Oki doki... in an effort to keep all the disagreements out of the other threads, lets make this thread kinda like the the 'SQ Cage Match', wrestling for the SQ opinionated, and we can have all our mairs and fun in here and keep the other threads free of the anal retentiveness

If the mods can please leave this thread alone, lets get all the knives out and go for gold Leave your political correctness at the door :wink:

'Mr_Bob smacks Blackrazor upside with the head with a chair! Blackrazors almost out for the... whoa! Whats this! Blackrazor has tagged in STIK79!'

First topic for debate : Aftermarket capacitors are a useful tool for stabilising system voltage for amp use

and no

in that order

yes they do (im trying to sell one so shuddup!!)

then no

Come on boys, you can do better than that... cant you at least muster something controversial and/or divisive? :hehe:

Cone weight..... hevier cone = slow response? or dosent matter?

how about, thermal paint on heatsinks??? can it make the amp sound better?

Depends what you mean by 'slow response'... Dan Wiggins of Adire posted a white paper some time ago showing the equation that defined transient response, and it turned out that transient response was a direct function of motor strength, with cone mass not affecting it... but i'll find it when i get home from work just to be safe before i make any blanket statements

I have to honest and admit (someone might want a camera here to catch the moment) that i have No F*cking Idea™... but i would strongly doubt it :hehe:

this one?
http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/TechPapers...WooferSpeed.pdf

I have ALWAYS experienced that going from a 100wrms amp to a 200wrms amp sounds MUCH nicer, even with speakers that handle 80wrms at a maximum.... That's what i think.... anyone disagree?

/me wonders how long this thread will last???

- Stooge007 out

Ah yeh, thats it... gotta love Danny boy, its nice when people go out of their way to actually explain what they beleive and why, rather than just making a statement and expecting you to beleive it


It depends how you use it... 80wRMS is the speakers continuous power handling, speakers will often handle much more than that for short bursts so long as they can still stay inside their mechanical limit... in that case, more power = :thumb:

Everyone knows that capacitors are simply a bandaid solution for a bigger problem!

Remove the cause, and the symptom will remove itself....

"Mr_Bob smacks Blackrazor upside with the head with a chair!"
dude! WWF isn't my thing... although i hear you like to run around in latex outfits...

rather than joining you, i'll continue my quest for Global Domination.

Wild swing #1:
Most people don't know a good sounding system if it bit them on the arrrse.

Wild swing #2
Most people don't care as long as it is LOUD.

People's Elbow #1
When most people speak about SQ issues, it's from what they heard a mate of a cousin say and have absolutely no experience with the issues themselves.

Kick
Most people's reference for good sound is their mini system in their bedroom.

And don't forget the all mighty MP3 reference tracks played of the PC for reference!

Bye,
Mo

LOL, i once found a copy of the Alpine First Encounters CD on the net... as a 96kbps MP3 :?

There's no difference in sound between a Sonic Frontiers SFS-40 and an Audio Innovations Classic 25 amplifier

or

My Alpine MRV-F407 sounds the same as my ZX-475Ti amp when the cross overs are switched off and the levels are matched


[snigger]

lmao but yeah im willing to go with the fact that most people wouldnt know true SQ if it bit them on the bum. I know i personally without sitting there and comparing for ages and ages cant tell the difference between a set of lets say two different brands of speakers one worth say $900 and another worth $1200. I know they both sound different and i could point out their differences but i couldnt tell you which was more "true" to the original recording. I can certainly tell you which pair i like the most and quite often it is supprisingly the cheaper set - i think this comes down to the fact that i know that sound better so it sounds "right" to me. mind you i can still sit and appreciate a nice set of $12k osborns over a set of $2k kefs or something but then its a totally differnt experiance you sit there to appreciate both the music and the speakers and the other equiptment where as generally when listening to a set of $2k speakers its probly turned up a bit louder and im probly doing something else at the same time not just sitting there with the lights down emersed in the sound listening for that fine detail - that first splash after the silence type thing. ok i'll shut up now

If i pay the airfare, are you willing to go make an bum of yourself over at Richard Clarkes house? :wink: You gotta take pics is all

And, have you been using that as your reference, Dan ? Awww...


j/k

Bye,
Mo

Ultim8DTM5 embalms both Mr_Bob and Blackrazor with a diving suplex off the turnbuckle...

