Error corrections: 1) There's a typo around 14:27. When it says "Appox." on screen, it should be "Approx." It's not just some fancy scientific term ;) 2) At 17:10 the 6dB quieter sound is the one perceived further away than the 6dB louder sound
I have been waiting for this video for about a decade! Cannot thank you enough for this. Our brains are so fascinating, and the studies discovering how we precieve sound are mind blowing! Would love to learn more of these studies.
This really nails the core argument that I make in head-fi and other areas when I feel like engaging. The current battery of tests used by manufacturers to determine if audio equipment is functioning correctly doesn’t cover the full spectrum of human hearing. And to make overly wide or universal claims as to how something sounds based purely on a handful of tests is just plain unwise. Of course, he gets into more interesting detail with capacitors and negative feedback, so that’s really helpful when engaging with the ASR types who listen with their eyes.
When you go to a phisician to evaluate your hearing capabilties, you can bet he won't ever measure it by ear, it will use instruments, which doesn't mean "with eyes", it means with science and common sense. Using science to claim scientific measurements, based on data, are meaningless in order to give credit to subjective listening is rather pathetic, beside of totally incorrect, because scientific measurements do not erase the value of listening tests and personal pleasure, they simply are a tool to evaluate proper engineering and fidelity of reproduction, which add, and not exclude, to the listening test. To evaluate an instrument using solely abstract and absurd marketing terms to sell an opinion as a product by itself it's not a tool, it's an oax...
@Melkitzedeq when they assess your hearing, they're only assessing your ability to hear specific frequencies at various volume levels. It's about as rudimentary as it gets. Suggesting that it somehow negates all of the research and biology in the cited study is like measuring the air pressure in your tyres and thinking it explains how a car works...
I appreciate this video, but all this detail masks some underlying truths. 1st, you could get the idea that the human ear wants the most accurate sound reproduction. Our ears might, but we certainly don’t. A couple of quick examples. Tubes are not more accurate, but the sound is very appealing to many audiophiles. One reason is that they produce a fair amount of 2nd order harmonic distortion which is pleasing to our ears. Another example: speakers. If our ears are such highly tuned and accurate instruments, why don’t we all agree on what are the best kinds of transducers and speakers??? You simply cannot take the subjectivity out of the hobby. I agree with your point about specifications. There is a tenuous connection between specs and the sound we appreciate. Take damping factor. A high damping factor indicates that the amp has full control over the woofer. But that doesn’t mean that is the bass presentation that we want to hear. I can think of several amps, even all amps produced by a certain company that have low damping factors that are so low as to be in the audible range and these products are well reviewed and liked. One of the things I love about Galion is that Thomas Tan isn’t even pretending to make the best measuring equipment, he is trying to make the best sounding equipment based on his ears and his experience. Lots of other companies are quietly doing the exact same thing because most audiophiles, including myself, are not interested in the most accurate sound. We want the sound most pleasing to our ears. And we all have music we love with crappy recordings and don’t want the crappy recording spoiling our love of that music. All of this raises some troubling questions for lots of equipment. Let’s take SS amps. If most audiophiles want the amp most pleasing to our ears, specs be damned, what are reviewers or audiophiles listening for??? Are there sound signatures to strive for? Do they change with the type of speakers or other equipment you have??? I’m building a system right now. The tweeter is a compression driver in a horn. Because of the synergy between horns and tubes, I chose the most “tubes” SS amp I could find, based on the comments of reviewers and people who previously purchased the amp. If I upgrade at some point in the future, tube amps need only apply. But what if my equipment had been different? What sound signature would indicate a good match with my equipment. And doesn’t this indicate that, in many instances, one piece of equipment is not better than the other, just suited best for different uses. Finally, you completely ignore the impact of psycho-acoustics. We expect impressive looking equipment to sound better and often “hear” differences that are not there. You rarely see any reviewer blind test equipment. The truly blind tests I have seen suggest that our ears are not the finely honed instruments this video would suggest. To make matters worse, reviewers listen to equipment and then pack it off to the next reviewer and to the manufacturer. When a new piece comes in, you can compare it to the equipment you have on hand, but not necessarily against other equipment in its price range or outside its price range. So the reviewer is forced often forced to compare the equipment under review to memories of other equipment and human memory is hardly reliable. This is not say that reviewers such as yourself should be completely discounted. The reality is that, for most of us, you are all we have. This is also not to say that you are not trying hard to be as informative and accurate as you can. But this is a tough area. What all audiophiles want to know is how this piece of equipment will perform for my ears with my other equipment in my room to produce the sound signature most pleasing to me. That is the bar. This video on the complexity of our ears doesn’t change the fact that we are FAR from coming any where close to clearing this bar.
A lot of what you're talking about is the harmonic makeup of the sound, but what the studies discussed in this video tell is that the timing of the sound is more important. If you take it a step further, tubes don't switch like transistors so they're going to have less timing issues (although capacitance may be a factor).
@ Class A solid state amps do not switch. Topologically, this is the advantage of Class A over Class AB and Class D. Push pull tube amps do switch. My understanding is that they switch like Class AB solid state amps.
That's true about class A amps, but we're also potentially talking about power supplies and the speed of components like capacitors and resistors. Basically, every component in an audio device can influence the timing of the signal via switching, capacitance, the time it takes for the voltage to ramp up and down as needed, and probably a bunch of stuff I don't understand.
Part of my University education was spatial acoustics but that was much more interesting. Thank you. I have always trusted my ears and this really helps to understand why.
I'm in school for electrical engineering in hopes to move on to acoustical engineering. I've been waiting to hear someone concisely put the receiving end of the acoustical environment into one video- our ears and psychoacoustics.
You should watch Thomas Tan's video on how many months he spent testing capacitors as they changed the sound so much. Reinforces your capacitance comments. Alpha Audio proved that cables can smear sound, they measured it.
@jakobgooijer I've much enjoyed that series and comparing caps in my zero feedback Musical Paradise MP701mk2 preamp. The v-cap ODAM came out later, but so far my favourite for clarity and ineffable "just rightness" 😊
I was already a big fan, but with this video and your wonderful presentation, I’m truly impressed. This video should be required watching/listening (pun intended) by all audio skeptics who think all cables, DACs etc must sound the same. Excellent job, continue the great work. Enjoy the holidays!
You just blew the "measurement-only" crowd out of the water. Far too many audio folks try to cling to specs as the answer to good sound quality. As of now, specs are not a reliable indicator of how something will sound, and many have known this for ages. Thank you for putting together an incredibly well thought out and thorough explanation of how it all works. Our ear-brain network hears far more than what we can currently measure in audio. For years I've known that measurements only tell a fraction of the story. Listening is a skill that can and should be honed.
I'm glad you liked it! I think many of us have been frustrated by having our experiences denied by those citing measurements as their evidence. I was excited to find research that supports what we have heard with our own ears. 🙂
Incredible video 👏🏻 very educational and a pleasure to watch. Thank you very much for all the content that you have been producing and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ❤️
Unusual offering from an audiophile channel, purely educational, and very much appreciated by those who are interested in how the science of music reproduction may guide our buying choices for optimal sound...loads of great info, many thanks!
Hi Lachlan, You say that a "good quality recording these days has a dynamic range of about 30db" are you really sure about this ? Because on the face of it this does not seem credible. If we convert this 30db figure to linear this is only about a 32 times difference between the quietist and loudest sounds that can be captured in a modern recording - which appears to go against common sense. Unless there is something in this I am missing, I think this must be a mistake.
