Audio Science Review Review

Discussion in 'Audio Science' started by purr1n, Aug 30, 2020.

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  1. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I am no fluids engineer, but I know how to tell a hard-boiled egg from an uncooked one when they are both cold.

    You spin the egg, on its side, and briefly stop it with a fingertip and let go. The raw egg will move again, the hard-boiled one will not. This is because the fluid contents of the uncooked egg still have the momentum in the fluid.

    This makes me doubt the claim.
     
  2. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    particularly if they are proclaiming it in the name of science. This thread is about some questionable practices of ASR but the ASR large following is, in my view, the result of the recent cult of "science" among the least capable, and it is the most crude, primitive concept of science.
    At the risk of repeating myself: when Alexander von Humboldt made the first steps in exploring the process of listening to music in the context of physical science, and created a foundation for psychoacoustic, he spent as much time applying science as discussing the limitations of scientific method. That applies to every scientific domain, from mathematical logic to astrophysics, and everything in between.
    Philosophers of science like Bertrand Russell wrote hundreds of pages about the limitation of scientific method.

    And descending 20,000 feet down to the level of acoustic measurements, in my view any meaningful discussion of objective/subjective should be mostly about the limitations of both.
    That is not the discussion one could have with any of the Amir disciples that ever appeared on SBAF.
     
  3. oh_okay

    oh_okay New

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    Somewhere on the Internet is the orig physics paper about the theory of the 'table and its technology. I'll try to find it ... pretty mathy IIRC.
    As far as what the Leaders are listening to ...
    https://adagamov.info/3373355.html

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  4. jnak00

    jnak00 Friend

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    I have a Magnius. It did not make me stain any clothing. I've only used it for a few hours but so far I don't hate it. My past experience tells me it will take a while before I should really decide whether I like it or not. It took me several months to realize I really didn't like the Magni 2 Uber.

    I'm not at all concerned whether Marv likes it or not; I was curious about the worst sounding/best measuring conundrum. There are some great insights here from many people, including yours. I appreciate the discussion.
     
  5. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    To me, the essence of the scientific method is the conditional and tentative nature of the conclusions to be drawn from it's application, and honesty about those limitations. The (to me) glaring lack of those makes ASR's methods mostly pseudoscience, and of limited utility.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The 0.000 amps are still going to sound different from each other. The THX amps sound very different from the Heresy which sounds very different from the Magnius. The JDS Adam and Heresy sound alike, probably because of shared topology and some specific chips.

    However, there are going to be certain shared subjective sound characteristics that chip based 0.000 distortion chip based amps with large amount of global feedback.

    As far as new people getting into the game, allow me to repeat the first paragraph of this thread:

    One thing I wanted to get out of the way is that I don't have a problem with people who want to use measurements as a yardstick in determining what audio gear to buy. It's extremely confusing out there trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. Heck, I've experienced gear that costs thousands of dollars, recommended by someone at HF, that sounded like poop.​

    The measurements based approach is legit. However it's much more complex than it seems. The nice tidy SINAD numbers are based on an arbitrary voltage output (anywhere from 2-4V, Amir has been inconsistent) and a 300-ohm load in which does not reflect the huge disparity of headphones's sensitivity and impedance, from Grado (super sensitivity and low impedance) to HD650 (low sensitivity and super high impedance) and everything in between. So that's a word of caution if you want to understand measurements. That Excel bar graph on ASR tends to work best if you listen specifically to HD650s with 105db or 111db peaks.

    The bottom line is that while the measurement method of picking gear is legit, that doesn't make the subjective method of selecting gear not-legit. Thinking so without experimentation would be flawed logic and bad science. Note that I have conducted double-blind tests to confirm that I can hear a difference among 0.000 gear. Anyone saying otherwise either has not conducted vigorous blind subjective testing, was too influenced by confirmation bias that there was no difference, or has poorly trained ears, or perhaps have some other agenda.

    Unless something measures horribly, you will not be able to hear the distortion since your headphone produces way more distortion than any amp. It's possible that you may prefer the Magnius over Magni 2U because you simply prefer the sound of the Magnius and that the numbers were mere coincidence. If can also be that you are subjective to confirmation bias. It can also be that you prefer the sound of high global feedback designs or even the sound characteristics of the TPA6120 chip.

    As far you how you are supposed to know?

    Experience, playing around with stuff, sharing thoughts on how gear sounds, sharing gear. Evidently, you already hear good enough that you subjectively prefer Magnius over Magni Uber 2.

    The "secret" is that once you get over a measly "horrible" 60-80db SINAD, it's all purely subjective. it comes down to read noise floor (how loud do you listen) and your headphone being the primary source of distortion:
    If you don't understand the intricacies of the measurements and the conditions of how they were taken, then it's best to ignore them, and especially ASR's biased interpretation and commentary of them.

    I would be curious if what you thought of the Heresy to Magnius. You already compared Asgard 3 to Magnius and noted that A3 was sweeter, more organic, and less robotic and less soul-less. A3 measures with higher distortion than Magnius, but it's still in the 0.000 camp. You shouldn't be able to hear these microscopic levels of distortion, yet how you do reconcile this?

    Amir would tell you to go "f**k yourself" and that you are imagining things.

