Talk but not walk?


Hi Guys

This isn't meant to start a fight, but it is important to on lookers. As a qualifier, I have my own audio forum where we report on audio issues as we empirically test them. It helps us short cut on theories and developing methods of listening. We have a wide range of systems and they are all over the world adding their experiences to the mix. Some are engineers, some are artist and others are audiophiles both new and old. One question I am almost always asked while I am visiting other forums, from some of my members and also members of the forum I am visiting is, why do so many HEA hobbyist talk theory without any, or very limited, empirical testing or experience?

I have been around empirical testing labs since I was a kid, and one thing that is certain is, you can always tell if someone is talking without walking. Right now on this forum there are easily 20 threads going on where folks are talking theory and there is absolutely no doubt to any of us who have actually done the testing needed, that the guy talking has never done the actual empirical testing themselves. I've seen this happen with HEA reviewers and designers and a ton of hobbyist. My question is this, why?

You would think that this hobby would be about listening and experience, so why are there so many myths created and why, in this hobby in particular, do people claim they know something without ever experimenting or being part of a team of empirical science folks. It's not that hard to setup a real empirical testing ground, so why don't we see this happen?

I'm not asking for peoples credentials, and I'm not asking to be trolled, I'm simply asking why talk and not walk? In many ways HEA is on pause while the rest of audio innovation is moving forward. I'm also not asking you guys to defend HEA, we've all heard it been there done it. What I'm asking is a very simple question in a hobby that is suppose to be based on "doing", why fake it?

thanks, be polite

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net


michaelgreenaudio

@theaudiotweak

The following applies to all material surfaces especially 2 or more
dissimilar materials of varied shapes. Adjusting the surface tension
changes the surface shear speed of the materials ..becoming either
separate,combined or somewhere in between. The result is more or less
interfering energy being transferred back and forth between these
surfaces in intimate contact or from the compressive world onto a
solid then becoming shear. So in many examples of using gucci caps
tied down to horrid materials made of sawdust and glue you will have
the sound of that cap altered for sure by the larger mass of the
material it is forced upon. The size and mass of the same substrate
will also give you a different result.The tie down material will also
become part of the sound of the cap. As we know vibration is all
around and cannot be isolated. We can make vibration a useful tool and
most pleasant. Just need to know the why and how..Tom ..
Star Sound Technologies and Tone Acoustics


Even if I take your explanation of resonance at face value...your follow up claims about the audibility of untied caps is very wanting. You make rather large, unsubstantiated leaps of logic.

The question remains: how much vibration is *actually* occurring in any component in question, or in the case of any cap, and then; does it have *audible* consequences.

Your whole explanation just begs the question by presuming what I’ve been asking you to argue for.

A common theme I find in the audiophile tweak world is that the tweaks - be they high end AC cables or whatever - come with a bunch of technospeak giving the air of technical respectability. But suddenly the technical claims are dropped when it actually comes to demonstrating the claims.

So for instance, there will be claims by a boutique AC cable manufacture based on technical claims about impedance, various types of noise to reduce, etc. Now, these are not phenomena they are pulling out of a hat. These things are measurable; that’s how the phenomena was detected and understood in the first place.

And then they talk about how their product addresses the technical issues (e.g. maintaining desirable impedance, rejecting undesirable noise etc). So it’s a technical hypothesis. But in high end audio products, it’s not JUST a hypothesis that the phenomena in question exists; it’s the hypothesis that the tweak, or product, under consideration produces AUDIBLE CHANGES in the output of a stereo system.

And the funny thing is, after all the techno speak by the manufacturer when you ask "Ok, can you show us measurements indicating the audio signal output has been altered in any way by the introduction of your product?" The answer typically boils down to "Why would we do that?"

It’s bizarre.

The claims are technical RIGHT UP to the point where the hypothesis should be validated...and then suddenly technical/engineering problems that can be measured...and then claimed to be fixed by the product...suddenly can't be measured, or don't need measured validation!   Such considerations suddenly disappear and it’s "don’t you hear the difference??"

This is the Big Red Flag in high end audio claims. Appeal to science and engineering all the way up to the point where you ask for measured results, and then suddenly it’s handed off to marketing.

So...bringing these concerns back to your explanation....

My questions would be:

In the case of an average electronic component - say a CD player sitting in my rack or whatever - how much vibration would the unit actually be undergoing? Have you measured this? I can tell you that, at least with my ipad seismometer app (obviously more crude than a professional device) it can easily measure vibration levels I can’t even feel. It registers no detectable vibration when simply sat on any of my components. Zero. And that’s a device *looking* to register vibration.

So right off the bat, this implies that components such as those in my house are, if they are undergoing any vibration, it is very, very low (or below the threshold of what I can feel and measure with my app).

Why should I expect such a low level of vibration to excite resonances, or to cause such havoc on capacitor tied to a circuit board, that this would alter the signal to an audible degree? (I have other reasons to be skeptical of your claims, which I’ll leave out for now).


Do you have measurements showing the average ambient vibration on a component? Do you have measurements showing this ambient vibration actually alters the values or performance of a tied vs untied cap? Those are pretty obvious questions, right?

Then do you have measurements from any output of an audio device that uses capacitors that indicates the audio signal would have changed? How did you measure, how did you test?

If only via listening tests, did you account for listener bias?


I ended my work day early with the hopes that I could experience what I did last night. Sure enough when I approached the door I could hear "Faith" playing on the inside. One thing was different when I walked inside from last night. There are three boxes at the entrance to MG's place. "what are those" Michael explained that every year or two he does a series of listening reviews on different groups of products. He gave me a list of last years components and this year he has switched from products like Accuphase and Bricasti to old school receivers and his Magnavox special CDP. I need to get back to listening.
This is a different hobby! How to describe the sound stage I've just heard is going to take some thinking through. One thing absolutely positively for sure I can tell you is I'm not going back.
mapman,
prof

Facts can be very boring. That’s a fact.
That's a pseudo fact. You guys really have not learned much in this thread.
"If we’re all of a sudden going to be engineers lets do this thing."
I would like to recommend skipping this approach. It gets very slippery and misunderstanding runs high, right up there with solidified passions. Basically, it becomes a circus.