Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

Your analogy has a very relative level of validity, but at the end WINE TASTING is not acoustic... A piece of gear well designed by electrical measures is not wine...No more than the measures of piece of gear replace the ears/brain working metaphorically described as "tasting" ...

Why ?

Taste more than touch or more than hearing or seeing is related to our INDIVIDUAL UNIQUE BIO CHEMISTRY AND METABOLISM...Taste is subjective completely... Wine taster are trained to identify wine component and describe them ( soil composition and chemistry of the plant ) not to suppress our individual preferences in wine born from our own personal metabolism chemistry...

Because we can use our ears/brain to see by echolocation if we become blind...If hearing was intimate and individualized as taste we will not be able to trust it OBJECTIVELY... And we will not be able to train the new blind objectively in a course designed to do it WITHOUT ERRORS ... WE SEE WITH OUR EARS...

Also the acoustic conditions in a room are OBJECTIVE factors we can control to please or displease OBJECTIVELY any musician trained to recognize accurate timbre experience..

Also our survival as species trained us to RECOGNIZE  objective speech sound in all condition in an optimal way... Why ? because our survival can depend on reflex based on ONE WORD COMMAND...This recognition obey objective working of the brain in objective natural condition...

Also acoustic physical concepts can be measured, and each qualitative attribute of sounds can be studied objectively and can be described objectively even when they are SUBJECTIVELY evaluated in psycho-acoustic ...Psycho-acoustic is based on subject-object optimal correlation...

Hi Chayro, Sensory Evaluation classes in the Wine Industry teach us that the olfactory sense of smell is interpreted; the only one of our senses that is not ’technically’ hard-wired. Some humans can be ’trained’ to distinguish up to 1,000 different smells. Each humans mouth, nose etc. are different. For example when we would place and old 3-ring binder life-saver on our tongues and place a small drop of blue dye in the middle hole we could count the taste buds in the center of the life-saver-shaped hole. Those who had lots of little taste buds were ’super tasters’ and medium amounts ’tasters’ and those with few big blotchy ones were called ’non-tasters’. Each of them totally valid for the person whose tongue we were looking at. We tried different taste sensation like bitterness from caffeine, or sweetness from sugar. Each taste was sensed from a different area of our mouth. The lesson we learned was we are all physiologically different. What tastes good to you may not taste good to me; so make sure you put at least 3-different wines on the table to try and please everyone! You can see where this is going, if you like a wine reviewers taste then you will like his wines, no matter how he measures his taste in the wine, you both have a similar set of physiological taste buds and olfactory sensory apparatus. So it’s not too hard to understand that audio senses are also interpreted to some degree based on lots of physical inputs and from most importantly life experiences. We could never understand why the teachers promoted the old school European wines over the fruit forward California ones, until we had enough tastes under our belts to gain a base-line of understanding from which our sensory evaluation could take place. Thus no matter how many types of audio equipment one may listen to or measure, if you don’t have the same taste in sound as the reviewer then it matters not because like it or not sound is an interpreted experience. Trust me we put super expensive, super highly revered wines next to those that were not, and it was always the same thing, 30% liked, 30% did not like, %40 didn’t care that much. If you put 30 people in a sound testing environment, good math and statistics will tell you the same spread will recur over and over, cost is irrelevant, and personal choice is all that matters. So, find a reviewer that has your taste in sound and follow them.   Cheers Mate

So what we have is people standing up for individual choice and saying I don’t care about measurements, I’ll do it my way. Ok fine! That’s how it should be.

But then you have a guy who tries to scientifically measure things and that’s his way. He also has a website to publish the info and many choose to value that because they value science.

But now the guy who chooses science is chastised for doing it his way He can do more than most anyone in this area and collect technical data that can help people make decisions but the “libertarians” can’t handle THAT guy deciding for himself how to do things because they don’t like the way he does things. His different view especially if based on science makes him the enemy

This is a common phenomena that we witness everyday on the internet, talk shows etc. people expect the right for themselves to be free and do it their way but not the people they disagree with. That’s being a hypocrite with a capital H .

The fact is many who want freedom for themselves can’t handle when others who are different want the same freedom. They think they are right and other guy wrong so he becomes the enemy and must be stopped.

Take note. Hypocritical libertarians vilifying others with different values are everywhere. Politicians know this and take full advantage.

Just saying. Just having different values on how to value hifi gear is enough to get people triggered

Yes Amir believes in his way and tries to convince others he is right. But I don’t see any name calling, back handed personal insults or other personal slurs coming from him . Yes he thinks he is right and tries to validate his stance. Nothing wrong with that . You can also argue an eye for an eye, but the personal attacks appear to be one way. The unhappy libertarians attack armed with slurs, insults and no regard for misinformation.

It’s so sad and petty. Grow up people. We can all do better. Maybe be a true libertarian who value the freedom of all decent hard working people, not just themselves. Narcissism seems to come into play here and that is always bad for everyone else in the end.

Do you really “Know Your Enemy”? When the enemy is science we have a big big problem.

