Why is science just a starting point and not an end point?

Test tones are a good indication if your component is capable of delivering the musical signal in its entirety so you can decide how it sounds.

To what end? If I am going to need to listen to the audio equipment to decide how it sounds, what possible value does the results obtained from test tones give me?

I'd rather not know how a musical component test lest it clouds my judgement. I may find a component that perform badly with test tones more musical. 

Simple answer. Science is behind the curve because we do not know everything there is to know about sound, electricity, metallurgy, and how humans perceive sound. We know some things, but definitely not everything. Not even close. In short, we lack understanding. 

This is not a strange phenomenon. We have always lacked understanding. And thank goodness for that. It means we will never stop enquiring and learning as we try and come up with answers of what we observe. 

Why some "engineers" (roll eyes) on this forum think they know everything about human hearing and the measurement of sound and electricity is beyond me. That would mean there is nothing more to learn on this topic which is baloney. We know more than we knew 50 years ago, in after the next 50 years, we will know more than we know today.

An interesting article pertaining to the "know-all's" on the forum.  Scientism | Psychology Today

The article on scientism is nonsense. I’ve read it, it’s so full of holes to be useless.

Of course you’d claim it’s nonsense. It exposes people like you.

The irony is that you don’t seem to have the presence of mind to realize that your posts are proof positive to everyone else on the forum that scientism is real.

" Test tones can show distortion and noise better than music. :

It doesn't.

Many amplifiers with very low THD numbers sound terrible. Many amps with bad THD numbers sound very good. 

Test tones are well chosen to stress the device under test.

That would have been very important if I wanted an amplifier to draw nice sinus curves on my oscilloscope. I don't. 

How much value you get from it is up to you.

Indeed. I can convince myself a bad sounding amp sounds good because it has a low THD. Or I can trust my ears and choose great sounding equipment on the basis of what it sounds to me.

I don't reject all claims without scientific proof, only ridiculous claims where not even a bare minimum of effort was extended to see if it made sense.

 Observation does not need proof, nor is there any obligation on the observer to expend effort to provide you with an explanation, sensible or otherwise. 

Measurements and testing are vital to building good audio gear but so is listening they go hand in hand

If you are trying to allude that tests like THD is useful, the 1970’s called and they want their approach to building amps back.

Testing is useful to prevent smoke and fire, as well as to do things like match components and checking whether they are within spec. Nothing more. 

... but [science] should be able to measure the performance of equipment!

That would be very useful ... sadly it's biggest contribution currently is to make the hard-of-hearing believe that the rest of us are as ill equipped to judge sound based on hearing as they are. 

" Science is a methodology that allows you to detect patterns in data."

"Science" is organized knowledge, not a methodology. "Scientific method" is the underlying methodology which results in the creation of scientific knowledge

Detecting patterns in data is a component of "data analysis", and of recent the term "data scientist" has been coined to described individuals who study data analytics.

" Once the patterns are validated and determined useful, then the science gets applied."

Rather, once a hypothesis which is developed to explain an observation is tested to be correct, it becomes part of what we consider accepted science.


I have yet to see a single self appointed "person of science" on this forum follow scientific method. Rather, most believe that an observation is false when they lack the knowledge to develop a hypothesis. That is antithecal to science and accepted scientific practice.

Test tones also shows how equipment performs at listening levels

No they don’t. Some of us do have hearing that is both sensitive and reliable enough that we don’t need to a scope to tell us if we heard something or not. 

Good science is a very high bar. A theory must be proven universally true. That is why science is always a long way behind conjecture.

Name a single scientist fact that will not be proven at least partially untrue in the future. Not possible.

For example. You know that there is no such thing as gravity right? There is no force whereby one object attracts another. What we thought was gravity is a distortion of the fabric of space-time caused by mass.

Science is a very low bar. It describes the world in our current, and somewhat limited, understanding thereof. 

Look at Prof's post above then read the book mentioned. Nobody's hearing is reliable enough.

My audio system is there solely to please me; more exact, to please my hearing. If it pleases me, it is performing as it should. There is no higher judge than my ear as to what pleases my ear. 

You need test tones and a scope to know if your system pleases you? If that is the case, you are missing the point.