“OK, but how do you know?”
Those were the words SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider threw back in my face when I was telling him about the distinctive tonal balance of the phono stage built into the Advance Paris PlayStream A7 streaming integrated amplifier I was reviewing for SoundStage! Simplifi at the time.
I’d started this particular telephonic exchange by describing the minor boost in the deep bass and the ever-so-slightly tweaked treble, contrasted with the overall laid-back nature of the midrange. If I’d seen measurements of this thing before I listened to it, I said, I probably would have decided ahead of time that I wouldn’t like it. But despite the fact that I immediately picked up on the subtle sonic colorations, I dug the resulting sound—more so with some LPs than others, sure, but it legitimately surprised me that I liked it at all.
And this is where our diverging timelines re-sync and you understand the context for Doug’s challenge: “OK, but how do you know? We’re probably not going to have time to measure this one, and that’s a big claim to make without measurements. So how do you know there’s something distinctive about the RIAA EQ of this thing?”
Which was exactly the right question to ask. Well, sort of. You, dear reader, should absolutely share Doug’s skepticism. But in my defense, I had an answer. Well, sort of. And when I explained it to him, he got quiet for a second and then said, “There’s your editorial for next month. That’s good info.”
So, how did I know?
Let me just say right up front that the word “know,” in this case, is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Without more measurements, I don’t know anything with absolute certainty. For that matter, even in the presence of new measurements, I couldn’t claim to know beyond all doubt.
And yet, in the course of reporting my subjective impressions of various audio components, I try as best I can to get within reasonable spitting distance of the objective truth. And the simple answer to the question of how I can say with some confidence that the phono stage of the Advance Paris PlayStream A7 adds a bit of tonal color, whereas the phono preamp built into my U-Turn Theory turntable and the phono input of my reference NAD C 3050 integrated amplifier add almost none comes down to selecting the right reference material and having some knowledge about the provenance of that reference material’s various analog and digital versions.
And as is usually the case these days, it all comes down to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. On several occasions, I’ve mentioned one of my favorite records of theirs: Omnium Gatherum. I think I’ve also alluded to the fact that they never mastered that album for digital release. That’s weird, of course, especially in this age. Then again, this is a pretty weird band we’re talking about.
When they heard the test-pressing LP of Omnium Gatherum, they liked the sound so much that they wanted everyone to hear it exactly like that, so they dropped a needle on the platter and ripped it to digital. Those ripped files—complete with pops and crackles and surface noise and so forth—are what you hear on Apple Music and Qobuz and similar streaming services.
Now, anyone who’s familiar with the way phono preamps work might be thinking, “OK, but doesn’t that mean they also captured the tonal characteristics of the phono stage in their studio system? Isn’t there a whole circle of confusion in effect here?”
And that’s a good variable to keep an eye on. Here’s the thing, though: when I A/B back and forth between an Apple Music or Qobuz stream of the album and my own copy on vinyl, I’m not hearing any significant tonal variations. The most profound differences I hear are that my LP, on my turntable, in my system, plays more cleanly, with fewer pops and clicks and less surface noise. Which, in my first blind A/B comparison—facilitated in part by my wife’s hands on the source selector buttons—caused me to be absolutely convinced that the LP copy was the digital rip and vice versa.
I also know from Diego Estan’s measurements of my reference NAD C 3050 integrated amp that its adherence to the RIAA curve is shockingly faithful. And as such, it’s safe to say that when I compare the sound of the LP and streaming versions of Omnium Gatherum on my system and note no significant tonal deviations, that means the phono stage of whatever system was used to rip the album in KGLW’s studio also adhered to the RIAA curve well enough to satisfy my ears.
So when I cued up a stream of the album and also dropped the first LP of the two-disc set onto my turntable and toggled back and forth between the two inputs on the Advance Paris PlayStream A7 integrated amplifier, I felt reasonably confident in saying that the tonal variations I heard were a consequence of the A7’s RIAA-curve compliance. Could I be absolutely certain about that? Of course I couldn’t. There are a number of questionably plausible but nonetheless possible alternative explanations.
