Hearing is Believing

[oceanobsession]

Nobody expects differences, they hear them or not as the case maybe.

Just out of interest what type of music do you listen to richard.

 

[Richard Dunn]

Don't be daft.

For a start he's talking about a dac.
Secondly, you can show in seconds that the peak levels of replay from a dac - using music - can be equalised to within very tight limits of better than 0.1db

Even if you were to use some very shoddy amplifier with a bit of dynamic compression you are still far better placed to judge having made some attempt to equalise levels.

Well then I am daft because I still disagree, even dacs have different dynamic abilities. Of course I mean perceived as they can only be measured on steady state signals.

 

[Richard Dunn]

Just out of interest what type of music do you listen to richard.

Everything but Rap and free jazz. Mostly so called classical for personal pleasure but all sorts for dems and tests.

 

[RobHolt]

Well then I am daft because I still disagree, even dacs have different dynamic abilities. Of course I mean perceived as they can only be measured on steady state signals.

You can take the output from a dac and visualise the musical waveform by sampling the output - you can see the peak amplitude and take it down to any resolution you wish.
You can then take another and do the same using the same music and match peak levels (ie the dynamic hot spots) to better than 0.1db accuracy. For the exceptionally paranoid you can do it at various points throughout the track

No ears can get anywhere near that matching sensitivity.
Also, a difference of say 0.5db isn't necessarily obvious as a difference in overall loudness, but it can be perceived as a difference in sound quality.

How far people take these things is entirely up to them.
On a purely ethical and discussion level I think they are important debates but for individuals about to spend cash on a product they should at least be alerted to potential pitfalls, since it may cost them if they buy an expensive product because the dealer is applying pressure, they've overdone the reading homework or the dem was skewed because the levels were adrift.

Anyway, I suspect this is one for the curry house after the show, and I'm sounding like a nerd so best shut up for the night

 

[Richard Dunn]

You can take the output from a dac and visualise the musical waveform by sampling the output - you can see the peak amplitude and take it down to any resolution you wish.
You can then take another and do the same using the same music and match peak levels (ie the dynamic hot spots) to better than 0.1db accuracy. For the exceptionally paranoid you can do it at various points throughout the track

No ears can get anywhere near that matching sensitivity.
Also, a difference of say 0.5db isn't necessarily obvious as a difference in overall loudness, but it can be perceived as a difference in sound quality.

How far people take these things is entirely up to them.
On a purely ethical and discussion level I think they are important debates but for individuals about to spend cash on a product they should at least be alerted to potential pitfalls, since it may cost them if they but an expensive product because the dealer is applying pressure, they've overdone the reading homework or the dem was skewed because the levels were adrift.

Anyway, I suspect this is one for the curry house after the show, and I'm sounding like a nerd so best shut up for the night

Perceived loudness and dynamic range is a completely different thing to signal voltage measurement or the lag of an SPL meter which just paints over the perceived dynamic differences of different products - so you *create* no difference.

 

[Dave Simpson]

Neither do I.

NOS and up-sampling dacs measure very differently indeed.
NOS dacs can display some very odd characteristics including response errors.
Not only that but if you haven't precisely matched the listening levels you will get a very misleading result. Why do you think manufacturers hotten-up the output levels of products if not to make them sound more impressive on quick dem?
If you are comparing them with any significant time lag then all bets are off because our memory simply isn't good enough.

So you probably did hear differences Jim, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think.

I wonder if I should see a shrink? I occasionally prefer the quieter of two samples under test.

 

[Fnuckle]

Richard, calm down FFS.

The evidence in this field is indisputable & undeniable. You, me, everyone, no matter how experienced, will be fooled by our brains. It is a function of being human. Why are you getting so wound up?

All this does is explain why people honestly believe in things which defy all logic and evidence. And it is so bloody simple to factor out a large number of influences by simply auditioning blind.

It also explains why it is so easy for the foo-merchants to make a living.