This is based on the research I did for the video. A 30dB swing is quite large though so it makes sense to me. Try listening to music on a system with a dB-based volume control and try raising the volume from a quiet, but audible level to add 30dB more. You'll probably stop well before you actually get to 30dB more because it's still a large amount - just not as large as what we can discern. (Please be careful not to hurt your ears if you do this)
Another aspect that degrades sound is vibration. The microphonic aspect of electronic components cannot be underestimated. Vibration introduces sonic disruption some of which is in the time domain.
Absolutely! Vibration can affect clocks in DACs and (I assume) transistors in amps/preamps. Once we realise how sensitive our ears are, some of these seemingly fringe tweaks start to make a lot of sense.
This is an excellent video. You're directly addressing a lot of the issues that I personally have with how we talk about the "science of Hi-Fi," if that's what you want to call it.
I'm glad you liked it! Please do share as broadly as possible. I don't normally ask that on my videos, but I think this research is so valuable to our community.
Thanks for this insightful explanation. It's good to hear about some solid scientific research that clearly explains that thetr's a lot more to good audio reproduction than just THD & Frequency response.
Wow, another very fascinating video. Thank you so much for putting all this together & sharing, I can imagine a lot of research & effort went into this one. Happy holidays man
These phenomena can account for perceived differences among audio systems and superior audio equipment may provide opportunities for potential additional perceptions. However, there are no guarantees because another function available to the brain is sensory gating, which allows it to ignore certain details if it so chooses. Nevertheless, that is the prerogative of the brain, not of the reproduction equipment.
Completely blown away at how detailed, yet easily broken down to make the information into digestable chunks. Quick question, though... so different cables can introduce "smearing"? I've recently purchased a HEKse based a lot on your reviews, and I absolutely love the new headphones! But if I can even further improve the sound, in general, what best bang for the buck cables would be recommended? New into the audiophile world, and everything I've seen from other enthusiast videos is that going nuts over cables is stupid and they all basically sound the same no matter the price or quality. ...so that's not really true, and the audio snobs were right? Lol Again, not looking to spend hundreds or throusands of dollars on cables, but any general advice would be welcome. 🙂
I'm so glad you found the video digestible. This was a big one! As for cables, HiFiMan use silver plated copper cables on most (maybe all) of their headphones. I feel that this is always a negative choice of cable material because the signal can travel at different speeds through the silver plating compared to the copper wire underneath. As I understand it, different frequencies travel at different depths in a wire so the plated cables are probably delivering a signal that is not time coherent across all frequencies. The output of that is that I find pure metal cables like pure copper and pure silver are preferable and I personally use pure copper cables, generally of the litz variety (that's where each strand is individually insulated). The Apos Flow cables are an excellent example of those without spending too much, but only if you're in the USA, Canada or Australia. There are also plenty of other manufacturers of that type of cable and they shouldn't be wildly expensive.
@@PassionforSoundExcellent, and thank you so very much for the prompt and very informative response. I'm new to your channel as I've just been roughly a year into the audiophile world. I was afraid that this video being a few days old now that you'd likely ignore any more comments. I went ahead and purchased the Apos Flow cable (I'm in the US, so no worries there). I never really knew about the high quality audio until about a year ago. I've always been an orchestral music kind of guy with some pop and music by System of Down and the like thrown in there. I honestly don't remember how I stumbled upon it, maybe I did a Google search for best bang for the buck headphones and landed on Reddit posts singing the praises of the Edition XS. I ordered that and then went through the painful process of learning what dacs and amps were, how to determine better qualities, learning names such as SMSL, Topping, Schiit, etc. I thought the XS were decently cool for half a year, but wasn't blown away. I then looked into and purchased the closed back DCA E3. That bastard forced me to learn even more as those headphones sounded... meak. Better dac and better amp purchases (Chord Mojo 2 [my first recolection of watching your video reviews] and the Schiit Jot2) And holy cow, I finally was able to hear the E3s in a much better circumstance). And coincidentally I also plugged in the XS's and was equally blown away at the improvement of quality. (Gawd, this is longer than I expected, but quickly...) I knew the XS wasn't end game for my style of listening. The Aryas seemed like a minor step up and the Susvara prohibitively expensive on their own and then the necessary gear to run them well (now that I had first hand experience of realizing this fact). But people were praising the Susvara left and right and I almost made the painful decision to purchase that beast... ...until I stumbled upon to one of your videos where you were comparing the HEK Stealth, SE and Susvara (I was like, "oh yeah! That's the Chord Mojo 2 review guy!"). Your final comment that you always came back to the SEs and already sold away the Susvara nailed it for me. I had an inkling that we likely had similar listening styles. After receiving the SEs about two weeks ago, I've been in musical nirvana every day I have them on while working my remote job at home. My long story has been compressed as best I could and would be 5x as long. But just wanted to gush at what a fan of your videos I am, and to thank you profusely for the insanely good work that you put in. Looking forward to enjoying your future videos. Have a happy new years 😊
Thanks Chuck. I do too! In hindsight, I wish I'd structured it differently because the opening isn't as strong as the midpoint onwards. I just hope lots of people get to see it because the research is so valuable to understand.
I agree with you. When I started spending hours of my day listening to music it was very difficult to listen to more complex recordings like jazz, but as I found more accessible tracks my brain began to demand more and more complex sounds. I'm not an expert in the genre, nor do I claim to be, but there is no longer a single album of any musical genre that I consider inaccessible today. Excellent work. ❤
Understanding how the human ears process frequency(ies) over time is so important for reproduction and accuracy in recordings. This is a beautiful way to explain how important time and frequency are within the recreation of audio/music within our brain. Being able to bring out the best in sound reproduction, timing to the ears makes a huge difference. This is where DSP can greatly improve both time and frequency adjustment, for a much more refined and accurate reproduction. Thank you for the detailed dive into the complexity of hearing and why frequency over distance and time matters.
I'm so glad you liked it. It's worth being aware that some DSPs can actually damage timing and small signal accuracy so it's about finding the right DSP.
@PassionforSound thanks for the response back 🙃 I have personally used the correction from Yamaha, Denon, and Onkyo HT AVRs. I'm currently taking a dive into Dirac via an Onkyo TX-RZ-50, which will most likely lead to miniDSP hardware that meets my current and future needs.
Worth noting that Nelson Pass did experiments to find what sound customers liked best and it was not 100% accurate. "This effect is described as having negative phase 2nd harmonic at approximately 1% of the amplitude of the original signal..." from Stereophile. You can even make a second harmonic generator using his design to test it yourself.
That's a slightly different phenomenon I think, and not one I've explored yet. The mix of harmonics in the sound definitely alters our subjective enjoyment of the music, but timing accuracy and system resolution achieved through low noise, etc. will create the sense of realism that the harmonics can then build on.
very interesting thanks! Great video Lachlan touching on the complexity of our hearing along with aspects of the complexity of electronic sound reproduction. I'll definitely come back to this video again. Two additional intrinsic layers of complexity relating to music -- related to our minds... the projected intent expressed within the musical information by the artist/s, and the unique interpretation processed within the mind of the listener...
