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[Matt]

I think Interact is generally useful, respectful, and fun.

But sometimes it's a little tricky for us to balance between objective and subjective viewpoints.

For better or worse, JRiver is run by engineers that like logic, provable facts, double-blind tests, etc.

To many of our customers, audio software is more subjective, similar to how you might think about wine.

On Interact, we try to balance between these two viewpoints but also feel it's important to state plainly what we believe to be correct.

If you visit HydrogenAudio, you'll see anyone that strays from an objective viewpoint gets attacked.  If you visit ComputerAudiophile, you'll see it's quite welcoming to subjective viewpoints (as long as they're respectful).

Where should JRiver be in this spectrum?

How should we respond if a new users starts a thread to say "Wow, MC sounds so much more detailed if I hold down the middle mouse button while it's playing."

Or they say "I don't know what you did in build 256, but it now sounds much better/worse."

Or how should we deal with a thread where objective and subjective viewpoints are clashing and people on both sides are getting upset?

Or how about dead-horse topics like 'this type of lossless sounds better than this other type of lossless'?

Thanks for any advice.

[Neco]

Welcome feedback,  but ultimately  outline a clear set of guidelines for what you define as provable data.

Make it clear in this guideline text that "you must do this, that, and this" and explain what your requirements are and why they were decided on.   Then direct users voicing serious complaints to these guidelines and asking them to submit a report with the required data.

If you decide you need a double-blind ABX test to prove something has changed, then that's how it is.   If you decide you need  X test to show Y amount of difference, repeated 10 times  between 2 program versions, then that's how it is.

Then just hold your line with politeness and tact.  If the user continues to be unreasonable.
Occasionally you might bring out a collection of feedback deemed to be subjective,  and ask yourselves,  "what could we potentially tweak, or add as an option that might solve this problem for this group of people".

But ultimately one customer or a dozen out of hundreds crying about some minescule distortion no one else in the world can detect,  you just won't be able to please.

[MrC]

Change the forum name "Music, Movies, Politics, and Other Cheap Thrills" to "Politely Kicking Dead Horses and Other Misadventures" and let them knock themselves out.

[Mikkel]

Dear Matt and the rest of the JRiver-team,

I would prefer JRiver to be closer to hydrogenaudio-style than computeraudiophile. But hydrogenaudio can be a rather unfriendly environment, and there is no reason to adapt to that sort of style.

Personally I would like an easy to use ABX-module implemented that makes it possible to test whether there is a difference (and with high statistical power) or not between either audio or video with the feature enabled vs the feature disabled. If such a feature were available subjectivists could test their assumption and report the test-results.

If a feature makes a statistically significant difference with reasonable statistical power it is of course completely subjective if an individual prefers it or not (even though a majority may think of the feature as degrading the signal quality). That sort of subjectivism is quite legitimate. I'd say we are all subjectivists in that sense - it is a matter of taste.

Perhaps JRiver could perform these ABX tests during the beta-phase with their range of beta-testers or could ask users to join an ABX-panel where you ask them to different kinds of tests. I'd volunteer to do these tests, certainly.


Best regards,
Mikkel

[jmone]

Great Topic!  I think we are mixing in the difference in how individuals "enjoy" the Audio/Video VS how MC "produces" it.... and would break in down into a few areas

1) Things Outside MC's Domain:  Stuff like Hospital Grade power points, cables, magic dots, rocks etc etc.  Chuck them in in the "Music, Movies, Politics, and Other Cheap Thrills" forum and let them run their course.  There really is not that many of the truly wacky ones and I find them entertaining.  JR staff should gives their "personal" views if they could be bothered.

