All this 'listening' business

[killdozzer]

This may prove to be an unpopular view here in AH, but that's exactly why it's in the SV section. It has to do with choosing what equipment to buy - listening vs. measures (what is the correct ratio?).

My point first; I'd even give less credit to listening than most people here do, but would never opt against, of course.

Now the explanation; personal experience is highly overrated in today's world and I believe it needs no advocates. The reason it is overrated is because it fuels the impulsive purchase. As Liev Schreiber nicely put it in Repo Men: we need them to buy, not to think! Which I personally really don't like.

On your way to finding your speakers (or any product), the market prefers those who try and miss, hitting their head on the wall several times ending up in spending 10k for a 2k product rather than those who arrive at their goal spending the exact amount or a "mere" 4k for a 2k product.

Simply put, the market loves you uninformed.

That's why whenever someone tells you to just listen, no matter how well intended it may be, I think he only helps the ones I don't care for all that much.

Few notes on senses. There is a certain way the brain processes the sensory input. To keep it as short as possible, the brain discriminates among the input and also adapts to some of them.

Nose. Have you ever met a lady that keeps reapplying the perfume she really likes and have you noticed that there's a wide spread opinion that "those perfumes that smell good last shorter"? It is important for human to be able to detect a dangerous scent even in a heavy scented environment. This is why after a short while the brain will disregard all the unimportant input. This is way you can sense new odours even in a cesspool.

Sadly, the very fact that the perfume smells nice to you will make the brain stop reacting to it sooner - as it is not dangerous and the brain needs to concentrate on other input so it disregards it (but for the love of... ladies, don't reapply!!). And for you, gentlemen, this is a huge part of your 'upgrade bug'. Sometimes you seek to be thrilled all over again because you got accustomed (brain adapted) to what you own. Also, as it was once said here in AH, you're inclined to go for the 'different' sounding speaker in the shop because it stands out and this you see as a promise of that thrill. Then it ends up on Audiogon among ZuAudio.

Eyes. Do you wear spectacles or know someone that does? Did he/she ever tell you how the doctor told them that they need to adjust dioptre, but that the new and better match will actually bother them in the beginning? The same thing. The brain sets your spectacles to be the new null, it adapts to it. It is telling your consciousness (let's just leave it, please), that everything is fine with your vision. It needs to pass a certain threshold (limen) in order to perceive it as a problem.

Have you ever experienced coming to your friends house and seeing that all of the reds on his TV are closer to orange (or that the black has a lot of green...), but he sees nothing wrong with it and can discern among orange and red. Same thing.

Same goes for ears. If the deviation in sound is of no vital importance, the brain will disregard the deviation. This is of grater importance for beginners. After being exposed to PC desktop speakers for a few years or some ancient farting membranes, you're much more inclined to reach for a manipulated speaker.

Knowing all this, I couldn't advise someone, with a clear conscious, to just go out there and listen.

I could say this; if you're very experienced and can afford it, sure, just listen, buy, sell, exchange... It's all fine.

If you're a newbie, listen among the well measuring products and start your adventure there. Don't go by your ears alone. Most of 'love at first sight' is short lived.

In today's market your 'Hit n' Miss' will probably be 1% to 99% respectively.

 

[killdozzer]

I forgot the entire chapter on Dunning-Kruger I wanted to write, which affects us all more or less.

 

[slipperybidness]

You ever go into someones house and see that they have terrible soap opera effect from motion processing?

Similar to your point about the color being off.

 

[panteragstk]

You ever go into someones house and see that they have terrible soap opera effect from motion processing?

Similar to your point about the color being off.

My mother-in-law's TV is like that. It's horrible. I calibrated it for them and it magically went back to over saturated maxed our soap opera effect. Wonder how that happened?

 

[killdozzer]

You ever go into someones house and see that they have terrible soap opera effect from motion processing?

Similar to your point about the color being off.

