Home Theater options

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

There may well be a difference between Sony and HK receivers when driving certain speakers. I don't know the relative power levels, if either or both have flat frequency response, or the loads either one is designed to drive. While I've never seen, let alone heard, either of the two specific receivers you mention, my hunch is that anyone would be hard pressed to hear real sonic differences between them at a statistically significant level in a scientifically relevant subjective listening test.....
You are drastically overthinking this problem. Hardly anyone who is going out and buying a $300-500 reciever is listening to them in a "scientifically relevant" manner. I'd say that 98% of non-deaf people will hear a "statistically significant" difference between the two systems when they are taken out of the box, and set up in their homes according to the instruction manual. Most people would never consider (or be able to afford) a $15,000 reciever, nor would they probably be able to set it up themselves if they did. There is a certain level of hard-core audiophile nerd schooling that is required to even begin doing that kind of stuff. Simply, in roughly the same price range, the Harmon Kardon recievers have better tone and clearer sound than the Sony's pretty much across the board (as do a lot of similarly priced receivers). Whether its a cleaner power supply, better digital processing, better EQ settings, higher quality transistors or whatever it might be that causes the difference, THERE IS ONE. That is my point. Telling people that there is no difference is patently false. Yes, you can probably MAKE them sound the same with the time and effort to make sure everything coming out of them is exactly the same, but what does that prove? That Sony can't make a reciever that sounds as good as the others out of the box without jumping through hoops. TADA!

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

You are drastically overthinking this problem.

No, I'm simply thinking like a rational human being rather than as a marketing victim.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Hardly anyone who is going out and buying a $300-500 reciever is listening to them in a "scientifically relevant" manner.

Nor does s/he have to. The science is already in: pick audio electronics (that is, basically everything in the system except for speakers and turntables) based on price, appearance, build quality, perceived value, ergonomics, brand snobbery, service options, whatever, but sonically if it's not broken or designed badly it will sound the same as anything else. After all, if a ~$300 receiver sounds no different from an ~$800 receiver, and neither one of those sound different from a $10,000 ultra high end preamp and multiple multithousand dollar ultra high end amplifiers using cutting edge technology, and that's only one of many such findings, then why would one assume, absent explanatory proof of something known to be audible (frequency response problems in one amp, very high noise levels, etc.) that two black boxes in the same market sound any different from one another?

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

I'd say that 98% of non-deaf people will hear a "statistically significant" difference between the two systems when they are taken out of the box, and set up in their homes according to the instruction manual.

One would hope that those same non-deaf people a difference between taking either one out of the box, setting it up according to the instruction manual, listening, and then turning the volume knob up a couple notches and listening again. That is about as relevant to the issue at hand as your statements in this thread.

Simply, in roughly the same price range, the Harmon Kardon recievers have better tone and clearer sound than the Sony's pretty much across the board (as do a lot of similarly priced receivers).

They probably don't, in real life. At least with their auto-EQ function disabled. Now, one of them may have more useful signal processing than the other, but my limited experience with gear in that range is that none of it has any particularly useful signal processing yet. In 10 years, I hope that $500 receivers have more sophisticated room correction than my TacT TCS. In terms of computing horsepower, that's more than doable. The only kink is the need to include a decent, calibrated measurement mic to let the software know what's going on. The mics themselves aren't expensive, but calibration is just as important as having a good basic part.

THERE IS ONE.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You've not furnished anything except anecdotal evidence that any smart audio person will dismiss out of hand: sighted listening.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Yes, you can probably MAKE them sound the same with the time and effort to make sure everything coming out of them is exactly the same, but what does that prove?

Actually, all one needs to do to make sure they sound the same is turn off processing, make sure that their outputs are matched with a multimeter, and covering up the faceplates to prevent brand bias from contaminating results. It's not that much effort for someone into audio. Otherwise, the only things any "results" prove is that people can hear differences in volume, and people have brand preferences. Both of those phenomena are very well established, I would think.

 

[kronik]

All I need to know is where can I get SGladwell's wealth of audio knowledge and funds to buy all that crap. Good lord.

I thought I was awesome when I installed my car audio system and considered building Exodus LCRs.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

No, I'm simply thinking like a rational human being rather than as a marketing victim.
So because I can hear a sonic difference between two recievers I am a victim of marketing? Thats really odd, you'd think that it would be a brand loyalty thing. I happen to really like most of Sony's products, I'm just not fond of the lackluster sound that I must have imagined hearing their recievers make. On the contrary, The HK recievers are the only product from that company I can stand. I've always hated their speakers. But having listened to the AVR line of recievers for quite a while, The spontaneous brand loyalty of a company that has never before impressed me, provided me with an imagined audio clarity and warm sound from the recievers I had no prior knowlege of or if anything, a negative opinion of the company as a whole... makes a lot of sense to me too. For what its worth, its a mass delusion. Just about every audio review site I check has the H/K's sound quality as one of its major assets and Cnet specifically mentions that the H/K sound is better IN THE SONY STR-DG800 REVIEW.

