Everything sounds the same

[PeterSt]

22 minutes ago, mansr said:

The irrational claim is that the differences between components can't be measured.

 

OK, more literal : Of course they can. But this is different from attributing value to it. So a capacitor will show "noise". It may even show a pattern. But that doesn't mean that we can see whether it will sound better or not. For that we need to know quite a lot more. And btw, preferably it sounds still OK after 2 months of being in use. So it is also related to the ambient heat, etc. etc. etc. Nothing much new.

But what it comes down to is that we thus must measure "systems" as such. And now we are in trouble ... (kind of).

 

 

[mansr]

9 hours ago, lucretius said:

Really?

http://sciencenordic.com/pope’s-scientists-study-miracles

[rando]

The Christian Science Audio Monitor

 

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, rando said:

The Christian Science Audio Monitor

 

Ported.

[PeterSt]

No, slitted.

[PeterSt]

Crossed ?

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

OK, more literal : Of course they can. But this is different from attributing value to it. So a capacitor will show "noise". It may even show a pattern. But that doesn't mean that we can see whether it will sound better or not. For that we need to know quite a lot more. And btw, preferably it sounds still OK after 2 months of being in use. So it is also related to the ambient heat, etc. etc. etc. Nothing much new.

But what it comes down to is that we thus must measure "systems" as such. And now we are in trouble ... (kind of).

 

 

Depends on what the claims are.

 

Is the capacitor being marketed as “low noise”? Is it? Low ESR? Is it?

 

The “Stradivarius” violin isn’t marketed with any specific technical claims that I know of, so SQ rules. Many audio products are marketed with technical (or pseudo-technical) claims and that’s a huge difference. Eg “phase coherent”, “24 bit linear” etc etc etc etc.

 

If the marketing didn’t introduce technical terms, these debates would substantially go away.

 

My impression isn’t that people don’t value SQ, rather are offended by unsubstantiated technical claims.

[davide256]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

Depends on what the claims are.

 

Is the capacitor being marketed as “low noise”? Is it? Low ESR? Is it?

 

The “Stradivarius” violin isn’t marketed with any specific technical claims that I know of, so SQ rules. Many audio products are marketed with technical (or pseudo-technical) claims and that’s a huge difference. Eg “phase coherent”, “24 bit linear” etc etc etc etc.

 

If the marketing didn’t introduce technical terms, these debates would substantially go away.

 

My impression isn’t that people don’t value SQ, rather are offended by unsubstantiated technical claims.

And so it goes on ... electronics degrees trying to make what goes on inside the human head for hearing conform to what they know how to measure outside the head. Not impressed, wrong area of competency to govern decision. This should be governed by audiologists and educated music professionals using empirical testing methods. The simplistic measurements available to audio engineers don't match the sensitivities of the human ear and brain.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

The irrational claim is that the differences between components can't be measured.

 

That would indeed be an irrational claim.  That wasn't what the post I responded to was saying, as far as I could tell, though of course I could be wrong.

 

We'd probably get a range of opinions here regarding whether we know everything that's important to measure. But what is your opinion regarding whether the usual specifications for electronic components (discrete or ICs) comprise all those that we know may be important?

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

George, don't you realise that all science is intrinsically flawed ...

Not as intrinsically flawed as is that irrational construct known as religion. 

[kumakuma]

8 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Right.  And yet both Galileo and Newton were considered heretics at the time.

 

 

This is faulty logic along the lines of the Survivorship Fallacy.

 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/238/Survivorship-Fallacy

 

By focusing on the few who have made outrageous claims and who were proven right, you are ignoring the tens of thousands who have made outrageous claims, were proven wrong, and have been forgotten forever.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

This is faulty logic along the lines of the Survivorship Fallacy.

 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/238/Survivorship-Fallacy

 

By focusing on the few who have made outrageous claims and who were proven right, you are ignoring the tens of thousands who have made outrageous claims, were proven wrong, and have been forgotten forever.

Comparing oneself to the likes of Galileo and Newton is also rather conceited.

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Creationism isn't science because the hypothesis isn't disprovable. In normal science a phenomenon is observed and they a hypothesis is generated and experiments are designed to disprove the hypothesis. Observations alone don't constitute science regardless of the statistics e.g "everybody knows"

What do you think the quotes around the words science and scientist are for? Creation science isn't trying to disprove anything, they are trying to prove something so silly and so naive that it's right up there with proving Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. And a lot of these audio tweak sellers are not too far removed from Creation Science. I.E. they have an answer, and the've worked backwards to try to curve fit the facts to fit that answer. Interesting point about Creation Science. These people hire actual scientists, i.e. people with actual degrees in scientific disciplines such as geology, paleontology, archeology, sociology, etc. But these people aren't doing any real research, but I suspect they are doing more science than the audio voodoo-ist! 

