tommylion,
Who is making "absolute" statements? Certainly not me, and I’m unaware of any other skeptic here who has done so. This is the usual straw man.
Of course, sharing experiences make sense. I do it all the time like anyone else.
The problem comes when people "sharing experiences" insist on the veracity of their experiences against any skepticism. The "you can’t tell me I didn’t hear what I heard" reply which is so common. It’s one thing to say "I tried X and heard Y." That’s a report of a subjective experience. Fine. But anyone using critical thinking understand that this is not necessarily the most reliable method for determining whether there are "real" audible changes produced by the product, vs imagined differences.
The problem is that those of the "just try it for yourself" school promote this as the right way to determine sonic differences and THAT becomes a claim that is rightly disputed. It just ignores too much of what we know about the effects of human bias and malleability of our perception.
And this is the point that your comments aren’t quite getting right.
But in science you recognize when an experiment has been done in a sloppy, unreliable manner! You don’t have to perform a specific experiment yourself to recognize it’s a poorly designed experiment. If it's a poorly designed experiment the results aren't going to be any more reliable if I perform it for myself, vs anyone else!
If you see an "experiment" for a new medical treatment that is performed completely without control of variables, you can’t say "Well the treatment doesn’t work" but you CAN say "The method you used to evaluate the treatment is unreliable, so your conclusion is unreliable."
And THAT is generally what skeptics are saying about many audiophile tweaks. Not that they ABSOLUTELY don’t work so much as the type of evidence used to support the claims are unreliable, which warrants our skepticism. (And that is combined with the fact many tweaks are based on empirical claims that are unlikely to be true GIVEN what we know about the relevant physics/engineering issues/human perceptual issues involved).
Who is making "absolute" statements? Certainly not me, and I’m unaware of any other skeptic here who has done so. This is the usual straw man.
If I am doing a scientific study, there is a “burden of proof”. If I am sharing my experience with others who may be interested, there is no such thing.
Of course, sharing experiences make sense. I do it all the time like anyone else.
The problem comes when people "sharing experiences" insist on the veracity of their experiences against any skepticism. The "you can’t tell me I didn’t hear what I heard" reply which is so common. It’s one thing to say "I tried X and heard Y." That’s a report of a subjective experience. Fine. But anyone using critical thinking understand that this is not necessarily the most reliable method for determining whether there are "real" audible changes produced by the product, vs imagined differences.
The problem is that those of the "just try it for yourself" school promote this as the right way to determine sonic differences and THAT becomes a claim that is rightly disputed. It just ignores too much of what we know about the effects of human bias and malleability of our perception.
And this is the point that your comments aren’t quite getting right.
In science, someone does an experiment (tries something), reports the result, and then others try to replicate (confirm) their result. Reaching a conclusion about someone else’s experiment, without bothering to try and replicate the results, seems pretty unscientific to me.
But in science you recognize when an experiment has been done in a sloppy, unreliable manner! You don’t have to perform a specific experiment yourself to recognize it’s a poorly designed experiment. If it's a poorly designed experiment the results aren't going to be any more reliable if I perform it for myself, vs anyone else!
If you see an "experiment" for a new medical treatment that is performed completely without control of variables, you can’t say "Well the treatment doesn’t work" but you CAN say "The method you used to evaluate the treatment is unreliable, so your conclusion is unreliable."
And THAT is generally what skeptics are saying about many audiophile tweaks. Not that they ABSOLUTELY don’t work so much as the type of evidence used to support the claims are unreliable, which warrants our skepticism. (And that is combined with the fact many tweaks are based on empirical claims that are unlikely to be true GIVEN what we know about the relevant physics/engineering issues/human perceptual issues involved).