@mahgister
What is the impact of a photon of light when you hear an informative qualities perceived from two singers whose tone interact ?
None i know of...
That's right. Sometimes the simple is the answer. We don't need to dabble in philosophy or obscurity to analyze performance of something as simple as a DAC, audio cable or amplifier.
You asked questions about the papers you presented. I answered them simply and clearly together with proper back up. You keep saying I didn't and go on posting about philosophers. No one is engaging you on the topic from your camp because stuff you are writing don't make sense or are relevant.
Instead of writing more, come back with the results of any controlled listening tests you have run that disagrees with measurements and are basis of your theories. That is all that matters, right? The sound we hear.
A Simple answer is not a SIMPLISTIC answer...
I never "dabble in philosophy" ... Remember Magnasco and Oppenheim are PHYSICISTS... They work this experiment in psycho-acoustic... But there is consequence for the philosophy of acoustic science : ears/brain is not a Fourier computer.... This sentence which present essential aspect of this article is not PHILOSOPHY but had philosophical consequences yes for hearing theories... Do you catch the nuance ?
Now i will present the Amir fallacy...
After that i will give an exemple in audio engineering with a physicist who work in plasma physics and acoustic ( as Van Maanen was a physicist in fluid mechanic and acoustic, you qualify his article about "Often disregarded Conditions for the correct Application of Fourier Theory" as a leaflet sellers with NO SHAME...)
Amir fallacy :
Among all subjective qualities perceived the more objective one is transparency ...
Transparency in the audiophile vocabulary does not have the same definition than for a software engineer though...
---For an audiophile transparency means that the audio system let the acoustic trade-off choices of the recording engineer to be heard optimally as they were intended..
---For a software engineer now from wikipedia :
«In data compression and psychoacoustics, transparency is the result of lossy data compression accurate enough that the compressed result is perceptually indistinguishable from the uncompressed input, i.e. perceptually lossless....
Transparency, like sound or video quality, is subjective. It depends most on the listener's familiarity with digital artifacts, their awareness that artifacts may in fact be present, and to a lesser extent, the compression method, bit rate used, input characteristics, and the listening/viewing conditions and equipment. Despite this, sometimes general consensus is formed for what compression options "should" provide transparent results for most people on most equipment. Due to the subjectivity and the changing nature of compression, recording, and playback technology, such opinions should be considered only as rough estimates rather than established fact.
Judging transparency can be difficult, due to observer bias, in which subjective like/dislike of a certain compression methodology emotionally influences their judgment. This bias is commonly referred to as placebo, although this use is slightly different from the medical use of the term.
To scientifically prove that a compression method is not transparent, double-blind tests may be useful. The ABX method is normally used, with a null hypothesis that the samples tested are the same and with an alternative hypothesis that the samples are in fact different.
All lossless data compression methods are transparent, by nature.»
Anybody here reading this wikipedia definition of "transparency" will recognize our Software engineer Amir...Now keep in mind that the audiophile definition of transparency and the definition coming from the software engineering meet somewhere but are very DIFFERENT...I will explain why they meet and why they differ...
Now the Amir fallacy:
All perceived audio qualities by a listener for Amir if not subjective illusions or artefacts are SUBORDINATED to the transparency in the sense of the psycho-acoustic of data compression engineering...
And this software concept itself serve and meet the audiophile definition of transparency, the audiophile transparency here being the optimal translation of the recording engineer trade-off choices through the audio system/room for some specific ears/brain...
The Amir fallacy is transposing this software definition of transparency in the verification by a small set of electrical measures in electric design measured component and disregarding the audiophile definition of transparency as secondary instead of being primary why ? Because it subordinate the subject experience to the material design and to the software concept of transparency...
First the audiophile definition refer to the trade-off specific choices of the recording engineers which must be translated by the specfic audio system...The audio system for exemple the amplifier, class A, class A+B,classD, tubes amplifiers, S.S. amplifiers etc all these design are different variaion types and all are designed with trade-off choices which will deliver different QUALITATIVE perceptions... The vocabulary of audiophiles, very subjectively describe these sets of trade off choices in design and in the recording engineers choices ( timbre imaging soundstage holography immersiveness etc)They PERCEIVE these trade-off and qualify them for them..