It doesn't have to be a full blown statistically valid double blind. All that is required is that the listener does not know which of the bits of kit being auditioned is in the chain.

Regarding my experience of blind testing, maybe 15 to 20 occasions over the last 30 years. None of them could be described as rigorous, so could not form the basis of a scientific paper.

Chris

Having now seen the programme, I came to a completely different conclusion. The McGurk effect ('Ba/Fa') does suggest removing the sighted element from a listening test is important. However, the plasticity and integration of the senses the programme also observed would suggest the real-world impact of blind listening tests is minimal. Unless you are actually blind.

For example, if you compared a Class A and Class D amp under blind conditions and found the Class A amp 'cool' sounding and the Class D amp 'warm' sounding, you might be unable to separate the warm-running Class A operation with 'warm' sound and the cold-running Class D with 'cool' sound when played sighted. You might find that 'warm/cool' balance overarching despite knowing under blind conditions that your sighted findings were false.

Worse, if we are all part-synesthete (as the show implied, when discussing how frequency influenced the taster's perception of the crispiness of Pringles), then removing one part of our personal sense-pool negatively effects our ability to perceive things. So, in my 'warm/cool' thought experiment, can we trust the results from a test run using an incomplete set of senses when our complete set of senses deliver a completely different result?

An interesting investigation no-one has yet put forward would be to run blind listening tests with sound-colour synesthetes. Would their sensation of colours generated from sounds change as the audio system is modified? And how would their results relate to blind and/or sighted tests performed by non-synesthetes? And - perhaps even more interesting - if we are all part-synesthete, maybe those who are more synesthete than others can see/hear differences in audio than those less synesthetic.

The one big thing I take from this is the subject matter is far from closed. Our psychoacoustic models we built up in the 1950s might define the way we hear, but not the way we perceive, sound. Of course, given the combination of minimal funding due to the current financial ugliness and the ultra-reactionary nature of the Audio Engineering Society, don't hold your breath.

 

[TonyL]

Having now seen the programme, I came to a completely different conclusion. The McGurk effect ('Ba/Fa') does suggest removing the sighted element from a listening test is important. However, the plasticity and integration of the senses the programme also observed would suggest the real-world impact of blind listening tests is minimal. Unless you are actually blind.

For example, if you compared a Class A and Class D amp under blind conditions and found the Class A amp 'cool' sounding and the Class D amp 'warm' sounding, you might be unable to separate the warm-running Class A operation with 'warm' sound and the cold-running Class D with 'cool' sound when played sighted. You might find that 'warm/cool' balance overarching despite knowing under blind conditions that your sighted findings were false.

To my mind the advantage is to remove the preconception, dogma and spin and concentrate entirely on the input from the ears. To take your example to it's extreme lets assume the class A amp is a huge pair of Krell KMA 200 mono-blocks and the class D amp a tiny little thing with a wall-wart PSU. Everything visually is reenforcing the established viewpoint that the Krell is 'big, solid, weighty, muscular' and all the other adjectives you'll find in countless Ken Kessler reviews etc. Given the option I'd far prefer to have both the visual stimulus and 'established view' bias negated so I can better focus on my ears, i.e. take all the spin away and concentrate purely on what actually comes out of the back of the thing - this is *pure* subjectivism as it removes all the manufacturer, dealer or other rhetoric. Now I'm not saying that the Krell doesn't sound exactly as described, but I'd far prefer to establish that for myself using my ears alone. I don't understand the resentment towards this in some quarters at all. It just seems a logical way of doing things if you genuinely want to trust your ears.

Tony.