Turning to music, we popped in Pearl Jam's Live at the Garden concert DVD. Eddie Vedder and the guys were clearly having a good night, but the band's full-throttle wallop felt a little reined in by the STR-DG800. The ambient sound of the Madison Square Garden was enveloping, though nowhere near as spacious as we've heard from the Harman Kardon AVR 140, let alone what we experienced from the better Sony receivers such as the STR-DA3100ES ($1,000). That said, the STR-DG800's bass definition was excellent, so Matt Cameron's drums sounded especially good.

What sucks for both companies that I've never purchased a reciever from either of them. I'm using a hand me down Denon instead. Looks like my brand loyalty only goes so far as appreciating imaginary differences in sound. There must be some sort of communication breakdown happening between us. Its literally impossible for all stereo recievers to sound the same when they process sound differently from model to model, let alone brand to brand. Its not like everyone uses the same DSP. If the algorithms are different, then so is the output. THD, S/N ratio, impedance, etc. mean anything? Some recievers produce a warmer sound, some have more clarity or distortion, etc. How can there be no difference? Admittedly, you have never listened to any of the recievers we are talking about in this thread, you have no experience with them, so basically, my "anecdotal evidence" is actually what we "realists" call "first hand experience". Some people find that valuble. You may not, since your stereo is obviously more expensive than most everyone elses here. Congratulations.

 

[GQgeek]

SGL, PioElites are hardly low-end, and those were the cheapest in your little round-up aside from the XR, which is a different beast. The Elites have a pretty good amp section. We're all well aware of the diminishing returns in audio above a certain point. I'm guessing that if you had used some cheapass sony receiver, you'd have heard a difference. But you guys didn't use any truely "low-end" receivers. The cheapest receiver you picked was something that people have been marvelling about for years on the audio forums (panny XR25).

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

However, unless you get into the really sophisticated room correction technologies, such as the TacT TCS I run in my main system or what I understand to be similarly excellent systems from Meridian or Lexicon, there really isn't that much advantage to be had from swapping electronics. (I haven't played with Tom Holman's Audessey MultiEQ system, which is supposed to also be excellent, but some of the new Denon receivers that offer a stripped down version of it may have advantages over the simple EQ schemes Pioneer and Harman/Kardon use for their "room correction.")

The Meridian and Lexicon systems only correct below 300 Hz, but they are very sophisticated in what they do, especially their measurement and filter derivation schemes. The Tact system by comparison is like a very complete toolchest that lets you do whatever you want to do, but has very little guidance beyond the graphs. You can get spectacular results or really bad results with it, but it's all in your hands.

HK receivers also use the Audyssey system. They also have an interesting feature that uses two subs to actively correct bass modes in a room, probably as a result of the Welty research.

There are some speakers that need he-man amps, but they are extremely rare and only bought by people who know about that sort of them.

Sure, but my point was that an amp considered in isolation isn't very useful. The way it's used from the kinds of speakers being driven to the length and resistivity of the speaker wire used can affect its perceived sound.

Also if you use any of the matrixing modes (Dolby Pro Logic II, Logic 7, etc.), there are definite differences between these modes, and not all are available on every receiver.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

On the contrary, The HK recievers are the only product from that company I can stand.

Their Lexicon stuff sounds pretty darn good as well.

--Andre

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

The Meridian and Lexicon systems only correct below 300 Hz, but they are very sophisticated in what they do, especially their measurement and filter derivation schemes. The Tact system by comparison is like a very complete toolchest that lets you do whatever you want to do, but has very little guidance beyond the graphs. You can get spectacular results or really bad results with it, but it's all in your hands.
Didn't know about the limits of the Meridian and Lexicon systems where room correction matters most. I guess they're designed to be combined with something like a Velodyne SMS-1, though the Velodyne's high end isn't from what I remember that high. And the TacT system...yeah, that's a steep ******* learning curve.

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

HK receivers also use the Audyssey system. They also have an interesting feature that uses two subs to actively correct bass modes in a room, probably as a result of the Welty research.
Well, that would be a point in TS's favor for HK.

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

Sure, but my point was that an amp considered in isolation isn't very useful. The way it's used from the kinds of speakers being driven to the length and resistivity of the speaker wire used can affect its perceived sound.
Under extreme circumstances, I see your point. But do you agree that, driving 99.99% of speakers connected to the amp with cheap hardware store 12AWG shotgun lamp cord in runs of under 250 feet or so, there are going to be no sonic difference between any two nonbroken amps at all? Up to the limits of the lower-powered amp being compared, at least.

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

Also if you use any of the matrixing modes (Dolby Pro Logic II, Logic 7, etc.), there are definite differences between these modes, and not all are available on every receiver.
I wouldn't be surprised if different matrixing modes - DPLII vs. Lexicon's Logic 7, for instance, or those cheesy DSP "ambience" modes in midfi gear - sounded different, but I would be shocked if different chips doing the same matrixing scheme sounded different. Pretty much everything today comes with DPLII, even the $300 Panasonic receiver I use to drive a pair of Gradient Preludes at work. Logic 7 is I think a Harman (now Goldman Sachs, I guess) exclusive thing, and you'd probably know better than I do.

