What covid research can teach us about audio measurements.


Recent studies in Canada for patients with so-called long covid show us on how science and measurements and research actually works.

Patients with long covid suffering from limited ability to exercise passed most "normal" tests but it took a new type of test to positively identify a mechanism that explained why the patients suffered.

 

Honestly there is a lot of snake oil and charlatanism in our hobby, and I don't claim to discount that fact.  What I do want to say is that science doesn't rest with 50 year old measurements.  It evolves to measure and explain constantly. 

The reason I am personally dissatisfied with audio measurements in the common literature is exactly because of this stagnation, and when these fail us we trust our ears and gut for lack of better tools. 

Anyone who runs the same 20 measurements on an amplifier or DAC and claims it is science and that these measurements are all that can be known is fooling themselves into believing that they are scientists or that we have reached the limits of understanding.

And above all, caveat emptor!

erik_squires

Hmmm interesting erik. Been jabbed 3 times had COVID twice. I also am not a measurements are definitive guy either. Some of the worst sounding gear I ever heard also had spectacular measurements on paper. Science is not exact and there are always variables the question is if you can control them.

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Audio Precision has an R and D department, so I don't think science stands still in finding new ways to measure audio gear. Anyway the analogy doesn't make sense to me. They weren't measuring the MRI machine. 

I am not understanding the OP point here.  How does a preliminary study measuring changes in alveolar diffusing capacity post Covid relate to audio measurements?

Trying to compare our hearing to any modern scientific measurement tool is folly to the Nth degree. Most audiophiles have no idea what they are listening too. They throw their systems together without measurement so they have no basis for comparison. If you are use to listening to a system that is boosted above 8 kHz a flat system will sound dull even though it is more accurate. If you are under the illusion that your system is flat it might be, but the room is probably not. Obviously everyone is entitled to set up their system any way they want but don't bark at me when I squint.