2) Things Inside MC's Domain:  I'm going to break this down into two areas, but the answer to both is the same.  You should introduce a strict policy of ABX testing.  Next time some asks for a XYZ feature I'd love to see some positive ABX results before it is introduced. 
  a): No measurable difference:  This can be typified by the "XYZ Lossless Codec" sounds better debate.  Easy to deride as we all "know" they are the same..... but I've never tested it personally.  So am I right?  I banking on the opinion of people I trust who say it is so (note: I'm equally sure the earth is not the centre of the universe but I can not the maths to prove it either).  I'm comfortable with how JR handles these threads.
  b): Measurable difference:  This can be typified by the "Triangular Dithering" sounds better style request.  These really worry me as I see such request being incorporated into MC all the time.....but can anyone actually "hear" the difference?  This is where I really think ABX would do wonders.  You want "Triple Quadratic Dithering".  Sure... Here is a two samples, one with and one without in our ABX engine.  If anyone can pick the difference then by all means add it.

The above is the bit MC should really care about getting right.... but it is not the bit that really matters and this is where Matt's comparison to Wine comes into play. The "enjoyment" factor of wine or AV is influenced by many more factors than the technical ones ... Ever noticed wine tasks better in good company ... or scotch on a winter night in front of a fire?  Both of these are kind of hard to code in.  Back to AV, I know that Matt thinks his home made speakers sound great, but any sane person knows that he is wrong.  We are both right.  These sorts of posts IMO should be encouraged but also belong in the "Music, Movies, Politics, and Other Cheap Thrills" forum.

[Vincent Kars]

Do media players have a sound, a sonic signature?
Foobar’s Peter says no.
Jim says JRiver sounds the same as Foobar.

Audiophiles know better.
For years, Foobar is recommended on audio forums as the best sounding player.
The last two years JRiver is mentioned too as sounding superior to other players.
Part of JRiver customers are audiophiles and I see the number of post by JRiver users growing on typical audiophile forums as AudioAsylum.

A first and obvious conclusion: if you want the best sounding media player, get one from a guy claiming they all sound the same!

A second obvious conclusion: using a PC as an audio source is becoming popular in the audiophile community. There is a growing market. Therefore, all common articles of faith are applied to the digital world as well.
Today we can get an audiophile grade USB cable, an audiophile grade network cable (Cat 7 of course as the higher the number, the better the sound quality).
Of course people will tell on the audio forums that they hear a dramatic improvement in sound quality the moment this 6000,- cable is used.

Can science explains this?
Can an EE explains this?
No

Much of this is a matter of perception.
Any reason to deny somebodies perception? No.
So I won’t argue.
Any reason to believe a perceived difference being an absolute truth? No.
If somebody presents his perception as an absolute truth, I do think he is not a very nice person and I won’t argue with him.

What I like is people doing all kind of experiments, all kind of tweaking. I enjoy the creativity of others and sometimes profit by it.
If one has a forum with a rigid implemented TOS8 like Hydrogen, everything is trashed including the creativity. If one has a forum like Whats Best, almost each topic ends in another objectivist/subjectivist debate. Yawn.

An obvious one: the JRiver forum is the helpdesk. This works fine and is and will remain the main stay.
Another interesting one is what I call “Technical Discussions”.
Yes, you need dither; yes you can implement it in various ways.
What do these different algorithms do?
Most of all, I like to hear.
Likewise filtering, filters do have an impact on sound.
Here we talk about phenomenon that can be explained, measured but are not necessarily audible.
I do think JRiver has a very good reputation DSP wise, I would like to see this part expanded.

What to do with the things nobody can explain in engineering terms like cables, Shakti stones, etc.?
The things nobody can measure.
I don’t like to see this forum to become as rigid as HA.
I don’t like it to be swamped with audiophile talk either.
My advice is make a Audiophile Corner.

[InflatableMouse]

I think you're handling it fine and I like how it is. Respectful, you keep an open mind while staying objective yourself.

Sometimes, I wish the forums would be a little easier on the lock downs though. Move it offtopic and perhaps reply with a warning first.

[preproman]

My advice is make a Audiophile Corner.

