Compilation of blind test reports Options

[krabapple]

I was wowed when I came across this -- someone went to a lot of trouble to compile most of the print and online audio equipment DBTs since the 90's

first post here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/486598/testing-au...laims-and-myths

btw pretty sure he's wrong about Meyer & Moran only using CD-sourced SACDs, but I'll correct him on that ;

[mzil]

Agreed, Krabapple, but if doing it again I'd say they should specifically limit their selections to one of "those" magazines "top ten best SACDs we've ever heard" sorts of lists. They have such lists, yes? [I don't read them so I wouldn't know.]
---

I can just see this will be the test doubters' next lame excuse: "Well none of those SACDs M&M chose in Test 2 have a crash cymbal or solo jingling car keys, so there's no appreciable acoustical power above 22.5kHz anyways..." [Not to mention there are only a handful of mics that pick up such frequencies, and they aren't typically used in studio work, I'm guessing. But I'm not a studio mic expert.]

...and then when they fix that in Test 3 we'll get: "But the speakers they used have poor polar response curves* (off axis dispersion) in the 30kHz range so other than on axis output, they were hardly energizing the room with key frequencies that make SACD sound so much better.."

See, none of these things are limitations when they tout how much better SACD is to CD; it's only when M&M run tests that don't support their beliefs that it's an issue! There's no end to it.

* I guess they use waterfall plots for this these days, but same thing.

This post has been edited by mzil: Feb 15 2012, 23:11

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

I can just see this will be the test doubters' next lame excuse: "Well none of those SACDs M&M chose in Test 2 have a crash cymbal or solo jingling car keys, so there's no appreciable acoustical power above 22.5kHz anyways..." [Not to mention there are only a handful of mics that pick up such frequencies, and they aren't typically used in studio work, I'm guessing. But I'm not a studio mic expert.]

...and then when they fix that in Test 3 we'll get: "But the speakers they used have poor polar response curves* (off axis dispersion) in the 30kHz range so other than on axis output, they were hardly energizing the room with key frequencies that make SACD sound so much better.."

See, none of these things are limitations when they tout how much better SACD is to CD; it's only when M&M run tests that don't support their beliefs that it's an issue! There's no end to it.

It might be good to anticipate as much of this as possible in the next round of proper listening evaluationss.

To clarify, your typical crash cymbal has its peaks in its power response well below 20 KHz, and usually even below 10 KHz.

You are precisely right about the general run of studio mics lacking response > 20 Khz, and they are even worse if not perfectly aligned and close to the sound sources. Ditto for speakers.