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AES Paper: A Meta-Analysis of High Resolution Audio Perceptual Evaluation

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voltronic:
http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18296

voltronic:
Not surprising that people couldn't distinguish between 192 and 176.4, as the ultrasound frequencies would be super-high.  48, 88.2, and 96 would be more relevant I think.  I would like to see DSD compared to those PCM rates.

If hearing ultra or near-ultrasound frequencies has anything to do with this, I think that the test subjects need to have a full range hearing exam first.

aaronji:
Interesting read.  Viewed solely from a methodological perspective, this paper is appallingly bad (I am sure Dr. Reiss is a fine engineer, but he would have benefited greatly from taking on a statistician as a co-author).  The fundamental assumption underlying meta-analysis, that both the independent and dependent variables are fairly homogeneous, seems not to have been met at all and it just gets worse from there (I am happy to elaborate if anyone is interested, although it will probably put you rapidly to sleep)...

It is also interesting to note Reiss' inherent bias, which comes through in his writing in many places.  It is surprising that the reviewers (apparently) did not comment on that or the sometimes dubious decisions that arose from it.  Actually, I am curious what the peer-review process at AES entails; they mention a "review board", but I wonder who participates in that, as they don't explain it any further.  I can state with great certainty that they did not seek out an expert in the use of meta-analytical tools. 

As an historical aside, the appendix is hilarious, describing in excruciating detail methods that have been available since the late fifties (Mantel-Haenszel) or the mid-eighties (DerSimonian and Laird, which is what's in the Cochrane software he used) and are very well-known.

voltronic:

--- Quote from: ~Jon Stoppable on July 18, 2016, 04:05:07 PM ---Was it a Dr.?  I thought it was a student paper!  No, I didn't read it that carefully :D

AES has always been a joke to me.  There are no real qualifications to join as far as I can see.

--- End quote ---

Full disclosure: I posted this study after only reading the abstract and skimming through, hoping the more knowledgeable here would be able to cut through the meat of it.  So I really didn't read it carefully, nor was I endorsing the findings.

I looked into AES membership once.  The amateur choir I sing with hires a so-called professional recording company to cover our concerts.  One of their engineers said he'd invite me or whatever after I took an interest in the mics he was using.  But after seeing how completely incompetent he and the rest of his company are at recording a choir and orchestra, I lost interest.

It reminds me of this:

--- Quote ---Please accept my resignation.  I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.
- Groucho Marx
--- End quote ---

aaronji:

--- Quote from: ~Jon Stoppable on July 18, 2016, 04:05:07 PM ---I thought it was a student paper! 

--- End quote ---

Most students would probably do better.  Although many do like to demonstrate how much they learned along the way, even if the details aren't relevant to the manuscript at hand (see: detailed appendix to this paper)...

I did read this thing pretty carefully, as it covers a topic I am interested in and because it uses methods that I am very familiar with (scores of publications).  It is a mess, to the extent that I don't think the conclusions can be taken seriously.  Maybe they are correct, maybe not; the same study, properly implemented, would probably shine some light on the subject.  In fairness, though, science has become so specialized that it is basically impossible to do these things on your own (which is why I said he should have asked a statistician to help him). 

As for AES, I will take you guys at your word (I have no idea).  I wish more of the papers were open access, though...

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