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

The cheapest receiver you picked was something that people have been marvelling about for years on the audio forums (panny XR25).

That means nothing. Audiophools on the internet have raved for years about all sorts of nonsense, ranging from Optimus portable CD players that ended up having one channel miswired out of phase from the factory to cheesy $30 amps Tripath chip amp designs that sounded so "clear" because they had no power a drastic bass rolloff just like some of the worst (and most expensive) SET tube gear.

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

So because I can hear a sonic difference between two recievers I am a victim of marketing?
You've not demonstrated your ability to hear anything except for differences in volume and faceplate design, so yes.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

On the contrary, The HK recievers are the only product from that company I can stand. I've always hated their speakers.
Really? You've never heard a Revel, JBL, or Infinity speaker that you've liked? Those are all Harman companies. I would highly suggest you take a listen to the JBL LSR6332 studio monitor, because they're absolutely fantastic. Revel's Concerta series is also one of the standout bargains in audio right now.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

For what its worth, its a mass delusion. Just about every audio review site I check has the H/K's sound quality as one of its major assets and Cnet specifically mentions that the H/K sound is better IN THE SONY STR-DG800 REVIEW.
Mass delusions are a surefire sign that the marketers have done their job.

That you've managed to find an utterly substance-free review of a piece of audio gear from a website that basically just regurgitates press kits and calls them news does not do much to prove your point. I didn't see any measurements posted, nor any attempt to do any meaningful (blind and level-matched) subjective listening comparisons between those two black boxes. Think that kind of mass delusion is unique? Without looking too hard, I found find several articles that tell you wires (even power cords sound different from one another. I could also find articles about the audible improvements to be had by scattering expensive checkers pieces around or scribbling on your CDs, or even buying chips that magically program CDs to be musical and even know how many CDs you've rubbed against them. Note that each of those articles came from a different idiot writing for a different organization. All of that only proves the profound stupidity of people when it comes to audio. Yet interestingly enough all of those articles provide exactly the same amount of "proof" to back up their wild claims as you do for your wild claims.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

What sucks for both companies that I've never purchased a reciever from either of them. I'm using a hand me down Denon instead. Looks like my brand loyalty only goes so far as appreciating imaginary differences in sound.
Used electronics are generally a great value. I've bought everything audio I own used, except for the TacT TCS and the Genelec mains.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

There must be some sort of communication breakdown happening between us. Its literally impossible for all stereo recievers to sound the same when they process sound differently from model to model, let alone brand to brand. Its not like everyone uses the same DSP. If the algorithms are different, then so is the output.
By that logic, let's consider our posts here. You're, I assume, typing on a PeeCee running IE or Firefox. I, as you know, am typing on a MacBook Pro, and running Safari. Clearly, there are entirely different processes going on behind the scenes. I'm no DSP engineer but let me go out on a limb and assume that the differences between those two processes are far in excess of the differences between two brands of chips decoding the same DPLII or Red Book Audio (CD) standards. Likewise, the amps use similar if not identical circuits to make the analog signals those DSP's output bigger. Yet the words that pop out are going to be the same on your screen as they are on mine. The o's aren't going to become a's, the t's aren't going to be uncrossed, and every time I type "Windows" it won't display as "motherfucker" on your monitor. How can that possibly be? It just beggars belief, doesn't it? Likewise, in the listening test I described above and in which I was one of the listeners, a receiver that employed a conventional processor defeeding an analog signal to conventional Class A/B amplifiers sounded no different from two that employed an entirely different paradigm of combining D/A processing and amplification, wherein both the conversion process and amplification occur in a single step. No listener - and all of these guys had claimed to be able to hear differences in amps - was able to correctly identify if System X was System A or System B at a statistically significant level (i.e. better than guessing which side a coin will land on when it's in midair) with all the processing zeroed out. Every listener was able to tell the difference between room correction and no room correction, and every listener was able to tell the difference between the Pioneer's glorified graphic EQ and TacT's sublime (but as AY notes, very difficult to learn) system. I once believed as you did, in the abstract if not necessarily about the specific components. I was wrong then, just as you are wrong now. It's one thing to read about same/different listening tests and quite another to participate in one yourself, I guess.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

THD, S/N ratio, impedance, etc. mean anything? Some recievers produce a warmer sound, some have more clarity or distortion, etc. How can there be no difference?
Impedance as you mean it is a speaker trait, not an amp trait, and the other objective stuff just doesn't vary enough with decent modern gear to be a factor. "Warmer sound" and "clarity" are just meaningless purple prose in the context of amps.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Admittedly, you have never listened to any of the recievers we are talking about in this thread,
Do you have any evidence (THD differences that cross well-known audibility thresholds, aberrent frequency response measurements, etc.) to suggest that I'm wrong or are you just being the audio equivalent of a "creationist?"

