Can you hear the difference videos vs blind tests in person.

kerneltime

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I often see on YouTube videos around.. can you hear the difference between this cheap instrument vs this expensive one.. those should be renamed to can my mic accurately represent the difference.. even with HMS (the ukulele site) videos it is hard for me to tell what I would feel if I was to own the uke (I have ordered from them, the videos are nice but still hard to replicate what I would feel).

I did try a blind test when I owned a whole lot of sopranos.. I was able to pick the top 3 I liked when I played but boy was I wrong about being able to tell which one I was playing.. Cost does not equate to winning a blind test but it is satisfying to know that there is a reliable difference when our eyes are closed.

Have you'll tried blind tests of ukes played by yourself or having some one else play while you listen?

Are online videos a good indicator for you?
 
I used to pour over those videos and listen and relisten. There's some advantage if the ukes are all on the same video (same recording conditions), but it's a completely different experience to playing them yourself. Obviously, your choice of speakers/headphones makes a huge difference here.

I haven't done a blind test live, but watching the video exposes biases compared to listening to the video blind, especially if I've already decided my favourites ahead of time.
 
I used to pour over those videos and listen and relisten. There's some advantage if the ukes are all on the same video (same recording conditions), but it's a completely different experience to playing them yourself. Obviously, your choice of speakers/headphones makes a huge difference here.

I haven't done a blind test live, but watching the video exposes biases compared to listening to the video blind, especially if I've already decided my favourites ahead of time.
Oh yes! I forget.. more than the mic, it is the speakers (and everything else on the replay side.. encoding, stream quality, electronics) that have an impact.
I think groups of people should get together and do blind tests.
 
It's hard for me to hear much difference on a video. Especially since most of the time I'm hearing it through the tiny speaker on my phone. And I'm not hugely qualified, other than having ears, to point out many differences.

But I could easily tell the difference in tonal quality between my thinbody kids First Act toy guitar/baritone uke conversion and the old vintage Giannini baritone uke. Both with similar new flourocarbon strings.
I mean you could play music on the FG125..or 3.., but it might end up feedin the fire if it starts to get too cold.
The Giannini sounds great for not a lot more money, but I might not want to leave it out by the campfire all night.
 
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Myself and Sam13 did a blind sound test with a LfdM spruce/rosewood vs LfdM sinker redwood/Malaysian Blackwood vs Pono PC cedar/macassar ebony. Simon would play all three while I had my back turned, then I did the same to him. All instruments were low G with wound 4th and 3rd strings.

A couple of very interesting observations unfolded. When blindly listening it was less evident which was which. When playing each instrument the difference was very noticeable. One would think a spruce top, redwood top and cedar would sound very different, not really. Yes there was a difference but most recognizable when played.

I have always said even a 10% difference in sound can take a ukulele from just ok to great sounding.......for the player. The audience, that includes us listening on YouTube videos has a hard time discerning tonal properties.
 
Myself and Sam13 did a blind sound test with a LfdM spruce/rosewood vs LfdM sinker redwood/Malaysian Blackwood vs Pono PC cedar/macassar ebony. Simon would play all three while I had my back turned, then I did the same to him. All instruments were low G with wound 4th and 3rd strings.

A couple of very interesting observations unfolded. When blindly listening it was less evident which was which. When playing each instrument the difference was very noticeable. One would think a spruce top, redwood top and cedar would sound very different, not really. Yes there was a difference but most recognizable when played.

I have always said even a 10% difference in sound can take a ukulele from just ok to great sounding.......for the player. The audience, that includes us listening on YouTube videos has a hard time discerning tonal properties.

Were you blindfolded when playing the instruments? If not, do you think the visual aesthetics influenced what you heard? I've played multiple instruments, one after the other, while recording on a decent set-up (but not studio quality), and I'm convinced I hear differences in instruments. However, on playback, I struggle to hear any differences, which could easily be the result of the microphones and speakers. I don't believe my assessments in-the-moment were affected by pre-conceived notions or influenced by visual (or even tactile) cues, but I've never been certain. It just seems that, with multiple senses involved, the brain can play tricks. With respect to the OP's question about online videos being a good indicator, I think that there are too many factors on the recording end and the playback end to rely too heavily on videos.
Mike
 
I often see on YouTube videos around.. can you hear the difference between this cheap instrument vs this expensive one.. those should be renamed to can my mic accurately represent the difference.. even with HMS (the ukulele site) videos it is hard for me to tell what I would feel if I was to own the uke (I have ordered from them, the videos are nice but still hard to replicate what I would feel).

