Hey wait, I have an idea! Tell me if you agree before I spend the hour
or so this will take: I'll prepare clips of the same two examples in my
Audibility article, but they'll be longer and I won't tell you there the
nasty noise starts and stops. I'll put them on my site and post the
links, then you'll play the clips and tell me where you think the noise
is present. Then I'll tell you if you're correct or not. If you fear I'd
lie about the locations, I'll be glad to email the answers in advance
to a disinterested third party.
Deal?
Here's the problem with that!
First:
That test is not testing for the problem. Its essentially demonstrating the ear's masking principle. All this time, I've been talking about something else.
Second:
I've worked really hard to make sure my gear lacks the higher ordered artifacts that cause brightness. As a result, even at 100db my system has a relaxed presentation (it doesn't sound loud- you don't realize how loud its actually playing until you try to talk to someone right beside you).
Part of what makes that possible is to not give it a source that is inherently messed up! When you post a sound file, its **digital**. Once its in whatever codex, the associated artifacts that allowed it to get there are inherent in the file- no matter how good the intentions. Once there, they can't be removed. this makes it unsuitable for the caparisons I would want to demonstrate.
An alternative would be to encode the material on an analog format, so the artifacts in question aren't inherent and instead are added. I'm betting that's not going to happen.
An additional problem- the one with going to your house- is that in doing so, the test has to be heard through gear that is known to contribute similar artifacts. This makes it tricky to make any sense of the results and I'm pretty sure is part of why you've already seen null results.
BTW Ralph, you don’t have to keep saying stuff like "You don’t seem to
understand." I’m certain there’s much here that you don’t understand,
but I don’t feel the need to insult you by using such language.
I was attempting to pin you down on a point, which you've sidestepped pretty consistently. That suggests to me that its possible that you've not dealt with the topic before. "you don't seem to understand" is a shorthand way of conveying that; please note the word 'seems' that I was careful to include in that phrase and it was in no way intended to be insulting.
Put another way, you freely acknowledge that analog and tubes have artifacts that cause them to be 'warm' (while measuring perfectly flat on the bench) but so far you don't seem able to also acknowledge that transistors and digital also have artifacts but of a different nature that cause the aspect of 'brightness' and 'hardness' which are also colorations. This too suggests a lack of understanding, but it might simply be a reluctance to cede the point.
FWIW, the fact that trace amounts of the 7th order causes a metallic quality in the sound is something that has been known since the 1930s. So I don't see it as any stretch at all to simply acknowledge that such could be the case. I really don't want to devote more time going round and round on the topic than you do.
At any rate y'all, (including you, Ethan), Enjoy the holidays!
