Golden Earring wrote: > The chap who designed my DAC has written a short paper on his design > philosophy & methodology. He stresses that he listens first to identify > shortcomings, *-then-* takes some measurements in the hope that they > will assist in rectifying the perceived problems, makes his changes to > the electronics as appears necessary and then listens again. If there > are still problems he either tries measuring something else or starts > making incremental changes where possible to see if they make matters > better or worse. It's all an iterative process for him. Since he's spent > 20 years working in recording studios & has designed both ADCs & DACs > used often by recording engineers, he has access to a lot of kit & > recordings. For example, he could compare the purely analogue chain of > processing from the amplified output of a professional high speed > analogue tape machine (with very low analogue "jitter" of the kind that > Arny finds objectionable, caused by wow & flutter) playing an analogue > master tape with the output of the same device fed through an ADC-DAC > chain prior to the same amplification which is almost an ABX test in > itself (it's actually a sighted A-B test, but could easily be altered to > a full ABX). >
I suspect what I will say next. This well-meaning engineer is not doing proper listening tests. He's made the mistake on focusing on one of the lesser important aspects of one of the more important parts of listening tests, which is the perceived sonic quality of a recording. The problem with this is that the annals of listening tests show that some of *the best recordings for finding audible imperfections in audio products* are have flaws, sometimes pretty obvious ones, and that often those flaws make the recordings sound pretty universally objectionable. The other problem is that since he doesn't raise the issues, I presume that his alleged listening tests aren't actually tests: they are the usual sighted evaluation unconscious self-aggrandization that humans slip into unless they intentionally enforce well-known safeguards. > > I tend to trust the judgement of recording engineers (which is why my > system doesn't have tone controls or user-adjustable balance), so I > thought I'd take a punt on his box of tricks. Since it also contains a > good fully-balanced headphone amplifier & a MM/MC phono preamplifier > with equalisation, neither of which I had already although I do have > some decent cans & a reasonable record deck with some legacy LP's, I > figured I wasn't risking that much dush if the DAC made no audible > difference to my system (for what it does the price, especially for an > ex-demo model through eBay auction, was quite reasonable). > Your gun, your bullet, your foot! ;-) I trust recording engineers (I are one!) to come up with the best (more or less) recording that is possible, and know how to make good sound possible if not likely. As far as being trapped into wishful thinking and audio magic, they are quite a bit better off than rank audiophiles, but they are far from perfect. > > I still think it does - the ABX test is the real "proof of the > pudding"... > Of course. However ABX is not the only valid form of listening tests, and for some things it is not the best. Its biggest weakness is its biggest strength, and that is the fact that it is not a preference test. It is a test of what sounds different or not, and that is that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ arnyk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=64365 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