[Sonicularity]

19 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

That would indeed be an irrational claim.  That wasn't what the post I responded to was saying, as far as I could tell, though of course I could be wrong.

 

We'd probably get a range of opinions here regarding whether we know everything that's important to measure. But what is your opinion regarding whether the usual specifications for electronic components (discrete or ICs) comprise all those that we know may be important?

 

I was assuming that the four different manufacturing processes of each of the capacitors were not impacting the overall sound of the final product as would be typically measured when analyzing for an audible difference.   I was referring to the idea that if only a capacitor was swapped that was within 1% tolerance, and everything else being equal, it didn't make logical sense this capacitor alone was responsible for any perceived difference with the sound.

 

Maybe everyone involved in the test prefers one of the letters used to distinguish between the different test samples and so they chose that one?   I think there was a difference in the audio that was detected, but I cannot accept, without more information, that it was simply the result of spraying something on a cap.   

[gmgraves]

10 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

For a long time I have been fascinated with the parallels between these two sets of believers.

 

Interesting tidbit:  I've only received credible threats to my well-being and job from two sets of people:  Creationists (for publishing stuff on evolution in Science), and audiophiles (for posting here).

 

Many so-called subjectivists (I hate those terms "subjectivist" and "objectivist") aren't too far from the creationism clowns. They are both trying to prove things that simply don't exist. 

[mansr]

17 minutes ago, Jud said:

We'd probably get a range of opinions here regarding whether we know everything that's important to measure. But what is your opinion regarding whether the usual specifications for electronic components (discrete or ICs) comprise all those that we know may be important?

Data sheets for components provide a slew of properties, far more than the basic parameters like capacitance and ESR (if we're talking about capacitors). From reputable manufacturers, that is. Good luck finding any specs for "audio" components distinguishing them from standard high-grade parts.

[Superdad]

15 hours ago, mansr said:

Something tells me you didn't even attempt to measure whatever differences you imagined hearing.

 

14 hours ago, mansr said:

That's not what anyone would call statistically significant.

 

13 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Really?  The odds of 4 people randomly all making the same 1-out-of-4 choice is 0.39%.  

 

3 hours ago, mansr said:

The irrational claim is that the differences between components can't be measured.

 

You like to move the goal posts don’t you?  So which is it you can not abide?:

a) Four different speaker designers all preferred through listening the same slight metallurgical variant of end-spray (out of 4 secretly labeled versions; the odds for it happening by chance are minuscule);

or

b) That measurements to quantify the differences were not made.  (There are plenty of measures that have been made on our caps: DA, DF, inductive reactance curves, etc., but a change in end-spray or oven time, even if they registered slight measured difference would likely not correlate with what is heard.)

 

You continue to mistakenly think I am anti-measurement an/or anti-science.  However it seems it is you—and some of your brethren—who come across as anti-science with your steadfast dismissals of supplemental use of empirical observation via A/B/A/B comparisons with trained human ears.

 

 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Superdad said:

You like to move the goal posts don’t you?  So which is it you can not abide?:

a) Four different speaker designers all preferred through listening the same slight metallurgical variant of end-spray (out of 4 secretly labeled versions; the odds for it happening by chance are minuscule);

One test with four participants, never replicated, means nothing whatsoever regardless of the outcome.

 

1 minute ago, Superdad said:

or

b) That measurements to quantify the differences were not made.  (There are plenty of measures that have been made on our caps: DA, DF, inductive reactance curves, etc., but a change in end-spray or oven time, even if they registered slight measured difference would likely not correlate with what is heard.)

So you're saying that immeasurable differences result in readily audible changes to the sound. That is simply not plausible.

 

1 minute ago, Superdad said:

You continue to mistakenly think I am anti-measurement an/or anti-science.

You are certainly not pro-science.

[Richard Dale]

17 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

This is faulty logic along the lines of the Survivorship Fallacy.

 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/238/Survivorship-Fallacy

 

By focusing on the few who have made outrageous claims and who were proven right, you are ignoring the tens of thousands who have made outrageous claims, were proven wrong, and have been forgotten forever.

