[Hifiearspeakers]

At the highest level of scientific practice and inquiry, they would have gotten the basics down. Such as controlling for variables and minimizing bias. They are at the bleeding edge, that's why there's so much more that is unknown to them. The questions they ask are things where solutions have not been found, understanding not developed. That does not mean that the basics are open for re-interpretation. For example, the law of gravity is not open for re-interpretation (in its specific context) even though newer science such as theory of relativity has been developed. Yes, space-time curvature can be used to explain gravity, but in the context of newtonian physics, there's no better model currently in place. You can't just dismiss the law of gravity because we don't fully understand relativity and quantum physics.

The questions and hypothesis posted in Head-Fi is by no means bleeding edge audio science. Most of it is pretty well studied concepts. Things like threshold of hearing, there's very little ambiguity in that concept. We've even developed a scale for audibility and volume of sound. The threshold for hearing, is intuitively designated as 0 dB. Of course this doesn't mean that anything under 0dB is inaudible, in certain circumstances -5 dB and even -10 dB could be potentially audible by the right person. But to assert that one can hear quantization noise at -100 dB from the main signal at 80 dB is denying the scientific studies that previous researches have established.

Paired that with the reluctance to do volume matched ABX test to minimize bias and constant reliance and insistence on subjective opinions and claims, how are those claim more credible than researches conducted years ago by credible scientists, whose results are used by audio engineers world-wide? Open to new ideas is not the same as blindly accepting every assertion that is absurd and inconsistent with past developed knowledge.

Even if the inquiry was cutting edge and knowledge not fully developed, more so significant factual and testing evidence need to be presented. The problem here is that most are not even willing to share their testing methodology and results. Can you imagine a scientist that says he has solved the unified theory of everything but will not share the methodology and results? That's what we are dealing with here, people who asserts conditions that are contradictory to developed knowledge, proceed to justify with subjective claims, and when asked to share their testing methodology and results they outright refuse, citing flaws in established scientific procedures such as ABX in eliminating bias. It's not about right or wrong, but if you want people to take your assertions seriously, it either has to be understood by existing knowledge, or that new evidence has to be presented, and allowing other people to reproduce said results.

A good investigator wants to be proven wrong, because it gives him the opportunity to learn and be that much surer that he's not spewing garbage. This is why scientific papers are written in such technical detail and presented publicly to be scrutinized. It's not about being right, like how many poster asserts here and gets mad when they their methodology for inquiry is criticized. While you claim that the Sound Science community are convinced about being 100% right, I see the contrary that the posters here are so held on to their perceived subjective truths that any criticism is akin to gaslighting them. That's not the right way to approach science, or any inquiry.

In short what I want to say is that the uncertainty of the cutting edge science does not invalidate existing studies and concepts that have already been developed. And most inquiry on Head-Fi is by no means cutting edge but well within the domain of developed audio science.

--------------



It's not so much ideology as established knowledge. And it's often not our tests that we rely on, but the actual scientific research done over the years that has established a baseline knowledge needed to understand what is likely and what is unlikely.

If you are so certain of the audible differences, why are you so resistant to discovering potential bias or flaws in methodology? A good investigator will do everything possible to ensure what they are testing is indeed what they think they are testing, and all criticisms should be accepted and new methodology designed to ensure the results are sound, until all reasonable criticisms are eliminated.

Your analogy on gravity is completely wrong. Newtonian Physics is absolutely inferior to Einstein’s relativity theory and his explanation of gravity. At the macro level, there is no theory that best explains gravity than what Einstein proposed and is accepted by all legitimate scientists and academics. In fact, the only place that relativity breaks down is at the subatomic level. At that scale, you have to refer to Quantum Mechanics. But Quantum Mechanics breaks down on the macro scale, which is why we are still searching for a Unified Fields Theory, which would be the Holy Grail of mathematics.

Newtonian theory was, at best, a fantastic approximation. But even with that said, it isn’t even precise at the macro level like Relativity is. So yeah, Relativity is absolutely the better model.

In terms of Law of Gravity, you seem to be framing it incorrectly as well. It is not a hierarchical term like Law is greater than theory and theory is greater than hypothesis. The Law of Gravity goes hand in hand with Relativity. The Law of Gravity is simply the mathematical expression of the theory. That’s how the scientific method works. It has to be testable and repeatable. The theory explains the concept, and the Law demonstrates it via an equation/mathematics.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Your analogy on gravity is completely wrong. Newtonian Physics is absolutely inferior to Einstein’s relativity theory and his explanation of gravity. At the macro level, there is no theory that best explains gravity than what Einstein proposed and is accepted by all legitimate scientists and academics. In fact, the only place that relativity breaks down is at the subatomic level. At that scale, you have to refer to Quantum Mechanics. But Quantum Mechanics breaks down on the macro scale, which is why we are still searching for a Unified Fields Theory, which would be the Holy Grail of mathematics.

