Thanks for coming to my TED Talk! If you want to discuss this video and anything related to the topic head over to the forum thread here!: forum.headphones.com/t/myths-about-measurements-discussion-thread/24879 A couple important notes: - This should have been clearer in the wording around HpTF variation, but in reality, the variance we are likely to see on real human ears, rather than just two different rigs each using pinna that aim to provide a population average and therefore will be more similar, is going to be larger. The HpTF variation visualisation is a big improvement from single line FR, BUT it also doesn't necessarily show the maximum bounds of the variation one could expect. - In the sound demo bit the actual levels of distortion are higher than the -57dB shown in the images just to ensure it's easily audible via youtube and even on a phone, but the levels of THD+N on each are indeed still exactly the same between the three recordings.
I’m happy to see this video. We really needed something point people towards. It having it all presented in video format is the best way to reach a larger audience
The amount of technical information that has been squeezed in that video, while making it understandable by most folks , requires a lot of skill, Usually , most reviews are highly cut and edited. That video has long parts with no interruptions whatsoever. It tells me not only that you have awesome discoursing ability , but also that you are in total mastery of the subject. Thanks for the great woik, very useful for the community.
You and the others at The Headphone Show continue to do amazing work, bridging the gaps between the science of audio and the subjective experience. Great stuff, as ever.
This reminds me of PV ratings in optics. The PV number gives you a sense of the highest point and lowest point of a surface error on a mirror or lens. But it doesn't say anything about how many highest points and lowest points there are on a surface. So if you go strictly by PV (eg 1/8 wave PV) you might have a surface that has a lot of little ripples that makes it worse than if you only had a couple of high points and low points. PV doesn't tell the whole story of an optical surface in the same way that SINAD can be misleading.
Immediately from your opening statement i'm 100 percent with you. It's all about correlating measurements with audio experiences to decide what matters. There's a hierarchy of measurements with some being higher up on the list than others ie the ones that are most audible and "damaging" to the listener. Learning to read and interpret measurements is the way forward i feel. I have a friend who is attracted to the idea of building a speaker kit without the opportunity to listen to it first and isn't able to consider objectively whether he wants a narrow radiation pattern, or a wider one for example. With experience of listening and reading measurements he would have a better idea of what to aim for,even though ultimately it doesn't replace listening to the model of choice.
Great content! Iike the podcast(noisefloor) back and forth discussion it gives a bit of input to why we hear thinks different and how to get a better look at data to see what could be a product for me. Its cool to get all these information for free, back in the early 2000's i had to buy a lot of expensive magazines and were sitting there left with questionmarks in head, how to actually interpreted that correctly?! Thanks for the effort!
Additionally, everyone talks about this stuff assuming there's no sample variation in manufacturing. I can't believe that. No one is testing, say, fifty 'identical' headphones. We're arguing at the irrelevant margins while this is ignored or never discussed..
Oratory has measured several units of many headphones and I've also measured a bunch of DT770 which vary wildly making it seem that I can't really say what they should even sound like.
Working in the field and having measured with B&K HATS 4128, 5128 and Head Acoustics HMS II.3 std. and LN HEC. I know of the different HRTF and, yes, it best to show the variance of the slightly different Head shapes and Ear Canal Pinnae types. Always use the specific dedicatec diffuse field correction supplied by the suppliers. Then show only these measurements, perhaps with a subjective Harman curve as reference, but these are subjective and have changed through the years. Measurements are objective and the only way to conway informwtion without subjective bias. But always use your own ears to share what you percieve. Flat couplers have and are still used, but a "head" is the only way to test objectibely binaural with a real fit. Also you need to make several different placements to verify variations.
The whole topic is really difficult. I was very much in favor of measurements, but then I got the Sennheiser HD700. And for some reason, it didn't murder my ears. Even though I have been very treble sensitive in the past. Funny enough, a Sennheiser product manager said in a zoom call they tune the headphones first and foremost by listening. Measurements come only as a far second.
