Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Sadly true. One of the things that really ****ed me off in my later
years in electronics, was that you train for five-ten years to become
a (hopefully) top-class engineer, then to get any more money, you have
to get promoted into management, for which you have no inclination,
quite possibly no talent, and certainly no training.................

It was nice to get back into 'hands-on' consultancy, but then you
discover that 'consultancy' is really about sales, for which you
have........... :-(

*Any* business or industry is all about sales one way or another. Once you
reach board level, you're essentially seeing the business as a set of
numbers. You can control costs on one side of the balance sheet and kick
the sales director on the other side. Everything else is taken care of by
'operational' people.

I came from an 'operational' background and, initially, found it hard to
realise that sales are what drive a company... If you don't have a product
to sell, you can still sell 'smoke and mirrors' until the product is there,
if you don't have the people to deliver the product you can still sell the
products and 'manage out' the delivery. It's not a good way to work but it
can be done :-)

No sales = no company. The salesmen win out every time - sad but true ;-)

Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

"Stimpy" wrote in message
...
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Sadly true. One of the things that really ****ed me off in my later
years in electronics, was that you train for five-ten years to become
a (hopefully) top-class engineer, then to get any more money, you have
to get promoted into management, for which you have no inclination,
quite possibly no talent, and certainly no training.................

It was nice to get back into 'hands-on' consultancy, but then you
discover that 'consultancy' is really about sales, for which you
have........... :-(

*Any* business or industry is all about sales one way or another. Once
you
reach board level, you're essentially seeing the business as a set of
numbers.


Stimpers, mon cher, I hesitated, but I have to take issue with you on this.
As someone who was MD of two companies with a combined t/o of 8 mill and
which were *6* times more effective (on a turnover/per capita/per annum
basis) than the 'industry norm', for 1.5 decades, let me just say that, at
board level (especially if it's *your* board) business and industry is all
about *people*....


You can control costs on one side of the balance sheet and kick
the sales director on the other side. Everything else is taken care of by
'operational' people.


....'Sales' and 'Budgetary Control' (???) are *functions* and, as such, not
more important than, ultimately, keeping the nozzles of the coffee machines
unblocked....



I came from an 'operational' background and, initially, found it hard to
realise that sales are what drive a company... If you don't have a product
to sell, you can still sell 'smoke and mirrors' until the product is
there,
if you don't have the people to deliver the product you can still sell the
products and 'manage out' the delivery. It's not a good way to work but
it
can be done :-)

No sales = no company.


No people = no sales = no company.


The salesmen win out every time - sad but true ;-)


Never had one who ever claimed that, believe you me!! ;-)

croaky voice, yellow teeth, pint of beer

"Sales, You're in sales then? I wuz in sales. Hardest game in the world,
that is....."

;-)


(If you don't believe me, ask a 'Sales Engineer'.... ;-)

Hiraga and MC cartridges, etc; Was Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
Hello, Jim, very interesting - yes, this is the stuff.


1) The distortion measurements do not tell us anything about how the
distortion pattern might vary with the input sinewave power or
frequency. (snip)

Would you be happy introducing the idea of probability here, or
induction rather than deduction? Though not a mathematical proof, a
'risk assessment' may say that 'it would be more likely that the
distortion pattern would substantially follow that indicated in other
conditions'?

Almost impossible to say. The problem is that the THD power spectrum for a
single sinewave frequency/level really does not tell you a lot when
comparing items unless there are *very* different. There are simply too
many other factors which may (or may not) dominate over what the simple
spectra seem to 'show'.

I suspect the above comment is one you will be comfortable with, as it
supports the idea that simple measurements like Hiraga's - perhaps taken in
isolation and not reliably interpeted - can be poor guide to the end
result. :-)

[snip]

4) He does not give any real reasons for accepting that 'MC distortions'
are different to 'MM distortions' (snip)

This may be a different issue, as in your b) clause above.

Yes, it is. It is one thing to argue that "distortion pattern 'A' is
'nicer' than distortion patter 'B'". It is something quite different to
argue that "all 'MC' items have one of the above patterns and all 'MM' ones
have the other". Also quite different to then adding, "and this always
dominates over all other possible effects". You can change "all" and
"allways" to weaker "often" type qualifiers, but the implication is the
same. His argument is a set of assertions which he does not really give
reliable reason to accept.

(2) and (3) mean that the effects of distorting a real musical waveform
may
not be as he assumes

does this rule out estimations of probability?

The problem is that a single power-frequency THD spectrum doesn't tell you
much about what will happen as soon as you alter the input waveform. Nor
does it give a clue as to any other characteristics. Hence we'd have to do
a lot more work to decide. Someone else may have done this, but it isn't in
the Hiraga articles I've just read so far as I can see.

his claims may be a part of the situation, but perhaps may not be the
most
significant part.

If his claim about harmonic spectra are 'reasonable per se', could it be
said that while his efforts at proof are not conclusive, neither is
there a 'counter argument' (harmonic spectra have no effect on sound)
that is any further on the road towards proof?

