What is music.... is it not a pleasure center for the brain??
Therefore, if one hears a different presentation, because the brain tells us it is different and pleasurable/more correct to our recollection of the real event, is that not good enough??
Comparative Listening Tests
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What is music.... is it not a pleasure center for the brain??
Therefore, if one hears a different presentation, because the brain tells us it is different and pleasurable/more correct to our recollection of the real event, is that not good enough??
Amir's reviews crack me up. He can walk into a room of veblens worship with everybody bowing in the same direction to a pile of exotic expense, is unmoved by the opulence of the display, says the sound is unimpressive, and leaves. It's like going into a church and turning over the pews.
I have had similar experiences at shows, without wanting to turn over the pews, but I also know that I don't want the lightening bolts of anger and retaliation by stating it publicly.
I had a display guy get mad at me for calling him a vendor, which I guess he found insulting, so I guess I need new euphemisms for audio political correctness.
I have had similar experiences at shows, without wanting to turn over the pews, but I also know that I don't want the lightening bolts of anger and retaliation by stating it publicly.
I had a display guy get mad at me for calling him a vendor, which I guess he found insulting, so I guess I need new euphemisms for audio political correctness.
You should read his review of the VSA room and the Ultra 11. Best in Show by everyone except by the self proclaimed King of Audio who said the speakers were on the wrong wall when in reality the room was 30 x 30. He trashed the placement of the tube traps in the room when in reality the room was designed by Art Noxon.
I know whose ears I trust and I know who to turn a deaf ear to when I read BS reviews about things he knows nothing about.
Rather they reference brain plasticity as the excuse for everything that they can't explain.
Attention & focus on different aspects of the same music brings to consciousness elements that may have gone unnoticed before - so playback of the same music one after another can sound different even though the music is exactly the same - this doesn't mean the "brain manufactures differences" - this is a misunderstanding in this example I already stated that the name for this was "inattentional blindness". There seems to be a great confusion about perception, auditory or visual - we don't hear everything in the first playing of music & therefore anything new that we hear in the second playing is a fabrication - perception is an analysis machine & it can only do analysis on a limited amount of data at a time, that aspect that we are focused on. Yes, we can switch instantly (seemingly) & focus on another aspect but we are no longer receptive to the first aspect. We don't notice this aspect as our perceptions seems so seamless - In the field of vision when we switch our eye's focus between one object & another, we are momentarily blind during the time it takes to switch - this is well know & given the name saccades.
This is just wrong - systems which deliver an illusion which our perceptions judge to be perceptually correct do not bore as they present all the aspects of the music which engage us in listening - just as we would be engaged if listening to the same thing live & not in playback.
You are talking about a different aspect of the hobby - the tinkering side.
IMO, this is just plain imagining on your part
That assumes pretty low audio IQ on my part if the managed to get me this way.
Not at all what I was implying Amir nor a knock on JBL's products just that the test was flawed and heavily biased to support SO's hypothesis, not to challenge or disprove it.
BTW, you know the low cost Ching Cheng power audio cable brand you were talking about in the other thread? My Mark Levinson monoblock amplifiers came with those cables!!!
So maybe you have more ideas in common with them.
LOL! I've been a JBL fan for decades specially Greg Timbers designs, probably the most experienced if not the best horn designer of our times. They compared one of his best wide dispersion HT horns, the only speaker of such design and the only one that would work in an auditorium setting against half a pair of domestic speakers in an absolutely non-realworld scenario for them, do you really need to even sit through this test to know the outcome? I bet they didn't even use a pure mono source probably an A+B signal to firmly stick that final nail in the other speakers coffins!david
(Edit) We got side tracked, my point was SO's grading is meaningless and of no value to anyone else!
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Easy - audio does not have the resources to carry such tests systematically. But sometimes we see some light, suggesting that audiophiles are not just biased fools. For example, look at Hi-Rez, a current hot subject in high-end. AES has a committee on it, but we are still waiting for the scientific truth on this subject, although a recent AES paper (A Meta-Analysis of High Resolution Audio Perceptual Evaluation http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18296) concludes that
" In summary, these results imply that, though the effect is perhaps small and difficult to detect, the perceived fidelity of an audio recording and playback chain is affected by operating beyond conventional consumer oriented levels."
