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  #91  
Old 07-15-2019, 01:13 PM
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Antonmb Antonmb is offline
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Originally Posted by doggiehowser View Post
... The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

— Daniel Yankelovich "Corporate Priorities: A continuing study of the new demands on business." (1972)

Excellent and to the point. There is an inherent objectivist assumption that what you can’t measure doesn’t exist or isn’t important, and therefor positive results from what you can measure indicates success.
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  #92  
Old 07-15-2019, 02:45 PM
clpetersen clpetersen is offline
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Originally Posted by Antonmb View Post
Excellent and to the point. There is an inherent objectivist assumption that what you can’t measure doesn’t exist or isn’t important, and therefor positive results from what you can measure indicates success.
Good point. There is a related point as well - not all things that are measurable can be readily explained.
This is most famous in the placebo effect in medicine - measurable and durable effects have been documented in peer-reviewed journals such as Science and Nature.
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Last edited by clpetersen; 07-15-2019 at 04:54 PM.
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  #93  
Old 07-15-2019, 03:38 PM
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W9TR W9TR is offline
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I just saw the video and read the thread.

In a past life I had a bunch of personal experience with both null testing and Double Blind A/B/X testing. If you listened to FM radio in the 80’s through 00’s you’ve heard my designs.

Here are the fallacies with Mr. Weiner’s approach:

1. He had to fiddle with the cable to eliminate interference from his computer that appears to be several feet away. Did one cable perform better in this regard? We‘ll never know. Is that kind of interference audible? At what level?

2. He states subjectively that ‘a null that is 80 dB down is not audible”. It is a statement of fact. Really? Show me the peer-reviewed tests that prove this to be the case. Note: if you find one l’ll probably be able to pull it apart.

3. He is measuring the difference between two cables. That’s uninteresting. What I really want to know is what is the difference between the signal at the input of the cable to the signal at the output? That takes into account the whole chain, from the signal source to the load. It shows what the cable is doing to the signal passing through it.

4. His null setup is not noise optimized.

5. He didn’t do an FFT of the null residual which would have allowed him to average out the noise and see a much more in depth and detailed view of what to him just looked like broadband noise in his test setup.

I haven’t yet looked at Paul’s response.

As far as the violin test, I have personally experienced a similar situation with classical guitars played live on stage. If anyone is interested I’ll post about it.

Tom
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  #94  
Old 07-15-2019, 07:22 PM
SteveJ SteveJ is offline
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Originally Posted by W9TR View Post
I just saw the video and read the thread.


As far as the violin test, I have personally experienced a similar situation with classical guitars played live on stage. If anyone is interested I’ll post about it.

Tom
Very much so, please do.

And thank you for the informative reply.
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  #95  
Old 07-16-2019, 08:09 AM
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W9TR W9TR is offline
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Default Have we all been duped??

I was part of a demonstration at an Audio Engineering Society meeting where two acoustic guitars were played by the same musician behind an acoustically transparent screen used to hide the visual cues.

One guitar was a Yamaha $200 starter guitar and the other a Hermann Hauser SR 1937 owned by Andres Segovia. I’m not a guitar aficionado but this particular guitar is very highly regarded.

The same piece was played on each guitar for a few minutes. The audience was encouraged to clap between performances.

A show of hands was used to indicate audience preference.

In this case the majority of audience members preferred the second guitar.

It was the $200 Yamaha.

The test was repeated multiple times during the conference with different audiences each time.

The second guitar always won. Didn’t matter if it was the Herrmann Hauser or the Yamaha.

The demonstrators explained the the loud white noise from clapping between selections changed the audience’s perceptual bias in a positive way that caused them to favor the second guitar.

Fascinating.

Tom
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Main System:
Amati Futura Mains
Amati Homage VOX Center,
Proac Response 1sc Rears,
Three MC2301's for L,C,R
MC 602 for the rears
C 1100, MX 151, MCD 1100, MR 80
Nottingham Dais with Wave Mechanic
Sumiko Palo Santos Presentation

SurfacePro 3, RPi 4, ROON, WW Starlight Platinum USB, Schiit Yggdrasil, Benchmark DAC3 HGC

MX 151, OppO BDP-95, JVC RS-500 DILA projector, 106" diagonal Stewart Luxus Screenwall Deluxe with Studiotek 130 G3 material.

Lake House:
Ohm F, MC 275V, C2300, MR 77, Rega P3

OnDeck:
McIntosh MAC 4300v
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  #96  
Old 07-16-2019, 09:41 AM
Kal Rubinson Kal Rubinson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by W9TR View Post
In this case the majority of audience members preferred the second guitar.

It was the $200 Yamaha.

The test was repeated multiple times during the conference with different audiences each time.

