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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
Nice try doofus. We were talking about sound quality and you know it. You either really are a pathetic **** or you live in an alternate reality. Perhaps both.
The fact that you persist with the SNR crap shows how much you know about high end audio. Only a moron would care about that stuff in preference to actually listening to it. And with some of the stuff you've posted lately I doubt you're qualified to fix a toaster. |
Do you understand what SNR actually means and how it is measured? How, then, could you deny how important it is with digital audio? SNR is a scientific, repeatable, consistent metric for determining audio clarity -- which is why it exists. It's the ratio of the original sound intended (or the signal) to the noise (caused by interference mostly).
This means that, by definition, something with a higher SNR is more accurate than something with a lower SNR.
Further, since this is measured in dB, which is a logarithmic scale, 92 dB is substantially and noticably worse than 98 dB.
It's not that hard to understand. Creative's bread and butter is sound, and they have extremely close partnership with Yamaha. They know their **** when it comes to digital audio. Apple, on the other hand, doesn't have much experience with digital audio hardware at all. Their bread and butter is styling and appearance.
It's style over substance all over again.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:34
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The stats aren't what really matters. It's what you hear.
If someone records your voice, the aim of audio equipment at the recording and reproduction end is to produce that with as much fidelity as possible.
The only sure fire way to determine that is to actually listen to your recording through the device you want to test and see how it measures up. That's how sensible people buy audio equipment. Only a sure fire nutcase would not do that. Fidelity to the original source can only be measured by the human ear - which is the only thing that can hear both. Any other measure of audio quality is besides the point.
For example, CDs were supposed to produce a much better sound than analogue equipment, but when they came out they sounded unnaturally bright to listeners - not at all like a live performance, and not a very pleasing sound. Audio reproduction is science in the service of art, and it is the art that matters. In fact a good CD does still not produce as pleasing a sound as fresh vinyl with a high end turntable. I've listened myself and there is a difference. I am a concert goer, so I've heard plenty of the real thing too.
That's why my advice to anyone who wants to purchase an audio device is to peform their own comparative listening tests. That's just common sense - everything else is irrelevant. No one should ever buy audio equipment without listening to it first. If you think that something on a piece of paper is more indicative of audio quality than what you can actually hear, then I'm wondering what you are talking about. Audio quality in the only relevant sense is heard quality.
What's wrong with that? It seems to be common sense. You can define audio quality as something else if you like, but people who care about music only care about heard quality.
It's simply a fact that you can put together lots of really impressive equipment into a hi-fi system and it still won't sound right. You need equipment that produces what audiophiles call "synergy". Some components match each other well, others do not - even though there is nothing on paper to distinguish them.
So are you both trying to tell me that heard quality is not the sole consideration when buying audio equipment? If not, then do you not really care about the sound?
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:34
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If you'd like we could also discuss THD and stereo crosstalk stats, which also favor the Zen substantially.
The fact is, when dealing with facts and measurements, the Zen kicks the iPod's ass. It has higher sound quality.
One thing you seem to have problem with comprehending is that digital audio reproduction is purely a science. Unlike past methods of audio, there is no room for art. It's all mathematics and circuit design.
As a philosopher, I'm not surprised you have problems dealing with emperical fact and instead, hopelessly, try to base this on judgement of mind. It is, but only because your mind is so hopelessly in love with Apple, you'd say it would sound better no matter what.
We won't even get started on how much more powerful the DSP is in the Zen than the iPod, with an incredibly powerful equalizer compared to the pathetic one on the iPod. 
What you're doing is saying a 500MHz G3 may seem the same speed as an 800MHz G3 for things like MS Word, but that doesn't mean they are the same speed. Trying stuff out in the store doesn't do you much good when you're dealing with emperical facts and statistics. It's always a good thing to do, though. 
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mrmitchell
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quote:
What does popularity with users matter? |
Isn't this from the same guy who has previously argued that it's best for computers if there's only one major popular OS or browser?
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:34
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If you can't accept that the only audio quality that matters is heard quality, then you aren't interested in it.
There's stacks of things that affect hi-fi audio quality: amplification, speakers, the shape of the room you are in, etc. Presumably statistics give us some insight into how we can improve audio quality by correlating certain stats with certain heard phenomena - but we don't know enough about heard audio quality to be able to say with any reasonable accuracy that this one will sound better than that one, just based on a one point difference. There are too many other factors. That's why comparative listening tests are a sine qua non when one buys audio equipment.
I don't know if it is still the case, but people used to brag about how low their system could go when reproducing bass frequencies. But there was no point in having a system that reproduced these low frequencies if it sounded like mush. People who worried about that sort of thing were stupid.
The hearing of music is, like hearing anything, an irreducibly subjective experience. We can use science to refine our devices, but in the end only heard quality matters - and to complicate the issue, that may well be different for different people.
