Debunking Audio Myths

This will amuse the objectivists and infuriate the subjectivists. Enjoy! (Or not!)

http://signal.ece.utexas.edu/seminars/dsp_seminars/01fall/AudioMyths.pdf

 

they missed the last line off...

'and end up with a system that sounds shite'.

sorry oedipus but the whole piece depends on someone subjectively deciding what sounds better. i'm not going to accept someones word that a is better than b and i can;t be bothered to lump a blindfold or abx box around with me whenever i listen to kit so it's a pretty pointless excersise.
you can say what you like but i'm prefectly happy here breathing sand.
cheers


julian

 

pure hyperbole

 

I thought it was quite a good read actually. Always nice to hear another opinion and I few I had to smile at as I tend to feel the same way.

I'm always surprised at the offence people seem to take at such stuff. Its only a hobby.

 

Are you sure Kite wrote and not michealab?, prehaps he's using a alias

 

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Hi,

Actually, I found the very first highly interesting:

The fundamental "wild claim" made is that we actually know everything about how to audio works and how it relates to audible good sound. It is being made by someone who wants to sell us something, namely an AP one or Two audio measurement system.

It is highly in the interest of the person making the claims to present the idea that:

a) what his product measures is a relavent qantification of "good sound"
b) what his product fails to measures is of no consequence

Reading the rest is filled with claims made without any supporting information, documentation or other proof.

Let's book the whole presenttation safely under what it is, namely salestalk - that is my result of applying critical thinking 101.

Ciao T

 

Thats quite possibly the worst hi-fi article I've ever read.

PO - Someone who is trying to hide his own opinions behind pseudo-science
RP - Self Gratification
ST - What he's read on the internet
TM - Hifi Nerd
RT - Badly expressed opinion.

 

Does an AP not do what it is claimed it can do?

Let's face it you're never going to reconcile people whose primary interest is owning hifi equipment with people who treat it as a tool and simply want it to work properly.

Paul

 

I can sum up my feelings on the AP with a little rhyme that was a favourite of a lecturer of mine...

I can't help feeling that this presentation is being taken out of context. Read the conclusions and some of them echo what are generally accepted on this forum, eg Room has a big effect, Speakers define the voice of the system, etc.

And if you really feel he's so completely wrong...

1) Email him. His address is in the presentation
2) Use your superior knowledge to create a new industry standard test suite. I do know a man who has done this...

 

For me it's all though provoking but such rants debunk absolutely nothing. At the risk of sounding pretentious, the goal to me is that of creating a sonic illusion of the real thing, something we seem to have lost sight of in the silicon jungle eons ago. Whether this can be achieved using a combination of electronics hitherto not assembled or by rubbing two dry sticks together is of little consequence - as long as we get there in the end. Remember the film "The Time Machine" starring I think, Rod Taylor. Audio messages in future times will be stored on rings which, when spun manually, produce the result. Roll on the year 2200.......

 

yep,and you get to shag cave women as well

 

Hi,

AP's own slogan is:



I would argue that this is an extraordinary claim, as it claims that the AP system measures all that is relevant to presion audio.

As it is often said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I have no need to argue anything here. As AP maes the claim I believe it is incumbent on them to demonstrate, beyound reasonable doubt, that it does what it says on the tin.

Otherwise they are no better than a company that claims their latest cable,made from hyper pure silver with super teflon dielectric and so on makes for "perfect sound".

That same pen cuts both ways. If the objectivists want to be taken serious on their own terms they must demonstrate THEIR claims beyound reasonable doubt, something they have singulary failed to do so.

I view HiFi equipment as a simple tool. I expect it to do what it claims, to give as close to real an experience of music as possible, by the fundamental limits imposed in the recording process. If it fails to do that "it does not work properly, no matter what AP One says or fails to.

Ciao T

 

Well I carry no torch for AP. But I think their machinery does exactly what they say it will do, marketing slogans apart.

So now it's your turn. Demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that there's something magic required to make a hifi 'give as close to real an experience of music as possible' something outside the standard engineering criteria, something outside the purview of Audio Precision.

Paul

 

Hi,

Funny. If you agree with something marketing slogans can be what they want to be. But not if you disagree. I believe there was word for that, something with an H... It escapes my mind....

No, it ain't. I make no extraordinary claims. Actually, I claim that I mostly do not understand how Audio really works (and yes, I am familiar with the orthodox partyline and find it disagreeing with my own empirical findings). I do however question the general claim by the objectivists to have "deciphered it all" and not that no reasonable prrof for their extraordinary claims has been forthcomming. AP as company happens to have settled on that side and is busy defending the orthodoxy and joins in in their claims, but with a commercial interest.

As a Scientologist would say, "Fair Game" (google it if the meaning escapes).

Ciao T

 

What an AP actually does is defined and repeatably demonstrable. What their marketing slogan means is open to debate. What your hypothetical hyper pure silver cable does is undefined and undemonstrable (other than its nominal action as a cable) and all that's left is the marketing slogan.

This distinction seems so obvious that it shouldn't need to be stated.

There is no 'general claim by the objectivists to have "deciphered it all"', that's a figment of your imagination, as is the idea that it's an 'extraordinary claim' to expect subjectivists to use their ears rather than their eyes when evaluating sounds.

Paul

 

What an AP is or does is essentially limited by software anyway. It measures voltages. How they are interpreted is down to how you tell it to interpret them.

For example, recently I wanted to do something with our AP for which there was no provision in the APwin suite. One email to an AP representative and I was sent software to perform the measurements.

The point of my little ryhme, as I hope people understood, was simply that if you don't look for the right thing, you won't find it. The AP is a tool that requires knowledge to drive it, not a magic bullet that will do it all and tell it all.

 

Hi,

Well, the function of the cable is well defined too and the rest is marketing?

Why object to marketing hype when it is applied to a cable and why swallow the whole camel when it comes Measurement gear.

WHAT DISTINCTION? You mean that a product is a product and marketing is marketing?

Is there not? How about this:

Similar comments come regulary both from the followers and many of the very vocal objectivists (Douglas Self anyone).

If they do not constityte statements of fact (even if completely inaccurate ones) what are they?

So, I retain that the same principles and logic applies and MUST APPLY to both sides of the argument. How come the Objectivists are always up in arms when their views are questioned and revealed as mere unproven opinion and extraordinary claims but get serious missonary fits when any subjectivists presents similar claims without backup?

I hope you realise I am playing strictly devils advocate here, but in a court of law I would be winning. As you may have noticed I personally know that both the objectivists and the subjectivists are completely and utterly wrong and have completely lost the plot, but that as say is another story.

Ciao T

 

The third way?

 

Hi,

Yup. Your Sig says it quite neatly.

"defy convention - make music"

Both objective and subjective viewpoints have elements that serve the end, namley "make music". All else is superflous and not conductive to achieving these ends.

For example, if (which some aledge) adding distortion makes the sound better, I need to know what sort of distortion, how much and so on. Then I can use any number of solutions to provide the desired results.

There is a miniscule amount (if any at all) of research in the Objectivist camp as to how we can quantify "good sound" and the Subjectivist camp is too concerend with just getting good sound but unconcerned with discovering the underpinning rules.

Thus both camp's effectively stifle our ability to simply engineer for "good sound". I for one would love a simple sets of rules that allows me to engineer for good sound (actually, I think I have found some, quite a few, but not with enough systematic backup to suggest others to follow them).

Ciao T