advertisement


Anyone tried blind testing DACs?

h.g. said:
Scientific knowledge and it's more applied expression as engineering knowledge is what competent engineers will largely use to reason about home audio hardware. There was a time when I first became interest in home audio when home audio hobbyists would also use something fairly close to reason about the performance of home audio hardware.
Click to expand...
You seem to be arguing that an it would be possible for an audio engineer to design a new product entirely from established theory and that they will not need experiments (tests) to verify their ideas. I don’t think I can name an audio designer worth his salt who would agree with that, nor any who would claim that an ‘on paper’ design will need no fettling and tweaking before it eventually passes muster. That will require subjective listening tests.
 
Can this dickfest of a thread die please? Not slowly, like a crawling cancer, but like a sudden blow to the head or a car catching an asteroid?
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
h.g. said:
Scientific knowledge and it's more applied expression as engineering knowledge is what competent engineers will largely use to reason about home audio hardware.
Click to expand...

You seem to be arguing that an it would be possible for an audio engineer to design a new product entirely from established theory and that they will not need experiments (tests) to verify their ideas.
Click to expand...

Chortle. You may want what you are quoting to state this but I am afraid it doesn't. For low tech products like home audio hardware competent engineers will largely use long established engineering/scientific knowledge to design their products (audiophile designers are a not necessarily engineers never mind competent ones) and then use measurements to check things are behaving as expected. This is why the word largely is present.

Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I don’t think I can name an audio designer worth his salt who would agree with that, nor any who would claim that an ‘on paper’ design will need no fettling and tweaking before it eventually passes muster. That will require subjective listening tests.
Click to expand...

The marketing of low tech luxury products to the subset of the population that is receptive to it is not a reliable source of information on how engineering and engineers operate in the real world. In the wacky world of audiophiles most audiophile designers do not have an engineering background and are more likely to come from the sales side. This is not universal with one or two of the personalities used to market home audio actually having an engineering background such as Andrew Jones but they are fairly rare and rather refreshing when they do pop up. Not surprisingly the products they market tend to come from the high technical performance for the money end of the spectrum.
 
h.g. said:
darrenyeats said:
I'm making specific purchasing decisions at my home (not necessarily DAC related). My complaint is I can't confidently generate scientific conclusions at home.
Click to expand...
Why not? It simply requires the application of the relevant scientific knowledge. Audiophile publications and forums are full of audiophile nonsense these days but technical and academic publications are fine as are many of the home audio publications from before the mid 70s.
Click to expand...
My choice of word "generate" was careful (I didn't mean "arrive at").

I could generate rock-solid, scientific conclusions from some experiments on "other random topics" at my home. But not for audibility of particular DACs, preamps, codecs and the like in which I'm interested - I've explained at length why a large scale effort would be necessary for that (by 'that' I mean a new experiment) one way or another, even with alternative suggestions. I can perform half-assed, amateur experiments on the audibility of DACs, preamps, codecs and the like at my home, which I could feel are indicative enough for me to avoid spending my money and efforts badly. Different thing. Still a useful thing.

I get that you're saying it's not necessary to generate science where there's an established body of science. As I said we're talking at cross-purposes in this way. I just want to puncture this idea that "if you want to know for sure if something is audible or not, just listen blind". The principle is true, but you'd need a large scale effort to do an experiment really well, so the 'just' part of that sentence is wrong.
 
Guys I think you’re mistaken.

The purest form of science is a beardy weirdy on £250/week, measuring a dac with a £150 multimeter and coming up with a graph that unequivocally shows how it will sound in your room, your system...and to your ears.
;)
 
Jesus wept, 15 pages, nearly 300 posts; did anybody answer the question yet? I can't be bothered to look tbh; I've got better things to do, like breathing for instance..
 
Nope, never have and after reading this likely never will.

Or at least if I do I'm unlikely to talk about it.
 
Thetiminator said:
Guys I think you’re mistaken.