My stepdad has the sound on "church"... It's horrible noise. Every anchorman sounds like a priest... He forgot where he set that option and he's Italian so I had some work to find it and reverse it.

 

[Mitchibo]

This may prove to be an unpopular view here in AH, but that's exactly why it's in the SV section. It has to do with choosing what equipment to buy - listening vs. measures (what is the correct ratio?).

My point first; I'd even give less credit to listening than most people here do, but would never opt against, of course.

Now the explanation; personal experience is highly overrated in today's world and I believe it needs no advocates. The reason it is overrated is because it fuels the impulsive purchase. As Liev Schreiber nicely put it in Repo Men: we need them to buy, not to think! Which I personally really don't like.

On your way to finding your speakers (or any product), the market prefers those who try and miss, hitting their head on the wall several times ending up in spending 10k for a 2k product rather than those who arrive at their goal spending the exact amount or a "mere" 4k for a 2k product.

Simply put, the market loves you uninformed.

That's why whenever someone tells you to just listen, no matter how well intended it may be, I think he only helps the ones I don't care for all that much.

Few notes on senses. There is a certain way the brain processes the sensory input. To keep it as short as possible, the brain discriminates among the input and also adapts to some of them.

Nose. Have you ever met a lady that keeps reapplying the perfume she really likes and have you noticed that there's a wide spread opinion that "those perfumes that smell good last shorter"? It is important for human to be able to detect a dangerous scent even in a heavy scented environment. This is why after a short while the brain will disregard all the unimportant input. This is way you can sense new odours even in a cesspool.

Sadly, the very fact that the perfume smells nice to you will make the brain stop reacting to it sooner - as it is not dangerous and the brain needs to concentrate on other input so it disregards it (but for the love of... ladies, don't reapply!!). And for you, gentlemen, this is a huge part of your 'upgrade bug'. Sometimes you seek to be thrilled all over again because you got accustomed (brain adapted) to what you own. Also, as it was once said here in AH, you're inclined to go for the 'different' sounding speaker in the shop because it stands out and this you see as a promise of that thrill. Then it ends up on Audiogon among ZuAudio.

Eyes. Do you wear spectacles or know someone that does? Did he/she ever tell you how the doctor told them that they need to adjust dioptre, but that the new and better match will actually bother them in the beginning? The same thing. The brain sets your spectacles to be the new null, it adapts to it. It is telling your consciousness (let's just leave it, please), that everything is fine with your vision. It needs to pass a certain threshold (limen) in order to perceive it as a problem.

Have you ever experienced coming to your friends house and seeing that all of the reds on his TV are closer to orange (or that the back has a lot of green...), but he sees nothing wrong with it and can discern among orange and red. Same thing.

Same goes for ears. If the deviation in sound is of no vital importance, the brain will disregard the deviation. This is of grater importance for beginners. After being exposed to PC desktop speakers for a few years or some ancient farting membranes, you're much more inclined to reach for a manipulated speaker.

Knowing all this, I couldn't advise someone, with a clear conscious, to just go out there and listen.

I could say this; if you're very experienced and can afford it, sure, just listen, buy, sell, exchange... It's all fine.

If you're a newbie, listen among the well measuring products and start your adventure there. Don't go by your ears alone. Most of 'love at first sight' is short lived.

In today's market your 'Hit n' Miss' will probably be 1% to 99% respectively.

Agreed. The new car smell does go away. That’s why I’m always searching for media that is worthy of a good setup. It brings back the “love”. Obviously reading lots of personal reviews (not the standard “these are the greatest speakers since last time I reviewed the greatest speakers ever”) for gear helps too.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

All I would say is that we buy Audio gear to perform a task, and that is to reproduce music (typically) in the analog domain so we can hear and enjoy it. I am not one to suggest measurements are not useful, nor do I feel they cannot offer insights to performance (my test equipment, at retail, is worth more than my HiFi; and I use it all).