Newtonian theory was, at best, a fantastic approximation. But even with that said, it isn’t even precise at the macro level like Relativity is. So yeah, Relativity is absolutely the better model.

In terms of Law of Gravity, you seem to be framing it incorrectly as well. It is not a hierarchical term like Law is greater than theory and theory is greater than hypothesis. The Law of Gravity goes hand in hand with Relativity. The Law of Gravity is simply the mathematical expression of the theory. That’s how the scientific method works. It has to be testable and repeatable. The theory explains the concept, and the Law demonstrates it via an equation/mathematics.

That may well be, but there still aren't going to be magic rocks made by Audioquest or Synergistic Research that fall upwards tomorrow...

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

I'm with @Wyville on this(I'm going to explain when and why don't panic^_^), but my main problem is that I do not know how we could change anything. most threads don't even reach the point where people can agree on a few axioms or known facts and use that as building blocks for a given topic. how do we discuss the significance of a sound variation when one side of the argument rejects both measurements and controlled tests? how do we diagnose the cause of an event when that event is not going to be properly documented and will usually stop at "trust me I know what happened", or "I know what I heard"? how do we even begin to define the audible impact of something to a person who doesn't believe in the very concept of hearing threshold and has no clear understanding of the magnitudes involved? or maybe even believes that the human ear is much more accurate and able to sense things than dedicated recording tools?
we are constantly confronted to people who are completely unqualified to even discuss a topic, let alone come bragging about a conclusion they reached based on a vague idea and some sighted anecdote. what are we expected to do beside obviously reject the conclusion and point out the logical fallacy, or total lack of supporting evidence, or how if the guy is right, he's not a human being? we cannot discuss science or behave following the scientific method when most posters don't know what it is, don't understand why it is a necessity to try and get closer to facts and accurate models, and don't understand that their subjective impressions of the world are not showing them accurate objective reality. one big problem here is that people come making empty claims. it's already bad enough, but when confronted, most have no intention or ability to provide data about what happened to them. they won't have documented anything and don't plan to ever do it. they only want us to take anything they claim at face value...
any of those issues would be a conversation stopper for any actual scientist trying to get somewhere on a given subject. so of course there isn't much science in this section. instead we see a lot of preaching and people who get mad because today, yet another guy saying he was a chess master, but he doesn't know the rules, doesn't have a chess board, doesn't plan to ever bring one, and ultimately never cared about chess at all. all he wanted was for people to believe that he was indeed a chess master because he said so.

but no matter what reason I find to explain what's going on, I agree about all the shortcomings of most regulars on this section(myself included, obviously), like how easily we accept empty statements so long as they agree with us or our general line of thought. or how we will not bother to properly demonstrate our views or wonder if we got there using some baseless belief we got at one point and never questioned. and all the nasty territorial wars where we do try to push anyone that isn't like us out of the section on the motive that within Head-fi, that section is the only place where accountability and controlled tests aren't banned or strongly frowned upon. that of course is a clear reason as to why both are systematically brought up. because in this sub section, we can, so we do. the end result is messy, angry, extremist because after discussing the same BS 500 times for years, we all end up taking more and more shortcuts that actual science and proper reasoning wouldn't allow. it's bad, but it's tiring not to take shortcuts. having to properly assess the level of the person we're talking to on that specific topic, so we can try to make some explanation he might understand(because that's where we are most of the time, forget an explanation that he might accept, just getting understood tends to be a long term project nowadays). some here clearly just go for the kill as a way to assess who they're talking to. that's not good, obviously. if we're not ready to have order and method on our side, we shouldn't participate in a section about the science of stuff.
but again, knowing and being able to stop ourselves, 2 vastly different matters. what I'm saying is that beside trying to change Headfi, and change people in it, I don't know how this section could possibly become more like its name.


as for science in general, we're not doing that. we're not researchers, we almost never have statistically significant samples, or experiments documented well enough that we can use them, interpret them correctly, maybe replicate them, find the potential flaws, try to fix them, etc. most people worry about being right instead of worrying about how to find out the truth. that's going to happen everywhere sadly. what we can do is take the existing data and try our best to stop people from misinterpreting it and jumping to conclusion that go way beyond the experiment itself. if we just did that well, we'd be pretty badass.... for the amateur audiophile microcosm.

