Half-a-brain loonies and internet geeks

This is an appropriate thread to come back to. Marco sent me an email the other day to ask if I had left for good (thanks for thinking of me Marco). I hadn't, but the truth is that this thread gets to the heart of why I lost interest for a bit.

I think some of you have probably figured out that I'm more or less in the camp that believes in testing and audible limits, believes that once you get past the competence of the top of "mid-fi," a term I really don't even accept as valid, or the entry level of "high-end," a term I think has more to do with cost than performance, the differences in electronic kit are minute, and that the secret of life is plenty of headroom behind transducers that make your ears happy. Period.

And that's not really were AOS lives. This is a high-end board, and while I'm cool with anybody getting their bliss in any way that works for them, once I've said that....

a) I believe plenty of clean headroom in the transducers that make your ears happy is all that really matters.

b) If you have a $2,000 DAC (substitute appropriate pounds or dollars for amps, preamps, cd players, etc) you're listening to (at least) $1500 worth of psychological bias.

c)...and this one is rough...redbook cds and solid state are demonstrably, measurably superior to vinyl and valves.

....I've more or less said it all. And if you respond that you're hearing things that can't be measured, that ears are infinitely more sensitive than any measurement equipment, more telling than any listening test methodology, that my kit is not resolving enough to hear what you hear, that you'll trust your ears, thankyouverymuch, you've more or less said it all.

At that point we can either get into the kind of destructive tit for tat, false objectivism and self-proclaimed elitism this thread is about and that this board has avoided, or we can agree that it is all subjective, my kit is better than yours if I enjoy it more and vice versa.

And silence falls over the board.

Tim

Hi Tim,

Welcome back. During 'working hours' we're always thinking about our members! Nice post. The only bit that I find necessary to dispute (or challenge) is this:

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redbook cds and solid state are demonstrably, measurably superior to vinyl and valves.

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Define "superior" in a universal context. Do we listen with our ears or with an oscilloscope? :)

Marco.

P.S I don't see AOS as a "high-end board"; merely a board which promotes open-mindedness and the use of one's ears as the final arbiter when choosing hi-fi equipment. Once such a process has been adopted the chosen equipment may be 'hi-end', 'low-end' or even dead end! ;)

We promote no particular bias in terms of hi-fi approach, and the huge variety of systems assembled at various costs used by our members demonstrates this.

I think Ali Tait recently posted an article on here that gets to the bottom of why solid state measures better yet valves often seem to sound better. I think the gist went along the lines of passing a constant noise down a ss amp and it measures better than the valve amp. The rub is that music just isn't a constant noise (pick yor colour - white, grey, brown or pink) it is a series of events. It would seem that ss amps actually distort much more than valves when asked to do something fast and loud, i.e. tell the musical story.

Solid state is the car that performs on the drag race over a perfectly smooth surface; the valve amp will win the rally.

The only measurements the objectivist has access to with amplifiers are the ones akin to the drag race.

I'll add that at least one forum effectively collapsed through perpetual circular subjectivist/objectivist debating. I will say that if you can't trust your ears you should look for another pastime/way to spend your disposable income for nothing else really matters.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hi Tim,

Welcome back. During 'working hours' we're always thinking about our members! Nice post. The only bit that I find necessary to dispute (or challenge) is this:



Define "superior" in a universal context. Do we listen with our ears or with an oscilloscope? :)

Marco.

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Well, this is where we get into the subjective stuff that can be very limiting to conversations. Clearly, I was talking about measurement, and a redbook cd has lower noise, lower distortion, better dynamic range, etc....

If I listen with my ears (which are the only ones that matter to me :)), to a really well-mastered redbook cd, it sounds better too. Your mileage may vary, of course, but hear clarity, depth, detail and sweet, sweet music in good digital that is, to my ears, masked by vinyl's surface noise, RIAA curve and inner groove distortion. Right now I'm listening to Knopfler's "Sailing to Philadelphia," a wonderful recording with a great depth of inner detail that I would not want masked by vinyl's limitations.

Valves? If they are really well done, they're nearly as open a window as good solid state or digital, but then that sort of defeats their purpose, which gets to the really subjective stuff: If the sound of vinyl or horns or even old-school "tubey" tubes pleases you and increases your listening pleasure, that's all that matters. The pursuit of "live in my living room" may as well be the search for the holy grail, anyway. Microphones don't hear like ears. Studios don't sound like clubs and concert halls, and multi track recording is an inherently flawed, nearly impossible methodology for simulating the sound of a live performance.

IE: It's going to sound like a recording anyway. Forget transparency. Forget resolution. If it sounds good it is good.

Tim

I would say that from an objective view point it can be shown that Red Book CD does outperform Vinyl. As in a well Recorded master, well engineered for transfer to Vinyl and CD, the CD will measure better than Vinyl. Trouble with that is that I will still buy the big plastic pizza thingy. Why? Don't know, it’s a question I have asked myself many times, don't know is not true of course, I know why, I prefer vinyl, but I don't know if I prefer the sound of vinyl, if I prefer the tactile thing with vinyl, or just the joy of reading a media carrier that is easy on the eye. I cannot separate one out from the other, as they are all part of the (sorry about this-imagination runs away again) Vinyl Experience.

That would to me suggest that part of the audiophile thing comes from not just the pleasure of the music, but from taking pleasure from the whole experience, justification of leisure maybe, but enjoyment of sensory pleasure certainly. If we get more pleasure by using more esoteric kit, then that has to be personal choice. If we feel that our ears are better suited to meeting our audio needs than a Journo, with or without test meter, than that has to be fine too. What I can manage without is the mine's bigger, better, newer, etc bitching contests that can easily ensue any personal preference discussions

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I will say that if you can't trust your ears...

