What was that comment about insults?
We don't think that a statement alone proves anything. The proof is in the music. No one can insult me by naming the equipment I own. My system at the moment is quite modest. I have owned a pioneer reciever!
Truth and Tonality: can they co-exist?
- Thread starter fas42
- Start date
What was that comment about insults?
We don't think that a statement alone proves anything. The proof is in the music. No one can insult me by naming the equipment I own. My system at the moment is quite modest. I have owned a pioneer reciever!
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Jack, you need to get a copy of this:
http://www.ecrater.co.uk/p/7301337/ruggiero-ricci-the-glory-of-cremona
Gary,
Curious that you referring to a brand I also consider highly - a good friend of mine was the distributor of FM Acoustics in my country long ago.
Let us put some more fire in Amir trees :
I am quoting FM Acoustics web pages
"Specifications are often misused, misunderstood, or utilized only to sell a product instead of indicating its actual performance capabilities. "Typical" specifications will not tell you much about the true value of a certain component. Only guaranteed minimum data as specified for all FM ACOUSTICS products, together with carefully controlled listening tests, will provide useful information.
(...)
However, it must be realized that the traditionally used static measurements can never describe the actual capabilities of an FM ACOUSTICS when it is playing dynamic music signals. Bear in mind such differences when comparing data sheets."
Still a long way to go ...
Please take it easy, Ethan, the conversation has been occurring at an excellent level of diplomacy overnight (for me!), and it would be a shame to muck it up now ...
Thanks,
Frank
Thanks,
Frank
The conversation has been excellent, but, to me there is a contradiction: most of the statements relating to the truth of a component refer to the flatness of the frequency response is being a prime determinant of that accuracy, yet there is also sporadic mentioning of the loudness sensitivity curves, which immediately implies as soon as you move closer or further from the speakers, or adjust the volume, that this flatness of response goes out the window. As Tom noted once to a comment I made, no matter how close or far you are from live, unamplified music the ear/brain can usually tell that it is the real thing.
So what's going on here?
Frank
So what's going on here?
Frank
Although Ethan it was also pointed out manufacturers of LP do conclude that the original compound does have an affect, hence why modern high quality LP releases by some are different.
This was mentioned with links but was argued down by some saying this was manufacturer spin, M Fremer measurements were argued down due to it being impossible to accurately measure LP differences for each play, amongst other aspects that went through I think 70? pages of arguments.
In the end nothing was proved satisfactorily for or againstl; some saying its rubbish and that manufacturers of LP (not Furutech) were spinning this for their benefit, while others feeling this was indicative of something happening with LPs.
I am just grateful I listen to and argue about digital
Anyway both of us are digressing here.
Cheers
Orb
Don't look but I am doing that to you
You are no different than Tim and I in that respect. No need to be insulting
In post 217 you asked me:
Here is the order of how you can measure performance with highest reliability to lowest:
1. Instrument measurement.
2. Blind listening tests.
3. Sighted subjective listening tests.
Without putting value on each, do you agree with this order?
In postt 218 I responded:
Let's assume that I have all the necessary skills to properly audition and measure audio equipment.
1. Sighted test frist.
2. Measuremts to try and verify what I heard
3. Sighted test agian.
4. Possibly informal blind tests if the efects were subtle.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today 01:13 AM #219 amirm
You responded-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are not answering the question I asked. I didn't ask which way you evaluate a system. I asked which method has the highest and which one has lowest accuracy. Your list repeats steps and such which by definition can't be the answer to this question.
[/B]your corner, you are dismissing two out of three even though I can show you, heck prove to you in a court of law
So Idid not dismiss them. You were just not receptive yet.
??? Sorry, I do not know how this would help choosing a system ... Please give me some dB's and %'s ...
garylkoh
WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Gary,
Curious that you referring to a brand I also consider highly - a good friend of mine was the distributor of FM Acoustics in my country long ago.
Let us put some more fire in Amir trees :
I am quoting FM Acoustics web pages
"Specifications are often misused, misunderstood, or utilized only to sell a product instead of indicating its actual performance capabilities. "Typical" specifications will not tell you much about the true value of a certain component. Only guaranteed minimum data as specified for all FM ACOUSTICS products, together with carefully controlled listening tests, will provide useful information.
(...)
However, it must be realized that the traditionally used static measurements can never describe the actual capabilities of an FM ACOUSTICS when it is playing dynamic music signals. Bear in mind such differences when comparing data sheets."
Still a long way to go ...
Thanks, microstrip. I come from Asia, where FM Acoustics is far better known than in the US. They might also think that what FM Acoustics says is "marketing spin".
Both companies have excellent measurements - one emphasized that they listen, the other that they have measurements that other companies don't use. I think that both are equally valid. Good designers go: measure, listen, measure, listen, measure, listen, ahhhh!!! or measure, listen, measure, listen, measure, listen, measure, ahhhh!!!
