[Dan Banquer]

Here's another review of the CLC:

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/Default.aspx?mid=18888399&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=014210dad6714abf8e2a4b97e5554aae-224153541-WI-2

I'll bet ya five bucks that's HifiSoundguy AKA Soundidieas behind those dark glasses!
               d.b.

[miklorsmith]

YES, Soundideas, thank you.

[Steve Eddy]

Here's another review of the CLC:

Where you been? HiFiSoundGuy posted a link to that (via Abe Collins' post on AA) yesterday. Check out the "Professional Review on the Clever Little Clocks!......." thread.

se

[Dan Banquer]

Here's another review of the CLC:

Where you been? HiFiSoundGuy posted a link to that (via Abe Collins' post on AA) yesterday. Check out the "Professional Review on the Clever Little Clocks!......." thread.

se

Where have I been? I've been 
           d.b.

[Ethan Winer]

Danny,

> just because you can't measure a difference doesn't mean that a difference can't be measured. <

Everything that matters with audio is well known and can be measured to orders of magnitude beyond what any human can hear. For example, all types of distortion can be measured down into the noise as low as -120 dB and even lower. Most people are hard pressed to hear artifacts that are 40 dB below the music except in special situations. Likewise for frequency response which can be measured to tiny fractions of a dB at frequencies from well below what anyone can hear into the radio frequency range. So what else is there? This is my big objection to the snake oil merchants. They know their products do nothing, so they instead claim the improvement is real but "science" doesn't know how to measure it. Every real audio engineer knows this is silly.

> There are plenty of tweaks out there that really do work and work well. <

Sure, I agree with that. But the tweaks that really do work can be shown to work using standard methods.

--Ethan

[miklorsmith]

Ethan, are you saying the only two parameters of quality sound reproduction are frequency response and distortion?

[Steve Eddy]

Ethan, are you saying the only two parameters of quality sound reproduction are frequency response and distortion?

Not to speak for Ethan, but he did say "all types of distortion." And if "distortion" can be defined as any deviation from the original, then it would seem he's pretty much got everything covered in that statement.

One way to look at all this is that what we hear from our audio systems ultimately boils down to changes in air pressure over time. I'd like to think it's not impossible to measure this to levels and resoutions beyond what we can perceive.

se

[miklorsmith]

Following this line of thought then, measurements should be able to predict sound quality.

Interesting, I've not heard that before.

[John Casler]

I'm not so sure, that everthing we can hear, that can be measured might be the argument.

Measuring an electrical signal is an easy task.  Measuring sound pressure produced is an easy task. 

But assembling those readings into a performance that we can define, is only done in the ear and brain.

So we can perceive things that may or may not be measurable, and tell you what we heard.

But looking at an Oscilloscope or graph/chart cannot tell you what you are hearing.

Example:  I can listen to a recording and tell you what instrument is playing and even who is singing if I know the group.

I am not aware of any measurement on a scope or graph that can assemble the information in such away as to tell us that same information.

Can anyone look at these measurements and tell me what instruments and people are on the recording?

And that is likely the crux of the measurement versus hearing argument.

[miklorsmith]

Oh, I think that's a nice example but not even the tip of the iceberg.

[bpape]

Well, if distortion is an deviation from the original, then frequency response would be part of that also.

I will agree that I'm not sold that everything we can hear can be measured - and that not all things that are measurably different are audible.

Black holes - can you measure them?  Dark matter?  They exist though.  We just don't know how to measure them yet, or even presumably WHAT to measure.

Bryan

[John Casler]

Oh, I think that's a nice example but not even the tip of the iceberg.

 

No doubt.

You don't even want to get started on SoundStage, Imaging and all the rest.

Oviously it can easily be "explained" as variations in SPL amplitude and phase relationships, but you cant look at that information and tell where the 1st violin is when you are listening to a concert.

[Dan Banquer]

I'm not so sure, that everthing we can hear, that can be measured might be the argument.

Measuring an electrical signal is an easy task.  Measuring sound pressure produced is an easy task. 

But assembling those readings into a performance that we can define, is only done in the ear and brain.

So we can perceive things that may or may not be measurable, and tell you what we heard.

But looking at an Oscilloscope or graph/chart cannot tell you what you are hearing.

Example:  I can listen to a recording and tell you what instrument is playing and even who is singing if I know the group.

I am not aware of any measurement on a scope or graph that can assemble the information in such away as to tell us that same information.

Can anyone look at these measurements and tell me what instruments and people are on the recording?

