Stax vs. Senn Round 1

[deepak]

The He60 will put up a fight but the HE90 is all show but no go. The HD's are dynamic so they don't have a chance...

I'd like to put you in a double blind test with a dynamic that has really weak bass and a stat that sounds like ass with more bass and you have to tell me which the estat is

[spritzer]

I'd like to put you in a double blind test with a dynamic that has really weak bass and a stat that sounds like ass with more bass and you have to tell me which the estat is

I don't do double blind tests as they are idiotic and produce too many false positives on both sides of the argument. Still I'm confident that I'd be able to spot the electrostatic with ease. It has a lot more to do with the harmonic structure rather then bass or treble. Imaging characteristics are also a dead give away and how fast the sound is. One major factor is how much can the phones change with the recording, not to be confused with their own sound.

[deepak]

I don't do double blind tests as they are idiotic and produce too many false positives on both sides of the argument. Still I'm confident that I'd be able to spot the electrostatic with ease. It has a lot more to do with the harmonic structure rather then bass or treble. Imaging characteristics are also a dead give away and how fast the sound is. One major factor is how much can the phones change with the recording, not to be confused with their own sound.

My post was a joke poking fun of how stats do bass

And x2 on what Reks said about DBX

[spritzer]

My post was a joke poking fun of how stats do bass

And x2 on what Reks said about DBX

I know you were laughing at my precious stats so the only recourse was for you to explain yourself...

I've never quite understood the argument behind dbt's as they are regarded as highly unreliable in the medical industry.

[deepak]

I've never quite understood the argument behind dbt's as they are regarded as highly unreliable in the medical industry.

They are?

NIHS is going to pissed with the millions we have in our Cards research

[spritzer]

I got this from one of the heads of a big pharmaceutical company who is a close friend and an audiophile. The mind is a powerful thing and can produce false positives. The DBT's do work but you can't base your findings solely on their results.

[deepak]

I got this from one of the heads of a big pharmaceutical company who is a close friend and an audiophile. The mind is a powerful thing and can produce false positives. The DBT's do work but you can't base your findings solely on their results.

I think his audiophile side is getting the better of his logic

[grawk]

I think his audiophile side is getting the better of his logic

Or he's a figment of spritzer's imagination, given the complete misunderstanding of what double blind is for

[spritzer]

what company is he the head of, because i want to know what products to avoid. sure he's not the head of a homeopathic "medicine" company?

the mind producing "false positives" is exactly why the fucking DBT was invented, it's just that you have it backwards, as the double blind test helps take delusion, wishful thinking, subconscious desires, and other mental effects out of the equation.

I don't know what they are called in English but they basically steal the drug composition and make a bundle of money of somebody else's work.

What i meant was that the DBT causes false positives and I know it was meant to do so because the control group is large enough to make up for them. Why anybody would like to use this to test something as complex as audio equipment is just nuts. Nobody pays any attention to impedance matching or what kind of a PSU is inside the units. The same can be said about meet impressions.

I think his audiophile side is getting the better of his logic

Don't insult me by calling me an audiophile. If I buy Transparent or MIT cable, Magic pebbles or a Clever clock you may to so.

[grawk]

Yes. If he's selling snake oil, then he's probably real and denies that double blind works for healthcare.

[deepak]

I don't know what they are called in English but they basically steal the drug composition and make a bundle of money of somebody else's work.

That's not a real pharm company, and I'm even more surprised thats happening in Iceland (if thats where your friend is from).

generic drug companies, is what i'm guessing you are talking about. here in the US, at least, drugs have a limited patent period, the theory being that drug companies should only make massive profits for a limited time on things that benefit the general good.

Yes generics can and are made after a patent runs out and it is a very good thing. But it's not the same as copying and selling the same drug, which is very popular in third world countries.

[philodox]

Guess what? You own electrostatic headphones. You are an audiophile. Sorry.

[spritzer]

I guess it me being tired and not making sense again coupled with the language barrier. What I meant is that the DBT's cause false positives and this is part of their "job" so they use a control group and test only a limited spectrum at once, say one drug or something like that. When we were talking about this it was in the context of using DBT's to evaluate cables and the small nuances you can only find over time.

Taking this over to audio is a very stupid mood and is what defines an audiophile to me i.e. a person that has something to prove. I like to read about other peoples opinions but "audiophiles" can go on into a rant defending something as idiotic as green paper stuck to the inside of a CDP.

[spritzer]

The word steal in Icelandic isn't as strong as in English so yeah, the patents have run out. Btw. Damn you guys are fast...

My issue with DBT's (I've conducted quite a few before I started to loath them) is the false positives through expectations. You can comment on some basic things like extension and soundstage but gear reacts to different cables, amps etc. in different ways.

Then there is the dark side of the DBT's or how they are used to make consumer gear worse by measuring the threshold of when people notice the difference.

Guess what? You own electrostatic headphones. You are an audiophile. Sorry.

Says the man with the electret...

[deepak]

The word steal in Icelandic isn't as strong as in English so yeah, the patents have run out. Btw. Damn you guys are fast...

My issue with DBT's (I've conducted quite a few before I started to loath them) is the false positives through expectations. You can comment on some basic things like extension and soundstage but gear reacts to different cables, amps etc. in different ways.

Then there is the dark side of the DBT's or how they are used to make consumer gear worse by measuring the threshold of when people notice the difference.

Says the man with the electret...

