Analysis of Head-FI HQ's Sony MDR-Z1R Measurements and Tech Talk

Discussion in 'Measurement Techniques Discussion' started by purr1n, Jun 19, 2017.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Well, whatever the reason for the lower measured distortion, whether Jude's rig has inherently lower distortion or simply has different characteristics (THD is non-linear after all), Jude should have known better than to whip his thang outta his pants, use his own ruler, and announce that his thang was smaller than Tyll's.

    When measuring things such as headphones or hand size, we need to use the same ruler, the same measurement system.

    To follow-up on what @Bill-P wrote above, we simply don't know with Jude because he doesn't have enough data yet for relative comparison and pattern recognition analysis to correlate well with our subjective impressions.
     
  2. anetode

    anetode Friend

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    On that*, while headphone measurements should certainly take place in an acoustically isolated space, that does not mean that measurements undertaken in a strictly anechoic environment would provide the best approximation of the headphone's sound. While the use of a dummy head and torso along with the simulated pinnae compensates somewhat for the unnatural testing environs, a controlled level of room reverb (and maybe even a slight ambient noise) might prove useful in sussing out elusive measurements of less well established aspects of a headphone's performance (specifically 'headstage'). There's also room for refinement in the dummy's material composition and (literal) skin effects.

    Finally the best approach might eventually be something more akin to what Mark Waldrep does in capturing an individual's HRTF and listening environment preferences, thereupon allowing for a simulation of the listening experience of a particular headphone as it references to the profile of a particular individual. A move towards the sort of performance capture of the headphone as a system as currently accomplished in speakers with the aid of advanced suites like Klippel, then a matrixing of the HRTF as captured by in-ear mic measurement techniques or full on simulation using a 3D scan of the listener's pinnae.

    *Note that I haven't read the thread, simply stumbled across a portion of Bill's post, so the preceding might prove redundant or non seqiutur.
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Speak for yourself. I've heard that Jude squeezes himself into that Herzan box when listening to headphones.
     
  4. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    I heard they have a door on the thing, they put chains on him like Harry Houdini, put the headphones on and close and lock the door. They are instructed not to let him out until he screams "top of the line reference quality!" Well, that's what I heard.
     
  5. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

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    what's larger, a Herzan box or a mail box?

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017
  6. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    I think HRTF should be avoided and as little extra "transformation" or "transfer function" or whatever should be applied as possible (so yeah, I believe not even a "compensation" should be applied).

    Math is highly unreliable, as physicists will probably agree with me. As a modeling tool, it's too precise to be accurate. But yet it's the best we have for now.

    But that aside, the reason why I don't think HRTF should be applied is because... HRTF essentially relies on 1 of these 2 things:

    1. What the designer "thinks" the response should look like (oops! This sounds inaccurate already!)
    2. What something else measuring the response thinks this thing should look like (oops, also sounds so inaccurate!)

    I mean... even Wikipedia says this much about HRTF:
    So in the end, human ears may still be dominantly superior to all methods of measurements for a while to come IMO.

    Then again, I'm sure the engineers working on these things again will know better than I do, and I may well just be spouting BS that I don't fully understand. I need to study this more, but right now I'm enjoying music so much that admittedly, I haven't paid much attention to any of this stuff for a while. ;)

    :bow:

    Okay, ya got me. Didn't think of that! Damn!!
     
  7. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    The HE 4 distortion plot's aren't amazing in fact I think they have quite a bit of distortion in the treble... but I still love it and I'm finding my self preferring it over a lot of open backs. I think @Bill-P the HD 800 you modded is one of the first cans I've listened to that... impressed me enough to consider upgrading and dropping my HE 4

    Still even though the Elear had VERY low distortion, I wasn't a fan of how it sounded compared to my HE-4, even though it was noticeably blacker...
     
  8. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    Yeah, there are some outlier cases like Elear, of course. That's why I said. the above was just a theory. I have an idea or two to fix its response, but I'm just too lazy now to try.

    There are certain things that I know how to work now that I suspect don't have much of an effect on FR or distortion, but interestingly enough, they do affect staging and other perceptions.
     
