IM Distortion, Speakers and the Death of Science


One topic that often comes up is perception vs. measurements.

"If you can't measure it with common, existing measurements it isn't real."

This idea is and always will be flawed. Mind you, maybe what you perceive is not worth $1, but this is not how science works. I'm reminded of how many doctors and scientists fought against modernizing polio interventions, and how only recently did the treatment for stomach ulcers change radically due to the curiosity of a pair of forensic scientists.

Perception precedes measurement.  In between perception and measurement is (always) transference to visual data.  Lets take an example.

You are working on phone technology shortly after Bell invents the telephone. You hear one type of transducer sounds better than another.  Why is that?  Well, you have to figure out some way to see it (literally), via a scope, a charting pen, something that tells you in an objective way why they are different, that allows you to set a standard or goal and move towards it.

This person probably did not set out to measure all possible things. Maybe the first thing they decide to measure is distortion, or perhaps frequency response. After visualizing the raw data the scientist then has to decide what the units are, and how to express differences. Lets say it is distortion. In theory, there could have been a lot of different ways to measure distortion.  Such as Vrms - Vrms (expected) /Hz. Depending on the engineer's need at the time, that might have been a perfectly valid way to measure the output.

But here's the issue. This may work for this engineer solving this time, and we may even add it to the cannon of common measurements, but we are by no means done.

So, when exactly are we done?? At 1? 2? 5?  30?  The answer is we are not.  There are several common measurements for speakers for instance which I believe should be done more by reviewers:

- Compression
- Intermodulation ( IM ) Distortion
- Distortion

and yet, we do not. IM distortion is kind of interesting because I had heard about it before from M&K's literature, but it reappeared for me in the blog of Roger Russel ( http://www.roger-russell.com ) formerly from McIntosh. I can't find the blog post, but apparently they used IM distortion measurements to compare the audibility of woofer changes quite successfully.

Here's a great example of a new measurement being used and attributed to a sonic characteristic. Imagine the before and after.  Before using IM, maybe only distortion would have been used. They were of course measuring impedance and frequency response, and simple harmonic distortion, but Roger and his partner could hear something different not expressed in these measurements, so, they invent the use of it here. That invention is, in my mind, actual audio science.

The opposite of science would have been to say "frequency, impedance, and distortion" are the 3 characteristics which are audible, forever. Nelson pass working with the distortion profile, comparing the audible results and saying "this is an important feature" is also science. He's throwing out the normal distortion ratings and creating a whole new set of target behavior based on his experiments.  Given the market acceptance of his very expensive products I'd say he's been damn good at this.

What is my point to all of this?  Measurements in the consumer literature have become complacent. We've become far too willing to accept the limits of measurements from the 1980's and fail to develop new standard ways of testing. As a result of this we have devolved into camps who say that 1980's measures are all we need, those who eschew measurements and very little being done to show us new ways of looking at complex behaviors. Some areas where I believe measurements should be improved:

  • The effects of vibration on ss equipment
  • Capacitor technology
  • Interaction of linear amps with cables and speaker impedance.

We have become far too happy with this stale condition, and, for the consumers, science is dead.
erik_squires
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Throughout the latter half of the 1st millennia, both India and China were leaders in mathematics. The leaders have traditionally been someone from the most "organized" societies at the time.
read my post it is precisely What I said....

"there is some others in the past ( Ramanujan) but many unknown to occidental culture"

Official occidental culture of the last 500 hundred years has not recognized this fact before this century...Islamic maths and Indian  maths were underestimated completely 50 years ago.... 
Or perhaps I am not arrogant enough to think my expertise on Anabelian geometry is at a level sufficient to analyze those at the very top of their fields even if that has not stopped you, with a rudimentary knowledge at best of AI?
I was just saying to you why I think that algorithmic maths is not enough to understanding Intelligence being it artificial or not....

You dont know what is the difference between an algorithmic process and a concept creation process that’s all....


You accuse me of not understanding anything …. I prove the contrary... I only pretend to be able to have an opinion, motivated by my search....I can be wrong totally about Mochizuki, but I dont think so for the time being.... The reason why I will not explain here....




dropped names (almost none of which have anything to do with AI)
Almost all A.I. powerful technology is mathematical idea.... There is many more complex idea in maths than only algorithmic one.... The names I drop  was to remind you of that...
 If you develop some concept of intelligence you use some kind of maths; but if you have a totally different concept of intelligence you use another totally different mathematics.... Living system are not algorithmic machine at all...Penrose is right...His theory is debatable his intuition is not....

I drop name of philosophers because you dont gives a damn about them and thinking seriously without any philosophical knowledge is perilous....

I treat you like you treated others.... I am arrogant too sometimes.... :)

case closed for me.... think what you wish about my knowledge real or invented....



My best to you....



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Just wanted to let everyone know that I am artificially intelligent(AI).

Thank you,
   Tim