With the use of the AudioPrecision software package I noticed different distortion performance with different sampling rates. I used a Stanford DS360 ultra-low distortion function generator to make a 1 Vrms tone at 1 kHz, and fed that with a balanced cable into an APx515. Then I let the FFT run (standard window) and do some averages. I added up the peaks manually as the AP can't measure THD (without N) in the bench mode in my version, and came to the following results for THD ( sqrt(v2²+v3²+etc)/1V. I did a manual cutoff at the noise floor, which is the same for all sampling rates. This is because the DS360 is the reference in low THD, but not in THD+N. Anyway, here are the results. SR: 192 kHz: -124 dB SR: 96 kHz: -115 dB SR: 48 kHz: -118 dB So those are quite some differences! Not sure if a 555 handles it differently than the 515. You mentioned about the notch filter, but as far as I know the notch filter is solely to fix ranging. Because the dynamic range is much reduced, so you can have a lower range. Although the range of the AP is normally really high, like 320 mVrms or 250 mVrms depending on the model is the lowest setting, whereas other products like the R&S UPV have 18 mVpp as lowest range, or older B&K systems like the 3560 even 5 mVrms (and of course the king is the old - but still available - Stanford SR785 with the lowest range 3.16 mVpk. In the manual of the DS360 signal generator ( www.thinksrs.com/downloads/pdfs/manuals/DS360m.pdf ) it says on page 87 (section 5-5): " Distortion Measurements The notch filters described here are used with a spectrum analyzer for verifying the distortion performance of the DS360. Since there are few, if any, spectrum analyzers with a -120 dB distortion floor, a pre-filter is necessary to attenuate the fundamental frequency and increase the sensitivity to distortion signals. Since the pre-filter attenuates the fundamental component far more than any of the harmonics, the distortion products can be viewed using a spectrum analyzer with a more reasonable -80 dB distortion floor. The figure below shows a “twin-tee” notch filter. It is important to use high quality resistors and capacitors in the twin-tee notch filter, or distortion measurements will be limited by its performance. Thin film resistors and npo ceramic, or polystyrene capacitors should be used. " Note that this was written in a time where the cool analyzers which are on the market today were not there yet.
Great presentation from Goldensound here. Perfect example of no right or wrong answers to this thing. Awaiting the myriad of measurbators angrily debating ASR’s techniques.
I was listening carefully till 6m56sec when he said that the crowd thinks the 1st file sounds with the least distortion... It's clearly the 3rd one, but he added a noise at the high frequencies.
He uses far more than just SINAD to measure, and is a lot more reliable than the '£5k mains conditioner which creates a sense of space around instruments' crap. If you understand measurements and uncertainty you can use them very wisely.
It is obvious to myself and many others that, in some cases, tubes add a lot of depth to the image when listening to speakers. I've never seen a technical explanation for this phenomenon. Was that depth in the recording, or added by the tube circuit, or decoded by the tubes? Depth is reported also available from "high end" solid state equipment. The "why" of this has not been discussed from a measurement viewpoint, that I have seen.
I am still not sure i fully understand the difference between hrtf and hptf. Specifically, what would be hptf not accounted under hrtf. Surely, im not understanding the distinction properly. Anyone able to explain or point me somehwere I can read more on this?
I’m not sure entirely either but maybe relating slight headphone placement/positioning create variations in seal and distance of driver to ears. repeated hptf testing can give you more practical graph as you won’t be putting your headphone at the exact same spot every time you put it on.
I picked up the SMSL SP200 back in 2019 when THX amps were new and all the rage. It has so much power and is so clean that I haven't found a good upgrade. Periodically snarky heaf-fiers will say they hate SMSLs products which is fine I don't care what they think. The SP200 might be the best price to performance amp ever
Interesting, I at first thought I must be deaf because I heard those SINAD examples almost opposite to what you said most people say. Turns out I was hearing correctly, I was just ignoring "noise." I heard them as 3, 1, 2 in descending order of "quality."
Would be great to see more headphone testing with bad seals in reviews as in my experience this is more accurate for closed back performance in the real world.
Obviously Amir provides more than a single measurement. The problem is people reading the review only care about sinad because it’s simple to understand. Like 0-60 times with cars or top speed. People are playing top trumps. What SINAD does tells you if the product is competently engineered.
Amir has on many occasions taken one measurement (Ananda comes to mine) and he even published data he knew was incorrect. He has also said that SINAD is the most important and made a graph ranking the top 20 DACs purely off of it. Amir is a hack and everything he does should be ignored.