I did try a blind test when I owned a whole lot of sopranos.. I was able to pick the top 3 I liked when I played but boy was I wrong about being able to tell which one I was playing.. Cost does not equate to winning a blind test but it is satisfying to know that there is a reliable difference when our eyes are closed.

Have you'll tried blind tests of ukes played by yourself or having some one else play while you listen?

Are online videos a good indicator for you?

I put no faith in online sound clips. How were they recorded? I'm playing them back through 3" computer speakers. Come on!

What does impress me about those samples - on HMS, for example - is the fantastic skill of the players. I would never buy or reject a uke based on an online sound sample.
 
I was cruising the web the other day looking for a beater uke to replace my walnut Fluke I don't like and came across a Aklot that fit the bill of tenor cutaway and durable. I checked a few reviews and a couple of videos and liked what I heard, so I ordered it on sale from $125 to $65. I do have a very good stereo speaker system attached to my Mac with sub-woofer.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 39)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
Funny I should see this thread today, as I was just comparing 2 mahogany tenor ukes side by side! So I taped over my cellphone's camera, and did a little recording, a blind comparison. Certainly not studio quality recording, but my phone usually does pretty well IMO.

One of these ukes is an all solid mahogany Ohana tenor, probably $250 when new in 2007. The other is a brand new, inexpensive $43.00 Kmise tenor from Amazon. The Kmise was billed as all mahogany, with solid top, but the top certainly looks like ply to me. Both have Aquila strings, and were recorded dry into my cellphone on a tripod, about a foot away.

Which sounds better to you? I can hear a difference when I play them, and recorded too. To me, the first one sounds louder, woodier and more open, both live and recorded.

20191231_141625.jpg
 
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If all this does is prove that I have an untrained ear, so be it. I do hear a pronounced difference between the two. The second sounds much fuller and richer. And it does show that, without studio quality equipment, differences can be captured. More helpful, I think, when doing a side-by-side comparison than simply posting a sound sample of a single instrument.
 
The sound the instrument produces for a listener is not way up there in the list of reasons why I will love one ukulele and loathe another. For me, it’s a mixture of the sound I hear as the player, combined with the tactile sensation of holding it and playing it, along with a bit of the appearance of the instrument and even the smell of the instrument thrown in for good measure. So, no... audio recordings of instruments don’t really do much for me when it comes to buying ukes.
 
If all this does is prove that I have an untrained ear, so be it. I do hear a pronounced difference between the two. The second sounds much fuller and richer. And it does show that, without studio quality equipment, differences can be captured. More helpful, I think, when doing a side-by-side comparison than simply posting a sound sample of a single instrument.

If all this does is prove that I have an untrained ear, so be it. I do hear a pronounced difference between the two. The second sounds much fuller and richer. And it does show that, without studio quality equipment, differences can be captured. More helpful, I think, when doing a side-by-side comparison than simply posting a sound sample of a single instrument.

I agree with Jerome. The second sounded a little fuller to me because the low strings seemed a little louder.

It's interesting how the power of suggestion can work. If the reviewer makes a statement about what they hear, are we influenced by that? Studies would indicate that we are. I remember a blind study a few years ago. With guitars. The viewers were told that a musician would play the same song on two different guitars. That the reviewers found one guitar fuller and richer-sounding with clearer notes and better sustain. (Or something like that.) Votes and comments were taken for a week. With a running tally displayed. The second garnered more votes. With comments that reflected the characteristics that the reviewer had stated they could hear noticeable differences. Turned out that there was only one guitar played twice.

What did it prove? Not much. Did the player change his position tot he mic? Was his playing different each time? Did he play more vigorously? And so on.

Listening using earphones I find I can sometimes tell some general differences in the instruments. Some plastic bodied instruments come across as, well, plastic to me. I can make out the sustain sometimes.

The strings, I think, have a bigger influence in what I hear than the subtle differences between woods and constructions.

I have decided not to buy an instrument or two because of the sound sample I heard. They sounded dull and boxy. To me.

