@terry9
I think you may be conflagrating "scientific research" with "empirical experimenting". Strictly speaking, it isn’t really necessary for us to ’establish facts’ or ’principles’ or in some way necessarily advance the cause of science in order to justify an experiment. We are hobbyists first. More often than not, we only need to enlighten ourselves, to address the unknown issues that are immediately in front of us, not the ones that define a specific school of scientific thought.
So if, say, we don’t know something...something even quite simple, like "How do I know if I really need room treatments??", or "Are the effects of insulation audible in audio wires??" and we have just no real clue as to what the possible answer might be, then likely as not, a simple, even rudimentary experiment might be in order. You know, the simpler the better. Like taking a bunch of sheets or towels or dirty socks or whatever and trying to systematically place them around the listening room to get a feel for not only whether or not you could benefit from absorption, but also where the most important problem spots in your room might actually be. Or deciding to take an old couple of pairs of Monster Cable IC’s you have lying around and take the time to strip away all the insulation on one pair and leave the other pair untouched (your control group) and swap them in and out of your system and compare them. I know because I myself found it necessary at some point to run both experiments.
It’s odd, but I think this is really a widespread problem in this hobby in particular...and in fact, it’s likely a problem for us virtually nowhere else in our lives. If we get our car stuck in some sand, we think to toss some gravel or other debris in front of the mired tire in order to get some traction. It’s just that we’re not having to do this while also trying to visualize how electrons might be moving through a lattice. Unfortunately, in this hobby many folks seem to be walking around with their minds already blown when it comes to how expansive most of the concepts are. And it’s particularly because of the newness of that state of expanded awareness that seems to readily interfere with our normal ability or inclination to reduce problems down to their simplest terms in order to get a better grip on them. It’s also odd to me in a similar way, that I think that people as a matter of course, can ’switch on’ this expanded frame of mind whenever they happen to be occupying themselves with the hobby and then switch it off when they’ve disengaged the subject matter...never once it having occurred to them to try switching it ’off’ once in a while when they are trying to come to grips with something new in the hobby.
And please don’t anyone get the idea that this has escaped the attention of manufacturers and marketers.
I think you may be conflagrating "scientific research" with "empirical experimenting". Strictly speaking, it isn’t really necessary for us to ’establish facts’ or ’principles’ or in some way necessarily advance the cause of science in order to justify an experiment. We are hobbyists first. More often than not, we only need to enlighten ourselves, to address the unknown issues that are immediately in front of us, not the ones that define a specific school of scientific thought.
So if, say, we don’t know something...something even quite simple, like "How do I know if I really need room treatments??", or "Are the effects of insulation audible in audio wires??" and we have just no real clue as to what the possible answer might be, then likely as not, a simple, even rudimentary experiment might be in order. You know, the simpler the better. Like taking a bunch of sheets or towels or dirty socks or whatever and trying to systematically place them around the listening room to get a feel for not only whether or not you could benefit from absorption, but also where the most important problem spots in your room might actually be. Or deciding to take an old couple of pairs of Monster Cable IC’s you have lying around and take the time to strip away all the insulation on one pair and leave the other pair untouched (your control group) and swap them in and out of your system and compare them. I know because I myself found it necessary at some point to run both experiments.
It’s odd, but I think this is really a widespread problem in this hobby in particular...and in fact, it’s likely a problem for us virtually nowhere else in our lives. If we get our car stuck in some sand, we think to toss some gravel or other debris in front of the mired tire in order to get some traction. It’s just that we’re not having to do this while also trying to visualize how electrons might be moving through a lattice. Unfortunately, in this hobby many folks seem to be walking around with their minds already blown when it comes to how expansive most of the concepts are. And it’s particularly because of the newness of that state of expanded awareness that seems to readily interfere with our normal ability or inclination to reduce problems down to their simplest terms in order to get a better grip on them. It’s also odd to me in a similar way, that I think that people as a matter of course, can ’switch on’ this expanded frame of mind whenever they happen to be occupying themselves with the hobby and then switch it off when they’ve disengaged the subject matter...never once it having occurred to them to try switching it ’off’ once in a while when they are trying to come to grips with something new in the hobby.
And please don’t anyone get the idea that this has escaped the attention of manufacturers and marketers.
