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It absolutely looks to me like you're just trying to keep this field unscientific. Misrepresenting the article, then throwing out a bunch of jargon without expl

by twhb 9y ago

It absolutely looks to me like you're just trying to keep this field unscientific. Misrepresenting the article, then throwing out a bunch of jargon without explanation, then coming to the conclusion that people here shouldn't even try to understand. The study doesn't say "that explains everything!". It measures one component in isolation. That's what good science does. The existence of other factors in headphone performance is irrelevant. Besides, would you really not consider it news if 0-60 time in cars didn't correlate with price? Yes, a luxury car can justify its price in many other ways, but, on average, there should still be a correlation.

Dylan16807 9y ago
> It absolutely looks to me like you're just trying to keep this field unscientific. By naming a bunch of things that should be measured, but aren't? > Besides, would you really not consider it news if 0-60 time in cars didn't correlate with price? What they said was "how well it drives at 60mph". Acceleration testing would be akin to the untested impulse response.
- betenoire 9y ago
  Granted, it's the middle of the afternoon, so I might be braid dead... but which "bunch of things that should be measured" are listed in that comment?
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    "Sine wave measurements of audio gear ignore impulse response, intermodulation distortion, phase shift, and a host of other real-world physical device responses to real-world musical signals." Plus discussion of dynamic range; I don't think they were tested at different volumes.
    - bigiain 9y ago
      Note that the article make no claim to be determining which headphones "sound better when stuck in human hears listening to music". And the article draws some specific conclusions and points out some of it's known limitations. Humour me - what are some/any of the "bunch of things that should be measured" that were not, for a study titled "No correlation between headphone frequency response and retail price"? I notice they also failed to test for "soundstage" "musicality" "warmth", or waterproofness, taste, and availability in a range of colours to suit your decor. Another "bunch of things" they didnt set out to test nor made any claims about.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        It's obvious from the title that frequency response is being used as a proxy for quality, and it's outright stated multiple times such as "assuming that the perceived audio quality is largely determined by the spectral magnitude response of headphones". But it's a bad way to test frequency response. And don't pull out those weird undefined words when this was a discussion of important objective audio-quality measures being ignored.
        betenoire 9y ago
        I don't think it is obvious. I have headphones I use for mixing, because of the frequency response. I don't use them to listen to music. Quality depends on what you are measuring, and no one claims a perfect frequency response necessarily means it sounds good. Often the opposite, since we use those types of headphones to find the flaws. So to ME, it's obvious that this is NOT about being a proxy for quality, and I'm inclined to believe that it is about what it claims to be about.
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        A sine sweep is still a very narrow and incomplete way to measure frequency response. > it's obvious that this is NOT about being a proxy for quality "Interestingly, sound quality does not seem to be a major attribute for purchase decisions." "Root-mean square errors (RMSEs) were calculated across frequency for each headphone with respect to an assumed target curve to assess an objective quality metric." "assuming that the perceived audio quality is largely determined by the spectral magnitude response of headphones" Are you sure?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
beat 9y ago
Read for content. I wasn't talking measuring 0-60 time in cars. I was talking about measuring steady 60mph. No one does that, because it's useless (although it would be easy to measure). 0-60 time would correlate somewhat to impulse response in audio, which is a useful measurement, and much more rarely seen. I'm reminded of an experimental example a professor showed us in my college audio recording class. He hooked a square wave generator up to both analog tape and digital recorders, and recorded the square wave. Then he played back both sources on an oscilloscope. The tape had a sharp lead spike followed by a shrinkage on the tail of the square, from compression. The digital recording had a rippled top, from frequency-related distortion. Both were inaccurate, but they were inaccurate in very different ways.
- mrob 9y ago
  Inaccuracies visible on an oscilloscope might not be audible to humans. Try applying a 10Hz high-pass filter to some music and comparing the waveforms. There's obvious visible changes but it sounds identical.
  - beat 9y ago
    True. And it certainly doesn't explain "better" or "worse". But it explains why music recorded on tape sounds different from music recorded digitally. And it puts a torch to the claims that digital is somehow "accurate", and all we like about analog is just evil bad naughty distortion.
    - astrange 9y ago
      Square waves are impossible to reproduce because they have infinite numbers of frequencies, but you don't listen to square waves. You listen to music with all its content below 20KHz and anything above that doesn't matter. The only non-ideal thing about music is that it's not band-limited because time matters - that's why compressing music with a lot of cymbals etc smears it across time.
      - jjgreen 9y ago
mistercow 9y ago
Should those things be measured in a study called "No correlation between headphone frequency response and retail price"?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by twhb 9y ago

