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Can You Trust Your Ears? By Tom Nousaine

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tomelex

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Well, specifically in answer of Analog Scott....

Just about the entire audio equipment industry better start listening to Analog Scott now. They keep touting out their specs of less than 1% distortion and flat frequency response and wide bandwidth and all that stuff, and here we find, that they should be designing each component with a variant of distortions that are user adjustable.

This in no way makes sense. Obviously, those of you that are trying to correct for inaccurate room responses are on the wrong path too, and lets not even talk about the speaker designers who have no clue about your room and are attempting to design to their "reference idea of radiation patterns and what not", they need to lighten up and just let things fall where they may, perhaps put out twenty versions of each speaker each with its own weird and skewed FR and radiation pattern graphs so those at WBF can pick the right one for them.

Oh, and you think you might just use the common sense way of changing your system to sound the way you want, maybe using a parametric equalizer, well, no, because it itself, has built in distortions in that it does not actually show what the band range is on the slider, they are unlabeled, you just move them around until you like the sound.

I am all for adjusting your system the way you want, and we know the final step is the speaker room interface and tuning to either a standard of flatness or slope or whatever, but the idea that individual components in the chain should not be as accurate as possible to start with, well, the audio industry has got it wrong all this time per Analog Scott.

He is confused with a signal chains job of replicating the recording accurately and preference by distorting the signal chain to his preference.
 

watchnerd

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All you are doing is laying out the same failed circular reasoning. Assertion: accuracy is superior in audio. Why is accuracy superior in audio? Because it is more accurate. You do understand that there is music involved in all of this do you not? Before audio we had music. Music has been evaluated for thousands of years by people who made music and people who listened to it. Classical music has a very rich history of development of content and of the instruments used to play it. ALL OF WHICH was done so by evaluation through preference. You do understand that right? When it comes to actual music preference is THE standard by which it is judged and has always been so since there was music. When I listen to audio I do so to enjoy music. I judge music played on a sound system the same exact way I judge live music. On it's own merits. Your circular reasoning that accuracy is inherently superior because it is more accurate and preferences play no role in the judgement loses sight of the fundamental reason for our stereo systems to exist in the first place, to play music. So does the music serve audio or does audio serve music? Because music is judged subjectively by human beings as is the sound quality of that music. This whole idea of science in service of art is being lost in this unbendable idea of accuracy and only accuracy matters because we don't know what's on the tape. It's not as if you are Mork from Ork and don't know what music is! If you listen to any recording of just about any music you got a pretty good idea what is actually on the tape before you listen. It's not a total mystery if you listen to a recording of a classical piano piece that you are listening to classical piano. Right? You can evaluate the sound quality of a piano being played live without this crutch of accuracy can you not? Are you capable of listening to a live classical performance and forming an opinion about the sound quality you are hearing? If so then why can't you do the same thing with a recording of a classical piano? And if not why do you worry about audio sound quality at all? We actually do know what's on these tapes to a large degree, We can evaluate sound quality independent of audio. This circle of confusion is way over stated. Is it messy? Sure. Is it prone to inprecision? No doubt. But this idea that accuracy is everything and there is no place for preferences in audio most definitely puts the cart before the horse. It's about music ultimately. And music isn't the dark unknown mystery you guys are making it out to be that we need accuracy and only accuracy to lead us through that darkness. If science is going to serve art it requires a better understanding of the art and how that in and of itself is evaluated. Not this assumption that the tape is this mysterious entity that is also a work of art that represents the perfect execution of some artistic vision.

What are the characteristics of a speaker that serves music well, for most listeners?
 

tomelex

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I'm wondering how long this debate with Mr Analog Scott will continue?
You members do realize that he is simply trolling you with his silly WBF style circular arguments.
The fact that he is 100% wrong will never enter his mind or have any relevance to his continued illogical answers.


Thanks for the sanity check! Since we do not get too many folks around here who are not scientifically inclined I kind of forgot how to deal or not deal with them.
 

Analog Scott

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You can keep asking and you will keep getting the same answer. Read the the book and the AES papers. Why you seem to think this isnt scientific research is beyond me.

I am reading the book, I want to read the AES papers if someone would please cite them. I have never said anything was not scientific research.

Oh but you have. You said Tooles research is wrong. You have disagreed with the research that says people prefer neutral speakers. You have implied that the only good speaker is one that suits your personal preferences and has been selected to counter or compliment the colourations of other system components.

Nope. I have expressed skepticism of the assertion of universal transference of tests of speakers done in mono with limited source material and a set of listeners trained to spot specific distortions. That is not the same thing as saying it is wrong. I'd love to read the actual research that supports his assertion for myself. Apparently you seem to have a big problem with that. Why?
 

Analog Scott

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No. The reference is the signal recorded on the media, your sample of one preference is meaningless.

I dont think anyone has said that fidelity is the superior option. In fact most have been at pains to say that you as an individual can distort the sound in whatever way you like. Up to you, whatever floats your boat. Fidelity is simply just that, faithful to the original. It really is you thats confused by the conversation

--A distortion free audio playback chain is MEASUREABLY superior regardless of recording
 

Analog Scott

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And yet tooles research showed that neutral speakers were still preferred in different rooms.
Citation of that research please. Just identify the actual published papers so I can read them for myself.
 

svart-hvitt

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You do understand that this kind of argument is simply annoying and without any rational basis.

Nobody wears a blindfold. Perhaps you know that, in which case you really went for the cheap shot.


J_j, I simply wanted to say that both BE718 and Cosmik have valid points. I can't see why you're annoyed about that. Remember, this is a place to "have fun, be ready to be teased and not take online life too seriously".

On a more serious note, I see that you use the word "rational". May I ask you which school - i.e. philosophical direction and/or research program into the subject of rationality - you adhere to when talking about being "rational"? Some people have almost no appreciation for the rich archive of paradoxes of rationality; so using the word "rational" warrants both humility and caution. My point is that if you define the word "rational" in a narrow way, you make the same mistake as Analog Scott; you will be right only within the limits you made yourself.

This is a site for science. Because audio science is an overlap of both the hard (physics) and soft (psychology) sciences, I stand by my initial post that both Cosmik and BE718 have valid points.
 

Thomas savage

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A while back I asked you all to move the conversation on as the content being produced lacked the usual excellence you all provide ..

With the thread lending nothing but irritation and nebulous circular argument with no end in sight I’m shuttting it down.

Thanks for all your contributions..,

Thread closed .
 
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