CD playback from Blu-Ray player

[Dave2002]

Conducting tests with a cohort of informed listeners, whether audiophiles, music aficionados & practitioners of one sort or another, or plain common-or-garden music critics, will tend to average any differences of perception. [/URL]

Indeed, so people who really love music, who go to concerts, who play music, who can tell the difference between one violinist and another will tend to have their opinions and views watered down by those who only listen to EDM, folk music, bagpipe music etc. - who might in the tests be considered equally "informed" - which is not to say that those people may not be really knowledgeable about their own areas of interest.

[Maclintick]

Indeed, so people who really love music, who go to concerts, who play music, who can tell the difference between one violinist and another will tend to have their opinions and views watered down by those who only listen to EDM, folk music, bagpipe music etc. - who might in the tests be considered equally "informed" - which is not to say that those people may not be really knowledgeable about their own areas of interest.

I wouldn't envisage setting up a multi-genre sonic free-for-all, but would limit participation in listening tests to those with an overriding preoccupation with "classical music", hoping that if I were to suggest bagpipe enthusiasts, Folkies, Hip-Hoppers, Grime artists and those knowledgeable about non-classical music be encouraged to perform genre-specific listening experiments, that this would be taken in the right spirit, although I can clearly foresee that some might condemn me for 'exclusivity', or worst 'elitism'. What is EDM, btw ? Do I need to know ?

[Sir Velo]

What is EDM, btw ? Do I need to know ?

Electronic data management?

[Maclintick]

Well, this is all simply more subjective reflection or assumption, nothing that could be presented as provenly scientific or truly objective. The example of oxide-shedding through disconnection/reconnection has been very well known for many years, and would surely be avoided as an influence in any serious listening tests.

As for Roger Russell.... same old, tired old....so dated. (Blind tests? Such writers seem never to have heard of .... home trials. Makes their same old arguments so much easier - for them).
What does he imagine a supposed stereotypical Audiophile will do if they read his very lengthy, fact laden, so-cocksure so-condescending article? Clutch their heads and cry "thank you so much...if only I'd known!"

All that time and effort, all those words, just to prove.... what exactly?
Poor Roger could have listened to several symphonic cycles in the time it all took him.

'Subjective reflection or assumption' is most definitely not what preoccupied Roger Russell during his long career as Director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh Lab, but rather a lifetime of careful measurement and adherence to best engineering practice reflected in high-end, audiophile products which have stayed in the market for over 7 decades. Where's the condescension in that, for crying out loud ? Incidentally, I've no idea of Roger's music preferences or whether he just listened to square waves during the day job, or if he had the luxury of wallowing in Bruckner or Berlioz while tweaking his oscilloscope, but to dismiss his debunking of esoteric high-cap cables is to indulge purveyors of audio "snake oil".

If Roger Russell's work is "...same old, tired old....so dated" then I'm sure he'll be glad to rest in the electromagnetic empyrean alongside such obsolete figures as Georg Ohm & Michael Faraday...really old hat, those two..

[mikealdren]

With my engineering background I am very much in favour of the double blind approach for testing. However, for my own listening pleasure I simply apply the test 'can I (and Mrs A) hear a significant difference'. Unless the difference is obvious, I go no further. If the difference is obvious, the next question is always, 'Which sounds do I prefer?'.

I also acknowledge the importance of level matching however, I listen at a variety of levels over a period of time before deciding on any new purchase.

[Dave2002]

What is EDM, btw ? Do I need to know ?

You don't really need it - but I think it stands for Electronic Dance Music.

[Dave2002]

With my engineering background I am very much in favour of the double blind approach for testing. However, for my own listening pleasure I simply apply the test 'can I (and Mrs A) hear a significant difference'. Unless the difference is obvious, I go no further. If the difference is obvious, the next question is always, 'Which sounds do I prefer?'.

