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

Of course, one could make judgements and opinions of the sound - that’s a starting point, not an end point.

Good post....

Not only we can interpret the sound of this amplifier experience but we will interpret it differently in different conditions...The fact that electronic design can produce good amplifier does not means that there is ONE only good amplifier for ALL ears at ALL ages and with different histories...

And in perception what one will call illusion for one will be reality for another one...Any perception is a mix of illusion and reality....The eye/brain create the perception of space for example....

It is simple to understand that through any perception we relate not only to what "seems" a static EXTERNAL object but we participate to an experience that create in a way many aspects of the phenomenon for us.... It is relevant for ALL phenomenon but to different degree...

A table is a table in a room different for each one of us, even if we all accept that this is the same table, but a table is not a table in the same way that a wave is a sound interpreted and translated in a specific qualitative experience by the ears/brain at some moment the qualitative diffreence between the experience of an object and a sound could be more intimate and personal....

Nevermind the good correlation between the electronical design and the relation to the way the ears perceive the results, the experience itself cannot be accounted for by numbers and measures only....Even adding acoustical and psychoacoustical laws to electronical design...


 In this debate objectivist versus subjectivist is for sure children play and not a wise division.... Because in perception that make no sense  nor in science....

But the way human ears INTERPRET and PERCEIVE the sound experience in a specific room with specific gear is different for each of us...

It is the reason why in the publicity of the marketing of electronical equalizer company recommend it to make any consumers free to use it for different kind of music, different room, different TASTES....

I met a reviewer that claimed he didn't like bass.


Quite often people have preferences for flaws in equipment that isn't neutral. A great example is SETs which have a variety of flaws that interact nicely with human perceptual rules. Tubes exist OTOH because many solid state amps have brightness and harshness due to improper application of loop feedback.


That's different from from saying that we can't measure what's going on. We can. But designers (particularly in high end audio) aren't always coming from an engineering background (or they probably would not be building SETs...) and to further muck things up some designers simply don't have the will (or are constrained by their employers) to make something that is actually neutral to the ear.

Human ears don't interpret and perceive sound the brain does. 

Science has to be applied. That’s what engineers do.

Quite often people have preferences for flaws in equipment that isn’t neutral.

Precisely what is interpreted like a flaw by an engineer can be a positive for a listener... It is because here there is 2 level of experience that ask to be correlated in the best way possible :the design engineering one and the listening experience...But the correlation process is dynamical measurement process between many dimensions and between many parameters in each dimensions, not a static definitive process once and for all under all aspects...

Even neutral is an asymptotic point or direction not a fixed reality....

That’s different from from saying that we can’t measure what’s going on

You explained very well in the case of amplifiers some CORRELATION between harmonics level and perception and the trade-off choices laid in front of the engineer...

But the perceptive experience is related to acoustic and to many other dimensions with all different parameters ....
Audio is a field related to many, many scientific fields and subfields and you know that way better than me...

Then there is scientific rational rules to use but no simple TRUTH reducing human experience to only rules  and replacing all POSSIBLE experiments by only one.... Sometimes a simple experiment speak volume in an imprevisible way....

This is the reason why there is improvement coming from all directions....

Science will alway be the starting point and human experience and freedom the endpoint...

Save for those who put their hope in the replacement of man by machines and the replacement of freedom by laws...But reading you i know that you are not one...

My best to you....