Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ucbvax!decwrl!kaepplein@amber.DEC From: kaepplein@amber.DEC Newsgroups: net.audio Subject: nut.audio: The \"ear\" vs. \"the instrument\" Message-ID: <568@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 01:55:33 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.568 Posted: Wed Sep 25 01:55:33 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 03:09:04 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 96 >Subject: nut.audio: The "ear" vs. the "instrument" >Posted: 23 Sep 85 17:39:04 GMT >Organization: New Jersey State Farm for the Terminally Bewildered >Here we go again... >Any perceptual phenominon that can be heard >can also be measured. Period. The problem is that many people >interpret measurements in ways that are either wrong, >incomplete, or misleading. (Those interpreting the results >are often sincere, by the way.) Violent agreement here, and a good quote (though out of context): > This is an example of the kind of thinking that's >held the audio industry 20 years behind the state of the art >for so long. What is keeping consumer audio in the dark ages is multifold. The first is a refusal to believe there is a problem. Solutions are never sought for problems thought not to exist. Most problems are discovered in the course of listening since few of us play music for the enjoyment of our test equipment. Measurement for TIM was developed after it was sonicly identified with much debate. Two reasons that problems arn't recognized are either "ear ignorance" or "ear denial." The former is due to lack of training and the latter is caused by a lack of confidence in our subjective, flawed ears. Both problems form a cause for rabid audiophiles but the second has interesting socilogical aspects. People's worship of technology and instant acceptance of any new "high tech" product confers instant absolute authority to "scientific" measurements. It dissolves people's confidence in their ears and their judgement. It also gives a false security to the ignorant. "These CDs MUST be good because there is only .003% distortion, 95 db S/N etc.." The introduction of the CD player matches the introduction of transistorized components in an important way. Both had measured specifications better than the existing technology at the time (tubes and LPs). The public reacted by junking their tubes and LPs and adopting the new and initially flawed products that sounded worse. Only after a few heritics of technology spoke up and identified problems that they heard were problems identified and addressed. > You deny that anything but your ears count, >and refuse to allow measurements of what it is that you hear. Ears ARE the only judges that count. If our test equipment is happy but our ears not than it is still failure. The problem with measurements is that all available measurements still can not guarentee good sound or even why two amplifiers sound different. I accept the fact that some measurements are useful but they provide less than the whole story. What really keeps audio in the dark ages is that most technocrats see no deficiency in today's measurements or interpretations. This blithe attitude is reflected every month in CD player reviews. Talk about vested interests? CBS owns both Audio and Stereo Review, and ABC owns High Fidelity. CBS Japan is mostly owned by Sony and Phillips has diverse interests too. These folks and Tidy Bowl want you to feel inadaquate with what you currently have and buy the new clean product. The public deserves the deception too. They want a simple quick way to judge and buy audio without listening. They both suffer from and promote the belief that technology holds the answer. > (Some)Recording >engineers, (some) concert producers, etc, develop this >skill to a nearly instinctive basis in order to survive. Those >who would criticize should at least learn what various >technical problems sound like. How can these people recognize problems with their failable ears? Don't they immediately dig out their test equipment? (sarcasim here and elsewhere) The attack on Mr. Schley was unnecessary. In fact, of the few people who heard CD player deficiencies and contacted me about modifications, he was the only one recognizing specific problems in the circuitry. >(nut.audio goes through this discussion once every three months or >so, a completely unnecessary and wasteful behavior. It's called >the tyranny of the minority Audiophile, as far as I'm concerned.) I agree its wasteful, but as long as only a minority spends more time critically listening than reading specs, its necessary. If we want to catch up on those 20 years we have to fight the ignorance that Stereo Review and Digital Audio promote. If anyone cares to read an intellegent article on the need for new and better measurements, I suggest "The Sound of Audio Amplifiers" by Martin Colloms. This graduate engineer's article can be found in two audiophile publications: HiFi News & Record Review (May 1985) and The Audio Amateur ( #3, 1985). >(ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj Mark Kaepplein decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!kaepplein / Kaepplein@dec.arpa Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com