BRAVO! This is probably the very best video I've seen on the setup and application of SINAD measurements, and, I'd say even more importantly, perhaps, of our complex perceptual sensibilities to distorted sounds, generally. Also, thanks for the really splendid presentation of the all-important topic of headphone measurement metrics! Thanks again, and a most Happy New Year! And maybe, where the audio community can come together and have calm, rational debates and discussions to actually advance this field of audio further! 😊👍🏻🎶🎶🎶
SINAD is a myth, got it. (Just kidding!!) Healthier debate, staying curious, and using the context/science we do have available appropriately, sounds good to me.
I own a pair of Roland CS-10EM, which are IEMs with binaural microphones. Shouldn't we all use this kind of microphones on our own heads to measure headphones? Audiophile channels and outlets such as the Headphone Show should release apps to do that easily.
@ModPhreak Sure, but personal measurements would be the most accurate to each listener. Ideally, going to a shop or can jam and be able to measure a pair of headphones with in-ear binaural microphones would allow each listener to compare them accurately to what he already owns. That's all the measurements we need, really.
I think the core of this problem is that the hobby was birthed online, but the v-shaped outrage/outrageous language that is forumtroll just doesn't translate for those of us not under the bridge (btw, nuance resides in the scooped out mids in that analogy!). Every Saturday I look forward to the friendly, meandering musings on the live stream, and every week Blaine ruins the vibe within seconds - his every word is the embodiment of the ugly side of the hobby, which is especially ironic considering he's a co-author of the presentation. There were 142 viewers when I joined yesterday, and I can only assume that the vast majority of those are his fellow forum dwellers... My strong advice - if you want your audience to include those of us who sometimes see daylight - is to jettison Trolly McTrollface ASAP. Point scoring in an echo chamber might feel good for those with zero other interests, but for casuals and noobs, it's horrid - nothing more than masturbatory self-indulgence, which I'd suggest is the same problem that underpins the subject of this video.
Somewhere around 36 minutes, you provide a hypothetical where some obstinately holds on to their belief without testing, and state that it would leave more questions than answers. I think it would actually leave less questions because they are so sure. More questions is always good I think, the 5128 rig raise more questions after it showed differences from previous rog measurements.
I really think you should remove the link to ASR. He is guilty of almost every trope you pointed out and has been called out for not following industry standard practices with his measurements on many circumstances. He is a pseudoscientist and should not be referenced unless it is to belittle his work. Not only is his work sloppy but he is actively hostile towards true objectivists during peer review. You are massively hurting the objectivist cause by giving him any level of credibility. I get that he was friendly when it came to the DCS stuff but that was purely to cover his own ass if the finger was pointed at him. Please remove the link and in the future refrain from giving any compliments to Amir. Great video other than that.
The thing is... while we have our disagreements, we're not going to approach those platforms we disagree with in bad faith. Yes, we are aware of the issues there and the discourse that follows, but we're not going to conduct ourselves in such a partisan way that we won't credit or call attention to our detractors when they have done good things. This is one of those instances.
Some ANC headphones have already been doing this for years (i.e. calibration tone/scan/sweep), basically taking measurements of your HRTF and tailoring to your anatomy. Though it does not go towards EQ-ing to any target curve for musical purposes.
Haven’t watched the video yet but I can guarantee that goldenFRAUD isn’t going to mention the conclusive results of the bombshell 1998 paper by Sam Sinad, in which HRTF was not only bypassed, but completely obliterated by inverted waterfall plots as a function of SINAD-let alone the catastrophic implications for transient response, phase linearization, AND spectral decay.
Weren’t his conclusions completely invalidated once it came to light that he’d forgotten to degrease his polarmetric spurving bearing before completing analysis of the mass tympani?
@@ringsystemmusic this is misinformation spread specifically by Blaine LIARcross. Degreasing your polarmetric spurving bearing is only required during microphonic spindling sessions. Greased or ungreased, the results would have been the same.
You can already do that with knock-off couplers and simulated pinna from AliExpress. Just note that your measurements would only be useful to... yourself. For any kind of reliable cross-reference and comparisons, setup, characteristics and parameters have to be standardised, which will not come cheap.
