paul.raulerson;693713 Wrote: > Snort!!! > > This whole thing is running rampant. I'm a very good software and > systems engineer, and I have more than a little electronics in my > background. > > (1) I can change a dratted USB cable between my Mac and a high end > synch USB DAC (a Wavelength Proton) and -I can hear a difference-. > Honestly, truly, and with repeatable certainty. So what? Im absolutely > sure there is a reason for it, but I am also sure anyone who tells me I > am hallucinating is wrong. :) > > (2) As a test, I took and wrote AIFF music files to a linux disk as a > consecutive file, and as a very scattered around the disk fragmented > file. It made a difference in the playback sound. Surprised me, but it > did. Why? I don't know. I was annoyed that it made a change, but the > obvious suspect is disk activity. The differences went away when I > loaded the files into memory before I sent them to the DAC. > > (3) The Touch sounds different if you play back through different > interfaces. And if you are playing around with USB, if two different > USB cables sound different - so what? I haven't tried it, because I > haven't got a clean USB playback from a touch yet. If when I do try it, > they sound different, it isn't going to rock my world. I'll just use the > cable that sounds best and enjoy the music. > > (4) As for TAS nonsense, yeah - even a 4 year old would have little > difficulty in seeing through that. But other folks around the net have > similar personal experience it is difficult to dismiss. > > Besides, who is it hurting guys? The net is full of vampire hunters > determined to track down and stomp any such "nonsense." They do seem to > take all the fun out of the hobby.... I wonder if the whole flaming > issue is just a publicity stunt for "The Hunger Games?" > > -Paul
Not to belabour the point, but the issue of whether location on disc affects sound or whether or not the disc is highly fragmented is NOT germane to whether using program 1 or program 2 make the same identical file sounds better. You know this as well as I do, I would guess. I would be pretty surprised if the fragmented file actually sounded different to you in a blind test if played through a squeezebox, as well: we're all subject to expectation effects, regardless of our level of expertise. Played through a usb dac, this seems less unlikely, but I still wouldn't trust a sighted test much. The idea that lots of other people claim X, so it must have some plausibility does not wash as a logical argument. People have believed and continue to believe in all manner of things that are known to be counter to fact for all of human history. As to "vampire hunters" "taking the fun out of the hobby". There is actually another way to view this, which is "bullshit artists, snake oil salesmen, and cargo cult pseudo-empiricists are taking the fun out of the hobby". If a usb cable sounded better to me _after a blind test_, it wouldn't rock my boat particularly either. If it sounded better to me in a sighted test, I would probably say something along the lines of "hmm, this is probably expectation bias, I guess I should try to set up a properly controlled test of this, since every 'explanation' I have seen for why this would work this way has been risible". And yes, I am also a good software engineer with a nice position at a major internet company, and a graduate degree from CMU, but a. that isn't relevant, and b. for all anyone here knows, I could really be a janitor at a car fittings company my point here being that any of us talking about our background as justification for our arguments is completely pointless, unless we decide to break anonymity, and with all the cranks on the internet, breaking anonymity may not be in any of our best interests. -- totoro sb touch -> classdaudio sds-450 -> audio physic tempo 4 + rel storm 3 & rythmik f12se ------------------------------------------------------------------------ totoro's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5935 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=93549 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