See I agree with most of this. But the Sound Science forum takes it way too far. You simply cannot measure every aspect of audio, because at the end of the day, you can’t even describe sound without some element of subjectivity.

I even asked about soundstage and they try to act like there isn’t even a real difference between different headphone models. First of all, that’s bullshi@. I could pass a double blind test 1000/1000 times if you asked me to distinguish which headphone casts a larger soundstage between the 800S and Utopia.

Secondly, how do you even objectively measure a headphones soundstage?

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

That may well be, but there still aren't going to be magic rocks made by Audioquest or Synergistic Research that fall upwards tomorrow...

I don’t disagree with that lol!

 

[SilentNote]

Your analogy on gravity is completely wrong. Newtonian Physics is absolutely inferior to Einstein’s relativity theory and his explanation of gravity. At the macro level, there is no theory that best explains gravity than what Einstein proposed and is accepted by all legitimate scientists and academics. In fact, the only place that relativity breaks down is at the subatomic level. At that scale, you have to refer to Quantum Mechanics. But Quantum Mechanics breaks down on the macro scale, which is why we are still searching for a Unified Fields Theory, which would be the Holy Grail of mathematics.

Newtonian theory was, at best, a fantastic approximation. But even with that said, it isn’t even precise at the macro level like Relativity is. So yeah, Relativity is absolutely the better model.

In terms of Law of Gravity, you seem to be framing it incorrectly as well. It is not a hierarchical term like Law is greater than theory and theory is greater than hypothesis. The Law of Gravity goes hand in hand with Relativity. The Law of Gravity is simply the mathematical expression of the theory. That’s how the scientific method works. It has to be testable and repeatable. The theory explains the concept, and the Law demonstrates it via an equation/mathematics.

Ok, so not the best example (I'm no scientist/physicist), but do you at least understand the main point of my post?

Yes, newtonian physics isn't as accurate as relativity, but do apples fall upwards now? Just because relativity has been developed? A close approximation still establishes a baseline knowledge of what is likely and what is unlikely. Assertions that is unlikely will require more proof than just subjective opinions.

See I agree with most of this. But the Sound Science forum takes it way too far. You simply cannot measure every aspect of audio, because at the end of the day, you can’t even describe sound without some element of subjectivity.

I even asked about soundstage and they try to act like there isn’t even a real difference between different headphone models. First of all, that’s bullshi@. I could pass a double blind test 1000/1000 times if you asked me to distinguish which headphone casts a larger soundstage between the 800S and Utopia.

Secondly, how do you even objectively measure a headphones soundstage?

Why isn't it possible to measure every aspect of audio production? As far as I know there's no hidden variable in sound waves.

Perceived audio of course cannot be measured, because the perception of sound is created by the synthesized information using multiple sensory faculties and recreated to have a "meaning". Head-stage is one such thing. There isn't a "real" difference because how each individual will "recreate" that soundstage differently. It's not real soundstage like a real room where sound waves are reflected and delayed. Surely you have perceived a difference between the two headphones, but that doesn't imply that I will. A Hi-Fi set properly in an acoustically treated room will cast a real soundstage to everyone.

This is what I have been pointing out. Posters come here with strongly held perceived subjective truths, and when that belief is not affirmed they feel so offended as to accuse being gaslighted. Is that the right way to approach any inquiry?

 

[taffy2207]

And perhaps you have not paid attention to the title of the thread or the nature of the thread, or did not comprehend the main point of my post.

Patronising much?

 

[SilentNote]

Patronising much?

Feeling embarrassed you replied out of context?

 

[taffy2207]

Feeling embarrassed you replied out of context?

I'll leave you alone with your ego. Seems you want to be argumentative for the sake of it.. I'm out.

Nice edit on your post btw, it wasn't out of context until you edited it (2 hours after).On Ignore.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

See I agree with most of this. But the Sound Science forum takes it way too far. You simply cannot measure every aspect of audio, because at the end of the day, you can’t even describe sound without some element of subjectivity.

I even asked about soundstage and they try to act like there isn’t even a real difference between different headphone models. First of all, that’s bullshi@. I could pass a double blind test 1000/1000 times if you asked me to distinguish which headphone casts a larger soundstage between the 800S and Utopia.

Secondly, how do you even objectively measure a headphones soundstage?