First of all... your experience of a meal is far more than just your sense of taste. Sense of smell, touch, texture... the entire olfactory process is involved as well as what it looks like. But second of all, there is another reason for this. You often don't know what you prefer if you've never been able to compare things. So for example, if you just eat pasta every day, you may enjoy it, and it may provide you nutritional value. But you don't know if you prefer it to hamburgers if you've never tried hamburgers. That's overly simplistic if you get what I mean. Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean it's giving you the best possible experience. And with audio equipment, we're predisposed to having good experiences, because it turns out music is super enjoyable, especially music we like. The other side of it is the predictive benefits of measurements. Obviously listen to the headphones if you get a chance, but not everyone has that opportunity.
@@ResolveReviews I ear you. But using our ears to determine our preferences in audio equipment as we use our taste to determine our preferred food seems pretty intuitive and the most obvious thing to do.
@@ResolveReviews The thing is, there's nothing wrong with using exclusively our ears to choose our preferred audio equipment. Listeners aren't making anything scientific while enjoying their music. At the end of the day, measurements like EQ are optional things that one can spend a lifetime in the audiophile hobby without using them even once.
@@OldkidLivegen being more educated is never the wrong answer. This is about purchase decisions, not purchase validation. Funny how almost all subjectivist are addicted to the latter. There are many things wrong with being uneducated my friend, insufficient awareness of your own compulsive and irrational behavioural traits is one of them.
Well of course measurements - including SINAD - are important! Standardized measurements provide datums that can usefully be used to compare the performance of a given class of products. Otherwise we all just fall into the clutches of the so called golden eared ones, who delight in the dissemination of their often patronising, personal opinions. Thank you, no! As for your borderline straw man argument re SINAD, Who but a fool would take just one value in isolation, when a suite of specs are so much more indicative of performance? You see, as far as I am concerned 2nd, 3rd, even, odd or any order of harmonics - if audible - IS distortion! Pleasant or otherwise, it just is! This is why I think that valve powered equipment is anathema in Hi-Fi.
It's not that it can't possibly make a difference. It's that it's misleading. No, in almost all circumstances, SINAD is irrelevant to any audio purchase. ASR uses it as a metric to rate products when there are other measurements that are perceptually relevant in making an audio purchase being undermined. The distortion segment demonstrates that. There is no justification for this, and so this conversation will conclude here.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez but this is the bible of ASR "follow the SINAD" ignore the non-believers. you must conduct double blind test but when you do we will argue they aint done right. Cause no one can do it right. LOL
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!
If you want to discuss this video and anything related to the topic head over to the forum thread here!: forum.headphones.com/t/myths-about-measurements-discussion-thread/24879
A couple important notes:
- This should have been clearer in the wording around HpTF variation, but in reality, the variance we are likely to see on real human ears, rather than just two different rigs each using pinna that aim to provide a population average and therefore will be more similar, is going to be larger. The HpTF variation visualisation is a big improvement from single line FR, BUT it also doesn't necessarily show the maximum bounds of the variation one could expect.
- In the sound demo bit the actual levels of distortion are higher than the -57dB shown in the images just to ensure it's easily audible via youtube and even on a phone, but the levels of THD+N on each are indeed still exactly the same between the three recordings.
real goldensound ted talk is not a bad idea 👀
I’m happy to see this video. We really needed something point people towards. It having it all presented in video format is the best way to reach a larger audience
These types of videos deserve a standing ovation. Excellent!
The amount of technical information that has been squeezed in that video, while making it understandable by most folks , requires a lot of skill, Usually , most reviews are highly cut and edited. That video has long parts with no interruptions whatsoever. It tells me not only that you have awesome discoursing ability , but also that you are in total mastery of the subject. Thanks for the great woik, very useful for the community.
You and the others at The Headphone Show continue to do amazing work, bridging the gaps between the science of audio and the subjective experience. Great stuff, as ever.
Sure, pink fuses don't make a difference... but what about the purple ones??! Obvious intentional omission.
I agree. Also didn't address audiophile rocks. Coincidence? Na-huh...
Listening to the three sound files with one AirPod in I actually preferred the third, lmao.
