They are listed in the product specs. That’s how they were generated.
But remember there is no test procedure or instrument that can show the differences heard (or not heard) by using regenerated power, power cords, interconnects, or for that matter amplifiers and loudspeakers but those differences certainly do exist.
Until we can figure out a way to measure the differences we as humans hear then it is all just cannon fodder.
We do a lot of work with automotive elastomers and even though the parts in question meet all of the customer requirements (Chemistry, load rate, durometer, life cycle, salt spray, hot compression set, cold compression set, UV resistance, etc.) two ride analysts can test drive the same vehicle and come up with different “feelings” on how the part fits the general perceived market for the vehicle. There still is no test for the “feel” of a perfectly good part.
You may believe this to be true, Paul, but you are simply incorrect. It will be highly dependent on the load. This was clearly shown in the ASR tests. A 300+ watt per channel amplifier was connected. A power sweep was done. That process takes a lot longer than 5 second. There was a significant drop in the output power of that 300W+ amplifier connected to the HC port, both compared to the direct AC line AND the non HC port. That NTC requires a reasonably significant load in order to achieve a low impedance. Class-D or Class-AB amp and it could easily be 0.75 ohms or more. The measurements clearly show this.
This perfectly describes the difference between subjectivists vs objectivists in this hobby. There are those who need the “argument” to somehow validate their choices.
Then there are those, like myself, who choose what sounds best to their ears and couldn’t care less what others think about their choices.
Measurements mean nothing to me. For example, yes, I do read reviews as entertainment, but I never read the measurements section. All of John Atkinson’s hard work is meaningless to me.
Your preposition is simply incorrect. We absolutely know what level of differences cannot be heard. You simply refuse to accept that without providing any proof, whereas there are large bodies of evidence to show that we cannot hear differences that are even far larger than what we typical accept as “perhaps audible” with measurements.
Exactly. When Amir or anyone else can measure accurately enough to overcome, discover, reveal the barrier between “live” and recorded playback, I’ll pay attention to their measurements. Until then, it’s all masturbation.
We all have different tastes. Many subjectivists unfortunately equate their personal taste with “more accurate”. On the other hand many objectivists either discount personal taste, or discount the total transfer function from recording to the ear, which means electrically accurate may result in less accurate to the brain.
HOWEVER, and that is a HUGE HOWEVER, there is flavor, and then there is audible/inaudible. The ASR tests in this case showed that the benefit, with the connected equipment they used, was inaudible. Period. The impact on the transfer function was not enough to create an audible difference no matter what your particular take on audio is.
okee dokee
Quoted statement is a flawed concept since we can test for audible/inaudible and we show huge difference in speakers, speakers in room, etc.
w.r.t. your comment, two channel stereo can never recreate live music. There are hard physical limitations of what can be done with two channel stereo and speakers that are impossible to overcome. Everything is a trade-off and that is not going to change. There are two many variables including the recordings themselves. Most recorded music captures far more detail and nuance than you are ever likely to hear in a live performance anyway.
I thought Putin got rid of this A guy yesterday, or are we still in the bad dream with monsters in the closet?
This is really not the point, though. I don’t think anyone can tell you what you “hear”. What you hear is the function of myriad factors in your listening space and your body. All ASR is trying to show is that there are certain inputs that have no effect on what you hear.
What a person hears is represented as a function of all the inputs: Y=f(x1, x2, x3, etc)
It sounds like what many ‘subjectivists’ argue is that unless we can accurately measure Y, then the measurements don’t matter. It sounds like what the ‘objectivists’ are trying to show is which x’s impact Y.
We know that human hearing has certain thresholds beyond which differences are imperceptible. If we measure two speaker cables and find that the only measurable difference between them is a small difference in capacitance that will only affect frequencies in the hundreds of kHz, then they really won’t have an effect on what we hear.
I didn’t TOTALLY ignore his review, I ignored most of it as I don’t know the first thing about electronic engineering and I don’t have any interest in knowing either.
What I did was search for “impedance”, which is the regenerator keyword, and it was absent. I made that point in my first post at the top of this thread. Others spotted it, Amir then screwed up his measurements because he didn’t know the product design and then it all went to hell.