I remarked to Wiljen Audiofool yesterday that I could predict headphone soundstaging (not all, but some) from looking at an FR chart. For example sounds from directly in front are boosted at 3kHz and depressed above about 8kHz relative to the diffuse field (for the average listener), so if a pair of 'phones has such a signature, it's going to image further in front of your head (to the average listener). From personal experience I also notice that earphones with a smoother treble FR give a cleaner studio-like sound while one with a more jagged treble FR gives a grittier, more live sound. This observation is helped by me being able to identify and tune out all such jaggedness via parametric EQing, so I can switch from one situation to the other with a snap of my fingers.

To the extent that headphones influence soundstaging, I really think it's mostly in the FR. Other factors would be things like how the headphones fit, how far the drivers are from your eardrum, that kind of thing. Time-domain performance of the earphones don't figure into the equation, because headphones are almost uniformly minimum phase as a system, and anyway it is differences in phase response between the two ears that tends to influence imaging, and you're not going to have that in a pair of headphones unless they're broken.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

Ok, so not the best example (I'm no scientist/physicist), but do you at least understand the main point of my post?

Yes, newtonian physics isn't as accurate as relativity, but do apples fall upwards now? Just because relativity has been developed? A close approximation still establishes a baseline knowledge of what is likely and what is unlikely. Assertions that is unlikely will require more proof than just subjective opinions.



Why isn't it possible to measure every aspect of audio production? As far as I know there's no hidden variable in sound waves.

Perceived audio of course cannot be measured, because the perception of sound is created by the synthesized information using multiple sensory faculties and recreated to have a "meaning". Head-stage is one such thing. There isn't a "real" difference because how each individual will "recreate" that soundstage differently. It's not real soundstage like a real room where sound waves are reflected and delayed. Surely you have perceived a difference between the two headphones, but that doesn't imply that I will. A Hi-Fi set properly in an acoustically treated room will cast a real soundstage to everyone.

This is what I have been pointing out. Posters come here with strongly held perceived subjective truths, and when that belief is not affirmed they feel so offended as to accuse being gaslighted. Is that the right way to approach any inquiry?

Again, I don’t disagree with most of what you’ve said. But you just said that I could hear a soundstage difference that you might not hear! Then that would make it a subjectively true experience for both of us. So neither of us would be wrong with what we’re stating, even if that subjective hearing difference can’t be empirically verified with measurements.

You’re comment about posters feeling gaslighted goes both ways. Have you read some of the rude and condescending responses from some of the people in the Sound Science forum? Is that the right way to approach an inquiry?

I believe civility is a mutual exercise.

I’m not an extremist for either side, but I also don’t walk around acting like I know absolutely everything about everything. Not everyone who says they can detect an audible difference from something is a Kool-Aid drinker.

You asked why isn’t it possible to measure every aspect of audio reproduction? Tell me how you measure a headphones soundstage? Or how do you measure the quality of treble or bass as opposed to just the quantity of treble or bass? It seems logical to me that questions like that beg subjective preference? Tell me where I’m wrong?

 

[SilentNote]

Again, I don’t disagree with most of what you’ve said. But you just said that I could hear a soundstage difference that you might not hear! Then that would make it a subjectively true experience for both of us. So neither of us would be wrong with what we’re stating, even if that subjective hearing difference can’t be empirically verified with measurements.

You’re comment about posters feeling gaslighted goes both ways. Have you read some of the rude and patronizing responses from some of the people in the Sound Science forum? Is that the right way to approach an inquiry?

I believe civility is a mutual exercise.

I’m not an extremist for either side, but I also don’t walk around acting like I know absolutely everything about everything. Not everyone who says they can detect an audible difference from something is a Kool-Aid drinker.

You asked why isn’t it possible to measure every aspect of audio reproduction? Tell me how you measure a headphones soundstage? Or how do you measure the quality of treble or bass as opposed to just the quantity of treble or bass? It seems logical to me that questions like that beg subjective preference? Tell me where I’m wrong?

Yes, subjective experience can be true for both people and contradict at the same time. Therefore it is important to understand the context in which the discussion is held, as they often do not translate to usefulness to the other party.

I agree that civility is a mutual exercise.

Like I said in the previous post, you can't measure perception, only the produced sound wave. Because perception varies with individual, it's generally not very useful to attempt to measure such things anyway. As for quality of treble and bass, I don't know. I would guess that it's within the frequency response, but don't quote me on that.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

Yes, subjective experience can be true for both people and contradict at the same time. Therefore it is important to understand the context in which the discussion is held, as they often do not translate to usefulness to the other party.

I agree that civility is a mutual exercise.

Like I said in the previous post, you can't measure perception, only the produced sound wave. Because perception varies with individual, it's generally not very useful to attempt to measure such things anyway. As for quality of treble and bass, I don't know. I would guess that it's within the frequency response, but don't quote me on that.