I'm a member of Head Fi as well.  On that site Objective and Subjective viewpoints are welcome.  The admin will intervene when the decision gets out of hand and lock the thread.  My take on things are if you're in the objective camp just be able to provide the objective data when needed or called for.  If your in the subjective camp, don't present things as fact and be able to simply state  "IMO",  "IMHO", "to my ears" or whatever to let the community know this is your opinion.  No one can argue with ones opinion.  Or can they?

[6233638]

I would much rather that you stopped misinformation at the source, rather than allowing there to be any debate about it.

It's equivalent to a lot of media's stance that everyone's opinion is equally valid, which has lead to things like the widespread belief in America that climate change is not happening (ask anywhere else in the world and they will disagree) the completely unfounded belief that vaccinations are harmful (which is already causing problems worldwide now) and allowing things like creationism in schools.

If something is wrong, then it should be explained why it is wrong, instead of allowing misinformation to be spread.

As engineers, you obviously have much better knowledge on the subject of how all this works than the layman, and you have worked with DAC manufacturers directly, so your position on these matters is a lot more meaningful.


For example, the debate over lossless vs uncompressed has come up several times in the two months I have been here.

We all know that the audio data contained within a lossless file is identical to an uncompressed one, and it seems that MC has a buffer of about 40MB or so of decoded audio (changes somewhat depending on the format playing) so it is not decoding anything that is actually playing back in realtime.

Or if you want to let that debate persist, then perhaps the other solution would be to expand the memory playback options so that MC will store: a fully decoded track (from testing with the diskwriter output a 300MB multichannel DFF file decodes to a 950MB WAV file when outputting 32/352.8) a fully decoded album (a 2.7GB SACD album decodes to 8.8GB) or as much of the current playlist in RAM as possible.

Personally, I think that adding those options would be ridiculous, but it seems like the only way to go about handling it.

[JimH]

I would much rather that you stopped misinformation at the source, rather than allowing there to be any debate about it.

This is the main issue, in my opinion.

[nwboater]

I would much rather that you stopped misinformation at the source, rather than allowing there to be any debate about it.

This is the main issue, in my opinion.

The whole dilemma is 'what is misinformation'? So if people can't agree on it some will be upset when it's stopped.

I really think the idea of a separate 'Audiophile', or 'Subjective', or 'Just Plain Loco' or whatever section of the Forum is the best bet. If things get too subjective in the main threads, move the topic there. Or better still hopefully some of the subjective topics will be started there. 

Cheers,
Rod

[fitbrit]

I would much rather that you stopped misinformation at the source, rather than allowing there to be any debate about it.

It's equivalent to a lot of media's stance that everyone's opinion is equally valid, which has lead to things like the widespread belief in America that climate change is not happening (ask anywhere else in the world and they will disagree) the completely unfounded belief that vaccinations are harmful (which is already causing problems worldwide now) and allowing things like creationism in schools.

If something is wrong, then it should be explained why it is wrong, instead of allowing misinformation to be spread.

Nothing to add. I just think this is worth posting again. Everywhere.

[rjm]

Nothing to add. I just think this is worth posting again. Everywhere.

Agree. The only thing that might solve the big problems (climate, non-renewable resources, water, fisheries, soil, ...) is the only thing we do not talk about. Population reduction.

[InflatableMouse]

Population reduction.

Starting with those posting misinformation?

j/k of course.

[JustinM]

IMO:

-Dead horse topics / misinformation should respectfully be guided.

I think you're handling it fine and I like how it is. Respectful, you keep an open mind while staying objective yourself.

+1

jRivers engineers and forum == TOP Notch !

Audiophiles, videophiles, and engineers == HAPPY!

That said, I think JRiver concern right now should be appealing to the masses :
-TheatreView appearance, and Userfriendlyness throughout  :
(If my wife,parents and 6 yr old  enjoyed it more.. I would need at least 3 more liciences.)

Thanks  !

[Mikkel]

My cudot to 6233638

There should not be room for completely misguided silly claims or feature requests in a media center like JRiver IMO (;-)). They should be put to rest determined by the principle that there are things we know are not true. There is no need to debate them unless one can bring substantial evidence against the current state of the art (which should be really welcomed, of course).

