Hi John. Once again, I see you attempting to cross-examine Tim. His posts speak for themselves. You are showing a repeated pattern of misreading and misinterpreting his posts, then asking him to explain your misinterpretation. Kindly refrain.
Objectivist or Subjectivist? Give Me a Break
- Thread starter Jeff Fritz
- Start date
My apologies. I didn't mean to call you out in particular. To your credit, you so seldom talk about your products here that I sometimes forget you have them. I have come across plenty of manufacturers, however, with a strong presence on the boards, who never miss an opportunity to refer to their products directly, where allowed, or the "problem" they solve where disallowed. And a few of them were selling very complex and expensive solutions to non-problems. Again, I don't know your product, I don't know the product it is based upon, I have no opinion, and I'm sorry if my statement seemed to be talking about you.
What the members I'm referring to are rolling their eyes at are the same things I'm rolling mine at. Gross exaggerations. Claims of superiority for products and technologies that appear to be inferior by every metric available. Same old stuff. Nothing personal.
Key phrase - "in the absolute."
Tim
Ron, if I don't understand a poster's meaning, is it wrong to ask for clarification?
Can you explain to me what is meant by " I really don't mind being wrong and suspect that in the absolute sense I am wrong about all things audible being measurable. But it's good to know I haven't gotten there yet ."
I really don't understand these statements!
Well, I already gave you the opportunity to retract what you said when I asked was it me you were referring to but you didn't & in fact said that I sell things so ...... Now you extend an apology, hmmmm but OK!
Still not clear to me what you are saying, Tim but rather then be accused of cross-examination, (I seem to have a gag-order on asking this) - I have asked Ron to explain it to me!
Tim[/QUOTE]
As I told you the theoretical goal can not be achieved and we diverge on the meaning of what means altering. Anyway one of the true reasons audiophiles find that amplifiers sound different is because they insert them in high resolution systems, that are also electrically exigent, and show differences that the typical AV system does not show. Anyway, do you have any evidence or proof that most AV receivers sound the same with speakers such as Magico, Wilson, Evolution Acoustics, Rockport or similar?
No, the musical message is the information that is encoded in the electrical signal. You can only see if it is still there after you decode it again.
Can you define me what you consider to be an audio measurement and its outcome? (I hope you will not answer me that I am asking you to prove a negative, and it is my duty to answer it).
BTW, can I ask you again to quote the members properly? You systematically quote people sentences without referring the author when answering, sometimes mixing them.
I think Ron was concerned with the business of taking comments about getting PMs in support of my POV and inferring from that that I have a messiah complex and a church of objectivist audio. I don't think he was trying to stop you from asking honest questions, John. I think I gave you a straight answer both times you asked if I was referring to you personally when I spoke of vendors, but to put it painfully simply, John, no, it was not intended to be personal.
"in the absolute." That means I can't absolutely know that everything that can be heard can be measured because we can define "what can be heard" to include perceptions, and because there is always the possibility, however remote, that we are "hearing" things we don't yet understand. This is often the stand of audiophiles who want to believe in the superiority of high end equipment that doesn't measure particularly well. There's really no arguing with it, of course, as it is based on assumptions of things unknown, thus the qualifier. But every physical parameter of hearing that is known can not only be measured, measurement instruments can exceed the capacity of human ears by good measure (no pun intended). I think you know this already, though.
Tim
Oh, really? maybe he could say what he meant rather than others interpreting/guessing what he meant? He certainly hasn't posted to correct my misunderstanding of his post, if it was a misunderstanding!
Ok!
If I should be so bold as to ask you some questions (not cross-examination you understand!) - I find that dialogue is usually conducted via questions & answers, some of which require follow-up Qs or clarifications. Just giving the background/context of what I'm about to ask so that there is no confusion. And I also want to apologise in advance if I don't understand something you post, put it down to me being stupid & not an attempt to cross-examine or otherwise bully you with constant questioning. I hope you understand this, Tim?
"we can define "what can be heard" to include perceptions" - I really don't know what this means?
"we can hear things we don't understand" - I really don't know what this means? Do you mean we can hear things we can't measure?
