Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)
About 25 years ago I was inside a large room with an A-frame ceiling and large skylights, during the Perseid Meteor Shower that happens every August. This one time was like no other, for two reasons: 1) There were large, red, fragmenting streaks multiple times a minute with illuminated smoke trails, and 2) I could hear them.
Yes, each meteor produced a sizzling sound, like the sound of a frying pan.
Amazed, I Googled this phenomena and found that many people reported hearing this same sizzling sound associated with meteors streaking across the sky. In response, scientists and astrophysicists said it was all in our heads. That, it was totally impossible. Why? Because of the distance between the meteor and the observer. Physics does not allow sound to travel fast enough to hear the sound at the same time that the meteor streaks across the sky. Case closed.
ASR would have agreed with this sound reasoning based in elementary science.
Fast forward a few decades. The scientists were wrong. Turns out, the sound was caused by radiation emitted by the meteors, traveling at the speed of light, and interacting with metallic objects near the observer, even if the observer is indoors. Producing a sizzling sound. This was actually recorded audibly by researchers along with the recording of the radiation. You can look this up easily and listen to the recordings.
Takeaway - trust your senses! Science doesn’t always measure the right things, in the right ways, to fully explain what we are sensing. Therefore your sensory input comes first. You can try to figure out the science later.
I’m not trying to start an argument or make people upset. Just sharing an experience that reinforces my personal way of thinking. Others of course are free to trust the science over their senses. I know this bothers some but I really couldn’t be bothered by that. The folks at ASR are smart people too.
@nyev you got it. It is a straw man argument, meaning that it doesn’t actually address anything regarding the topic at hand (consumer hifi equipment science) but gives the false impression that it does (look, science is evolving in astronomy!).
so, if you really want to take on ASR and others, maybe don’t make straw man arguments. also, you need to start with that our mind always interfere with how we experience things. Always. |
@fredrik222 , I get your logic but I still fail to see how it invalidates my point, in any way. I think it comes down to the fact that maybe there is a belief, which I disagree with, that science has fully explained all aspects of audio but not astronomy. I don’t believe that is accurate. I also think that if you believe that, it’s essentially the same degree of closed mindedness that the researchers who didn’t believe that people were hearing meteors exhibited. There is so much in audio that we cannot explain with measurements. Yet. |
@nyev as a general principle, astronomy or Astro physics is not well understood, while consumer audio is well understood. and the argument that we can’t explain everything with measurements is another false argument. We can can explain everything in consumer audio, and measurements do not explain anything, they confirm hypotheses. name just one subject in consumer audio that can’t be explained and one quick google search will immediately prove you wrong. |
@fredrik222, that path unfortunately won’t resolve our friendly debate. Because, I can name any or all of the subjects that ASR followers and other audiophiles disagree with, which don’t have foundations in science. There are theories why burn-in is a thing, but no one has definitively proven it or there wouldn’t be a debate. And many other examples. To which some may say, well, burn in is not a thing. But then we just arrive back to my meteor analogy, which continues to apply just fine! |
@nyev there are plenty who explain why burn in works and how ir works, and it depends on the equipment, and also what you call burn in. Is there is a change in equipment sound and measurements over time, of course. but, we are back to what I said, you have a red car, therefore all cars are red; you don’t understand something, therefore no one understands it. Obviously this is completely false.
|