Surely in practice there are other issues - it's not just always a question of which sounds better. One is often comparing items in a similar price bracket, in which case that makes sense, but sometimes one can get a demo of kit which costs more. That may indeed sound better, but with a price differential of (say) around £1k versus £4-5k the decision of which to buy may be influenced by the price. How much extra subjective "quality" is worth paying another £3-4k for? I know people who have very expensive sets of kit, including speakers which cost more than all of my equipment. It probably does sound very good, and they are happy with it, but many people have to accept something less esoteric, and "live with it". Another factor is that we all adapt as we listen. This perhaps won't make us accept truly dreadful quality, but we can often live with a sound quality which is in some senses "acceptable". For some that might be a smooth bland sound, while others might prefer something more edgy and exciting - with others might describe as harsh.

[jayne lee wilson]

'Subjective reflection or assumption' is most definitely not what preoccupied Roger Russell during his long career as Director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh Lab, but rather a lifetime of careful measurement and adherence to best engineering practice reflected in high-end, audiophile products which have stayed in the market for over 7 decades. Where's the condescension in that, for crying out loud ? Incidentally, I've no idea of Roger's music preferences or whether he just listened to square waves during the day job, or if he had the luxury of wallowing in Bruckner or Berlioz while tweaking his oscilloscope, but to dismiss his debunking of esoteric high-cap cables is to indulge purveyors of audio "snake oil".

If Roger Russell's work is "...same old, tired old....so dated" then I'm sure he'll be glad to rest in the electromagnetic empyrean alongside such obsolete figures as Georg Ohm & Michael Faraday...really old hat, those two..

"Same old tired old, so dated", because he uses those crude psychological models of "self-convincing", wrongly assuming an audiophile (naively and credulously) spends a lot of money then has to justify their ownership by saying how great the result is. But it is more often the reverse: the serious audiophile assesses the gear on a home trial before committing to purchase (usually after reading several reviews). Free of self-doubt (and often using easy targets like hyper-expensive cable, without ever researching the sales figures), no sceptic ever seems to address this or the psychological implications.

Because of course, one can still make mistakes; end up living with something you don't like as much as you thought despite the care you took, and having to sell on and try again. It happens; I've done it myself. At least we admit to our human frailty. Musical and Audiophile pleasures are deeply subjective; very emotional attachments.

Russell misrepresents Ken Kessler (and by implication HFN whose current editor is a designer and engineer himself); calling KK and others "audio perverts" is, to say the least, unhelpful; just creates division and hostility.

I ask again: what is the motivation for such articles? Are the sceptics threatened by others' pleasures, those they can't share?
Amassed facts, then that crude dated and misrepresentative psychological conclusion. What do they expect to achieve? What's their endgame?

[Maclintick]

So I may have missed it with all of the discussion here. Did the OP ever settle on using a BDP as a disc spinner or a transport?

Spinning a CD in my Blu-Ray player and chucking the HDMI stream into an OREI audio extractor to output LPCM via optical input to the DAC works extremely well -- wearing my purely subjectivist hat, of course. No stuttering or audible jitter effects that I'm aware of.

[richardfinegold]

Spinning a CD in my Blu-Ray player and chucking the HDMI stream into an OREI audio extractor to output LPCM via optical input to the DAC works extremely well -- wearing my purely subjectivist hat, of course. No stuttering or audible jitter effects that I'm aware of.

Glad to know that ( I almost said "hear that" but in view of the literalness to which some are taking the measuring of hearing, decided against).
My fundamental point is that as a Physician, I am very aware that our knowledge of the Human Body is like the proverbial iceberg, with most of what there is to know beneath the surface, undiscovered. I believe that his applies to hearing, and to the Brain's processing of audio signals.
There are certain parameters that we can measure. How do we know that these parameters constitute what actually is essential for the perception of sound? By way of analogy, imagine that beings from an undiscovered planet are making a recognizance journey to Earth. The surreptitiously watch a World Cup Match, knowing nothing of the sport. They measure the rate of photosynthesis of the grass on the playing surface. They measure the amount of beer consumed in the stands and the odors emitted by players and spectators. They then report these findings back. Have they measured anything useful in conveying what happened at the match? In the same fashion, How do we know that the auditory phenomenon that we can measure have a darn thing to do with how we perceive sound? How do we know that two individuals process sounds equally, at the level of the Eighth Cranial Nerve but even more importantly, in terms of what happens after that sensory organ passes the signal to the cerebral cortex. The answer? We have no freaking idea. The brain is truly the last frontier of the human body. And it irritates me to no end that "empiricists" rely on the data that we can measure and insist that there are no other discoveries to be made, that we already know everything there is to know.
To me, that is intellectual hubris.
Enjoy your CDs