It really is rather presumptuous to assume that I, or anyone else, has any interest in defending our buying decisions to anyone. I listen to stuff, may or may not buy it, and don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. Sometimes I buy things on a whim. It’s no one else’s business.
ASR-types seem to have a rather elevated idea of their importance, which I suspect to most audio buyers is somewhere between zero and nothing.
ASR supporters seem to not understand the basic concept, that measuring something in order to know how good something sounds is flawed. Completely flawed.
Certainly measurements are a useful tool that can help make sure a product does not miss the boat.
But measurements are limited to just that. They are simply a tool.
The inference that measurements are the ultimate decider of whether an audiophile can or cannot hear something, whether good or bad, is simply flawed logic.
There’s a really good drama series on Hulu this month that takes you through the whole Theranos scandle. There are similarities to the discussion here.
For those who don’t know about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos there is plenty of info online. To briefly summarize, she had no medical or chemical engineering experience. She drove the development of a new blood testing machine that only needed a pin prick of blood to do anywhere from 200 to 1000 different tests. This is simply not possible and the medical community said so from the start back in the early 2000s.
The product did not work and never could based on current technology and chemistry knowledge!
Yet Elizabeth was able to raise hundreds of millions in capital, appoint a highly esteemed board of directors with people on the level of Henry Kissenger, Goerge Shultz, Rupert Murdock. And she managed to get an exclusive contract with Rite AID to put her self service blood test machines in every store. The employees were strong armed with threats of financial ruin if the breached a non-disclosure. And many were young and didn’t know you can’t enforce a non-disclosure to shield illegal activity and practices. But two employees were smarter than that and eventually blew the whistle. Also around the same time, doctors were discovering these test results were dangerously incorrect by a wide margin.
The whole thing collapsed around 2015, investments were a total loss, and Elizabeth was just found guilty of fraud January 2022. She will be sentenced in September 2022. Fortunately nobody died or was seriously harmed by a misdiagnosis but that risk was great and would have eventually happened.
This just shows how far human perception can be deceived. This went on for 15 years and very recently! At no time did any investor, including Rite Aid ever get a third party evaluation of the product by an MD or respected medical equipment company. If that would have been done early on, the collateral damage would have been far less.
Exactly the point I was trying to tease out of them. Measurements only generate data if the measurement is valid. There are four main types of validity:
Construct validity: Does the test measure the concept that it’s intended to measure?
Content validity: Is the test fully representative of what it aims to measure?
Face validity: Does the content of the test appear to be suitable to its aims?
Criterion validity: Do the results accurately measure the concrete outcome they are designed to measure?
A construct refers to a concept or characteristic that can’t be directly observed, but can be measured by observing other indicators that are associated with it.
Not being an EE, or anything related to one, I asked for this, and was told “we have the most accurate test equipment, period”. Which is NOT validity.
That’s complete and total rubbish. What was the last thing you went to? Me, it was Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion last week, in a superb church. I’ve listened to recordings, but it’s the visual cues of a live performance that enable you to appreciate every detail and nuance to a far greater degree than in a recording.
The same can be said of a wide range of acoustic music, especially classical, in particular the vocal works Bach, Handel, Monteverdi etc.
I love classical music, but rarely listen to large orchestral works because recordings can rarely do them justice. For me they are performances, not soundtracks, and the performance accentuates the sound like a recording never can.
And so do many audiophiles. When something that is not supported by our 100 year plus knowledge of electrical engineering we, the ASR-types, are told our hearing isn’t good enough. Like we have some birth defect. We are told our systems are low end and not capable of resolving these differences. We are told high end audio is an exclusive club where membership is based the ability to spend enormous funds for equipment .
So it goes both ways
Let me guess, you are implying absolutely nothing with this little parable, right?
If I remember correctly, back in the mid-late 1980’s great measuring equipment was all the rage, but it didn’t sound very good.
That’s your self-importance shining through. Audiophiles don’t tell ASR-types they’re deaf.
It’s the ASR-type’s telling people that hear differences that they aren’t. As I posted yesterday, a classic example of an ASR-type telling a regular here that he’s not hearing what he’s hearing:
There are audiophiles at all rent levels. PSA seems mid-market. One of the most fun and committed groups can be found at theartofsound.net. They are decidedly low rent.
And of course the DIY brigade, lencoheaven.net for example.