Can we hear anything, allowed to hear anything, or are you deaf/stupid?

[Tony L]

An engineer uses graphs to buy speakers and ears to produce music.

An engineer not buying accurate monitors would be akin to a performer playing an instrument out of tune.

A wonderful belief-set spoilt only by the fact there are no “accurate” loudspeakers. Really all you are arguing is for your chosen colourations, bandwidth limitations and dynamic compression over my or anyone else’s choices. Nothing to see here but compromise. Move on!

 

[tuga]

what exactly are we listening too, music or test generated signals?

We are listening to music albeit with different degrees of distortion depending on one's system.

Frequency response could be compared to the colour balance of a photograph.
The following image shows the same photograph as reproduced by an uncalibrated display (left) and by a calibrated (or accurate) display.
Colours are more accurate but also the tonal balance has improved (more gradations of grey in the clouds).

An photograph can show other types of distortion like film grain, digital noise, geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, soft corners, etc.

 

[tuga]

An engineer doesn't buy or own the speakers speakers (they use what the studio has) so your case is moot. The studio uses various speakers in various rooms, all with different acoustic properties.. the mix is done, performed and set down by ear.

Yes the mix is done by ear. The mix is the music.
But the sound is (hopefuly) monitored using accurate speakers. Just as a photographer uses an accurate or calibrated display to monitor his photos when editing.
If the listener has an accurate system he'll hear roughly the same as the engineer.

The production of pop and rock music doesn't always make use of the best recording, mixing and monitoring equipment or practices though, which is unfortunate...

There's a subtle difference bewteen production and reproduction.

Musicians, engineers and producers create or produce music which is canned in the form of an audio signal.
Audio systems reproduce a recording which is the same as saying an audio signal which is the same as saying sound. It can be a voice, a train, a thunder, rain, or a cello. The system is agnostic, it doesn't know what it's reproducing. It doesn't play music, it reproduces sound.

 

[tuga]

A wonderful belief-set spoilt only by the fact there are no “accurate” loudspeakers. Really all you are arguing is for your chosen colourations, bandwidth limitations and dynamic compression over my or anyone else’s choices. Nothing to see here but compromise. Move on!

There are no perfect loudspeakers but some are more accurate than others. The best will exhibit little compromise.

 

[chartz]

I don’t know about accuracy but I’ve settled on ESL57s because they let everything out. Yes, including those horrid (an older French adjective I love) MP3 files that sound great on most dynamic and coloured speakers.

 

[Fourlegs]

You started a topic on your experience with the Inous gadget both here and in another forum (that I know of).
What is the purpose of these topics?
Are you expecting interaction/dialogue?
Do you expect your topic to be of any use to others and would you like it to?
Are you open to a technical discussion of the gadget's alleged capabilities?
Does it disturb you if current scientific knowledge questions your observational findings?
Will allowing a technical discussion increase or reduce the usefulness of your topic?

What I was hoping you would pick up on was the irony of your postings in the current thread and where you are posting in a more or less relentless objectivist manner in order perhaps to win your point. My point seems to have whistled straight past you though.

My posts in a different thread reporting on my listing impressions of the Innuos Phoenix were of course open to discussion but even there the thread became the subject of the objectivist mob piling in to 'educate' the rest of us about how reclockers cannot possibly increase sound quality etc etc.

Thats all.

 

[cooky1257]

To be fair tuga's over use of cut n paste measurement plots used to irritate me but in the spirit of the thread perhaps the subjectivists could recognise that his enthusiasm for graphs is no worse than some contributors enthusiasm for magical transformative usb leads or boxes of soil? In other words practice what you are expecting of others-tolerance.

 

[Shadders]

What I was hoping you would pick up on was the irony of your postings in the current thread and where you are posting in a more or less relentless objectivist manner in order perhaps to win your point

Hi,
I understand that you have me on ignore, but this is not for you.

No one talks about winning except you.

the thread became the subject of the objectivist mob piling in to 'educate' the rest of us about how reclockers cannot possibly increase sound quality etc etc.

You never answer the technical discussion, and resort to attack on the person in response. The reclocker if affecting the connected device will be rectifying the poor implementation of the connected equipment.

If we examine the GPS satellites with their high stability accurate atomic clocks, they have to endure gamma rays, extreme heat and extreme cold, gravitational forces, varying magnetic fields, and are subject to high density charged particles, and have been in orbit, in their various versions, since 1970's. Despite this, they ensure that their timing is exquisite and do not suffer from jitter despite the extremely harsh environment (apart from the pseudo random jitter applied on purpose).

We then have a DAC (whatever manufacturer that is) whose design cannot deal with an incy wincy bit of noise on the USB data link whilst being in someones living room.

DAC's should not be improved by a reclocker. I do not see a performance difference published by the manufacturers for a USB interface when compared to other interfaces on the same unit. If a reclocker is bit perfect, then it really shouldn't affect any high cost DAC.