The second guitar always won. Didn’t matter if it was the Herrmann Hauser or the Yamaha.

The demonstrators explained the the loud white noise from clapping between selections changed the audience’s perceptual bias in a positive way that caused them to favor the second guitar.
There was a blind A/B test comparison between a level-matched tube and a solid-state power amp at an audio show some years back which provided the same result (2nd choice preferred) even without applause. I suspect that, had there been an A/B/X test, the results would show a random correlation.
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  #97  
Old 07-16-2019, 09:56 AM
nicoff nicoff is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by W9TR View Post
I just saw the video and read the thread.

In a past life I had a bunch of personal experience with both null testing and Double Blind A/B/X testing. If you listened to FM radio in the 80’s through 00’s you’ve heard my designs.

Here are the fallacies with Mr. Weiner’s approach:

1. He had to fiddle with the cable to eliminate interference from his computer that appears to be several feet away. Did one cable perform better in this regard? We‘ll never know. Is that kind of interference audible? At what level?

2. He states subjectively that ‘a null that is 80 dB down is not audible”. It is a statement of fact. Really? Show me the peer-reviewed tests that prove this to be the case. Note: if you find one l’ll probably be able to pull it apart.

3. He is measuring the difference between two cables. That’s uninteresting. What I really want to know is what is the difference between the signal at the input of the cable to the signal at the output? That takes into account the whole chain, from the signal source to the load. It shows what the cable is doing to the signal passing through it.

4. His null setup is not noise optimized.

5. He didn’t do an FFT of the null residual which would have allowed him to average out the noise and see a much more in depth and detailed view of what to him just looked like broadband noise in his test setup.

I haven’t yet looked at Paul’s response.

As far as the violin test, I have personally experienced a similar situation with classical guitars played live on stage. If anyone is interested I’ll post about it.

Tom

Interesting observations. So from your perspective the test was run incorrectly. If you were to do the test with the adjustments that you are suggesting, what do you anticipate that the results will be?
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  #98  
Old 07-16-2019, 01:39 PM
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W9TR W9TR is offline
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You know, I really have no idea what to expect.

A lower noise setup and running an FFT on the null output may uncover some quantitative differences in the cables.

If and only if there was a measurable difference, you could start measuring other cables and then see if the measurements somehow correlated with the perceived sound quality differences between the cables.

This is all rampant speculation on my part.

Tom
__________________
Main System:
Amati Futura Mains
Amati Homage VOX Center,
Proac Response 1sc Rears,
Three MC2301's for L,C,R
MC 602 for the rears
C 1100, MX 151, MCD 1100, MR 80
Nottingham Dais with Wave Mechanic
Sumiko Palo Santos Presentation

SurfacePro 3, RPi 4, ROON, WW Starlight Platinum USB, Schiit Yggdrasil, Benchmark DAC3 HGC

MX 151, OppO BDP-95, JVC RS-500 DILA projector, 106" diagonal Stewart Luxus Screenwall Deluxe with Studiotek 130 G3 material.

Lake House:
Ohm F, MC 275V, C2300, MR 77, Rega P3

OnDeck:
McIntosh MAC 4300v
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  #99  
Old 07-16-2019, 04:00 PM
Mac6 Mac6 is offline
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Originally Posted by prepress View Post

As for interconnects, I swapped out a pair of Kimber Hero for Transparent Plus on my SACD player and the sound was quite similar, with the Plus a bit smoother on top. I was listening specifically to the top end because of bright-sounding CDs and was experimenting with this change. If I remember correctly, some AQ King Cobra sounded about the same as the Plus, though I did no direct comparisons. I got a pair of Transparent Super to replace the MusicLink Plus pair connecting my preamp and power amps, but don't recall hearing anything that different. I have not experimented with swapping the Super with the Plus on my SACD player to see if there's a difference. The Super has a heavier-gauge conductor and may make a difference; I don't know.

I have very good ears and know what to listen for in terms of what I like, and roll my eyes at the extremely expensive cables out there, having a hard time believing they make that much difference past a certain point. My take overall is that cables can make a real difference, but don't always necessarily.

Time for breakfast.
Very interesting. Just curious, what was the price difference between the Kimber Hero and the Transparent Plus interconnects?
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  #100  
Old 07-16-2019, 07:20 PM
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prepress prepress is offline
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Originally Posted by Mac6 View Post
Very interesting. Just curious, what was the price difference between the Kimber Hero and the Transparent Plus interconnects?
The Transparent Plus is $465, the Hero $308 (current prices); this is for 1.5 meter pairs, used on my SACD player. Based on the result with that component, I put Plus on all sources except my tuner and turntable; the tuner still has Hero ICs, and the turntable uses the cables that came with the tonearm.
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