What happened to this forum?!

[fas42]

As regards the word, "objectivist", I have noted the, rare, use of the term, "measurist" ...

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

As regards the word, "objectivist", I have noted the, rare, use of the term, "measurist" ...

 

I think a much more accurate term in many cases

[Archimago]

3 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

You mentioned MD and I have equivalent degree (bachelor of Medicine and  Bachelor of Surgery prior to post grad specialist training and quals), meaning we are physicians ..actually Physician is a specialist degree in Oz and UK I believe, which I also have. Not sure why you would not want to specify your post grad specialist areas

 

Sure. Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry. Want to talk about the ideas now?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 minute ago, Archimago said:

 

Sure. Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry. want to talk about the ideas now?

 

A Psychiatrist or Neurologist?

 

For "ideas", refer back to the expanded version of my initial reply to you

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/69083-what-happened-to-this-forum/?do=findComment&comment=1264289

 

[PeterG]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

I'm not sure I understand what a subjective "objectivist" is?

 

i think of myself as an objective subjectivist, i.e. an empiricist.  I believe that many subjective observations can be objective.  Even better, survey a whole bunch of reasonably selected people observing separately, and there's a fair chance the majority will choose what's best. 

 

Obviously, many things come down to taste, such as Wilson vs Magico, or chocolate vs vanilla.  But I think you get my drift

[botrytis]

5 minutes ago, PeterG said:

 

i think of myself as an objective subjectivist, i.e. an empiricist.  I believe that many subjective observations can be objective.  Even better, survey a whole bunch of reasonably selected people observing separately, and there's a fair chance the majority will choose what's best. 

 

Obviously, many things come down to taste, such as Wilson vs Magico, or chocolate vs vanilla.  But I think you get my drift

 

A subjective idea cannot be objective. That is the issue.

[pkane2001]

17 hours ago, Jud said:

 

The intervening time between the tones to be compared in Deutsch's experiment (with a demonstration on the page I linked) was a few seconds, not half a second. If you mean the time between the tone to be recalled and the onset of the intervening sounds, then yes, that time can be very short indeed.

 

What the experiment showed is that the very worst situation for the memory of a tone (pitch) is for musical sounds to be played in the interim between the tone to be recalled and the second tone to be identified as identical or not to the first. As Deutsch puts it:

 

 

Deutsch goes on to explain that non-musical information between the tones, such as speech, does not interfere with our recollection of the initial tone in the same way, thus indicating that we use precisely the type of specialized memory store for music she mentions.

 

When we compare sounds in a blind sequential A/B test between two pieces of audio equipment, hopefully we are not dealing with any equipment that actually gets something as fundamental as pitch wrong, but more subtle qualities. So let's say we play a musical selection from piece of equipment A, then one from piece of equipment B. Just as in Deutsch's experiment, we are playing music, then there is intervening music that replaces the first musical selection in our specialized memory store. So then how are we supposed to compare the two if the first selection is effectively gone? We might by extremely rapid switching compare identical notes between equipment A and equipment B without any intervening tones, and that would of course allow us to identify whether piece of equipment B was playing the same pitch as A; but what possibility is there to compare qualities such as very low level distortion or noise, reverberation and decay, ability to separate the musical lines of various instruments, ability to handle transient attack and release, etc., within a second?

 

Hi Jud, sure, there were a few studies, as I recall, finding that pitch recall was the only thing affected by this type of masking. The result was only replicated when testing for pitch recognition, and not any other aspects of sound. Which is why I doubt this particular result was directly related to echoic memory, as what you suggest as the "destruction" of previous recording in echoic memory by the next sound event should, in theory, affect all aspects of sound recognition.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

15 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

A subjective idea cannot be objective. That is the issue.

 

Not in the purist sense but I find the lines blur very easily

[botrytis]

11 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Not in the purist sense but I find the lines blur very easily

 

Not even squinting at it. It is or it is not. 

 

What you are doing is called delusion.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

18 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Hi Jud, sure, there were a few studies, as I recall, finding that pitch recall was the only thing affected by this type of masking. The result was only replicated when testing for pitch recognition, and not any other aspects of sound. Which is why I doubt this particular result was directly related to echoic memory, as what you suggest as the "destruction" of previous recording in echoic memory by the next sound event should, in theory, affect all aspects of sound recognition.

 

Yeah, pitch (notes) and strings of notes (melody). I see these relevant factors in the context of blind testing audio and echoic memory.

 

The fact that there was no or less interference with various non musical sounds helps support the idea that there is a specificity for musical sounds in echoic memory. Rather than ponder that too much I would say that most research (from my memory) point to masking works "best" when the stimuli are similar.

