Moses

I have an Auraliti PK 90 for sale. I bought it from Auraliti in March 2012 for $816. I'm pricing it at $400, including shipping within the US. It works well and the sound quality is great. I was quite evangelical about it when I first bought it, but it's the only non-Apple computing device I have and I have finally weakened and decided to replace it with a Mac Mini. I pricing it a bit below what I think the regular market value is so as to find it a good home fast. I'd prefer payment by PayPal. PM me if you're interested. I'm in the Bay Area. Best, John

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Incidentally I don't want it to seem like I'm giving Auraliti faint praise. If you're looking for a dedicated music player around $800, the choice between the Auraliti and a Mac Mini you can spend the rest of your life tweaking doesn't seem to me difficult, and the sound I am getting from the Auraliti through a Proton is the best I've ever had. Also, if they'd told me at the outset that the delivery time would be about a month, which is what it was, I wouldn't have had any problem with that at all. The only problem with them being a small outfit is that the email response is sometimes not all that zippy. I have asked them fiddly questions like how to organize file structures to work with mPad, and had full and friendly replies.

I bought a PK90 from them a couple of months ago. In the end I'm very happy both with it and with them. The thing has worked unproblematically and they come through very well on support questions. However, the order process was excruciating - they kept promising delivery within a couple of days and then postponing because they were fine-tuning the software or firmware or whatever. They ultimately delivered on a perfectly reasonable timescale. I formed the impression of a high-quality, extremely conscientious but quite small outfit who easily get overwhelmed by rushes of business or email. So while I can't verify directly that they are still in business, I would say that your experience isn't any reason to suppose they're having any problem other than, e.g., a rush of orders. I found they amply repay a little trust and patience. John

I'm delighted to use Amarra, if this post means what it seems to mean .... Will leave further comments on how it sounds .... John

@wgscott I don't think we disagree on much, in fact I think, though I couldn't swear to it, that the example I gave about listening to songs all the way through on amp A vs. only for a minute on amp B, may have come from someone in your Hydrogen Audio thread. How do you measure 'audible vs. inaudible'? Being able to say, 'Now it's there, now it isn't', is one way. Another would be to ask the subject to tap a finger, or blink an eye, if they hear it. Another way would be to look at galvanic skin responses, or other measures of physiological arousal, as esldude suggested above. The trouble is that it's turned out all these measures will give you different answers as to what's audible, there just isn't a single answer to the question 'what's audible?'. So which one matters for the music listener? Is it any of these, or something else? When people talk about DBT, they talk as if they know perfectly well what 'the test' is, only they want to be sure it's blind. But what's the test? I am finding this a very illuminating discussion, many thanks. John

Thanks for those reassuring comments, much relieved! @wgscott: This doesn't specify an outcome measure. (In the case of DBT for a drug, for example, what patients say isn't relevant. The outcome measure is, e.g., whether they recover from the illness or not. What's the right outcome measure in the case of an audio test?) Again, thanks! P.S. I know of Steve and have literally met him once, years ago, we are maybe one degree of separation apart.