It’s funny because the reviews themselves are very well done. But there are a lot of comments about how everything is the same. If a tree is a tree, how long do you keep checking to make sure it’s a tree?
Very interesting. Now i better understand why i prefer to listen to planar magnetic speakers and zero feedback amplification. Thanks Lachlan. Still reading the Sound Mind book. Enjoyed this presentation. Food for appreciative contemplation 🎶🤔🎶
That's great news that you've found this informative and that you're reading Of Sound Mind too. Hearing this and other comments encourages me to continue with these videos.
PREACH!!! I’ve been saying a lot of this for years! I stopped because I just got tired of the cable denier stuff. Thinking that everything you need to know is all in a FR graph is just plain foolishness to me!
Absolutely. Even before I found this research, there were too many aspects of sound that just couldn't be explained by a FR graph, distortion numbers or similar.
Exceptional, technical message! I noticed that my headphone listening had further trained my ears when I run live sound for mini concerts or at mega churches.
Thanks for the great “holiday gift”! This is the most interesting video I’ve seen in a long long time. I wonder how long it took to research this? I appreciate your effort and hard work.
I'm so glad you liked it! This one was an absolute beast to produce and I actually wish I'd taken even longer to make it even better, but a produced and watched video is better than one still in the research phase! 🙂
Spectral Audio is one company that has a design approach that includes a consideration of the aspects of human auditory perception together with GEP (Good engineering practice). They have been producing high speed, ultra-wide bandwidth amplifiers since the 70’s. These high slew-rate designs help preserve the critical timing cues within the audio signals. There is an interesting interview with Richard Fryer from Spectral Audio on the Alpha Audio channel. The guru behind the engineering team is Keith O Johnson. The Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest channel has a video entitled RMAF10: High Resolution from the Masters. The key topic is high resolution digital, but his talk covers far more: jitter, signal timing, cables, hidden feedback mechanisms, power supply coupling, grounding, and isolation, etc.
@@PassionforSound If the time domain response of an audio system influences the critical cues for timbre and spatial quality of a reproduced sound source, then this includes the system interconnect cables. You might be interested in the cable high-speed pulse testing on the Alpha Audio channel. The introduction video covers the procedure: Alpha Labs - Explaining the HUGE Cable Test! More than 70 Cables!
@SteveD-m6z yes it absolutely does and their videos measuring the cables and also their video about network switches were very interesting when combined with what this research tells us.
This was an excellent video. I like reviews too, but there's really too few well explained videos like this for those of us who like to go deeper into this hobby. Please, do more videos like this, with soild science as the basis for explanation.
Capacitance Issues. Yes! And the issues…the effects on our hifi systems, they come from everywhere. Did you ever try meticulously brushing every cable and component, also every wall and table near them with one of those grounding brushes they make for cleaning records? You must try this! As a side note, ever play a Theremin? I have one and can’t really play any music on it but what a fun use of capacitance from our own human bodies. This great electrical fun!!
That's very interesting about the grounding brush. It sounds like voodoo, but I'd believe anything with an influence over noise and capacitance could have a noticeable impact. I have always been fascinated by Theremins too, but have never tried one. I wonder if there's a video in that???
Now that you’ve informed us about the importance of cables, I’m in the process of increasing the speed of my modem’s power cord. I can see that correcting the initial weakness of sound from the true real source. I’m purchasing a linear power source.
I think you’re trying to be honest here and you seem to have learned a lot of stuff from reading research. However this appears to be a case of you mostly presenting the parts that confirms your beliefs and your viewers end up with an incomplete and not very accurate picture of all that is going on with this. Yes, our hearing is very complex and sensitive to things that don’t show up in measurements BUT it is also very prone to influence from other senses, mood, bias etc. A basic example of this is a shorts clip ”What do you hear?” from Veritasium. This is an important component when trying to understand what’s going on when we listen for differences in audio gear
I know it was a lot - sorry! There was no way to arrive at the conclusion of this video without all of that information. And believe me, I do know how you feel because I had to read the scientific paper about five times to make complete sense of it and then I still left out a bunch of the information!
@PassionforSound As a side point, I arrived at this very same end point about hearing and measurements. Two stark examples are one: Sparkos opamps in amplifiers. They probably measure the same before and afterwards, but the depth and clarity get immensely better. Two improved power sources to amps or dacs.
Very interesting! Well done! I was very skeptical of the cables or power supply influence… but I did experienced it with very good system and then, I changed my opinion. One thing to mention is that if one component of a system (let stay speakers) mess the timing of a recording, the better cables can’t probably being heard… The other thing to mention is that blind test still don’t show that “supernatural” capability of the human ears/brain…
Both excellent points. I've got a video coming up in 2025 that will take some more of the studies discussed in the same paper as this video to explain why blind tests fail to reveal anything meaningful.
This does beg the question as to how many set ups are really capable of such accuracy when it comes to timing given the literal infinite variations, there are surely no manufacturers who have equipment capable of measuring down to the microsecond are there? Even if there were, there's then the added complication of different head size, ear shape etc. Is it just trial and error for the user? Is it even worth the effort to strive for this level or accuracy? So many questions... Great video though. Following ❤
Appreciate the gift Lachlan. Well researched and presented. Thank you! My appreciation for the AWESOME Gifts of hearing and Music is heightened by all of this new scientific research. Of couurs4we might turn on each other and argue about music reproduction equipment .... Or we could meditate on the meaning of all this complexity. Its Cause? To qouote a famous ancient Song: "Understand this, you who are unreasoning; You foolish ones, when will you ever show insight? The One who made the ear, can he not hear? The One who formed the eye, can he not see?" (Ps94)
Very informative video, I've learned a lot, thanks for the hard work and sharing. Eevery audiophile should view it before talking nonsense and arguing out of ignorance 👍 🎄Happy Christmas🎄
You might think that the ears came about by random chance but I believe they were made by the Creator God and his Son, Jesus. Such complexities as how the human ear works cannot originate anywhere else. If it isn't man-made, it is understood that those things are seen as attributes of our God. (Romans 1:18:23; Colossians 1:15-18)
@@PassionforSound It reminds me of something Joseph Campbell once said. He was talking about a Zen Master who asked his students: "What is the meaning of a flower?" The answer is that there IS no meaning. The flower simply exists, without rhyme or reason.
@@PassionforSound I was wondering just a few days ago whether some of what we experience with audio that can't be explained with measurements may be in similar realms as quarks and other examples of quantum physics. Electrons are, after all, a part of that micro-realm if I'm not mistaken.
Wow this was such an amazing video! I learned a lot, while I was already quite familiar with the subject. I also think this video is proof that reviews from the likes of Audio Science Review, although interesting, dont come even close to painting the whole picture. This explanation is so thorough, that Im sure it will help many people in the difficult dilemma of objectivity Vs subjectivity. Btw, I've been following your channel for years now and we conversed in the past regarding cables and several other topics. I've recently converted to your side of the argument. Main reason is a change in how I view blind tests. If you are interested in this, feel free to reach out. I think it could be good for content. If not no hard feelings of course. Cheers and merry Christmas 🎄🎁 Martijn
I'm glad you found the video useful and even happier to hear that you have explored things for yourself and reached a conclusion based on that curiosity. I'd be curious to speak more because I'm producing a video in the new year about why audio blind tests don't deliver reliable data. Did we email previously? If so, can you drop me a fresh note so we can chat more?