THe Amir fallacy is eliminating all relation between trade-off choices at the recording level and resulting also from the design qualities to reduce all of them to his own concocted notion of transparency as for a circuits, for components able to not interfer but translate and convey the "transparency" of the digital files...it is a software engineer prejudice established as a DOGMA by eliminating all perceptible subjective qualities are pure illusion or indesirable artefacts...Amir called this "transparency"... it is not audiophile transparency not the recording engineer relative "transparency" born from his trade off choices either, but an other concept of transparency born in the software design and applied to circuits and components..
i already explained how psycho-acoustic demonstrated that the ears/brain dont work as a Fourier computer but non linearly and in his time domain...( Magnasco and Oppenheim article )
The Amir fallacy is the act of throwing under the rug all Qualitative perception as subjective then useless if not measurable by the set of Amir Fourier tools and mapping...
But these qualitative perceptions by a subject are the ESSENCE OF AUDIO...Not the electrical measures assuring us that a circuit behave well or give a low noise floor or a good ratio signal/noise ...
One of the greatest revolution in audiophile experience is the virtual room system of dr. Choueri the famous BACCH filters...
What did Choueri did to implement these filters correctly ?
He measured , not only an amplifier, or a dac, or speakers specs ONLY and MAINLY but way more, he measured the specific HRTF the head related transfert function of the specific listener , he measured the ear canals with a tiny in ear microphone to create a cross talk cancellation filter forc this SPECIFIC EARS , he measured acoustic information about the SPECIFIC listener room ... Now you begin to understand that this specific subjectivity and ears/brain perceptive physiology of EACH listener ,being always different from each person is the BASIS of this experience of TRANSPARENCY in the audiophile meaning of the word and not at all in the software engineer inspired meaning of the word transparency...
What is the difference between the Dr. Choueri concept of transparency and the recording engineer concept of transparency ?
in the two case there is trade-off , these trade-off are the basis of PERCEIVED TRANSPARENCY... Choueri use our subjectivity associated to our different HTRF and different inner ears filters to achieve transparency in audio experience... Choueri dont negate the value of the listener subjectivity , in the opposite he used it in his design... As Van Maanen used the non linear working of the ears/brain and the time dependant dimension of this working as a rule to guide him in the designing trading choices of his amplifier...
The Amir fallacy is the reduction of subjectivity and specific qualities of the listener to be useless, illusory and something to eliminate by blind test and isolate to reduce all concept of transparency to the software engineer concept...a pure mathematical equation with no relation with physical acoustic and the psycho-acoustic of the human ears/brain... he based all his reviews on a small set of measures in a Fourier window...The non linear working of the brain in the time dependant domain which is crucial matter and positive basis for the design of Van Maanen and Choueri is for him only an IMPEDIMENT to put aside...Audiophile definition of transparency is illusory because audiophiles had PREFERENCES , and audiophiles favor this trade-off over this other trade-off etc... All this must be standardized and all listeners put on the Procustean bed of blind test to cure him from his BIASES, trained ears of musician or acoustician this does not matter, they are all deluded subject who must be REEDUCATED by Amir small linear set of measures in the Fourier window... The ears /brain dont work as a Fourier conmputer but Amir dont give a damn... Only him know what is transparency and what it is not... Vinyl lovers for example are deluded... Tube amplifier lovers are deluded... Many designers will never dare to say what they think about Amir fallacy, they want to sell and not create enmity... But any designer is an artist creating his own trade-off set of choices , inspired by psycho-acoustic non linear working of the ears/brain and the relation between tone and harmonics and how to use them for a better "transparency" trade-off choice...Amir fallacy is reducing anything to his definition of transparency... All the others are deluded..
As i said we thank Amir for his measures verification... it is useful... But his reductionist conception of electrical measures as the basis of the experience of transparency inherited from software engineering, not from physical acoustic and the psycho-acoustic of sound perception is a techno-ideology with no relation with the real psycho-acoustic trade off from the recording engineers to the designer of audio components and to the listener trade off set of choices in his body and room...
Amir is not the Pope of audio...only someone who discovered a way to market his site through a specific technological ideology ( software engineering ) not science ... If anybody read the concept of transparency in wikipedia he will recognize Amir...
The Amir fallacy is throwing the baby ( subjective listening psych-acoustic experience value) with the polluted waters ( linear signal noise ratio measured as bad or not optimal in components etc ) The Amir fallacy resulted from the confusion of hearing theory with an electrical set of measures then the erasure of hearing theory from the audio equation...Dr. Choueri and Van Maanen made the exact opposite choices for their design, they subordinate their material design to hearing theory and to the subjective specificity of the human ears/brain because their goal is not debunking audio components and audiophiles but creating higher optimal design for subjective experience ...
