The Upgrade Company

[Gregadd]

The point is if Rich had contacted me I could have predicted the results and saved him the trouble.

 

[pepar]

I am curious about something Myles. If there were gross differences, would you expect them to be heard in the type of test that was run?

If The Upgrade Company had not made such bombastic claims, there would be no controversy. But he does claim night and day performance improvements. But then accuses the switch of negating them.

 

[FrantzM]

That's because of your parochial engineering viewpoint, ignoring the vast literature on the biology of hearing, testing and responses and statistics. Ever hear of the inverted U in relationship to perception? If not, then you should take a look at it. Ever read up on biological adaptation and our bodies reaction to stressors? Ever read the literature on how our hearing varies so widely from person to person as to make interaural testing methods worthless? Most of all, have you studied how long and short term memory works? If you had, you would find essentially all that ABX testing does is show that our short term memory has a limited capacity. Big whoopti do. That's been known for years.

Taking DBT testing methodology used say in the pharma industry, and applying it willy nilly to all situations doesn't work. And that holds true for many scientific tests and methodologies. This subject has been discussed ad nauseum on here many times.

So in your view Knowing the DUT increases the accuracy of the results?
Also, please do tell us about the Inverted U that so invalidates ABX? I have never heard of it and would like to be educated on the matter. Our hearing may vary very widely but what hasn't change is the DUT .. Do sighted test increase the accuracy of our perception? Do you have a better method that would better remove the psychological biases?

 

[MylesBAstor]

So in your view Knowing the DUT increases the accuracy of the results?
Also, please do tell us about the Inverted U that so invalidates ABX? I have never heard of it and would like to be educated on the matter. Our hearing may vary very widely but what hasn't change is the DUT .. Do sighted test increase the accuracy of our perception? Do you have a better method that would better remove the psychological biases?

Google it Frantz It it a standard topic taught in [motor] learning. Also tell you a lot about why athletes react the way they do on the field!

Yes, long term, carefully controlled listening.

Listen if it was all about "new and improved" being better, how can you ignore negative reviews of a new product? So long term listening can pay dividends.

 

[Gregadd]

I second you Myles regarding long term listening.

 

[pepar]

Seems like more red herring to me. We'd do it for 3 days and that wouldn't be long enough. We'd do it for two weeks and then that wouldn't be long enough. Let's establish the parameters in advance and stop moving the cheese.

 

[amirm]

I second you Myles regarding long term listening.

So I ask you the same question. If the difference were large, would long term listening be necessary?

 

[pepar]

Amir, the test only needs to be long enough for The Differences to be heard. If They have not been heard yet, then the test is not long enough.

 

[audioguy]

Amir, the test only needs to be long enough for The Differences to be heard. If They have not been heard yet, then the test is not long enough.

Unless, of course, they are never heard.

This thread is going nowhere.

So Myles, if Rich were allowed to totally control the environment (other than know what product he was listening to), but still could not, with statistical accuracy, identify which is which, would you still poo-poo the results? What if he could listen for days and days and days and switch and then listen for more days, and still not hear any difference --- still an invalid test?

Are there any conditions of a truly blind test that you would accept?

 

[pepar]

Unless, of course, they are never heard.

This thread is going nowhere.

So Myles, if Rich were allowed to totally control the environment (other than know what product he was listening to), but still could not, with statistical accuracy, identify which is which, would you still poo-poo the results? What if he could listen for days and days and days and switch and then listen for more days, and still not hear any difference --- still an invalid test?

Are there any conditions of a truly blind test that you would accept?

I did not see a "sarcasm" emoticon, and apparently my true meaning went un-detected. Just like The Differences in the test ...

I would have thought that calling it "The Differences" would have been a clue.

Jeff

uups i see now you might have been addressing myles ...

 

[amirm]

This thread is going nowhere.

Actually, I am trying to get it some place. That is, see if there is consensus that differences if they exist, would be small.

 

[MarinJim]

Aside from The Upgrade Co., there is the question can players, CDP or universal, be upgraded to hear and or see a difference? So, just to be clear, are we in a majority that mods/upgrades can improve (I am)? And it is just with TUP, and their claimed improvements?

 

[amirm]

Aside from The Upgrade Co., there is the question can players, CDP or universal, be upgraded to hear and or see a difference? So, just to be clear, are we in a majority that mods/upgrades can improve (I am)? And it is just with TUP, and their claimed improvements?

As I stated earlier, video improvements over HDMI are not plausible. Measurements can easily show improvements if they exist but I have not seen any.

For audio, improvements from measurement point of view are plausible. But again, no measurements have been provided. So we are left with listening tests for very small differences. Our testing methodologies are not very good to detect such things. And unfortunately, placebo effect is far stronger than this level of difference so sighted tests are not reliable indicators either. This is why it is important to at least have the objective measurements. We need this data to also know of something has been broken.

 

[pepar]

Aside from The Upgrade Co., there is the question can players, CDP or universal, be upgraded to hear and or see a difference? So, just to be clear, are we in a majority that mods/upgrades can improve (I am)? And it is just with TUP, and their claimed improvements?

Have you ever participated in - or read about - a properly conducted test, or comparison by benchtesting, of a stock unit and a modded unit?

 

[MarinJim]

As I stated earlier, video improvements over HDMI are not plausible. Measurements can easily show improvements if they exist but I have not seen any.