 

An interesting quote from Art Noxon:

<quote>

If we are to rate the effectiveness of sound masking, the best masking comes from a sound that is just like the original, except that the masking sound is a time-and phase-scrambled version. The worst masking comes from a sound that is nothing like the sound that is being masked. How loud would a hiss sound have to be to mask the staccato tonal presence of a rapidly plucked bass guitar? Probably 40 dB louder than the guitar. If the guitar is being played at 50 dB, and a steam pipe hiss is kicked on at about 90 dB, maybe, just maybe, most of the guitar sound would be drowned out. This is not very effective masking.

But, if the reverberant sound of the guitar itself was used along with a wild set of time delayed attack transients mixed back in, we could sonically bury the guitar using a sound level that merely equals the guitar level alone. Now, that is effective masking-which is what we want to avoid. Post-masking is the psychoacoustic process of listening to a direct sound which is quickly followed by a sound masking type of sound. In the case of an uncontrolled room, the head-end ringing is post-masking the direct signal.</quote>

[PeterG]

35 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

A subjective idea cannot be objective. That is the issue.

 

I did not write that.  To be a bit more clear--I can take an objective path to the best subjective solution.  This is empiricism

 

I'm pretty sure Mr Spock does this a couple of times, then gets confused with himself, haha

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

34 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Not even squinting at it. It is or it is not. 

 

What you are doing is called delusion.

Well objective can mean not influenced by personal feelings or opinions, something that is real or not imagined; something that is without bias or prejudices. What you assess as objective I may not. That’s not a delusion but rather a variance of opinion.

Phenomenological psychologists might argue that a verifiable fact such as the color blue being blue may not be true for everyone because phenomena are experienced differently.
 

Moreover, people can claim to be objective and scientific but often IMO are more likely to be proffering subjective interpretations - As said earlier, evidence is a great thing but quality of evidence very much matters, as do conclusions based on that evidence, rigour of the scientific methodology used, validity of tests etc- it quickly becomes less "objective" than you might think . It becomes a clash of belief systems.That’s what I mean by blurred lines

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

31 minutes ago, PeterG said:

I can take an objective path to the best subjective solution

totally 👍

[Archimago]

3 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

A Psychiatrist or Neurologist?

 

For "ideas", refer back to the expanded version of my initial reply to you

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/69083-what-happened-to-this-forum/?do=findComment&comment=1264289

 

 

A bit of both :-). I did my psychiatry first, completed the residency, then another 2 years in inpatient and outpatient neurology (7 years total residency + fellowship after med school). Have my Royal College certification in Canada and the combined BNNP subspecialty from the US. Practicing for >20 years now.

 

These days, clinical work involves individuals with typically severe brain injuries, degenerative conditions (dementia, Huntington, Parkinson's), demyelinating conditions (MS), as well as seeing folks in the psychiatry world where I take on some of the more complex situations where neurologists and psychiatrists need that extra assistance. Treatments that combine the two areas like neurostimulation (ECT, TMS, MST) and the emerging world of "interventional psychiatry" are part of that day job as well.

 

Other than mentioning about having an MD (here and here), I generally don't talk about these details here or on my blog but when people E-mail me and we get to know each other, I'm happy to share my perspective working with the mind/brain and the anomalies of behavior, thought and emotion. Over the years, I've met many doctors in this hobby and some have even written guest posts on the blog. 😉

 

As you can imagine, the world of "audiophilia" encompasses many of these elements of emotion, cognition, and "behavior" (eg. the obsessiveness; even if it's just mental cogitation, not physical hoarding). A big part of the day job is to tease out which is which and achieve clarity in my own mind for the purpose of the biopsychosocial therapeutic process. To me, there is also a need to recognize the various "parts" of the audiophile pursuit (ie. hardware component effects, limitations of perception, room acoustics, the role of human psychology) that are addressed over time on the blog. 

 

As I have said many times before, especially during the MQA-years, who I am actually does not matter because we all have interesting lives, experiences and capable intellect. I trust other than getting ideas about what to buy and how best to enjoy music, naturally there are deeper philosophical ideas born out of our passion for the hobby we each can bring to these discussions.

 

Hence my question to you @Audiophile Neuroscience about your name incorporating that word "neuroscience" and why in the world you said you "doubt you and I will come to any meaningful agreement on many topics".

 

I actually suspect the opposite is true if we were to meet over a nice meal and drinks given I'm sure that we will have many shared professional experiences that we'll agree on!

 

BTW, while most of my life has been spent in the clinical medical world, I started off being interested in computer science which was much of my undergrad years in university and the summer jobs back in those days. When home computers + digital audio came together in the late '90s and early 00's, I felt this to be a very comfortable merger and enjoyed visiting this Computer Audiophile site.

