@spatialking
Not asking ... so much as stating a point of view and inviting others to chime in.
Your reply is perfect.
E
Not asking ... so much as stating a point of view and inviting others to chime in.
Your reply is perfect.
E
The invention of measurements and perception
This is going to be pretty airy-fairy. Sorry.
Let’s talk about how measurements get invented, and how this limits us.
One of the great works of engineering, science, and data is finding signals in the noise. What matters? Why? How much?
My background is in computer science, and a little in electrical engineering. So the question of what to measure to make systems (audio and computer) "better" is always on my mind.
What’s often missing in measurements is "pleasure" or "satisfaction."
I believe in math. I believe in statistics, but I also understand the limitations. That is, we can measure an attribute, like "interrupts per second" or "inflamatory markers" or Total Harmonic Distortion plus noise (THD+N)
However, measuring them, and understanding outcome and desirability are VERY different. Those companies who can do this excel at creating business value. For instance, like it or not, Bose and Harman excel (in their own ways) at finding this out. What some one will pay for, vs. how low a distortion figure is measured is VERY different.
What is my point?
Specs are good, I like specs, I like measurements, and they keep makers from cheating (more or less) but there must be a link between measurements and listener preferences before we can attribute desirability, listener preference, or economic viability.
What is that link? That link is you. That link is you listening in a chair, free of ideas like price, reviews or buzz. That link is you listening for no one but yourself and buying what you want to listen to the most.
E
Let’s talk about how measurements get invented, and how this limits us.
One of the great works of engineering, science, and data is finding signals in the noise. What matters? Why? How much?
My background is in computer science, and a little in electrical engineering. So the question of what to measure to make systems (audio and computer) "better" is always on my mind.
What’s often missing in measurements is "pleasure" or "satisfaction."
I believe in math. I believe in statistics, but I also understand the limitations. That is, we can measure an attribute, like "interrupts per second" or "inflamatory markers" or Total Harmonic Distortion plus noise (THD+N)
However, measuring them, and understanding outcome and desirability are VERY different. Those companies who can do this excel at creating business value. For instance, like it or not, Bose and Harman excel (in their own ways) at finding this out. What some one will pay for, vs. how low a distortion figure is measured is VERY different.
What is my point?
Specs are good, I like specs, I like measurements, and they keep makers from cheating (more or less) but there must be a link between measurements and listener preferences before we can attribute desirability, listener preference, or economic viability.
What is that link? That link is you. That link is you listening in a chair, free of ideas like price, reviews or buzz. That link is you listening for no one but yourself and buying what you want to listen to the most.
E
Showing 14 responses by erik_squires
A good example of this is the redbook standard set in the late 70s early 80s for the then emerging CD format. The standard was fine, but it took until the late 90s to figure out that distortion in the time domain (jitter) was a major factor Jitter is interesting. I mean, yes, we can certainly point to it as one measurement that has improved over time, and Redbook had a markedly big jump in audible performance in the last 10 years. Is that enough? I mean, we never proved it really, and we don't actually have any idea of what is audible, or if there are other parameters around jitter which are important. I mean, AFAIK, there's not even an agreement from manufacturer to manufacturer as to how exactly jitter is measured. So if jitter IS the problem ... what is inaudible? |
I'd like to move this a little more forward: @spatialking wrote: I can tell you the reason we have jitter problems, besides the fact that the basic CD clocks are not all the accurate, Clocks are much better now than they were before at the same price range. Maybe this is why DAC's got magically better? is the sample clock is encoded in the data stream. The clock is not a I think maybe this is the transmission method, not the data. I think the issue is who is in charge though. I2S and USB allow the DAC to be in charge of the clock. |
Here’s a blast from the past : Sonic Frontiers may have been the only one’s I know of to expose I2S outside of a CD player: https://www.stereophile.com/content/sonic-frontiers-transport-3-cd-transport-processor-3-da-processo... |
jea48, aren't microphones and tape recorders essentially measurement devices/test equipment? If it wasn't for these measurement devices would you even know what the timbre of a performance were? At least for the intentions of this thread, no. They are recording devices. A measure is a number. So what I meant to talk about here is that a number, like signal to noise (S/N) by itself has no real meaning in terms of desirability. We, humans, use these to tell us a little about the equipment and signal quality, and we must give that number meaning. For instance, one amp at 1 watt has a S/N ratio of 90 dB. How much better is it than 900 dB? I mean, yes,we can do math and express this in volts, but is it now at the point of ridiculous? Would you pay 10x as much? Could you hear it? Numbers are great for automating testing, and creating manufacturing standards. They also validate whether or not we are making a meaningful change, but ultimately there's a separate step where we must ascribe value and perception to it. Best, E |
You're being entirely arbitrary in your definition of what constitutes a measurement device. You seem to be hung up on intent. What I'm trying to focus on is that a measurement (i.e. measure, number) has to be invented. They get invented when an experimenter needs a new way of thinking about a problem. Volts, Watts, Amperes. Even those don't really exist in nature. Volta, Watts and Ampere all started from not having a number, to having a number. Those numbers made math and engineering possible. I love numbers, but just because I have a number, does not mean I have a quality associated with it. That's the next step, and that's where I think we fumble.
Sorry for the confusion, I meant Amplifier. :) For instance, one amp at 1 watt has a S/N ratio of 90 dB. Though I think when these are taken, it really should be at 2.83V, not 1 Watt. Best, E |
I taught statistics and experimental psychology... This is a field in which measures are constantly evolving and being added to. I'm afraid that in audio our measures are decades old and have not been updated, just cheaper to collect. What I mean is, we can do better, but the will and effort isn't universally taken very far. I'll give you an example. I once replaced tweeter caps in a Focal speaker. The sound was really good, but for the first 48 hours I was having weird surround sound effects. I thought I could hear things happening behind me and to the right. Eventually the problem went away. Could I express this as a measure of standard measures like uF, ESR or something else? Probably not. But with some effort and time and money I might have been able to come up with a time / phase based explanation for the effects I was hearing. I didn't have any of it. My point is, we perceive something, then we find a way to measure it, then we use that measurement to tell us something. That doesn't mean all perception has been measured. Best, E |
I was going to leave this subject alone, feeling we had covered it well enough, but then this appeared in my feed: https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/01/06/border-patrol-dac-revisited-audio-fur/ Lots there I agree with, and I have barely started reading. In particular: - Perception and a specific measurement are not correlated until they are correlated - Stereophile has a trend / fashion to sell. Their version of "neutral" is not really neutral. |
Thank you for the kind words. quality associated with it. Clearly, these numbers represent specific physical things. What i meant was, is 4 Volts warm? Is 0.8A precise imaging? Do 30 watts sound hard? Inventing a measure, such as your cholesterol level, is not yet the same as being able to ascribe a quality or desirability to it. Now we clearly use certain limits to describe healthy, at risk, and unhealthy cholesterol levels, but that did not just come into being the moment the cholesterol could be measured. That took a lot more work. Best, E |
They didn't just have themes, they had opening songs which described the plot to the newly watching. Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip That started from this tropic port Aboard this tiny ship ... source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed. source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/mredlyrics.html |