 

[Richard Dunn]

To my mind the advantage is to remove the preconception, dogma and spin and concentrate entirely on the input from the ears. To take your example to it's extreme lets assume the class A amp is a huge pair of Krell KMA 200 mono-blocks and the class D amp a tiny little thing with a wall-wart PSU. Everything visually is reenforcing the established viewpoint that the Krell is 'big, solid, weighty, muscular' and all the other adjectives you'll find in countless Ken Kessler reviews etc. Given the option I'd far prefer to have both the visual stimulus and 'established view' bias negated so I can better focus on my ears, i.e. take all the spin away and concentrate purely on what actually comes out of the back of the thing - this is *pure* subjectivism as it removes all the manufacturer, dealer or other rhetoric. Now I'm not saying that the Krell doesn't sound exactly as described, but I'd far prefer to establish that for myself using my ears alone. I don't understand the resentment towards this in some quarters at all. It just seems a logical way of doing things if you genuinely want to trust your ears.

Tony.

It is not that simple, and in over 40 years of using blind tests on and off, both as a believer and a sceptic, I have come to the conclusion that ultimately the blind test process is the delusion - the reason - it removes the holistic nature of music, the event. I function as a human being and I am far more perceptive when all of my faculties are functioning. And ultimately if the customer hears something as better because he is more content and receptive when the visual element of a product appeals to him, then that *is part of the reality*. Is it a negative or a positive, does the fact that he is visually contented make him more receptive to audible contentment, for me it is just as likely that the sight of a big over priced box will make me say,"I don't like it I am being ripped off" especially in a buying situation, which makes me less receptive. Now it seems you and Rob et al think this is a bad thing, well I think it is a good thing as it is reality to use all senses in any human activity and it just leads to personal choice, which is what we all should want. Where as blinding any of our faculties to prove others just leads to a lowest common denominator. I am a human being, natural selection has taken billions of years to design me the way I am, who am I to question that reality.

 

[sq225917]

People who are trying to sell you stuff are constantly trying to align, what you hear, what you see and what you feel (emo) along one path towards one point to aide a sale.

If I'm writing product copy for a product I sell the bits that you can see, hidden features don't sell shit and people assume what they can see has more effect than what they don't. So you sell people on the visuals, if a product has a certain look that implies fitness for purpose, and you are selling it for that purpose- it's job done.

Same with any product.

People believe what they see, they can't help it. It's deep rooted in our evolution, and we are using that to sell to you every single day....


A poorly organised blind test can introduce confounding variables that skew the results. That's why they need to run in a certain way. Read Sean Olive's blog, the test guy from Harman INC.

 

[Fnuckle]

To my mind the advantage is to remove the preconception, dogma and spin and concentrate entirely on the input from the ears. To take your example to it's extreme lets assume the class A amp is a huge pair of Krell KMA 200 mono-blocks and the class D amp a tiny little thing with a wall-wart PSU. Everything visually is reenforcing the established viewpoint that the Krell is 'big, solid, weighty, muscular' and all the other adjectives you'll find in countless Ken Kessler reviews etc. Given the option I'd far prefer to have both the visual stimulus and 'established view' bias negated so I can better focus on my ears, i.e. take all the spin away and concentrate purely on what actually comes out of the back of the thing - this is *pure* subjectivism as it removes all the manufacturer, dealer or other rhetoric. Now I'm not saying that the Krell doesn't sound exactly as described, but I'd far prefer to establish that for myself using my ears alone. I don't understand the resentment towards this in some quarters at all. It just seems a logical way of doing things if you genuinely want to trust your ears.

Tony.

I agree about potentially removing the spin-doctoring, but if our perception is informed by a pool of sensory information, then temporarily removing one of our regular set of qualia could in itself potentially alter our perception while that sense is taken out of action.

Also, I don't think you quite got what I was pointing out in my thought experiment. Let me simplify it still further. Suppose you try a Sugden A21 amplifier. You reach for the volume control and feel the Class A heat coming off the amplifier. You listen to it and it sounds warm to you. You test it under blind conditions and it sounds 'cool'. However, after this blind test - and despite the evidence you received to the contrary as a result of the test - it still sounds 'warm' to you because of the sum of your five senses outweigh the influence of your hearing alone. Nothing can disabuse you of the idea that it sounds 'warm', in the same way that nothing can disabuse you that you hear the sound 'Fa' when you are actually hearing 'Ba' if you are fed false visual information.