No , I wish to disagree with "But every physical parameter of hearing that is known can not only be measured, measurement instruments can exceed the capacity of human ears by good measure (no pun intended). I think you know this already, though." Yes, if we take one variable as the measurement then equipment is far more sensitive than the ears but the ears have an advantage over any piece of equipment that I know of - it is processing many variables & relationships in a dynamic way & is actively self-modifying. So perhaps the answer to all this disagreement is that fundamentally hearing is a dynamic, holistic, self-adjusting instrument & it's complexity is not matched by any measurements yet devised.
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Whatever the ear does if the same stimulus provide the same perception then it is measurable... I can't understand the debate on this aspect of reality. It befuddles me that we are discussing about this. I would be the first to admit that we ought to refine what we measure or perhaps find better ways to measure things but, people! ... How we hear and our perceptions are not outside the realm of Science: They're physical realities!
It's a nice simple statement you make! So a nice simple question - can you show me a measurement for depth of sound stage?
Steve Williams
Site Founder, Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Isn't soundstage a function of speaker positioning in the room.
IMO it is like asking which drink tastes sweeterBTW, I agree completely with Frantz on this one.
That's the nature of the beast, we can argue about this all day long. We each have our own perception of things and walking in the woods when one guy hears a cat the other a bird good luck getting them to agree. To each what they heard is their reality.
Rob
It doesn't really matter what it is a result of, I asked Frantz for a measurement that correlated to depth of sound stage. I can perceive such depth & his statement was that "Whatever the ear does if the same stimulus provide the same perception then it is measurable" so therefore it should be measurable, right? So all that's needed is to show such a measurementIsn't soundstage a function of speaker positioning in the room.
The percerption that you describe as "depth of Sound Stage" is created by the time differences of the sounds emanating from speakers that is eminently measurable and by varying the time arrivals we can manipulate the perceived "depth of soundstage" ... The perceived reality has a number/measurements attached to it... Often it is as mundane as the distance from your speakers t the back wall .. What your brain make of it is fine .. we can replicate it with a set of numbers/measurements
The depth of soundstage sensation that you are referring to is created by physical phenomenon that we know how to create and well, if it weren't for the physical stimuli we create, the hypothetic better gears and room doing a better job at these individual stimuli which together create the (better) there wouldn't be any perception...
The depth of soundstage sensation that you are referring to is created by physical phenomenon that we know how to create and well, if it weren't for the physical stimuli we create, the hypothetic better gears and room doing a better job at these individual stimuli which together create the (better) there wouldn't be any perception...
We should remember the objective of audio measurements - to quantify the performance of equipment in reproducing the sound of a recording in correlation with the interpretation that our brain makes of the sound captured by the ears.
We can be able to quantify the minimal vibrations susceptible to be understood as sound by the brain, but the process of association created by the brain can surpass the capability of instruments in very complex signals, such as music. Our instruments can be extremely sensitive to simple signals, but the conditions needed to create a stereo illusion are so complex that a measuring system can not have the capability to process all the information needed.
You can make a measurement that returns you one million numerical values. The values you get are measurements according to the dictionary definition, but unless you analyze them and return an usable parameter can not be considered an audio measurement. And this value must be reproducible every time you want to repeat the experiment and give you a consistent value with ranking capability.
Just because the resolution and range of our measuring instruments exceed the resolution of the ear does not assure that we can measure everything about sound reproduction. It just means that may be we have that capability.
It all ends in the question about the tree falling in the forest. And remember - if some one as famous as F. Toole answers "Yes and no" to this question it is because the subject is not so simple. If you do not believe me read the book "Sound Reproduction".
Tom,
You have little ambition. IMHO, the great objective is establishing the correlation of the change with what we listen. A graph in Stereophile is a waste of paper if I am not able to infer anything about how the system will sound.
Good morning friends I see some are cool as cucumbers and others are nice and toasty LOL
I was fooling around with my computer as I was waiting for the better half to get ready so we could go. You know the drill. Anyway, I got to thinking about what our hilarious friend from Pleasanton referred to and asked myself, how much worse could I make this sound while still being able to not just identify the track but follow it. Knowing all I had was a graphic EQ of unknown Q I figured I'd use the noise floor of my room for the bottom. That's why I asked you to drop your volume controls until you couldn't hear even the 1kHz at 0dB forcing all others at -12dB even lower and asked that you raise only the 1kHz up past 0dB until all that's left is that band and it's 500 and 2kHz width with all else guaranteed to be more than 12dB down. In any case this is just for fun or rather to pass some time waiting which is less fun.
