Why SINAD doesn't matter

Discussion in 'Blind Testing and Psychoacoustics' started by purr1n, Aug 28, 2021.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Alexa is really bad. Still thinks innerfidelity exists. Granted ASR does tricks to run up score, like having a self-servicing Wikipedia entry (LOL, pathetic right?)

    When multiple people come up to me at work*, this going back to before the pandemic, and need me to reassure them because of random graphs and narratives of this "DAC is shit" or that "amp is shit", then it's a problem. We aren't talking about Schiit either. We are talking about UK and EU brands (Hollywood employs creatives from around the world).

    As for HF, nobody knows WTF that is. HF is the crowded metro station where people hang and shoot the shit and browse the windows (where vendors pay Jude for display space). It's not a serious site for audio discussion.

    *People figure me out after they notice different headphones for each week, or the occasional tube amp in the back.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2021
  2. bboris77

    bboris77 Friend

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    I’m just fascinated with how powerful and pervasive this ultra-objectivism and obsession with measurements is in audio compared to other hobbies. I seriously struggle to find another hobby/area in which people claim that a limited set of canned measurements under very controlled circumstances can empirically and predictably prove how a piece of gear will behave under any conditions.

    Further to this, it is the only hobby in which ultra-objectivists claim that they don’t need to listen to gear to know how it sounds exactly. I cannot imagine a coffee expert saying that they can know how exactly a cup of espresso tastes by measuring its chemical composition and ph level. Or a TV reviewer saying that it’s not necessary to watch a TV set if one measures its peak brightness, contrast ratio, colour fidelity, motion resolution and input lag.

    We all love stats, graphs and charts. However, common sense indicates that the ultimate gear that is used to test how a piece of equipment performs, and the only one that truly matters, is our brain. To convince oneself to ignore one’s own senses when testing audio gear is beyond insane. It is extremely manipulative and Machiavellian to suggest that human hearing is so imperfect and flawed that we should defer the judgment of how “perfect” something sounds to a machine, no matter how sophisticated it is.
     
  3. Gracchus Janus

    Gracchus Janus New

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    SINAD aside, and I'm sorry if I'm being too upfront about this but, some of your arguments come to me as the fear and objections of an overshadowed industry: the US and EU audio industry. Don't you think that to some extent you can be biased by the appeal of supporting the old established brands vs. the new risers ("buy american"), ideology imputations considered?

    I live in a "neutral ground" country and so the impression I get from all of this is that of contempt to the new face of the industry. I mean, it has took the form of SINAD chasing for the chi-fi brands from those conglomerates in Shenzen to assert themselves, but it could have been some other thing entirely, even a good implementations of important measurement standards. Audiophilia being a very skewed and ultimately subjective experience*, wouldn't there be a similar resistance to it even if chifi did made it like that?

    I write this in curiosity and not to spite anyone, the subject really interests me because I like tech and international relations, and this reminds me of the japanese cars discussion in the US back in the 80's.

    *I don't mean to justify the existence of leprechauns in liquid mids by exchanging cables with this assertion, I mean to consider the fallibility of human hearing by psychological aspects.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2021
  4. Gracchus Janus

    Gracchus Janus New

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    This goes to me about how pervasive audiophilia can be because of how skewed the human hearing is. Of all the senses, I can't think of one that fulfills the uncanny valley of influenced perception so much. As with very high end and silly cables like this:

    [​IMG]

    The ultra-objectivists indeed do not hear difference in gear or can't relate to descriptive sound terms. Confirmation bias is one hell of a drug.
     
  5. BarnBurner

    BarnBurner Acquaintance

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    Like Dominic Torretto says, it's not the car it's the driver that matters
     
  6. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    It's equally silly to claim that human senses are so mysterious and perfect that science has only just begun to understand them; that nobody really understands how digital musical works, and the maths on which it is built is only a futile attempt to understand it; that Fred, in his shed, messing with some Brasso and silver wire stuffed into a hosepipe, knows more about cables than the guys in Belden's labs do; that crystals... that cosmic vibrations... and so on.

    All that crap has helped to create and sustain the hyper-"objective" approach. The two ends of the hifi-audio spectrum are absolutely nuts, and probably deserve each other.
     
  7. bboris77

    bboris77 Friend

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    Agreed. It is sad that humans tend to take extreme points of view on a lot of subjects that should be fun. I do think that extreme objectivism is more dangerous because it is not as obviously insane as extreme subjectivism. It uses “science” and measurements which give it an air of legitimacy, which is useful when it comes to convincing newbie audiophiles.

    The lunacy of the extreme objectivist approach becomes obvious when one considers its absolute reliance on SINAD and constant undermining of the human listening experience.
     
  8. Tekker

    Tekker Facebook Friend

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    Atleast head-fi has people that know what they’re talking about. There are a lot of noobs there, but the ones that know what they’re talking about, are actually very helpful.

    With ASR, I don’t really see anyone there that speaks common sense, except for a very few members that are engineers or manufacters in Europe or the US. But even those guys have their false beliefs they say sometimes.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2021
  9. Qildail

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    Digital photography and video hobbyists would come really close; but I found a big chunk of that fanaticism is blind brand loyalty.