" Absence proof is not proof of absence"
On Being Gizmodoed, Boing Boinged and Hydrogenated
Michael Fremer at 8:30 AM Wednesday, May 6, 2009
This is Michael's response to our post Gizmodo mounted on maple blocks, sounds great, in which audiophile gear is made fun of. (See John Mahoney's original item at Gizmodo, Why We Need Audiophiles.) We thought Michael's post would languish at the bottom of a month-old post's comment thread, so he spruced it up as a guest feature, and here it is! — Rob
My wife handles our Cardigan Welsh Corgi in the show ring. I love the dog and though I'm not much into the "dog world," occasionally I go to a show to watch. The judge has to check each dog's confirmation to see how close it comes to the breed standard. If it's a male dog he's got to feel the dog's balls to be sure both have descended. That's part of his job.
Do I think this guy's a pervert who stops people in the street walking their dogs so he can feel their dog's balls? Of course not, but judging by some of the hysterical reactions to Rob Beschizza's post "Gizmodo mounted on maple blocks, sounds great," I guess some of you would see the ball-handler doing his job and think feeling dog's balls is all that guy did.
Such were the ridiculous, frequently irrational caricatures posted of audiophiles in general and me in particular, under Beschizza's post. Beschizza deserves part of the blame, tossing you red meat instead of truth by suggesting that writer John Mahoney's Giz piece hypothesized "...that even if normal people can't appreciate what makes ultra-expensive gear special, audiophiles can. This is a myth, and to honor it like this is to sell it."
Mahoney's piece hypothesized no such thing.
In fact his piece concluded that anyone can hear how great an expensive high performance audio system can sound. Mahoney had visited so he could write, from first hand knowledge, the usual anti-audiophile tripe about clueless obsessives with expensive gear in bad rooms who repeatedly play the same five records or CDs. He was expecting to hear some loud, offensive assemblage of stupidly expensive, grotesque sounding "show off" gear--like the typical custom car stereo.
I knew the agenda but I also knew what Mahoney would hear because literally hundreds of non-audiophiles--neighbors and many in the dog world who come to visit my wife--have sat in my listening chair and heard what anyone can hear: that a high performance rig can produce astonishing-sounding music , with the speakers literally disappearing, leaving a wall-to-wall, three-dimensional, physical presence.
Listening to a very familiar tune of their choice, these non-audiophiles invariably react by saying things like "It's as if I've never heard the song before." "I heard instruments I never knew were there." "I can 'see' each instrument in space and follow the notes each musician plays." And, because the imaging is so palpable and precise, many invariably point to the amplifiers in the middle and say "Are those speakers too?"
Or "I had no idea this was even possible! How come I didn't know about this!" Or they describe how listening made them feel--how listening to recorded music had never before elicited such strongly felt emotions. Everyone walks away in a pleasant daze--the way you do exiting a live concert. I still do, even though this is my job and I experience it daily.
And that's what Mahoney immediately heard on the first tune, a song from the French synth duo Air. I didn't play "audiophile" crap, I played him regular music--which is what I listen to. After that first cut he said something like "I've never heard anything like that!" And "That was not what I was expecting." He got it. Anyone hearing such a system would "get it." One need not be an "audiophile" to get it.
Mahoney had more trouble hearing differences when I swapped out some expensive speaker cables for some moderately priced Monster Cables, but that was to be expected.
I once spent a few days driving an Aston-Martin around Scotland for a review of the car's sound system. It was an overwhelmingly pleasurable experience too and a much better one than driving my car and had the tires been switched I doubt I would have noticed much of a difference but I'm sure an automobile pro would be able to describe the handling changes in great detail.
Contrary to Rob Beschizza's charge, Mahoney's hypothesis was not "...that even if normal people can't appreciate what makes ultra-expensive gear special, audiophiles can." As I demonstrated to Mahoney and could to Beschizza as well, anyone can hear and appreciate it.
Mahoney's hypothesis was that even if inexperienced people can't hear some of the nuances that cables (and some other tweaks derided by doubters) can make in an audio system, they probably are audible to some. Audiophiles paying such close attention to the small details is a good thing--which happens to be a truism in any endeavor.
Now, I didn't ask him, but I suspect Mahoney's generosity in believing that nuanced differences he couldn't distinguish probably were audible to me, grew out of listening to a high performance audio system that he'd been pre-conditioned to believe was bullshit and nothing more than (in Beschizza's own words) "...the telltale hiss of dead technology" (never mind that vinyl is the only physical format that's growing in sales and popularity, particularly among kids).
What's "sad," to use another of Beschizza's bizarre choice of words, is that a skeptic who came to launch yet another anti-audiophile attack was in turn attacked by a fellow journalist for emerging "a believer," because he heard with his own ears just how spectacular, enriching and enjoyable a great high performance audio system can be.