[Bryn]

. . . I ask again: what is the motivation for such articles? Are the sceptics threatened by others' pleasures, those they can't share?
Amassed facts, then that crude dated and misrepresentative psychological conclusion. What do they expect to achieve? What's their endgame?

How about, "seeking to protect their readers from the self-delusion of some (not all) 'audiophiles' whose subjectivism is presented in objective clothing"?

Glad to know that ( I almost said "hear that" but in view of the literalness to which some are taking the measuring of hearing, decided against).
My fundamental point is that as a Physician, I am very aware that our knowledge of the Human Body is like the proverbial iceberg, with most of what there is to know beneath the surface, undiscovered. I believe that his applies to hearing, and to the Brain's processing of audio signals.
There are certain parameters that we can measure. How do we know that these parameters constitute what actually is essential for the perception of sound? By way of analogy, imagine that beings from an undiscovered planet are making a recognizance journey to Earth. The surreptitiously watch a World Cup Match, knowing nothing of the sport. They measure the rate of photosynthesis of the grass on the playing surface. They measure the amount of beer consumed in the stands and the odors emitted by players and spectators. They then report these findings back. Have they measured anything useful in conveying what happened at the match? In the same fashion, How do we know that the auditory phenomenon that we can measure have a darn thing to do with how we perceive sound? How do we know that two individuals process sounds equally, at the level of the Eighth Cranial Nerve but even more importantly, in terms of what happens after that sensory organ passes the signal to the cerebral cortex. The answer? We have no freaking idea. The brain is truly the last frontier of the human body. And it irritates me to no end that "empiricists" rely on the data that we can measure and insist that there are no other discoveries to be made, that we already know everything there is to know.
To me, that is intellectual hubris.
Enjoy your CDs

Some very pertinent points there but would your concerns also include such matters as the validity or otherwise of, say, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem?

[mikealdren]

Surely in practice there are other issues - it's not just always a question of which sounds better. One is often comparing items in a similar price bracket, in which case that makes sense, but sometimes one can get a demo of kit which costs more. That may indeed sound better, but with a price differential of (say) around £1k versus £4-5k the decision of which to buy may be influenced by the price. How much extra subjective "quality" is worth paying another £3-4k for? I know people who have very expensive sets of kit, including speakers which cost more than all of my equipment. It probably does sound very good, and they are happy with it, but many people have to accept something less esoteric, and "live with it". Another factor is that we all adapt as we listen. This perhaps won't make us accept truly dreadful quality, but we can often live with a sound quality which is in some senses "acceptable". For some that might be a smooth bland sound, while others might prefer something more edgy and exciting - with others might describe as harsh.

Yes, as I have said elsewhere, my 3rd question before buying is 'Can I afford it'!

[richardfinegold]

How about, "seeking to protect their readers from the self-delusion of some (not all) 'audiophiles' whose subjectivism is presented in objective clothing"?

Some very pertinent points there but would your concerns also include such matters as the validity or otherwise of, say, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem?

In what way? That theorem tries to aid in the reproduction of sound and is based upon known parameters. As such it is pretty effective. What I am suggesting , to paraphrase Shakespeare, is that there is more to the science of music reproduction that can be represented in your philosophy, Horatio. As such it is impossible to design theorems to account for unknown variables.

In more practical terms: I have a great system. Other audiophiles tell me that, and more importantly I know that. However it takes 30 seconds of a familiar work being played in a concert hall to remind me of what my system can’t do.

