Andre Jute wrote:

On Nov 4, 6:52 am, Patrick Turner wrote:

Musicians do not necessarily have any special hearing abilities.

Yes, they do: they have trained perception. They listen consciously.
Non-audiophiles from the general population cannot even hear the
difference between a boombox played through good speakers and a Class
A PP tube amp played through the same speakers. To them it is all
"nice", useless for tests.

Jeezzuuus! More than half the musos I know are dumb****s.

A few might have benefitted from being trained musically,
but the majority are not.

The majority are self taught rock/jaz musos, and only a real minority
score well in music reproduction examination tests.



If I could find enough experienced audiophiles -- defined as having
trained their own aural perception -- available on a regular basis, I
would use them instead. it was just easier in my particular
circumstances to find as many classical musicians as required.

The serious audio clubs in Australia such as the Melbourne Audio Club,
MAC,
and Audiophile Society of NSW, ASON contain enough practised and
experienced ppl whose
opinion can be considered seriously when testing AB set ups in front of
them.
I was a member of ASON for some years and demoed my gear several times
and AB'd it in "sound offs" to see what sounded better.

The results embarrassed the guy who believed in triodes with no GNFB.


It should also be observed that most audiophiles talk big about their
golden ears but in blind tests have poor discrimination, so that you
first require tests to sort out the good listeners.

Yes, but there were enough good ears in the club to get as good an idea
about the audio quality as you'd ever want.


That shocked me;
for a while I wondered if the meterheads weren't right, if vanishing
THD numbers aren't the holy grail after all... But you don't want to
hear about the anguish of an open mind.

ASON club members did not hear anything special with gear that had
10 times or lower measured THD/IMD than the tube gear I demoed.

About 1/2 used SS, 1/2 used tube gear. Speakers varied from horns,
generally HQ dynamics, and some ESL.

Sources of the club were also better than average.


For the innocent: The point of listening tests isn't to discover which
amp or topology is "better": I already know from comparison with years
in the concert halls which kinds of amps and which topologies I prefer
(Class A1 triodes or trioded pentodes in PP with ESL, and ditto in SET
with horns). The point of tests is to determine why these topologies
affect the emotions differently; psycho-acoustics is probably the last
frontier in audio-electronics.


Better usually means sounds better to audiophiles, many of whom couldn't
care a hoot about the measurements.
Better to an engineer means it measures better, and engineers
often are dull emotionally, and incapable of listening to music at all.

A 100 times betterment in measurements usually does NOT give a 100 time
betterment in sound quality.

Patrick Turner.




Andre Jute
"I was at a board meeting for the LA Chapter of the Audio Engineering
Society last night on XM Satellite radio audio and data transmission.
Sadly, we missed you there, and at the SMPTE and Acoustical Society
recent meetings as well. Everyone was asking, 'Where is that wonderful
Andre Jute? The world just doesn't rotate without him...'" -- John
Mayberry, Emmaco