Can you hear a difference in Sound between Audio Amplifiers?

[Irvrobinson]

But it does matter. If the person persuades others of the falsehood, then they, too, may waste their money. This also means that con artists are likely to be rewarded as well. Rewarding con artists encourages more people to become con artists, and so the damage spreads, like a disease on humanity.

Basically, you are saying that the truth does not matter, and it is fine for people to believe falsehoods and to spread their falsehoods to others. Do you really think that is okay and harmless? Don't you think that people who are careless about one issue are more likely to be careless about other issues as well? After all, if scientific testing is unimportant for determining facts related to audio, why would it be relevant to anything else?

I used this exact same argument recently in a cable forum. The problem is that cables measure exactly alike, and amplifiers don't. So then you're arguing about what's audible and what isn't, and under what circumstances. This situation is not as black and white as it seems.

 

[Grador]

But it does matter. If the person persuades others of the falsehood, then they, too, may waste their money. This also means that con artists are likely to be rewarded as well. Rewarding con artists encourages more people to become con artists, and so the damage spreads, like a disease on humanity.

Basically, you are saying that the truth does not matter, and it is fine for people to believe falsehoods and to spread their falsehoods to others. Do you really think that is okay and harmless? Don't you think that people who are careless about one issue are more likely to be careless about other issues as well? After all, if scientific testing is unimportant for determining facts related to audio, why would it be relevant to anything else?

Two threads in two days you've gone way to far with something I've said. You make a good point about the cons, but I'm not in the habit of telling people to be unhappy with their things.

 

[PENG]

Two threads in two days you've gone way to far with something I've said. You make a good point about the cons, but I'm not in the habit of telling people to be unhappy with their things.

Who's telling people to be unhappy with their things? May be I missed a post or 2, I'll have another look.

 

[Grador]

Who's telling people to be unhappy with their things? May be I missed a post or 2, I'll have another look.

He took issue with me saying I don't care if someone is happy with imaginary improvements. I'm saying I wont tell someone not to like their system, imaginarily good or actually so.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I used this exact same argument recently in a cable forum. The problem is that cables measure exactly alike, and amplifiers don't. So then you're arguing about what's audible and what isn't, and under what circumstances. This situation is not as black and white as it seems.

Fred Davis wrote a paper on cables (Jneutron doesn't like it)
http://www.apiguide.net/04actu/04musik/AES-cableInteractions.pdf

They certainly didn't measure the same R,C, or L per foot and certainly had measurable FR into speakers or resisters, yet, I defy anyone to identify comparable gauged cables (22/24ga excluded).
I wonder what their graphs would show with even more decimal places available.

Yes, it is about audibility of differences.

 

[jinjuku]

If an experimenter does not adequately train the listeners or test subjects prior to the actual test, then hearing sensitivity would be somewhat reduced in terms of detecting audible differences between gear. Surely? How do we know all SBT or DBT's employ strenuous training? Perhaps they don't. Perhaps most don't - it's all speculative, but you would imagine they would.

For my part I'm not questioning the listener. I'm testing their claims. When people go to great lengths to say that a burned in cable is markedly improved, day/night difference. THAT is what is being tested. You are not testing the difference in cable or amp you are testing the claims about said persons hearing ability. Totally fair IMO.

 

[mtrycrafts]

For my part I'm not questioning the listener. I'm testing their claims. When people go to great lengths to say that a burned in cable is markedly improved, day/night difference. THAT is what is being tested. You are not testing the difference in cable or amp you are testing the claims about said persons hearing ability. Totally fair IMO.

Yes, absolutely. After all, don't they make the claims as untrained golden ears? Nobody asks them if they are properly trained to listen, right?
Or, just by listening you get trained?

 

[Irvrobinson]

Fred Davis wrote a paper on cables (Jneutron doesn't like it)
http://www.apiguide.net/04actu/04musik/AES-cableInteractions.pdf

They certainly didn't measure the same R,C, or L per foot and certainly had measurable FR into speakers or resisters, yet, I defy anyone to identify comparable gauged cables (22/24ga excluded).
I wonder what their graphs would show with even more decimal places available.

Yes, it is about audibility of differences.

Cables are a different case than amplifiers. Just because a cable measures differently in terms of the values of certain basic electrical characteristics, like resistance or inductance, does not mean that the signal that comes out the receiver's end of it will be measurably different. The signal is only measurably different if the sender and the receiver have circuitry that is not designed to accommodate slightly different characteristics, or in the case of speakers, if the speaker is of such low impedance that the resistance in a cable becomes a significant factor in the overall load. 10 gauge and 12 gauge speaker cable *will* measure differently, even if they use identical construction strategies, more so if they don't, but so long as both cables are within the allowable design criteria of the amplifier and the speaker they will produce identical signals. Amplifiers aren't like that. Close, for sure, but that difference is what we're arguing about, er, discussing.