This is the JRiver-teams privilige: they can put down a stance when they feel it is right. The rest of us can clap our hands or join another forum... and buy another media center.


Best regards,
Mikkel

[rjm]

Starting with those posting misinformation?

j/k of course.

A common response. And a great way to stop any intelligent conversation about the only thing worth discussing these days.

[kstuart]

" I would much rather that you stopped misinformation at the source, rather than allowing there to be any debate about it. ... which has lead to things like the widespread belief in America that climate change is not happening."

The main difference between audio and climate is that climate is measurable and audio is not.

The myth that audio is measurable has been spread by a group of people who would really really like it to be true.  I wish wish wish it were true... but it's not.

The reason ?

Actually two related factors.  One is that the measurements are simply not advanced enough.  Maybe they will be in a few decades.

The bigger factor is:

How do you know if a measurement corresponds to something in audio ?

The answer is: You have to listen.

And there's the rub.

Climate is an objective experience (as is pretty clear in Minnesota, eh?).

Music is a subjective experience.  Even tabling the matter of the physical difference between ears, there is a massive difference between the mental music training of human beings.

If you take someone who has never heard either music or recorded audio, there is no way they can tell the difference between a 64k MP3 and a 24/192 high resolution file in an ABX double blind test.   Training makes a huge difference.

[InflatableMouse]

A common response. And a great way to stop any intelligent conversation about the only thing worth discussing these days.

Because this is not the place.

[6233638]

" I would much rather that you stopped misinformation at the source, rather than allowing there to be any debate about it. ... which has lead to things like the widespread belief in America that climate change is not happening."

The main difference between audio and climate is that climate is measurable and audio is not.

I was not equating the two things, that's one hell of a misquote.

Allowing misinformation to spread, rather than stopping it at the source (because you want to allow for discussion/debate, or think it may be harmless) is equivalent to much of the media's stance that everyone's opinion is equally valid, whether they are a layman or someone that actually works in that field with years of experience. I then went on to post examples of where allowing this to happen has been disastrous - not to say that audio and climate change are in any way linked or comparable, and I was not intending to shift the discussion over to those things away from this topic.

The myth that audio is measurable has been spread by a group of people who would really really like it to be true.  I wish wish wish it were true... but it's not.

If audio is not measurable, how does sampling theorem (i.e. digital audio) work at all!?

If it has been shown that CPU load has no/negligible impact on jitter, why does CPU usage matter?
If we are measuring jitter in picoseconds, how is it possible that there are timing errors which lie beyond that, and are still somehow detectable by the human ear?
If modern DACs are reclocking the signal they receive, how does jitter at the source even factor in?

If Media Center has a buffer of approximately 40MB of decoded (uncompressed) audio during playback, how can there be a difference between lossless and uncompressed audio playback, when the "source" is decompressed audio in both cases?

You have to listen.

Just listening is possibly the worst way to try and evaluate this sort of thing. Here is a talk which goes into some of the reasons why.

If you take someone who has never heard either music or recorded audio, there is no way they can tell the difference between a 64k MP3 and a 24/192 high resolution file in an ABX double blind test.   Training makes a huge difference.

There have been many tests debunking a lot of audiophile claims that have included audio engineers, "trained listeners", and audiophiles themselves. When proper double-blind testing procedures are followed, suddenly audiophiles can't tell the difference.
That's not to say that audiophiles are always wrong, though

[kstuart]

"There have been many tests debunking a lot of audiophile claims that have included audio engineers, "trained listeners", and audiophiles themselves. When proper double-blind testing procedures are followed, suddenly audiophiles can't tell the difference."

Actually a google search can show you that so far, there are no tests where the blind testing procedures were not flawed.

And, in fact, such testing is circular.  How do you know that the test is not masking the differences ?   An obvious example is that if you did a double-blind ABX test with speakers setup on a Manhattan street corner, the noise would mask any possible differences.

