On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:36:45 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article <fp2mqt02u3k@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):
> "Sonnova" <sonnova@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:fp023j01mr2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:26:31 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
>> (in article <fotrhn02kb0@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):
>
>>> This is what alwyas perplexes me about the 'you need to
>>> do long term listening' brigade. If you believe long
>>> term 'listening is required to get the true 'sound' of
>>> the gear into your brains, fine, go for it.
>
>>> And *then* demonstrate you're hearing
>>> a real difference, using a ABX comparison. Should be
>>> simple to 'pass' at that point, shouldn't it?
>
> Exactly. More to the point, not every part of every recording is
adequately
> or maximally critical for all kinds of audible differences. For example,
> consider a subwoofer that distorts only deep, loud bass. If you don't
listen
> to a recording with deep, loud bass at an appropriate level, you're
never
> going to hear the problem. Another example would involve audible
resonances.
> Resonances are narrow-band effects, and if your music doesn't have
enough
> energy to trigger the resonance to the point where it is audible, you're
> never going to hear it.
>
>> Not always. Sometimes differences are subtle and many
>> times, certain recordings simply aren't good enough to
>> allow those differences to show up.
>
> I agree with the thinking, but I find the wording to be unecessarily
vague.
> It's not the goodness of a recording that makes the difference, it is
its
> appropriateness, which of course can include general desirable
> characteristics such as clarity. Several researchers including
AES/MPEG/Bell
> Labs/Microsoft guru Jim Johnson have re****ted that sometimes it is bad
> recordings that make certain audible differences most audible.
Well, I was thinking about sound stage/imaging as the specific parameter
when
I wrote that. You'll not find any differences in sound stage or imaging
when
the recording used for the test has none. But I agree with your point too.
>> For instance, suppose
>> we are testing the soundstage/imaging of two different
>> sets of speakers and we use a 20-track recording that
>> places a microphone in front of each instrument in the
>> ensemble. An ABX or double-blind test will tell you
>> nothing of the imaging characteristics of those speakers
>> because, there isn't any imaging in the recording -
>> merely a bunch of instruments pan-potted to the right,
>> the left, and the center.
>
> Again the fault here is that ABX testing is singled out as being part of
the
> problem. It isn't. The heart of the matter is that no testing paradigm
will
> reliably reveal differences that aren't there. Testing methodologies
that
> can't reject false positives can convince people that they are hearing
> things that aren't really there.
Well, I'm not blaming ABX or blind-testing per se, I'm merely saying that
it
doesn't work in all cases for a myriad of reasons.
[quoted text deleted -- deb]
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