Thread: Meyer Moran result debunked - again

Posts: 111
Page: prev 1 ... 6 7 8 9 10 ... 12 next

Post by Polly Nomial October 1, 2010 (71 of 111)

Post by Ernani71 October 1, 2010 (72 of 111)
Polly Nomial said:

Link here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=82264 for those interested.

Judging by the comments on that thread, it's another inconclusive test. Rather than studies where people are asked to hear differences I would like to see a study where physiological, psychological, and behavioral responses are monitored. I find that listening to SACD produces a greater state of relaxation and comfort in me than listening to RBCD. I'm less inclided to be fidgety and more absorbed in the music. How does RBCD versus SACD make people FEEL during and after long listening sessions? What unconscious responses do people have to these formats? I do imagine I hear a marked difference (for example, in the sound of violin and harpsichord, and more depth), but these studies have the unfortunate result of making people stress as they strive to hear differences ("All subjects reported [in post-test questionnaires] that it was a very demanding test and they had lots of doubts about their choices"), thus counteracting one of the greatest benefits of listening to SACD which is that it is (I believe) more prone to relax and engage you. Are people more prone to multitask and divide their attention when listening to RBCD/PCM rather than SACD/DSD over long periods of time? Do they get more fidgety listening to lower resolution? Are they more absorbed and relaxed over time listening to DSD? Do their heart rates go up/down, blood pressure, brain activity, emotional response? Are low rez recordings more fatiguing to people's ears and stamina? Measure stress levels. That sort of thing. When you ask people to consciously hear minute and subtle differences, they get stressed out and focus on details rather than on the relative enjoyment or non-enjoyment that the recordings are producing in them.

Post by david moran October 1, 2010 (73 of 111)
This is precisely why testing has to be blind. Placebo effect is just unbelievably strong, one of the tremendous psychological discoveries of the second half of the last century.

All that you report here may indeed be due to the technology, or it may simply in your mind (also true, but different). There is only one way to find out.

Post by Paul Clark October 2, 2010 (74 of 111)
To eliminate as much of the physiological, psychological, and behavioral bias as possible a test should not use music or CDs and SACDs at all. The test should use discrete audio tones sampled at 128fs (1/2 SACD) and decimated, using the appropriate vetted equipment, to simulate SACD and CD resolution. Then the vetted subjects asked to distinguish between the samples.

Post by stvnharr October 2, 2010 (75 of 111)
Paul Clark said:

To eliminate as much of the physiological, psychological, and behavioral bias as possible a test should not use music or CDs and SACDs at all. The test should use discrete audio tones sampled at 128fs (1/2 SACD) and decimated, using the appropriate vetted equipment, to simulate SACD and CD resolution. Then the vetted subjects asked to distinguish between the samples.

Well, not sure how wise it is to enter this thread on Pg.9, but here goes.....

Yes, elimination of humans evaluating music does have it's advantages. However, not sure if having humans evaluate test tones is all that valuable. Why not just eliminate the human evaluators entirely and have this all as a lab experiment with the only human involvement being the arrangement of the experiment?

Also, not so sure about the substitution of test tones for music. Music can vary from a single tone to multiple tones to multiples of the same tone to many multiples of many tones all at the same time.

Of course that's not what this is about. I thought this was about humans evaluating recorded music from common format carriers.

Post by Paul Clark October 11, 2010 (76 of 111)
SACD vs. CD

"...used the most current re-master... for the CD - which is the same issue as the SACD..."

"...the SACD was the best".

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=172615

Post by ssully April 19, 2011 (77 of 111)
david moran said:
"Many claims of the superiority of high-resolution audio tout its audibly improved performance even with reissues of old analog recordings."

THIS.

Vinylphiles/anti-Redbook snobs want to have it both ways -- they report again and again that 'hi rez' versions 'sound better' than CD and are happy to attribute that to the formats' SR/bitdepth specs -- and even praise the superiority of discs that have, upon investigation, turn out to have been mastered from Redbook bandwidth-limited sources, or have highly compromised dynamic range! -- yet insist that to test whether 'hi rez' matters, only 100% pure 'hi rez' DDD recordings can serve. It's dishonest and ridiculous.

Post by ssully April 19, 2011 (78 of 111)
audioholik said:

The M&M test did not give a positive result because, as it was pointed out, the whole study was flawed.

Actually, if you read the M&M paper, which I suspect few of you have, it did produce a positive result: at very high playback volumes, difference in noise floor between the DSD and downconverted versions could be authentically heard during very quiet passages. This is entirely expected and in keeping with known engineering and psychoacoustics. (Of course, no one would be listening to the music at those levels normally, because it would be deafening. At normal listening level, the difference is inaudible.)

This actually confirms that the study setup was sensitive: it would be damning if no difference was heard under those conditions. Also indicating sensitivity was the identification, during the study, from listener reports, of a faulty disc player (which was then replaced).

To recap: the M&M test method successfully detected difference that indepedently had good scientific reason to exist (positive control). It found no evidence for difference where a priori there was no good scientific reason to expect audible difference.

Post by Zammo April 19, 2011 (79 of 111)
Here we go again....

Post by AmonRa April 20, 2011 (80 of 111)
ssully said:

THIS.

Vinylphiles/anti-Redbook snobs want to have it both ways -- they report again and again that 'hi rez' versions 'sound better' than CD and are happy to attribute that to the formats' SR/bitdepth specs -- and even praise the superiority of discs that have, upon investigation, turn out to have been mastered from Redbook bandwidth-limited sources, or have highly compromised dynamic range! -- yet insist that to test whether 'hi rez' matters, only 100% pure 'hi rez' DDD recordings can serve. It's dishonest and ridiculous.

I have asked this several times also, why do people here want old material reissued on SACD (because it sounds better than CD...) and on the other hand these same reissues are not good enough for M&M test (because they do not sound better than CD...). I think somebody even got banned from the site for asking this.

You can find even conflicting posts from the same persons about these questions, praising the superior better-then-CD quality of old reissues and then debunking the M&M test for using these "superior SACDs" as test material.

Page: prev 1 ... 6 7 8 9 10 ... 12 next

Closed