Why is science just a starting point and not an end point?

- Listenings experiments is the ONLY way to tune and fine tune the quality we ask for and which qualities are IMPOSSIBLE to deduce only from any set of measurements nevermind how big it is and how precise...


Why ?

Because many dimensions are at play which no limited measuring tools in their range of application can take into account simultaneously when what is designed is designed FOR ANOTHER HUMAN EARS....

All humans use the same hearing perceptual rules. For example, to sense sound pressure all human’s ear use the higher ordered harmonics. All human’s ears have a masking principle and so on.


Because there are a good number of measurements that never make it onto a spec sheet, IMO/IME the above quoted statement is false. If you understand the human hearing perceptual rules and design for them rather than a spec sheet you can easily design a circuit that will sound good the human ear.

All humans use the same hearing perceptual rules. For example, to sense sound pressure all human’s ear use the higher ordered harmonics. All human’s ears have a masking principle and so on.

You are absolutely right....

And it is IMPOSSIBLE to contradict that...

But the way human ears INTERPRET and PERCEIVE the sound experience in a specific room with specific gear is different for each of us...

It is the reason why in the publicity of the marketing of electronical equalizer company recommend it to make any consumers free to use it for different kind of music, different room, different TASTES....


Then affirming that there is a precise CORRELATION between electronical design and human perceiving experience is one thing and very true, but true also that no ears/brain will interpret exactly in the same qualitative terms all the conditions of a sound and musical experience...

This is why there is so good choices between so many different types of gear...

In my post then i was speaking about ALL factors and parameters in an audio experience not about the correlation between gear measurements and sound experience ONLY which is a fact of engineering like you had explained it very well in another post about amplifiers....

Perception of a color is the same for all human by law of physical optic, but many other parameters are at play that make the experience transcending optical physical law.... Psychological and neurophysiological laws and personal histories add also their weight...

It is Goethe who created neurophysiology of perception arguing against some limititations of Newton approach...The 2 goals of these 2 geniuses were DIFFERENT more than contradictory....

This is the same here....We have physical acoustic and psychoacoustic and the listener personal history....My post was about all that and were not a negation of the correlation bewtween measures and perception which is the basis of all audio technology...

On the other end reducing human perception to electronic design is NOT possible for the time being....Correlating is not reducing....In a word all factors pertaining to the audio experience and interpretation cannot be put in the design...

Bob Carver accepted the amplifier challenge from Stereophile, many years ago, and won. He showed that he could duplicate the sound of an expensive amplifier chosen by Stereophile with one of his amplifiers appropriately modified to sound the same. The staff of Stereophile could not identify any difference by extended listening tests over a couple of days. Bob didn't use a trial-and-error method and judge by listening to achieve his win. He used what he knew from experience and from scientific principles.

Bob used his extensive knowledge and experience in amplifier design to duplicate the transfer function of the expensive amp in his amplifier, to a sufficiently high degree to win the challenge. The "transfer function" is well-known to scientists and engineers.

He also knew that if a difference between the two amplifiers is made sufficiently low to be inaudible by human ears, then the listeners could not identify any difference between the two amps. He used science and knowledge of human hearing, thresholds of hearing.

@Millercarbon said it first in this thread, that science is a method. Bob used the scientific method, and technology by measurements of the amplifier to make both amplifiers sound indistinguishable from each other by listeners, without having to listen to either amplifier. 

The ears can be fooled. Scientists, composers, and musicians know this. That's why in a controlled scientific study, the interfering variables are either eliminated or controlled in a test. Sighted auditions of equipment without the proper controls are invalid to make scientific conclusions. Of course, one could make judgements and opinions of the sound - that's a starting point, not an end point.

Of course, one could make judgements and opinions of the sound - that’s a starting point, not an end point.

Good post....

Not only we can interpret the sound of this amplifier experience but we will interpret it differently in different conditions...The fact that electronic design can produce good amplifier does not means that there is ONE only good amplifier for ALL ears at ALL ages and with different histories...

And in perception what one will call illusion for one will be reality for another one...Any perception is a mix of illusion and reality....The eye/brain create the perception of space for example....

It is simple to understand that through any perception we relate not only to what "seems" a static EXTERNAL object but we participate to an experience that create in a way many aspects of the phenomenon for us.... It is relevant for ALL phenomenon but to different degree...

A table is a table in a room different for each one of us, even if we all accept that this is the same table, but a table is not a table in the same way that a wave is a sound interpreted and translated in a specific qualitative experience by the ears/brain at some moment the qualitative diffreence between the experience of an object and a sound could be more intimate and personal....

Nevermind the good correlation between the electronical design and the relation to the way the ears perceive the results, the experience itself cannot be accounted for by numbers and measures only....Even adding acoustical and psychoacoustical laws to electronical design...


 In this debate objectivist versus subjectivist is for sure children play and not a wise division.... Because in perception that make no sense  nor in science....

But the way human ears INTERPRET and PERCEIVE the sound experience in a specific room with specific gear is different for each of us...

It is the reason why in the publicity of the marketing of electronical equalizer company recommend it to make any consumers free to use it for different kind of music, different room, different TASTES....

I met a reviewer that claimed he didn't like bass.


Quite often people have preferences for flaws in equipment that isn't neutral. A great example is SETs which have a variety of flaws that interact nicely with human perceptual rules. Tubes exist OTOH because many solid state amps have brightness and harshness due to improper application of loop feedback.


That's different from from saying that we can't measure what's going on. We can. But designers (particularly in high end audio) aren't always coming from an engineering background (or they probably would not be building SETs...) and to further muck things up some designers simply don't have the will (or are constrained by their employers) to make something that is actually neutral to the ear.