However, as usual the section entitled "Future Research Directions" starting with : "As previously mentioned, many proposed causes or factors in perception of high resolution audio could not be confirmed nor denied and warrant further investigation " is long ...
Fortunately, pushed by mostly empirical knowledge obtained most of the time in non ideal conditions, we now have excellent HiRez recordings. Should we have waited for the scientists?
Fully agree, Steve.
The arguments put forward by Amir in that thread was that he was using a term "oversampling" in relation to FFTs that neither Opus nor I were familiar with because we weren't DSP engineers.
Not only did he show a complete lack of understanding of FFTs but tried to suggest that we were at fault.
This type of dishonesty he has demonstrated in the past to cover up his lack of understanding of USB asynchronous communication when he claimed that it re-transmitted packets & claimed John Swenson (ironically, a DSP engineer) had stated this to him.
In both instances, rather than admit to being wrong (there's nothing wrong with being wrong sometimes) he doubles-down & then disappears for the usual two week hiatus as Steve has identified.
Maybe this dishonesty has become acceptable behaviour due to the daily examples we see of it on the news but it treats the listeners/readers as fools who don't know how to evaluate what's being claimed? Indeed, in that recent thread on FFTs I've seen people praise Amir for his information (misinformation)!!
I think most posting here are beyond the stage that we marvel at differences that are not improvements. Most of us listen for very specific things, I mean read Al M's review of my cables... he was very obviously looking to improve some specific aspects of his system he wasn't happy with. I and others have also stated the very specific things we look for when evaluating a system, not just "wow, that sound different!".
Hard wiring a system does make sense but not from a convenience perspective! I think most, including myself, want to be able to quickly and easily change things out, hence connectors. They are a somewhat necessary evil, and they can be improved to the point they interfere very little but this is not inexpensive... Good quality connectors do cost a lot. I think connector jacks are often ignored, most components do not come with the best possible RCA/XLR jacks, binding posts and internal wire, improving this makes about the same difference as good cables.
Any change you make to a system will be acclimated for by the brain, that's why inexperienced audiophiles with questionable systems often prefer their own systems to anything else they hear at an audio show. And it is true sometimes the change may be a slight improvement but you can take a whole bunch of slight improvements and it adds up to a night and day improvement. I've experienced this installing my SurgeX and cables in systems that had marginal power and cable components and the system's owners were incredulous at the huge improvements made. Each cable added made a nice improvement but nothing earth shattering, but the before/after differences of an entire cabling system + good AC power conditioning and delivery totally transformed his system from flat and boring, yet not objectionable, to a system with a 3-D soundstage that had far better resolution and the result was a much more engaging and fun to listen to system. IMO, cables and power are critical components when you get to a certain level of performance for this reason. Also, this is how you get a system that has that euphoric magic every single time you turn it on, not just when you're psychologically ready to hear some music.
Wow... Just wow.
I've already commented on your test being too difficult and my thoughts that only folks with exceptional auditory memory would have a chance. But on other things, most here are certainly able and willing to try out new things without the incredible bias you are showing here. You have no clue what that receptacle will do, and if you install it how I recommended, in the wall feeding a power distributor, it's going to make a difference any old Joe would have no problem discerning. Except maybe people with ludicrous psychological bias, jeesh, why even bother if you're so certain?
Let me rephrase that for you, Amir - "Sitting here I have next to me a $300 AC outlet that I am confident will do zero to improve audio performance. Yet, I still bought the thing to show it has no effect."
This accurately describes your approach - your experimenter's bias is rampant & evident in the "tests" you perform.
Your lack of understanding of the effects of leakage currents in measurements & how to use the Audio Precision analyser, (you continually tell us you own), would be embarrass a neophyte technician.