And that is likely the crux of the measurement versus hearing argument.

Why is a measurement needed for this? What would the purpose of the measurement be?
and probably most important to you, how can I sell it?
            d.b.

[Steve Eddy]

Following this line of thought then, measurements should be able to predict sound quality.

Why?

"Sound quality" is pretty much a subjective evaluation. So it seems that at best about all you'd be able to predict would be based on statistics culled from a broad group of listeners.

se

[Dan Banquer]

Oh, I think that's a nice example but not even the tip of the iceberg.

 

No doubt.

You don't even want to get started on SoundStage, Imaging and all the rest.

Oviously it can easily be "explained" as variations in SPL amplitude and phase relationships, but you cant look at that information and tell where the 1st violin is when you are listening to a concert.

You can learn on just how much the recording process plays a role here, and a very major role at that.
Feel free to ping Russ Dawkins, who is a recording engineer, and a good one, who occasionally frequents this forum.

A few paragraphs from him will give you the tip of the iceberg.
              d.b.

[Steve Eddy]

I'm not so sure, that everthing we can hear, that can be measured might be the argument.

Measuring an electrical signal is an easy task.  Measuring sound pressure produced is an easy task. 

But assembling those readings into a performance that we can define, is only done in the ear and brain.

So we can perceive things that may or may not be measurable, and tell you what we heard.

But looking at an Oscilloscope or graph/chart cannot tell you what you are hearing.

Example:  I can listen to a recording and tell you what instrument is playing and even who is singing if I know the group.

I am not aware of any measurement on a scope or graph that can assemble the information in such away as to tell us that same information.

Can anyone look at these measurements and tell me what instruments and people are on the recording?

And that is likely the crux of the measurement versus hearing argument.

But that was not the argument being put forth. At least not as I understood it.

The argument as I saw it was simply that any difference significant enough to actually be heard, can be measured. Hasn't anything to do with what instrument is playing or who is singing. I mean, we're not really even listening to instruments playing and people singing. We're listening to reproductions of recordings made of instruments playing and people singing.

So the question then becomes is the equipment altering the recoding significantly enough as to produce audible differences? And the argument is that if it is, those differences can be measured.

se

[Steve Eddy]

Well, if distortion is an deviation from the original, then frequency response would be part of that also.

Sure. If you like, you can separate distortion between linear and non-linear distortion.

I will agree that I'm not sold that everything we can hear can be measured - and that not all things that are measurably different are audible.

Black holes - can you measure them?  Dark matter?  They exist though.  We just don't know how to measure them yet, or even presumably WHAT to measure.

So are you arguing that maybe we hear by some means other than changes in air pressure over time?

se

[John Casler]

But that was not the argument being put forth. At least not as I understood it.

The argument as I saw it was simply that any difference significant enough to actually be heard, can be measured. Hasn't anything to do with what instrument is playing or who is singing. I mean, we're not really even listening to instruments playing and people singing. We're listening to reproductions of recordings made of instruments playing and people singing.

That's why I said the same.  Obviously you can pretty much measure all changes in air pressure, and electrical current, but you "can" hear who is singing, but (to my knowledge) can not measure it, or tell who it is by a measurment.

So I think that might be the real argument of measurments versus hearing, since you can quite easily hear these things for what they are, but no measurment (again that I am aware of) can take a complex passage of multiple instruments and vocals and be able to tell which is which, while the ear/brain has the abiilty to both hear it and decode it into its parts.

So when people argue that you cannot measure everything you can hear, I think that is what they really mean.

[Steve Eddy]

That's why I said the same.  Obviously you can pretty much measure all changes in air pressure, and electrical current, but you "can" hear who is singing, but (to my knowledge) can not measure it, or tell who it is by a measurment.

So I think that might be the real argument of measurments versus hearing, since you can quite easily hear these things for what they are, but no measurment (again that I am aware of) can take a complex passage of multiple instruments and vocals and be able to tell which is which, while the ear/brain has the abiilty to both hear it and decode it into its parts.

So when people argue that you cannot measure everything you can hear, I think that is what they really mean.

Ok. So let's suppose that's the case.

Then what exactly is the point of the argument? I'm not seeing one and it appears to be more of a smoke screen than an argument.

se

[Steve Eddy]

Just to add to my previous post, using that argument as an example of not being able to measure what you hear is rather incongruous. The matter of determining what instrument is playing or who is singing isn't one so much of hearing as of interpretation of what is heard, which is a higher order function. So I don't see that argument nullifying the argument that we can measure anything we can hear.

se