Here's an excerpt from a comparison of two DACs in a hi-fi mag.
quote:
When the Musical Fidelity processor arrived I still had the Perpetual Technologies digital to digital processor (P1-A) and DAC (P3-A) on hand for a brief period overlap so sonic comparisons were certainly in order. With both processors fed by the P1-A (which up-samples to 96 kHz, mounts multi-pronged attacks on jitter, and actually interpolates data that would have been recorded if the source were 24/96) the two DACs sounded truly excellent, and definitely revealed subtle, but distinctive characteristics. Slightly darker tonally, the Musical Fidelity also sounded a touch more refined than the less expensive P3-A. At the same time the P3 had a very slight edge in overall detail, owing in part to a slightly brighter, drier sound. Both DACs unequivocally blew away the internal DAC in my Rotel RCD-951 CD player but I came away with the feeling that the MF was the smoother operator, it's suave, more analog-like sound making it more natural sounding and less fatiguing over the long haul. This impression only increased when the P3-A was stripped of the advantage of the US $349 Monolithic Sound power supply designed to drive both it and the P1-A. Running on its internal power supply the P3-A sounded decidedly coarser and a touch aggressive by comparison with bass now a little underdamped. |
As you can see, he's testing them by listening.
Again:
quote:
Even more concentrated, intent listening, with the most challenging source material in my collection did, over time, start to reveal some very subtle, but identifiable differences between the two DACs. On Air's 10,000 Hz Legend, for instance, the DAC 2 seemed just a hair more open with a slightly wider soundstage and somewhat crisper transient edges for a vaguely more three dimensional effect. Tonally, in terms of overall resolution, imaging and bass control, however, I couldn't hear any consistent differences. They both sounded great. More or less the same, but great.
     On the Kundun Soundtrack and Patricia Barber's Caf� Blue, as good a test of digital resolving power as I've come across, the sound was sumptuous on both processors, with maybe an extra whiff of air and a centimeter of stage width from the Bel Canto. At the same time I felt that the A3 24 delivered a slightly smoother sound, the top end and mids ever so slightly lusher. Both featured fast, engagingly tactile microdynamics and extraordinary resolution with extended, firm, and well damped bottom end. They may lack the sophistication of digital from the likes of dCS and Levinson, but there were few faults to find in this pair of processors. |
This is the sort of thing you'd find in any hi-fi mag, because it is how you test audio equipment. Nowhere do people obsess over SNR ratios or anything like that. It's about heard quality.
Again from the beginning of that article:
quote:
audio reviews generally rely heavily on comparisons, and, more specifically from the cataloguing of differences gleaned from such comparisons |
This is how professionals review audio equipment. That's how it is - it's always been like this.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
Of course it's what matters. The problem is you can't accept that there's a science behind how that digital audio quality is produced. |
No. That's a straw man. I never said that. My claim is that the science is either not yet sufficiently advanced, or perhaps never will be (I'll leave that as an open question), to determine heard audio quality.
My evidence is what hi-fi reviewers actually do. It's their profession, you would think that they would base their reviews solely on statistics if you were right. In fact, they don't bother with stats much because it is heard audio quality that matters.
quote:
Hello, Agathon. I believe the topic at hand is portable music players... |
It makes no difference. You will please note that the excerpts are from a comparison of DACs (and DACs alone), which both the Zen and the ipod have. Your claim was that, when it comes to specifically digital devices, that heard audio quality either can be trumped by stats or that stats take the dominant role. As you can see from this review, that is most definitely not the case, because that's not how people test hi-fi equipment.
quote:
Exhibit E on "Pretentious Unnecessary Lingo". |
Exhibit Z on "cheap shots because you are losing the argument"
quote:
It's remarkable just how clueless you are in debates. Really, quite surprising. |
Throwing insults because you've lost.... classic.
quote:
You've no clue what you're talking about. Of course you test by listening, but online it's hard to test. In fact, every comparison test I've seen by listening ALSO puts the Zen in front. |
Would you buy hi-fi equipment based on what someone else had heard? Jesus, I would [i]never[/i[ buy audio equipment online without having heard it first - nor would any sensible person.
Notice that nowhere in this thread have I discounted the possibility that the Zen may indeed sound better than the ipod. I've just said that buyers should test them for themselves. That's my standard position on these matters - because it's common sense. A clueless person would buy a player based purely on what someone else had said about it.
As I said, you can throw around stats all you like, but it's a dumb way of trying to prove superior heard audio quality - there are too many other factors.
quote:
You've no real basis for any argument here whatsoever. You've boiled down your "position" to "it needs to sound good". No ****... |
Good. I win. You were the one saying that all this other stuff was more important, and I was the one saying that listening tests are more important. On my side I have the entire hi-fi journalism industry as well as common sense.
Either admit that throwing around SNR ratios is next to useless in determining which player to buy, or stop making a fool of yourself.
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06-03-2004 23:49
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