 

Anyhow, weekend's almost over and it's the week before Christmas so will be busy at work. Gotta run... Have a lovely holiday season everyone if we don't get to chat.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

A bit of both :-). I did my psychiatry first, completed the residency, then another 2 years in inpatient and outpatient neurology (7 years total residency + fellowship after med school). Have my Royal College certification in Canada and the combined BNNP subspecialty from the US. Practicing for >20 years now.

 

These days, clinical work involves individuals with typically severe brain injuries, degenerative conditions (dementia, Huntington, Parkinson's), demyelinating conditions (MS), as well as seeing folks in the psychiatry world where I take on some of the more complex situations where neurologists and psychiatrists need that extra assistance. Treatments that combine the two areas like neurostimulation (ECT, TMS, MST) and the emerging world of "interventional psychiatry" are part of that day job as well.

 

Other than mentioning about having an MD (here and here), I generally don't talk about these details here or on my blog but when people E-mail me and we get to know each other, I'm happy to share my perspective working with the mind/brain and the anomalies of behavior, thought and emotion. Over the years, I've met many doctors in this hobby and some have even written guest posts on the blog. 😉

 

As you can imagine, the world of "audiophilia" encompasses many of these elements of emotion, cognition, and "behavior" (eg. the obsessiveness; even if it's just mental cogitation, not physical hoarding). A big part of the day job is to tease out which is which and achieve clarity in my own mind for the purpose of the biopsychosocial therapeutic process. To me, there is also a need to recognize the various "parts" of the audiophile pursuit (ie. hardware component effects, limitations of perception, room acoustics, the role of human psychology) that are addressed over time on the blog.

 

 

Okay cool. In Oz I think (it may possibly have changed to include the term Behavioural Neurologist in the past 30 years) we (used) to refer to that speciality as simply Neuropsychiatrist. I did a 3 months residency in that field as part of my Neurology training and before Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. I also worked in spinal cord medicine. Much of my post-graduate specialist work involved multi/inter disciplinary teams with neuropsychs and pyschologists, psychiartrists, neurosurgeons, spinal surgeons, allied health etc

 

I 'qualified' in Pain Medicine but in the days when it was under the faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine in this country. As I had a senior position in a University Pain Clinic I was offered an honorary degree in what was then the newly created Pain Medicine Faculty. I declined, silly me.

 

My premed days were in pure science, mainly physics but also chemistry, organic chemistry and of course biochemistry back in the days when it was a 6 year undergrad medical degree (now 5 years). I continued with Physics as an elective.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

Hence my question to you @Audiophile Neuroscience about your name incorporating that word "neuroscience" and why in the world you said you "doubt you and I will come to any meaningful agreement on many topics".

 

I actually suspect the opposite is true if we were to meet over a nice meal and drinks given I'm sure that we will have many shared professional experiences that we'll agree on!

 

I have little doubt that over a meal and drinks we would become good friends. As I said previously, you seem like a nice guy (not that my opinion particularly counts). I agree that we will have many shared professional experiences that we'll agree on. Despite the similarities in our backgrounds we don't have to agree on certain topics (especially in the audiophile domain). You will know that from attending team meetings.

 

I confess, now knowing your background, especially knowing your background, to be a little surprised at your style of writing. Something I am happy to pursue at another time, probably best privately.

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

BTW, while most of my life has been spent in the clinical medical world, I started off being interested in computer science which was much of my undergrad years in university and the summer jobs back in those days. When home computers + digital audio came together in the late '90s and early 00's, I felt this to be a very comfortable merger and enjoyed visiting this Computer Audiophile site.

 

explains the interest in digital audio and testing

 

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

Anyhow, weekend's almost over and it's the week before Christmas so will be busy at work. Gotta run... Have a lovely holiday season everyone if we don't get to chat.

Likewise, all the best

David

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

As I have said many times before, especially during the MQA-years, who I am actually does not matter because we all have interesting lives, experiences and capable intellect. I trust other than getting ideas about what to buy and how best to enjoy music, naturally there are deeper philosophical ideas born out of our passion for the hobby we each can bring to these discussions.

 

The topic came up earlier in this thread. I agree everybody's opinion is based on merit but I prefer to start with opinions from those most qualified and experienced in the particular field. Not an absolute appeal to authority but credentials matter.

[STC]

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

The topic came up earlier in this thread. I agree everybody's opinion is based on merit but I prefer to start with opinions from those most qualified and experienced in the particular field. Not an absolute appeal to authority but credentials matter.