What exactly are you claiming I don't do in reverse? I develop digital audio products that address certain weaknesses I have identified as important & the end user feedback & magazine reviews show that I'm doing it right.
I sent one of my early USB DACs on a tour around WBF members some years ago, 2012 - Bruce Brown had this to say about it here
The design & refinement have moved on substantially since then. I offered it to you to hear & test but you weren't interested.
Tell me, exactly what audio devices have you designed & had reviewed?
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Seriously? How do you derive at these conclusions? This is a straw man argument used to convince others and perhaps yourself why you must “interpret the efficacy of their product using other methods”. Which IMO when translated implies, Amir is unable to interpret what he hears.
IMO, this seems to be yet another indicator that you don’t know the first thing about understanding, comprehending, or interpreting what you hear i.e. a lack of trained hearing. Yes, we’re all too well aware of how you supposedly pass every hearing test with flying colors as you seem to boast about it too many times. But what you don’t understand is every time you boast about your wonderful hearing scores seems to be yet another indicator that you lack understanding of what is really entailed with trained/developed hearing.
You even posted a thread boasting, “Conclusive proof that higher resolution audio sounds different” and like a badge of honor you pinned it for all to see what fabulously trained ears you have. Which I wish they’d unpin. Yet another testament of your supposed superior hearing skills, but to me and perhaps to others, it’s just another of many bits of evidence that you don’t exhibit any traits of knowing the first thing about possessing a set of trained/developed ears. Perhaps like the blind man trying to convince everybody he can see. A monkey, a child, a dog, and even most women have better hearing that you. But out of that group you and perhaps Ethan are the only ones calling yourselves audio experts. I just don’t understand that.
Amir, again, this is not science but common sense. Mature / savvy people have understood this for a very long time. Case-in-point. You ever watch a movie 10 times and each time you pick up something new? Maybe even completely different perspectives of the plot? It’s common sense and the mature / savvy types do not marvel at this as each sense has this potential. Should the astute type be aware of this potential? Of course, but only if it's necessary like if my ability to interpret what I hear was greatly lacking. It's common sense that no two events are identical. But under most circumstances, I need not concern myself with such elementary thoughts.
See previous note.
Who says, you? Another "audio expert" who cannot hear? It just occurred to me. Your “science” skills just may have a place in high-end audio. That’s for you to conduct listening tests with other like-minded pseudo science buddies (like Ethan) who also cannot hear and perhaps many without a “science” background in high-end audio who also lack the ability to interpret what they hear. I’m being serious. But for those with the ability to hear and interpret what they hear, I’ve always had great difficulty finding any value somebody like yourself may bring.
I asked my friend about it and he said it made a positive difference. Wanting to remain friends, I did not challenge him on that and instead, enjoyed tape after tape.
Now what I described is the conclusion in my friend's mind based on faulty audio evaluation. I am confident that based on proper evaluation the effect of this device on audible soundwaves that we perceive is zero. And no, this is not being closed minded. If I told my doctor that someone online says taking massive amount of vitamins cured his cancer, should he be open minded and go and chase that? Or should he say that such stories do not follow accepted protocols and hence there is no reason to chase them?
Oh, that’s right. Per your earlier post, applied science told you the Shakti’s acts as diffuser of sorts its small stature dictates minute even infinitesimal changes. At CES 2007 one room had this new gismo that was a steel ball of sorts smaller than a playing marble and rested in a special tiny wood cup. The room was on the main / basement floor of the Venetian hotel and as I recall was maybe 20 ft by 25 – 30ft. We were there to hear some pretty phenomenal speakers and knew nothing about the tiny ball. We were there for perhaps 90 minutes that first day. But the first 10 – 15 minutes one of the vendors demonstrated for us the impact of the music presentation based on the placement location of this one tiny ball. It was rather phenomenal the impact this tiny ball had. It became quite the buzz for a few years but then seemed to drop off. I thought I saw it advertised a few years ago in a MusicDirect mag. This single tiny ball is maybe 1/500th’s the size of the Shakti’s. Yet, its impact was fairly incredible.