This is where we need the ideas of Thomas Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, instead of the usual talk of Popperian Falsification. Galileo and Newton created paradigm shifts in scientific research, and the other guys who we've forgotten about didn't create such shifts.

[look&listen]

22 minutes ago, Superdad said:

You continue to mistakenly think I am anti-measurement an/or anti-science.  However it seems it is you—and some of your brethren—who come across as anti-science with your steadfast dismissals of supplemental use of empirical observation via A/B/A/B comparisons with trained human ears.

Please do not feed self identified troll! he only want to sow & feed off confusion, dissension & chaos. 'logic' is irrelevant, only tactic. Brings no value to forum. 

 

IMO, member Ignore list key to sane use of CA forums. Hover over troll's avatar & popup has Ignore button at bottom for easy use. What is Alex's time worth? So little to waste on useless typing to feed twisted emotions?

[wgscott]

23 minutes ago, Richard Dale said:

This is where we need the ideas of Thomas Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, instead of the usual talk of Popperian Falsification. Galileo and Newton created paradigm shifts in scientific research, and the other guys who we've forgotten about didn't create such shifts.

 

This is exactly where Kuhn got it completely wrong.

 

It was only because Heliocentrism makes falsifiable predictions, that could be experimentally tested and in fact falsified, that Galileo prevailed.

 

 

[Superdad]

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

One test with four participants, never replicated, means nothing whatsoever regardless of the outcome.

 

Well it meant quite a bit to the speaker manufacturers who participated since we moved forward with production of the variant that they all ranked as the best.

 

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

So you're saying that immeasurable differences result in readily audible changes to the sound. That is simply not plausible.

 

No. I am saying that none of the traditional parameters which could be readily measured would correlate or indicate the significant (to speaker designers who knew their crossovers well and to whom subltle differences matter) sonic variation between the variously built capacitors.  And I am saying that it was more efficient and effective for aural observations to be used to make final manufacturing process determination. (And you will hear this from the majority of successful high-end audio manufacturers.)

 

I still have some of the coded variant samples used in the test.  Would you like me to send you the best ranked and the worst ranked for you to see what differences you can measure?  See if you can tell by measurement which variant will perform best.

 

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

You are certainly not pro-science.

 

No, I just happen to hang about here so you like using me as a straw man for you snark. 

[Richard Dale]

32 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

This is exactly where Kuhn got it completely wrong.

 

It was only because Heliocentrism makes falsifiable predictions, that could be experimentally tested and in fact falsified, that Galileo prevailed.

 

 

My understanding is that Heliocentrism made falsifiable predictions about Geocentrism, which proved to be correct. So it wasn't Heliocentrism that was falsified, it was Geocentrism.

 

Popper may have argued that they were both theories because they were both falsifiable. Maybe Popper doesn't capture the idea of a theory giving better predicitions which more easily match reality, and which don't need lots of exceptions and caveats that are characteristic of a paradigm in crisis that is nearing the end of it's life. Geocentrism was beginning to give everyone big headaches at the time as far as I know.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

Well it meant quite a bit to the speaker manufacturers who participated since we moved forward with production of the variant that they all ranked as the best.

 

 

No. I am saying that none of the traditional parameters which could be readily measured would correlate or indicate the significant (to speaker designers who knew their crossovers well and to whom subltle differences matter) sonic variation between the variously built capacitors.  And I am saying that it was more efficient and effective for aural observations to be used to make final manufacturing process determination. (And you will hear this from the majority of successful high-end audio manufacturers.)

 

I still have some of the coded variant samples used in the test.  Would you like me to send you the best ranked and the worst ranked for you to see what differences you can measure?  See if you can tell by measurement which variant will perform best.

 

 

No, I just happen to hang about here so you like using me as a straw man for you snark. 

 

Since I’ve been focused on unsuccessful high-end manufactures lately is their behavior different?

[jabbr]

10 hours ago, Superdad said:

Right.  And yet both Galileo and Newton were considered heretics at the time.  I think you are supporting my point.    The pioneers are the ones that end up with arrows in their backs.

 

Newton was hardly considered heretic though he became very eccentric later on n life. He was certainly a character though but held very prominent positions. His contributions to science cannot be overstated. 

 

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is considered the father of Empiricism but served as Lord Chancellor of England and was knighted. From his work the Royal Society was formed which Sir Isaac Newton served as President — so hardly a heretic!

 

They and other scientists such as Benjamin Franklin were held in high esteem that translated into politics.