"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

MC does sometimes quote a sort of
'magic number' that he makes up

This is true, of course, but nevertheless he does rank componants which is
frankly the only way to do it. The ear is a very sensitive instrument, the
memory very fallible for intervals of days and weeks between listening tests.
The best we can do for this basic level of evaluation is say 'L sounds better
than M' however fallible the criteria. We can then say 'if G sounds better than
L then it also sounds better than M'. Over time you build up rankings. Audio
Amateur did this, and so did Stereophile I believe. Of course manufacturers
hate it so magazines have dropped the whole thing. Commercial pressure. There
you are. You end up with nonsense like What HiFi - seventeen different products
with five stars and no idea which to buy. At least MC tried, and I thought
some of his ideas were interesting enough and miles better than the rest of the
field.

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 10:06:58 +0000, Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article , Oliver Keating
wrote:

[snip]

Which brings me onto CD players. I always thought that amplifier and
speakers mattered the most, but What HiFi reckons CD players are
important, and worthing spending loads of money on. Now, if you have a
CD player in a half decent Hi-Fi setup then you use a digital
interconnect, so really, all the CD player is having to do is read the
raw data off the CD and feed it to the Amp, and the cleverness of its
own DAC is neither here nor there.

The above apparently assumes you have a DAC inside the amp, and that
this is better than the one in the CD player. I doubt that either
assumption is correct in most cases for stereo audio systems. The
situation with the multichannel amps/receivers for AV may be different,
though. These may have digital inputs to allow the unit to process the
digital stream from something like a DVD player. However these aren't
(currently at least) the norm for serious stereo audio use.

This raises an interesting point; a while ago, I was planning on building
a modest home cinema/hi-fi rig and my plan was to treat it much the same
as I treat building computers; good quality central components
(motherboard, PSU, DAC/Amplifier) and Human IO devices (monitor, keyboard,
mouse, speakers) and spend what I can afford on the rest (CPU, memory,
video card, CD transports). The logic behind that is that I
don't want to spend large amounts of money on components that rapidly
become obsolete, but instead spend it on components that will be the last
to be upgraded and for which good quality/stability is necessary.

When I explained this to the guy behind the counter in Richer Sounds he
seemed a bit surprised but intrigued by my strategy. What does the
collective wisdom of u.r.a think?

[snip]

Jim

Best Regards,
Alex.
--
Alex Butcher Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950 http://www.assursys.com/

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 10:06:58 +0000, Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article , Oliver Keating
wrote:

[snip]

Which brings me onto CD players. I always thought that amplifier and
speakers mattered the most, but What HiFi reckons CD players are
important, and worthing spending loads of money on. Now, if you have a
CD player in a half decent Hi-Fi setup then you use a digital
interconnect, so really, all the CD player is having to do is read the
raw data off the CD and feed it to the Amp, and the cleverness of its
own DAC is neither here nor there.

The above apparently assumes you have a DAC inside the amp, and that
this is better than the one in the CD player. I doubt that either
assumption is correct in most cases for stereo audio systems. The
situation with the multichannel amps/receivers for AV may be different,
though. These may have digital inputs to allow the unit to process the
digital stream from something like a DVD player. However these aren't
(currently at least) the norm for serious stereo audio use.

This raises an interesting point; a while ago, I was planning on building
a modest home cinema/hi-fi rig and my plan was to treat it much the same
as I treat building computers; good quality central components
(motherboard, PSU, DAC/Amplifier) and Human IO devices (monitor, keyboard,
mouse, speakers) and spend what I can afford on the rest (CPU, memory,
video card, CD transports). The logic behind that is that I
don't want to spend large amounts of money on components that rapidly
become obsolete, but instead spend it on components that will be the last
to be upgraded and for which good quality/stability is necessary.

When I explained this to the guy behind the counter in Richer Sounds he
seemed a bit surprised but intrigued by my strategy. What does the
collective wisdom of u.r.a think?

[snip]

Jim

Best Regards,
Alex.
--
Alex Butcher Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950 http://www.assursys.com/

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
MC does sometimes quote a sort of 'magic number' that he makes up

This is true, of course, but nevertheless he does rank componants which
is frankly the only way to do it.

But pointless if you or I would proceed to rank them in a different order.
Also pointless if he would also rank them in a different order if he
listened to them on a different day, or using different source material, or
a different room, or due to any one of a number of other variables. :-)

Afraid I don't agree that this is "the only way to do it". :-)

The ear is a very sensitive instrument, the memory very fallible for
intervals of days and weeks between listening tests.

Indeed, and judgements like these are very variable from person to person,
time to time, with circumstances, etc, etc.

Hence my own view is that his magic numbers are of little real use for
anything beyond saying that *he* preferred something on a specific day in a
specific set of circumstances. The problem is that I am not really
interested in what he prefers, but in what I (or other people may prefer).
For that, I think his numbers have no real value. I don't build or buy
equipment to please MC. I do it for myself.

Also, they have a bogus precision. What does it mean to say that one unit
scores "21.5" and another "22"? In what sense can we say that one is a
numerical factor of "22/22.5" 'better' than the other. The implication he
makes is that these are not just a ranking, but in some vague sense, a more
precise 'measure' of some kind.

Afraid I find the numbers he quotes pretty meaningless for any practical
use I have. Mind you, I also find most of the 'wine tasting' comments in
reviews to also be fairly content-free. :-)

The best we can do for this basic level of evaluation is say 'L sounds
better than M' however fallible the criteria. We can then say 'if G
sounds better than L then it also sounds better than M'. Over time you
build up rankings.