On first listen I was thinking if the noise was meant to be there and was just weaker on the first sample😅
This reminds me of PV ratings in optics. The PV number gives you a sense of the highest point and lowest point of a surface error on a mirror or lens. But it doesn't say anything about how many highest points and lowest points there are on a surface. So if you go strictly by PV (eg 1/8 wave PV) you might have a surface that has a lot of little ripples that makes it worse than if you only had a couple of high points and low points. PV doesn't tell the whole story of an optical surface in the same way that SINAD can be misleading.
Immediately from your opening statement i'm 100 percent with you. It's all about correlating measurements with audio experiences to decide what matters. There's a hierarchy of measurements with some being higher up on the list than others ie the ones that are most audible and "damaging" to the listener. Learning to read and interpret measurements is the way forward i feel. I have a friend who is attracted to the idea of building a speaker kit without the opportunity to listen to it first and isn't able to consider objectively whether he wants a narrow radiation pattern, or a wider one for example. With experience of listening and reading measurements he would have a better idea of what to aim for,even though ultimately it doesn't replace listening to the model of choice.
An ~2k dip is one of the things that an averaged HRTF Crossfeed causes. That may be related to the impression of soundstage.
Great content! Iike the podcast(noisefloor) back and forth discussion it gives a bit of input to why we hear thinks different and how to get a better look at data to see what could be a product for me. Its cool to get all these information for free, back in the early 2000's i had to buy a lot of expensive magazines and were sitting there left with questionmarks in head, how to actually interpreted that correctly?! Thanks for the effort!
Additionally, everyone talks about this stuff assuming there's no sample variation in manufacturing. I can't believe that. No one is testing, say, fifty 'identical' headphones. We're arguing at the irrelevant margins while this is ignored or never discussed..
Oratory has measured several units of many headphones and I've also measured a bunch of DT770 which vary wildly making it seem that I can't really say what they should even sound like.
Working in the field and having measured with B&K HATS 4128, 5128 and Head Acoustics HMS II.3 std. and LN HEC. I know of the different HRTF and, yes, it best to show the variance of the slightly different Head shapes and Ear Canal Pinnae types. Always use the specific dedicatec diffuse field correction supplied by the suppliers. Then show only these measurements, perhaps with a subjective Harman curve as reference, but these are subjective and have changed through the years. Measurements are objective and the only way to conway informwtion without subjective bias. But always use your own ears to share what you percieve. Flat couplers have and are still used, but a "head" is the only way to test objectibely binaural with a real fit. Also you need to make several different placements to verify variations.
Golden, you are the GOAT. Thanks for this video.
Appreciate these videos ❤
The whole topic is really difficult. I was very much in favor of measurements, but then I got the Sennheiser HD700. And for some reason, it didn't murder my ears. Even though I have been very treble sensitive in the past. Funny enough, a Sennheiser product manager said in a zoom call they tune the headphones first and foremost by listening. Measurements come only as a far second.
it is too bad that headphone was non-bought into obscurity
Thank you this was so in-depth! learned a lot
With the use of the AudioPrecision software package I noticed different distortion performance with different sampling rates. I used a Stanford DS360 ultra-low distortion function generator to make a 1 Vrms tone at 1 kHz, and fed that with a balanced cable into an APx515. Then I let the FFT run (standard window) and do some averages.
I added up the peaks manually as the AP can't measure THD (without N) in the bench mode in my version, and came to the following results for THD ( sqrt(v2²+v3²+etc)/1V. I did a manual cutoff at the noise floor, which is the same for all sampling rates. This is because the DS360 is the reference in low THD, but not in THD+N. Anyway, here are the results.
SR: 192 kHz: -124 dB
SR: 96 kHz: -115 dB
SR: 48 kHz: -118 dB
So those are quite some differences! Not sure if a 555 handles it differently than the 515.
You mentioned about the notch filter, but as far as I know the notch filter is solely to fix ranging. Because the dynamic range is much reduced, so you can have a lower range. Although the range of the AP is normally really high, like 320 mVrms or 250 mVrms depending on the model is the lowest setting, whereas other products like the R&S UPV have 18 mVpp as lowest range, or older B&K systems like the 3560 even 5 mVrms (and of course the king is the old - but still available - Stanford SR785 with the lowest range 3.16 mVpk.