When hitting randomly on songs and coming across songs I've always liked the reaction was predictable. I didn't like the song any less, instead I listened through the poor quality and instead let memories/associations etc. dominate the experience. I think this is how the general population listens to music. After all, we have just simulated the worst alarm clock radio. LOL. I asked you guys to do this because while we may never agree on what's best, we can at least have a commonality on something far worse.
Already in the car and stuck in traffic, I got to thinking about visual representations of measurements such as FR plots and FFTs. What would our little experiment have looked like on that even assuming a very wide Q? Now contrast that with how much we could actually take away from that narrow slice of information in terms of identifiability and intelligibility even of unknown program material.
Oops! Gotta go, more to come if I'm not boring you guys to death already.
I see some are cool as cucumbers and others are nice and toasty LOLI was fooling around with my computer as I was waiting for the better half to get ready so we could go. You know the drill. Anyway, I got to thinking about what our hilarious friend from Pleasanton referred to and asked myself, how much worse could I make this sound while still being able to not just identify the track but follow it. Knowing all I had was a graphic EQ of unknown Q I figured I'd use the noise floor of my room for the bottom. That's why I asked you to drop your volume controls until you couldn't hear even the 1kHz at 0dB forcing all others at -12dB even lower and asked that you raise only the 1kHz up past 0dB until all that's left is that band and it's 500 and 2kHz width with all else guaranteed to be more than 12dB down. In any case this is just for fun or rather to pass some time waiting which is less fun.
When hitting randomly on songs and coming across songs I've always liked the reaction was predictable. I didn't like the song any less, instead I listened through the poor quality and instead let memories/associations etc. dominate the experience. I think this is how the general population listens to music. After all, we have just simulated the worst alarm clock radio. LOL. I asked you guys to do this because while we may never agree on what's best, we can at least have a commonality on something far worse.
Already in the car and stuck in traffic, I got to thinking about visual representations of measurements such as FR plots and FFTs. What would our little experiment have looked like on that even assuming a very wide Q? Now contrast that with how much we could actually take away from that narrow slice of information in terms of identifiability and intelligibility even of unknown program material.
Oops! Gotta go, more to come if I'm not boring you guys to death already.
Isn't soundstage a function of speaker positioning in the room.
BTW, I agree completely with Frantz on this one.
What audiophiles call sound stage has always been somewhat of a mystery to me, because they speak of it being transformed, expanded, collapsed, by things I'm not at all sure should be able to do that. But what I think it is, is the presentation of the image and scale of the music side to side, front to back....and to a lesser degree height, though as we've discussed til it was dead, I don't think you can get anything but a general sense of height, no instrument placement in that plane without parlor tricks that are not encoded into most of our records.
So, instrument placement in the horizontal field -- imaging
A sense of depth, front to back -- mic placement, mix of direct to reflected sound, volume variations in the mix and the system's ability to present them subtly (dynamic range).
And scale - the ability of the speakers to project this image into the room and fill the space.
Speaker placement can be absolutely critical, but the room, I think, just needs to stay out of the way. You can get the first two -- horizontal and front to back imaging -- in a dead room (or outdoors), with pretty incredible precision. But it doesn't sound right. We're so accustomed to some natural reflected sound that dead rooms sound, well, dead, no matter how good the recording is. That's where the room comes in, I think -- providing that reflected sound, but not enough of it to smear the imaging.
Tim
+1. Of course, that one may wish to seek that asserted correlation is fine and well. I also am highly interested in that correlation. Having stated that, isn't it is highly presumptuous to state it as a fact applicable to all humans, to state nothing of other species? The boxes, wires and software used to make sound are just that, and nothing more. Those boxes, wires and software are not sentient. Anyone try conducting an fMRI on a strand of wire?
The sound is made whether or not any humans are present. How humans perceive stimuli from their senses is the purpose of different measurements. It is the physics of sound, not perception.