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

You may not, since your stereo is obviously more expensive than most everyone elses here. Congratulations.
It's not a matter of prick-waving about whose stereo is what. It's a matter of having the basic scientific literacy to understand what actually matters (recording quality, speaker design and execution, speaker placement, room treatments, room correction software, turntable drive and cartridge if one's a vinyl listener, tuner/antenna quality if one frequently listens to the radio, etc.) and to understand wthat modern technology has reduced to indistinguishable commodites (optical disk player/decoders, preamps, amps, wires, equipment racks, etc.) Spend money on what matters and skimp on what doesn't, and one's audio system will play music at a level way above those owned by people who spent as much as you did but did so less rationally.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

Didn't know about the limits of the Meridian and Lexicon systems where room correction matters most. I guess they're designed to be combined with something like a Velodyne SMS-1, though the Velodyne's high end isn't from what I remember that high.

All three work in the bass region, but the criteria for correction for the Meridian and Lexicon units is to reduce ringing due to room modes. SMS-1 just makes you flatten a curve, which may or may not achieve the same result.

But do you agree that, driving 99.99% of speakers connected to the amp with cheap hardware store 12AWG shotgun lamp cord in runs of under 250 feet or so, there are going to be no sonic difference between any two nonbroken amps at all? Up to the limits of the lower-powered amp being compared, at least.

Not sure about 99.99 percent, but probably pretty close. But 250 feet of 12 AWG is going to be audible. 50 feet is about the limit for 12 AWG.

--Andre

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

Really? You've never heard a Revel, JBL, or Infinity speaker that you've liked? Those are all Harman companies. I would highly suggest you take a listen to the JBL LSR6332 studio monitor, because they're absolutely fantastic. Revel's Concerta series is also one of the standout bargains in audio right now.
Well thats a little bit of a stretch. I mean, technically, a Bugatti is just a Volkswagon by your definition.

I was referring to H/K branded speakers, of which I have heard the HKTS 15 and HKTS 18 and the HKB 4's, none of which seemed to me like they were worth the money. I currently use some second hand JBL's as my rear channels. I've been looking at getting some Polk Ls19's as replacements recently though. I'm not a big fan of monitor speakers for casual listening. Exact sound reproduction isn't something that I'm super concerned with. I'd rather things sound GOOD than EXACT.

... All of that only proves the profound stupidity of people when it comes to audio. Yet interestingly enough all of those articles provide exactly the same amount of "proof" to back up their wild claims as you do for your wild claims.

I don't know how to break it to you, but the only thing that I've proven, or even attempted to prove, is that most people who listen to the two recievers can tell a difference between them. I don't know what kind of hard evidence and scientific data you want that will prove that most people can tell that there is a difference in sound between two recievers. You want me to take a tape recorder down to the hi-fi store and ask a hundred people if they can hear any difference between reciever A and reciever B? Thats about as "hard data" as you can get in this argument, and I'm not really prepared to waste my time doing something you will probably just dismiss out of hand anyway. You keep trying to drive home some straw man argument that everyone in the entire world is an idiot but you because audio, like cars, food, and any other type of preference driven market is rife with people who sell gimmicks. The way something sounds, IMO is not a gimmick.

By that logic, let's consider our posts here. You're, I assume, typing on a PeeCee running IE or Firefox. I, as you know, am typing on a MacBook Pro, and running Safari. Clearly, there are entirely different processes going on behind the scenes. I'm no DSP engineer but let me go out on a limb and assume that the differences between those two processes are far in excess of the differences between two brands of chips decoding the same DPLII or Red Book Audio (CD) standards. Likewise, the amps use similar if not identical circuits to make the analog signals those DSP's output bigger. Yet the words that pop out are going to be the same on your screen as they are on mine. The o's aren't going to become a's, the t's aren't going to be uncrossed, and every time I type "Windows" it won't display as "motherfucker" on your monitor. How can that possibly be? It just beggars belief, doesn't it?

To use your computer analogy, since PC's and Macs have different color profiles, if I was to load up a webpage on two side by side identical monitors, one being powered by a Mac and one being powered by a PC, they would NOT look the same. The average joe may not be able to tell you which is which, but most non-blind people could tell that there was a difference, they might even be able to tell you which one they liked better! Imagine that... If nothing else, and the technical specs of our two sample computers were the same (which in the H/K and Sony receiver's case is untrue) At the very least the colors would be slightly different because Mac and PC have different color profiles, and depending on what was on the webpage itself, the text and spacing might look slightly different as well. I wouldn't fault you for liking the Mac profile better, but to argue that there is no discernable difference is incorrect.

Impedance as you mean it is a speaker trait, not an amp trait, and the other objective stuff just doesn't vary enough with decent modern gear to be a factor. "Warmer sound" and "clarity" are just meaningless purple prose in the context of amps.

