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Archimago's Musings: On the Joy of Numbers
#1
Here's another typically well argued and beautifully constructed blog post by Archimago:

http://archimago.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/...re-on.html

Contrary to what I expected from the title, it's not about digital audio per se but is more generally about objective vs subjective thinking in audio.  Specifically it's by way of a response to a recent article by Herb Reichert, called "Audio Without Numbers".  I won't say any more in this post as it might detract from the enjoyment of reading the article(s).
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#2
Very much along the lines I agree with.
I consider Herb Reichert's writings to be an ideal candidate for the Pseud's corner column in Private Eye, and generally the more distortion a product has the more likely he is to rate it highly.
Definitely somebody who likes a lot of added sauce from his equipment poured over the recording he is listening to.
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire

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#3
I’ll put a different slant on things. I didn't have a big problem with Reichert's article when I first read it and I don't have a lot of problems with Archimegos's article but even if he's right about Reichert I think he's wrong about some of his own claims.

Archimago says “…I read Mr. Reichert's article as unrealistically divisive and unreasonably bitter when he calls out against the "Self-proclaimed audio objectivists, like those that troll audio forums, are not scientists, or audio professionals... They are pathologically self-centered people...". By doing this, he has created a fairytale, but more so, a logically flawed "strawman" whom he then sets off to attack as if there are legions of these narcissistic "audio objectivists" he needs to warn otherwise defenseless "subjectivist" audiophiles against.” I disagree about the fairytale and the straw man, the people Reichert describes do exist and I do think their point of view should be disputed.

I have no problems with measurements, they’re indispensible. We wouldn’t have the gear we have without our current grasp of theory and a lot of measurements but measurements are not the be all and end all. Measurements don’t prescribe how a piece of gear will sound, they help us to understand why it sounds the way it does. Science rests on 2 foundations, observation and measurement, and there is no science without either but when push comes to shove and there is a situation where the observations and the measurements don’t agree with each other, which wins? If the observations can be satisfactorily verified then the observations win, further research ensues and the current theory gets modified.

Another quote from Archimego, my main problem with his approach: “Do we actually think that respected "high end" hardware designers don't understand these underlying principles when they create good gear? Are these physical characteristics of sound not universal and apply to all audio engineers and circuit designers transculturally whether designed and built in the USA, the UK, Germany, or China?” I think our equipment designers do understand the current state of theory but read the reasons put forward by the designers of some very well accepted gear for why they designed it the way they did and you will find people who designed similar components going down quite different routes for quite different reasons, and even citing beliefs which are not a part of currently accepted theory as part of their reasons.

Can you get the result right if you have the principles wrong? Archimego’s questions imply that he thinks we can’t but the history of science is actually littered with centuries of examples of people getting the result right and the reason wrong. Our current understanding of gravity starts with Newton but for centuries before that people were designing things which made highly effective use of gravity while believing that the reason those things worked was because of something very different to our idea of gravity. Our current knowledge of infection starts with Pasteur and the recognition of bacteria and the role they played yet physicians were saving the lives of people with serious injuries through the use of techniques like cauterisation and the application of poultices with what we now know to be anti-bacterial properties for centuries before the existence of bacteria was known. The Wright Brothers achieved powered flight and their achievements were doubted because the theories current at the time said it could not be done. Scientists wrote and published papers claiming that the Wright Brothers flight was a hoax and supporting their claim with copies calculations from accepted theory, all correctly done; the only problem was that their theory was wrong. Planes had started to fly despite the fact that theory said they couldn’t. I’d say that what history shows us is that we all have a lot to thank those people who believed in the supposedly unbelievable, ignored the fact that they had no proof that what they were going to do could not be done, did what was regarded as impossible, and delivered us the world we enjoy living in today. It's easy to come up with more examples where people got it right while getting the theory wrong.

Do I think it's possible for an equipment designer to hear something that isn't currently by our current theories and come up with a design that actually sounds better while providing an account for why it sounds better which may be right but could also be wrong, even very wrong? Yes, I do think that's possible. People have been doing that for centuries and there's no reason to think that there will be no more examples of that sort of invention now or in the future.

Now to there general topic of measurements and their value.