@@PassionforSoundHmm I tried replying twice but it seems after uploading the comment they disappeared? Perhaps because I was trying to share an email address.
Good video. I note that many of the components which are considered superlative, have a very high capacity to handle rapid transients. Also, and on another matter, I've spent a fortune with Adam and never got a t-shirt; bastard.
Haha. Sorry about the Adam Audio t-shirt. The local PR rep scored this one for me when he arranged the D3V, H200 and full sized monitors for review (all coming soon). Great point about the excellent devices being designed to handle rapid transients. I'd noticed the same trend but previously had no solid science behind my inkling that it was a common theme.
@@PassionforSound I hope you get the opportunity to listen to the Adam equipment driven by an Octave amp; they synergise beautifully with the Octave gear.
Thank you for this video!!I have the same exact opinion about this!!Many of the reviewers especially audioscience........ they don't even hear at all they only see measurements.Maybe many of the best speakers manufacturer in the world are "stupid" when they say that they trust first their ears and far less the measurments!!!
I’m tempted to give this video a “like” simply on the basis that so much misinformation and bullshit packed into just 27 minutes is impressive, even by audiophile marketing standards. And some in the comments seem to think it was educational, that’s funny 😂
@ I almost never disagree with peer reviewed studies, except those by Kuncher who’s a hack, which is presumably why you mentioned him specifically and ignored the many decades of real/accurate scientific papers but that’s irrelevant anyway because you’re not citing a peer reviewed paper! The figures you cited don’t even agree with Kuncher’s paper, let alone with the actual facts/science. You don’t even seem to know what decibels are but you do seem to know a bunch of audiophile marketing bull, or is all that just pure coincidence?! lol
@GregStudio01 everything in this video (except where I said I was theorising) was straight from the paper which was peer reviewed and a meta analysis of many other peer reviewed papers written by other scientists. In other words, this research was almost all conducted by other scientists. Milind Kunchur just collated the results. Are you saying that all the peer reviewed research on this topic is wrong because you disagree?
Seriously well done... talking about grasping a nettle! And shaking it... regarding timing especially. I can't wait to see this video being linked to in certain forums... I think that the 'measurement' vs 'subjective' push, especially with Audio Science Review has been very important, but we need a proper scientific counter balance to 'push' the measurements further into this timing domain. Bravo, fantastique, fantastico ...
I'm glad you liked it! If we ever get to the point that we can measure all there is to understand about the correlation between device performance and sound perception, then measurements will become invaluable. For now, they're really only helpful at identifying major flaws in a product's design, but even then they're limited because they don't indicate enjoyment.
That military gear couldn't tell you the timbre, location in space, size of space and relative positioning of each instrument in a band playing in a concert hall. We're talking about two very different things.
I love the content on the whole, but a LOT of the new thumbnails are......a decision. Creepy is the word I would use, for what it's worth I'm not the only person that's brought it up. Not trying to be a dick, just letting you know in case that's a blind spot, or maybe thats what you were going for.
all well, but only possible for analog signal cables ... not possible with digital signals ... those are either bitperfect or they give a broken signal ... better then bitperfect isn't possible 😂
You're missing 90% of what this video is saying and ignoring the fact that digital cables can carry noise which can alter the timing accuracy of the clock in the DAC.
Error corrections:
1) There's a typo around 14:27. When it says "Appox." on screen, it should be "Approx." It's not just some fancy scientific term ;)
2) At 17:10 the 6dB quieter sound is the one perceived further away than the 6dB louder sound
I have been waiting for this video for about a decade! Cannot thank you enough for this. Our brains are so fascinating, and the studies discovering how we precieve sound are mind blowing! Would love to learn more of these studies.
I'm so glad you liked it. I've got more like this planned for 2025. 🙂
All of these points are why I laugh at frequency response graphs so widely used in our hobby.
Graphs have their place. 💯
🎄Merry Christmas!🎄
@ReverendDr.Thomas Merry Christmas!
You sound like you listen to music on Bluetooth speakers.
This really nails the core argument that I make in head-fi and other areas when I feel like engaging. The current battery of tests used by manufacturers to determine if audio equipment is functioning correctly doesn’t cover the full spectrum of human hearing. And to make overly wide or universal claims as to how something sounds based purely on a handful of tests is just plain unwise.
Of course, he gets into more interesting detail with capacitors and negative feedback, so that’s really helpful when engaging with the ASR types who listen with their eyes.
I hope it helps build more informed and complete conversations about enjoying music.
Headphones are for dorks.
@@chrislesnar
Be kind.
I don't own any, unless Magnepans count;-)
But some of us might like to listen at odd hours and not not wake the family.
🎵🎶
When you go to a phisician to evaluate your hearing capabilties, you can bet he won't ever measure it by ear, it will use instruments, which doesn't mean "with eyes", it means with science and common sense. Using science to claim scientific measurements, based on data, are meaningless in order to give credit to subjective listening is rather pathetic, beside of totally incorrect, because scientific measurements do not erase the value of listening tests and personal pleasure, they simply are a tool to evaluate proper engineering and fidelity of reproduction, which add, and not exclude, to the listening test. To evaluate an instrument using solely abstract and absurd marketing terms to sell an opinion as a product by itself it's not a tool, it's an oax...
@Melkitzedeq when they assess your hearing, they're only assessing your ability to hear specific frequencies at various volume levels. It's about as rudimentary as it gets. Suggesting that it somehow negates all of the research and biology in the cited study is like measuring the air pressure in your tyres and thinking it explains how a car works...
I appreciate this video, but all this detail masks some underlying truths. 1st, you could get the idea that the human ear wants the most accurate sound reproduction. Our ears might, but we certainly don’t. A couple of quick examples. Tubes are not more accurate, but the sound is very appealing to many audiophiles. One reason is that they produce a fair amount of 2nd order harmonic distortion which is pleasing to our ears. Another example: speakers. If our ears are such highly tuned and accurate instruments, why don’t we all agree on what are the best kinds of transducers and speakers??? You simply cannot take the subjectivity out of the hobby.
I agree with your point about specifications. There is a tenuous connection between specs and the sound we appreciate. Take damping factor. A high damping factor indicates that the amp has full control over the woofer. But that doesn’t mean that is the bass presentation that we want to hear. I can think of several amps, even all amps produced by a certain company that have low damping factors that are so low as to be in the audible range and these products are well reviewed and liked. One of the things I love about Galion is that Thomas Tan isn’t even pretending to make the best measuring equipment, he is trying to make the best sounding equipment based on his ears and his experience. Lots of other companies are quietly doing the exact same thing because most audiophiles, including myself, are not interested in the most accurate sound. We want the sound most pleasing to our ears. And we all have music we love with crappy recordings and don’t want the crappy recording spoiling our love of that music.
All of this raises some troubling questions for lots of equipment. Let’s take SS amps. If most audiophiles want the amp most pleasing to our ears, specs be damned, what are reviewers or audiophiles listening for??? Are there sound signatures to strive for? Do they change with the type of speakers or other equipment you have??? I’m building a system right now. The tweeter is a compression driver in a horn. Because of the synergy between horns and tubes, I chose the most “tubes” SS amp I could find, based on the comments of reviewers and people who previously purchased the amp. If I upgrade at some point in the future, tube amps need only apply. But what if my equipment had been different? What sound signature would indicate a good match with my equipment. And doesn’t this indicate that, in many instances, one piece of equipment is not better than the other, just suited best for different uses.