Yes, I do. And so do many people. The snag is from experience over the
decadesI find that - beyond what is implied by some basic data - I don't
agree with him and other reviewers much more often than you'd expect on the
basis of chance results once we get to reasonably decent equipment. Thus
his 'rankings' are to me are about as useful as throwing some dice. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
MC does sometimes quote a sort of 'magic number' that he makes up

This is true, of course, but nevertheless he does rank componants which
is frankly the only way to do it.

But pointless if you or I would proceed to rank them in a different order.
Also pointless if he would also rank them in a different order if he
listened to them on a different day, or using different source material, or
a different room, or due to any one of a number of other variables. :-)

Afraid I don't agree that this is "the only way to do it". :-)

The ear is a very sensitive instrument, the memory very fallible for
intervals of days and weeks between listening tests.

Indeed, and judgements like these are very variable from person to person,
time to time, with circumstances, etc, etc.

Hence my own view is that his magic numbers are of little real use for
anything beyond saying that *he* preferred something on a specific day in a
specific set of circumstances. The problem is that I am not really
interested in what he prefers, but in what I (or other people may prefer).
For that, I think his numbers have no real value. I don't build or buy
equipment to please MC. I do it for myself.

Also, they have a bogus precision. What does it mean to say that one unit
scores "21.5" and another "22"? In what sense can we say that one is a
numerical factor of "22/22.5" 'better' than the other. The implication he
makes is that these are not just a ranking, but in some vague sense, a more
precise 'measure' of some kind.

Afraid I find the numbers he quotes pretty meaningless for any practical
use I have. Mind you, I also find most of the 'wine tasting' comments in
reviews to also be fairly content-free. :-)

The best we can do for this basic level of evaluation is say 'L sounds
better than M' however fallible the criteria. We can then say 'if G
sounds better than L then it also sounds better than M'. Over time you
build up rankings.

Yes, I do. And so do many people. The snag is from experience over the
decadesI find that - beyond what is implied by some basic data - I don't
agree with him and other reviewers much more often than you'd expect on the
basis of chance results once we get to reasonably decent equipment. Thus
his 'rankings' are to me are about as useful as throwing some dice. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

In article , Alex Butcher
wrote:


This raises an interesting point; a while ago, I was planning on
building a modest home cinema/hi-fi rig and my plan was to treat it much
the same as I treat building computers; good quality central components
(motherboard, PSU, DAC/Amplifier) and Human IO devices (monitor,
keyboard, mouse, speakers) and spend what I can afford on the rest (CPU,
memory, video card, CD transports). The logic behind that is that I
don't want to spend large amounts of money on components that rapidly
become obsolete, but instead spend it on components that will be the
last to be upgraded and for which good quality/stability is necessary.

When I explained this to the guy behind the counter in Richer Sounds he
seemed a bit surprised but intrigued by my strategy. What does the
collective wisdom of u.r.a think?

In principle, seems a sensible idea to me. The devil will be in the
(practical) detail, though... ;-

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

In article , Alex Butcher
wrote:


This raises an interesting point; a while ago, I was planning on
building a modest home cinema/hi-fi rig and my plan was to treat it much
the same as I treat building computers; good quality central components
(motherboard, PSU, DAC/Amplifier) and Human IO devices (monitor,
keyboard, mouse, speakers) and spend what I can afford on the rest (CPU,
memory, video card, CD transports). The logic behind that is that I
don't want to spend large amounts of money on components that rapidly
become obsolete, but instead spend it on components that will be the
last to be upgraded and for which good quality/stability is necessary.

When I explained this to the guy behind the counter in Richer Sounds he
seemed a bit surprised but intrigued by my strategy. What does the
collective wisdom of u.r.a think?

In principle, seems a sensible idea to me. The devil will be in the
(practical) detail, though... ;-

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:38:30 -0000
"chris" wrote:

So by using a better fibre (which is not as cheap) that has a smaller
diameter, will improve the quality (by reducing the noise) at the
recieving end, resulting in less errors etc.

Assuming you were getting errors in the first place, that is...

Well if you wernt getting any errors in the first place the difference in fibre
will make no difference. The light signal will be either on or off. So to my
reconning you wouldnt be able to hear any difference either.

bye the way Thai Dragons prefer chile & garlic sauce and the Chinese ones Hosin
sauce.

Chris.

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:38:30 -0000
"chris" wrote:

So by using a better fibre (which is not as cheap) that has a smaller
diameter, will improve the quality (by reducing the noise) at the
recieving end, resulting in less errors etc.

Assuming you were getting errors in the first place, that is...

Well if you wernt getting any errors in the first place the difference in fibre
will make no difference. The light signal will be either on or off. So to my
reconning you wouldnt be able to hear any difference either.

bye the way Thai Dragons prefer chile & garlic sauce and the Chinese ones Hosin
sauce.

Chris.

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

Andy Evans wrote:

MC does sometimes quote a sort of
'magic number' that he makes up

This is true, of course, but nevertheless he does rank componants which is
frankly the only way to do it. The ear is a very sensitive instrument, the
memory very fallible for intervals of days and weeks between listening
tests. The best we can do for this basic level of evaluation is say 'L
sounds better than M' however fallible the criteria. We can then say 'if G
sounds better than L then it also sounds better than M'. Over time you
build up rankings. Audio Amateur did this, and so did Stereophile I
believe. Of course manufacturers hate it so magazines have dropped the
whole thing. Commercial pressure. There you are. You end up with nonsense
like What HiFi - seventeen different products
with five stars and no idea which to buy. At least MC tried, and I
thought some of his ideas were interesting enough and miles better than
the rest of the field.


Trouble is they are still subjective measurements and therefore of no value
to anyone other than the person who made them - one man's meat etc.

Ian