Re: audio culture nonsense?

"Sonnova" <sonnova@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:fluimp0bt7@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Mon, 7 Jan 2008 15:46:59 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
> (in article <fludlj01un2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):
>
>> Harry Lavo <hlavo@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> "Steven Sullivan" <ssully@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>> news:flqu8u0fl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> ---MIKE--- <twinmountain@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>>> snip<
>>
>>>> So,let's recap: upon auditioning this amplifier,
>>>>
>>>> Michael Fremer got addicted and fell in love.
>>>> Max Dudious believed in magic.
>>>> Arnie Goodman became joyful.
>>>>
>>>> and Audio Adviser promises us we'll hear music we never heard before,

>>>> even
>>>> from our
>>>> most beloved CDs.
>>>>
>>>> Clearly this amp stands out from other amps in terms of
sound...right?
>>>>
>>>> Except, no actual evidence was provided for actual sonic difference 
>>>> from
>>>> another amp.
>>>>
>>>> Imagine if I took the time to read the copy for all of them.
>>>>
>>
>>> Have you ever owned high-powered monoblocks?
>>
>> Certainly not.
>>
>>> Have you ever even heard a high-end system with them in a favorable
>>> environment, using other equipment you respect?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> Are Fremer et al indulging in hyperbole?  Quite possibly.
>> Is this common in audiophile reviews?
>
> I don't know if I'd call it hyperbole but some of these "differences" 
> between
> components are quite subtle. Many are so tiny that it takes someone who 
> has
> trained themselves to listen for them to hear them, and even more so, it
> takes a type of personality who CARES about those tiny differences. An
> analogy is oenology. :->
>
> Go to a formal wine tasting. Listen as the oenologist at the front of
the
> room tells you about the vanilla, coffee, chocolate and raspberry 
> overtones
> of the vintage you are tasting. Huh? All I taste is wine. It's either a 
> good
> wine or a mediocre wine. It's too young and astringent or its older and 
> more
> mellow. It has a good nose, a nice balance of acid and sweet or its
bitter
> and almost devoid of aroma. That's it. Now is the oenologist pulling our

> leg
> or is he indulging in a little hyperbole? No. He can really detect these
> things and has developed (along with other wine scholars and
connoisseurs) 
> a
> mutual vocabulary to describe what he's tasting. He can taste it and I 
> cannot
> because he's trained his palate to notice these things. I cannot because
I
> don't know what to taste FOR, but equally im****tant, I don't care. I
like 
> a
> nice wine, its just not my life. If the wine is pleasant, I'll enjoy it.

> I
> might also mention that in a double-blind wine tasting, I can't tell one
> cabernet from another.

The analogy with wine tasting has a major flaw, in that, as far as I'm 
aware, there is no objective measure of wine quality. Of course one can 
analyse the wine chemically, but that doesn't tell you how it will taste, 
and every wine tastes different. Also, wine tasting is entirely
subjective, 
there's no way of telling if your "chocolate overtones" are the same as 
mine. Amplifiers *can* be tested objectively, and the measurements are
very 
well understood. Blind testing has shown that there is no audible
difference 
between amplifiers if the measurements don't show up differences. These 
tests were done many years ago, and, as far as I'm aware, have never been 
proved wrong.

>
>> Quite so.  Thus my sarcastic
>> reference to 'soul changing' experiences with amps.  But the
>> rhetoric nevertheless implies *unsubtle* audible difference ...
>
> Many of these differences are subtle. Some are not and some are program
> dependent. I'm not going to make any soundstage determinations listening

> to
> rock-n-roll and three-channel mono jazz recordings.
>
>> which usually* hasn't been established as real in the first place. 
>> Meanwhile,
>> we have the 'simple fact' of human error always operating
>> in the background.
>
> Human error is always possible. But what do you say when a magazine
p***** 
> a
> single unit around to several reviewers, all of which live in different 
> parts
> of the country and who do not necessarily know each other and who do not
> communicate, but when the evaluations are in, they all have almost the 
> same
> things to say about the piece?
>
>>
>> So, the question remains, is there good reason to believe such claims
>> of difference AREN'T nonsense?  Where's the data?
>
> What data? Conventional measurement doesn't reveal anything about these
> differences and do nothing to tell anyone what the system is going to 
> sound
> like. THD doesn't seem to mean anything because its been found that the 
> human
> ear is largely insensitive to anything but rather large amounts of it in
> amplifying devices. Sine-wave intermodulation distortion is also 
> undetectable
> by ear except in large amounts (much higher than any competently
designed
> amplifier would ever have). So what does that leave us? SID? DAD? Some 
> people
> discount those as being bogus. So, what is left? Frequency response?
With
> modern amps having DC to daylight frequency response graphs that look
like
> they were drawn with a straight-edge, I don't see that being anything.
So
> what measurement do matter? You will say that this is proof that there
is 
> no
> audible difference between amps, I say that we aren't measuring the
right
> things. Impasse.

Possibly so, but can you then suggest what isn't being measured that would

account for the sonic differences?

The Scientific Method requires predictions that can then be tested 
experimentally. Just stating that amplifiers *do* sound different without 
proposing a mechanism for such differences doesn't advance the science.

>
>> (* sometimes we'll be shown bench test data that indicates, indeed,
>> that the amp might well sound different ...because the measurements
>> are so poor compared to other amps, including mass-market ones)
>
> What measurements? I remember once that there was a French tube amp
(this 
> was
> probably 15-20 years ago and I do not remember the brand) that measured
> terribly (over 2.5% THD!) yet was one of the musical-sounding amps that
I 
> had
> ever heard. I was reluctant to send it back. and would have bought it
were 
> it
> not for the fact that it cost an arm and a leg.

If two amplifiers are found to sound different, under test conditions that

produce a statistically valid result, then there has *always* been a
reason 
that has shown up on measurement. I would genuinely love to know of an 
instance where this has not been shown to be the case, as analysing these 
results could well advance the science.

S.
http://audiopages.googlepages.com