[Wyville]

Can you give an example, of *what* research you think is being taken / stretched beyond its original context (presumably to dismiss a claim)?

There are a lot of things that I notice here, but I will start with one of the most basic mistakes people make when they try to be scientific: Making sweeping generalised statements.

The discussion about it is much more nuanced, but let's take a controversial topic and, while avoiding the topic itself (it is not relevant here) look at a common statement... "Audio cables do not make a difference." Again, whether or not you feel the statement is correct is irrelevant here. However, in science such a statement is not allowed (people still do it anyway, but that is just people being people). A famous example to explain this was used by Karl Popper when he discussed the problem of induction (inductive reasoning). Before Europeans discovered Australia people lived in a world where they saw swans, many swans and all of those swans were white, therefore "all swans are white". It is an example of inductive reasoning and it is flawed, something that people discovered once they got to Australia and saw Cygnus atratus, the black swan.

It might seem like a very simple argument, but the principle of it is incredibly relevant when we study the world around us. We must try to avoid sweeping statements (inductive reasoning) because it is a form of bias and it affects the subsequent steps we take.

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.

You make good points and I honestly do not know how it can change. A problem here is that this section of the forums is pretty well isolated. So when you talk about conversation stoppers for actual scientists, the regulars here are causing that as well. We come in and look at the discussions going on and see people who profess to be scientific make all the rookie mistakes in the book and our response is... "Where on earth do we even start?" Because this is such a tight-knit community mistakes are constantly reaffirmed as being "science" and if anyone comes in to say anything about it, then they are ridiculed and branded the enemy. Heck, yesterday already someone was making assumptions about me in such a way. There is clearly a strong interest in science here, but you are actively hamstringing any chance of there being a meaningful scientifically informed discussion here. And that I suspect is the reason why these discussions are banned elsewhere in the forums, because nothing is as disruptive as a person who stakes a claim to a "scientific truth" they reached in an unscientific way. And people do this all the time with the best possible intentions and it is heartbreaking for those of us who have dedicated our lives to science. You miss out on all the good stuff and you just get stuck in lifeless arguments.

 

[moriez]

Spoiler

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.

In awe for a minute.. You're so worthy of that 'Contributor' tag. So competent in translating the big picture into words that are comprehensible for the most part. IMO the glue keeping this section together time and again. You really rock.

 

[gregorio]

[1] The discussion about it is much more nuanced, but let's take a controversial topic and, while avoiding the topic itself (it is not relevant here) look at a common statement... "Audio cables do not make a difference."
[1a] However, in science such a statement is not allowed (people still do it anyway, but that is just people being people).
[2] We come in and look at the discussions going on and see people who profess to be scientific make all the rookie mistakes in the book ....

1. But it's not a controversial topic, it's only controversial for poorly informed audiophiles. For scientists, music/sound engineers and other engineers it's not controversial at all, cables have been thoroughly researched and understood for about a century or more!
1a. Yes, such a statement is not allowed in science and that's why we don't do it, completely contrary to your assertion! No one is saying that different cables make no difference, in fact there was a long thread here many years ago, where numerous objective measurements of different cables demonstrated differences. The statement you are quoting has conditions and therefore is not only allowed by science but is the very basis of science! For example, we’re talking about differences which are of a great enough magnitude to be audible, plus other conditions which aren’t always explicitly mentioned because they’re obvious, such as the cables are appropriate for the task Eg. Aren’t faulty.

2. You mean like using analogies that are not analogous and are therefore completely irrelevant, analogies about swan colour for example! You complain about us not being scientific and the best examples you can give is a misrepresentation/misquote of what we’ve actually stated and an analogy which isn’t analogous! And that's what “science” and therefore this forum should be about is it?

G

 

[SilentNote]

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.

You are out of context regardless of the edit or not. My first and second posts are not edited and it is obvious this thread is not about the example. Even if you didn't read that 2 posts, the title of the thread also isn't about the example.