Finally, you completely ignore the impact of psycho-acoustics. We expect impressive looking equipment to sound better and often “hear” differences that are not there. You rarely see any reviewer blind test equipment. The truly blind tests I have seen suggest that our ears are not the finely honed instruments this video would suggest. To make matters worse, reviewers listen to equipment and then pack it off to the next reviewer and to the manufacturer. When a new piece comes in, you can compare it to the equipment you have on hand, but not necessarily against other equipment in its price range or outside its price range. So the reviewer is forced often forced to compare the equipment under review to memories of other equipment and human memory is hardly reliable.
This is not say that reviewers such as yourself should be completely discounted. The reality is that, for most of us, you are all we have. This is also not to say that you are not trying hard to be as informative and accurate as you can. But this is a tough area. What all audiophiles want to know is how this piece of equipment will perform for my ears with my other equipment in my room to produce the sound signature most pleasing to me. That is the bar. This video on the complexity of our ears doesn’t change the fact that we are FAR from coming any where close to clearing this bar.
A lot of what you're talking about is the harmonic makeup of the sound, but what the studies discussed in this video tell is that the timing of the sound is more important.
If you take it a step further, tubes don't switch like transistors so they're going to have less timing issues (although capacitance may be a factor).
@ Class A solid state amps do not switch. Topologically, this is the advantage of Class A over Class AB and Class D. Push pull tube amps do switch. My understanding is that they switch like Class AB solid state amps.
That's true about class A amps, but we're also potentially talking about power supplies and the speed of components like capacitors and resistors. Basically, every component in an audio device can influence the timing of the signal via switching, capacitance, the time it takes for the voltage to ramp up and down as needed, and probably a bunch of stuff I don't understand.
Part of my University education was spatial acoustics but that was much more interesting. Thank you. I have always trusted my ears and this really helps to understand why.
I'm glad you found it so interesting!
I'm in school for electrical engineering in hopes to move on to acoustical engineering. I've been waiting to hear someone concisely put the receiving end of the acoustical environment into one video- our ears and psychoacoustics.
I hope this was a step in the right direction. This is still only scratching the surface of most of the specific mechanisms mentioned in this video. 🙂
@PassionforSound you got more!? I just got done mansplaining everything in this video to my wife 😁
Haha. Yep, plenty more where that came from. You'll be an expert in no time!
This was absolutely brilliant. A true gift to us for Christmas. A Ted Talk for audiophiles. Thank you.
I'm so glad you liked it! Merry Christmas!
@@PassionforSound Merry Christmas
You should watch Thomas Tan's video on how many months he spent testing capacitors as they changed the sound so much. Reinforces your capacitance comments. Alpha Audio proved that cables can smear sound, they measured it.
You're absolutely right. Humble Home made hifi hast a big list a tested caps
Yes, capacitors can have a major influence on sound. I learned this with the Bottlehead Crack and Mainline kits I've modified.
@jakobgooijer
I've much enjoyed that series and comparing caps in my zero feedback Musical Paradise MP701mk2 preamp.
The v-cap ODAM came out later, but so far my favourite for clarity and ineffable "just rightness" 😊
I was already a big fan, but with this video and your wonderful presentation, I’m truly impressed. This video should be required watching/listening (pun intended) by all audio skeptics who think all cables, DACs etc must sound the same. Excellent job, continue the great work. Enjoy the holidays!
I'm glad you found it so valuable! Happy holidays to you too!
You just blew the "measurement-only" crowd out of the water. Far too many audio folks try to cling to specs as the answer to good sound quality. As of now, specs are not a reliable indicator of how something will sound, and many have known this for ages. Thank you for putting together an incredibly well thought out and thorough explanation of how it all works. Our ear-brain network hears far more than what we can currently measure in audio. For years I've known that measurements only tell a fraction of the story. Listening is a skill that can and should be honed.
I'm glad you liked it! I think many of us have been frustrated by having our experiences denied by those citing measurements as their evidence. I was excited to find research that supports what we have heard with our own ears. 🙂
Thanks!
Thanks so much!! ♥️
Thanks!
Thanks so much, Stephen!
Incredible video 👏🏻 very educational and a pleasure to watch. Thank you very much for all the content that you have been producing and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ❤️
I'm so glad you liked it! Merry Christmas!
Unusual offering from an audiophile channel, purely educational, and very much appreciated by those who are interested in how the science of music reproduction may guide our buying choices for optimal sound...loads of great info, many thanks!
I'm so glad you liked it!
A much needed, great video.
Thanks
My pleasure!
Thanks
Thanks so much, Ken!
Hi Lachlan, You say that a "good quality recording these days has a dynamic range of about 30db" are you really sure about this ? Because on the face of it this does not seem credible. If we convert this 30db figure to linear this is only about a 32 times difference between the quietist and loudest sounds that can be captured in a modern recording - which appears to go against common sense. Unless there is something in this I am missing, I think this must be a mistake.
This is based on the research I did for the video. A 30dB swing is quite large though so it makes sense to me. Try listening to music on a system with a dB-based volume control and try raising the volume from a quiet, but audible level to add 30dB more. You'll probably stop well before you actually get to 30dB more because it's still a large amount - just not as large as what we can discern.
(Please be careful not to hurt your ears if you do this)
Fantastic information and explanation. Thank you.
Thanks!
Thank you so much!
Another aspect that degrades sound is vibration. The microphonic aspect of electronic components cannot be underestimated. Vibration introduces sonic disruption some of which is in the time domain.
Absolutely! Vibration can affect clocks in DACs and (I assume) transistors in amps/preamps. Once we realise how sensitive our ears are, some of these seemingly fringe tweaks start to make a lot of sense.
This is an excellent video. You're directly addressing a lot of the issues that I personally have with how we talk about the "science of Hi-Fi," if that's what you want to call it.
I'm so glad you liked it! I wasn't sure how this video would be received, but I felt it was an important video to make.
Wow. This gift of knowledge about hearing is much appreciated. Thanks. I will be sure to share it.
I'm glad you liked it! Please do share as broadly as possible. I don't normally ask that on my videos, but I think this research is so valuable to our community.
Thanks for this insightful explanation. It's good to hear about some solid scientific research that clearly explains that thetr's a lot more to good audio reproduction than just THD & Frequency response.
My pleasure. I'm glad you found it interesting!
Wow, another very fascinating video. Thank you so much for putting all this together & sharing, I can imagine a lot of research & effort went into this one.
Happy holidays man
I'm so glad you liked it and yes, this one was a beast to pull together, but I'm happy to do it if people are finding it valuable. Happy holidays!
These phenomena can account for perceived differences among audio systems and superior audio equipment may provide opportunities for potential additional perceptions. However, there are no guarantees because another function available to the brain is sensory gating, which allows it to ignore certain details if it so chooses. Nevertheless, that is the prerogative of the brain, not of the reproduction equipment.
Absolutely. Our brains choose what we focus on and examine out of the mammoth number of potential sensory cues available to us in each moment.