But the job isn't to test well, it's to play well. I think it's absurd to assess the merit of something that is supposed to do one simple (or not so simple) task, and then not have that as the ultimate arbritator of it's intrinsic value. It seems to me to be akin to researching, then buying, a car without first driving it, or choosing a display without asking yourself if you actually like the video reproduction.

So, to me, listening is mandatory and is the final test any audio gear must pass.

 

[killdozzer]

All I would say is that we buy Audio gear to perform a task, and that is to reproduce music (typically) in the analog domain so we can hear and enjoy it. I am not one to suggest measurements are not useful, nor do I feel they cannot offer insights to performance (my test equipment, at retail, is worth more than my HiFi; and I use it all).

But the job isn't to test well, it's to play well. I think it's absurd to assess the merit of something that is supposed to do one simple (or not so simple) task, and then not have that as the ultimate arbritator of it's intrinsic value. It seems to me to be akin to researching, then buying, a car without first driving it, or choosing a display without asking yourself if you actually like the video reproduction.

So, to me, listening is mandatory and is the final test any audio gear must pass.

Yes, I agree with that; never without listening. But listening the ones that measure great is like choosing to test drive only BMW, Mercedes, Audi etc. Those cars measure well. And to be quite honest you're not REALLY test-driving them other than for ergonomics.

We have to find other analogies, these car analogies don't work. No one is ever saying give me a car that goes right off the road in a curve because that drives better to me. Or give me a car that breaks down all the time bc I grew up with a car like that. We all try to choose among cars that measure great.

 

[highfigh]

Yes, I agree with that; never without listening. But listening the ones that measure great is like choosing to test drive only BMW, Mercedes, Audi etc. Those cars measure well. And to be quite honest you're not REALLY test-driving them other than for ergonomics.

We have to find other analogies, these car analogies don't work. No one is ever saying give me a car that goes right off the road in a curve because that drives better to me. Or give me a car that breaks down all the time bc I grew up with a car like that. We all try to choose among cars that measure great.

Specs are a good way to give us a way to create a short list of equipment. While I have heard some receivers and brands that had good secs and bad sound, it eventually became an issue of reliability- some brands made equipment that was almost bulletproof, some was able to hit the manufacturer's target of 1% failure and some could only wish theirs was able to fail less than 10% of the time. Unfortunately, reliability can be a bit like catching fish with one bare hand- it might happen once in a while, but not every time.

Speakers don't sound the same and their specs are never the same, either- we need to listen to them for long periods of time in order to make sure they're the ones we really want but the rest of the equipment will have smaller differences, on average. I really don't remember hearing much of a difference between DVD or BD players but I have seen some that had bad user interfaces. Displays are a bit different- our eyes react to the level of light where we're viewing, so the display will seem different. Then, there's the issue of compatibility with other equipment- Samsung has had periods where their displays didn't always work well with some other AVRs or BD players and there was no way to know ahead of time when one of these was replaced.

 

[Speedskater]

While listening is good, seeing then listening has no value.

* * * * * * * *
This forum has a paper on how specs are manipulated.

 

[killdozzer]

Specs are a good way to give us a way to create a short list of equipment.

That's it. It's still your choice, but it has to do the job.

 

[Mikado463]

it also comes down to ones own 'makeup', so long as you accept the powers of psychoacoustics then you probably subscribe to "if it measures well it at least has the fundamental capability to sound good", I admit that I fall into this group.

 

[highfigh]

it also comes down to ones own 'makeup', so long as you accept the powers of psychoacoustics then you probably subscribe to "if it measures well it at least has the fundamental capability to sound good", I admit that I fall into this group.

Define 'psychoacoustics'. Some effects are almost universal, so it's not as personal as it seems that you're saying. For example, a pure 8KHz sine wave sounds like it's coming from directly overhead and 4KHz seems to be coming from the side. These (and other phenomena) are used to expand the apparent separation in a stereo or surround mix.