@soundfield 

Umm, where did I claim that? 

Well, pardon me.  Do tell: can an audiophile tell the difference between high-res and CD with identical masters?

Mapman you dont seems to realize that anybody with a brain can only welcome the measures set Amir gave and say thanks... No problem here...Because i have a brain i thank Amir ...For the 17th time...

But you seems to forget that Amir dont present them as only useful measures faisification and verification but as AUDIBLE TRUTH and more than that the ONLY AUDIBLE TRUTH , anything else being subjective illusions with no value ...

Thats the problem... A falsehood submitted as truth to promote an ideology and a site..

Just saying ...

So what we have is people standing up for individual choice and saying I don’t care about measurements, I’ll do it my way. Ok fine! That’s how it should be.

But then you have a guy who tries to scientifically measure things and that’s his way. He also has a website to publish the info and many choose to value that because they value metrics.

But now the guy who chooses metrics is chastised for doing it his way He can do more than most anyone in this area and collect technical data that can help people make decisions but the “libertarians” can’t handle THAT guy deciding for himself how to do things because they don’t like the way he does things. They’d like him to be silenced

This is a common phenomena that we witness everyday on the internet, talk shows etc. people want the right for themselves to be free and do it their way but not the people they disagree with. That’s being a hypocrite with a capital H .

The fact is many who want freedom for themselves can’t handle when others who are different want the same freedom. They think they are right and other guy wrong so he should be stopped.

Take note. Hypocritical libertarians are everywhere. Politicians know this and take full advantage.

Just saying.

Again, I’m thankful to rodman99999 for providing the longer quotes from Feynman

which serve so well to support the point I’d been making (as well as Amir).

Let’s take this section:

FEYNMAN: It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it.

I think a nice example of how this can work is the infamous Opera Experiment that purported to detect faster-than-light neutrinos:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly

The team of physicists upon finding the anomoly in their results knew how momentous it would be, and so they checked and double checked their findilngs looking for any way things could have gone wrong. They re-ran the experiment, getting the same results, and when months of doing everything they could to find errors was finished, the announced the results. However, being good scientists they understood the extraordinary nature of the results and presented it to other scientists saying basically "Look, we got these unexpected results. We’ve done everything we can to trace possible biases, influences or technical issues in our experiment...but we are presenting the results so you can double check our work, and hopefully replicate the results."

Various possible flaws were suggested, and then the Opera scientists later...just as Feynman would council - reported some possible flaws in their experiment they’d discovered. Further investigation confirmed the flaws and that combined with others failing to replicate the results, dis-confirmed the initial "discovery."

Just as science should work - for either disconfirmation or confirmation.

Along those lines, in a much more modest level, I’ve tried to hew to these general principles when I’ve wanted to be more sure or rigorous about my conclusions.

For example I was curious about my Benchmark SS preamp I’d just bought vs my CJ tube preamp, in which the sonic differences seemed pretty obvious. Well...most here would say "of course they’d be obvious."

However, having done a variety of blind testing over the years - AC cables, video cables, DACs/CDPs, music servers - I’m familiar with how "obvious" sonic differences can feel under the influence of sighted bias - e.g., when you know what it is you are listening to. I’ve had "obvious" sonic differences vanish when I wasn’t allowed to know which was which. It’s very educational.

It was entirely possible that I could be perceiving a sonic difference because of my perception being swayed by those wonderful "warm, glowing tubes...of course it’s going to sound different!"

So, again, as Feynman would advise: the first rule is not to fool yourself as you are the easiest person to fool. And since I know sighted bias is a big variable, I attempted a blind test to reduce the possibility of "fooling myself." I took various other steps to reduce "fooling myself" - ensuring there wasn’t a way I could tell which preamp was being switched to, ensuring the switching was randomized, trying to ensure the levels were matched so as to account for loudness bias, etc.

When I did my best...once again in concert with what Feynman would advise...I presented the results for other people to critique:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/blind-test-results-benchmark-la4-vs-conrad-johnson-tube-preamp.33571/

As Feynman advised, I made sure to add as much detail about my method as I could, INCLUDING areas where I thought flaws could arise. And then I answered every question, I could about my method, took some suggestions to double check certain aspects and looked at how others assessed the results.

It wasn’t a scientific-level of rigor, but I think it was in the spirit of the scientific mindset/approach in the sense of all the above.

So I think I get fairly close to walking-the-walk in such instances with some of my own testing.

I wonder if rodman or others can show any of their audio tests havea similar level of steps put in place to "not fool yourself" as well as presenting the results looking for others to critique?

This, btw, is also generally what Amir does. He presents his results with plenty of detail about his METHOD and RESULTS so there is plenty of information given on which people can critique the method or results. It's not just "I put this in my system and I heard X, trust me!"  It's "here, YOU can look for yourself at my DATA to see if I'm wrong."   He presents it to the more general public on his youtube channel, and in the ASR forum in which he knows there are plenty of technically informed people who can help catch problems. And this is what goes on at ASR all the time.