But that doesn't make any sense...

I guess it is a language barrier because a properly set up DBX can't produce false positives through expectations. It only shows what is there and what isn't.

[grawk]

My take on double blind tests is that it's easier to design a dbt for medicine than for audio. Perception is a funny thing, and the brain is a lot more sensitive a processor than it's generally given credit for. Sometimes it happens on levels you don't realize, tho, and so testing for it can be tough. Especially with things like harmonics. If someone ever designed the right test, it'd be worth discussing. 15 second clips of audio through a switch box, etc, probably aren't the right test.

And the clever little clock people aren't idiots, they're geniuses. They're making a mint selling to idiots, but they're just good at marketting. I don't believe there's any way at all they believe the tripe they're selling.

[spritzer]

the DBTs don't cause "false positives," the tests expose them. it's a critical difference.

Ok I'll chalk that up to the same language thing. It means basically the same in Icelandic.

the people who have things to prove in audiophiledom rarely let a DBT be done. once again, i do believe you have it backwards, at least as far as i'm concerned. and i think manufacturers do have something to prove, otherwise they wouldn't bother making claims, claims that should be tested.

the people who you are describing (IE, the green marker, rainbow sticker, blah blah blah) are audiophiles AND idiots. one doesn't have to be an idiot to be an audiophile. an audiophile is simply someone who enjoys high quality music reproduction. i certainly think you (and me, and everyone else here) qualifies for the enjoying high quality audio reproduction part.

I would much rather look at my self as a music lover who cares about what I listen to my music on. While I have all these high level phones here it's often a old SR-3 that gets the most use.

[deepak]

I would much rather look at my self as a music lover who cares about what I listen to my music on. While I have all these high level phones here it's often a old SR-3 that gets the most use.

No offense but we'd all like to be that way. Yet most of your posts that I read on Headfi are about silver cables, silver internal wiring, DHT amps, etc, etc. I've never seen you discuss music.

[deepak]

which is why i think spritzer is confusing a double-blind test and an A/B/X test.

Hmm I don't see how even an ABX test would produce false positives. A is either X or it isn't.

[deepak]

easy: "wow, this is my expensive cable, i bet it'll sound way better than this zip cord!" even if it's not conscious, its easy to confirm bias and wishful thinking in a non blind test where the testee and the tester are one and the same.

Ah of course. Whenever I think ABX I automatically assume a friend is doing the switching. Which makes it single blind.

[Dusty Chalk]

Whee! A DBT argument and an "audiophile" argument all in one thread!

Don't insult me by calling me an audiophile. If I buy Transparent or MIT cable, Magic pebbles or a Clever clock you may to so.

Define audiophile. My definition: someone who can hear the difference (between good reproduced sound and great reproduced sound).

Notice: this has nothing to do with how much one spends, allows for whether or not one believes in burn-in, feng shui, olifactory therapy etc., and also allows for different levels of audiophiles. So for example, one might be able to hear the difference between a Bose clock radio and a Tivoli clock radio, or one might be able to tell the difference between directions on an interconnect.

Oh, and testees should never be seen -- maybe we should hang a curtain over them as well.

[spritzer]

What I was getting at (finally) is that there is no perfect DBT. Gear is dismissed to early or something like that but I'm not going to loose any sleep over it as there isn't a perfect capacitor either.

I just don't like the stigma the word audiophile carries with it. It brings up images of people with thick copper cables and shielding, high power amps coupled to speakers with as many drive units as they could fit on the front panel and some on the back for good measure. I use what sounds best to me and that is silver every where and huge line sources coupled with SET's. I talk about the gear online but the music offline as more people can understand that. Lets just settle this and call me a "Stereo weirdo".

[philodox]

"Says the man with the electret"

That's electret-dynamic system to you, son!

Seriously though, I try not to look at audiophile as the 'dirty' word that some do. Am I an audiophile? Without a doubt. What non audiophile customizes his stereo equipment, uses tubes, spends more than $100 on headphones, etc.

I recently showed a picture of my office to a couple coworkers. They both liked the color scheme, and commented on my Wife's Mac (were in IT and support an all PC evironment), but one said "What's that thing with all the little lightbulbs?" and the other said "Nice valve amp!". I bet you can guess which is the audiophile.

[spritzer]

see, to me Stereo Weirdo conjures images of sparking tubes and dingy apartments filled with gear worth more than the building, and loud strange music and... yeah, i guess i'm a Stereo Weirdo, too

Check and check. Add to that smoke friom burning equipment like my KGSS did when I soldered an amp board while drinking heavily. Don't use the hour you have to kill before a party to drink and solder... My strangest thing was probably to hang an experimental ESL driver I was working on over the ovens in my bakery to test how it would be affected by extreme amounts of heat, moisture, dust and high level of fat in the air.

[deepak]

"Says the man with the electret"

That's electret-dynamic system to you, son!

Seriously though, I try not to look at audiophile as the 'dirty' word that some do. Am I an audiophile? Without a doubt. What non audiophile customizes his stereo equipment, uses tubes, spends more than $100 on headphones, etc.

I recently showed a picture of my office to a couple coworkers. They both liked the color scheme, and commented on my Wife's Mac (were in IT and support an all PC evironment), but one said "What's that thing with all the little lightbulbs?" and the other said "Nice valve amp!". I bet you can guess which is the audiophile.

The guy that said "What's that thing with all the little lightbulbs?"

He's the SS fan boy!