But accepting psychoacoustics & little devices that aren't in the signal path and ignoring the piece's innate ability to faithfully reproduce a signal and/or the actual acoustics is a good way to end up with a system that eventually fails on several fronts. First, it leaves an 'out' when someone doesn't know how to listen critically- "Well, that's what I heard" is one thing, but "That's what I think I heard" is another. Change the furniture and the sound changes, too. Second, it causes doubt and confusionto enter the equation. Most people didn't pay much attention to the specs until the manufacturers started using them in advertising. Once they expanded the list, people went out and asked questions about things they didn't understand and when they didn't get the answers they had been led to believe were 'correct' because they read about it in an audio magazine, they left the store, confused. I don't know how many times I heard "How many Amps does this receiver put out?" or "What's the slew rate?". They thought Amps=Watts and only read about slew rate once Sansui started using it in their ads.

People may want 'State Of The Art', but they often don't understand what that means.

 

[highfigh]

While listening is good, seeing then listening has no value.

* * * * * * * *
This forum has a paper on how specs are manipulated.

How long would it take to listen to every amplifier, BD player, streaming device, speaker....? You know some equipment doesn't spec well or sound good enough, so how would you avoid wasting time by searching for everything and having it shipped to you (since B&M stores are becoming more rare every day)?

 

[Mikado463]

here ya go ............

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics

 

[highfigh]

here ya go ............

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics

More of as rhetorical comment, by me. I know what it is, but like specs, I see it thrown around without supporting comments. Not including you in the latter.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Having lived through the 1970's and 1980's when the "spec wars" were in full swing, I've heard a lot ... too many, unfortunately ... of really bad sounding amps and receivers with stellar specifications, where the manufacturer decided to employ massive levels of Global Negative Feedback to achieve minuscule THD levels with sine waves (but nasty Harmonic Structures to the distortion) and the associated damping factors in the hundreds and thousands. Magazines of the time were heavily in support of the mainstream industry, almost completely ignoring sound quality and emphasizing lab results, which naturally led to a nice ad revenue.

Attempts to reconcile the gritty sound quality with the thousandths-of-a-percent THD values, the theory of Transient Intermodulation Distortion was proposed by some. Along with other explanations, which the general consumer promptly ignored. Stereophile had a barely-surviving audience and The Absolute Sound was obtuse and carried no ads to allow "objective" evaluations, with relatively high subscription costs and a correspondingly obscure audience. Virtually no audio customer even knew the magazine existed.

So, perhaps I am more suspicious than I should be, but I generally look for a "middle ground" when researching specifications, wary of manufacturers where the marketing department demands "good paper" from the engineers, and where they probably hire engineers who actually do believe that "all amplifiers sound the same", and therefore offer no objection to the design strategy.

Measurements are useful, but beware putting too much emphasis on what is a design and troubleshooting tool rather than the actual use of the component in the home. Auditioning is mandatory and since it is exactly the purpose of the device, totally appropriate as a means of evaluation.

 

[Mikado463]

Having lived through the 1970's and 1980's when the "spec wars" were in full swing, I've heard a lot ... too many, unfortunately ... of really bad sounding amps and receivers with stellar specifications, where the manufacturer decided to employ massive levels of Global Negative Feedback to achieve minuscule THD levels with sine waves (but nasty Harmonic Structures to the distortion) and the associated damping factors in the hundreds and thousands. Magazines of the time were heavily in support of the mainstream industry, almost completely ignoring sound quality and emphasizing lab results, which naturally led to a nice ad revenue.

Attempts to reconcile the gritty sound quality with the thousandths-of-a-percent THD values, the theory of Transient Intermodulation Distortion was proposed by some. Along with other explanations, which the general consumer promptly ignored. Stereophile had a barely-surviving audience and The Absolute Sound was obtuse and carried no ads to allow "objective" evaluations, with relatively high subscription costs and a correspondingly obscure audience. Virtually no audio customer even knew the magazine existed.