Depends what you are trying to 'prove'. :-)

I'd suspect it is already reasonably well established that a change in the
distortion pattern may sometimes mean an audible difference in the quality
of the result. The difficulty is that it becomes hard to generalise much
beyond this.

Nor does he provide much evidence to establish that you or I would
agree with
his comments on the 'sound' of all the items.

I think you'd say 'if this is taking us into subjective listening tests,
don't go there'?

Not quite. I'd say two things in this context.

1) That his subjective reactions might not be the same as mine or yours.
Thus his judgements on a particular cartridge, etc, might be ones we'd not
share (OTOH we might). Hence we can't accept his reactions as being valid
for anyone other than himself if all he does is give his reactions without
any reason for why we might agree.

2) Even if we agreed with his subjective assessments, this does not
establish that the 'reasons' he gives are reliable. (Even if we think them
plausible.)

Hence it seems fair enough to note his views and spectra, etc, but not
necessarily to accept his conclusions and implications.

There may well be later articles that deal with this in a more careful
manner,
though.

I'm not sure how much of an academic theorist he is - he certainly
designs circuits. I don't know whether his circuits follow his theory or
vica versa (not that this is a very useful distinction, maybe) Andy

Can't really comment on that. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
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Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:01:50 +1000, Tat Chan
wrote:




on a more serious note though (feel free to correct me), civil engineers
usually have better career/managerial prospects than EE people. EE
people then to be fairly specialised in an acutal technical field, and I
have found that civ engs tend to do more paper pushing, project
management, etc than any actual technical work. And they also work on
larger projects with more money involved (compared to
electronics/computer projects), which is why they are more likely to get
promoted to middle management than EE people.


Sadly true. One of the things that really ****ed me off in my later
years in electronics, was that you train for five-ten years to become
a (hopefully) top-class engineer,

the problem with that nowadays is that one can easily get shoe horned into a
very specific role with non-transferable skills. If the company starts
downsizing, then the engineer would be looking at P45 and UB40 forms ...

then to get any more money, you have
to get promoted into management,

sucks doesn't it? You don't get that kind of wage stopping block if you were a
lawyer, surgeon, accountant, etc


for which you have no inclination,
quite possibly no talent, and certainly no training.................


It was nice to get back into 'hands-on' consultancy, but then you
discover that 'consultancy' is really about sales, for which you
have........... :-(


isn't consultancy just providing technical advice and/or designs? Or are you
refering to the 'sales' bit of having to convince potential clients why you are
the right person for the job?

Hiraga and MC cartridges, etc; Was Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

How, Jim, turning the question around somewhat, would you set up an experiment
to see if the harmonic spectrum theory was valid? this may not be easy to reply
to, but I just wondered how it would be undertaken in academic terms. Andy

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

Hiraga and MC cartridges, etc; Was Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
How, Jim, turning the question around somewhat, would you set up an
experiment to see if the harmonic spectrum theory was valid? this may
not be easy to reply to, but I just wondered how it would be undertaken
in academic terms.

It is a difficult area as there is always the risk of uncontrolled
variables. Also problems due to getting results that might have been
different if different people had used different kit in a different
acoustic using different 'source material'.

However my inclination would be to proceed as follows.

The basis of the method I'd use would be to make up a CD-A of *musical*
examples - i.e. not sinewaves or simple 'test tones'.

But when making the CD-A I'd run the music through various nonlinear
functions. Then put the same music on the CD-A as three or four tracks,
each with its own nonlinearity applied (except for one that would be lest
alone).

On the CD-A only list these as 'example 1, version 1' etc. i.e. do not
specify on the CD-A which versions have been distorted by what
nonlinearities.

Then invite people both to guess (without conferring :-) ) which track is
is 'undistorted' and which track then prefer or dislike most.

Collect the results and publish the findings, then revealing the status of
each track/version.

Discussion and argument would then follow. ;-

There are various snags. The most obvious one being that the original
source material may already be distorted. This might mask any of the
applied changes, or even alter their relative effects as some applied
nonlinearities might partly correct the distortion of the source material.

Similarly, if people are already well familiar with a given musical
example, this may affect their reactions to that example (but perhaps not
others). So they would have to declare this when responding.

Similarly, anyone using an amp or speakers that are distinctly nonlinear
would risk an effect similar to the one above - some cancellation or
addition might then affect the results. Hence people would need to indicate
the amp and speakers (and level) used for listening.[1]

Another challenge would be finding a range of good quality, well recorded
music, that could be used for the test tracks. Copyright problems, etc,
etc.

Hence doing this with real reliability would be difficult.

If nothing else, it would be an interesting experiment, though. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

[1] This last snag is, I suspect, one that has bugged examinations of the
'audibility of distortion' in the past. Hence experiments in the past may
have been affected by using speakers that produce levels of distortion that
mask any added distortions. Thus when old experiments say "our listeners
could only notice distortion above X percent" they may in some cases have
really meant "...due to our speakers always adding about that much anyway!"
:-)

--
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

Hiraga and MC cartridges, etc; Was Is Hi-Fi delusional?
 

Interesting! Andy

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