I didn't "hard sell" Mahoney. I just sat him down and played music for him. Whatever he wished to hear. That I "hard sold" him is insulting to me and to Mahoney. He wasn't conned, but judging by some of the ridiculous, actually hateful comments (change "audiophile" to the "N-word" and they read like posts on a skinhead site) left in the wake of Beschizza's piece, plenty of you have been conned. You're the suckers, not me, not Mahoney and certainly not high performance audio enthusiasts.
There have been so many ridiculous comments left here, I don't know where to start but I guess I might as well: first of all, the guy who wrote about 'audiophiles' not understanding music and seeking to understand by throwing money out on expensive gear is about the most pathetic of the lot.
One of the most dedicated audiophiles I know is legendary record producer Rick Rubin. Not a "music lover?" I could rattle off dozens of famous names I know personally in the music business and in the business of making music, to prove the utter stupidity of the "non music lover" charge, but then I'd be accused of "name dropping." So go to my music review website Music Angle and then accuse me of not being a music lover.
The second stupidest comment was the one from the engineer speaking (out of his butt) on behalf of all recording engineers claiming that audiophiles are to engineers what astrologers are to astrophysicists.
Really? Obviously, that poster doesn't know just how many engineers are audiophiles. Why don't you make that stupid argument to Roy Halee? He engineered all of Simon and Garfunkel's albums and albums by The Byrds, Bob Dylan and on and on. He's among the most dedicated audiophiles I know and he prefers listening to "dead technology"--he's a vinyl fanatic as are many, many other guys who know the master tapes (and master files) they've produced and think the vinyl, whatever the flaws, sound more like the tape than does the CD.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that every engineer agrees. I can name dozens who prefer digital. What I'm saying is that in the real world, these differences of opinion are respected. In the cartoon world here, there's only one correct opinion and the other side is turned into a caricature.
I love the "logic" of the guy who wrote about the electricity traveling through the grid all the way to someone's home and then ridiculed the idea that the last 3 feet of expensive AC cable could make a sonic difference. Well then, please, if you have a water filter on your faucet to remove heavy metals and other pollutants from your drinking water, remove it because it's idiotic to think the water could move from the reservoir to the treatment facility, through all the old pipes through the water main, into your home and that last little filter could do anything. AC cables do make an audible difference. There's a very well respected jazz recording engineer I know who brought AC cables to a session at the old Sony studios. The in-house engineers laughed at him until he did a demonstration for them....then they got it and stopped laughing. I know, they were "conned."
As is usually the case, knowledge and experience are inversely proportional to glibness. The glibber the post here, the more ignorance is behind it.
So many of the supposedly "logical, science grounded" posters here begin their hate-rants by making a series of outrageous, assumptions about me and about "audiophiles" and what they do or do not know or understand, and then after their hate-rants they end with something like "pathetic," or "sad," or whatever. They are the pathetic and sad ones, building and destroying straw men of their own creation, which is a cheap debating tactic closely related to masturbation.
For some reason audio, not video, not automobiles, not wine, not clothing, not any other subject, seems to attract a gaggle of self-loathing supposed "enthusiasts" who make it their business to tear down quality and reduce it to the lowest common denominator by saying that none of these performance differences matter...that everything pretty much sounds the same. I don't get it.
Getting back to "feeling balls." I've been doing my job for more than 20 years. Over time my system has gotten better and better and I've had more money to invest in what both pays the bills and gives me great pleasure. My readers expect me to have such a system, just as it's expected of Beschizza's readers that he **** all over people who appreciate good sound and mock their passion.
As I said to Mahoney, when my system consisted of a pair of Spica TC-50 speakers ($550), a Hafler DH-200 amp and DH101 preamp (kits costing a few hundred bucks each) and a used Thorens TD-125 with a Luster GST-1 arm...total system cost of around $1500 (in 1981 dollars) I enjoyed listening to music as much then as I do today on a very expensive system. But did it sound as good? Of course not. Not even close. Were I to lose all my gear in a Bernie Madoff minute, I'd assemble a modestly priced system and continue listening with an equal amount of enjoyment because music got me into audio, not vice-versa.
Writing about audio is my job. I try to review inexpensive gear as well, but of course in the effort to turn me into a cartoon, that's not mentioned here.
Over the past 20 years or so, we've gone from 480i 4:3 crappy video to 16x9 1080p high definition. Were I to sit anyone reading this down in front of a good home theater projection system with a properly calibrated projector and 100" screen and were we to watch "Spiderman" or whatever movie you liked, and you walked away wowed and wrote about it, would another writer claim you were "conned" into seeing something that didn't exist? Of course not! I mean, how stupid would that be? Does that mean you couldn't enjoy the movie on an iPod? No. But you wouldn't claim the differences between an iPod and a 100" screen were delusional or that only a "snob" would want to watch on the big screen.