    I bought a Heresy some time ago to see what the fuss was about; out of some misguided idea that I was missing a boat somewhere in all the noise (or lack of noise... whatever). For a wordsmithing type, I have a hard time translating what I read about a product into what I think I'll hear. But it took me all of about ten minutes to figure it out. At least I'll have something to really compare the Vali to when it gets here Monday...

    I'm not saying not to fight the good fight (nor would I dare think it my place to say it), but some people, like me, have to hear it to understand it.

    Lies, damn lies, and statistics, etc.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2021
  10. BarnBurner

    BarnBurner Acquaintance

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    Re bias against chifi, my beef relates to some pretty obvious reverse engineering of innovative tech, which shenzhen is imo clearly doing with Benchmark, eg. Everybody borrows to some degree but I see a great amount of real innovation in US and Eastern Europe, primarily. To have their work blatantly copied and manufactured by communist slave labor for some jackass with a $40K toy to pimp piously while gleefully trashing honest companies is sickening.
     
  11. fastfwd

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    It sure seems that way. On the "Audiophiles" email group at my company (1200 members), the recommendations in nearly all recent equipment-advice threads are justified by links to ASR reviews.

    Searching back through the archives shows that the most frequently quoted review source was Stereophile until about five years ago. I hope it's because there are actually different people in the group now, and not because I work with people who'd interchangeably buy what either JA or Amir told them to.

    Anyway, there are no HF review links in the archives at all (although there are a handful of SBAF mentions from 2016/2017, so that's something...).
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2021
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    No.

    This is because I've given many new risers and small shops exposure that would never had seen the light of day almost anywhere else: Verum, Zampotech, ECP, DNA, LTS, ZMF, EC, Micparts, Kennerton, Geshelli, Bottlehead, Ampsandsound, ETA, JAR, Shanling, etc.

    So f**k you. What you insinuated I consider offensive and insulting given what I'm been trying to do for the past several years: find the small guys who make good sounding shit (no matter where they are from) and let people know about them.

    I think it may surprise you that Americans will buy what's best. Americans are one hell of a lot less "buy American" than perhaps your news channels lead you to believe. There is also no such thing as buy American because supply chains are global in today's world.
     
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  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The two sides of the same coin:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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    Last edited: Sep 11, 2021
  14. Gracchus Janus

    Gracchus Janus New

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    I didn't mean to imply that you are against small companies, nor did I imply that "buy american" is all there is to the mass market, it obviously isn't because globalization is a huge thing and the american and european markets themselves are being injected with worldwide and foreign products non-stop. That fact is the effective cause of the "buy american" trend I mentioned; people started buying Hondas instead of Ford despite the fact that Ford actually was a national brand whose promotion would have had more externally positives impacts on their environment, and they did that because japanese cars made more economical sense.

    What I did ask is if your grudges against SINAD chasing, topping, and the chinese industry rise play a role in your judgement about the sonical qualities of those devices, given that hearing can be heavily influenced even against our honest intentions. And I asked this because in the quoted I got the impression of an us-them alignment that is often seen in politics and that is exactly the reasoning behind "buy american". In all other reviews and impressions you made of those products, even ones that I agree with even though I have the gear and quite like it, you didn't put it in terms of communist china or of the Shenzhen tech pole trying to skew the audio industry their way, and it was that that left me wondering.


    This was the exact point I made bringing up this cable image...
     
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  15. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    For the first time I was tempted to hit the misinformation button.
    I like to think that we are all adult people who have a brain to come to our own conclusions. I would wager that on ASR you will find more sheep than here. By sheep I mean people who do not trust their own judgement and therefore are looking for a shining light to guide them. Unfortunately ASR is not a lighthouse it is more like the coastal bandits lighting fires on shore in order to misguide ships. Nitpicking and questioning other people’s motives will get you nowhere. Once you have been around for some time you cannot help but being biased. The important thing in my opinion is to be aware of this. People on here don’t pretend that what they say is gospel. If you are looking for easy answers (maybe a one number says it all) or if you think that there are hidden agendas here then maybe just move on. We do not pretend to be perfect, for me this place is more about making people aware that they need to find their proper way and learning how to triangulate from other’s impressions rather than following someone sheepishly.
     
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  16. 7seven

    7seven Acquaintance

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    I'm curious, do you have any good examples of this?
     
  17. BarnBurner

    BarnBurner Acquaintance

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    Let's call it a strong suspicion for now, so I'd like to do more investigating first.
     
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Do you realize that you just shifted your original argument - and now just utilized the phrase "grudge against SINAD chasing" as if to legitimize SINAD chasing (like how political pollsters use to get the result that they want?) These are rhetorical devices which I highly do not appreciate.

