Ethan Winer's definition of Audio transparency

jkeny · May 14, 2012

From the other thread (some people just continue to post there?)

Phelonious Ponk said:
Can't say I care for that thread. It strikes me as a thinly-veiled attack on Ethan. I understand that Ethan is a bit black and white in his views, that he doesn't mince words, that he can be rather demanding of those who attempt to attack his point of view without a well-formed and supported one of their own. I'm sure it's irritating; enough to make you just wait for him to make a mistake. But if you came to the discussion with a bit more substance, you wouldn't need to start threads to dance in a circle with glee when his noisefloor is off by a bit. You might actually have a viable position of your own. You might even find yourself occasionally agreeing with Ethan.

Tim

This thread is an opportunity for Ethan to clarify & now it seems correct his "criteria for audio transparency". I believe he should be thanking us for refining his criteria & questioning it's substance - it's how science is made more robust. I do agree with measurements being used to qualify & quantify devices, once those measurements are based on some evidence I find amir's posts regarding speaker measurements done by Harmon & those measurements mapping directly to the blind listening tests of those speakers to be compelling. I don't find Ethan's measurements or statements anywhere nearly as compelling.

My testing of pre-echo audibility I found interesting & decided to post it on the 24/192 thread as an example of what might be one of the issues why high-res samplerates might sound better. I remarked that this pre-echo also contradicted Ethan's criteria for audible transparency.

So far he has not successfully demonstrated that this is an incorrect statement.

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Ron Party said:
My? I've not made any claims, so your deflection is inapposite. Like always I'm trying to learn here which is why I asked you whether you've anything to refute Ethan's claim. I do understand what you have posted. I also understand the methodology you claim to have used in support of the claims you have made. This thread which you started, the latest in a series of bulldog attacks against Ethan, is about Ethan's claims. So I ask again, do you have any repeatable, reliable, proof of anything to refute Ethan's (not my) claim? So far I've not read it.

What do you not understand about Opus111 post ?

opus111 said:
The issue of linear distortions (as opposed to non-linear distortions, aka artifacts) is covered in the criterion for passband flatness, a separate criterion. So then if 0.2dB total passband flatness is the criterion (there so far is no clarity on this particular point) then a -39dB pre-echo falls within that criterion.

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Ethan Winer said:
It's not even a matter of "being off," because the level at which noise and other sounds can be heard varies greatly depending on the spectrum of the program versus that of the noise, correlated or not (THD versus IMD), and absolute SPL level. Masking is a huge factor, which is why you can't pin this down to a single number. People that attempt to do so, or expect me to do so, are truly missing how audio and perception work.

--Ethan

The files used in my tests contain pre-echo which is audible. What masking effects are you talking about here?

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
Can't say I care for that thread. It strikes me as a thinly-veiled attack on Ethan. I understand that Ethan is a bit black and white in his views, that he doesn't mince words, that he can be rather demanding of those who attempt to attack his point of view without a well-formed and supported one of their own. I'm sure it's irritating; enough to make you just wait for him to make a mistake. But if you came to the discussion with a bit more substance, you wouldn't need to start threads to dance in a circle with glee when his noisefloor is off by a bit. You might actually have a viable position of your own. You might even find yourself occasionally agreeing with Ethan.

Tim

Ah shucks, his noisefloor is "off by a bit", oh my! I'm glad he's not doing any measurements which have to be relied upon then. I guess we should just treat his statements as flexible & maybe off by a bit. Fair enough, that explains a lot
But if you want to use measurements in this field of audio, maybe the phrase "there or thereabouts" should be addended to all your statements or Winers statements - just so we know & avoid these useless discussions & the search for some precision in measurements!

treitz3 · May 14, 2012

Hello, John. Let's please cool it down a tad. Not only on this thread but the other one as well. This board is all about being cordial, professional, polite and friendly. This last post, along with the constant confrontation of one particular poster is not acceptable. Please review the terms and conditions of the forum so that you are reacquainted with what kind of atmosphere we are looking for here at the WBF. I would suggest either putting him/them on ignore or simply walking away from the keyboard for a stint, reflecting on what your goals are as a member here and starting from scratch....or at least lowering the heat level a tad.

We welcome all members but constant confrontation/harrassment is not acceptable. This is not open for a public debate. If you do not agree with the terms and conditions of the forum or the aforementioned, you are more than welcome to PM myself along with any or all of the management team here at the WBF.

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Point taken, will cool it.
Apologise to all if my posts have been too ascerbic.
I will not make any posts of a personal nature in future!

I do understand & appreciate the forum for it's widespread range of views & the freedom to express them. Much appreciate the democratic nature of the forum & again, reiterate that I will concur & avoid confrontation.

Steve Williams · May 14, 2012

I appreciate that John because Tom echoes my sentiments as well

Phelonious Ponk · May 14, 2012

Thanks, John. Now, back to the issues at hand: what data supported that the pre echo was audible?

Tim

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
Thanks, John. Now, back to the issues at hand: what data supported that the pre echo was audible?

Tim

My & others blind tests!

Ron Party · May 14, 2012

Where would we be able to read about these tests? Is there anything more than what you've posted here at WBF?

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Ron Party said:
Where would we be able to read about these tests? Is there anything more than what you've posted here at WBF?

Sorry, no more information on the tests other than what's posted.