Class A/B vs Efficiency- which one is overrated and at what expense?

Nah, i couldnt get it to work, so my current testing CD is a recording of Dire Straights 'Money For Nothing' that i recorded on an Olympus Pearlcorder as it was being played over the phone line by a mate in Zaire... the quality is just spiffy, i can loan you it if you like Mo

Now, since we've all decided that science can go roger itself up its back pathway if it contradicts what we personally hear, i was just wondering how many of us are planning on buying some Silver Rock Potentiometers? Coz if you are, you'd best be upgrading your plastic volume knobs to these nice beech ones, for a lovely little increase in depth and dynamics...





But seriously, think about it this way :
• Beech Knob dude thinks his special knob improves the sound.
• Science says the beech knob effect is a load of bullcrape.
• On one hand, you have the sworn personal experience of a music lover. On the other, pure simple science.
• Noone rational beleives the beech knob effect exists, yet this guy is convinced he hears it.

...yet in another case...

• Cable lovers think their special cables improve the sound.
• Science says the cable effect is a load of bullcrape.
• On one hand, you have the sworn personal experience of music lovers. On the other, pure simple science.
• Fill in the last paragraph...

Now my question is : Those of you who disregard the science behind audio, and base your views purely on what you 'hear', what makes your perception any more reliable or accurate than Dr Silver Rock and his Solid Beech Pot Knob? Honestly, i'm interested to know

Only the people who know their knobs well will truely be able to tell the difference!! :hehe: :hehe: :hehe: :hehe:

I like class a/b for the sub, nothing beats it If i could find a 2kw class A amp, (for a reasonable price) i'd use that...... if i could find a 230x2wrms class A valve amp for the frontstage i'd use that too.... Why? Because i can!

How did I know a thread like this would start in an SQ forum! :roll:

BR, you pay, I'll definitely go.

<starts saving>

With a degree of tongue in cheek of course

Head units.....make no difference
Amplifiers.......make no difference
Cables......make no difference
Speakers.......installed badly sound like sh1te if poorly installed.

Godayum I am clever, I still manage to get SQ out of sound systems!
And the ones we do with the better equipment manage to sound better than the ones with the cheap equipment, even though the good stuff......makes no difference.

Just as well I bought a good supply of pixie dust at the right price!
Oh yeah, and the definitive Feng Shui Reference Guide

If a guy can convince himself to spend $2000 on a 1m RCA cable, or $$$ on wooden knobs, of course it will sound better....to him. 99% of it's all in your head.

The relative humidity, the amount of earwax in your ears, or how much sleep you've had that week makes more difference than any of the ridiculously-"high end" tweaks that some nut cases go on about.

Phil

How about this one?

Opinionated and passionate forum posters who have a firm belief in something - yet have never proven it conclusively for themselves. Therefore their opinions are only the sum total of their experience. Therefore you can only take an opinionated forum poster's opinion based on their unquantified experience.

Example A: So far Critter has the belief that he can't hear differences between source units, therefore either he has ciritcally auditioned every source unit every created in a direct A/B test and has proven this claim inoquivicably to himself and has the right to claim it, or he hasn't done any such thing and the truth is that his car audio experience is limited and this is something that he can't yet conclusively claim.

Yet the claim stands.

Is the claim true?

What evidence does he use to back it up?

Or is his claim based on the weight of evidence supplied by numerous other opinionated and passionate forum posters who are all feeding off each others equally unfounded claims?

Headunit makes no difference? That is interesting, tell us more about it.

*cough*
Now, Damon.....
Ah, that was tongue in cheek......ah, irony....ah.....

As a matter of a fact I have this Pioneer P9 here that says I believe otherwise: I have this idea it sounds better than this Alpine one I have here.

There would however be those that would say "a bit is a bit" or something like that.

I guess the thing that boils me up is when we have people saying "I own the absolute truth on this subject and challenge you to prove otherwise".

There is in fact NO absolute truth.
We have The Big Bang Theory.
Even Einstein produced the THEORY of relativity.....

In the days of Salem, it was "the absolute truth" that there were witches hanging about and causing a nuisance. We have the idea now that this may not have been the case.....