Dylan16807 9y ago

> It absolutely looks to me like you're just trying to keep this field unscientific. By naming a bunch of things that should be measured, but aren't? > Besides, would you really not consider it news if 0-60 time in cars didn't correlate with price? What they said was "how well it drives at 60mph". Acceleration testing would be akin to the untested impulse response.

betenoire 9y ago
Granted, it's the middle of the afternoon, so I might be braid dead... but which "bunch of things that should be measured" are listed in that comment?
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  "Sine wave measurements of audio gear ignore impulse response, intermodulation distortion, phase shift, and a host of other real-world physical device responses to real-world musical signals." Plus discussion of dynamic range; I don't think they were tested at different volumes.
  - bigiain 9y ago
    Note that the article make no claim to be determining which headphones "sound better when stuck in human hears listening to music". And the article draws some specific conclusions and points out some of it's known limitations. Humour me - what are some/any of the "bunch of things that should be measured" that were not, for a study titled "No correlation between headphone frequency response and retail price"? I notice they also failed to test for "soundstage" "musicality" "warmth", or waterproofness, taste, and availability in a range of colours to suit your decor. Another "bunch of things" they didnt set out to test nor made any claims about.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      It's obvious from the title that frequency response is being used as a proxy for quality, and it's outright stated multiple times such as "assuming that the perceived audio quality is largely determined by the spectral magnitude response of headphones". But it's a bad way to test frequency response. And don't pull out those weird undefined words when this was a discussion of important objective audio-quality measures being ignored.
      - betenoire 9y ago
        I don't think it is obvious. I have headphones I use for mixing, because of the frequency response. I don't use them to listen to music. Quality depends on what you are measuring, and no one claims a perfect frequency response necessarily means it sounds good. Often the opposite, since we use those types of headphones to find the flaws. So to ME, it's obvious that this is NOT about being a proxy for quality, and I'm inclined to believe that it is about what it claims to be about.
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        A sine sweep is still a very narrow and incomplete way to measure frequency response. > it's obvious that this is NOT about being a proxy for quality "Interestingly, sound quality does not seem to be a major attribute for purchase decisions." "Root-mean square errors (RMSEs) were calculated across frequency for each headphone with respect to an assumed target curve to assess an objective quality metric." "assuming that the perceived audio quality is largely determined by the spectral magnitude response of headphones" Are you sure?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

beat 9y ago

Read for content. I wasn't talking measuring 0-60 time in cars. I was talking about measuring steady 60mph. No one does that, because it's useless (although it would be easy to measure). 0-60 time would correlate somewhat to impulse response in audio, which is a useful measurement, and much more rarely seen. I'm reminded of an experimental example a professor showed us in my college audio recording class. He hooked a square wave generator up to both analog tape and digital recorders, and recorded the square wave. Then he played back both sources on an oscilloscope. The tape had a sharp lead spike followed by a shrinkage on the tail of the square, from compression. The digital recording had a rippled top, from frequency-related distortion. Both were inaccurate, but they were inaccurate in very different ways.

mrob 9y ago
Inaccuracies visible on an oscilloscope might not be audible to humans. Try applying a 10Hz high-pass filter to some music and comparing the waveforms. There's obvious visible changes but it sounds identical.
- beat 9y ago
  True. And it certainly doesn't explain "better" or "worse". But it explains why music recorded on tape sounds different from music recorded digitally. And it puts a torch to the claims that digital is somehow "accurate", and all we like about analog is just evil bad naughty distortion.
  - astrange 9y ago
    Square waves are impossible to reproduce because they have infinite numbers of frequencies, but you don't listen to square waves. You listen to music with all its content below 20KHz and anything above that doesn't matter. The only non-ideal thing about music is that it's not band-limited because time matters - that's why compressing music with a lot of cymbals etc smears it across time.
    - jjgreen 9y ago

mistercow 9y ago

Should those things be measured in a study called "No correlation between headphone frequency response and retail price"?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]