[miklorsmith]

Statement:

Anything that can be heard can be measured.  Any audible change can be measured.

Argument:

What does this mean?  That given enough time to analyze an accepted audible change a measurable difference can be found?  Belligerent me says, so?  First of all, I don't believe it's true and there are easy examples nobody here could quantify.  But, more importantly what value does an after-the-fact statistic have?  If frequency response and distortion are all there is to it, the brighter among us need to come up with a forecast model to predict what certain gear combinations and room factors will sound like.  Put the numbers to the test.

I appreciate the scientists and engineers and we wouldn't have great audio without 'em.  But, the best among those understand the necessary art not defined by the specs.

[Danny Richie]

Ethan,

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.

The human ear is much more sensitive than you think. There is a lot that is NOT so well known or accepted and plenty of things that are easily discernable by the ear that are not so easy to measure. Your example is just talking about amplitude there is way more to it than that.

Most people are hard pressed to hear artifacts that are 40 dB below the music except in special situations.

How about spacial cues? Why does one pre-amp allow for a deep sound stage and then another one jumbles the sound stage up in a 2 dimensional way. The ear detects it quickly and easily. To measure it takes some doing to determine not only what to measure but how to measure it and what component is contributing to the problem.

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?

My Clio measuring system can very accurately measure the amplitude of a note, but it won't tell me what played it. In fact I can make two different instruments play the same note and look exactly the same on a measured frequency response, but they very sound different.

Too often we try to quantify the sound of something by a handful of commonly accepted parameters. These commonly accepted parameters will let you know if there is a problem before you even hear it, but it won't tell you how good or bad something sounds. Good or bad is a subjective evaluation too. Two things might measure the same by common means yet sound very different. It could be that the root of the difference lies elsewhere and you are measuring the wrong thing.

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 clearly snake oil merchants out there. The subject of this thread when it started points out a really good one. Most "real" audio engineers know that if it measures good but sounds bad it is still bad.

Case in point just hand me a bunch of Radio Shack drivers and I can put enough components on them to make them measure great in every way, but that does not mean that they'll sound good.

Another case in point. A manufacturer hands me two capacitors to evaluate and compare wanting my feedback. This really happened. They are the exact same value and measure the same in every way, but the dielectric material is different. Guess what, they sound different too.

[Steve Eddy]

If frequency response and distortion are all there is to it, the brighter among us need to come up with a forecast model to predict what certain gear combinations and room factors will sound like.

First define exactly what you mean by "it" when you say "all there is to it." What exactly is the "it" in question?

Second, again, "sound like" is largely subjective. You could have five people experiencing the exact same thing, yet get five different assessments as to what it "sounds like." So at best all you can do is work in generalities, as is typically the case when dealing with the human condition.

So what's your point?

se

[miklorsmith]

It being the all-encapsulating everythingness cited in my last post.

My point is simply that saying measurements can distill all aspects of our audio experience is preposterous.

See Danny's splendid post, above.

[John Casler]

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

I think Danny just added to the point.

"Hearing" is not simply the act of "receiving" signals.  It is the act of being able to "understand what those signals are saying and assemble them into specific perception".  Who is singing, what instrument(s) are playing and where, and so on.

While it is true the "raw data" can be measured, but there is an "inability" to measure the elements that cause us to percive what is heard from these signals.

[Dan Banquer]

Well since Phil and John are not going to respond to any of the questions that either myself or steve are putting forth I will put up the following on soundstage and image.

One can enhance the "center stage" by simply adding more monaural info. This can easily be done by taking a 50k variable resistor and connecting across the right and left outputs of the pre amp. The lower in resistance you go the more monaural info you get and a "wider center stage"

Want to shift the "soundstage right or left? Simply adjust the gain of what ever channel you want to shift to and watch the soundsatge move in that direction. Or start moving the speaker(s) so that you have about a 1 to 2 db level difference at the listening position and that will give a very similar effect.

As far as the pre amp example that Danny gave, that's out of phase crosstalk causing the effect.

No magic here guys, none at all.
                  d.b.
 

[miklorsmith]

Ultimately, this discussion results in a "push" like all the others.  I've heard $200,000 systems that sure had no magic at all that I'm sure measured splendidly.  My Yamamoto SET amplifier measures like crap but sounds like gold.

I think magic has a lot to do with it.