In audio, we've gone backwards from real hi-fi to most people listening on crappy computer speakers to MP3s. That's progress? That's idiocy. You bet Mahoney heard how crappy his Bowie MP3s sounded compared to the "dead technology" of my original vinyl pressings I've been playing for 25 years. Friends bring their kids down and I let them hear how they've been cheated out of a worthwhile listening experience by MP3s--I don't care what the bit rate. They all get it and instantly. No wonder kids are buying turntables. They're rebelling. They always do when they realize they've been had.
As for double blind challenges, let me give you my experience there. In the early nineties I challenged an audio writer who claimed that all amplifiers that measure the same sound the same to set up a double blind test that I would take. I guaranteed him that I'd be able to hear differences among the amplifiers. So he organized a double blind test at an AES convention (Audio Engineering Society) in Los Angeles.
I took the test, along with dozens of others attending, many of them recording engineers. When the results were announced, the organizers said that I'd gotten 5 of 5 identifications correct. My editor at Stereophile, John Atkinson, got 4 of 5 correct. But the overall result was statistically insignificant. Most test takers could not distinguish among the amplifiers. Guess what? I was declared a "lucky coin" and my result was "thrown out!"
Take the test and pass and they find a way to discredit you. When I relate this story on "objectivist" websites the response is always "Not enough samples!" Well, I didn't design the test, I just took it. I jumped through their hoop and I guaranty you had I been 0 for 5 it would have been deemed a very well designed test.
Now, what amazed me about the result was that one of the amps was a vacuum tube amp that sounded way different from the others yet most test takers couldn't hear what was obvious to me. Why? Not because they're not good listeners. They couldn't hear it because they were inexperienced listeners, at least in terms of discerning differences among products. I don't do my testing "blind" but I understand the pitfalls of working that way, just as I know that railroad tracks really don't come to a point on the horizon. I work around that too. Don't you?
EMPHASIS SUPPLIED
As far as blind cable testing goes, please read this piece at the WSJ.
I no longer have anything to "prove" to the skeptics. When I take and pass their "tests," they move the goalposts anyway.
So, to all the snarky posters here, excuse me and other audiophiles for trying to popularize listening to music on a good (not necessarily expensive) audio system. If you enjoy listening to MP3s on computer speakers (and by "listening" I mean paying full attention to the music and not having it in the background while you do other stuff), well knock yourself out, but please stop accusing music lovers who want something better of being "snobs." The effete, look-down- their-nose, know-it-all posts that dominate here, written by people who clearly know very little, define "snob."
If you're wondering about the "hydrogenated" reference in the title, there's a website called hydrogenaudio.com that picked up the Gizmodo story and began attacking me and audiophiles well before boing boing. These supposedly dispassionate rationalists couldn't complete a sentence without hurling personal attacks and when I joined the discussion they behaved as if I was an alien ant invading their colony. It was entertaining.
Speaking of which, if you want to see a dweeby "audiophile' in action, go here.
Michael Fremer is a senior contributing editor at Stereophile, editor of Music Angle, and the producer of "21st Century Vinyl: Michael Fremer's Practical Guide to Turntable Set-up DVD" and "It's a Vinyl World, After All."
THE FINAL WORD BECAUSE IT'S OUR BLOG AND EVERYTHING
Thank you, Mr. Fremer! And there was me thinking you guys sit there listening to the THX surround sound noise over and over again.
Most high-end gear is audibly better than even decent equipment, and Fremer is right to point out that mainstream skepticism encourages listeners to be cynical about it. Moreover, it doesn't take an audiophile to prefer a good platter over joint-stereo 128kbps MP3 files and badly-mastered CDs. We skeptics also sometimes confuse those areas where extreme quality can make a difference (amps and long cable runs, for example), with those areas that are pure snake oil. (Such as little maple blocks placed strategically around the listening room.)
My "attack" on John's piece was really about the lack of rigor involved in tests of specific gear, like AC cables, which I do think are snake oil. They're either (a) doing nothing worthwhile or (b) doing nothing that couldn't be accomplished with much cheaper stuff. Take the water filtration example Michael poses: as filthy as tap water can be, will a $4,000 filter clean it better than a $3,000 one?
85 Comments
Anon • #1 • 8:44 AM Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Holy Christ close your tags somewhere!
Brandon
On Being Gizmodoed, Boing Boinged and Hydrogenated
Michael Fremer at 8:30 AM Wednesday, May 6, 2009
This is Michael's response to our post Gizmodo mounted on maple blocks, sounds great, in which audiophile gear is made fun of. (See John Mahoney's original item at Gizmodo, Why We Need Audiophiles.) We thought Michael's post would languish at the bottom of a month-old post's comment thread, so he spruced it up as a guest feature, and here it is! — Rob
My wife handles our Cardigan Welsh Corgi in the show ring. I love the dog and though I'm not much into the "dog world," occasionally I go to a show to watch. The judge has to check each dog's confirmation to see how close it comes to the breed standard. If it's a male dog he's got to feel the dog's balls to be sure both have descended. That's part of his job.
