Audio Science Review = "The better the measurement, the better the sound" philosophy

@fleschler

 

You can’t change our minds refers to people hearing differences.

Yes, that’s precisely what I thought you meant, and that is my point.

This is the dogmatism buried in to the pure subjective mode of vetting audio gear.

If you are of the "ASR" state of mind, you start of by immediately acknowledging our fallibility. You may perceive that the music signal is audibly changing between, say, two different USB cables.

But you will understand "I could be wrong. I’m fallible." So it STARTS with acknowledging I Could Be Wrong, and then appeals to ways in which you can find out you are wrong: For example if someone measures the signals from both USB cables and they are precisely the same. This is some evidence the signal was likely not changing at all. But if you want even further confirmation that the measurements aren’t missing something, you can do a blind test where you are truly relying on what you can hear (and not + what you can see). If you can’t detect any sonic difference, then you have a good basis for learning "Hey, looks like I was wrong in thinking one USB was altering the signal vs the other."

Similarly, if you are SKEPTICAL that, say, Amplifier A will sound audibly different from amplifier B, then you have ways of changing your mind there too. If someone presents measurable evidence that Amplifier A has distortion levels in the audible range and B doesn’t, then you have some evidence for changing your mind. And, again, blind tests in which the difference is reliably identified adds more evidence.

So from the ASR point of view, one always starts with some humility WITH REGARD to the confidence we have in our own judgements of perception, acknowledging from the outset we could be in error. AND it provides ways of "Learning I was wrong, through evidence."

Anyone taking the ASR approach is in principle open to being wrong; they just ask for good evidence. In other words "Here is what I believe, but I could be wrong, and HERE is how you can show that I’m wrong."

But what you have just re-iterated states the problem with pure subjectivity perfectly. Your stance seems to be ’If I hear it, I am not wrong. No way! And you can’t bring ANY of your arguments or evidence that will change my mind!"

Can you see now where the actual close-mindedness resides?

That approach is unfalsifiable. If "My Own Perception Is Reliable" is the ultimate litmus test, then even when someone else uses precisely the same method to "disprove" your belief - he listens to the same set up and declares ’There is no sonic difference," you can always say ’Well, the only shows your hearing is not as perceptive as mine, because I Know What I Hear And You Can’t Show I’m Wrong!"

Can you tell me in a case where you are "sure" you are hearing sonic differences, how...using your method of relying on sighted perception!... someone could show that you’re in error, so you’d change your mind?

Complete rubbish from an arrogant condescending troll. 

Those scientific geniuses and certainly all the ones from the last 50 years, all had one thing in common. Before they had their defining moment of genius, they already had a very strong theoretical background in their field of study/work. My plumber is not going to get lucky and perfect cold fusion, and my dentist is not going to cure cancer

If you are of the "ASR" state of mind, you start of by immediately acknowledging our fallibility... 

So, it's a seven-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous? 

So, it's a seven-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous? 

Ha!  Minus the religious proselytizing of AA.  For some I suppose it could be a similar detox from being marinated in audiophile myths ;-) 

I had to research the Hedy Lamarr story. That is a huge leap from the website whose text you plagiarized.  Jumping between radio frequencies to prevent jamming is not "scientific genius". It was both a simple solution to a problem and it was already done manually in the early days of radio when two people communicating would decide together to change channels to avoid interference. It took me a total of 5 minutes to find this out. To think that event was necessary to have WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth is a gross reach, but you didn't write those words, so I will only partially hold you to them. She also did not do this on her own, but with someone skilled in the art.

Winchell I know well. He both had medical training and he did not develop it on his own, he developed it with a medical doctor. There is that whole building on prior knowledge. This was purely a mechanical device, a pump to replicate the operation of the heart. He never built one that went in a person, nor could it do anything but pump.

Perhaps this is the issue. You don't fundamentally understand science. Neither of the two developments you mentioned are scientific discoveries. The first is a relatively simple engineering idea, a practical solutions to problem, and if Hedy Lamarr had not been involved, it would be a non event, like the other 10's of thousands of practical ideas that people come up with every year. It is akin to intermittent wipers. I don't think we would consider that a scientific advancement would we? Winchell built a pump to replicate the pumping functions of the human heart. Not a scientific discovery, but an engineering development. He was not the first to think of this idea, and it is not clear that he even advanced the overall development. This is a medical view of the development timeline of artificial hearts:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358116/

The largest portion of intelligence is genetic. Book learning and experience does not make you smart, it makes you skilled. At the highest levels of "smart", recent research indicates you can only train for minimal increases in intelligence.