In reality, the amp sounds 'cool', but in the real world it sounds 'warm'. Which informs your listening more?

 

[Jimbo]

When it all comes down to it we all might as well chuck our Hifi away and just listen to a tranny. After all if we can't hear differences between dacs or cables then nobody can hear the difference in amps, sources and speakers. All a waste of money.

 

[Mescalito]

When it all comes down to it we all might as well chuck our Hifi away and just listen to a tranny. After all if we can't hear differences between dacs or cables then nobody can hear the difference in amps, sources and speakers. All a waste of money.

Once a certain level has been reached, yes, you are absolutely right.
That mega blind amp test Rob dug up points that way.

Chris

 

[RobHolt]

When it all comes down to it we all might as well chuck our Hifi away and just listen to a tranny. After all if we can't hear differences between dacs or cables then nobody can hear the difference in amps, sources and speakers. All a waste of money.

That is a typical OTT subjectivist response.
Nobody is suggesting that for one minute, as you know.

Differences exist in audio and nobody is claiming otherwise. Some of us just require higher standards of verification and understand that human senses are easily fooled.

It frankly staggers me that people cannot grasp this.

 

[RobHolt]

It is not that simple, and in over 40 years of using blind tests on and off, both as a believer and a sceptic, I have come to the conclusion that ultimately the blind test process is the delusion - the reason - it removes the holistic nature of music, the event. I function as a human being and I am far more perceptive when all of my faculties are functioning.

The only reason vision might help you enjoy a musical event is if that event is live or you are actually watching a performance.
Sitting at home listening to music you are presented with a pair of boxes sitting in front of you - nothing more.

Your faculties are still functioning unless you are literally blindfold.
This is no more unusual than the normal home listening experience.

I don't know why but people seem to confusing the actual experience of being literally blind with having the identity of an object concealed or disguised.
It isn't the same thing at all.

During the dac tests discussed previously, all were on view and the pairs being directly compared were clearly powered. So in full view of everone listening - they just didn't know which was actually playing.

There is no hiding from this and every excuse to debunk the merits of blind testing can be easily countered.

 

[TonyL]

The only reason vision might help you enjoy a musical event is if that event is live or you are actually watching a performance.
Sitting at home listening to music you are presented with a pair of boxes sitting in front of you - nothing more.

I do most of my 'proper' listening in the dark anyway, I find it a far more immersive experience if you can't see the speakers. It removes a barrier somehow; a logical disconnect that 'this music' can't be coming out of 'these boxes' or taking place in 'this room' etc.

Tony.

 

[Cav]

It is not that simple, and in over 40 years of using blind tests on and off, both as a believer and a sceptic, I have come to the conclusion that ultimately the blind test process is the delusion -.

If you bothered to watch "that" programme, you might see that blind listening is the more accurate...

 

[Basil]

I do most of my 'proper' listening in the dark anyway, I find it a far more immersive experience if you can't see the speakers. It removes a barrier somehow; a logical disconnect that 'this music' can't be coming out of 'these boxes' or taking place in 'this room' etc.

Tony.

Candlelight is good too! Especially for Gregorian chant & plain song.

Another thing that puts me off the whole 'hi-fi malarky thing' is speakers designed for use without proper grilles, nothing breaks the illusions quicker than naked drive units, ugh!

 

[Richard Dunn]

If you bothered to watch "that" programme, you might see that blind listening is the more accurate...

Why was there a section of the program devoted to blind testing audio products, as far as I can see there was not, so what is the relevance.

 

[Joe Petrik]

Basil,

Another thing that puts me off the whole 'hi-fi malarky thing' is speakers designed for use without proper grilles, nothing breaks the illusions quicker than naked drive units, ugh!

And few things break naked drive units faster than a curious child or cat.

I've one of each, so my GRFs are never run sans grille.

Joe