 

 

I am not sure about that when it comes to this hobby. Every expert seems to be well qualified as audio engineer, but they didn’t see eye to eye with Ralph of Ambiophonics. In fact, the biggest opposition came from the members of AES.”

[Jud]

5 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Hi Jud, sure, there were a few studies, as I recall, finding that pitch recall was the only thing affected by this type of masking.

If you don’t recall amongst the many studies you’ve read it’s understandable, but if any such studies do come readily to mind I’d love to read them. Always happy to have my mind changed by new facts.

 

One area you don’t need to reference is loudness. There we do manage to retain a recollection (even possibly if the loudness difference is too small to consciously realize), and favor the louder version, which is why it’s so essential to equalize volume in testing.

 

In that connection, I wonder whether volume changes within a selection of music to be compared might affect the outcome. For example, if volume at the end of the selection is lower than at the beginning, loudness will jump when switching from device A to device B; and the opposite will occur if loudness increases during the selection. So is the best musical selection for comparison one without any dynamics, even a variation of 1dB? If so, what are the consequences for ability to compare, for example, handling of strong transients?

[Jud]

10 hours ago, PeterG said:

 

Airplane jokes aside, comparing systems is different and often much easier than identifying a few notes that may be difficult to remember.  I can remember or take notes on all sorts of aspects of sound.  I'd list them, but it would be a long list. 

 

8 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

True. Especially if the systems are in different rooms! 😉

Would you prefer to compare television pictures (assuming the differences are rather subtle) by means of notes taken at different times, or by viewing them simultaneously side by side?

 

Certainly one can make measurements of the televisions at different times, but then one is left to wonder whether any differences can be perceived.

[Jud]

20 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Yes and the similarity of the intervening notes making interference more prominent.

 

Extended listening is often cited as necessary to discern differences. If the ABX musical passages are longer, say one can listen to longer passages at will and switch back and forwards, how do you see the Deutsch research informing that sort of test?

I think you are in a situation of what one would call conjugate variables in Fourier analysis. As one listens to longer selections and thus can presumably better assess the capability of an individual device, the time and amount of music intervening between one device and another becomes greater, making comparisons between the two difficult or impossible. As the selections become very short, comparison between the two devices becomes possible, but assessment of the capability of each individual device becomes difficult or impossible.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

51 minutes ago, Jud said:

I think you are in a situation of what one would call conjugate variables in Fourier analysis. As one listens to longer selections and thus can presumably better assess the capability of an individual device, the time and amount of music intervening between one device and another becomes greater, making comparisons between the two difficult or impossible. As the selections become very short, comparison between the two devices becomes possible, but assessment of the capability of each individual device becomes difficult or impossible.

 

Favoring this hypothesis, echoic memory seems to defeat discerning between similar music selections even if parts of those selections are quite different. So, the ABX test reveals a false negative.

Then If extended listening at home under non "test" conditions, as most audiophiles would compare say cables or amplifiers, reveals a true positive difference - how does that factor in with echoic memory?

[Jud]

23 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Favoring this hypothesis, echoic memory seems to defeat discerning between similar music selections even if parts of those selections are quite different. So, the ABX test reveals a false negative.

Then If extended listening at home under non "test" conditions, as most audiophiles would compare say cables or amplifiers, reveals a true positive difference - how does that factor in with echoic memory?

Even in these situations, where I’ve had equipment in my home and consistently thought I’ve heard a positive difference between it and the previous piece of equipment, I can’t be objectively certain of it. 
 

I simply do what I can within what I consider sane budget parameters to reduce noise and distortion as much as possible (in accordance with objective measurements by others and equipment specs) while having a system through which I very much enjoy listening to music. Even where I can’t be objectively certain, I’ll go with a subjective feeling, as long as I know I’m not doing something that will objectively cause more distortion or noise. After all, it’s my system and I’m the one who has to be pleased with it. I don’t go for the “sonic spectacular” sort of thing, but rather what I subjectively feel allows me to appreciate the music as much as possible - a singer’s expressiveness, the intertwining of instrumental lines, etc.

 

I feel as if I’ve been reasonably successful. I’m very happy listening to music, and friends make dates to come over and hear their favorite artists. (My wife’s terrific Italian cooking may have something to do with it too. 😉) Hard to ask for more than that.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

5 hours ago, Archimago said:

Hence my question to you @Audiophile Neuroscience about your name incorporating that word "neuroscience"

 

In retrospect I should have maybe chosen "Audiophile Neuro" or something totally different. While I am aware there are now bachelor degrees in Neuroscience, broadly speaking neuroscience can refer to anything to do with the nervous system, an interdisciplinary affair looking at neural sciences which seemed to cover my background interests, areas qualified and worked, and perspective on Audiophile topics.