Audio Science Review = Rebuttal and Further Thoughts

When someone is seated at the piano, we are generally not debating whether person A is hearing a piano and person B is hearing an organ or a flute. There is little debate and imagination as to a piano being a real thing, and its sound being a real thing.

They do imagine it. Our senses are imaginary at a very basic level. That’s why a machine doesn’t replicate what we “hear.

And hence the measurements tell us how closely a playback of say a piano sounds like, say… a real piano.

We do not care whether person B hears a piano sounding like flute, we only care that it is replicated correctly.

To talk about brains and personal experiences is delving into psychology and neuroscience, whereas the playback system is electromechanical. We have to draw the line somewhere.

To talk about subjective differences in hearing, is burying one’s head in the sand as to the reality of what is happening.
That thinking belongs in a course on philosophy and not in engineering or physics, and hence it belongs in a coffee house and not in an audio shop or engineering laboratory.

And hence the measurements tell us how closely a playback of say a piano sounds like, say… a real piano. We do not care whether person B hears a piano sounding like flute, we only care that it is replicated correctly.

if you need measurements to tell a piano from a flute, then I don’t know what to tell you… Maybe take on another hobby?

@cd318 exactly - & that's why i have no quarrel on principle with more objective minded approaches to evaluating gear. people are doing their own thing. some prefer to approach it from a purely "show me the evidence" engineering sort of perspective, while others would rather primarily rely on their senses first. i lean towards the latter but there is obviously real value in the former - after all, this hobby wouldn't exist if it weren't for the efforts of a century-plus worth of electronics nerds. ultimately which "camp" people fall into makes no difference to me because at the end of the day, if i'm drawn closer in to the music, i'm happy. we should all stop playing stereo cop and just accept that different people value different things in their gear. just my .02c

if you need measurements to tell a piano from a flute, then I don’t know what to tell you… Maybe take on another hobby?

Sorry @thyname but I am person A in the above scenario. so I cannot speak to what the person B’s hearing.

Maybe take it up with @prof  or @cd318 
I think they both were responding to your posts earlier, and my comments stemmed from those.

This one of their’s was a pearler.

Now it would appear as if all of those differences were largely in our imaginations and have now become as irrelevant as the use of leeches has in healing the sick.

again - I don’t care how you hear, or what you hear… I just want whatever I play to sound like the recorded sound. 

@holmz

I don’t care how you hear, or what you hear… I just want whatever I play to sound like the recorded sound.

Doesn’t everyone?

Some may feel that they can do this by ear alone. The so called ’golden ear’ brigade who have assurance that their hearing is consistently reliable and trustworthy.

All of this without access to the original source of the recording.

Others might want some measurements as a reassurance that their system will be a well balanced one which can handle all genres, all recordings with equal aplomb.

There are some designers who like to combine the 2 approaches.

Peter Comeau of IAG says that he begins with the science (flat frequency response etc) and then finishes by fine tuning by ear.