by lifting the wire. Later another scientist does an experiment where he discovers that the impedance of the cable changes when it is raised off the ground. He finds an effect, and proves it scientifically, that previously was thought to be impossible. In this case the subjective judgement leads to a change in the scientific understanding. Obviously this is a made up scenario, but has it ever happened in reality?