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What I find amusing, sorry that is the only epithet I can find to this rationale is the brain interpretation theory ... Tomelex please letus live with our 2-channel for now
The vibrations (physical thus measurable) reach our ears and body (ok I am being generous tonight I am granting you we can listen to high frequencies with our skins according to some although ... I can't go past 16 Khz apparently skin et all maybe its the clothes) These vibrations (physical) have some relations between them ( again physical/mathematical, things like phase, level,etc ) upon receptions by our senses of these (physical thus measurable ) properties, our brains make of these sounds , soundstage, depth width, spaciousness, drynes, wetness, whatever .. For these to happen the physical (lowly stuff) must come in the appropriate relationship (hopefully the exact same way they were constructed by the people making the sounds... err music or as captured , again hopefully by some measuring equipment namely those called microphones, I am supposing the whole thing is acoustic ... So the sound comes at us in all its physical glory or since we are trying to elevate the debate in their mere and trivial physical existence ...which is measurable and with an accuracy oru ears can't even begin to match ... Now our brains make something of it .. Some people hear music and see colors which is fine by me but I am willing to bet such people presented with the same sounds usually see same colors else you can imagine their confusion with same instruments suggesting different colors .... So when presented with the same stimuli our brains is likely to conduct the same processing resulting in the same interpretation .. I would think that by measuring the physical lowly stuff and replicating them we ought to have the same perceptions ... No? Re-reading that seems to be the goal of Hi-Fi of which High ENd should havebeen the highest expression unles you start to prefer the colored version to the original but I digress ...
So what more can we say about it? .. That our ears are marvelously sensitive instrument that can't reliably discern 1 dB and let's not try to get to .5dB meanwhile microphone as cheap as those in cell phones routinely discern .1 dB ..
Whatever one hears can be measured there is no way around that basic fact of logic .. Measurements don't have to be direct in Science no one has yet gone around the earth with a ruler to measure its circumference we have other means, other measurements to help us do that , same with Audio .. By measuring using the very basic component of a sound namely its level, Phase, frequency and duration we know everything about that sound signal. We can dream there is other things we need to measure but for a sound I think that all there is to it .. When those sounds are combined into something we call music then our brain start making all kind of things about them including liking them or not and even that is not that reliable we find ourselves not liking things we would have killed for, while the stimulus stays its stupid same.. I used to loooove Electric Light Orchestra now I have several of their albums and find myself hardly listening to any of them ... then again they are on CD so it could be the medium
The vibrations (physical thus measurable) reach our ears and body (ok I am being generous tonight I am granting you we can listen to high frequencies with our skins according to some although ... I can't go past 16 Khz apparently skin et all maybe its the clothes) These vibrations (physical) have some relations between them ( again physical/mathematical, things like phase, level,etc ) upon receptions by our senses of these (physical thus measurable ) properties, our brains make of these sounds , soundstage, depth width, spaciousness, drynes, wetness, whatever .. For these to happen the physical (lowly stuff) must come in the appropriate relationship (hopefully the exact same way they were constructed by the people making the sounds... err music or as captured , again hopefully by some measuring equipment namely those called microphones, I am supposing the whole thing is acoustic ... So the sound comes at us in all its physical glory or since we are trying to elevate the debate in their mere and trivial physical existence ...which is measurable and with an accuracy oru ears can't even begin to match ... Now our brains make something of it .. Some people hear music and see colors which is fine by me but I am willing to bet such people presented with the same sounds usually see same colors else you can imagine their confusion with same instruments suggesting different colors .... So when presented with the same stimuli our brains is likely to conduct the same processing resulting in the same interpretation .. I would think that by measuring the physical lowly stuff and replicating them we ought to have the same perceptions ... No? Re-reading that seems to be the goal of Hi-Fi of which High ENd should havebeen the highest expression unles you start to prefer the colored version to the original but I digress ...
So what more can we say about it? .. That our ears are marvelously sensitive instrument that can't reliably discern 1 dB and let's not try to get to .5dB meanwhile microphone as cheap as those in cell phones routinely discern .1 dB ..
Whatever one hears can be measured there is no way around that basic fact of logic .. Measurements don't have to be direct in Science no one has yet gone around the earth with a ruler to measure its circumference we have other means, other measurements to help us do that , same with Audio .. By measuring using the very basic component of a sound namely its level, Phase, frequency and duration we know everything about that sound signal. We can dream there is other things we need to measure but for a sound I think that all there is to it .. When those sounds are combined into something we call music then our brain start making all kind of things about them including liking them or not and even that is not that reliable we find ourselves not liking things we would have killed for, while the stimulus stays its stupid same.. I used to loooove Electric Light Orchestra now I have several of their albums and find myself hardly listening to any of them ... then again they are on CD so it could be the medium
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