For the past few months, NAD could have conceivably been sneaking out stealthy firmware updates that gradually changed the RIAA EQ curve of my C 3050 to something wholly unlike what Diego originally measured, and it could be that its new curve better matches the similarly deviant RIAA curve of whatever phono stage King Gizz used in the studio.
But, like . . . why? And how likely is that? Bayes would say not likely enough to take seriously without substantial proof. So the most parsimonious explanation remains that Advance Paris has tweaked its RIAA equalization curve to be a bit more euphonic than it is accurate. And while I dug the results, you might or might not.
And if all of that sounds sort of wishy-washy, and in direct opposition to the scientific approach to hi-fi that I and many others advocate, I’ve got some bad news for you: you don’t understand science. And you’re not alone in that. In fact, you’re in darned good company. In a recent editorial titled “Chips Are Still for Chumps,” Stereophile editor Jim Austin said the following:
As listeners, we’re fallible, all of us. We’re vulnerable to the power of suggestion. Hearing is not a function of ears alone but of the ears and the brain working together in complex ways. Anything that changes our perceptive state of mind can alter what we hear or how we hear it. All that means we have to be careful.
That’s why some audiophiles believe in rigorous scientific testing—ABX, DBT, and all that. I don’t blame them. Such tests can provide assurance, a sense of certainty, which is comforting. Some people are more comfortable with uncertainty than others.
Scientific certainty is great, but it’s expensive, and some problems—such as the ability of a component to provide musical satisfaction—are, if not intractable, then at least poorly suited to a scientific approach.
First things first. Austin—who has a PhD in physics, for goodness’ sake—ought to know that “scientific certainty” is a contradiction in terms at best and nonsense gobble-gobble at worst. The people I know who understand the scientific process and embrace it as the most reliable way of inching closer to the truth, one tiny inquiry at a time, are the people who are most comfortable with uncertainty. Uncertainty is the very language of science, as I’ve said many times on Audio Unleashed, the podcast I co-host with former SoundStage! Solo editor Brent Butterworth. For what it’s worth, Brent and I completely deconstructed Mr. Austin’s argument in a recent episode of the pod, so I won’t belabor the point here.
Why is that, though? Why are scientifically minded people so committed to a principle of uncertainty? Because the history of science, from its origins in the 16th century up through today, is replete with hypotheses and even theories that have proven to be wrong. Brilliant though he may have been—and make no mistake; he’s one of my scientific heroes—Isaac Newton was wrong about gravity and the way it works. Dead wrong. Don’t believe me? Try using his equations to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mercury.
Mind you, as wrong as Newton’s law of universal gravitation is, it’s still very useful. It’ll get you to the moon, after all, as well as most of our other celestial neighbors. Close enough for hand grenades and horseshoes, anyway.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity is a lot closer to the truth. So much closer that it accurately predicts the orbit of Mercury, something Newton’s equations simply can’t do, given its proximity to the massive gravity well of the sun. And yet, even Einstein’s beautiful framework breaks down when we try to use it to predict what goes on inside of black holes, and it cannot be reconciled with quantum mechanics, meaning that our understanding of one, the other, or both is still flawed.
So, in short, most of the ideas generated by the scientific method have been wrong, and there’s no reason to believe that won’t continue to happen. And yet, corrections have been made not by standing by and scratching our chins and waxing poetic about “greedy reductionism.” They’ve come from more rigorous science informed by older, even less-perfect science. And most importantly of all, even if our current scientific understanding of any given subject proves to be laughably wrong, it’s still the best answer we could hope for at the moment. No other human endeavor or philosophy or ideology or framework gets us anywhere near as close to the truth.
So, getting back to Doug’s question: “OK, but how do you know?” I don’t, of course. And that’s not me hedging my bets or being noncommittal. I simply think it’s the wrong question to ask.
A better question would be, “OK, but where’s your evidence?” Which, to be fair, is what Doug meant in the first place. I’m pretty certain about that. I know because I asked him.
. . . Dennis Burger
dennisb@soundstagenetwork.com