[John Casler]

Well since Phil and John are not going to respond to any of the questions that either myself or steve are putting forth I will put up the following on soundstage and image.

One can enhance the "center stage" by simply adding more monaural info. This can easily be done by taking a 50k variable resistor and connecting across the right and left outputs of the pre amp. The lower in resistance you go the more monaural info you get and a "wider center stage"

Want to shift the "soundstage right or left? Simply adjust the gain of what ever channel you want to shift to and watch the soundsatge move in that direction. Or start moving the speaker(s) so that you have about a 1 to 2 db level difference at the listening position and that will give a very similar effect.

As far as the pre amp example that Danny gave, that's out of phase crosstalk causing the effect.

No magic here guys, none at all.
                  d.b.
 

Hi Dan,

I am "not" arguing any point, since there is none to be argued.

I won't argue that you can measure things that can't be heard, nor will I argue that you can hear things that can't be measured.

There is no argument, since it seems the two poles are arguing different things.

No measurement device can "interpret" a sound like the ear/brain can.

No ear/brain can hear and discern some signals as well as a mike and recorder.

What's to argue?

[Danny Richie]

No measurement device can "interpret" a sound like the ear/brain can.

No ear/brain can hear and discern some signals as well as a mike and recorder.

What's to argue?

Well said John, and 100% correct.

[Dan Banquer]

Ultimately, this discussion results in a "push" like all the others.  I've heard $200,000 systems that sure had no magic at all that I'm sure measured splendidly.  My Yamamoto SET amplifier measures like crap but sounds like gold.

I think magic has a lot to do with it.

Well then; There certainly no point in my posting further on this. I can now go back to pulling rabbits out of hats.
                 d.b.

[Dan Banquer]

Well since Phil and John are not going to respond to any of the questions that either myself or steve are putting forth I will put up the following on soundstage and image.

One can enhance the "center stage" by simply adding more monaural info. This can easily be done by taking a 50k variable resistor and connecting across the right and left outputs of the pre amp. The lower in resistance you go the more monaural info you get and a "wider center stage"

Want to shift the "soundstage right or left? Simply adjust the gain of what ever channel you want to shift to and watch the soundsatge move in that direction. Or start moving the speaker(s) so that you have about a 1 to 2 db level difference at the listening position and that will give a very similar effect.

As far as the pre amp example that Danny gave, that's out of phase crosstalk causing the effect.

No magic here guys, none at all.
                  d.b.
 

Hi Dan,

I am "not" arguing any point, since there is none to be argued.

I won't argue that you can measure things that can't be heard, nor will I argue that you can hear things that can't be measured.

There is no argument, since it seems the two poles are arguing different things.

No measurement device can "interpret" a sound like the ear/brain can.

No ear/brain can hear and discern some signals as well as a mike and recorder.

What's to argue?

You are correct. There is nothing to argue here John; You can't sell engineering, that's unethical in high end.
              d.b.

[Steve Eddy]

My point is simply that saying measurements can distill all aspects of our audio experience is preposterous.

I don't recall anyone making such a claim that measurements can distill all aspects of our audio experience.

As far as I read the claim, it was simply that if an audio component alters the signal sufficiently to produce an audible difference that it can be measured. That's not saying that it can tell us what will sound good to us or saying anything about telling what instrument's being played or who is singing.

se

[Steve Eddy]

The human ear is much more sensitive than you think. There is a lot that is NOT so well known or accepted and plenty of things that are easily discernable by the ear that are not so easy to measure.

Such as?

How about spacial cues? Why does one pre-amp allow for a deep sound stage and then another one jumbles the sound stage up in a 2 dimensional way. The ear detects it quickly and easily.

And the proof of this is...?

My Clio measuring system can very accurately measure the amplitude of a note, but it won't tell me what played it.

So? What has "what played it" to do with anything?

Good or bad is a subjective evaluation too. Two things might measure the same by common means yet sound very different. It could be that the root of the difference lies elsewhere and you are measuring the wrong thing.

Sure, like using Clio to tell you what instrument's playing some note.

Also, it could be that there was no actual audible difference and that the subjective perception of a difference had no basis in the physical reality.

And finally, getting back to the crux if the matter, I've yet to see anyone demonstrate that any differences between two components which are sufficient to produce an actual audible difference are beyond measurement.

