[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Calling Arny... What do you make of this? (Amir's ABX again...)

[Archimago]

http://www.audiostream.com/content/abx-tests-prove-hi-res-audio-legit

Hey Arny. I see Amir's ABX test is being mentioned again in the
audiophile blogosphere.

Final comments?



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[Wombat]

Post by Archimago
http://www.audiostream.com/content/abx-tests-prove-hi-res-audio-legit
Hey Arny. I see Amir's ABX test is being mentioned again in the
audiophile blogosphere.
Final comments?

Please NO! At hydrogen we had lots of talk even with Amir himself and
there are several hints the abx logs don't prove anything.
To many variables with the samples themself, IM and easy fakeability.
The only newer foobar, with checksum verifiable logs of Amir are from
some medium hard jitter samples of Arny where even my deafness did one
step finer with positive abx log. I may have lost oversight though.



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[Archimago]

Post by Wombat
Please NO! At hydrogen we had lots of talk even with Amir himself and
there are several hints the abx logs don't prove anything.
To many variables with the samples themself, IM and easy fakeability.
The only newer foobar, with checksum verifiable logs of Amir are from
some medium hard jitter samples of Arny where even my deafness did one
step finer with positive abx log. I may have lost oversight though.

Ahhh, good to know :-).

Just as I suspected...

Yup, checksum verified logs are essential and I take it that Amir hasn't
provided this for the 24/96 ABX? Given his posted results, it should
only take him 5 minutes to do the test again!



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[Wombat]

Here is a thread with some jitter files but no log with checksum. These
are hard to cheat at all.
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=106076&st=0

For other samples that were talked about on several hubs i honour Amir
for even coming to hydrogen knowing how difficult we are over there. It
wasn't a conversation i want to go on for good reasons and is nothing i
am good at. Maybe Arny is still hot :)
For 24/96 against 16/44.1 there was a loong discussion were Amir showed
pics of his nicely stuffed workbench showing realtime FFT and other nice
gear. Others found ways to create the same positive logs without
listening (me for example ;) )



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[Archimago]

Post by Wombat
Here is a thread with some jitter files but no log with checksum. These
are hard to cheat at all.
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=106076&st=0
For other samples that were talked about on several hubs i honour Amir
for even coming to hydrogen knowing how difficult we are over there. It
wasn't a conversation i want to go on for good reasons and is nothing i
am good at. Maybe Arny is still hot :)
Edit: One of these threads
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=106442&view=findpost&p=870772
For 24/96 against 16/44.1 there was a loong discussion were Amir showed
pics of his nicely stuffed workbench showing realtime FFT and other nice
gear. Others found ways to create the same positive logs without
listening (me for example ;) )

:rolleyes:
Yeah... Not tough to fake a log at all.

Not surprised about the stuffed workbench either. Wasn't he with
Microsoft or something like that?



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[arnyk]

Post by Archimago
Yeah... Not tough to fake a log at all.

Well, that was the old release of Foobar2000 ABX.

Coincidentally, our experience with the AVS ABX testing was followed up
by some serious upgrades to Foobar2000 ABX that are now part of the
distributed product.

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=107354&view=findpost&p=879072

Example:
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=107570&view=findpost&p=904315

(1) The comparator now produces a checksum of the files being compared
that is part of the log. We can confirm what people are actually
listening to and ensure that they are not cooking up their own files and
misrepresenting them as being someone else's.

(2) A checksum is made of the entire ABX log file, and and there is now
a website for independent checksum analysis of logs.

As we all know a single positive test proves nothing, no matter how much
hype may surround it.

My own personal efforts related to this kind of testing resulted in the
development of a methdology for making ABX test files that the listener
could use to validate their test environment. Most recent effort here:

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=109805&view=findpost&p=904308

Post by Archimago
Not surprised about the stuffed workbench either. Wasn't he with
Microsoft or something like that?

For a little more than a decade Amir was VP of the MS Group that
supported Windows Media including device support for a number of
turbulent years. It included some very problematical encoders, decoders,
protocols, utilities and device support. Eventually, he left after the
collapse of the failed HDCD effort.

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/amir-majidimehr/5/4a7/1

"
Corporate Vice President
Microsoft
September 1997 – January 2008 (10 years 5 months)Redmond, Washington
Ran the digital media division (~1000 employees) which included software
development, marketing and business development for the entire suite of
audio, video and digital imaging for Microsoft and consumer electronic
devices. Group created such well-known technologies such as WMA audio
compression, WMV/VC-1 video compression (mandatory in Blu-ray format),
Windows Media DRM, and Windows Media Player.
"

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/high-definition-smackdown/37001-amir-majidimehr-leaves-microsoft.html


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[Archimago]

Post by arnyk
Well, that was the old release of Foobar2000 ABX.
Coincidentally, our experience with the AVS ABX testing was followed up
by some serious upgrades to Foobar2000 ABX that are now part of the
distributed product.
...

Nice summary Arny. Appreciate you taking the time to write that and all
the links for anyone who want to do it properly with checksums to
confirm.

If the previous ABX log is to be believed, it should really just take
Amir 5 minutes to get it done again. To not do so is certainly telling!

I guess that's that then.



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[Julf]

Post by Archimago
I guess that's that then.

For us, yes, but probably not for the crusaders who see it as the
ultimate (and only) proof that ABX doesn't work, and will keep quoting
it.



"To try to judge the real from the false will always be hard. In this
fast-growing art of 'high fidelity' the quackery will bear a solid gilt
edge that will fool many people" - Paul W Klipsch, 1953
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[Mnyb]

Post by Julf
For us, yes, but probably not for the crusaders who see it as the
ultimate (and only) proof that ABX doesn't work, and will keep quoting
it.

