Synergistic calls out Audioholics

But by acknowledging the stupid parents role in the death of their children is a step in the right direction.

Perhaps you can come up with some test for intelligence that is universally acknowledged as fair, accurate and without cultural bias. Of course we will know it is a viable test when it confirms that you are a genius. 

As nonoise points out just listen. If you are not willing to listen and compare you have nothing to add or to say. Arguing from a total lack of experience is completely unscientific. 

Everything humans can hear can be measured. If not then psychoacoustics is a waste of time. If we can’t measure it then we sure as hell can’t study it. What do you think psychoacoustics is? Tarot card reading?

Dr. Floyd Toole noted:

Technical measurements are demonstrably precise, repeatable events. Hearing perception is not. Obviously, the perceived event is definitive – if it does not sound good, it isn’t good. The task is to correlate what we measure with what we perceive – This is psychoacoustics.

This means that correlating measures when it is possible with hearing is essential BUT reducing hearing experience and concept to only a limited already known sets of measures, especially a limited sets imported from electrical design, that is FRAUDULENT and a negation of psychoacoustic science...

Psychoacoustic and audio experience are not reducible to a small part of electrical design ....

For example in creating the imaging experience and the listener envelopment experience electrical design measures are not the most important measures the important one are linked to the timing of the different wavefronts coming from the speakers.... All measures are not possible and dont all come from electrical design anyway....Sometimes the EARS are the most accurate measuring apparatus... Only ignorant  will negate this fact....

Is it not very simple to understand?

If not, quit posting about that.... Or go on and stick to the easy bashing of cables customers groups...And pay to be member of the skeptic sunday Jame Randi scientist club...They need members....

mitch2,
I fail to see the disanalogy.

I did not make the diamond analogy, you did. A diamond has intrinsic value as a gemstone, so if somebody sold a rock as a diamond that is clearly fraud and a crime. Audiophile cables and fuses are sold to improve the sound of the Audiophile's system. These items are in fact cables and fuses so there is no fraud wrt what they are. The value is dependent on what the listener hears....i.e., what makes them happy.

To be more specific, remember we are talking about what the listener BELIEVES he hears.

So the conversation we are having concerns the line of thought you seem to be floating:   "Ok, IF a product produces no actual change in a signal, or can't be demonstrated to do so, 'so what' so long as someone BELIEVES he hears a difference.  That's all that matters, right?"

So if someone's happy belief is all that matters, it doesn't matter on what that belief is based, deception or otherwise?  


That would imply that selling someone a fake diamond is just fine, so long as you can deceive them in to believing it's real.  "Hey, they are happy giving me thousands of dollars, even though they could have bought the same thing for $40, because they think it's real.  If they are happy what does it matter?"

Is that really the logic you would endorse?

Back to a diamond/cable analogy.   A seller of gems has two cheap diamonds, exactly alike that he his showing "John" who is buying a ring for his soon to be fiance.  The seller makes the claim that one is far more valuable, far more rare and harder to find, having come from deep in hard to reach mines, in an exotic country.   Hence warranting the much higher price.  He even uses influencing tactics "see how the more rare gem reflects light in a more beautiful manner?" which causes John to look at it differently "Yes, I think I see what you mean!"


So John buys the second diamond, playing 3 times as much money having been led to believe false claims about how it is different from the cheaper gem, which was exactly the same.


Does this deception strike you as just fine, so long as John remains ignorant of the truth?   Do we just do away with the very notion of "scam?"


Similarly, take a situation where  a cable salesman demonstrates to John two cables, both of which are in fact the same in any materially/sonically relevant way.   That is, there is zero performance difference, no change to the signal.  BUT, the salesman gives a big impressive patter about the provenance of the much more expensive cable, justifying it's cost on the grounds it WILL change the signal in an audible way, and do so on the impressive sounding technical story given by the salesman.   The salesman uses influential priming like "can you hear how the background seems darker?  The highs smoother?" etc.    John comes to believe he his hearing a difference that does not exist, and which has been made on false technical claims.    He pays 4 times more for the expensive cable, deceived that he is getting a different, higher quality performance than the cheaper cable.


As in the diamond example:   Are you perfectly fine with this deception?  So long as someone can be convinced by deception in to believing "it is different" that's all that matters?


In the diamond example, wouldn't it be better if people had information as to the real nature of the diamonds, so they can at least make advised,informed choices?   Sure, perhaps there will be those who say "look, ultimately I don't care whether there is a real difference, but so long as I BELIEVE or FEEL like one is more rare than the other, I'm happy to pay for that belief."


But surely many others will not feel that way, and would want to be informed if there is an actual difference or not between the high priced and lower priced diamonds.  Knowledge is power, right?  Why would uninformed choices be better than informed choices?   Having the information out there allows those who want to be informed to be informed, when deciding how to spend their money.



Why should it be any different for audio gear?  Some may say "I don't care about any objective verification that I'm getting better performance by spending much more money on a  cable" but plenty of people DO care, so if we have the information available, the people who do care can use it, the people who don't can ignore it. 