I don't know how you can just dismiss descriptive words in the english language used to describe the differences in sound that people can hear. And I'm not talking in the context of amps, don't try and change the subject. I'm talking in the context of RECEIVERS. And you have obviously never listened to a crappy receiver if you think that "clarity" is meaningless prose. That is my biggest gripe about the Sony is that the damn thing's process filtering squashes and mutes mids, the quantization and sampling algorithms they employ don't produce as clear an analog signal as many of the other recievers that have been mentioned in this thread. Again, to me, there is a clearly audible difference, and at this point, I don't really care if you believe me or not. This is a ridiculous argument, to be having with you seeing as you have no experience with anything I've said for at least two pages now, and are just arguing for the sake of arguing, and I feel dumber for having tried to reason with you.

Do you have any evidence (THD differences that cross well-known audibility thresholds, aberrent frequency response measurements, etc.) to suggest that I'm wrong or are you just being the audio equivalent of a "creationist?"

I don't NEED evidence. It's staring you right in the face. The fact that two different recievers are using DEMONSTRATABLY different signal processors, internal amps, and etc (The entire point of the THD and S/N ratio comment in the first place) and that they produce quantifiably and provably different audio measurements from one another PROVES that there are DIFFERENT sounds being produced. That is the point. The fact that there are different sounds being produced, precludes them from being the same sound. If there are different sounds being produced, then perhaps people who listen, can tell that they are different. Your argument that perhaps the differences are beond the audible range of human hearing is a valid one, but as I've been telling you, many people, myself included, can tell that they differ. And basically you have been calling us all deluded liars even though you've never bothered to listen yourself.

 

[bob]

SGladwell it seems to me that you are very well versed in high end audio equiptment, or opinionated at least. That is all well and good. But how does one educate oneself on it, give these audiophools and pointless reviews you talk about.

How is a beginner to learn? For clothes we have SF to at least sort out the bargains from the junk. What is your reliable source of information for audio equipment then? I ask this not in jest.

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by bob

SGladwell it seems to me that you are very well versed in high end audio equiptment, or opinionated at least. That is all well and good. But how does one educate oneself on it, give these audiophools and pointless reviews you talk about.

How is a beginner to learn? For clothes we have SF to at least sort out the bargains from the junk. What is your reliable source of information for audio equipment then? I ask this not in jest.

Depends on where you live. When I was a grad student, I was active in the Boston Audio Society, which in addition to ignorant history Ph.D.'s-to-be was and still is stocked with some of the finest minds in audio. Another audio society full of top-flight audio minds is the SMTWMS (or something like that) in Detroit.

As for reliable reviews, for electronics you can skip the words entirely and just look at the graphs. (Any publication that does not measure this stuff is expensive toilet paper.) For speakers, it comes down to listening to a bunch of stuff and forming your own preferences.

 

[SGladwell]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

I was referring to H/K branded speakers, of which I have heard the HKTS 15 and HKTS 18 and the HKB 4's, none of which seemed to me like they were worth the money. I currently use some second hand JBL's as my rear channels. I've been looking at getting some Polk Ls19's as replacements recently though.
Oh. I didn't know that there was any such thing as Harman/Kardon branded speakers. But Revel, JBL, and Infinity are certainly Harman speakers, just as a Bugatti is a VAG car.

If that Polk speaker is the one I think it is (MTM bookshelf with 5" woofers, tiny front vents, costing around a grand a pair), I'm not a huge fan. The bass tuning is a little wooly to my tastes. That Vifa nipple tweeter has very a very odd dispersion pattern, making the speaker change dramatically in sound as you move around the room. (I'm blaming it on the tweeter rather than the crossover or anything else because I've heard that nipple in a number of speakers from Polk to Sonus Faber to Krell, and all exhibited the same problem.) Not saying that you have to share my preferences, but do explore every aspect of a speaker's performance that you can before buying it. Also, before you buy anything new it may be worth your while to listen to the new(ish) Paradigm Monitor series. I've not heard them myself, but people I trust say they're something special for the price. Ditto their Studio series. I think the base-model Revel Concerta also comes at a similar price-point, and to my ears it is a far superior speaker to that Polk. And there's always something like a used B&W CDM-series or KEF Reference...

I'm not a big fan of monitor speakers for casual listening. Exact sound reproduction isn't something that I'm super concerned with. I'd rather things sound GOOD than EXACT.

IMO, the only difference between good domestic speakers and typical monitors is that the monitors are usually better-engineered (waveguide-loaded tweeters, active drive instead of passive crossovers), cheaper, and uglier.

I don't know how to break it to you, but the only thing that I've proven, or even attempted to prove, is that most people who listen to the two recievers can tell a difference between them.

Which is no different than saying most people who listen to one receiver can hear the difference between it at volume level X and it at volume level X+2. Again, what people "hear" in stores is really just differences in volume combined with preferences based on non-sonic reasons such as brand name, appearance, price, and others. The science is indisputable on that.

I don't know what kind of hard evidence and scientific data you want that will prove that most people can tell that there is a difference in sound between two recievers.