For audio, improvements from measurement point of view are plausible. But again, no measurements have been provided. So we are left with listening tests for very small differences. Our testing methodologies are not very good to detect such things. And unfortunately, placebo effect is far stronger than this level of difference so sighted tests are not reliable indicators either. This is why it is important to at least have the objective measurements. We need this data to also know of something has been broken.

Have you ever tried the Ayre DX-5 or read the reviews? It does seem the Ayre has indeed improved on the video by upgrading the switch mode power supply in the video boards for linear power supply. I will perform this upgrade also with a Oppo 93. Not hear to debate it, just saying that is what I am doing for myself only.

 

[MarinJim]

Have you ever participated in - or read about - a properly conducted test, or comparison by benchtesting, of a stock unit and a modded unit?

Yes, my own on a Conrad Johnson Premier 9 DAC. I upgraded all the caps. WOW! What a difference. And recently I had my Wadia S7i modded by The Great Northern Sound Company.

 

[amirm]

Have you ever tried the Ayre DX-5 or read the reviews? It does seem the Ayre has indeed improved on the video by upgrading the switch mode power supply in the video boards for linear power supply.

I have read dozens of posts from Charles Hansen at Ayre. I have never seen him say anything about video performance improvements. He knows his stuff so if he has said something about video, I like to read it. With all due respect to folks who write them, a subjective review of video is of no value . Unlike audio, we can freeze a video frame, and using a test disc with 100% confidence determine if something has been changed or improved. Unlike audio, there is no guesswork. Video is produced to a standard and the player must conform with that. There is no room for interpretation as there is with audio.

I will perform this upgrade also with a Oppo 93. Not hear to debate it, just saying that is what I am doing for myself only.

That's cool . This is a debate thread though . To that end, I bet you the full cost of that player that measurements would show no difference at all in video over digital interface.

 

[MarinJim]

What would you care to bet?

 

[Steve Williams]

What would you care to bet?

Seems to me Amir has made you a more than fair offer.

I bet you the full cost of that player that measurements would show no difference at all in video over digital interface.

 

[MarinJim]

From hometheater.com:

"Silver Video Discs
For use as a USB DAC, the DX-5 requires virtually no setup. But it’s a little unusual to use as a BD player if you use the dedicated HDMI audio out (and you should). Through that output, the player converts Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio to multichannel PCM. You can output a Dolby TrueHD or DTSHD Master Audio bitstream directly from the player, but only through its HDMI A/V output. The DX-5 ships from the factory with the correct default settings for Audio Format Setup and Audio Processing, and these settings are repeated in the user manual should you need to enter them manually.

This isn’t the first high-end-priced player I’ve seen—or the first I’ve used directly connected over HDMI to a front projector in my system (in this case, the JVC DLA-X7 reviewed in HT’s May 2011 issue). It’s just the first one I’ve seen that actually looks better in comparison to other players I’ve seen over HDMI. In addition to the superb deintleracing and scaling I mentioned earlier, our battery of standard test patterns revealed sharp, essentially perfect response at the frequency extremes with luma and chroma. The DX-5 fully revealed the highest frequencies in these patterns, and the vertical lines looked crisper than they did with the OPPO BDP-95 I used for comparison (also a direct feed to the JVC DLA-X7). Yet there was no implication that the frequencies were peaked or overemphasized. There was just an almost indescribable sensation that there was a little more of something (or everything) there.

This feeling persisted as I started watching program material on Blu-ray. I consistently found my eyes lingering on certain details that hadn’t seemed as palpable on previous viewings with other players. A little extra shadow detail here, some more fabric texture there, a finer rendering of film grain, etc. There was always something. And this surprised me. With episodes of HBO’s Deadwood, I was especially attuned to the disparity between the softer, noisier interior shots and the crisp photography in the outdoor sequences. With Welcome to the Rileys and especially David Fincher’s The Social Network, I was really impressed by the low-level and shadow detail in the darker scenes (which is just about all of The Social Network) and the staggering dimensionality in the images. The DX-5’s revealing nature wasn’t always to a given movie’s benefit. It also showed a lot of the seams in recent-vintage but not minty-fresh CGI-laden constructs. I rewatched the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies on Blu-ray, and I’d never seen the complex motion and tight patterns of film grain displayed more smoothly and finely. But I’d also never seen the CGI stand out as conspicuously as it often did with the DX-5.

Essentially, whatever the cinematic intentions were with any given piece of program material, I felt that the DX-5 delivered those intentions with a bit more observable expression. Photography—both film and digital—always looked a little more evocative in terms of texture, gradation, and depth.

But again, these are details. The overall impact was that movies looked and felt more like movies on the DX-5. There was also an easy-on-the-eyes quality to the picture that I haven’t encountered before. I know my comments on the HDMI video output looking better than other players will be met with skepticism. I get it. That’s how I felt before I saw the DX-5. But after I spent time with it and went back and forth between it and the other players I had on hand, I unequivocally looked forward to watching movies on the DX-5 more than with any other Blu-ray player I’ve ever used. I know a lot of us like to think that it’s all just 1s and 0s and that digital is digital. And often, that can be true in good and bad ways. But this is something different. Be brave and experience it before you pooh-pooh it (and me for writing this). "