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Audiophiles are not alone

In the current (May 13th-19th, 2017) edition of the Economist there is a short piece entitled "Violins" that I want to bring to your attention.  It is about new violins and old violins, specifically Cremonese (Guarneri, Stradivari, Amati) vs. Joseph Curtin (modern violin maker in Michigan).  With Dr. Claudia Fritz of the University of Paris, presiding, experiments were held in Paris and New York that proved to the majority of both musicians and listeners (other musicians, critics, composers etc.) that new fiddles out performed old ones.  There were some sort of goggles used so that the players could not tell what instrument they were playing.  The audience was also prevented from seeing the instruments somehow.  All this done without inhibiting sound transmission.  Both solo and orchestrated works were performed.  You can read the whole story in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  And this is only the latest evidence of this apparent reality, as according to the article, similar experiments have reached similar conclusions prior to this.  The article concluded with the observation that these results notwithstanding, world class players are not about to give up their preference for their Cremonese fiddles.

This reminds me very much of some of our dilemmas and debates such as the ever popular: analog vs. digital, tube vs. transistor, and subjective listening vs. measured performance parameters.  If it has taken a couple of hundred years and counting for the debate on fiddles to remain unresolved, what hope have we to ever reach resolutions to some of our most cherished and strongly held preferences?  This is asked while hugging my turntables and tube electronics.
billstevenson
tomwh
150 posts
 
So the original post was trying to make a correlation between a subjective study at best and music reproduction.  I guess based on new vs old.

So in the case of a violin who defines good.  Is it the sq root of 4x??? Is it feel of the wood.  Is it the tone. Is it the volume???  Who's subjective opinion get to be the objective best.  Maybe if the composers were not mostly dead , they could get us closer to the sound they had envisioned.

The other problem is just because someone can play back classical music does not make them Miles Davis.  And even then Miles liked to make his horn sound like a human voice.  The variables are endless.  You can not reach perfection if you do not know what it is.

Now to try to go from I like the new violin better to digital vs vinyl or tubes vs transistors, is one giant leap.  Now we can at least take the subjective opinion out of the equation somewhat.  The tenor sax should not sound like a alto sax.  The grand piano should not sound like it was plugged into a amp.  The biggest issue here is that we where not in the studio when they made the reference.

So if there is any moral to the story when it comes to music, you have to listen and feel it to know.  Yes there are people with perfect pitch and others who are tone deaf but even the tone deaf souls should get what floats their boat.  So good luck with the numbers and the marketing.  If you want something great you will have to experiment and listen listen listen...
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
 
cleeds
geoffkait
Well, actually you can fool blind tests. Blind tests can give misleading or just plain wrong results just like any other type of test. Operator error, mistake in the system, maybe the listener has a cold ...

Absolutely true. And establishing a proper double-blind test is more difficult than it might appear. If the test isn't properly conducted, then obviously the results aren't valid.

Blind testing has great value to designers and manufacturers. To end-user audiophiles, not so much.

>>>>is there really such a thing as a proper double blind test? The one The Amazing Randi administered involved many protocols including having to pick the correct thing under test 10 consecutive times. There were other constraints as well, sometimes negotiable, such as when and where the test would take place and how many people would participate and WHAT SYSTEM would be used for the test. 

terry9
2,209 posts
 
@geoffkait 

1. Fourier Analysis
2. From the days of Pharaohnic Egypt, it has been accepted that mathematical analysis informs the real world.
3. As I mentioned before, an engineering solution has a basis in fact or theory. Something with neither is a contraption.
4. This is rather far from the OP, so I am signing off with this.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
terry9
@geoffkait

1. Fourier Analysis
2. From the days of Pharaohnic Egypt, it has been accepted that mathematical analysis informs the real world.
3. As I mentioned before, an engineering solution has a basis in fact or theory. Something with neither is a contraption.
4. This is rather far from the OP, so I am signing off with this.

>>>>Look how far mathematical analysis got the Egyptians.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
5,639 posts
 
geoffkait
  is there really such a thing as a proper double blind test?
Yes, I think so. But it must be properly set up and conducted. Even then, its results can at best only reflect the results of the test. Correlating those results to actual listening conditions is another matter entirely.

For example, it is common to read that a listener has "failed the test" if he could not distinguish between two different cables, or amplifiers (or whatever) in a double blind test, such as an abx test. But the listener has not failed at all. Indeed, the listener is not even being tested. What's being tested are the two components that are the subject of the test. In this example, you could only conclude that the listener could not distinguish between the two components in the blind test.
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