We know what we know "as far as we know it", and no more.
We can say "I believe this, and this is how I came to that conclusion".

We CANNOT say "this is what the test equipment says, and that is incontrovertible" because someone is BOUND at some stage in the future to show that the test was flawed and why".

The "truth" is in fact a moving target.

IMHO, and this does include me to a degree in this place, pretty much all of us are guilty of losing sight of that from time to time.....

That said, I would much rather there was a bit of passion about the place than the insipid alternative.

You dont need to physically have tested every single theory you postulate to know its true... if that was the case, we'd have to go back and reinvent the lightbulb every time we build a house

The question i would throw back at you is, what proof do you have that things DO sound better? If we make a claim that science says something doesnt sound different, we're a bugbear and an ignoramus... yet your average audiophile can make any claim he likes, ANY claim, with no scientific backup or even flying in the face of established science, and noone takes them to task on it because 'he heard it'... so what if he heard it, whoop de crape, by that same reasoning its time to get Beech Silver Rock knobs

BTW, i've never claimed headunits dont sound different Amps, if they dont clip and are level matched they sound the same, but in reality, most amps clip and none of them are level matched, so i dont dogfight that issue too much... the only issue i'm completely sure on is the cable issue

I've never actually got a response to my questions, would someone please give me a straigt answer please :

• Why do you think your 'i heard it' viewpoint is any more accurate or valid than the many 'i heard it' claims you hear around that even you would admit are BS? (not to harp on, but like the Silver Rock knobs)

• If science cannot quantify what does and doesnt make a difference, how the hell do they design the product in the first place? Luck?

Fair enough too, Blackrazor

Godayum, if we get into "how do you establish if something sounds better?" we will ALL go stark raving mad.

If I have a system that for me, sounds too bright, and I tame the perceived brightness, by whatever means, I likely think it sounds "better".

Someone else might come along and say "What happened to the high frequency detail? You've gone backwards!"

So we cannot agree, and this is a good thing, we would otherwise all be the same. Boring!

The issue with the wooden knobs is a fascination. I think it is a tribal thing.
Humans are tribal creatures for sure. Otherwise we would not have clubs, crews, whatever. CAA for example.

The "wooden knob people" are a tribe that has view "If you can hear this, you are one of us, a "golden ears, true believer" or somesuch.
If you do not hear this, you are not one of "us".

To a degree we all have our little "sub-tribes" and it's all good

A good joust is all good fun, so long as you keep your perspective on it. Who doesn't have regular disagreements with their best mates?

my stereo sounds so much better after a few cold beers.....

We go with what we know, as far as we know it, and so do designers.
And every so often, a discovery is made, and we make progress.

And what may have been "the last word" last week is no longer the last word. The truth, a moving target, has just moved

No-one is "accusing" you of saying all HU's sound the same, moit:)

I was just toting some of the assertions that have been made here, as examples....

Sorry Critter, please know that what I wrote was in no way taking a stab at you or your opinions. Neither was it to say that my personal 'opinion' is right and others are wrong. This is why, for instance, you'll never see me posting answers to any 'what's the best...' questions on CAA.

The point I was making was that we are ALL a sum of our experience, and very few of us who post on here can actually quantify their experience formally. My own unique situation is that my opinions are published in a regular magazine title, therefore I need to be extremely judicious in what I claim and make my best efforts to back it up with evidence. Sometimes I have to rely on the fact that people know I've been doing this for ten odd years so when I say something is good or bad it comes from many years of doing what I do.

Forum posters don't have the restraints of having the quantify their opinions, yet I'm finding it an increasing phenomenon that supposed 'theories' are being based on general consensus without formal application.

For this reason alone I don't like to offer firm opinions based on anything I lack experience in, which is why for instance I steer clear of the SPL forum on CAA since it is an area where my experience is limited. I voluntarily don't post there because I can't offer a genuine answer. I wish some others would consider doing the same sometimes because there are so many newbies lurking on here that the problem of misinformation will surely continue.

Then again, Bobby Digitasl has two more music bars than me so he's the boss, right?

LOL

thats right, i have the power if you dont agree with me ill just edit your post so you do hahah j/k

anyway i need to go find some beer, the stock stereo sounds like crap so i neeed to improve it

LOL
EVERYTHING sounds better to Bobby_Digital after a few cold beers.
Looks better, smells better......

