Audiophiles should learn from people who created audio

The science was never settled years ago. The limits of our measuring was settled years ago. All some need is a visual representation of an approximation that we can all agree on as a standard to make them happy. Those standards are just guideposts until better measurements come along.

Go back anywhere in history and you'll see this same, boring discussion being hashed over with the flatearthers of their time mumbling that all they needed were the measurement standards of their time to go by and anything else was wishful thinking. 

I remember a heated discussion here, years ago, about vibrations and what could and couldn't be measured (so it couldn't possibly exist) and some particle theorist (or someone of that ilk) chimed in with observations he and his team had with watching something that was so dense it couldn't possibly transmit sound or vibrations "dancing around" and doing the opposite of what was conventional wisdom, because they had better measurements to go by. Yet, talk to anyone who's not in that field and they'll still tell you you're crazy to think so. 

These forums are not the cutting edge, sorry to say, and are way behind the curve. No one should take well written quotes and call them "science". Hiding behind those skirts is a sad thing to do.

Trust your ears.

All the best,
Nonoise

 Below is a quote from the late Gordon Holt:

Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me - Gordon Holt

A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of determining the presence, quality, or truth of something;

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! 🐥

Below is a quote from the late Gordon Holt:

Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me - Gordon Holt

A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of determining the presence, quality, or truth of something;

IMO audio hobby is stronger than ever with companies routinely offering higher and higher price components, wider selection of quality products, to my EAR superior SQ ...  This is not a sign of dying but growing industry.

Years ago we had companies like Western Electric, Bell Labs, RCA and others that invested considerably in R & D. I know some of the high end companies are now owned by large conglomerates, but I doubt research into auditory phenomena is the same today. It seems like much of the innovation is in the hands of smaller shops, cottage industry style or scientists who have migrated from other fields into audio because of their personal interest. Separating the wheat from the chaff isn't possible based on marketing or reviews. The handful of components that are enduring is relatively small. And, interestingly, many rely on modern implementations of  old technologies or are themselves old components.
The notion that science stays in place is, I think, contrary to the very notion of discovery and advancing learning.