5 Apr
2013
5 Apr
'13
11:42 p.m.
On Fri, 2013-04-05 at 20:27 +0100, James Stone wrote:
Thanks for posting this. I cannot tell the difference
with ABX - even
for the 108 version - so I guess either my ears are shot (quite
likely) or my ears are not able to hear such subtleties (also quire
likely)..
The weakest link in the sound chain is important, this might be you, but
it also could be your equipment or even the room, standing waves etc..
It could be that something that would cause a loss in sound quality,
will improve the sound for your sound chain. This isn't very likely, but
possible. The phones outputs of my sound card, my hifi amp and my mixing
console do all sound different and in addition the difference differs
regarding to the used phones.
The idea to find out, what we are able to hear and what not, to get more
knowledge about our individual abilities, easily could lead to
miscalculations, when we try to get information about this by double
blind tests. Do you also change the sound chain double blind or at least
blind? A long time ago I mentioned that I never made a real blind/double
blind test, well, what you call a real test, I don't call a valid test.
I made many tests not to get knowledge about my abilities, but when we
developed microphones, or even when we sold stereo pairs, several
employees listened. Btw. to find a stereo pair it's better to listen,
than to do measurements! Try to find a stereo pair of microphones that
fit together, by objective scientific measurements and ask people to
listen to microphones to find stereo pairs. I'll use the stereo pairs
from people who listened to the mics, not the pairs that were found by
objective measurements. The idea that there is something most near to
perfect objectivity is a fallacy.
To find out what abilities we have, we need to make many audio
productions. If people are impressed of our audio productions, perhaps
not mum, maybe people from engineering societies, than we know that
we've got "good ears".
Passing a test only will tell us, how good or worse we are in passing a
test. Meaningful is the quality of our work and the quality depends to
the fact on how many different gear in how many different situations the
sound is good. Is the sound ok in a professional studio and on an
elCheapo car hifi etc.?