Case in point just hand me a bunch of Radio Shack drivers and I can put enough components on them to make them measure great in every way, but that does not mean that they'll sound good.

That's because again, "sounds good" is largely a subjective assessment.

Another case in point. A manufacturer hands me two capacitors to evaluate and compare wanting my feedback. This really happened. They are the exact same value and measure the same in every way, but the dielectric material is different. Guess what, they sound different too.

And the proof of this is...?

se

[jules]

hmmm, Steve Eddy, ... I really don't know what measuring can and can't do but if you are saying that measurement can't tell us something as basic as what instrument is playing [can it or can't it?], then our ears are capable of something a measuring instrument isn't are they not?

jules

[miklorsmith]

What about Danny's example of the two capacitors?  Same electrical properties, different sounds.  Do the engineers in the room spec. all the cheapest components based on their identical electrical properties?  Probably not.  Isn't this an admission of the "art" side of the equation?

I have recently had two top-flight DACs through the house.  One was an ace at organic flow and tone while the other cleaned house with detail retrieval, image specificity, and appropriate sharpness.  My TacT showed no appreciable difference between them related to frequency response yet their differences are night-and-day to my ears.  I understand the TacT preamp doesn't qualify as an engineering design tool but I don't think a better microphone and analysis tool would even come close to explaining the differences between them.

And again, if we can change some element of our playback chain and hear a difference, what would it matter if we could explain it through a measurement.  This equates to after-the-fact engineering which, utterly backwards, doesn't do the end-user any good at all.

None of this is to disparage the noble and necessary science of audio engineering, merely to state that my experience tells me that isn't the end of the story.

[Dan Banquer]

None of this is to disparage the noble and necessary science of audio engineering, merely to state that my experience tells me that isn't the end of the story.

You should never say things like that. It is part of the High End culture to disparage all engineering disciplines no matter what. It's part of the Love/Hate relationship passive aggressive thingy.

If this is not rectified immediately I will have no choice but to report you the "higher" authorities, and we will revoke your poetic license. If you are a repeat offender your SET will be transformed to a state amp that uses negative feedback.
  This is your last warning.
                     d.b.

[Steve Eddy]

hmmm, Steve Eddy, ... I really don't know what measuring can and can't do but if you are saying that measurement can't tell us something as basic as what instrument is playing [can it or can't it?], then our ears are capable of something a measuring instrument isn't are they not?

Well first, "what instrument is playing" isn't measurement. It's interpretation. Second, "what instrument is playing" isn't a function of our ears, but of our brain. Third, I don't see any reason why interpretive, analyitcal software couldn't be written to distinguish different instruments from each other or even different examples of the same type of instrument. Take voice recognition for example.

se

[Dan Banquer]

If you really want to understand what the instrument is playing than you can either get the score of the music or transcribe it by ear.
Well; that's how I learned to do it in on my own and further developed this in music school. That's how many musicians learn music along with other things of course.

So John and Phil:
          Transcribe any good licks lately?
                     d.b.

[miklorsmith]

None of this is to disparage the noble and necessary science of audio engineering, merely to state that my experience tells me that isn't the end of the story.

You should never say things like that. It is part of the High End culture to disparage all engineering disciplines no matter what. It's part of the Love/Hate relationship passive aggressive thingy.

If this is not rectified immediately I will have no choice but to report you the "higher" authorities, and we will revoke your poetic license. If you are a repeat offender your SET will be transformed to a state amp that uses negative feedback.
  This is your last warning.
                     d.b.

 

[Steve Eddy]

What about Danny's example of the two capacitors?  Same electrical properties, different sounds.

What exactly do you mean by "different sounds"? Do you mean that the two capacitors produce actual audible differences or that they simply subjectively sound different to a given listener? If you mean the former, then when was it proved that the two capacitors produced actual audible differences?

And again, if we can change some element of our playback chain and hear a difference, what would it matter if we could explain it through a measurement.

But how exactly do you know when you are truly hearing an actual audible difference as opposed to a subjectively percieved difference which may have nothing to do with the equipment you're listening to?

None of this is to disparage the noble and necessary science of audio engineering, merely to state that my experience tells me that isn't the end of the story.

The way many people approach this, they haven't even got to the beginning of the story. If one simply assumes that any time they subjectively perceive some difference that that difference must inherently and inescapably be due to some actual audible differnece being produced by the equipment, they haven't made it to the beginning.

se