Eerily similar to any pseudo-science like homoeopathy , there are
actually some flawed studies in favor of it and they get quoted all the
time .

Here is the tool of meta analysis very good you compare many studies and
can weed out the bad ones . good meta studies do try to weed out the
outliers . Crusaders will ofcourse cherry pick an outlier studie that
proves their point , like smoking is healthy (you can probably find one
of those too )

And you can go about it the other way . in our case we know two things
about freuency response .

* We hear in the best case scenario 20-20k .

* It's was shown in the 30's by Shannon Nyquist et all via the sampling
theorem that we can capture complete information below half the Nyquist
frequency . So 44k samplings gives complete information about 20-20k
higher sampling does not improve this .

So why is that DSD *playback* or hirez *playback* needed ? prove that
point first .

Like that when someone claims you need to align your chakras please
prove that chakras exist first ;)

I completely understands the rationale behind hirez *recording* there
are tons of good reasons to do that . But the delivery format to us
consumer is a separate issue imho



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[ralphpnj]

Post by Mnyb
So why is that DSD *playback* or hirez *playback* needed ? prove that
point first .

Because Neil Young says so, that's why! And Neil Young is a musician and
musicians know much better than any of us mere morals what sounds best.

By the way a very similar argument can be used to prove how much better
pro-audio equipment is than any consumer grade audio equipment,
including "high end" audio equipment, by just quoting any professional
audio engineer.



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[Julf]

Post by ralphpnj
By the way a very similar argument can be used to prove how much better
pro-audio equipment is than any consumer grade audio equipment,
including "high end" audio equipment, by just quoting any professional
audio engineer.

Ah, but there is the word "engineer" in there. We all know that
engineers don't know anything about quality and emotion - they are
narrow-minded small souls who just blindly follow numbers and rules.



"To try to judge the real from the false will always be hard. In this
fast-growing art of 'high fidelity' the quackery will bear a solid gilt
edge that will fool many people" - Paul W Klipsch, 1953
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[ralphpnj]

Post by Julf
Ah, but there is the word "engineer" in there. We all know that
engineers don't know anything about quality and emotion - they are
narrow-minded small souls who just blindly follow numbers and rules.

Unfortunately sometimes the text medium of internet forums leaves much
to be desired. My statement about pro-audio pertains more to the fact
that the objectives in the world of pro-audio are very different from
those of the consumer audio world. Recording studios are not living
spaces and equipment that may work well in a recording studio may not
work well in a typical consumer listening room. Basically while the
opinions of audio engineers and musicians can be very insightful and
valuable they are only opinions and should be understood as such. I
don't discount their opinions and I try to weigh their relative worth
with respect to my needs and goals when putting together a HOME audio
system.



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[arnyk]

Post by Archimago
http://www.audiostream.com/content/abx-tests-prove-hi-res-audio-legit
Hey Arny. I see Amir's ABX test is being mentioned again in the
audiophile blogosphere.
Final comments?

Consider the source(s).

The tests and the results are wildly misrepresented.

For example:

"
I'm going to let you read the specifics of the test yourself over on the
What's Best Forum: "Conclusive 'Proof' that higher resolution audio
sounds different". Here's the gist of it. One of the co-creators of the
ABX Comparator, Arny Kruger a staunch supporter of ABX testing, created
a number of files from a 24-bit/96kHz recording he made of keys jingling
(I know, but he's the ABX audio expert). Arny sampled down the original
recoding to 44.1kHz and 32kHz, then resampled them back to the 24/96
original. Arny's contention was no one would be able to pick out the
down sampled files from the original 24/96 file.
Read more at
http://www.audiostream.com/content/abx-tests-prove-hi-res-audio-legit#v02q16IuTkdJp0sp.99
"

In fact I never said any such thing. What I did say was that in a number
of years of experience going back to about Y2K, nobody had been able to
pick out the down sampled files from the original 24/96 file which was
true at the time.

I then received a personal thrashing about the head and shoulders in
which I learned more about hype, cheating on ABX tests, and
misrepresentation of ABX results then I ever wanted to know. ;-)

At this time the matter is in my mind in an indeterminate state because
AFAIK there was never any retest with similar results, based on new test
files and comparison software that were redesigned and rebuilt based on
the lessons learned.

It seems pretty simple - if the old results were legit, then they could
be recreated by many people including the original testers at will.
That's part of the essence of science. AFAIK it never happened.


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[ralphpnj]

Gentlemen,

How in the world did you miss this doozy (the next to the last

What the hell is the point of talking about all of this now? For two
reasons. If you look at the comments on the recent Ars Technica/JREF
botched Ethernet test, you'll see that even though the test results are
meaningless, people agree with the meaningless results, i.e. only one
person out of seven heard a difference between Ethernet cables so no one
can hear a difference between Ethernet cables.

I guess meaningless test results are only meaningless if you don't like
them.

As always it's all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



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[arnyk]

Post by ralphpnj
Gentlemen,
How in the world did you miss this doozy (the next to the last
I guess meaningless test results are only meaningless if you don't like
them.
As always it's all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I think that one reason that meaningless tests are so meaningful to many
is hunger for information.


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[arnyk]

Post by Archimago
http://www.audiostream.com/content/abx-tests-prove-hi-res-audio-legit
Hey Arny. I see Amir's ABX test is being mentioned again in the
audiophile blogosphere.
Final comments?

The reader comments get really funny when someone starts complaining
about the biased comments on my web site, which of course is a figment
of his imagination as I have none.


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