[Maclintick]

Glad to know that ( I almost said "hear that" but in view of the literalness to which some are taking the measuring of hearing, decided against).
My fundamental point is that as a Physician, I am very aware that our knowledge of the Human Body is like the proverbial iceberg, with most of what there is to know beneath the surface, undiscovered. I believe that his applies to hearing, and to the Brain's processing of audio signals.
There are certain parameters that we can measure. How do we know that these parameters constitute what actually is essential for the perception of sound? By way of analogy, imagine that beings from an undiscovered planet are making a recognizance journey to Earth. The surreptitiously watch a World Cup Match, knowing nothing of the sport. They measure the rate of photosynthesis of the grass on the playing surface. They measure the amount of beer consumed in the stands and the odors emitted by players and spectators. They then report these findings back. Have they measured anything useful in conveying what happened at the match? In the same fashion, How do we know that the auditory phenomenon that we can measure have a darn thing to do with how we perceive sound? How do we know that two individuals process sounds equally, at the level of the Eighth Cranial Nerve but even more importantly, in terms of what happens after that sensory organ passes the signal to the cerebral cortex. The answer? We have no freaking idea. The brain is truly the last frontier of the human body. And it irritates me to no end that "empiricists" rely on the data that we can measure and insist that there are no other discoveries to be made, that we already know everything there is to know.
To me, that is intellectual hubris.
Enjoy your CDs

Whoa, RFG ! I wouldn't expect to have to leap to the defence of empiricists under attack from a member of the medical profession, one in which the whole panoply of therapeutic interventions have been arrived at by empirical studies of different kinds, many approved for use through large scale testing under double-blind conditions (really dodgy methodology, that -- lacking psychological insight according to some). Your alien analogy is interesting, their puzzled reaction to the spectacle unfolding before them mirroring my own bemusement when inadvertently tuning to an NFL game on late-nite TV, but it seems to me that their scattergun methodology lacks focus.

As you say - & you are far better qualified than me to make such an assertion -- neuroscience is in its infancy, and the way that the brain interprets sensory information is opaquely buried in that cranial iceberg, the large and mysterious mass below the surface, but one can't get away from the fact that for all of human existence our senses have served us well in that they have revealed truth about the world and the larger cosmos, so the brain's mysterious rendering of sensation has objective value. If seeing is believing, then hearing should receive equal validation as an objective truth, perceptible to the majority of humanity. If you were presented with a patient who was hallucinating and hearing hidden voices, you would rightly regard these as pathologies, not as some manifestation of his or her own "subjective" truth, or that the sufferer was possessed by demons.

Can we take it then, that the brain resembles a black box, receiving sensory input and mysteriously transmuting these impulses into revealed truth about the world ? This is not to say that all brains are identical, & that there won't be a myriad divergences of perception in that truth, but that broadly speaking, the vast majority of humanity, if confronted by a growling grizzly at twenty paces, will immediately perceive danger. Compared to the as-yet-imperfectly-understood mechanism by which the cerebral cortex achieves this feat, the process of transferring audio signals from amplifiers to loudspeakers seems trivial. Assuming the amp has been designed to match any real-world speaker, it's a bit of wire, right ? Oh, and I don't imagine any empiricist worth his or her salt would rule out new discoveries revolutionising our understanding of audio transmission -- esoteric cables harnessing dark energy to lead us into audio nirvana, perhaps ?

[jayne lee wilson]

How about, "seeking to protect their readers from the self-delusion of some (not all) 'audiophiles' whose subjectivism is presented in objective clothing"?

Some very pertinent points there but would your concerns also include such matters as the validity or otherwise of, say, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem?

But who is the readership?

The sneering condescension of the paragraph about "Ken Kessler and several other audio perverts" was enough for me to chuck the thing aside.
Academic in the worst way, piling up the (well known or easily researched) factual knowledge, while mocking or misrepresenting others' attitudes and feelings.

And how bizarrely self-revealing the lengthy "joke" about coat-hanger wire is.....
What a lot of trouble to go to, just to make fun of other people....