One of two things, and nothing else - certainly not asking a bunch of people based on unmatched sighted listening! - would suffice: 1) Objective proof of a measurable difference. Supposition based on the fact that there might be different parts inside two black boxes does not count. However, a link to a test report showing that one of them has frequency response, noise, or distortion problems that cross audibility thresholds well established in the literature would prove a sonic difference. 2) A level-matched, double-blind same/different listening test (often called "ABX") is the only way to ascertain whether or not a "difference" heard is real or illusory without taking a battery of objective measurements. It's really amazing what tricks can be played on a person. Would you put any stock in the "results" of a nonblind, nonrandomized clinical drug trial conducted by drug makers and marketers? Would you trust an audio dealer who, in his own studio with his own speakers and setup, could not tell the difference between a budget Yamaha integrated amp and the $10,000+ Pass Labs preamp and amp he was telling the world is the best set of electronics he's heard if he could not see which one was playing? (The test I'm referencing was chronicled in an issue of The Audio Critic by the administrator of the blind test, Tom Nousaine, but is not available online. Here's a thread that references the article with the same recollection I had, that also (upon skimming the first few posts - it's a damned long thread) offers some other useful information for you including citations from peer reviewed journals such as the JAES. And an excerpt from another article you may find interesting. Click anywhere on it to get the full version. Six amplifiers were auditioned, ranging from a $200 cheapo receiver to a $12,000 pair of mono tube amplifiers. They were teamed up in pairs for comparison, and carefully matched as to levels and other parameters, so that any differences heard really were inherent in the different amplifiers. In any given comparison, the listeners were unaware of which they were listening to at any moment, and as they switched back and forth, they might be toggling between the two components or simply switching the same amp in repeatedly. Then a statistical analysis was done to see, when they claimed to hear differences, how often they were listening to one amplifier in both positions. It was a long drawn-out process, and in my story on it at the time, I concluded that ". . . all interpretations of [the results] lead to the conclusion that correct choices were made totally by chance -- there were no audible differences to be heard. . . . The evidence would seem to suggest that distinctive amplifier sounds, if they exist at all, are so minute that they form a poor basis for choosing one amplifier over another." The result didn't surprise me very much because, ten years earlier, I had taken part in a similar exercise mounted by the then-leading Canadian hi-fi mag, AudioScene Canada. In that case, we started out assuming there would be differences; we wanted to analyze and quantify them, but instead reported that we couldn't hear any. I wondered in that report: "So where are all these phantom differences coming from? First, from the imaginations of people who think there should be differences, and so conjure them up in the absence of proper facilities for proving they don't exist -- and egged on by the purple prose of the little super-audiophile magazines . . . who evidently must prove the superiority of their golden ears over others' by hearing faults that don't exist and condemning perfectly good products on their strength." You can choose to understand the available science or you can be as ignorant and bone-headed as those three idiots in the GOP debate last week (including "liberal favorite" Mike Huckabee) who denies evolution, or someone who denies the roundness of the earth, I suppose. But position one is right and the other is just ignorant.

You keep trying to drive home some straw man argument that everyone in the entire world is an idiot but you because audio, like cars, food, and any other type of preference driven market is rife with people who sell gimmicks.

IMO, "high end" audio is worst of all, because of the nexus of pseudoscience and the pleasure of enjoying music. High end audio has more soothsayers and con artists than any of those other hobbies. Even Olga Berluti would be a saint in high end audio... To use your computer analogy, since PC's and Macs have different color profiles, if I was to load up a webpage on two side by side identical monitors, one being powered by a Mac and one being powered by a PC, they would NOT look the same. The average joe may not be able to tell you which is which, but most non-blind people could tell that there was a difference, they might even be able to tell you which one they liked better!

Imagine that... If nothing else, and the technical specs of our two sample computers were the same (which in the H/K and Sony receiver's case is untrue) At the very least the colors would be slightly different because Mac and PC have different color profiles, and depending on what was on the webpage itself, the text and spacing might look slightly different as well. I wouldn't fault you for liking the Mac profile better, but to argue that there is no discernable difference is incorrect.

