MikeBettinger said:
Whilst I appreciate your point, I have to disagree. Subjective language used in wine tasting works because it is codified and global, through both formal qualifications and informal, such as wine appreciation evening classes. The descriptor "woody" would mean exactly the same in Bejing or Boston. Whereas, say "grainy", I have heard used to describe both HF distortion and a pronounced midrange peak.
Nor am I, but facts is facts, those inconvenient little things. To be a Master of Wine or a Master Sommelier, you have to pass rigorous tasting tests ("Here is a glass of red wine. Tell me where it's from, the grape type, and the vintage."). There is no such for audio reviewers and salesmen- that only takes a convincing line and a flair for PR.
john curl said:
Hi John,
When you say that you know how Halcro does it, it was unclear what you were referring to as the "it". Was it how they do the measurements, or how they get the distortion so low, or something else? Could you tell us how they do whatever it was that you were referring to?
Thanks,
Bob
SY said:
The vine culture is hundreds of years old. There is a long-time experience, knowledge and tradition in that area. However hi-fi electronics is very young in comparision and those people who do collect most valuable subjective experience coupled with the design experience are very few and their knowledge is not easily transferrable - in a same way as you would not be able to became a good vine tester just from the books and chemical analysis without a proper training form an experienced teacher. That also makes an exchange in experience very difficult indeed.
I have my own experience of design and subjective evaluation. Several products with my electronics designs gained good reputation and numerous awards, including "Class A Recommended" and "Product of the Year" in Stereophile magazine. The electronics design was done be me however a lot of subjective testing and evaluation was done by Michael Creek and I've learned a lot from his many years experience in listening. Without his subjective evaluation I would not be able to do the electronics part right. For 9 years we worked together and I've learned a lot on top of my purely electonic design skills (and I hope that he did learn a bit more about the electronics
) . Now I know very well what John and Charles are talking about and sincerely sharing most of what they have said in this thread. It could look silly and "marketing hype" if you do not have that experience. It is nothing to be ashamed of - I am not going into an argument with an experienced vine tester - rather I would listen to him, follow his advice and would not blame him if my personal taste is different from his or if my taste for vine depends exclusively on it's chemical analysis. Alex
Alex,
I understand too. But there may be a lot of personal taste and probably too much routine. The routine, understandable, but also does not allow to step over a certain kind of personal subjective thinking.
And though the formal education is assumed to be not necessary, the opposite is true.
I understand too. But there may be a lot of personal taste and probably too much routine. The routine, understandable, but also does not allow to step over a certain kind of personal subjective thinking.
And though the formal education is assumed to be not necessary, the opposite is true.
PMA said:
Pavel,
there is nothing wrong with a personal taste in the area where the end result is a subjective musical pleasure
. It is great that there are many different tastes and that there is no perfect amplifer for everybody - as there is no vine for every man and every occasion. The very idea of perfection in this case is subjective and can not be measured. Electronics perfection as engineer would understand it does not equal the listening perfection most of the time - it is as easy as that, IMHO. That does not mean that there is no corellation between these two sides - just that the corellation is very complex and most of our attempts to evaluate things objectively happily destroyed by the very nature of human emotional perception of music.
Cheers
Alex
rdf said:
Perish the thought!
Well I’m not sure that that should negatively reflect upon any of my designs, considering the fact that I have never tried to commercialise them any of them. BTW, the last time I looked this place was still called DIY audio. Thank you for the astute observation though.
Bob Cordell said:
Thanks!
I was thinking in particular about Charles Hanson’s multiple celebratory posts in the BJT Vs MOSFET (or one or the other Cordell threads) about the vastly superior objective performance that he managed to achieve in his latest amplifier (using those “thermal tracking” BJT’s), over his previous MOSFET design.
The allegedly superior sonic performance of this amplifier was largely put down to the superior objective performance. IIRC, Charles even linked to the measurement pages in the Stereophile review!
But of course, with regards to the Halcro, “measurements don’t mean s**t”.
I take your point, Alex. But let me give you an anecdote which will confuse things further.
About two years ago, when my son was 4, I went to an outdoor party at a friend's house. Most of the people there were wine industry pros or very serious amateurs. They had set up a blind tasting of pink wines in the living room, which was done by the other partygoers before we had arrived.
Jimmy went outside to play in the swimming pool. As I tasted through, number 4 seemed awfully good. Everyone laughed. "That was the wine which placed second," my host told me. When I hit number 11, I thought, "Wow!" More laughter. "That was everyone's favorite." (turned out later to be a Cotat Sancerre rose)
A few minutes later, Jimmy walked into the house and wanted to taste the wines. OK, we've raised him to treat wine as a pretty normal, everyday drink with dinner, so no problem giving this to him. He solemnly grabbed each glass in his little fist, sniffed each of them, and gave each one a little sip. When he got to number 11, he sniffed, sipped, and walked away with the glass, yelling, "This one is MINE!"
PMA said:
Dear Pavel,
it is your personal experience based upon your own perception. That is in something unique for every person. That is why the only way to evaluate if you do something right is to give it to others - and if what you've made is making somebody happy with his/her music listening experience - that what counts. If it is good for a hundred people - it is a measure of something. Putting aside all the marketing tricks and hypes there are amplifiers with which you can live happily, getting pleasure not fom the equipment but from the music. For some people MP3 portable is enough to make tham very happy. My personal credo in this respect is very simple - I always try to make something with what I can happily live in my own system for my personal pleasure. And after that I can do nothing but hope that this would be the same for enough people to buy my designs and make it viable. I know it is not a solid business approach
- that is probably why I am doing industrial electronics now, where all you need is to seduce the measuring equipment.Cheers
Alex
Though there was no 'net to enjoy back in the '70s, the objective/subjective conversations went very much the same way. IMHO, there has been zero progress on this front for almost 40 years now. I'm not holding my breath. If you have two pieces of electronics that *actually* sound different, and you can't put them both on the test bench (or measure them in-situ) and show how the signals differ, and thus why they sound different, then you should get a new test bench, a new education, or possibly a new psychiatrist.
Conrad Hoffman said:
There is "always" a difference, even between two test runs on the same unit
. Problem is elsewhere. Do we measure the right thing? I do believe firmly that if there is a real difference in sound there should be a measurable difference and a proper physical explanation. However it does not mean that a) we know what exactly we need to measure, and
b) we know how to interpret correctly what we've measured.
Continued efforts to find yet another new way for a proper evaluation of the sound quality from measurements shows that there is no satisfactory (for everybody, that's it) solution for that problem - yet.
Alex
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