I think I heard a difference between the older Ko'Aloha tenor and the new one. It seemed more balanced in the highs and lows. But I wouldn't run out and buy one based upon that one sample.
 
I listened to the sound sample through some cheap earbuds at work and barely noticed a difference. Then I listened with some good earbuds and noticed more of a difference. Maybe a sound sample can sometimes tell you what you don't like, but when you like the sound sample you won't know for sure until you try it yourself.

A good player can make a cheap instrument sound great, so who knows?
 
I'll add a further wrinkle to this whole discussion. In addition to the response of the microphone used to record, the response of the speakers/headphones used to reproduce the sound, and whatever audio compression routine gets used (for instance by YouTube's encoding), several of my instruments have a very pronounced orientation effect.

What I mean by this is that they sound very different when your ears a behind/above the body (while playing) vs. when your ears are in front of the body (when you are the audience.)
 
Which sounds better to you? I can hear a difference when I play them, and recorded too. To me, the first one sounds louder, woodier and more open, both live and recorded.
I listened once and made a reply...listened again and disagreed with myself and deleted it. ha.
I'll admit I'm just listening through my laptop speakers....but there just isn't enough of a difference for me to warrant buying the more expensive instrument if the two were both well built and setup...even if one sounded slightly better. It'd have to be a huge difference.
Most of us probably do listen more "through laptop speakers" as we don't have as refined of an ear for this kind of thing as professional musicians who hear in super high quality. So long as there isn't anything grating to my ears in the sound of an ukulele I'm okay with it.

The HMS demos prove it's more about the player than the uke. So, no, I don't put a ton of stock in sounds clips or video demos. How someone else sounds playing a uke is different than I would sound.. Different player, different room, etc. etc.
 
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Funny I should see this thread today, as I was just comparing 2 mahogany tenor ukes side by side! So I taped over my cellphone's camera, and did a little recording, a blind comparison. Certainly not studio quality recording, but my phone usually does pretty well IMO.

One of these ukes is an all solid mahogany Ohana tenor, probably $250 when new in 2007. The other is a brand new, inexpensive $43.00 Kmise tenor from Amazon. The Kmise was billed as all mahogany, with solid top, but the top certainly looks like ply to me. Both have Aquila strings, and were recorded dry into my cellphone on a tripod, about a foot away.

Which sounds better to you? I can hear a difference when I play them, and recorded too. To me, the first one sounds louder, woodier and more open, both live and recorded.

View attachment 124045


I like the second one better.
Sound more focused and warm to me, whereas the first one might be considered open and jangly in some way.
Listening with over-ear Beyer Dynamics headphones.

While you cant count 100% on the sound form a sound sample representing what it will sound like in your hands, I still find them usefull. I am dissapointed that my ANueNue Tenor doesn't sound like Kalei Gamiao when I play it...
Several times I have drooled over the looks of an ukulele online, but stopped myself from buying it after listening to HMS sound samples. Though it sounded good, less aesthetically attractive ukuleles sounded better in comparison - so I didn't buy anyway. Not if I cant have it all, looks and sound.
 
What I do is to compare samples of different instruments from the same source back to back, especially the ones from The Ukulele Site. This gives me a general idea of what I might prefer over something else. My all-time benchmark for a full, warm, well-balanced sound is this one:

https://vimeo.com/95555490

Even so, it is though to compare because even from the same source, there are so many variables coming into play, not just that they feature different players (all of which are great), but also choice of song, strings, high G or low Gm, distance of the microphone, etc.

An interesting experience I keep having with these videos is that of the ukes I own, I totally recognize their distinctive voices when I play along the video of that exact instrument.
 
OK, the first uke in my video was the brand new $43.00 laminate Kmise, the second was the solid Ohana. I like both of them. The Kmise has more volume when I compare here, and sounds woodier, with more mids, to my ear. I like a loud uke, so sometimes that colors my opinion in a comparison, even if another uke being compared (with less volume) has better overall tone.

That being said, the Ohana (2nd uke) was bought by the original owner in 2007, played once for a performance, then stored away unplayed for 12 years in CA, until I just got it from him last week. So I'm hoping it opens up and develops into an even better uke as I put some playing time on it
 
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What I like about watching videos of the instrument playing is to observe which string and where on the fretboard the ukulele is being played. For me that helps me to intuit how deep is it's voice, etc.
 
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