You're talking about first obvious differences in appearance (the lack of a proper menu bar atop the Windows computer's screen, the Windows window close/minimize/maximize buttons being passive and located on the wrong side, etc.) and second measurable technical differences that presumably exceed some level of visible difference threshold as reported in whatever appropriate peer reviewed journals that may exist in that field. Let's make your test more scientific, more along the lines of what I'm discussing for audio. Run the Mac in boot camp with the same version of Windows as the peecee, with the same color calibration and the same LCD connected both machines. Hide the machines, displaying to the user only a switch to let the user decide if screen X is the same as the browser shown when one clicks "A" or the same as the screen shown when one clicks "B." For each trial,"A" and "B" should be randomly assigned; i.e. at the beginning of every attempt to determine a difference, either button could lead to either computer. (With sight you have the advantage of being able to run a constant control, i.e. have "X" on one LCD as the user cycles through "A" and "B" on the other. But since one can't do that with sound I'm setting up the test as one would set up an ABX audio test.) Run the same test multiple times on different people who have lots of experience with color matching and think they can reliably tell a difference, with a few reps (say 10) per individual. Despite being no computer expert, my hunch is that disproving the null hypothesis of no visual difference at a statistically significant level would not happen. Am I saying that an amp (receivers are just a tuner, preamp, and amp in one box; I use the terms interchangeably, and given that measurable anomalies that could lead to real sonic differences are if anything even rarer in DACs and preamps than amps feel no qualms about doing so) that has a spike at some frequency or a high level of distortion at some harmonic will not sound audibly different from one that has flat response? What I'm saying is that all sonic differences between components that have been thus far been found by legitimate means (i.e. ABX subjective listening) have been rooted objective and measurable performance differences that exceed established thresholds of human audibility for whatever measured anomalies may have been present. Absent measured proof of such real performance differences, there is absolutely no reason to suspect sonic differences between two electronic components.

I don't know how you can just dismiss descriptive words in the english language used to describe the differences in sound that people can hear.

Because most reviewers are deaf - some even claim hear differences in wires through a hearing aid! - and even those that aren't don't take their job seriously enough to do it right. Which is a good thing for them, because few audio companies would advertise with a website or magazine that took the job of comparing audio components seriously. "X was sonically indistinguishable from Y" isn't exactly the stuff that ad blurbs were made of!

And I'm not talking in the context of amps, don't try and change the subject. I'm talking in the context of RECEIVERS. And you have obviously never listened to a crappy receiver if you think that "clarity" is meaningless prose.

I have lots of experience with a cheap, if not "crappy," receiver. I keep a cheap Panasonic receiver driving Gradient Preludes as my nearfield (desk) setup at work. For reference, the XR55 cost me about $230 through Amazon in the summer of 2005. The Preludes I bought used on Audiogon for significantly less than their new price of ~$1700. While I was already very familar with the sound of the speakers - I'd no sooner buy speakers unheard than buy shoes without trying them on - I bought the Panasonic without having ever even seen one in person. Its height, aesthetics, energy efficiency, and multiway (sort of; they have collars so spades are a no go, but they are fine with the bananas I use) binding posts were the main criteria relevant in my decision to pick it over any other receiver, though I also favored it to some degree over a similarly sized, featured, and priced product from someone else (JVC?) because I thought it was cool to get TacT's DAC-amp technology for that price. Turns out that it sounds like an amp, which means it doesn't have a sound at all, though admittedly given where I use it I've not been able to explore its dynamic limits. But beyond that you are correct, beyond listening to the often shoddily set up systems of friends, I've no recent experience with cheap receivers, and the Panasonic is the first receiver I'd bought since a Harman/Kardon one I ran as an undergrad. (That one served me very well until the advent of 5.1 channel true multichannel and DPL2 matrixing for music, so I'm not "picking" on you liking that particular brand.) Do I think a cheap JVC, Pioneer, Sony, Harman/Kardon, Marantz, Onkyo, Denon, etc. receiver (or a Jeff Rowland preamp connected to a Mark Levinson amp) would do the job any better or worse? No.

That is my biggest gripe about the Sony is that the damn thing's process filtering squashes and mutes mids, the quantization and sampling algorithms they employ don't produce as clear an analog signal as many of the other recievers that have been mentioned in this thread.

Do you have any objective evidence for those claims? If they affect the sound, the difference will be measurable long before it's audible. Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke.

I don't NEED evidence. It's staring you right in the face.

By the same token, lotsa people didn't "NEED" evidence that Iraq had WMD, or that Saddam was in league with OBL, to support using our tax dollars and hired guns to ruin that country on the basis of those wild claims. It was only a few intelligent and rational people who did demand more than empty bombast, such as former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer when he pointed his finger and said "Mr. Rumsfeld, I am not convinced." And see where listening to bloodthirsty idiots who couldn't think properly instead of heeding the counsel of sane, intelligent, rational people like Joschka Fischer got us? Obviously the stakes are much lower in this case, but the willingness and even eagerness to be gathered into a flock and led astray is the same.

The fact that two different recievers are using DEMONSTRATABLY different signal processors, internal amps, and etc (The entire point of the THD and S/N ratio comment in the first place) and that they produce quantifiably and provably different audio measurements from one another PROVES that there are DIFFERENT sounds being produced.

If you can post objective test measurements showing a difference between whatever two black boxes we're talking about - I've forgotten by now - then I will gladly concede that you are right. Assuming the differences are in excess of well-known audibility standards. However, all you've posted here is speculation about measured differences based on unsound evidence, rather than any sort of proof of objective quantitative differences. Given that, I suspect you've never seen measured data for either receiver, so why are you going around talking about it?

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by SGladwell

Six amplifiers were auditioned, ranging from a $200 cheapo receiver to a $12,000 pair of mono tube amplifiers. They were teamed up in pairs for comparison, and carefully matched as to levels and other parameters, so that any differences heard really were inherent in the different amplifiers.
This is the important paragraph in that article you posted.