Do I think this guy's a pervert who stops people in the street walking their dogs so he can feel their dog's balls? Of course not, but judging by some of the hysterical reactions to Rob Beschizza's post "Gizmodo mounted on maple blocks, sounds great," I guess some of you would see the ball-handler doing his job and think feeling dog's balls is all that guy did.
Such were the ridiculous, frequently irrational caricatures posted of audiophiles in general and me in particular, under Beschizza's post. Beschizza deserves part of the blame, tossing you red meat instead of truth by suggesting that writer John Mahoney's Giz piece hypothesized "...that even if normal people can't appreciate what makes ultra-expensive gear special, audiophiles can. This is a myth, and to honor it like this is to sell it."
Mahoney's piece hypothesized no such thing.
In fact his piece concluded that anyone can hear how great an expensive high performance audio system can sound. Mahoney had visited so he could write, from first hand knowledge, the usual anti-audiophile tripe about clueless obsessives with expensive gear in bad rooms who repeatedly play the same five records or CDs. He was expecting to hear some loud, offensive assemblage of stupidly expensive, grotesque sounding "show off" gear--like the typical custom car stereo.
I knew the agenda but I also knew what Mahoney would hear because literally hundreds of non-audiophiles--neighbors and many in the dog world who come to visit my wife--have sat in my listening chair and heard what anyone can hear: that a high performance rig can produce astonishing-sounding music , with the speakers literally disappearing, leaving a wall-to-wall, three-dimensional, physical presence.
Listening to a very familiar tune of their choice, these non-audiophiles invariably react by saying things like "It's as if I've never heard the song before." "I heard instruments I never knew were there." "I can 'see' each instrument in space and follow the notes each musician plays." And, because the imaging is so palpable and precise, many invariably point to the amplifiers in the middle and say "Are those speakers too?"
Or "I had no idea this was even possible! How come I didn't know about this!" Or they describe how listening made them feel--how listening to recorded music had never before elicited such strongly felt emotions. Everyone walks away in a pleasant daze--the way you do exiting a live concert. I still do, even though this is my job and I experience it daily.
And that's what Mahoney immediately heard on the first tune, a song from the French synth duo Air. I didn't play "audiophile" crap, I played him regular music--which is what I listen to. After that first cut he said something like "I've never heard anything like that!" And "That was not what I was expecting." He got it. Anyone hearing such a system would "get it." One need not be an "audiophile" to get it.
Mahoney had more trouble hearing differences when I swapped out some expensive speaker cables for some moderately priced Monster Cables, but that was to be expected.
I once spent a few days driving an Aston-Martin around Scotland for a review of the car's sound system. It was an overwhelmingly pleasurable experience too and a much better one than driving my car and had the tires been switched I doubt I would have noticed much of a difference but I'm sure an automobile pro would be able to describe the handling changes in great detail.
Contrary to Rob Beschizza's charge, Mahoney's hypothesis was not "...that even if normal people can't appreciate what makes ultra-expensive gear special, audiophiles can." As I demonstrated to Mahoney and could to Beschizza as well, anyone can hear and appreciate it.
Mahoney's hypothesis was that even if inexperienced people can't hear some of the nuances that cables (and some other tweaks derided by doubters) can make in an audio system, they probably are audible to some. Audiophiles paying such close attention to the small details is a good thing--which happens to be a truism in any endeavor.
Now, I didn't ask him, but I suspect Mahoney's generosity in believing that nuanced differences he couldn't distinguish probably were audible to me, grew out of listening to a high performance audio system that he'd been pre-conditioned to believe was bullshit and nothing more than (in Beschizza's own words) "...the telltale hiss of dead technology" (never mind that vinyl is the only physical format that's growing in sales and popularity, particularly among kids).
What's "sad," to use another of Beschizza's bizarre choice of words, is that a skeptic who came to launch yet another anti-audiophile attack was in turn attacked by a fellow journalist for emerging "a believer," because he heard with his own ears just how spectacular, enriching and enjoyable a great high performance audio system can be.
I didn't "hard sell" Mahoney. I just sat him down and played music for him. Whatever he wished to hear. That I "hard sold" him is insulting to me and to Mahoney. He wasn't conned, but judging by some of the ridiculous, actually hateful comments (change "audiophile" to the "N-word" and they read like posts on a skinhead site) left in the wake of Beschizza's piece, plenty of you have been conned. You're the suckers, not me, not Mahoney and certainly not high performance audio enthusiasts.
There have been so many ridiculous comments left here, I don't know where to start but I guess I might as well: first of all, the guy who wrote about 'audiophiles' not understanding music and seeking to understand by throwing money out on expensive gear is about the most pathetic of the lot.