Regards,
Shadders.

 

[AndyU]

What I was hoping you would pick up on was the irony of your postings in the current thread and where you are posting in a more or less relentless objectivist manner in order perhaps to win your point. My point seems to have whistled straight past you though.

My posts in a different thread reporting on my listing impressions of the Innuos Phoenix were of course open to discussion but even there the thread became the subject of the objectivist mob piling in to 'educate' the rest of us about how reclockers cannot possibly increase sound quality etc etc.

Thats all.

I realise you have blocked me, but I am entitled to answer your point nonetheless. You did not simply report your listening impressions. You did not simply make a subjective statement that you preferred the sound of your system with this box. You made all sorts of objective remarks, about RF, ground planes, USB interfaces etc. These are all objective claims, and it is fair to challenge them objectively. Other supporters of yours made similar objective claims in support, such as that Rob Watts says the brain can resolve timing errors at 250MHz. That claim was not true. Are folk not allowed challenge remarks that they believe are nonsensical? When I say I like the sound of my DAC or my speakers, I try and say why in musical terms. I stay in the subjective domain. I don’t try and justify my subjective experience by referring to objective phenomena that I have no evidence for. When someone is trying to sell something, as you are, and using statements from the objective domain to justify their claims, then it is reasonable for people who are sceptical to ask for evidence. People will only pile in and challenge you if you talk crap. That’s life. It’s not personal. If you don’t like it, don’t talk crap. Be prepared to be asked for evidence any objective claim you make. Or stick to subjective remarks.

 

[DimitryZ]

In fairness, it was corrected to 250 KHz. This also sounds high, but there is something to the claim.

If we consider a 1KHz tone with wow/flutter, it is clear that effects both above and below limits of audibility are revealed. It is harder to make this claim for higher frequencies of flutter, but it's at least plausible.

If we take a relatively bad amount of W/F of 0.5% at 1KHz, then an "emergent" ability to discern auditory phenomena at 200KHz is arguably present. At least their effect on the sound in the standard bandwidth.

Wiki article on flutter was written by someone sympathetic to RW's views. It states, without citation, that high frequency flutter makes the sound of piano broken.

 

[AndyU]

In fairness, it was corrected to 250 KHz. This also sounds high, but there is something to the claim.

If we consider a 1KHz tone with wow/flutter, it is clear that effects both above and below limits of audibility are revealed. It is harder to make this claim for higher frequencies of flutter, but it's at least plausible.

If we take a relatively bad amount of W/F of 0.5% at 1KHz, then an "emergent" ability to discern auditory phenomena at 200KHz is arguably present.

If you listen to the video, Rob Watts actually says “the brain works at 250kHz”. I have no idea what that means. Certainly from what I remember when I studied some neuroscience, the nervous system works much slower than that - it’s to do with cell walls, myelin sheaths, refractory periods and the like. Here’s some lecture notes on the frequency of coding in the nervous system. 1000Hz would seem to be good going. This doesn’t of course mean that the nervous system can’t respond to much higher frequencies - obviously it responds to high frequency sounds and indeed light. But the brain does not “work at 250kHz”. Doesn’t stop Rob Watts designing good DACs though, but neither he nor his followers need to use bogus neuroscience to justify his designs.

 

[tuga]

What I was hoping you would pick up on was the irony of your postings in the current thread and where you are posting in a more or less relentless objectivist manner in order perhaps to win your point. My point seems to have whistled straight past you though.

My posts in a different thread reporting on my listing impressions of the Innuos Phoenix were of course open to discussion but even there the thread became the subject of the objectivist mob piling in to 'educate' the rest of us about how reclockers cannot possibly increase sound quality etc etc.

Thats all.

Thanks for replying to one of my questions.

This topic's title is a question:

Can we hear anything, allowed to hear anything, or are you deaf/stupid?

People have been trying to reply to this question.

My view is that no we cannot hear everything. Sometimes we think we hear things that aren't there, other times we don't hear things that are there. It's not that we are not allowed to listen, it's more that some things we just cannot hear, and others just aren't there to be heard. No one is deaf/stupid, we can all be tricked into hearing things which aren't there. We can also attribute things we hear to the wrong cause.

There are many ways to practice this hobby. No one has to take it seriously. But no one should perpetuate myths and misconceptions either.

 

[Alex S]

Subjective impressions dressed as objective facts that aren’t necessarily facts is where most of the hifi humbug emanates from. It seems very common in sales literature and reviews.

I’m happy to be blinded by science but not by non-science. It is very difficult for a lay person like me to decipher which is which but I hope I have a reasonably honed smell-a-rat-ometer.

 

[hermit]

Was that with the Lockwoods, Paul? When I measured them with their stock crossovers, they were down by -20dB at 20kHz compared to 16kHz, so either you have exceptional hearing sensitivity at 20kHz, or those RFC crossovers are working wonders!

