Audio Science Review = Rebuttal and Further Thoughts

"You are not supposed to post anything on how something sounds unless you have proof to back it up". How can you "prove" how anything "sounds" without listening to it? 

Anyone listening to music, or is measuring your gear your thing?  How many of these insane threads waste time that could be spent productively.. bye

I guess I've just been diagnosed as insane ;-)

Your conclusion, not mine 🙂

And that phrase was from the deleted original thread. I cannot forget that - because it reflected arrogance. He also mentioned that he was the head of some department in Microsoft. And I read it on other threads as well, which seems to be his "go to" line when someone does not agree with him. So what?! Does not mean he understands everything.

How much do you expect to gain from that?

You did not discuss about my point on how the sound travels through our ears canals, to the cochlea and finally to the brain which analyzes it - which we define as music or sound. Now if you could explain that process and how it is similar in all human beings - we all will stand to gain a lot. Please go ahead with your explanation - I am all ears.

You did not discuss about my point on how the sound travels through our ears canals, to the cochlea and finally to the brain which analyzes it - which we define as music or sound. Now if you could explain that process and how it is similar in all human beings - we all will stand to gain a lot. Please go ahead with your explanation - I am all ears.

You could take a hundred people and probably throw some dogs.cats, a few bats and an elephant, and maybe even a cobra in. And no matter their ear structure they would be listening to the same thing, and those that can communicate would know it as the same song.
Even the cobra knows the Indian flute, and does not come out of the basket to the sound heavy metal or dub step.

One pretty much can use a microphone to evaluate the sound pressure field, much the same way that they are used to get the sounds onto the LP or CD in the first place.

You did not discuss about my point on how the sound travels through our ears canals, to the cochlea and finally to the brain which analyzes it - which we define as music or sound. Now if you could explain that process and how it is similar in all human beings - we all will stand to gain a lot. Please go ahead with your explanation - I am all ears.

I didn't address it, because, while a fine question, it was a red herring in regard to criticisms of ASR.

You don't have to know, for instance, exactly how every INDIVIDUAL hears everything to know, through experiment, general truths about what humans can hear!   Just like we know that while sight varies among humans, no one is seeing X-rays!

So when Amir is for instance appealing to measurements to say that the signal difference between component A or B will be inaudible, he's typically basing this on what is known about the human hearing range in terms of db thresholds, dynamics, masking effects, etc.  Could any of his diagnosis be wrong?  Sure it's possible.  But given Amir is familiar with the relevant research (and can cite it), you better bring something more than "No It's Not" or "Science Hasn't Explained Everything" or "But I Can Hear It, I Know I Can!"  Appeal to the unknown is not an argument.

Further, Amir will also refer to the tons of research done by, and cited by, professionals like Floyde Toole, Sean Olive and others, which arrived at very strong predictive theories for what people will perceive as "better" or "worse" sounding, once confounding variables like sighted bias were removed.   So the fact people don't hear everything exactly alike does not entail strong trends or patterns aren't there to be found.