One of the most dedicated audiophiles I know is legendary record producer Rick Rubin. Not a "music lover?" I could rattle off dozens of famous names I know personally in the music business and in the business of making music, to prove the utter stupidity of the "non music lover" charge, but then I'd be accused of "name dropping." So go to my music review website Music Angle and then accuse me of not being a music lover.
The second stupidest comment was the one from the engineer speaking (out of his butt) on behalf of all recording engineers claiming that audiophiles are to engineers what astrologers are to astrophysicists.
Really? Obviously, that poster doesn't know just how many engineers are audiophiles. Why don't you make that stupid argument to Roy Halee? He engineered all of Simon and Garfunkel's albums and albums by The Byrds, Bob Dylan and on and on. He's among the most dedicated audiophiles I know and he prefers listening to "dead technology"--he's a vinyl fanatic as are many, many other guys who know the master tapes (and master files) they've produced and think the vinyl, whatever the flaws, sound more like the tape than does the CD.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that every engineer agrees. I can name dozens who prefer digital. What I'm saying is that in the real world, these differences of opinion are respected. In the cartoon world here, there's only one correct opinion and the other side is turned into a caricature.
I love the "logic" of the guy who wrote about the electricity traveling through the grid all the way to someone's home and then ridiculed the idea that the last 3 feet of expensive AC cable could make a sonic difference. Well then, please, if you have a water filter on your faucet to remove heavy metals and other pollutants from your drinking water, remove it because it's idiotic to think the water could move from the reservoir to the treatment facility, through all the old pipes through the water main, into your home and that last little filter could do anything. AC cables do make an audible difference. There's a very well respected jazz recording engineer I know who brought AC cables to a session at the old Sony studios. The in-house engineers laughed at him until he did a demonstration for them....then they got it and stopped laughing. I know, they were "conned."
As is usually the case, knowledge and experience are inversely proportional to glibness. The glibber the post here, the more ignorance is behind it.
So many of the supposedly "logical, science grounded" posters here begin their hate-rants by making a series of outrageous, assumptions about me and about "audiophiles" and what they do or do not know or understand, and then after their hate-rants they end with something like "pathetic," or "sad," or whatever. They are the pathetic and sad ones, building and destroying straw men of their own creation, which is a cheap debating tactic closely related to masturbation.
For some reason audio, not video, not automobiles, not wine, not clothing, not any other subject, seems to attract a gaggle of self-loathing supposed "enthusiasts" who make it their business to tear down quality and reduce it to the lowest common denominator by saying that none of these performance differences matter...that everything pretty much sounds the same. I don't get it.
Getting back to "feeling balls." I've been doing my job for more than 20 years. Over time my system has gotten better and better and I've had more money to invest in what both pays the bills and gives me great pleasure. My readers expect me to have such a system, just as it's expected of Beschizza's readers that he **** all over people who appreciate good sound and mock their passion.
As I said to Mahoney, when my system consisted of a pair of Spica TC-50 speakers ($550), a Hafler DH-200 amp and DH101 preamp (kits costing a few hundred bucks each) and a used Thorens TD-125 with a Luster GST-1 arm...total system cost of around $1500 (in 1981 dollars) I enjoyed listening to music as much then as I do today on a very expensive system. But did it sound as good? Of course not. Not even close. Were I to lose all my gear in a Bernie Madoff minute, I'd assemble a modestly priced system and continue listening with an equal amount of enjoyment because music got me into audio, not vice-versa.
Writing about audio is my job. I try to review inexpensive gear as well, but of course in the effort to turn me into a cartoon, that's not mentioned here.
Over the past 20 years or so, we've gone from 480i 4:3 crappy video to 16x9 1080p high definition. Were I to sit anyone reading this down in front of a good home theater projection system with a properly calibrated projector and 100" screen and were we to watch "Spiderman" or whatever movie you liked, and you walked away wowed and wrote about it, would another writer claim you were "conned" into seeing something that didn't exist? Of course not! I mean, how stupid would that be? Does that mean you couldn't enjoy the movie on an iPod? No. But you wouldn't claim the differences between an iPod and a 100" screen were delusional or that only a "snob" would want to watch on the big screen.
In audio, we've gone backwards from real hi-fi to most people listening on crappy computer speakers to MP3s. That's progress? That's idiocy. You bet Mahoney heard how crappy his Bowie MP3s sounded compared to the "dead technology" of my original vinyl pressings I've been playing for 25 years. Friends bring their kids down and I let them hear how they've been cheated out of a worthwhile listening experience by MP3s--I don't care what the bit rate. They all get it and instantly. No wonder kids are buying turntables. They're rebelling. They always do when they realize they've been had.
As for double blind challenges, let me give you my experience there. In the early nineties I challenged an audio writer who claimed that all amplifiers that measure the same sound the same to set up a double blind test that I would take. I guaranteed him that I'd be able to hear differences among the amplifiers. So he organized a double blind test at an AES convention (Audio Engineering Society) in Los Angeles.