Richard, I bought the RFC crossovers because of the problem with one of the level controls on one of the original crossovers which you may recall. I was staggered at the overall improvement the RFC crossovers made to the Lockwoods. They do work wonders....speaking entirely subjectively and imho etc.

 

[Engels]

The very term "hi-fi" means high fidelilty, i.e. your system should provide an accurate reproduction of the source signal with high levels of detail and resolution and minimal colouration and distortion. Your ears and the subjective measurement system between them (both of which become less reliable with age, however gifted you are in musical appreciation) can't tell you that

 

[Yomanze]

An engineer uses graphs to buy speakers and ears to produce music.

An engineer not buying accurate monitors would be akin to a performer playing an instrument out of tune.

Tell that to all of the Yamaha NS10 users.

Additionally, there needs to be the consideration that most listeners these days use phones and earbuds. No point getting a nice open mix on some high end monitors when it sounds like crap on Apple EarPods.

 

[tuga]

Tell that to all of the Yamaha NS10 users.

Additionally, there needs to be the consideration that most listeners these days use phones and earbuds. No point getting a nice open mix on some high end monitors when it sounds like crap on Apple earpods.

My comments are generally in reference to classical music.

But I agree that the pop audience is neither particularly demanding in regards to sound quality nor equipment.
It would have been so easy to provide a compression circuit or algorithm in phones and MP3 players and cars...

 

[camverton]

The very term "hi-fi" means high fidelilty, i.e. your system should provide an accurate reproduction of the source signal with high levels of detail and resolution and minimal colouration and distortion. Your ears and the subjective measurement system between them (both of which become less reliable with age, however gifted you are in musical appreciation) can't tell you that

For most ordinary people hi-fi means a music reproduction system. For us it is not an absolute but relative description, otherwise we could call our systems “highest” fidelity. High just means something with greater fidelity than something lower. Fidelity isn’t defined but assumed to be relative to the incoming signal. Personally I think of hi-fi as something which reproduces the original sound, as best as possible, in a manner that fools me into thinking I am hearing the original sound.

Sadly, for it would be very convenient as a means to choosing our equipment, “best measuring” does not necessarily translate to into something that recreates an illusion of the original sound. I am typing this in the gloom trying out an ECM jazz recording. The trumpeter sounds as if he is in front of me, real and in his own space. The drums are so visceral that I can imagine someone tapping real objects in my room. That for me is hifi which employs speakers that have been variously described as making use of the room to add (bad) distortion and being an effects box. I tried the so called best measuring Dutch and Dutch speakers but they didn’t make a sound that fooled me into thinking real musicians were playing real music in front of me.

Measure all you want, define common expressions to suit your argument all you want, but in the last analysis it is about recreating a realistic illusion of the original sound, assuming it existed of course. That requires a subjective response because we, the final part of the chain are individual and perceive how sound fills our room differently. That, I find interesting to discuss. Perhaps the problem with some objectivists with an overly focussed view is that they keep on discussing that which doesn’t really need to discussed but can simply be stated.

Oh sod it! My system has stopped being realistic - the internet connection has started dropping out. Now that is hard, objective reality!

BTW, all the above is IMO and if it doesn’t apply to you, well tough!

 

[mattgbell]

Sadly, for it would be very convenient as a means to choosing our equipment, “best measuring” does not necessarily translate to into something that recreates an illusion of the original sound. I am typing this in the gloom trying out an ECM jazz recording. The trumpeter sounds as if he is in front of me, real and in his own space. The drums are so visceral that I can imagine someone tapping real objects in my room. That for me is hifi which employs speakers that have been variously described as making use of the room to add (bad) distortion and being an effects box. I tried the so called best measuring Dutch and Dutch speakers but they didn’t make a sound that fooled me into thinking real musicians were playing real music in front of me.

I'd bet your speakers do actually measure very well in some (important) respects, just not the ones Keith insists on trotting out at every opportunity.

 

[Thetiminator]

For most ordinary people hi-fi means a music reproduction system. For us it is not an absolute but relative description, otherwise we could call our systems “highest” fidelity. High just means something with greater fidelity than something lower. Fidelity isn’t defined but assumed to be relative to the incoming signal. Personally I think of hi-fi as something which reproduces the original sound, as best as possible, in a manner that fools me into thinking I am hearing the original sound.

Sadly, for it would be very convenient as a means to choosing our equipment, “best measuring” does not necessarily translate to into something that recreates an illusion of the original sound.

Indeed or more importantly the sound we like best in our own room. To question any product based on a particular set of chosen measurements outside of the room it is being played is crazy. Wood for the trees guys, wood for the trees....

Ok all very boring now. Dorks to the front of the bus and only allowed to talk to the driver...that’s the rule...don’t blame me, it’s built into the DNA.