I remember back somewhere around the 60s/70s seeing disputes in audio magazines between those who claimed that they could hear differences between some amplifiers with identical THD results and the responses of their opponents who claimed that any 2 amps with the same THD had to sound identical. THD was reported as a simple percentage at the time and THD results didn’t show the harmonic spectrum of the distortion being measured. We now know that odd and even order harmonic distortions sound different and that 2 amps with the same overall level of THD can and do sound different if the spectrum of the distortion is different. Flash forward to the early days of digital and there was a fight between those who claimed that they could hear differences between CD players with identical THD and IMD measurements and those who claimed that players that measured identically had to sound identical. Then someone identified jitter and we started measuring jitter. What do you know? CD players with identical THD and IMD can sound different.

It’s no use relying on measurements if you’re not measuring the right thing. I have a suspicion that most current test reports which include measurements don’t measure everything that can be measured because of time and money constraints, and we keep finding new and useful things to measure which reveal things we could not previously explain. Until the 90s time really wasn’t considered as relevant to many measurements but now we have jitter measurements and waterfall plots for speakers and our understanding of how things work has improved but most improvements involve something which was the subject of disputed observation for some time before the observations were accepted and understood. The fact that some observations aren’t generally accepted and aren’t understood clearly has never stopped people making practical use of those observations and no scientist is going to assure us that our current state of knowledge and understanding is complete. We’re all still learning and it’s a mistake to think that we’re always going to be in possession of all of the measurements needed to show that some claim is right. As they say in science, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Lack of proof does not mean you must be wrong, just that you can’t prove that you are right. You may be right, you may be wrong, and proving whether you are right or wrong is often nowhere near as simple as many people think.

You could be excused for thinking, having read the above, that I am one of those who believes that the “subjectivists” never get it wrong and that it’s only “self-proclaimed audio objectivists” who make mistakes. That’s not the case. Subjectivists make mistakes too. Neither side gets it right all of the time but anyone who asserts that a claim HAS to be wrong if it isn’t supported by current theory and measurements, or who asserts that it HAS to be right because a lot of people can hear a difference is making a claim that is wrong, most definitely wrong. Both sides get it right some of the time and both sides get it wrong some of the time.

Science proceeds from observation through measurement to theory and it’s worth remembering that while each individual observation made by an individual somewhere is nothing more than “anecdotal evidence” on it’s own, lots of pieces of “anecdotal evidence” gathered together, quantified and then processed, can form the measurements on which valid theory is based. Anecdotal evidence has been the start of a lot of science, in fact the evidence which provided the impetus for the activities which developed over many centuries into modern science was anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence should never be ignored but that doesn’t mean mean it should just be accepted blindly, it means it has to be tested and testing is a lot more difficult than many appreciate if it is to be done to a rigorous standard. If the testing pans out, then there’s something that is accepted and work on explaining and exploiting it reliably and effectively can proceed.

But that leaves the big question of how we should regard products which are claimed to produce results which have yet to be verified or are based on unaccepted theories. All we can do is to exercise caution. Some people will reject all such products and that means they’ll reject some products which do work and would benefit them. Some people will accept all such products and they’ll end up with some products which don’t deliver and end up wasting their money. The rest of us take a bet on some things and reject others based on a combination of what our ears tell us on one hand, what our thoughts and beliefs tell us on the other hand, and how much the thing costs and what we think our odds of getting the purchase decision right are. Get that decision right and we either have a product that enhances our listening enjoyment which we can enjoy while others are waiting for final proof that it works, or we have a lemon and a lighter wallet. Get it wrong and we’ve either got a wallet which still contains the cash that would enable us to buy the product we’ve rejected and aren’t enjoying even though it really does work, or we’ve avoided the lemon and still have cash in our wallet to use on other things which really do work. Notice that there are ways of getting the decision right or wrong regardless of whether the product actually works or not.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#4
Great post David A, you had me right to the end and I should have been doing something else!

Very much agree, but also value Archimago’s posts too - I’m quite interested in measurements but wouldn’t have the time, money, or knowledge to buy and use an audio precision or similar and lab environment to use it in so it’s useful to see others sharing.