Maybe a definition is in order here. As it snakes its way through a stereo system, an audio signal is very tiny, but in the end, it has to be boosted to a high enough level that it can drive a pair of loudspeakers -- essentially electric motors designed to push air. The last link in the audio chain magnifies the low audio signal to a much higher level for feeding to the speakers. That's the power amplifier and that's its only job. Any control features that might be included, on the same chassis or elsewhere, are actually functions of what is called a "preamplifier" because it comes ahead of the amplifier in the chain. Ideally, a power amplifier should have no effect on an audio signal except magnitude; otherwise, it should be a totally neutral device. But no audio component is perfect, and there are always tiny measurable differences from one device to the next. The question is: can we reliably hear these? And if not, who cares?

We keep going around in circles here, you continually either purposefully misunderstanding or misrepresenting my point in your argument. Yes, as I noted earlier, you can probably make all AMPLIFIERS sound alike by matching the amp output exactly to either A: some predetermined arbitrary specifications, output, and etc. or B: matching it to another reciever. But we aren't talking about amps. Never have been. We are talking essentially about PREAMP functions. IE the processed, unamplified analog signal that was filtered and processed from the digital binary signal. Your continued use of the word "amplifier" is incorrect, confusing, and may be the reason you aren't hearing me. The AMP HAS NEXT TO NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. All the amplifier does is increase the signal that its given by the signal processors and filters to audible levels. I am talking about the signal put out by the processors and the filters themselves, which is then amplified. It is definitely possible, and commonplace, to impart different effects to processed sounds to enhance them, to cut different frequencies completely out of the signal itself when sampling and quantizatoin occurs, how do you think bass boost works? Its not just an increase in overall volume (a very specific low frequency gain increase, done either dynamically in the sampling process, or through a series of resistors and capacitors. But its still either either a software or a hardware function that occurs pre-amplification) Some receivers do this better and differently than others. Maybe with a completely flat and retuned EQ, bypassing all the filtering and boosting, you have a point, but only a crazy person is ever going to do it that way with a $300 reciever. There is no doubt in my mind that all digital signal processors are not programmed equally. So far you have not even bothered to try and disprove that, but instead posted an article that reinforces your arguement, which has no bearing on what I have been talking about since the beginning of this conversation, and you have obviously not listened to me at all because in my mind you are so sure I am wrong. Unless what you are saying is that bass boost, EQ settings, and preprocess filtering results in NO DIFFERENCE IN SOUND, in which case, I think maybe you are deaf.

Originally Posted by SGladwell

You're talking about first obvious differences in appearance (the lack of a proper menu bar atop the Windows computer's screen, the Windows window close/minimize/maximize buttons being passive and located on the wrong side, etc.) and second measurable technical differences that presumably exceed some level of visible difference threshold as reported in whatever appropriate peer reviewed journals that may exist in that field. Let's make your test more scientific, more along the lines of what I'm discussing for audio. Run the Mac in boot camp with the same version of Windows as the peecee, with the same color calibration and the same LCD connected both machines. Hide the machines, displaying to the user only a switch to let the user decide if screen X is the same as the browser shown when one clicks "A" or the same as the screen shown when one clicks "B." For each trial,"A" and "B" should be randomly assigned; i.e. at the beginning of every attempt to determine a difference, either button could lead to either computer. (With sight you have the advantage of being able to run a constant control, i.e. have "X" on one LCD as the user cycles through "A" and "B" on the other. But since one can't do that with sound I'm setting up the test as one would set up an ABX audio test.) Run the same test multiple times on different people who have lots of experience with color matching and think they can reliably tell a difference, with a few reps (say 10) per individual. Despite being no computer expert, my hunch is that disproving the null hypothesis of no visual difference at a statistically significant level would not happen.
Your new analogy makes no sense. The entire point of putting a Mac and a PC up against each other in a blind test is that they run different operating systems, like The HK and the Sony are running different signal processors. IE they take the same digital signal and translate it differently. You are just modifying your analogy now, because its become clear that I am right. Even If they were both running fireox at full screen, where none of the desktop or operating system is visible, and you had a blind tester switching back and forth between them randomly, you could still see a difference in color because Windows and Mac use DIFFERENT COLOR PALLETES. IIRC from my web design classes, there are only 216 "safe" colors that you can really use on a website that will look similar cross-platform. BUT If you make them run the same (decoding) software, of COURSE THEY WILL LOOK THE SAME! A Mac running Windows is not a mac, its a Windows PC.

Originally Posted by SGladwell

I have lots of experience with a cheap, if not "crappy," receiver.
To be perfectly honest, If the the SA-XR55K is the "crappiest" reciever you have experience with, you haven't ever heard a crappy reciever. It doesn't have a lot of connections, but it sounds GREAT for the price. Much better than the Sony in its price bracket, just in case you were wondering.