So, perhaps I am more suspicious than I should be, but I generally look for a "middle ground" when researching specifications, wary of manufacturers where the marketing department demands "good paper" from the engineers, and where they probably hire engineers who actually do believe that "all amplifiers sound the same", and therefore offer no objection to the design strategy.

Measurements are useful, but beware putting too much emphasis on what is a design and troubleshooting tool rather than the actual use of the component in the home. Auditioning is mandatory and since it is exactly the purpose of the device, totally appropriate as a means of evaluation.

Johnny, from old fart to another .........good post !

 

[killdozzer]

I believe it's all in my original post; you shouldn't go without listening or without solid specs. As I said; the less you know the more you are prone to overrate your experience. I said "start your adventure" with good measuring devices, from there you can go anywhere you want if you want.

But don't treat your ears as some sort of all knowing instrument and a probe that will certainly detect all that is wrong. Your ears might just as well tell you to pick something that has similarly bad sound as something you had before just because you're use to it. Best example for this is an inexperienced listener who doesn't notice his lamp changing in his tube amp as it slowly burns because it is a slow process and your ear simply tells you it's all fine, nothing is wrong with your sound.

Ears get accustomed to various things, I'd rather have them get accustomed to well measuring devices than to something that is slowly but surely developing tinnitus or something just because it impressed me when I first heard it.

Again, I see you as an experienced listener and I don't think you'd fall for some "shining" speaker. But I might before I train my ears. Our grandfathers here drink wine that borders with not being good for your health because "that's the way they always did it", and their sons picked that up living with them.

(but nasty Harmonic Structures to the distortion).

Aaaa, you see, this is NOT a good measuring device. What you're describing is a marketing problem not a spec problem. It is a problem of over stressing some specs at the cost of others.

 

[highfigh]

Having lived through the 1970's and 1980's when the "spec wars" were in full swing, I've heard a lot ... too many, unfortunately ... of really bad sounding amps and receivers with stellar specifications, where the manufacturer decided to employ massive levels of Global Negative Feedback to achieve minuscule THD levels with sine waves (but nasty Harmonic Structures to the distortion) and the associated damping factors in the hundreds and thousands. Magazines of the time were heavily in support of the mainstream industry, almost completely ignoring sound quality and emphasizing lab results, which naturally led to a nice ad revenue.

So, perhaps I am more suspicious than I should be, but I generally look for a "middle ground" when researching specifications, wary of manufacturers where the marketing department demands "good paper" from the engineers, and where they probably hire engineers who actually do believe that "all amplifiers sound the same", and therefore offer no objection to the design strategy.

Measurements are useful, but beware putting too much emphasis on what is a design and troubleshooting tool rather than the actual use of the component in the home. Auditioning is mandatory and since it is exactly the purpose of the device, totally appropriate as a means of evaluation.

If you remember the specs race, you probably remember all of the unbiased (no pun intended) reviews in Stereo Review and Audio magazine. Or not, BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY!

I went to a local dealer to hear Len Feldman speak and after the Q&A, we ended up on the elevator with him. He had said that most amplifiers sound the same and we told him he was wrong, in no uncertain terms. I probably wouldn't go about it in the same way now, but I still disagree.

Public address and background music systems are designed using specs unless past experience told the designer that some item is far worse than another. Serious listening isn't happening, so the ultimate sound quality isn't as important as reliability. Concert sound is different, yet very similar. Nothing like under-spec'ing a system (or, all of the equipment for multiple stages) and finding out the hard way that it was inadequate. In Milwaukee, we have a ten day event called 'Summerfest' and one year, someone decided to use a different sound company, which decided that Bose Professional amps and speakers would work- must have thought the big speakers looked too industrial/menacing, or something. They were wrong. Imagine Pat Metheny playing and the amplifiers randomly cutting out/in and there was nothing Metheny could do about it. The next year and every year since, the original sound company has provided the equipment and staff to operate everything, with few problems. Sound quality is generally pretty good, too.