Can I refer you to my posts on the other thread here & here where the audibility of these pre-echoes are referenced in the following quotes "At the 75th convention of the AES in 1984, Dr. R. Lagadec presented a paper, “Dispersive Models for AD and D-A Conversion Systems” [1], which discussed the potential degradation in audio quality that results from the “pre-echoes” that exist in the impulse and transient response of FIR filters. "

"It is also very interesting to note that Sony recently claimed on their website that it is the removal of the digital decimation and interpolation filters, not the extended frequency range, that produce the audible improvements offered by SACD over conventional PCM.)"

Phelonious Ponk · May 14, 2012

jkeny said:
My & others blind tests!

Cool. Excuse me while I hold you to the standards you would demand of others. Wh ere have these studies been published? Where can I examine the methodology and read the reports?

Tim

Ron Party · May 14, 2012

jkeny said:
Sorry, no more information on the tests other than what's posted.

Thank you.

jkeny · May 14, 2012

Phelonious Ponk said:
Cool. Excuse me while I hold you to the standards you would demand of others. Wh ere have these studies been published? Where can I examine the methodology and read the reports?

Tim

My claim was that they were audible in blind tests. I've described the methodology already. Of course you can dismiss any of this if it is not to your liking or rigorous enough for you but I do remember that you posted already that you often use such informal blind tests yourself

JackD201 · May 14, 2012

^

Does this mean we're going to have three threads running the same topic again?

I don't think this thread is an assault on Ethan Winer at all. Look at it this way. Ethan has gone from Audio Skeptic to Audio Expert. How exactly I don't know but since he calls himself that let's assume he doesn't mind. If there's any doubt he does call himself that aside from the book whose title might have been the publisher's idea and assuming he has sole control of his AC account.....

Shouldn't his followers revel at the fact that along with the territory, he now has skeptics of his own? It's a badge of honor, the man after decades of consumer advocacy has arrived! The transition means the burden of proof has shifted as it is now he that is making assertions rather than doing the questioning. That comes with the territory too.

Of course if he feels there is "nothing to explain", then that is his prerogative.

Phelonious Ponk · May 14, 2012

jkeny said:
My claim was that they were audible in blind tests. I've described the methodology already. Of course you can dismiss any of this if it is not to your liking or rigorous enough for you but I do remember that you posted already that you often use such informal blind tests yourself

I done it in a few years. I went through a phase; it completely changed my views, and my approach to audio, and soon left me with little reason to test. But yes, I've run quite a few informal blind listening sessions at home, and If you'll go read those posts I think you'll find that I don't claim they prove anything to anyone but myself. If I was considering using them as evidence of the audibility of an artifact, and the only published reference I had to back them up was a reference to "potential degradation" from a paper published at the dawn of digital time, I think I might reconsider and just present it as what I hear, personally, YMMV and all that. Particularly if I had a commercial interest in digital audio. But YMMV.

Tim

jkeny · May 14, 2012

But it's not what I hear personally - a number of others have done blind tests & PMed me their results. One such person posted his impressions here. I have posted links to the files for your own experimentation & I have suggested how to best ensure that you have a chance of hearing this effect. Hopefully some or all of this is of import?

I'm unsure what the year that the paper was published in has anything to do with the quality of the research in that paper. Some papers are considered seminal papers! I'm also unsure what you intention is in mentioning commercial interest in audio.

Whatmore · May 14, 2012

I'm a very big fan of WBF. I read a lot and learn a lot. I don't post as often as I should so perhaps I have little or no influence here, but here goes anyway.

One of the things I love best about this forum is that people are respectful and that divergent views are discussed and tolerated. This sets WBF apart from pretty much every other "audiophile" forum out there. Can we please keep it that way?

Phelonious Ponk · May 14, 2012

But it's not what I hear personally - a number of others have done blind tests & PMed me their results. One such person posted his impressions here. I have posted links to the files for your own experimentation & I have suggested how to best ensure that you have a chance of hearing this effect. Hopefully some or all of this is of import?

Anecdotally interesting. Glad you did it. But like my own listening, it's evidence a personal experience only.

I'm unsure what the year that the paper was published in has anything to do with the quality of the research in that paper. Some papers are considered seminal papers! I'm also unsure what you intention is in mentioning commercial interest in audio.

It was published in 1984, which doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the research, but could have everything to do with the quality of the digital gear and the audibility of it's distortions.

Tim

amirm · May 14, 2012

We have clear cases of measurements not mattering at all in audio. Namely, audio compression. When was the last time you saw any measurements of one codec versus another? AAC vs MP3? MP3 at 128 vs 256? These algorithms are developed entirely based on listening tests. Reason is that the distortions are highly data dependent and perceptually very complex to model.

Internally to audio encoders there is a perceptual model which measures the level of distortion and based on that it decides who to compress the bits. The model doesn't always get it right but it goes orders of magnitude further than our simple audio measurements of THD, frequency response, etc.

I think that is part of the issue. We still rely on ancient measurements and have not woken up to the complexity of data/signal dependent non-linear distortions. Dr. Geddes has a very nice article on fallacy of THD measurements and how it assigns equal weights to harmonics and how this is not right perceptually due to how well the signal masks its harmonics. As we move to higher harmonics, even though their levels drops rapidly, they may actually become more audible.

Going back to the topic of this thread, until we develop the proper set of measurements as described above and correlate them well with listening tests, I see no choice but to err on the side of caution and use formats that can be shown to be transparent even in extreme cases.

Ethan Winer's definition of Audio transparency

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