Debunk Pseudo Science Claims

 Is there any audibly transparent DAC? Yes or no? TLDR: According to  SMSL SU-10 DAC Review | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum , the above DAC is considered as "audibly transparent" by those "Audio Science" guys.  Amongst all the DACs they measured (as of today, 8 June 2024), its SINAD is ranked the 1st as shown below: Does it really mean such DAC is audibly transparent? Before we can answer the question, let's look at the definition of "audibly transparent" DAC again. What is the definition of audibly transparent in general public? If you ask the general public who has Hi Fi system at home (here we are talking both Audiophiles and non-Audiophiles general public), they would give you something like the following for the definition of audibly transparent: Audiby Transparent is the holy grail they are looking for. If a DAC is audiby transparent, it means it does not introduce any audible sound of its own and reproduces the audio signal faithfully. In oth...

Seeing is believeing? Another trick of Pseudo Science: Demo TLDR: Analog or Digital? Magic? Source (at 4:33  D/A and A/D | Digital Show and Tell (Monty Montgomery @ xiph.org) (youtube.com)  ) How often you see a "perfect" and "smooth" sine wave on an oscilloscope (as shown above) when someone was attempting to "prove" that CD-quality music can reconstruct the analog output like the original.  To quote the exact phrase, " the analog ouput is still a perfect sine wave exactly like the original " (at 5:04  D/A and A/D | Digital Show and Tell (Monty Montgomery @ xiph.org) - YouTube ) Someone may said, "Yes, that's a perfect sine wave. Everyone can see a smooth sine wave is reconstructed from CD-quality digital input. Don't you see it? I can use an oscilloscope to reproduce the same thing myself to verify it." Hmm.. that's the art of Pseudo Science . They attempt to show "factual evidence" in front of you and tell you t...

 Another major characteristics of Pseudo Science: Naming. What is "audibly transparent"? TLDR: Naming   is another   art of Pseudo Science .  A forum named as "audio science review forum" or "sound science forum" doesn't automatically mean its contents / claims are based on objective scientific evidence. Most likely than not, these contents / claims are questionable as they are based on pseudo science " evidences " . Audibly Transparent Let's have a look of the term "audibly transparent". I did try a search ( Search results for query: audibly transparent | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum ) on the term "audibly transparent" on ASR. I found there are a lot of discussions / usage about it: One of the famous thread there is  Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused? | Page 468 | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum . It has 468 pages already and keep goi...

 Measurement accuracy, precision and Pseudo Science Looks like I spent way too much time these days related to my experience in a recent incident . Let's move on and come back to the focus of my blog, i.e. use critical thinking to debunk pseudo science claim How many people can tell the difference between accuracy and precision? I bet if you are into gun, you would probably know it for sure .  Look at the below graph: It should tell you what are the difference between accuracy and precision.  I bet that the understanding of the difference between accuracy and precision is so basic for any scientist/engineer. I was proven to be wrong again (thanks to various "audio science" forums and they are really eye-opening for me to see something I didn't see before). A lot of "scientist/engineer" can't tell the difference. "Precision part":  two DACs are measured to have very high SINAD. People in the "audio science" forums would call these two ...

 Catching Fire, Audio Science Forums, Pseudo Science Claim, Brainwash, and Awakening! Catching Fire is the 2nd movie of the Hunger Game series. The movie is very interesting. The following are the themes of the movie (from wikipedia): How these terms Catching Fire , Audio Science Forums , Pseudo Science Claim , Brainwash, and Awakening  can be linked together? Audio Science Forums and Pseudo Science Claim I'd explained why I created my blog and it shows clearly how audio science forums are linked with pseudo science claims.  Most of the writings in my blogs revealed the Pseudo Science Claim / behaviours happening in these "Audio Science" forums. I found that most of the senior members (and the moderators) are probably having an Electrical Engineering background. Their level of understanding of Audio Science is probably (at most) up to a level that an average electrical engineer could master.   Monty's video is a good example. Good mastery in Audio Science (and...

Confused with Part 1  of the discussion? Let me explain further... (source: " the Monty's video ", a "perfect" sine wave output) (By the way, thanks to the discussion on head-fi , I noticed the Monty's video was removed  from the official website .   if you click on the "Digital Show & Tell" link on the web site, you'll get the following: Hmm... why it was removed from the official site? Did someone find out it is mis-leading?  The YouTube copy of the same video was uploaded to the FLStudio channel by someone else. Probably they need to ask someone to remove it and they forgot. update: one fellow member in head-fi found out the video is somehow still available in the  offical site domain  However, it is not accessible from the of the main article ) As I expected, I got quite a lot of "strong" feedbacks from other people in various on-line discussions. Most of these are in the form of bullying-like argument except the one I found o...

Magic! Now you don't see it !   Background for our discussion: 1. As stated in " why I start my blog ",  I created my account (@sunjam) in Audio Science Forum (ASR ) for my journey in the Audio Science World on 19 March 2024. 2. I saw a lot of fun and inspiring topics in ASR 3. Meanwhile, I noticed the wrong belief (i.e. the claim) that " Hi-Res is useless " ( statement 1 ) were being promoted by a lot of ASR members (including "Major Contributors", "Donors", "Sponsor", "Industrial Insider") to the people who question the claim 4. Most of these supporters claim "statement 1" is " factual ". They emphasized that there are a lot of objective tests / measurements supporting such claim. For example, this is the  paper  (from Journal of the Audio Engineering Socieity) they used for the claim. (This blog explain why the paper does not support statement 1) 5. Some of these supporters even state th...