    However, I will answer your assertion with two points:
    • I don't have a grudge against Chinese companies. I've highlighted and Chinese products from brands which I felt were really good, i.e. Matrix, A-GD, HFM, Shanling. I have a credo: PROVE ME WRONG (that you can make good sounding gear). This has been around since Changstar. Yes, I've been proven wrong on occasion.
    • There is no such thing as "grudge against SINAD chasing". SINAD is a very narrow measurement. Measuring audio gear by SINAD would be like measuring cars by skidpad numbers in G. That G number does say something; but it also tells us absolutely nothing about the dynamic handling characteristics.
    SINAD, or more precisely AmirNADS (SINAD at 1kHz 300-ohm load, 2Vrms or 4Vrms with a 20kHz bandwidth) is simply not a legitimate way to properly assess purity or transparency of gear. This is the argument. You are free to question why or why not with respect to this method of measurement.

    No. You are shifting your argument again. You only initially posted the http://orfas.org audiophile setup with the ridiculously big cables. You did not post the AmirNADS panel. Even if you did, it's a bad analogy with how it applies here. I don't know where you think you are or are maybe too new to the site, but I have a demonstrated history of utilizing both approaches, objective and subjective, and keeping from the extremes of both (not caring so much about the jewelry aspects and seeking more types of measurements that may correlate to sound phenomena as opposed to simplification). At the bottom of the home page, there is this: Too objective for subjectivists; too subjective for objectivists.

    Please, no more debate class tricks.
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2021
  19. Gracchus Janus

    Gracchus Janus New

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    With all due respect, I'm sorry but I did not shift my argument. I never agreed with SINAD chasing and I didn't mean to ask if psychological misjudgement and previous controversial context could legitimize SINAD, rather if it could cloud your judgement against other chifi equipment solely because it is chifi. As I said, it took the way of SINAD chasing unfortunately but it could've been something else. What if it was actually a good thing? Could you as easily pass the same judgement you make with a american or EU made product? This was what I asked.

    I took this impression from hints of your conjecture implying SINAD chasing is a chinese industry thing, almost a conspiracy to overthrow the old industry style (and this include newcomers) of tuning mostly by ear, which doesn't bode well to SINAD. Further because you called out China and the CCP very easily: my country context and newsreel is very similar to yours, even my president is a mock up of your former one, so when someone calls out CHINA I get suspicious. My allusion to politics was not rhetorical but a point in it of itself: your argument came out as political.

    Also I posted the cable pic to make the point that confirmation bias can work in both extremes. You can hear (or not hear) differences if you believe in it hard enough. Maybe I didn't made myself clear by attributing the other extreme as SINAD and SCIENCE but that was what I meant.

    Nevertheless you answered the question and for that I thank you.
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Let me advise you on something with respect to calling out China. Not everybody who calls out China is necessarily aligned with Trump. That's faulty logic that goes like this:

    TRUMP => LOVES TO CALL OUT CHINA

    therefore
    LOVE TO CALL OUT CHINA = Trump supporter​

    It is a logical error.

    --

    Now with respect to China communists, call me paranoid or whatever. However, we've all shit the stuff that just went down in Hong Kong. In my generation and one before that, we saw the shit that went down in Tibet. My parents were in Taiwan last January-February. They were calling and texting me - warning me about this "Wuhan pneumonia", rumors of hundreds of thousands of mobile phone numbers suddenly without no activity. Initially I was like "Yeah, whateva mom. You are being silly old mom scardy mom again". Look what we all ended up with.

    I get the Trump hate. But that doesn't mean we should be stupid about stuff and go the opposite way when he happens to be right. He made the right decision when his administration shut USA borders, this while Biden insinuated on Twitter that Trump was being racist, and the WHO was like "duh - we are retards, this ain't no pandemic - at least not yet". I hate this political stuff. I hope we've learned a lesson. If even the slightest hint of sickness rumors are heard in China, close borders immediately. Please!

    --

    FYI, I know a lot of Chinese in the USA. Some card carrying members of the party. (The reason is that you have to be one to have any chance of being able to get out for education, business, etc.). These Chinese f'ing hate Xi, they f'ing hate the Communists. They are the most American (at least how I would define it) because they see the opportunity and they work their asses off to achieve the American Dream. (And yes, some of them did like Trump.)

    --

    I have my own reasons for China paranoia. I have family in Taiwan. Also known as Chinese Taipei or Taiwan, (rebel) Province of China, or whatever China is pressuring other people to call it. My family is ethnically han (the majority) Chinese. Well at least my dad likes to say so. (The truth is that I'm a mutt with Polynesian and Dutch blood - the odd red hairs here and there are telling). Two decades ago I would have conversations with my dad about China's rise. He felt that as China got richer, they would step up, democratize and become a good global actor. So did every POTUS until recently. We were fooled by Deng Xiao Ping. If you can't see China communists for what they really are, how they intend to dominate and control, their state machinery with fingers that stretch down to every L30 Topping amp, then you are blind and ignorant. Don't be surprised if Mandarin Chinese becomes one of your official languages down there in Brazil. China loves to loan billions of dollars to countries likes yours and then own them when they can't can't pay up.

    Seriously, the China communists covered up a deadly virus that was fucked the world, f'ing the developing countries the most. And people who call out China ring alarm bells for you?

    Sorry, the below isn't conspiracy. It actually makes 100% sense.
    upload_2021-9-12_10-56-25.png
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2021

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