theaudioamp,
Look on page 402 of this thread. The 1st video on 7/30 at 12:50 PM is the S1000. Listen at 0:00. The 2nd video on the same page on 7/31 at 3:15 PM is the S2500. Listen to the same song at 3:00. I find it helpful to listen for short periods to the same material. The instrumental introduction goes on for 40 sec. Then the voice comes in. So go back and forth for the 40 sec instrumental, then with the voice for about 20 seconds back and forth. See if you can hear the ambient space on the instrumentals, how it is much larger on the S2500. Listen to the increased detail and resolution of the instruments on the S2500. Perception of increased space is a measure of low level detail.
If you honestly don’t hear ANY differences after several attempts, you cannot be blamed for having a hearing problem, so you should go to any audiologist or ENT specialist. Maybe it is as simple as getting ear wax cleaned out. If you do hear differences, but judge them to be very small, that is a value judgment which is fine, but at least you will have learned something and admitted to yourself that you are incorrect to claim that there are NO audible differences.
However, it is more likely that your technical emphasis serves as a bias that you emotionally block out any perceptions that refute your claims that there are no significant differences. I have observed this phenomenon of denial of truths if they conflict with entrenched belief systems and agendas, as with politicians who consistently lie. In medicine, I have met professors of medicine who make incorrect clinical assessments of patients based on objective data. For example, a patient may have abdominal and brain symptoms that are actually due to gluten sensitivities. The GI MD does endoscopic biopsies looking for gluten damage. The biopsies are normal, and the MD tells the patient it is OK to continue to eat gluten foods like bread, pasta. But I have helped many such patients by asking them to do a 1 month trial of avoidance of these foods. If I am wrong, the trial makes no difference and another diagnosis must be sought. There are comprehensive celiac antibody panels to do, but they may be normal and don’t tell the story as well as a clinical trial of gluten avoidance.
Another example is assessment of fatigue due to testosterone and other hormone deficiencies. It is easy to do blood tests for hormones, which don’t always correlate with symptoms. But hormone receptor sensitivity is not able to be objectively tested, so a clinical assessment is required. Analysis of symptoms PLUS objective lab measurements used together make a better assessment.
Clinical assessment, as applied to audio, means LISTENING. No better way. Listening integrates the subjective skills with objective measurements to obtain the truth of how an electronic component behaves in an audio system in a particular room.
Without careful listening, any of your supposed expert technical pronouncements are in themselves WORD SALAD, or irrelevant to what most people are here for. We are mostly not interested in professional AES papers and studies. If some author attempts to integrate objective data with what he hears, that is of interest. Many technical people distrust listening assessments, so they exclusively use technical criteria. Their standing with colleagues is based on technical competence. But it is useful to ask an intelligent child to listen. He/she doesn’t have enough technical background, but they have the best hearing to make a proper assessment.
Jay is an excellent audio clinician. He is not a technical expert, but his extensive listening experience is why his thread is most sought for guidance.