 

[Pyrrho]

For my part I'm not questioning the listener. I'm testing their claims. When people go to great lengths to say that a burned in cable is markedly improved, day/night difference. THAT is what is being tested. You are not testing the difference in cable or amp you are testing the claims about said persons hearing ability. Totally fair IMO.

This reminds me of an old post I made in another thread:

Yes, exactly. Many people claim night and day differences, but as soon as they are asked to put it to the test, somehow it becomes very subtle. And the more carefully tested it is, the more subtle it becomes.


I say, if anyone thinks they can tell the difference between amplifiers operated within their capabilities, put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise, I will continue to simply regard such claims as so much hot air. No one has ever been able to demonstrate this ability under properly controlled conditions.

People make outrageous claims about superhuman hearing, and then they expect everyone to just accept their word for it. As if they would believe me if I made some claim to superhuman abilities in some other area, like running faster than a bullet or being able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound!

 

[Pyrrho]

He took issue with me saying I don't care if someone is happy with imaginary improvements. I'm saying I wont tell someone not to like their system, imaginarily good or actually so.

No one has disputed someone's right to like their system, or to buy whatever they want. The dispute is about someone making false claims and whether or not people should be called on the BS claims that they make.

It matters when people spread misinformation, and that is exactly what many people do. I say, they should be confronted and exposed.

Now, if someone believed some BS but kept their damn mouth shut about it, no one would say anything to them about it. But when they spout off their nonsense, people should not accept it as if it were a reasonable opinion. Stupid opinions should be exposed as stupid opinions. When people spread falsehoods, they harm other people. And consequently, they should be stopped. That is, people should expose the stupidity for what it is, not necessarily muzzling them.

If you want a philosophical argument about it, I suggest reading the essay by Clifford at:

burger-book

What we are discussing is whether or not people should be spreading misinformation, and how people ought to react to it. We have people claiming to hear things that no human has ever demonstrated the ability to hear, and I say, they should put up or shut up. Some people imagine that every stupid opinion of everyone is equally valuable as every other opinion. I say, that is ridiculous nonsense.

 

[Grador]

It seems you have 100% missed the mark on what I was saying.

 

[mtrycrafts]

... or being able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound!

You could take two bounds.

 

[jinjuku]

Yes, absolutely. After all, don't they make the claims as untrained golden ears? Nobody asks them if they are properly trained to listen, right?
Or, just by listening you get trained?

Pretty much. I have always been amazed at the hundreds, if not numbering in the thousands, of threads about this stuff that the obviousness of what is actually being tested isn't well understood.

 

[jinjuku]

People make outrageous claims about superhuman hearing, and then they expect everyone to just accept their word for it. As if they would believe me if I made some claim to superhuman abilities in some other area, like running faster than a bullet or being able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound!

This comes to another point of mine: If an 'audiophile' won't wear a blind fold and trust their ears, neither should you.

 

[Irvrobinson]

No one has disputed someone's right to like their system, or to buy whatever they want. The dispute is about someone making false claims and whether or not people should be called on the BS claims that they make.

It matters when people spread misinformation, and that is exactly what many people do. I say, they should be confronted and exposed.

Now, if someone believed some BS but kept their damn mouth shut about it, no one would say anything to them about it. But when they spout off their nonsense, people should not accept it as if it were a reasonable opinion. Stupid opinions should be exposed as stupid opinions. When people spread falsehoods, they harm other people. And consequently, they should be stopped. That is, people should expose the stupidity for what it is, not necessarily muzzling them.

If you want a philosophical argument about it, I suggest reading the essay by Clifford at:

burger-book

What we are discussing is whether or not people should be spreading misinformation, and how people ought to react to it. We have people claiming to hear things that no human has ever demonstrated the ability to hear, and I say, they should put up or shut up. Some people imagine that every stupid opinion of everyone is equally valuable as every other opinion. I say, that is ridiculous nonsense.

Frankly, I don't know what you're so riled up about. You came out earlier and said that even if something made a difference, people were idiots for not following your individual value judgement. I didn't think we were discussing here whether or not people should be spreading around falsehoods, that's not the topic of this thread, I thought we are discussing whether people believe there are audible differences between amplifiers.

As I've said, I think there's a really excellent chance that there aren't any audible differences between solid state amplifiers, but there's a big difference between saying that and calling people idiots and stupid. Personally, I wouldn't mind if you dim the holier-than-thou attitude a bit. The least you could do is become a subject of one these tests before you make value judgements about their efficacy for audio. You might find that people on both side of the argument are using the data as they see fit. It can be very educational to listen to two different test tones, one 70db or 80db lower in level than the other, and seeing how loud most distortion products really are. Funny thing, until digital recording came out you couldn't even do that test without instrumentation.

 

[Goliath]

He stated about 2 seconds. "After this time echoic memory either decays or is processed into immediate memory, which imposes significant limits on the amount on the amount of information that is retained."

So then listening for a component for days on end won't reveal large audible differences that may have been subtle in a controlled test.