We are really agreeing more than disagreeing. All I’m saying is that you can’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Science is awesome and I’m obsessed with it. But science is just a tool and it has its limitations. There’s nothing wrong with having an open mind. Cheers!

 

[gregorio]

[1] It has more to do with a lack of appreciation for just how difficult it is to construct a genuinely solid scientific experiment and the subsequent interpretation of its results.
[2] It is so incredibly easy to be absolutely 100% convinced of something based on a theory, only to find you fail at the first hurdle when you put it to the test in practice.

1. No, it rarely has anything to do with that at all!

2. That is true but completely irrelevant! The difficulty we so often face here is that many/most audiophiles believe in common marketing lies/falsehoods that we're somehow dealing with cutting edge theories that are not or not yet fully understood or proven. That's simply false, for example digital audio theory is not cutting edge, it's nearly a century old, mathematically proven and has not "failed at the first hurdle when you put it to the test in practice", in fact, it's put to the test in practice billions of times a second by each of a billion+ devices. If the theory were wrong, none of our digital devices would work. There is probably nothing in the whole of human history that is more demonstrated and proven in practice! And this is typical of what we often have to deal with here, arguments about alternating electrical currents and other areas that were researched to death, fully established, used in practice and uncontested in the scientific community (or anywhere else except the poorly informed audiophile community!) for many decades and often a century or more!

G

 

[bigshot]

And the more quantization noise and other distortions the lower the resolution So in very apt terms, resolution is defined by the bit depth. Now, can you hear the increased resolution going from 16 bit to 24 bit? That's another debate. Highest frequency able to be perfectly reproduced is determined by f*2. Shannon Nyquist theorem. So, based on my theory, I would expect 24/44 to sound better than 16/176

Nope. It doesn't *sound* better, it is just more data. Every audiophile argues the nuances of measurements, but they spend absolutely no time trying to understand the thresholds of human perception. Human ears can hear up to a point. Beyond that, they can't hear any more. You can throw more data "resolution" at them, but at a certain point a frequency is too high to hear, or a noise floor is too low to hear.

To get started understanding the limits of human hearing, I'd recommend the two videos by Ethan Winer in my sig file. They have downloadable examples you can use to hear for yourself what you can and can't hear.

 

[bigshot]

It has more to do with a lack of appreciation for just how difficult it is to construct a genuinely solid scientific experiment and the subsequent interpretation of its results. It is so incredibly easy to be absolutely 100% convinced of something based on a theory, only to find you fail at the first hurdle when you put it to the test in practice.

That is what we run into here all the time. Most of us here in sound science know how to do a decent controlled test. I do a quick comparison test with every piece of equipment I buy to make sure it's audibly transparent. The people who come in here complaining "science knows nothing because it can't know everything" are the ones who have never even attempted a controlled listening test themselves. They are more than happy to criticize the controls of someone else's test as being inadequate, but if you ask them to do a tighter test themselves, they start arguing that testing is invariably flawed so there's no point. I have no time for anti-intellectual arguments like that, so I dismiss people like that with a wave of my hand.

Practicality is important. Our goal here is to end up with a home audio system that sounds as good as we can make it sound. We use scientific principles to get there. That doesn't mean that we need to wear white coats, calculate every fraction down 32 decimal places, allow for every freak and anomaly of nature, and sample every human who draws breath in the entire world. It means that we have to use a solid methodology to get significant real world results. Listening tests can help achieve that and verify that the results are significant. Sound science people are just as apt to lose sight of that practical horse sense as audiophiles. It isn't an "us or them" thing. That rabbit hole goes just as deep on both sides.

If you want to argue that the test should fit the practical realities of our goal, I'll agree with you. If you want to argue that there's no such thing as "good enough" and everyone else's tests are flawed, without submitting your own tests to be similarly critiqued, I've got no time for that. I've been down that road before and it's just a waste of time.

Start small and a little bit flawed and work your way up. Take something like lossy vs lossless or CD vs SACD and do a nice simple test. Feel free to ask for advice, because there are people here who have done just that ourselves. I guarantee you that you'll learn a lot. If you want to go further because you think there might be more hiding in the details, feel free. But don't prop yourself up as judge and jury over how much thoroughness is enough unless you're willing to live up to that standard yourself and do the tests and publish them. We aren't here to live up to your standards. The solution is simple- it isn't tighter and tighter testing procedure, it's intellectual honesty. Too many people arguing from their ego, not a spirit of helpfulness.