Completely blown away at how detailed, yet easily broken down to make the information into digestable chunks. Quick question, though... so different cables can introduce "smearing"? I've recently purchased a HEKse based a lot on your reviews, and I absolutely love the new headphones! But if I can even further improve the sound, in general, what best bang for the buck cables would be recommended? New into the audiophile world, and everything I've seen from other enthusiast videos is that going nuts over cables is stupid and they all basically sound the same no matter the price or quality. ...so that's not really true, and the audio snobs were right? Lol Again, not looking to spend hundreds or throusands of dollars on cables, but any general advice would be welcome. 🙂
I'm so glad you found the video digestible. This was a big one!
As for cables, HiFiMan use silver plated copper cables on most (maybe all) of their headphones. I feel that this is always a negative choice of cable material because the signal can travel at different speeds through the silver plating compared to the copper wire underneath. As I understand it, different frequencies travel at different depths in a wire so the plated cables are probably delivering a signal that is not time coherent across all frequencies.
The output of that is that I find pure metal cables like pure copper and pure silver are preferable and I personally use pure copper cables, generally of the litz variety (that's where each strand is individually insulated). The Apos Flow cables are an excellent example of those without spending too much, but only if you're in the USA, Canada or Australia. There are also plenty of other manufacturers of that type of cable and they shouldn't be wildly expensive.
@@PassionforSoundExcellent, and thank you so very much for the prompt and very informative response. I'm new to your channel as I've just been roughly a year into the audiophile world. I was afraid that this video being a few days old now that you'd likely ignore any more comments. I went ahead and purchased the Apos Flow cable (I'm in the US, so no worries there).
I never really knew about the high quality audio until about a year ago. I've always been an orchestral music kind of guy with some pop and music by System of Down and the like thrown in there. I honestly don't remember how I stumbled upon it, maybe I did a Google search for best bang for the buck headphones and landed on Reddit posts singing the praises of the Edition XS. I ordered that and then went through the painful process of learning what dacs and amps were, how to determine better qualities, learning names such as SMSL, Topping, Schiit, etc.
I thought the XS were decently cool for half a year, but wasn't blown away. I then looked into and purchased the closed back DCA E3. That bastard forced me to learn even more as those headphones sounded... meak. Better dac and better amp purchases (Chord Mojo 2 [my first recolection of watching your video reviews] and the Schiit Jot2) And holy cow, I finally was able to hear the E3s in a much better circumstance). And coincidentally I also plugged in the XS's and was equally blown away at the improvement of quality.
(Gawd, this is longer than I expected, but quickly...)
I knew the XS wasn't end game for my style of listening. The Aryas seemed like a minor step up and the Susvara prohibitively expensive on their own and then the necessary gear to run them well (now that I had first hand experience of realizing this fact). But people were praising the Susvara left and right and I almost made the painful decision to purchase that beast...
...until I stumbled upon to one of your videos where you were comparing the HEK Stealth, SE and Susvara (I was like, "oh yeah! That's the Chord Mojo 2 review guy!"). Your final comment that you always came back to the SEs and already sold away the Susvara nailed it for me. I had an inkling that we likely had similar listening styles. After receiving the SEs about two weeks ago, I've been in musical nirvana every day I have them on while working my remote job at home. My long story has been compressed as best I could and would be 5x as long. But just wanted to gush at what a fan of your videos I am, and to thank you profusely for the insanely good work that you put in. Looking forward to enjoying your future videos. Have a happy new years 😊
I love this video so much!
Thanks Chuck. I do too! In hindsight, I wish I'd structured it differently because the opening isn't as strong as the midpoint onwards. I just hope lots of people get to see it because the research is so valuable to understand.
Class in session, Merry Xmas everyone and thank you Lachlan for this comprehensive explainer.
I'm glad you liked it! Merry Christmas!!
I agree with you. When I started spending hours of my day listening to music it was very difficult to listen to more complex recordings like jazz, but as I found more accessible tracks my brain began to demand more and more complex sounds. I'm not an expert in the genre, nor do I claim to be, but there is no longer a single album of any musical genre that I consider inaccessible today. Excellent work. ❤
Understanding how the human ears process frequency(ies) over time is so important for reproduction and accuracy in recordings.
This is a beautiful way to explain how important time and frequency are within the recreation of audio/music within our brain.
Being able to bring out the best in sound reproduction, timing to the ears makes a huge difference. This is where DSP can greatly improve both time and frequency adjustment, for a much more refined and accurate reproduction.
Thank you for the detailed dive into the complexity of hearing and why frequency over distance and time matters.
I'm so glad you liked it. It's worth being aware that some DSPs can actually damage timing and small signal accuracy so it's about finding the right DSP.
@PassionforSound thanks for the response back 🙃
I have personally used the correction from Yamaha, Denon, and Onkyo HT AVRs. I'm currently taking a dive into Dirac via an Onkyo TX-RZ-50, which will most likely lead to miniDSP hardware that meets my current and future needs.
Legendary video .... well done!!
Thank you! I'm so glad you think so
Worth noting that Nelson Pass did experiments to find what sound customers liked best and it was not 100% accurate. "This effect is described as having negative phase 2nd harmonic at approximately 1% of the amplitude of the original signal..." from Stereophile. You can even make a second harmonic generator using his design to test it yourself.
Yes you can
It is called a SE Tube Amplifier
That's a slightly different phenomenon I think, and not one I've explored yet. The mix of harmonics in the sound definitely alters our subjective enjoyment of the music, but timing accuracy and system resolution achieved through low noise, etc. will create the sense of realism that the harmonics can then build on.
Wow what a video! Amazing work.
I'm so glad you liked it!
very interesting thanks! Great video Lachlan touching on the complexity of our hearing along with aspects of the complexity of electronic sound reproduction. I'll definitely come back to this video again.
Two additional intrinsic layers of complexity relating to music -- related to our minds... the projected intent expressed within the musical information by the artist/s, and the unique interpretation processed within the mind of the listener...
It's a very good point. There are so many layers to the subjective enjoyment of music.
@@PassionforSound yes... and indeed subjective - and so often subconscious as well
Excellent video..... for sure this made some more enemies again on the ASR cult website 🤣🤣
ASR crowd recommendations are useless 🤮
I'm glad you liked the video. It's not my intention to upset anyone, but this is important knowledge that I thought was worth sharing.
It’s funny because the reviews themselves are very well done. But there are a lot of comments about how everything is the same. If a tree is a tree, how long do you keep checking to make sure it’s a tree?
Thanks for this video 👏👏👏
The truth indigestible for many 😊
My pleasure! I'm glad you liked it.
Amazing topic and discussion building up and leading to what is a complex understanding about what we hear
I'm so glad you found it valuable
Very interesting.
Now i better understand why i prefer to listen to planar magnetic speakers and zero feedback amplification.
Thanks Lachlan.
Still reading the Sound Mind book.
Enjoyed this presentation.
Food for appreciative contemplation
🎶🤔🎶
That's great news that you've found this informative and that you're reading Of Sound Mind too. Hearing this and other comments encourages me to continue with these videos.
Thank you Lachlan! Very educational
I'm glad you liked it, Billy!
Mustec Dac and preamp were designed on a specific sound the company wanted regardless of measurements
Thankyou for this highly interesting and informative video -- and BTW, have a merry Christmas! 🙂
Merry Christmas to you too. I'm so glad you enjoyed the video!
PREACH!!!
I’ve been saying a lot of this for years! I stopped because I just got tired of the cable denier stuff. Thinking that everything you need to know is all in a FR graph is just plain foolishness to me!