I took the test, along with dozens of others attending, many of them recording engineers. When the results were announced, the organizers said that I'd gotten 5 of 5 identifications correct. My editor at Stereophile, John Atkinson, got 4 of 5 correct. But the overall result was statistically insignificant. Most test takers could not distinguish among the amplifiers. Guess what? I was declared a "lucky coin" and my result was "thrown out!"
Take the test and pass and they find a way to discredit you. When I relate this story on "objectivist" websites the response is always "Not enough samples!" Well, I didn't design the test, I just took it. I jumped through their hoop and I guaranty you had I been 0 for 5 it would have been deemed a very well designed test.
Now, what amazed me about the result was that one of the amps was a vacuum tube amp that sounded way different from the others yet most test takers couldn't hear what was obvious to me. Why? Not because they're not good listeners. They couldn't hear it because they were inexperienced listeners, at least in terms of discerning differences among products. I don't do my testing "blind" but I understand the pitfalls of working that way, just as I know that railroad tracks really don't come to a point on the horizon. I work around that too. Don't you?
EMPHASIS SUPPLIED
As far as blind cable testing goes, please read this piece at the WSJ.
I no longer have anything to "prove" to the skeptics. When I take and pass their "tests," they move the goalposts anyway.
So, to all the snarky posters here, excuse me and other audiophiles for trying to popularize listening to music on a good (not necessarily expensive) audio system. If you enjoy listening to MP3s on computer speakers (and by "listening" I mean paying full attention to the music and not having it in the background while you do other stuff), well knock yourself out, but please stop accusing music lovers who want something better of being "snobs." The effete, look-down- their-nose, know-it-all posts that dominate here, written by people who clearly know very little, define "snob."
If you're wondering about the "hydrogenated" reference in the title, there's a website called hydrogenaudio.com that picked up the Gizmodo story and began attacking me and audiophiles well before boing boing. These supposedly dispassionate rationalists couldn't complete a sentence without hurling personal attacks and when I joined the discussion they behaved as if I was an alien ant invading their colony. It was entertaining.
Speaking of which, if you want to see a dweeby "audiophile' in action, go here.
Michael Fremer is a senior contributing editor at Stereophile, editor of Music Angle, and the producer of "21st Century Vinyl: Michael Fremer's Practical Guide to Turntable Set-up DVD" and "It's a Vinyl World, After All."
THE FINAL WORD BECAUSE IT'S OUR BLOG AND EVERYTHING
Thank you, Mr. Fremer! And there was me thinking you guys sit there listening to the THX surround sound noise over and over again.
Most high-end gear is audibly better than even decent equipment, and Fremer is right to point out that mainstream skepticism encourages listeners to be cynical about it. Moreover, it doesn't take an audiophile to prefer a good platter over joint-stereo 128kbps MP3 files and badly-mastered CDs. We skeptics also sometimes confuse those areas where extreme quality can make a difference (amps and long cable runs, for example), with those areas that are pure snake oil. (Such as little maple blocks placed strategically around the listening room.)
My "attack" on John's piece was really about the lack of rigor involved in tests of specific gear, like AC cables, which I do think are snake oil. They're either (a) doing nothing worthwhile or (b) doing nothing that couldn't be accomplished with much cheaper stuff. Take the water filtration example Michael poses: as filthy as tap water can be, will a $4,000 filter clean it better than a $3,000 one?
85 Comments
Anon • #1 • 8:44 AM Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Holy Christ close your tags somewhere!
Brandon
Let's take at face value that Micheal is a gifted listener in this regard. I am puzzled then why he is against blind tests if he can ace it so well
.OK, put that aside. Seeing how other than John, no one else could even remotely come close to him, where does that leave the general audiophile population? Are they superior to the pros who showed up to AES as a group? What if the above is proof that you/we aren't?
I think it is interesting that JTinn said on this forum that in his opinion, Fremer is one of the best reviewers out there. I agree. M. Fremer is one of the few reviewers that I have read for many years and I think I understand where he is coming from and what he says he hears. As to Amir's question, I don't know what it would prove if "we" couldn't hear as well under blind conditions as Fremer and JA did. Hats off to both of them. There are few people on this forum that are professional reviewers. We all have our systems and we know what we like. If you couldn't do as well in a blind test as MF and JA, are you going to lose any faith in your ability to pick out components for your stereo system and understand if you made a move forward or backward? I'm not.