Best to keep an open mind about all things, but also to remember there are people out there actively planning to make money out of our inability to prove whether something works as claimed or not.  They of course have the upper hand since practically no consumers have the necessary gear to measure other than their ears, which are part of a complex system that can give very misleading results - any human being that thinks otherwise might benefit from reading a few more papers on the related subject - I certainly feel more clued up having done so.

I often think of Devialets claim of 0.000000001% (or whatever it was) THD, which was all over their marketing material, and followed through to the first Phantom (where they rounded it to ZERO for the masses). The Pro sounds significantly better to my ears than the previous expert, and that seems a generally accepted consensus too, yet has almost the same THD at 0.00000000000001% (or whatever). OK they’re both zero - clearly the THD was the best number they had, and there were plenty that they hid or didn’t measure first time round. At the Pros launch they mentioned some other numbers, many of which had doubled or more in precision.  There have been three Phantom models and each allegedly sounds better off mainly the same numbers as the original. Measurements are valuable but won’t necessarily give you the whole truth especially once they’ve been through the marketing dept!

>>> 1st Place Award: Devialet, last decades most disappointing technology purchase.  <<<

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#5
Thanks to thumb5 for sharing these articles. I really enjoyed reading both, much food for thought and I am not even sure I have finished digesting. 

Fantastic post by David A. He makes some very valid points.

It is somewhat ironic that the conclusion of both pieces was essentially the same, i.e. that objectivists and subjectivists should try and appreciate one another and cohabit.

Actually I am very proud that this forum is one of the very few places on the internet that actually achieves this.   Smile

Guillaume
Industry disclosure: UK distributor for Shunyata Research

220 PRO, totaldac d1 server with additional external power supply, totaldac d1-seven, Echole PSU for Totaldac, Wilson Audio Sasha 2, Shunyata Research cables, Shunyata Hydra Alpha A10 + DPC-6 v3, Various Entreq ground boxes and cables, Entreq Athena level 3 rack, 2 X SOtM sNH-10G with sCLK-EX + 10MHz Master Clock input + sPS-500 PSU, i5 sonicTransporter w/ 1TB SSD

UK
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#6
Until I retired I didn't do much messing about with audio, just an occasional launch at a new product I fancied.
Back in the 70s I had a subjective experience which lead me to suspect that the then current view that everything was characterised by measurements and all amps which measured the same sound the same was suspect.
I had a Goodmans 1-10 tuner amp, the amp of which had one of the lowest distortion levels HiFi News had ever measured, and when I bought mine from the original Audio-T, on the 4th floor of 119 Oxford Street iirc, it came with a distortion test certificate done by Martin Colloms, who worked there then.
Some years later, probably 1974 or so I saw a Cambridge Audio P60 in the dealer in Huddersfield which I loved the look of and, having earned a bit of cash in my first job, I rather fancied buying it. I went into the shop and chatted to the owner. I was concerned that the P60 may not perform as well as the Goodmans because it only had about half the power. The dealer agreed to a home demo and I was amazed to find (it took a while since I wasn't expecting it) that the P60 sounded markedly better than the Goodmans and from then on I only bought stuff after I had a direct back to back comparison. (mind you, I have bought stuff that sounded no better but had new functions I wanted or looked nicer or was nicer to use). I even had the tag line for years "if it measures the same and sounds different you are measuring the wrong parameter"
Two things made me a sceptic of the subjective approach much more recently. When I retired I had more time, the one thing I had never been convinced by, both by listening and by an education in electronics, was hearing any difference between cables. I did carefully level matched comparisons of all the interconnects and speaker cables I had accumulated over the years. The only ones which sounded different to each other were those with filter systems built in, MIT and Goldmund. All the others were the same, regardless of price.
The second was all the talk about High Resolution digital and I only had CDs and an old CD transport/DAC. I decided I had better get a new DAC capable of playing these fancy new files, I had a home demo of a range of DACs from the Linn Klimax DS, Resolution Audio Cantata, Weiss 202 (?) and Metric Halo LIO-8. Again using carefully level matched comparisons the differences in sound between these 4 was absolutely minimal to zero and I am sure I would struggle to pick one from the other blind.
This was a slight surprise, but not a shock since as a keen amateur recordist of live concerts I had been surprised and pleased to find that a digital recorder captured a sound indistinguishable from the microphone feed whilst 20 years or recording using tape recorders had never done that, however much I upgraded my recorder.
So when the Devialet came along I had no compunction whatever about accepting that the digital side would be audibly transparent and the benefit of high power and vanishingly small output impedance would mean it was more likely to be transparent with any speakers than any of the expensive tailored kit available nowadays and that was what I was looking for.
Back when I worked with tape and record players I became used to differences in sound quality between items, some marked, particularly pickup cartridges. Now I am satisfied in my own mind that with a Devialet amp the limit will be the speakers and room, not the electronics, so whilst it has been my experience that SQ varied from component back in the day, and still does with speakers and rooms, I think it is now possible to buy an amplifier which does drive speakers without adding colouration or frequency response shifts - the Devialet.
Having written that I know there are plenty of enthusiasts who want to be able to mess about with the sound of their kit. One way is to use digital simulation plug ins, like pro recording engineers do, the other is to chose equipment which has the colouration you like, the latter method is more expensive but more popular Smile