  9. jdmasters

    jdmasters New

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    is that why the g.r.a.s. dummy is wearing no clothes?
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Jude listens to the MDR-Z1R in the nude.

    Also, scientists and academics sometimes miss the most obvious things.
     
  11. spoony

    spoony Spooky

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    What the what?!... Mathematics are the single most reliable thing we have; you can't arrive at different conclusions by following the same logical steps (within a formal system), in what universe is this misconstrued as an inaccuracy? I say humans are inaccurate, naïve, fickle and biased, and math is the closest thing to a cure for that.
    Models for physical and psychological phenomena can be and often are incomplete or plain wrong, and thankfully we can always improve on them or extend the language of mathematics to overcome. Many fields of physics purposely model inaccuracies introduced by not-fully-understood or impractical-to-compute collective phenomena with the help of statistics and other tools; you can always factor-in things you can't explain yet, so I can't fathom how you can shamelessly utter that math is somehow a limiting factor given it's the foremost tool behind our limited understanding of the universe.

    /rant
     
  12. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    I get what you're saying, but I think you're missing @Bill-P's point and you're not actually at odds with each other. Phrased another way: the complexity of modelling a real-world system in precise mathematics makes it less reliable at predicting an actual outcome. That said, I think @Bill-P is also missing a trick in the sense that mathematics is entirely capable of modelling imprecision (fuzzy logic etc.)
     
  13. Bill-P

    Bill-P Level 42 Mad Wizard

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    Yeah, but it goes back both ways.

    You're trying to use a high precision tool for a task that you don't fully understand --> often result in inaccuracy.

    The problem with math is not that it's unreliable in its core. It's the result that's unreliable because as said, the result is generated by humans, who have errors. So that's why I said what I said. Maybe I should be more "precise" now (oh, see what happened?) and state this thus: "as a modeling tool, math has the potential to become highly unreliable."

    And it's not even the inaccuracy (of the result) that's the issue, but that there exist humans who, despite knowing that the result is inaccurate, still tout it as being super accurate. And I think y' all know what I mean by that. ;)
     
  14. spoony

    spoony Spooky

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    I think you are referring models, biases, and the limits of our understanding, not mathematics. Let me put it this way: mathematics will outlast human beings.
    Sorry for the derail, let's go on with the topic at hand :headbang:
     
  15. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    Should send these to @Tyll Hertsens to see if his measurement rig still shows a spike at 10 kHz, as some on HF have been insinuating post Z1R-gate.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2017
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    LMAO. This is how to read Tyll's measurements: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...-challenges-solutions.4571/page-3#post-145857

    A lot of folks don't understand target responses, and the fact that Tyll's been using the same compensation curve for 283 years now. Tyll never changed compensations despite new research because he wanted people to be able to compare new measurements with the old ones on a relative basis. Jude was just a moronic measurement noob who didn't get this. He still doesn't get it. He just lists the model numbers and features of the pieces of the measurement system that he owns. He's not technical. He doesn't understand any of this. He's an idiot.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2017
  17. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    What's telling for me from this whole incident is just how subjective and fragile "objective measurements"* really can be.

    It's like statistics: Unless you know precisely how they were obtained, and you've manually checked all assumptions, and you actually understand what the results tell you (and what they don't); then they can be super deceiving or can be easily leveraged by someone -- with an agenda, any agenda other than eking out aspects of the 'truth' -- to deceive those less competent. (And there are VERY few out there who are genuinely competent!) And as it's been pointed out time and gain, just having a big schlong available doesn't mean you know how to use it and won't injure someone with it.


    * I still think people should stop using this term and instead prefer something more mundane and less loaded like laboratory "testing results", because this is what "measurements" really are when you blast 0 dB sine waves to appraise the gear's static performance. This is an unrealistic, if immensely useful, setting that barely has a resemblance to real-life performance, i.e. human ears listening to dynamic music.
     
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Well explained! They are test results using specific methods and systems. It's like racing a car around a road course and noting times and speed at several checkpoints around the track.

    We can derive certain things about performance such as acceleration, braking, and cornering with this data, but this still does not capture everything. How difficult is the handling? Does it go sideways easily? How responsive is the car to inputs? What is the power curve? Do the brakes fade quickly?