I would never underestimate the impact of vibrations / acoustic alterations. Tesla said if you want to find the secrets of the universe, think up vibrations which was reportedly his greatest passion. In fact, in Tesla’s lab on the 7th floor of a Manhattan bldg. Tesla had created a very small box that could fit in his coat pocket with an oscillator contained within. He attached it to a load-bearing wall with a steel girder behind it and within minutes people across the street were running out of their building screaming earthquake. He tried it once more on a skyscraper being constructed with just the steel girder frames constructed and attached the little box to one of the vertical beams. Within minutes construction workers higher up on the structure were screaming earthquake and Tesla grabbed the little box and walked off.
These few examples lead me to believe that your eye + brain interference is perhaps more severe than your ear + brain interference. And nowhere do I see a hint of real science from you in this regard. But I would not discount perhaps much naïveté.
I could be wrong but I’m guessing you’re being asked to be open-minded because you’re extremely closed-minded? Back in 2002, after hearing about cryo-treating electrical parts and cables, I purchased a Jena Labs cryo-treated 20-amp Hubbell IEC connector to replace the standard Hubbell 20-amp IEC connector at the line conditioner dedicated for my 20-amp amplifier. I believed in cryo-treating so much that the IEC connector sat in my toolbox for 2 years and when I stumbled across it in 2004 I installed it. And several days later (after burn-in) I was rather impressed with the little but still quite distinct improvements I heard. By 2005, I was having all my cables and electrical parts cryo-treated.
Like I said. I always try to avoid your many posts primarily because they are little to no value to those with at least minimal listening skills but with 15,000 posts it can be like walking thru a mine field. When you were site administrator I avoided you like the plague and for good reason. But now that I've read a few of your posts more in-depth, I can see now why you would reference "The Audio Expert" from time to time.
Amir, your marketing skills must be incredible.
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Well I see this thread is slowly racing to the Bottom--of what I don't know--anyway --for an observer the raising of voices is entertaining
If i may throw in a question-- I notice the VSA room was --gasp! Square?--surely a no no for optimum placement
so for it to get Best in Class/etc-- the devil was tamed?
Go the Tube traps ( I presume)!
BruceD
If i may throw in a question-- I notice the VSA room was --gasp!
Square?--surely a no no for optimum placementso for it to get Best in Class/etc-- the devil was tamed?
Go the Tube traps
( I presume)!BruceD
Dave, the thing is that Amir is so certain that the receptacle cannot work, that I believe he has turned off his mind to the possibility that it can! Same thing can be said for the many posters on his forum who post about the Shakti's. They are so certain that they cannot work, that there really is no need to even consider listening to them. Closed minded and blinkered individuals are apparently rampant on his forum. Yet, here's the thing, I believe that they all in good faith believe exactly what they state...it is impossible in their minds to contemplate that this large wooden stick could possibly do what its makers claim.
One of my good a'phile buddies suggested to me today that it is very possible that these same guys just don't have the ability to determine differences in musical sounds,....plus they certainly do not have the kind of gear that most of us on this forum enjoy. As such, a certain amount of jealousy sets in....
Whether this is true or not, I don't really know, but it certainly gives one something to ponder??
Well I see this thread is slowly racing to the Bottom--of what I don't know--anyway --for an observer the raising of voices is entertaining
If i may throw in a question-- I notice the VSA room was --gasp!
so for it to get Best in Class/etc-- the devil was tamed?
Go the Tube traps
BruceD
+!
Precisely my point. Damon and Leif get a "square" room which yes is a "no-no" but based on Art Noxon's design they tamed the room only to have the King Of Audio state that the speakers were placed on the wrong wall as well as the tube traps were also placed incorrectly.
This started out as a pretty interesting thread discussion. We are now discussing people's ability to hear, the importance of testing, science, and whether or not we are open minded. I am reminded of what one of my Boston audio buddies recently wrote me: "I don't pay much attention to the opinions of audiophiles who don't listen to live music."
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