However, I do not begrudge those who do believe in the value and want to spend the money.

Neither do I begrudge how anyone spends his money.   The point I see in this conversation has to do with the value of knowing the facts about what you are buying.


For me:  If it turns out a cable truly alters the sonic signal, that's great to know and gives me information on what I'm buying.  If it turns out there's no evidence it alters the signal at all vs a cheaper cable, I still may enjoy buying the more expensive cable for various reasons (e.g. the way it looks, feels, or even for the fact I seem to perceive better sound from that cable, and am happy to avail myself of that effect, whether imaginary or not.  But at least I'm able to make informed choices on what I'm actually getting for my money).
Cheers!

@prof
Putting aside that rather rash conclusion...

This is not a rash conclusion. The article logically shows that the currently known methods cannot determine ALL the characteristics of sound in the way that a person perceives it, and most importantly - this will never be possible as long as audio engineers and acoustics are trying to make up music from its parts.

@prof
The typical audiophile gear, cables included, come with a technical story from the manufacturer. "Here’s a technical problem that can undermine the performance of X item; Here’s how we solve that problem." And you are told about "skin effect," "radiation," "electrical interference," "dielectrics" "active shielding" and on and on. In other words, all type of phenomena that we know through being able to detect with instruments and measure. Then they lay out some claim about how they have technically addressed the problem.

If we are talking about wires, then all these explanations are made either out of ignorance of the basics of audio engineering, or specifically for the technocratic majority, so as not to frighten the buyer with "mysticism and other anti-science".

@prof
Well, not everything is measurable you know! Stop looking to measurements!

If you could read Essien's article carefully, you would have understand that there are things in a musical signal that can be measured, and there are things that we can only perceive subjectively. Scientists initially failed to create a correct theory that would explain all the nuances of human perception. Therefore, a qualified amp engineer only measures distortion, Linearity, and power. He does this to make sure that he has a reliable "framework" for everything else that is more important. More important is what we can only determine by ear - the results of manipulations with wires and their directions, various materials, and other tricks familiar to audiophiles. These manipulations significantly affect the perception of music, but they do not affect the technical characteristics to the extent that they become noticeable by ear and it would make sense to measure them

By the way, you came up with the last phrase in a fit of emotion. Personally, I am not against measurements when it comes to power frequency, noise and other technical things. I'm just saying that not everything can be measured. This is the same thing that follows from the Essien article.

@prof
SR for instance talks about how you will hear a significant increase in frequency linearity with one of their cables. That would be measurable, right?

No. When discussing the sound of cables, we can only talk about entangible changes in the sound, here we mean the coloration: “…the accentuation (or darkening) of certain frequency regions of the sound range, which is marked by our perception”.. The distortion of the electrical signal in the cable is so small that no person is able to catch them.

You seem to understand the basics of electricity. I have a counter question - can you calculate how much the signal level in the acoustic cable should be changed so that an ordinary person can hear the difference, if it is known that a person is able to determine the difference in the volume change of at least 1 dB (psychoacoustics data), the output voltage of the amplifier =10 volts, and the speaker resistance =4 ohms?

@prof

Measurements have their place. They are where the journey begins, not where it ends. 
I am not a manufacturer of audio gear, I am a consumer. I have an audience of one. A unique and highly specific audience. Me. 
If I hear something I like, I don’t care what causes it. As I am the beginning, middle, and end of my listening experience, the reason why it works or doesn’t is irrelevant. 
If I were a manufacturer, then those numbers may be of interest to some. 
Curious, two capacitors, different manufacturers with identical measurements will not have the same sonic signature. Two tubes, different manufacturers with the same measurements will not have the same sonic signature. 
It is not difficult to find two uniquely different amplifiers that have the same measurements, and yet sound vastly different. 
Measurements. What measurements? What standards? 
History is full of examples of scientists who theorized a particular reason for a phenomenon. Then they sought to prove their thesis. In the margins of their notes, you can see how they modify their calculus in order to have the equation validate their thesis. 
Measurements and the scientific method. 
I have no problem with measurements. But like I said, they are where the journey begins. And what do the measurements mean sonically in my system?
This hobby is one small part of what I do with my time. More so during the last year as CV19 has shut down my day job. 
Have you ever designed and built a speaker? Listened to how the volume of the enclosure, the size and length of the port, the crossover design, crossover point, damping and stuffing effect the sound? There are all kinds of equations to aide in this process. In the past year, I have built some 2 dozen unique speakers. A purely creative and exploratory process. Doing, and listening. No preconceived notions of what should generate a better result. Just listening. 
A handful of stuffing behind the driver in a 300ltr enclosure, will effect the sound quality. 
There is no measurements that will predict those nuanced effects and if I will like or dislike the sonic effect.

I need to hear it to know if I like it.

Do any of Stereophiles measurements tell you how the gear will sound?