Similarly, it is impossible to know whether a blind test is sufficiently revealing - unless it shows a positive result.  Any negative result cannot show that there is no difference - only that the test is not sufficiently revealing.

Not understanding that concept shows a lack of real scientific background (which goes along with the "stop the debate because I am right" idea).

[Listener]

I don't think that the Interact forum is the place for discussions of ABX or blind tests in general.  Nor should it be the place for subjectivists to hold forth on their theories and their reports of hearing differences.

The forum's focus should be on

- helping others get more from JRiver MC,
- discoveries of ways to accomplish things within MC,
- discussions of connecting devices such as audio output and video monitors and TVs,
- suggestions for improvement and
- enjoyment of content.

The fact that MC exists and does so much is a very positive thing for me.  I'd like to see the Interact forum reflect that positive feeling.  MC is the product of knowledge, skills and years of hard work.  Theory, logic, experiment, testing and measurement are central to that achievement and posters should respect that.

Both objectivists and subjectivists should be able to visit the forum and feel comfortable participating.  However, nobody should have a license to drive others away.

Bill

[Mikkel]

I don't think that the Interact forum is the place for discussions of ABX or blind tests in general.  Nor should it be the place for subjectivists to hold forth on their theories and their reports of hearing differences.

The forum's focus should be on

- helping others get more from JRiver MC,
- discoveries of ways to accomplish things within MC,
- discussions of connecting devices such as audio output and video monitors and TVs,
- suggestions for improvement and
- enjoyment of content.

The fact that MC exists and does so much is a very positive thing for me.  I'd like to see the Interact forum reflect that positive feeling.  MC is the product of knowledge, skills and years of hard work.  Theory, logic, experiment, testing and measurement are central to that achievement ande posters should respect that.

Both objectivists and subjectivists should be able to visit the forum and feel comfortable participating.  However, nobody should have a license to drive others away.

Bill

Well said. But the JRiver team holds certain believes that are occationally challenged. A proper response to this is asked for by Matt. But as you say, nobody (except the JRiver team) should have a license to drive others away. As others have mentioned such debates can be placed in a specific sub-forum (hidden far away from regular customers :-)).

Mikkel

[nwboater]

The whole dilemma is 'what is misinformation'? So if people can't agree on it some will be upset when it's stopped.

I really think the idea of a separate 'Audiophile', or 'Subjective', or 'Just Plain Loco' or whatever section of the Forum is the best bet. If things get too subjective in the main threads, move the topic there. Or better still hopefully some of the subjective topics will be started there. 

Cheers,
Rod

Okay in the last few posts we have a great example of the dilemma. We have two active, very bright, knowledgeable, and quite helpful members of the Forum who both see the issue so differently from each other. I would like to see the Forum structured in a way that could handle both of them in these types of discussions. But I do think it needs to have it's own area's.

Cheers,
Rod

[kstuart]

"Both objectivists and subjectivists should be able to visit the forum and feel comfortable participating.  However, nobody should have a license to drive others away."

The best way would be for people to just ignore other people who have different viewpoints, which is fine with me.

However, what we see is that the sequence is:

Customer Question: " Can MC18 do memory play ?   I find that memory play sounds better to me. "

Objectivist:  " You don't need memory play, because I don't personally know of any theory that would allow it to sound better. "

I never find an Objectivist statement in a Customer Question about MC18.   So, the debate only comes about because Objectivists are constantly posting to tell Customers that they are imagining things.

[MrC]

I like to listen to the very cogent Mr. Listener.

[Vincent Kars]

A couple of posts in this tread are probably a nice example when to draw a line.

It has nothing to do with Matt’s question
It has nothing to do with JRiver
It is the usual fruitless objectivist/subjectivist discussion.

[mojave]

What was the average temperature on Monday in Denver, CO? The objectivist looks it up and says 46 F. The subjectivist says at least in the 60's. By only using temperature data from the National Weather Service, either one could be right. 