Absolutely. Even before I found this research, there were too many aspects of sound that just couldn't be explained by a FR graph, distortion numbers or similar.
Exceptional, technical message! I noticed that my headphone listening had further trained my ears when I run live sound for mini concerts or at mega churches.
I feel the same way about headphone listening despite some people saying you can't hear as much on headphones as speakers.
Thanks for the great “holiday gift”! This is the most interesting video I’ve seen in a long long time. I wonder how long it took to research this? I appreciate your effort and hard work.
I'm so glad you liked it! This one was an absolute beast to produce and I actually wish I'd taken even longer to make it even better, but a produced and watched video is better than one still in the research phase! 🙂
Best of Christmas and the new year to you and yours .
Like good food …you either like it or you don’t …always trust your ears 👂.
Merry Christmas and happy new year to you too, Carmine!
What wonderful overview of the importance of the unmeasurable, thank you!
My pleasure! I'm glad it was valuable.
Fascinating. Great video essay 👏
I'm glad you liked it!
Spectral Audio is one company that has a design approach that includes a consideration of the aspects of human auditory perception together with GEP (Good engineering practice). They have been producing high speed, ultra-wide bandwidth amplifiers since the 70’s. These high slew-rate designs help preserve the critical timing cues within the audio signals. There is an interesting interview with Richard Fryer from Spectral Audio on the Alpha Audio channel. The guru behind the engineering team is Keith O Johnson. The Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest channel has a video entitled RMAF10: High Resolution from the Masters. The key topic is high resolution digital, but his talk covers far more: jitter, signal timing, cables, hidden feedback mechanisms, power supply coupling, grounding, and isolation, etc.
Thanks for letting us know. I'll go and hunt some of these discussions down!
@@PassionforSound If the time domain response of an audio system influences the critical cues for timbre and spatial quality of a reproduced sound source, then this includes the system interconnect cables. You might be interested in the cable high-speed pulse testing on the Alpha Audio channel. The introduction video covers the procedure: Alpha Labs - Explaining the HUGE Cable Test! More than 70 Cables!
@SteveD-m6z yes it absolutely does and their videos measuring the cables and also their video about network switches were very interesting when combined with what this research tells us.
This was an excellent video. I like reviews too, but there's really too few well explained videos like this for those of us who like to go deeper into this hobby. Please, do more videos like this, with soild science as the basis for explanation.
I have some more planned for 2025. Thank you for letting me know that you enjoy them scattered in amongst the reviews!
Capacitance Issues. Yes! And the issues…the effects on our hifi systems, they come from everywhere. Did you ever try meticulously brushing every cable and component, also every wall and table near them with one of those grounding brushes they make for cleaning records? You must try this! As a side note, ever play a Theremin? I have one and can’t really play any music on it but what a fun use of capacitance from our own human bodies. This great electrical fun!!
That's very interesting about the grounding brush. It sounds like voodoo, but I'd believe anything with an influence over noise and capacitance could have a noticeable impact.
I have always been fascinated by Theremins too, but have never tried one. I wonder if there's a video in that???
Really good vid. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
My pleasure!
Now that you’ve informed us about the importance of cables, I’m in the process of increasing the speed of my modem’s power cord. I can see that correcting the initial weakness of sound from the true real source. I’m purchasing a linear power source.
I think you’re trying to be honest here and you seem to have learned a lot of stuff from reading research. However this appears to be a case of you mostly presenting the parts that confirms your beliefs and your viewers end up with an incomplete and not very accurate picture of all that is going on with this. Yes, our hearing is very complex and sensitive to things that don’t show up in measurements BUT it is also very prone to influence from other senses, mood, bias etc. A basic example of this is a shorts clip ”What do you hear?” from Veritasium. This is an important component when trying to understand what’s going on when we listen for differences in audio gear
No doubt our expectations also play a part, but these are interrelated topics. One doesn't negate the other.
Very interesting, thank you, I learned a lot.
I'm glad it was interesting for you!
Mr presenter. This is about 5 videos' worth of information. Take it easy on us.
I know it was a lot - sorry! There was no way to arrive at the conclusion of this video without all of that information. And believe me, I do know how you feel because I had to read the scientific paper about five times to make complete sense of it and then I still left out a bunch of the information!
@PassionforSound As a side point, I arrived at this very same end point about hearing and measurements. Two stark examples are one: Sparkos opamps in amplifiers. They probably measure the same before and afterwards, but the depth and clarity get immensely better. Two improved power sources to amps or dacs.
@sqcaraudio great examples!
Just WOW!! Great informant video
I'm so glad you liked it!
Very interesting! Well done! I was very skeptical of the cables or power supply influence… but I did experienced it with very good system and then, I changed my opinion. One thing to mention is that if one component of a system (let stay speakers) mess the timing of a recording, the better cables can’t probably being heard… The other thing to mention is that blind test still don’t show that “supernatural” capability of the human ears/brain…
Both excellent points. I've got a video coming up in 2025 that will take some more of the studies discussed in the same paper as this video to explain why blind tests fail to reveal anything meaningful.
Nicely done 😎👍
Thank you!
Great work on this video.👍❤️☃️
I'm glad you liked it!
Super video! Have a Merry Christmas!! 🙂🎶🎶🎶❄️☃️🍾🍾
I'm so glad you liked it! Merry Christmas to you too.
This does beg the question as to how many set ups are really capable of such accuracy when it comes to timing given the literal infinite variations, there are surely no manufacturers who have equipment capable of measuring down to the microsecond are there? Even if there were, there's then the added complication of different head size, ear shape etc. Is it just trial and error for the user? Is it even worth the effort to strive for this level or accuracy? So many questions... Great video though. Following ❤
This episode should come with a warning given we are in the end year holidays. "CAUTION - Watch when sober. Otherwise sudden brain damage may occur"
Haha. So true!
Appreciate the gift Lachlan.
Well researched and presented.
Thank you!
My appreciation for the AWESOME Gifts of hearing and Music is heightened by all of this new scientific research.
Of couurs4we might turn on each other and argue about music reproduction equipment ....
Or we could meditate on the meaning of all this complexity.
Its Cause?
To qouote a famous ancient Song:
"Understand this, you who are unreasoning;
You foolish ones, when will you ever show insight?
The One who made the ear, can he not hear?
The One who formed the eye, can he not see?"
(Ps94)
Music appreciation that has no upper limits?
I'm glad you liked it! I definitely find it fascinating to consider how intricately and often quite perfectly we, and all of nature are "designed"
This is mind-boggling...but apparently my brain is able to handle being boggled.
I'm pleased to hear that. A good boggling every now and then is very good for us, I think. 😂
Very interesting!
I'm glad it was interesting for you!
Very informative video, I've learned a lot, thanks for the hard work and sharing. Eevery audiophile should view it before talking nonsense and arguing out of ignorance 👍 🎄Happy Christmas🎄
I'm so glad you feel that way about it! Merry Christmas!
Awesome video
I'm so glad you liked it!
Love this, feel none the wiser about anything but love it nonetheless. Keep up the good work mate 👍
Haha. I'm glad you loved it!
It's almost like our ears were designed but we all know it came about by random chance.
You might think that the ears came about by random chance but I believe they were made by the Creator God and his Son, Jesus. Such complexities as how the human ear works cannot originate anywhere else. If it isn't man-made, it is understood that those things are seen as attributes of our God. (Romans 1:18:23; Colossians 1:15-18)
@robertschlechter4407 If I wrote what you did YT would have censored it. 😆👍 Well said.