 

[Goliath]

He stated about 2 seconds. "After this time echoic memory either decays or is processed into immediate memory, which imposes significant limits on the amount on the amount of information that is retained."
I would think that for better data you need to scour the psychology journals for echoic memory and immediate memory and longevity of each?

Is echoic memory referring to comparing sounds adjacent in time, like comparing two amplifiers .. or is it something else? I would imagine there is no "echo" of the information, as far as I can tell. I've heard that there are different types of auditory memory, but I would like to know which is the type for comparing sounds over time. If you could possibly clear up any confusion I may have over this it would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[PENG]

[Q

UOTE=Irvrobinson;959322]Cables are a different case than amplifiers. Just because a cable measures differently in terms of the values of certain basic electrical characteristics, like resistance or inductance, does not mean that the signal that comes out the receiver's end of it will be measurably different.

Just for argument (technically speaking) sake, inductance and capacitance are frequency dependent so of course they could affect what comes out of an amp if the amp leaves the original waveform unmolested other than amplifying it. Even resistance is frequency dependent but just negligible at even at 20,000 Hz. So yes it is about whether such subtle, minute, negligible, or day and night as a few people would claim, differences between the input and output waveforms are audible or not as mtrycraft said, the differences are there and measureable.

The signal is only measurably different if the sender and the receiver have circuitry that is not designed to accommodate slightly different characteristics, or in the case of speakers, if the speaker is of such low impedance that the resistance in a cable becomes a significant factor in the overall load. 10 gauge and 12 gauge speaker cable *will* measure differently, even if they use identical construction strategies, more so if they don't, but so long as both cables are within the allowable design criteria of the amplifier and the speaker they will produce identical signals. Amplifiers aren't like that. Close, for sure, but that difference is what we're arguing about, er, discussing.

Again, logically and technically speaking, I have to respectfully disagree unless I misunderstood your point. With amps we are also dealing with THD+noise of 0.00 something such as Bryston's and 0.0 something for many receivers, both can be considered negligible too, there are probably more factors to be measured in amps than in cables, but the principles of the arguments are of similar nature, that there are measurable differences that are, or aren't audible by most people and what are the thresholds when it goes from are to aren't.

 

[3db]

Are there any sources that I could look into that shows this? Any articles or studies that show that auditory memory is poor for subtle audio details?

Please read 'Sound Reproduction' by Dr.Floyd Toole Based on his findings, the comparisons must be almost instantaneous to accurately assess the diferences between two sources. If a human can't even accurately remember volume differences accurately, how do you expect them to hear subtle differences in music whether they are trained listeners or not.

 

[Irvrobinson]

[Q

Just for argument (technically speaking) sake, inductance and capacitance are frequency dependent so of course they could affect what comes out of an amp if the amp leaves the original waveform unmolested other than amplifying it. Even resistance is frequency dependent but just negligible at even at 20,000 Hz. So yes it is about whether such subtle, minute, negligible, or day and night as a few people would claim, differences between the input and output waveforms are audible or not as mtrycraft said, the differences are there and measurable.

Again, logically and technically speaking, I have to respectfully disagree unless I misunderstood your point. With amps we are also dealing with THD+noise of 0.00 something such as Bryston's and 0.0 something for many receivers, both can be considered negligible too, there are probably more factors to be measured in amps than in cables, but the principles of the arguments are of similar nature, that there are measurable differences that are, or aren't audible by most people and what are the thresholds when it goes from are to aren't.

I must be considerably older than you, PENG, because I used to suffer from a similar urge to argue just to entertain myself and be difficult, but I largely overcame it, I would like to think. Truth be known, I conquered it mostly because I got tired of getting my butt kicked, due to the lame arguments I sometimes came up with in the process of just being difficult.

I think you know better than to make this argument quoted above. Even the differences in frequency response due to cable effects are more than an order of magnitude different, and for a 12 gauge speaker cable they're more like two orders of magnitude. To think you have to fall back on skin effect at audio frequencies to even have something to say...

Must we discuss the differences in SNR between amps and cables? Do you think a cable has an SNR above thermal noise? Propagation delay versus frequency - at audio frequencies? Intermodulation distortion? Or perhaps how amplifier power output is affected by the simultaneous reproduction of multiple frequencies - do you really think what goes on in a speaker cable is of vaguely comparable magnitude? And bringing up one of those THD charts based on frequency sweeps, when even Stereophile sees fit to discuss more specific distortion characteristics. Do cables have measurable 3rd harmonic distortion versus, say, 2nd harmonic distortion? Of course not.

Cables are a matter that can be easily disposed of, because we're talking about effects that are more than 120db down from any audio fundamental, and certain kinds of distortion are simply absent. At least with amplifiers, where there are often some measurable artifacts 60 to 70db below a fundamental, there's room for a discussion. Not a very compelling discussion, I think most of us admit, but even you have to concede that the situation is a lot more complex with amplifiers than with properly designed speaker cables.

And, no, I'm not arguing just for the point of argument, I really do wonder if there is a borderline condition for amplifiers that could cause preferences.