In the manual of the DS360 signal generator ( www.thinksrs.com/downloads/pdfs/manuals/DS360m.pdf ) it says on page 87 (section 5-5):
"
Distortion Measurements
The notch filters described here are used with a spectrum analyzer for verifying the distortion performance of the DS360. Since there are few, if any, spectrum analyzers with a -120 dB distortion floor, a pre-filter is necessary to attenuate the fundamental frequency and increase the sensitivity to distortion signals. Since the pre-filter attenuates the fundamental component far more than any of the harmonics, the distortion products can be viewed using a spectrum analyzer
with a more reasonable -80 dB distortion floor. The figure below shows a “twin-tee” notch filter.
It is important to use high quality resistors and capacitors in the twin-tee notch filter, or distortion measurements will be limited by its performance. Thin film resistors and npo ceramic, or polystyrene capacitors should be used.
"
Note that this was written in a time where the cool analyzers which are on the market today were not there yet.
That was great work and a really interesting watch, thank you.
Great presentation from Goldensound here. Perfect example of no right or wrong answers to this thing. Awaiting the myriad of measurbators angrily debating ASR’s techniques.
I was listening carefully till 6m56sec when he said that the crowd thinks the 1st file sounds with the least distortion... It's clearly the 3rd one, but he added a noise at the high frequencies.
Bro doesn't have eyes
I saw it all finally, he's right in everything! I liked the video too ;)
Oh man, ASR is going to blow a collective gasket over this video 🤣
Not likely. Their reviews have multiple measurements.
I hope not, i really enjoy some of his measurements/reviews/some EQ profiles
He uses far more than just SINAD to measure, and is a lot more reliable than the '£5k mains conditioner which creates a sense of space around instruments' crap. If you understand measurements and uncertainty you can use them very wisely.
They literally rank stuff by SINAD there lmao. The "Top 20 DACs" list is purely from highest SINAD to lowest SINAD. Wild stuff
@@krakentortoise7531 You can view them based on any metric, not just SINAD.
It is obvious to myself and many others that, in some cases, tubes add a lot of depth to the image when listening to speakers. I've never seen a technical explanation for this phenomenon. Was that depth in the recording, or added by the tube circuit, or decoded by the tubes? Depth is reported also available from "high end" solid state equipment. The "why" of this has not been discussed from a measurement viewpoint, that I have seen.
Uh oh....Amir from Audio Science Review will be mad about this one.
I am still not sure i fully understand the difference between hrtf and hptf. Specifically, what would be hptf not accounted under hrtf. Surely, im not understanding the distinction properly. Anyone able to explain or point me somehwere I can read more on this?
I’m not sure entirely either but maybe relating slight headphone placement/positioning create variations in seal and distance of driver to ears.
repeated hptf testing can give you more practical graph as you won’t be putting your headphone at the exact same spot every time you put it on.
I picked up the SMSL SP200 back in 2019 when THX amps were new and all the rage. It has so much power and is so clean that I haven't found a good upgrade. Periodically snarky heaf-fiers will say they hate SMSLs products which is fine I don't care what they think. The SP200 might be the best price to performance amp ever
Interesting, I at first thought I must be deaf because I heard those SINAD examples almost opposite to what you said most people say. Turns out I was hearing correctly, I was just ignoring "noise." I heard them as 3, 1, 2 in descending order of "quality."
Thank you, I learned a lot from this
THD at low perceptual levels can be reduced by an order of magnitude or more with multi-path architecture. The difference is audible.
Would be great to see more headphone testing with bad seals in reviews as in my experience this is more accurate for closed back performance in the real world.
What are those sinad measurements between?
Wait you can't compare sinad like you can fps for gpus?????? /s
You need to turn off your light sabre when not using it. It's dangerous and will deplete the battery.
Hi great informative video, I come from rf engineering background and Sinad is urs to measure analog sensitivity for a receiver . Regards mark
Soundstage when treble elevated and smooth
All of our senses are pretty much insular. It’s tough to prove that an individual can hear or not hear sonic differences.
Obviously Amir provides more than a single measurement. The problem is people reading the review only care about sinad because it’s simple to understand. Like 0-60 times with cars or top speed. People are playing top trumps. What SINAD does tells you if the product is competently engineered.