Hallelu-JAH!!!
I don't know where it came from, but I do agree that it's remarkably well designed. 🙂
Brilliant, like how do you explain a Beethoven symphony? You cant, you experience it.
Yep. There's accuracy and then there's feeling, soul and emotion.
@@PassionforSound
It reminds me of something Joseph Campbell once said. He was talking about a Zen Master who asked his students: "What is the meaning of a flower?"
The answer is that there IS no meaning. The flower simply exists, without rhyme or reason.
Yep. Sometimes we try too hard to create certainty around inherently uncertain and subjective topics.
@@PassionforSound
I was wondering just a few days ago whether some of what we experience with audio that can't be explained with measurements may be in similar realms as quarks and other examples of quantum physics. Electrons are, after all, a part of that micro-realm if I'm not mistaken.
I felt like I was back in an anatomy class!
I first thought the lessen was to ensure we clean our ears.
Hopefully it was a positive experience! 😁🙂
Wow this was such an amazing video! I learned a lot, while I was already quite familiar with the subject.
I also think this video is proof that reviews from the likes of Audio Science Review, although interesting, dont come even close to painting the whole picture. This explanation is so thorough, that Im sure it will help many people in the difficult dilemma of objectivity Vs subjectivity.
Btw, I've been following your channel for years now and we conversed in the past regarding cables and several other topics. I've recently converted to your side of the argument. Main reason is a change in how I view blind tests. If you are interested in this, feel free to reach out. I think it could be good for content. If not no hard feelings of course.
Cheers and merry Christmas 🎄🎁
Martijn
I'm glad you found the video useful and even happier to hear that you have explored things for yourself and reached a conclusion based on that curiosity. I'd be curious to speak more because I'm producing a video in the new year about why audio blind tests don't deliver reliable data. Did we email previously? If so, can you drop me a fresh note so we can chat more?
@@PassionforSoundHmm I tried replying twice but it seems after uploading the comment they disappeared? Perhaps because I was trying to share an email address.
@TuanMinh-sv2gq yes, TH-cam automatically deletes comments with email addresses and links. I assume it's to prevent bots spamming with advertising.
Good video. I note that many of the components which are considered superlative, have a very high capacity to handle rapid transients. Also, and on another matter, I've spent a fortune with Adam and never got a t-shirt; bastard.
Haha. Sorry about the Adam Audio t-shirt. The local PR rep scored this one for me when he arranged the D3V, H200 and full sized monitors for review (all coming soon).
Great point about the excellent devices being designed to handle rapid transients. I'd noticed the same trend but previously had no solid science behind my inkling that it was a common theme.
@@PassionforSound I hope you get the opportunity to listen to the Adam equipment driven by an Octave amp; they synergise beautifully with the Octave gear.
@daemon1143 I don't have access to an Octave amp at the moment, but I've got some lovely preamps to use them with
How about THC effects?
That would be a whole other field of research 🙂
All I know is music sounds much better when indulging 😂🍻
My Division set are on the way...
Division set?
When is a review of Adam D3V?
Very early 2025. It's the next video I'll produce after a short holiday.
Cocktail deafness is another interesting one
Yes, that's all wrapped up in the functions of all those different brain centres and the cochlear amplification function, I believe.
And then there’s my wife. Try listening to her for a few minutes
Thank you for this video!!I have the same exact opinion about this!!Many of the reviewers especially audioscience........ they don't even hear at all they only see measurements.Maybe many of the best speakers manufacturer in the world are "stupid" when they say that they trust first their ears and far less the measurments!!!
I'm glad you liked it!
Ah yes, audiophile-speak for why human ear measurements beat out science. I think I have to get a set of cryogenically treated cables.
So you clearly haven't actually watched the whole video...
I’m tempted to give this video a “like” simply on the basis that so much misinformation and bullshit packed into just 27 minutes is impressive, even by audiophile marketing standards. And some in the comments seem to think it was educational, that’s funny 😂
So you're disagreeing with peer reviewed scientific studies? What's a specific example of misinformation in this video?
@ I almost never disagree with peer reviewed studies, except those by Kuncher who’s a hack, which is presumably why you mentioned him specifically and ignored the many decades of real/accurate scientific papers but that’s irrelevant anyway because you’re not citing a peer reviewed paper! The figures you cited don’t even agree with Kuncher’s paper, let alone with the actual facts/science. You don’t even seem to know what decibels are but you do seem to know a bunch of audiophile marketing bull, or is all that just pure coincidence?! lol
@GregStudio01 everything in this video (except where I said I was theorising) was straight from the paper which was peer reviewed and a meta analysis of many other peer reviewed papers written by other scientists. In other words, this research was almost all conducted by other scientists. Milind Kunchur just collated the results. Are you saying that all the peer reviewed research on this topic is wrong because you disagree?
You really want to blow your mind? Then try taking the mind out of the equation. The music you will hear will truly blow you away.
You wouldn't hear music without the mind so there's a bit of a conundrum... 😉
@ It’s the intoxicating music we hear when absorbed in deep meditation.
Yep, still thanks to the fact that we have a mind to interpret it all, whether it's externally generated or internally. 🙂
Audio Science Review might dislike this video...
That's ok.
Seriously well done... talking about grasping a nettle! And shaking it... regarding timing especially. I can't wait to see this video being linked to in certain forums... I think that the 'measurement' vs 'subjective' push, especially with Audio Science Review has been very important, but we need a proper scientific counter balance to 'push' the measurements further into this timing domain. Bravo, fantastique, fantastico ...
I'm glad you liked it!
If we ever get to the point that we can measure all there is to understand about the correlation between device performance and sound perception, then measurements will become invaluable. For now, they're really only helpful at identifying major flaws in a product's design, but even then they're limited because they don't indicate enjoyment.
We can meassure a sub marine miles away, good luck sencing that😂🎉 our brain is nothing comp too military grade gear
That military gear couldn't tell you the timbre, location in space, size of space and relative positioning of each instrument in a band playing in a concert hall. We're talking about two very different things.
This right here is why Lachlan Fennan is my hero. 🏆 💪 😎
I'm glad you feel that way. Chat soon... 😉🙂
I love the content on the whole, but a LOT of the new thumbnails are......a decision. Creepy is the word I would use, for what it's worth I'm not the only person that's brought it up. Not trying to be a dick, just letting you know in case that's a blind spot, or maybe thats what you were going for.
Why do you find them creepy?
Are you a fan of Adam Audio?
I'm just reviewing their speakers and new headphone at the moment so I'll let you know once that's done. 🙂
Great vid. No wonder I could not stand amps that used negative feedback. Measured great. Sounded like listening in a tin can.
Yep. Starts to explain a lot, doesn't it? 🙂
Do tier list, its end of the year where’s yours
I'm not a fan of tier lists. That's why I did my three videos about the best products at various budget levels.
"Cable deniers don't want you to know this ONE trick!"
It's a bit like that
all well, but only possible for analog signal cables ... not possible with digital signals ... those are either bitperfect or they give a broken signal ... better then bitperfect isn't possible 😂
You're missing 90% of what this video is saying and ignoring the fact that digital cables can carry noise which can alter the timing accuracy of the clock in the DAC.