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I can and I do. I just don't hear the same things the vinyl/valve camp hears.

Tim

Thing is with measuring things is that we would expect the things that come out well in test to sound the best but that is rarely true.
If we consider the "perfect" amplifier it will produce a signal at it's output that is identical to the signal at it's input in every characteristec except amplitude. Put simply the output is the same as the input but bigger. All amplifiers should be theoretically capable of doing this and under test will all show a similar (in scientific terms) Total harmonic distortion. Yet there are monumental differences in amplifier performance so there has to be something in there that can not be measured, there also has to be a degree of distortion (difference between input and output) that can be beneficial - the thing that adds character if you like. What is true for amplifiers is no doubt true for any other component. I know there are many other parameters eg slew rates, transient current, damping factor etc but hopefully you get my drift.
I guess what I am trying to say is that what may be scientifically superior may not be audibly superior, particularly when it is so hard to replicate real life in a lab environment.
I will continue to trust my ears, keep an open mind and respect other people's opinions and choices as long as they coincide with my own thoughts :-)
As a final thought, one of the regulars here posted about my sterling speaker cables on another forum. Some people came along and agreed with his positive observations, others did not. Strangely the ones that criticised or questioned my cables had, without exception, neither seen nor used them. I wonder what that tells us?
All the best to all, sorry if that rambles a bit.
Dave.

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That would to me suggest that part of the audiophile thing comes from not just the pleasure of the music, but from taking pleasure from the whole experience, justification of leisure maybe, but enjoyment of sensory pleasure certainly. If we get more pleasure by using more esoteric kit, then that has to be personal choice. If we feel that our ears are better suited to meeting our audio needs than a Journo, with or without test meter, than that has to be fine too. What I can manage without is the mine's bigger, better, newer, etc bitching contests that can easily ensue any personal preference discussions

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I agree completely. If we could simply agree that these technologies sound different, and state our preferences without insisting on the superiority of our personal choices, we'd be done. But then, if we took that same idea and extended it to all the other choices we make, we've cut off the audiophile discussion at the source. We'd have to talk about music, and how various recordings sound on our various types of kit, recognizing that it is all pretty subjective. Might make an interesting board actually...

Tim

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All amplifiers should be theoretically capable of doing this and under test will all show a similar (in scientific terms) Total harmonic distortion. Yet there are monumental differences in amplifier performance so there has to be something in there that can not be measured...

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How absolutely true, Dave! The fact is not everything in hi-fi genuinely heard by our ears can currently be measured, as ably demonstrated by your point above. This is the mistake objectivists make and won't admit.

If we accept this fact then how can our currently available measurement parameters for hi-fi (and partnering apparatus) possibly tell the whole story? This kind of makes Tim's earlier assertion somewhat moot:

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redbook cds and solid state are demonstrably, measurably superior to vinyl and valves.

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"Measurably superior" using currently known parameters, maybe, but as has been correctly stated, that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story...

Tim (and others) I'll get back you later. I must attend to dinner :)

Marco.

I remember an audio magazine where Tim de Paravicini stated that valves and solid state can sound the same, and vice versa, it was all in the design and circuit topology.

I have also seen technical data showing actual dynamic range of vinyl to be higher than CD. There used to be a link going around.

There is also some debate over VTA being as claimed with regards to changes in sound.

Personally I like large powerful and silent solid state power amps, I like certain valve pre amps if silent. I like XLR. I like 16 bit 44khz digital because I use such material. I like record players because most reissues of old stuff is rather poor.

Most of all I like large speakers with good amplification.

Recently I have been getting fed up with cables and supports and computer audio.

The reason for this post was due to an article which seemed to belittle forum members.

I am aware digital is getting better, but I feel that early detrimental reports of audio from computers seem to have been swept under teh carpet, with only the highlights being reported. WE DO NOT HAVE ANY COMPUTER COMPONENTS DESIGNED FOR AUDIO USE OR TESTED AS SUCH. So as far as I am concerned it is all FOO until more robust testing is done.

Hi-Fi Choice last month stated to a reader that testing such was impossible due to codecs and such producing variable results. Says a lot I think, to put that in context is like stating we cannot review CD players because of different analogue stages and such.
In other words Hi-Fi Choice CANNOT discuss any sort of technical or performance differences between computers and related software for music, showing them as complete charlatans.

Which is why I am starting to get fed up with, and give up on cables, for years people have claimed to have heard differences, discussed reviews and magazine articles, and quoted claims made by manufacturers, just to get slated, slandered and de-buncked as muppets by the technical fraternity.

No matter how much abuse a customer or reader has came under, in the last ten years I have not seen one reviewer or manufacturer stick his neck out and substantiate any claim or provide any technical evidence or support to such debate.

That is starting to tell me something......

Racks and supports are more of a domestic problem, well the government too, but some other day...

Only opinion mind you, but at the end of the day the strongest argument is on teh other side of the fence, and the only people arguing on the manufacturers and magazines behalf are what seems to be referred to as half a brain idiots and Foo believers.

The industry attitudes are going down the Pan, and reviewers are slagging off certain types of forum members, yet it is due to the magazine reviewers that such mentality exists.

I said before for such attitudes to change the industry HAS to start providing ROBUST evidence. We can already see the changes in review styles, commitment is in retreat, why, well I think until evidence is produced we know why.