    Then there is the issue of the operator. I've seen stock or close to stock Fox body Mustang LXs get amazing numbers because their drivers were crazy fricking rednecks who were not afraid of death. Much respect I have for these rednecks. I would never be able to get these numbers because that car's rear suspension scared the crap outta me.

    And then finally there is the actual road course. The problem with headphone measurements is that they are not standardized. We are not collecting data points around the same track. We can still get a good idea of performance, but we can't directly compare data points one for one across different tracks. However, test results from another track are immensely useful because data obtained under slightly differing test conditions will often provide us with additional insight.

    I still think Jude is e-peening Tyll, telling the world he now owns the Nurburgring and thinking his is the Stig. But even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, he's still an idiot.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2017
  19. gbeast

    gbeast Mighty Moral Power Ranger

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    Never really thought I'd give a like for name calling but somethings are indisputable. *Maybe he is not an idiot but just overzealous and hasty (Im like that at times), proud, and doesn't really care about the hobby and its authorities. Pride and impudence can make an intelligent man look idiotic (again I make a fool of myself often)

    **I feel like there are many conversations, emails, PMs, etc that go on unpublished between the real gurus and authorities before certain things are made public. Which would help avoid confusion.

    Next thing you know we will have measurement followers and folks saying "I don't like Tyll's measurements, they are now obsolete" or "All of Judes measurements are crap because he doesn't know what he is doing". If Jude simply provided relativity it would make his measurements useful. He has more headphones in HQ than anyone on earth probably.

    **Now the only end is that someone's ignorance will be spotlighted and they will be embarrassed, thus being an *idiot manifest. Just because you show yourslef an idiot doesn't mean you have to stay one. Hopefully Jude humbles himself and is able to approach Tyll like a little grasshopper needing Shīfu's wisdom but the chances of that happening are as likely as him caring about the hobby itself or helping people make educated choices before buying gear.

    I know I don't always agree with everything said here or anywhere for that matter, I am quite the disagreeable person and I feel sorry for my wife; and I am more conservative in general, especially because of my religion. I also have an issue where I am unstable and cycle through gear a lot faster than I and others here believe is healthy. BUT dang if I haven't curbed some of that random trying everything that is new crap because of SBAF:sail:. When I mentioned myself entertaining ideas letting go of my Pavane for the Holo (before I heard it), it was dope how @Hands put me in check and was like..."you need to be stable"(paraphrasing it)...:bow:. Also, amongst all of the rude chat that is bashed (not saying I am a fan) around the iNet, there is a genuine respect for each other around here. Why? because you know people are sincere with what they are sharing and also sincere about respecting each other(sometimes at the expense of disrespecting outsiders). The reality is, those people that bash how SBAF talks, have lost touch with reality because when they are with their close superbest___friends they make this place look like an office setting. Its cool though, because just like people have to earn friend status, products have to earn recommendations. That's a culture head-fi will never have. There you earn contributor status by posting tons of 'Positive reviews' without relativity or comparisons to prove your results.

    Anyways sorry for the rant. I feel like this is my last comment on the issue because I am over it but the bad part is once results are posted again from re-measuring pairs and all that... it will be stirred up all over again. Hopefully Jude chooses humility this time around.
     
  20. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    I agree, the culture here is a lot better. That's because the minds here are open, to everything. I have to tread lightly when I do a review on HF, I've learned how to be politically correct when describe a product I don't like or think is utter garbage, thankfully I haven't stumbled across anything that's been pure over priced crap

    but I enjoy reading this thread, Marvey's analogy was spot on and Bill-P is correct in expressing his distrust of our abilities to use the amazing tool that is math

    it is a bit of a de-rail but let me tell you how I got Contributor on Head Fi. I got it from Currawong after a 2 weeks PM about how the adds on HF were running the load on my CPU from 10-15% to right around 70%... that was having 2 or 3 tabs open! Basically... in the end Currawong just made me a Contributor since we couldn't find a real solution. His words were "you've been here long enough and post often enough" so... I can't say how positive or un positive my reviews where back then... I can say the really sucked... still I appreciate both sites, but I'm ONLY a Contributor on Head Fi, I'm just a cog in Jude's machine. Here I'm a member of a community,
     

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