Amir has on many occasions taken one measurement (Ananda comes to mine) and he even published data he knew was incorrect. He has also said that SINAD is the most important and made a graph ranking the top 20 DACs purely off of it. Amir is a hack and everything he does should be ignored.
BRAVO! This is probably the very best video I've seen on the setup and application of SINAD measurements, and, I'd say even more importantly, perhaps, of our complex perceptual sensibilities to distorted sounds, generally. Also, thanks for the really splendid presentation of the all-important topic of headphone measurement metrics! Thanks again, and a most Happy New Year! And maybe, where the audio community can come together and have calm, rational debates and discussions to actually advance this field of audio further! 😊👍🏻🎶🎶🎶
Great video.
I definitely preferred the third test for distortion, the second was the worst, the first was the second worst. That's weird.
I thought that the third sounded the best, despite the very noticeable high noise floor, and the first sounded the worst. LMAO.
SINAD is a myth, got it. (Just kidding!!) Healthier debate, staying curious, and using the context/science we do have available appropriately, sounds good to me.
I own a pair of Roland CS-10EM, which are IEMs with binaural microphones. Shouldn't we all use this kind of microphones on our own heads to measure headphones?
Audiophile channels and outlets such as the Headphone Show should release apps to do that easily.
Nope, that is even less standard and nobody can repeat the same measurement.
@ModPhreak Sure, but personal measurements would be the most accurate to each listener. Ideally, going to a shop or can jam and be able to measure a pair of headphones with in-ear binaural microphones would allow each listener to compare them accurately to what he already owns. That's all the measurements we need, really.
Holy hell what a long video
I think the core of this problem is that the hobby was birthed online, but the v-shaped outrage/outrageous language that is forumtroll just doesn't translate for those of us not under the bridge (btw, nuance resides in the scooped out mids in that analogy!).
Every Saturday I look forward to the friendly, meandering musings on the live stream, and every week Blaine ruins the vibe within seconds - his every word is the embodiment of the ugly side of the hobby, which is especially ironic considering he's a co-author of the presentation.
There were 142 viewers when I joined yesterday, and I can only assume that the vast majority of those are his fellow forum dwellers... My strong advice - if you want your audience to include those of us who sometimes see daylight - is to jettison Trolly McTrollface ASAP. Point scoring in an echo chamber might feel good for those with zero other interests, but for casuals and noobs, it's horrid - nothing more than masturbatory self-indulgence, which I'd suggest is the same problem that underpins the subject of this video.
Somewhere around 36 minutes, you provide a hypothetical where some obstinately holds on to their belief without testing, and state that it would leave more questions than answers.
I think it would actually leave less questions because they are so sure.
More questions is always good I think, the 5128 rig raise more questions after it showed differences from previous rog measurements.
that arya unveiled graph tho…
Another nicely done video, thanks for that!
I really think you should remove the link to ASR. He is guilty of almost every trope you pointed out and has been called out for not following industry standard practices with his measurements on many circumstances. He is a pseudoscientist and should not be referenced unless it is to belittle his work. Not only is his work sloppy but he is actively hostile towards true objectivists during peer review. You are massively hurting the objectivist cause by giving him any level of credibility. I get that he was friendly when it came to the DCS stuff but that was purely to cover his own ass if the finger was pointed at him. Please remove the link and in the future refrain from giving any compliments to Amir. Great video other than that.
The thing is... while we have our disagreements, we're not going to approach those platforms we disagree with in bad faith. Yes, we are aware of the issues there and the discourse that follows, but we're not going to conduct ourselves in such a partisan way that we won't credit or call attention to our detractors when they have done good things. This is one of those instances.
we need a set of headphones/IEMs that use AI with real time measurements to fine tune music to our ears/brains.... then its all solved...
Some ANC headphones have already been doing this for years (i.e. calibration tone/scan/sweep), basically taking measurements of your HRTF and tailoring to your anatomy. Though it does not go towards EQ-ing to any target curve for musical purposes.
I don't know about you, but I buy my cars based on the wheel base and the size of the fuel tank. A test drive is a waste of time.😄
I was in the porsche Museum the other day, and they were showing new cars with wheels the height of my hips. So maybe they got a point.
