emaidel was right about the Hi-Fi Tuning fuses

[3db]

If I buy something - a Hi-Fi Tuning Fuse , or the Achromat turntable mat, or Vibrapods and Vibracones for example - install them and hear a difference, I post my findings here for others to read. First, I hope they enjoy reading what I have to say, and second, I hope they try these items out for themselves. This is precisely the case here with myself and EStat. Each of us bought several of these fuses, installed them in various pieces of equipment in our respective audio systems, and genuinely liked the differences we heard, all of which were directly attributed to the use of the Hi-Fi Tuning Fuses. Having Stereophile on our sides praising the fuses as a "Recommended Component" adds credibility to our observations. Neither of us partook of a DBT, but had one been available to us, I'm sure each of us would gladly have participated. And, I seriously believe, the DBT would only have further substantiated our personal findings. But, such a DBT isn't now, or likely ever will be, available to us. So, we trust our ears - you know, those things we all use to evaluated the audio equipment we've all been purchasing for most of our lifetimes.

I can give a very good example of how a DBT - and a carefully controlled and designed one at that - provided genuinely false results. During the late 70's, ESS was conducting a series of DBT's in college campuses across the country as part of their advertising campaign, "ESS Wins on Campus." The test was incredibly well put together and monitored.

Two inexpensive ESS speakers (the Performance Series One and Five) were compared to about 7 or 8 other speakers from other known manufacturers, all of which were a good deal more expensive than the ESS models. An acoustically inert screen was placed in front of these speakers to obscure them so that listeners couldn't see what they were listening to. Levels were all carefully set via a noise generator so that the "louder is better" syndrome couldn't affect the results. Bose 901's were provided with the appropriate reflecting surfaces so as not to mar their performance in the test. And, for the "double" part of the test, the numbers assigned to the speakers during the comparisons were routinely scrambled so that no particular bias could be formed. Specifically, if speaker "5" were preferred to speaker "3" in a given comparison, the next time the listeners were told that speaker "5" was playing, it was a different speaker.

The tests ran most of the day with many different sessions, each including about 20 or so students. The tests were conducted over a period of about a week, and at the end, the results were tabulated. Based on these DBT's, a stunning "conclusion" was made: the ESS PS-1 (at a list of $149.95) was repeatedly preferred by a majority of the listeners by a factor of greater than 3 to 1 to the far more expensive Bose 901. The PS-1 was also chosen far more often than a JBL L-40, as well as anythng used from AR, Infinity and Cerwin Vega. While the ESS PS-1 was chosen over all of these speakers, the margin was the greatest in comparing it to the Bose 901.

Lawsuit-happy Amar Bose desperately threatened to sue ESS, claiming fraud, but after carefully examining the testing procedure, he had to back down as there was nothing fraudulent about how it was designed and administered. So, did this actually "prove" that the ESS PS-1 was a better speaker than all the others? Of course it didn't, but it surely proved the fallacy of a DBT, no matter how carefully designed and administered it was.

BTW, thankyou for keeping the discussion clean. I do appreciate this.

[Feanor]

....

The tests ran most of the day with many different sessions, each including about 20 or so students. The tests were conducted over a period of about a week, and at the end, the results were tabulated. Based on these DBT's, a stunning "conclusion" was made: the ESS PS-1 (at a list of $149.95) was repeatedly preferred by a majority of the listeners by a factor of greater than 3 to 1 to the far more expensive Bose 901. The PS-1 was also chosen far more often than a JBL L-40, as well as anythng used from AR, Infinity and Cerwin Vega. While the ESS PS-1 was chosen over all of these speakers, the margin was the greatest in comparing it to the Bose 901.

Lawsuit-happy Amar Bose desperately threatened to sue ESS, claiming fraud, but after carefully examining the testing procedure, he had to back down as there was nothing fraudulent about how it was designed and administered. So, did this actually "prove" that the ESS PS-1 was a better speaker than all the others? Of course it didn't, but it surely proved the fallacy of a DBT, no matter how carefully designed and administered it was.

I'm confused, Emaidel. What are you saying? Did I miss paragraph or something? Sounds to me that you're saying the ESS PS-1 were "better" only because people preferred them, but somehow they weren't better because they were up against the likes of AR, et al..

Also, did I construe from E-Stat's comments that he attributes this to "inexperienced" listeners?

If I correctly recall, Flloyd Toole demonstrated in his well-controlled experiments is that inexperience and experienced listeners both preferred the same qualities in a speaker, and select the same speakers as best, (albeit the experienced users came to their conclusions more quickly).