Quick edit. I know there are plenty of owners who believe there have been SQ differences with each update of the Devialet. I do not. There have been lots of functional updates, and more power, but when I updated my D-Premiers to an 800 I did them one at a time. When the first 250 came back before sending the D-Premier back to be updated to 250 (so the pair of 250s would become a 800). Careful level matched sound quality comparison showed no difference in SQ using the AES input on the sort of music I listen to.
When I changed from 800 to Original d'Atelier there was too long in time between comparisons for any confident assessment.
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire

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#7
@David A: thank you, that was a really interesting post.

Your comments about how high-quality audio equipment is designed are thought-provoking.  To be an expert designer (in any field) I suppose first of all you have to know the "rules" inside-out and only then are you likely to know intuitively when and how to "break them".  In other words, good design is a blend of engineering and a dash of art.  If you stick purely to engineering you'll probably end up with something serviceable but probably lacking that spark of magic.  Adding the "art" part gives scope for brilliance, at the expense of not necessarily understanding how or why it got there.  Come to think of it, much the same is true in music although the balance might be different.

As Guillaume pointed out, everyone seems to conclude that balance is the key.  When that's remembered it certainly makes for a more interesting and worthwhile discussion.
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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#8
(17-Apr-2018, 16:50)f1eng Wrote: Until I retired I didn't do much messing about with audio, just an occasional launch at a new product I fancied.

----snip------

----snip------
Quick edit. I know there are plenty of owners who believe there have been SQ differences with each update of the Devialet. I do not. There have been lots of functional updates, and more power, but when I updated my D-Premiers to an 800 I did them one at a time. When the first 250 came back before sending the D-Premier back to be updated to 250 (so the pair of 250s would become a 800). Careful level matched sound quality comparison showed no difference in SQ using the AES input on the sort of music I listen to.
When I changed from 800 to Original d'Atelier there was too long in time between comparisons for any confident assessment.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I enjoyed reading this, and agree with much of what you wrote, FWIW.
Roon ROCK on Intel NUC6i5SYH/Ethernet | VPI Avenger | Devialet 440 Pro CI | Vivid Audio Giya G3 | Auralic Aires Mini | Synology 1812+ NAS
SXSW, US
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#9
(17-Apr-2018, 16:50)f1eng Wrote: Quick edit. I know there are plenty of owners who believe there have been SQ differences with each update of the Devialet. I do not. There have been lots of functional updates, and more power, but when I updated my D-Premiers to an 800 I did them one at a time. When the first 250 came back before sending the D-Premier back to be updated to 250 (so the pair of 250s would become a 800). Careful level matched sound quality comparison showed no difference in SQ using the AES input on the sort of music I listen to.
When I changed from 800 to Original d'Atelier there was too long in time between comparisons for any confident assessment.

I agree with you about the update from D-Premier to 250. In retrospect I thought it was money not spent wisely. But the update to the Pro version including CI was a very significant improvement especially for USB which I use now most of the time with my Innuos Zenith.
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