And I quite agree Damon. We can only ever offer an opinion based on our experiences, which with some of the newer/younger members is very limited indeed!

Black-and-white, this is how it is, this is how it isn't, is also a function of youth. We grow out of it

Cos what I hear isn't the same as what you hear... how would you know how a violin sounds to me? If i tell you that a violin sounds like "xyz" to me, can you/science prove it other wise to my ears ?

To me, in my limited experience, i have "noticed" a change in my system between two head units - with one I'm quite certain that the stage height jumped up, now, I put that down to "me hearing things again", but is there science to prove stage height? width ?

I've also noticed a change between two amps, with one I'm quite sure that i heard "more" things more prominently - yeah you could hear the same things with both the amps, but why did one sound "different" ?
Can science prove that? Science will say that those frequencies were present, can science prove how certain frequencies sounded to me?

I'm not challenging science, just saying that there's more to the art of music, human senses and feelings that whats on black and white.

Afterall, science has no emotion, music does...




The play something over the phone to you and you tell them it sounds good or not? j/k

Bye,
Mo

Great discussion here guys. Now, how about we strike up a conversation about the relative sound quality of speaker and RCA cables?

Who's first?

Nah, you don't want beer, a shot of burbon will make the stereo sound heaps better than beer Its proven!

Bye,
Mo

Hahaha I thought there was already a current thread running some eleventy-billion pages about cables in this section.

I stopped reading after the first 5 pages, and don't regret it

HE HE

Got to hear the Focal grand Utopia the othe day

Voted one of the best 3 speakers in the world.

Right ear says fabulous
Left says ye its ok could be better.

Now its up to crap for brains in the middle to decide this one. :hehe:

I'm sure we have all heard variations on the theme:



While it would be preferable to experience everything, that is simply not possible in the real world. So in the real world, you have to rely on the experiences of other people. This is particularly evident when you look at the world today. It has obviously been shaped by people learning from the experiences of others. For better or for worse.... Secondly experience on its own is useless. It is how we use that experience. Likewise, the experience of others on is own is also useless. The key is, knowing how learn from your experiences and the experiences of others. If you were to use all of the experiences (of yourself and others) purely on face value, then you will be setting yourself up for problems.



Surely you jest?

(I do realize that it was probably just a typo )



Fletcher Munson curves anyone? Or less clipping?



Science and engineering never was and never will be a search for absolute truth.

What is important, is an effort to improve things in the real world.

Ok, so while you may use a cable, or an amplifier that alters the signal less, does it improve things in the real world? Can I/you actually hear the difference? Where do you draw the line? This is where science nd engineering comes in. By using a simple controlled test (with enough samples...) you can easily determine if you can actually hear the difference or not. Its up to you which is more important - the real world, or your imagination. In the case of selecting amplifiers, I prefer the real world (along with scientists). In the case of selecting (or producing) music, I choose imagination. Everyone has imagination, but it seems only those who have a vivid imagination are able to acknowledge the fact that imagination exists and solve any problems that may be caused by it.

Anyway, I would suggest that in the opinion of certain people, that almost all commercially produced amplifiers are overengineered, in the sound quality aspect - in that you cannot hear an audible difference between them. (once you match the crossovers and volume level..) This is purely based on the experience of all of those who have taken part in tests that control all of the variables except one - so the crossovers are matched, volume levels are matched and if one amplifier is much more powerful than the other, not driven into clipping. So the only variable is the "sound" of the amplifier, besides the effect of the crossovers on the sound, which could of course be tested separately. In the case of tube amplifiers, there is another clause - not all tube amplifiers are overengineered. Some have audible effects on the sound! However, based on peoples experience, this is usually not due to the fact that tubes were used at all. But simply that the damping factor was extremely low. So to account for this, a low cost resistor is used in series with the other amplifier to match this. They are not saying that amplifiers will not have some effect on the sound besides amplification. Nor that you cannot build an amplifier that sounds (audibly) different to another.



Now there is a statement that could start an endless philosophical discussion......

Meh... motor function, inductance, it all becomes a blur around 2am

UTP Vs normal Coaxial.. not sure if this came up in the cable thread (never got that far in it).