[E-Stat]

If I correctly recall, Flloyd Toole demonstrated in his well-controlled experiments is that inexperience and experienced listeners both preferred the same qualities in a speaker, and select the same speakers as best, (albeit the experienced users came to their conclusions more quickly).

Think about that conclusion for a moment. Apply what you know about the way the speaker market has been for the past thirty years or so and ask yourself whether or not the market supports or refutes that assertion. Can you think of any other audio component where there is greater variety in the way they perform? Does the guy who prefers an Altec A-7 or Klipsch Cornwall look for the same qualities as one who prefers a Magico Mini or a Maggie? What do you think?

...did I construe from E-Stat's comments that he attributes this to "inexperienced" listeners?

Using typical short term audio cowboy comparisons, yes. ESS speakers were clearly in the "West Coast" sound category and not known for their neutrality.

rw

[Feanor]

Think about that conclusion for a moment. Apply what you know about the way the speaker market has been for the past thirty years or so and ask yourself whether or not the market supports or refutes that assertion. Can you think of any other audio component where there is greater variety in the way they perform? Does the guy who prefers an Altec A-7 or Klipsch Cornwall look for the same qualities as one who prefers a Magico Mini or a Maggie? What do you think?


Using typical short term audio cowboy comparisons, yes. ESS speakers were clearly in the "West Coast" sound category and not known for their neutrality.

rw

Well, ESS' testing is more suspect than Toole's maybe, on account of likely "audio cowboy" aspect. (I remember thinking for a while that JBLs' West Coast sound as were great, however that interval lasted only a few weeks for me.)

What I'm really getting at is that you can't just dismiss scientifically sound, empiracal results on subjective bases. You have to find a flaw in the design or in the actual measurement. Then you have to prove that you get different results if these flaws are corrected.

Toole's results are empirical and scientifically sound. If you want to refute them, you need to demonstate that what Toole tests measure things less that the sum of everything important in a speaker. OK, perhaps you can do that.

Toole's testing basically relied on monopolar speakers that worked OK at a certain distance from surrounding boundaries, etc. that applied during the testing. I believe it was you that pointed out that this precludes dipole planar speakers for example, or say, Audio Notes that have unusual placement requirements. Fine, but then you have to conduct tests that disprove his conclusions when dipole speakers are provided for.

Of course it's true for any DBT, (or SBT), that the results are only valid under the test conditions that prevail.

[emaidel]

ESS speakers were clearly in the "West Coast" sound category and not known for their neutrality.

I worked for ESS for two years - 1979-1981 - and could have had anything the company made for free. I had my Dahlquist DQ-10's at the time and didn't think any ESS speaker came even close, and so never took advantage of the offer. Fortunately, from a sales standpoint, most ESS dealers weren't Dahlquist dealers, and there was a large market for the "sizzle and boom" sound of an ESS model.

During that time period, ESS purchased Dynaco, and made several standard 2 and 3-way speakers under the Dynaco brand name, none with Heil Air Motion Transformers (ESS's claim to fame). Several of the company's engineers confided to me one day that the most accurate speakers the company ever made were the Dynaco, and not the ESS brand.

[emaidel]

I'm confused, Emaidel. What are you saying? Did I miss paragraph or something? Sounds to me that you're saying the ESS PS-1 were "better" only because people preferred them, but somehow they weren't better because they were up against the likes of AR, et al..

What I was trying to illustrate was that by using a carefully controlled and administered DBT to provide legitimate results as to which speaker sounds better than another often generates bizarre findings, and because of this, a DBT is hardly the most appropriate, or accurate, device to determine which product is/sounds better than another. The ESS PS-1 was hardly an "accurate reproducer," nor was it even a very good speaker. It had the characteristically dipped middle, boomy bottom and sizzling high end that lots of people liked (not me) at the time, and typically sold at a discount for only $99.95.. That it was selected by a margin of more than 3 to 1 over the much, much better (but still pretty awful, and horribly overpriced) Bose 901 was used by ESS to promote the "proof" that it was the better speaker, based on the scientifcally culled results of the DBT. The truth of the matter was something else altogether.

And so, it is my belief that a DBT to prove whether or not the Hi-Fi Tuning fuse works or doesn't, won't necessarily prove anything. I believe they work, EStat believes they do, and so does Stereophile. That's good enough for me.

[hifitommy]

it takes time to train your ears for listening tests. the training should be listening to live instruments, un-amploified AND amplified so one knows what these things sound like in a live situation.

after the training, the JBLs wont sound like the real thing just as they never have. it will be identifiable by the listener however.

ESSs DBTs involved many untrained listeners who selected what they preferred based on listening to other systems that likely didnt resemble the original sound accurately.

until my ears had been educated, i had no idea WHY speakers sounded so different. with the help of friends and a couple of very knowledgeable salesmen, i was abel to make decisions for myself that werent way off base. i am still learning after 37 years of this hobby.

