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

@prof

 

There is a big difference between doubting science and doubting that measurements tell you what they were never meant to tell you in the first place. Much of pseudo-science actually starts off with some modicum of truth or scientific fact and then goes somewhere it has no right to.

Those absorbed with a handful of audio measurements that are in the public consciousness are very much in this space.

erik,

But that is a pretty vague claim.

If for instance someone is measuring a cable, or an AC cable, or a USB cable, and

finding "there is no difference in the signal"...and someone wants to say "Actually, you are missing something" it behooves that person to actually explain what they are missing.  And if possible suggest how to measure instead.

But if it's all vague hand waving, like "maybe there is something people are hearing that you aren't measuring for"...then what does that give anyone to work with?

How does that help discern nonsense claims from plausible claims?

@prof

There was a post here a while ago from a psychologist/researcher who aptly collected what I keep trying to say.

A measurement of THD is a measurement of THD. A measurement of frequency response is a measurement of frequency response. To extend those measurements beyond that is not science, it is pseudo science. To take those measurements and discuss "ideal" or the end of all things that can be heard is not science. It is also not science to repeat measurements and rank equipment based on them. That is quality assurance.

It is also not science to lump average human perceptions and claim this is how 1 individual hears.

There is no scientifically agreed to set of measurements which together describe all the human ear/brain is capable of hearing. All we have is a minor number of measurements which are in popular (well, as popular as audio is) culture.  I doubt those measurements which Stereophile publishes, are even close to all that is used in modern engineering and development.

As for the rest, caveat emptor, but I won’t hide under the umbrella of science when I’m actually ignorant.

Best,

 

Erik

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