I’m a long-time reader of CA, and I’ve been thinking about double-blind testing since I first read some of the truly bewildering long threads here on the subject. As my first real post here I would like to have another crack at it; it keeps coming up. Most of what’s said in favor of DBT seems to me quite naïve, though I may be missing something. (I’m a philosophy professor with an interest in experimental methodology, especially in psychology and psychiatry; I say that not to try to establish credibility (it doesn’t) but just to indicate where I’m coming from.) (1) DBT is often said to be the mark of a scientific approach. In fact, there are only very special cases in science where it’s applicable at all, even in medical science. Consider the question whether it’s better to treat a psychiatric illness in a hospital or at home. Is there any way you’re going to be able to design a DBT here? The drug case, where you can have a placebo that seems just like the test drug, is quite special. The very mechanics of setting up a DBT in audio create an environment that is quite different to the usual listening context. So there aren’t going to be any obvious implications of the DBT for what’s discernible in the usual listening context. (2) Outcome measures. The usual outcome measure chosen for DBT in audio is verbal report: ‘Can you say which component you’re listening to? Can you reliably say which component sounds better?’. Someone said: “I had two amplifiers and I had my friend come round so I could compare them blind. After he switched them around for a while I said, I can’t tell the difference. He said: ‘Well, every time you were listening to amp A you listened to the song all the way through. Every time you listened to amp B you signaled to change amp after a minute or so.’” Audio people are usually interested in some outcome like ‘emotional engagement with the music’. It’s entirely possible that at the level of verbal report, there’s no immediate difference in your reaction to two components, even though at some non-verbal level, such as emotional engagement, there is a big difference in your perceptual reaction. Perceptual psychology in the last thirty years has been all about the big differences in perceptions that can be invisible at the level of verbal report (you can't say what's different about two scenes you see, you can't even say that there is a difference) unmistakeably show up on implicit measures (your emotional reactions to the two scenes are nonetheless quite different, even if you don't explicitly acknowledge it). The double-blind tests that are done on audio components usually treat verbal report as the outcome measure. To do double-blind testing that was relevant to the audiophile’s concerns you would have to look at outcomes that are much more difficult to measure: emotional engagement, ability to distinguish (non-verbally) different elements in a complex piece of music, and so on. It’s not impossible to measure those things, but it’s not easy either, and I’ve never seen it done at all. (3) Perceptual learning. Suppose you’re getting interested in fine art, and you’re offered a choice between an original Rembrandt for your office wall, or an excellent copy. (You can’t sell either.) You can’t tell the difference between them. It’s still not irrational for you to prefer to have the original, because the differences you can’t see now may become available to you in time. That might be optimistic, but it’s not crazy. Similarly, you may in DBT not be able to tell the difference between a high-specification component and a low-specification component now. It’s still not irrational to prefer the high-specification component, because the differences may become perceptible by you in time. That may be optimistic, but it’s not crazy. (4) Fear of placebo effects. The idea is that if you rely, in your purchasing, on the results of double-blind tests, that will provide you with some protection against placebo effects. But of course they provide you with no protection at all. Suppose that your hearing is duller than most people’s. But you read that most people, in DBT, prefer A to B. So you try out A and B, and lo, you prefer A to B. How do you know that isn’t a placebo effect? Or, going the other way, suppose your hearing is actually more acute than most people’s. And you read that in DBT, most people can’t tell the difference between A and B. So you try out A and B, and sure enough, you can’t tell any difference. DBT in this area isn’t a guarantee of freedom from placebo effects, it’s just a fresh source of placebo effects. Of course, in principle there are ways in which you could start to sort this out, but it would require extensive cross-testing that goes way beyond anything that anyone in their senses would bother with for an audio component. Of course, you could do the DBT with yourself as the only subject, but by the time you have done it often enough for the test to have statistical significance you are going to be so far away from the usual listening context that you are going to have a hard time figuring whether there are any implications from your trials for what goes on the usual context. My own conclusion is that there’s a lot to be said for an approach that involves listening to a component in a stress-free environment for a week or so and seeing if you get on with it. Or, if that isn’t possible, reading the views of other people who have managed to do that, and who seem to be unusually skilled at articulating their responses. Of course, neither of these is foolproof either. YMMV.

What about a dedicated computer like the PK90? Is it a design flaw that it's built to use a USB DAC and a USB hard drive? Or can you take it for granted the problem doesn't arise for a dedicated computer? Thanks, John

It will give you solace while you're rattling around in that big empty barn.

Speakers, for heaven's sake. The money isn't the issue, it's how to get those overpowering monstrosities into the house. How many chances do you get to find a nice discreet place for that 1000 watt 20Hz box? John

Paul, do you mean the Proton + Grado is better with headphones than the Proton alone? Or do you mean the headphone amp in the Proton beats the rest of your list? John

You might try Audio Hijack Pro: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/ The program is rock solid, works every time, though I'm not quite sure if it's what you're looking for .... John

Your task is to bring the cursor to the guy's nose:<br /> http://www.selfcontrolfreak.com/slaan.html

There's a stunning hi-res + surround sound Steve Wilson version of Caravan's In the Land of Grey and Pink, mentioned above, that you might like. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004TPXVKS/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00005A0V0&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0RQ81NTFZK1QQRK6EMKJ also the Blu-Ray of Porcupine Tree's Anesthetize is sonically terrific. You probably know Burning Shed but just in case not: http://www.burningshed.com/ John