If you care whether your decisions are correct or not, then you should be worried whether you are making wrong choices and search for other tools to help you bolster your confidence. One tool is learning the technology. Once you know that, next is measurements. Then you can combine that with listening to triangulate the data. Here is what Michael himself says: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t71245-250.html
"There's a doctrinaire slavishness to measurements I don't subscribe to. However, measurements are important. When I review speakers I try to predict how they will measure both in-room and quasi-anechoically...because that's a test of my listening acuity and I'm as interested as anyone in knowing how good I am. I write and turn in a review before I see the measurements. I suggest you go to Stereophile's website and read the review and measurement of the Audio Physic Caldera loudspeaker that I wrote before the measurements. And then check the measurements. "
He actually demonstrates the key ingredients in there as I just did. He is able to predict in-room and "quasi-anechoic" measurements of a speaker. Are you able to do that? How about most audiophiles? It takes knowledge of what these things mean, and how they manifest themselves. He also believes in checking his ears with measurements. So if he is the best example of subjective evaluation, then I say the strict "just listen" model goes even further than he does. As a minimum, he understands the science to some extends and constantly tests his understanding of it through countless products he tests.
Let's take at face value that Micheal is a gifted listener in this regard. I am puzzled then why he is against blind tests if he can ace it so well
Michael did not give up on DBT what he said was: I no longer have anything to "prove" to the skeptics. When I take and pass their "tests," they move the goalposts anyway.
OK, put that aside. Seeing how other than John, no one else could even remotely come close to him, where does that leave the general audiophile population? Are they superior to the pros who showed up to AES as a group? What if the above is proof that you/we aren't?
Michael already answered that question for us.
I took the test, along with dozens of others attending, many of them recording engineers. When the results were announced, the organizers said that I'd gotten 5 of 5 identifications correct. My editor at Stereophile, John Atkinson, got 4 of 5 correct. But the overall result was statistically insignificant. Most test takers could not distinguish among the amplifiers. Guess what? I was declared a "lucky coin" and my result was "thrown out!"
IMO they are expereiced not gifted listeners. They knew the test was BS and they came prepared to deal with it. The others walked blindly into the trap. Again here is Michaels' take:
Now, what amazed me about the result was that one of the amps was a vacuum tube amp that sounded way different from the others yet most test takers couldn't hear what was obvious to me. Why? Not because they're not good listeners. They couldn't hear it because they were inexperienced listeners, at least in terms of discerning differences among products. I don't do my testing "blind" but I understand the pitfalls of working that way, just as I know that railroad tracks really don't come to a point on the horizon. I work around that too. Don't you?
I agree with Ron DBT is not inherently flawed, but it can be perverted. Sorry I had few beers.
Greg, can you not insert your answers in my quote? It makes it difficult to quote you back and answer.
Are you saying that Micheal's position is that DBTs are fine but that he doesn't have to keep taking them to prove himself? 'cause that is what you are saying.
And no, what you quoted from him is not the answer to my question but the question itself! I used the very same text to ask my question: how do you know that *you* are the same as the exception (Michael and John) and not the countless others who had no luck in DBT? In what way have you tested yourself to know the accuracy of your hearing? Michael says he does that in every review by reading the measurements after the fact. How often to you or any other audiophile does that here?
Answer is hardly ever I would think.
Are you saying that Micheal's position is that DBTs are fine but that he doesn't have to keep taking them to prove himself? 'cause that is what you are saying.
And no, what you quoted from him is not the answer to my question but the question itself! I used the very same text to ask my question: how do you know that *you* are the same as the exception (Michael and John) and not the countless others who had no luck in DBT? In what way have you tested yourself to know the accuracy of your hearing? Michael says he does that in every review by reading the measurements after the fact. How often to you or any other audiophile does that here?
Answer is hardly ever I would think
.
The "fact" is that Fremer's results were a fluke. They were not statistically significant, and neither were the negatives from all of the other participants. But that just means that they don't prove anything; it doesn't mean they weren't valuable. I've done a bit of blind listening here at home. None of it has proven anything statistically, but it has shown me what is significant, what I can hear, what I lack the patience to listen for. And that is much more valuable to me than statistical results, because it helped me find equipment that I don't seem to lose satisfaction with over time. It got me out of the buy/sell/trade/upgrade circle. It helped me stop chasing my audiophile tail. YMMV.
Tim
Tim
They then go another step in the discussion down that road...
Statistically valid-scientific DBT
Cheers
Orb
Not at all, Jack. There are two kinds of blind listening - scientific and casual. Scientific? I wish all roads began there, especially the the back roads occupied by boutique builders and tweak merchants who often have quite a bit to prove. Casual blind listening at home is just another tool to help us understand what we're really hearing and what really matters. But if you don't want to bother with blind listening, if you want to "just listen," I'd really do that. Delete the audiophile message boards from your bookmarks, find someplace else to go on Saturday besides the local high end shop -- remove the influences that make it a near certainty that you're not "just listening," but listening for what you've been told you will hear. I've been there. Maybe you have too. Casual blind listening is just the next logical step, and all roads don't need to lead there, but all I can say is that it has been incredibly valuable for me. I've learned a lot and ended up with a much better-sounding system and a lot more money to spend on music. YMMV
Tim
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