I agree with Listener. Interact is probably my favorite forum because of its focus on JRiver Media Center and the respect posters usually show to each other. Whenever posts contain ridicule I lose interest in the thread.

I don't think JRiver should come up with a set of rules, but should graciously allows some threads to continue when there is respectful disagreement. If people get too upset, lock the thread. I think that dead-horse topics should be left to other forums so as to not take away from Interact's focus on helping users with JRiver. I appreciate JRiver pointing out its (or their) viewpoints in a "subjectivist" thread about how A sounds better than B, but don't think it is always necessary. In my opinion, JRiver has done an appropriate job of moderation and interjection into threads without being heavy handed. Keep up the good work!

[eddyshere]

I think Interact is generally useful, respectful, and fun.

For better or worse, JRiver is run by engineers that like logic, provable facts, double-blind tests, etc.
(...)
Where should JRiver be in this spectrum?

I think that technical discussions about audio/video quality should be in a separate topic group for all audiogurus out there. (if I have one only phrase for the audio quality voodootalk then it would be :"If you like what you hear then your setup is right". Music is bound to emotions feelings and perception and it simply cannot be stripped down to technical charts. Like it or not but People hear differently". Now that this is said :

 Following the forum now since a while and being myself an IT audio geek (in my spare time), I'm always amazed how often you see posts like : OP : I would like to convert this to that, how do I do it in MC -> First reply : Why do you want to do that ?

Should we not all be more disciplined and try to just give answers from user to user ? Now I know that this goes a bit against the "philosophy" of a forum (open discussions) but as the customer base is growing larger and larger, more and more MC beginners are often overwhelmed with the possibilities this software has and often don't understand ground concepts of PC based audio and video.

I think that in better organizing topics we might bring some clarity to it. I would love to see maybe a topic : How do I do this and that. (I know that this is today deemed to be in the wiki but let's face it several wiki entries are no longer actual. If I would have to "categorize" I would maybe make something along :

1. running MC (which is the how do I do this -> simple answer  (AND NOT the : why do you want, I have always said this is missing, oh if you run the compiler then by changing command line 46 you might be able to achieve...)

2. integrating MC into my setup (which would be the how do I run MC when I want music in 3 rooms and I have a sonos and a this dlna...)

3. understanding MC and computer Audio/video playback (which would be more general concepts...actually most of what is in the wiki

4. etc...

Just my five cents

[Listener]

I like to listen to the very cogent Mr. Listener.

Nobody has ever called me cogent.  I'll have to look it up.

Thanks! You give lots of good advice on this forum. A positive word from you is specially appreciated.

Bill

[MrC]

Your thorough redesign of Filter in Both Directions still leaves me giddy.

[Listener]

Your thorough redesign of Filter in Both Directions still leaves me giddy.

I had suggested the change a couple of times before without convincing Matt.  I felt that I had to be very thorough in making my arguments and documenting the reasoning to convince him.

Lobbying for bi-directional filtering in the first place was somewhat controversial.  (I wasn't the only one asking for it.  I don't think that I made the initial suggestion.) Matt added an option so that the bi-directional and left-right partisans could both be happy.

Bill

[DarkPenguin]

Please please please leave the really funny, I mean, enlightening "lossless v lossless" and "bulgarian style electrical cords provide perkier highs" threads open.

[JustinChase]

I've been pretty consistently coming here for over a decade.  This is the ONLY forum I can say that about.  I think that says a lot.  JRiver generally handles these situations well.  As one that has seen many threads spiral out of control, only to be later reigned in and cleaned up, and left mostly in tact, I can say the controlling hand is well managed, and any changes should not be drastic.

Also, I just want to point out that I'm happy that user 6233638 has taken up residence here.  Their input has been long appreciated in the madVR and LAV threads on Doom9, and so far their input here has been pretty spot on, IMO.  Thorough, well thought out input and ideas.  Welcome.