    I would tell you that the A3 is a more open loop design without the use of opamps with 100db of gain and corresponding massive amount of global feedback. The A3 uses discrete parts and high bias class A with a circuit that addresses the Gm doubling issue while transitioning from Class A to Class B output.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2020
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Looks like big midranges and decently big woofers. I approve.
     
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Subjectively speaking, the Magnius is boring sounding with closed-in headstage. I agree with much of what @Hands said, although I didn't find the high-end glarey. It was crisp, maybe pushing it, but wasn't offensive. The tonality of the amp was slightly V-shaped. I tend to dislike amps with this characteristic. The lows did not mesh with the highs: the highs were clear and crisp the lows were over warm and mushy at times. It didn't matter what source I used. The Magnius strongly imparted its sound signature no matter the source. (I've noted this with all designs which have incorporated the TPA6120). It wasn't even very resolving either. It just sounded like a convoluted mess.

    There is no contradiction if we grasp this very important point: SINAD does not matter once we get beyond a certain point and amps with the same or close enough SINAD will sound different each other no matter how high the SINAD.

    Per point #3 in my first post:

    The measurements become something purely for the sake of measurements, to the point where better doesn't matter. And what would otherwise be good measurements under normal circumstances just a few years ago suddenly become bad.​
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2020
  9. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    Couldn't agree more about the magnius, I know you said you didn't like Asgard 3 that much but I find these 2 amps almost complete opposite. If I remember correctly Asgard 3 also measured pretty well.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    What use is SINAD spec-chasing (or it is Topping/SMSL shilling) when Amir himself (who is a trained listener, managed over 1000 employees, won a Emmy, is renown psychoacoustics researcher, etc.) can't even hear the MASSIVE AMOUNT of amplifer distortion in the "great performance ... I can definitely recommend" JBL LSR305mk2?

    I call this:
    [​IMG]

    After what @ultrabike recently dug up, I can't help but feel that the dude is so full of it, so disingenuous. Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but the optics sure are bad.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2020
  11. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    I am no fluids engineer either, but I think it is about damping. Your car for example in all likelihood uses fluid filled shocks, and possibly fluid filled suspension and engine mounts as well.
     
  12. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    I think he knows he's FOS and is fine with it. He's just making money, follow the leader type stuff. Clicks and kick backs.
     
  13. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    if you stop and let go, yes. But if you just let them spin the raw egg is slower and will come to a stop faster due to dampening.
     
  14. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I'm an engineer but not a fluids one (unless molten metal counts, but I digress). Regardless of the dampening arguments for glycerin, what gets me here is that they took the tonearm - the thing that absolutely wants to be as stable as possible - and affixed it to a big hollow resonant ball. I don't care if you have unicorn tears inside the ball and somehow got a floating point constrained layer/ball/doohickey effect out of witchcraft inside it. Even if that were possible, you're slapping a band-aid on top of a problem you created. It doesn't matter how good the magical solution is, in the world of vibration or noise control there is nothing that is 100%, and you would need better than that in this instance. This is like the vacuum salesman who dumps the bag of dust onto the carpet. Yeah sure the difference looks amazing, but only because you created that mess in the first place.
     
  15. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    the tonearm assembly is pretty ingenious, it is basically the viscous damping concept pioneered by the Gray Research company in the late 1940s taken to the extreme, eliminating the need for expensive precision bearings that were not readily available in Soviet consumer equipment. but most of these tonearms were not manufactured properly in the state-controlled factories and had QC problems. I read one anecdote that some batches of this table were made without the presence of the inner sphere of the tonearm! I know some who actually owned this table replaced the tonearm with the one from Elektronika B1-01, a soviet SME3009 clone

    the engineer Anatoly Likhnitsky responsible for the formation of the Korvet tonearm and the famous BRIG-001 amplifier at the central research institute of Morphyspribor, towards the later years of his life wrote articles on the history of working conditions and politics of Soviet state-run research into high-end audio equipment.

    it is very interesting to read and find out how equipment like this even saw the light of day, considering that the people in charge, supervising and green-lighting such projects, were only concerned with objective parameters, and producing something that could compete with the West. this gear came about at the hands of enthusiasts, who understood the importance of anomalous phenomena outside the boundaries of conventional science.

    https://sudonull.com/post/19163-Sov...-journey-of-the-Brig-of-the-captain-Lihnitsky
    http://aml.spb.ru/brig.htm
     
  16. winders

    winders boomer

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    It’s much easier than that. If you try to spin a raw egg it won’t spin very quickly or for very long. A hard boiled egg will spin quickly and for much longer. It’s all about inertia.
     
  17. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    We're on the same page. I prefer my test because (apart from being the one I know) it is quick; I don't have to wait for anything to stop spinning, or make comparisons.

    But...
    Whoa! That is truly wonderful thing to be able to tell people when showing off one's gear! Stuff the inertia, I'll go with the anomaly :D
     
  18. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    This talk of viscous damping reminds me of the Well Tempered Tonearm, a unipivot tonearm hung in a bath of damping fluid.
    [​IMG]
    Maybe I don't hang out in the right places, but I haven't seen Well Tempered mentioned in audio circles for ages (I remember them from the 1980's). I assumed they were long gone, but apparently not:
    https://www.welltemperedlab.net/products/
     
  19. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    laugh.JPG
     
  20. winders

    winders boomer

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    Hmmm. Once you have spun a hard boiled egg and a raw egg and see the difference, you will know within milliseconds of spinning any egg whether or not it is hard boiled.....
     
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