Haven’t watched the video yet but I can guarantee that goldenFRAUD isn’t going to mention the conclusive results of the bombshell 1998 paper by Sam Sinad, in which HRTF was not only bypassed, but completely obliterated by inverted waterfall plots as a function of SINAD-let alone the catastrophic implications for transient response, phase linearization, AND spectral decay.
Is this undercover Rob Hawke?
My sentient turbo encabulator and flux capacitors would like to have a word with you.
Weren’t his conclusions completely invalidated once it came to light that he’d forgotten to degrease his polarmetric spurving bearing before completing analysis of the mass tympani?
Go touch grass
@@ringsystemmusic this is misinformation spread specifically by Blaine LIARcross. Degreasing your polarmetric spurving bearing is only required during microphonic spindling sessions. Greased or ungreased, the results would have been the same.
Who can sum me up? I'm not English
3:23 waiting for the absolutists video on this one.
🚴♂
halo
Measurements need to be done with cheap pc's and in apartments where I would imagine most headphone users are
Gathering the most dogshit setup possible to measure headphones would be such a funny concept
You can already do that with knock-off couplers and simulated pinna from AliExpress. Just note that your measurements would only be useful to... yourself. For any kind of reliable cross-reference and comparisons, setup, characteristics and parameters have to be standardised, which will not come cheap.
Don't just "use your ears" is like saying don't just "use your sense of taste" to enjoy your meal. It's nonsensical
First of all... your experience of a meal is far more than just your sense of taste. Sense of smell, touch, texture... the entire olfactory process is involved as well as what it looks like. But second of all, there is another reason for this. You often don't know what you prefer if you've never been able to compare things. So for example, if you just eat pasta every day, you may enjoy it, and it may provide you nutritional value. But you don't know if you prefer it to hamburgers if you've never tried hamburgers. That's overly simplistic if you get what I mean. Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean it's giving you the best possible experience. And with audio equipment, we're predisposed to having good experiences, because it turns out music is super enjoyable, especially music we like. The other side of it is the predictive benefits of measurements. Obviously listen to the headphones if you get a chance, but not everyone has that opportunity.
@@ResolveReviews I ear you. But using our ears to determine our preferences in audio equipment as we use our taste to determine our preferred food seems pretty intuitive and the most obvious thing to do.
@@OldkidLivegen and we do. Nobody is saying NOT to use your ears.
@@ResolveReviews The thing is, there's nothing wrong with using exclusively our ears to choose our preferred audio equipment. Listeners aren't making anything scientific while enjoying their music.
At the end of the day, measurements like EQ are optional things that one can spend a lifetime in the audiophile hobby without using them even once.
@@OldkidLivegen being more educated is never the wrong answer. This is about purchase decisions, not purchase validation. Funny how almost all subjectivist are addicted to the latter. There are many things wrong with being uneducated my friend, insufficient awareness of your own compulsive and irrational behavioural traits is one of them.
all i care about is measurements
thanks for explanation
though i found it too verbose ie sinad
Well of course measurements - including SINAD - are important!
Standardized measurements provide datums that can usefully be used to compare the performance of a given class of products.
Otherwise we all just fall into the clutches of the so called golden eared ones, who delight in the dissemination of their often patronising, personal opinions. Thank you, no!
As for your borderline straw man argument re SINAD, Who but a fool would take just one value in isolation, when a suite of specs are so much more indicative of performance?
You see, as far as I am concerned 2nd, 3rd, even, odd or any order of harmonics - if audible - IS distortion! Pleasant or otherwise, it just is!
This is why I think that valve powered equipment is anathema in Hi-Fi.
It's not that it can't possibly make a difference. It's that it's misleading. No, in almost all circumstances, SINAD is irrelevant to any audio purchase. ASR uses it as a metric to rate products when there are other measurements that are perceptually relevant in making an audio purchase being undermined. The distortion segment demonstrates that. There is no justification for this, and so this conversation will conclude here.
@@En_Joshi-Godrez but this is the bible of ASR "follow the SINAD" ignore the non-believers. you must conduct double blind test but when you do we will argue they aint done right. Cause no one can do it right. LOL
@@En_Joshi-Godrez So here we are in this discussion space and you choose to stifle any debate. Fair enough. Your perogative is observed.
That people care about them.
Audiophiles are insine.
GoldenSound can you please grow a beard or tache, like DMS ?
I enjoyed every second of 44 min.