[3db]

What I was trying to illustrate was that by using a carefully controlled and administered DBT to provide legitimate results as to which speaker sounds better than another often generates bizarre findings, and because of this, a DBT is hardly the most appropriate, or accurate, device to determine which product is/sounds better than another. The ESS PS-1 was hardly an "accurate reproducer," nor was it even a very good speaker. It had the characteristically dipped middle, boomy bottom and sizzling high end that lots of people liked (not me) at the time, and typically sold at a discount for only $99.95.. That it was selected by a margin of more than 3 to 1 over the much, much better (but still pretty awful, and horribly overpriced) Bose 901 was used by ESS to promote the "proof" that it was the better speaker, based on the scientifcally culled results of the DBT. The truth of the matter was something else altogether.

And so, it is my belief that a DBT to prove whether or not the Hi-Fi Tuning fuse works or doesn't, won't necessarily prove anything. I believe they work, EStat believes they do, and so does Stereophile. That's good enough for me.

Why would you use a DBT test to choose something as subjective as speakers. Using that arguemnet to fault a DBT doesn't hold much merit becuase liking the sound of a speaker is subjective. Are you going to buy a speaker based on the review of an audio critic or are you going to sit down and listen with your own ears to see what you like?
A conductor (of the size of a fuse) does not affect sound. It possess no quantative properties that alters the signal travelling through it. Elecltrical signal into fuse is the same as electrical signal out of the fuse.... so how can there be a change in sound? Unlike fuses, speakers impart both an acoustic and electrical signature on signal travelling through it which makes speakers sound differnet from one another. Wether you like the signature is subjective. Hence using your ESS exmaple is not very poor example of discounting DBT tests.

[poppachubby]

Wow E-Stat, what a cool test, I did alot better than I thought. My hearing is quite poor due to exposure as a musician when I was younger. I took a sample of how far I got, I didn't complete the whole thing as I have to go to work soon.

I'm unable to post the page of my results. I was successful to -30. I failed -36/37 and failed back to -27. I then was succesful back up to -30 again.

How did you do E? I used my speakers, do you think headphones would give an edge?

[E-Stat]

I was successful to -30. I failed -36/37 and failed back to -27. I then was succesful back up to -30 again.

Those are excellent results. While this is not a conclusive test, it is nevertheless a particular measure. I wish I could take it using the main system which is far more transparent than my laptop.

How did you do E? I used my speakers, do you think headphones would give an edge?

Your phones might help.

Previous post.

rw

[poppachubby]

3db, did you not see my post? Did you have a look at Hawksford's report?

[3db]

3db, did you not see my post? Did you have a look at Hawksford's report?

Sorry poppa..Windows burped and caused a repeat. Will take a look at the report. Thx for posting it.

[hifitommy]

fean,

i am one ytear older than you and do of course have high freq hearing loss but still can discern differences in components and wire. most of my wquip has captive power cables but one day, i intend to experiment with power cables as to sound diffs.

that will wait until i have iec equipped electronics. too many reviewers that i respect cant hear the diffs and i am open to the information when it presents itself to me in person. i have not been privy to demos of that type.

[Feanor]

fean,

i am one ytear older than you and do of course have high freq hearing loss but still can discern differences in components and wire. most of my wquip has captive power cables but one day, i intend to experiment with power cables as to sound diffs.

that will wait until i have iec equipped electronics. too many reviewers that i respect cant hear the diffs and i am open to the information when it presents itself to me in person. i have not been privy to demos of that type.

HFT, as I've allowed on many many occassions I'm a cable skeptic and intend to stay that way.

Again, I'm not saying that cables can't sound different, only that differences are typically very small, and that expensive cables don't represent good value for people (like me) with entry- to mid-level systems who would be better off putting the money towards better components.

[hifitommy]

hi fean,

i respect the skepticism, a also am wary of some things that dont seem to make sense such as premium power cables (pangea makes very affordable items).

the same for interconnects and speaker wire but once you hear the difference that talks to you, you figure out something.

the paint job on a chevy is more than adequate for most of us but the paint on a ferrari or lamborghini, or bentley is another ball of wax.

if you have read many of my posts related to this subject, you will see that i dont recommend that big dollars be spent here in this area UNLESS really big ones have been spent on the rest of the system. when someone has soulution electronics and magico speakers, ratshack wire just wont do.

i love getting great sound from low priced components and many of my pieces are cost effective in spades and some not.

my best wires were either won at the audio society meeting or i got for a song by being in the right place at the right time.