The purest form of science is a beardy weirdy on £250/week, measuring a dac with a £150 multimeter and coming up with a graph that unequivocally shows how it will sound in your room, your system...and to your ears.
;)
Click to expand...
It is called progress. Audibly transparent da conversion has been a solved problem for decades.
 
The first, that is a good question but many years ago, the cheapest, check out the dac measurements over at ASR, $100 Khadas perhaps?
Keith
 
I wouldn’t spend big bucks on a DAC because I agree with Octavian and Keith (surprise, surprise) that a decent one can be had for sensible money. But if others want to spend more or can hear things I don’t, that’s fine with me.

As far as I’m concerned my system is done,* but if I were inclined to spend a lot it would be on speakers.

Joe

* I have a Garrard 301 I need to get around to servicing, but my 22-year-old Rega P9 is good enough that I don’t feel like I’m missing out when I play records.
 
Joe P said:
I wouldn’t spend big bucks on a DAC because I agree with Octavian and Keith (surprise, surprise) that a decent one can be had for sensible money. But if others want to spend more or can hear things I don’t, that’s fine with me.
Click to expand...

The thing is that a man's decent one can be another man's mediocre one and a man's sensible money can be another man's buying a new car money...
 
Radamel,

Indeed, and that’s why I just state my preference if someone asks for advice. The decision on which audio thingy to buy should be based on the user’s needs and finances and the performance of the thingy in his or her system.

Joe
 
h.g. said:
Chortle. You may want what you are quoting to state this but I am afraid it doesn't. For low tech products like home audio hardware competent engineers will largely use long established engineering/scientific knowledge to design their products (audiophile designers are a not necessarily engineers never mind competent ones) and then use measurements to check things are behaving as expected. This is why the word largely is present.



The marketing of low tech luxury products to the subset of the population that is receptive to it is not a reliable source of information on how engineering and engineers operate in the real world. In the wacky world of audiophiles most audiophile designers do not have an engineering background and are more likely to come from the sales side. This is not universal with one or two of the personalities used to market home audio actually having an engineering background such as Andrew Jones but they are fairly rare and rather refreshing when they do pop up. Not surprisingly the products they market tend to come from the high technical performance for the money end of the spectrum.
Click to expand...
h.g. that’s less of a reply/rebuttal to my post and more of a freewheeling bit of whataboutery.
 
Purité Audio said:
The first, that is a good question but many years ago, the cheapest, check out the dac measurements over at ASR, $100 Khadas perhaps?
Keith
Click to expand...
If the Khardas is perceptually perfect, how is that @Darren who bought one from you, found that the Soncoz SGD1, which he also bought from you, sounded better?

Darren said:
Anyway, when compared to the Khardas or my CD player on its own the SGD1 is a real step up that was immediately obvious. Actually, it completely changed my digital sound from CD. There was a better portrayal of rhythm, bass was apparently deeper and more sonorous, but there was much more bass definition much more sense of bass guitars being vibrating, stringed instruments rather than just dum-dum-dum noise makers, the sound stage is much wider and deeper. Studio effects are laid bare. Its just enjoyable and great audiophile fun.
Click to expand...

Do you think that @Darren is deluded, lying, wrong, mistaken, a victim of wish-fulfillment? Did you say to him, “Darren, you already have a perceptually perfect DAC, I cannot take your money”? Surely only an unscrupulous charlatan would take someone’s money for something he believed would make no difference?
 
I did say that I didn’t believe there would be any difference between the Khadas and the SGD1 except for the added features of the newer dac.
Dacs are done imo and this is reflected by the ASR measurements, and unsighted comparison.
Keith
 
Purité Audio said:
I did say that I didn’t believe there would be any difference between the Khadas and the SGD1 except for the added features of the newer dac.
Dacs are done imo and this is reflected by the ASR measurements, and unsighted comparison.
Keith
Click to expand...
So you think he is wrong then?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top