Lastly, the edit in no way altered anything in the post other than grammar / spelling mistake that I caught afterwards. Simply showing that you did not read the first, second or the third post, before or after the edit.

Nice try but no save for you. You've so far contributed 0 to this thread, other than posting a conversation stopper, even that out of context. Instead of posting something useful to the thread, 3/3 of your post in this thread has not been on topic.

I honestly don't know why you are trying to instigate squabble here. If you don't want to read the title, the original post, and the post you are replying to, please just keep quiet.

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

Here's a copy and paste of the post after edit, compared with the original quoted message in your reply:

Original quoted message in your reply:

"So this is your opinion and so far, no justification, explanation and supporting evidence has been provided.

So unless I'm seriously mistaken, simply agreeing to this opinion without asking for any form of evidence, cannot be "address(ing) issues in a constructive and scientifically informed manner". And if I ask for evidence and he is unable to provide it, then we are back to square one, i.e. the typical debate from sound science section plays out."

After edit:

"So this is your opinion and so far, no justification, explanation and supporting evidence has been provided.

So unless I'm seriously mistaken, simply agreeing to this opinion without asking for any form of evidence, cannot be "address(ing) issues in a constructive and scientifically informed manner". And if I ask for evidence and he is unable to provide it, then we are back to square one, i.e. the typical debate from sound science section plays out."

If you are struggling to find the difference, that's because this section that you are replying to wasn't even edited.

--------

And thanks for demonstrating how incredibly hard headed some of you are. Even when presented insurmountable evidence, the need to be "right" just overwhelms any reasoning or sensibility.

 

[gregorio]

To finish off:

There is clearly a strong interest in science here, but you are actively hamstringing any chance of there being a meaningful scientifically informed discussion here. And that I suspect is the reason why these discussions are banned elsewhere in the forums....

Yes, we are hamstrung... By false analogies, misquotes and numerous other deflections from providing any reliable evidence to support outrageous claims. So we end up arguing about the false analogies, the misquotes, facts/axioms which are undisputed (except by extremist audiophiles and those who market to them) and the basics of the nature of science, rather than the actual facts/science ("the good stuff") of the topic at hand!

So, you hamstring us and then state that we're not being scientific because we're hamstrung. Classic, a typical audiophile strategy for avoiding the actual facts/science!!

G

 

[gregorio]

I honestly don't know why you are trying to instigate squabble here.

Because ..... they don't have any other choice. If you don’t know what science is, cannot understand and accept basic decades/centuries old scientific facts/axioms and are adamant about promoting audiophile myths/marketing, “instigating a squabble” is pretty much the only option left!

Isn't it telling that in a thread titled "What science is and how it works..." no one has yet even attempted to address the topic. All we've had is a few people falsely telling us what we're doing isn't scientific, instigating squabbles or otherwise avoiding/deflecting from the topic and then the rest of us responding to their nonsense! To use @Wyville's terminology, they've successfully "hamstrung" the thread.

This is why science is effectively banned from other sub-forums!

G

 

[Joe Bloggs]

There are a lot of things that I notice here, but I will start with one of the most basic mistakes people make when they try to be scientific: Making sweeping generalised statements.

The discussion about it is much more nuanced, but let's take a controversial topic and, while avoiding the topic itself (it is not relevant here) look at a common statement... "Audio cables do not make a difference." Again, whether or not you feel the statement is correct is irrelevant here. However, in science such a statement is not allowed (people still do it anyway, but that is just people being people).

1+1 = 2. Sounds like a sweeping statement waiting to be contradicted by a glaring exception, that mathematicians shouldn't be allowed to make! If that sounds too specific to you, how about the rule of summation itself?

As for rules with exceptions... how about... "things will fall toward the earth under the influence of gravity, except when...
+the thing is less dense than the air around it
+the thing is already resting on another solid object that is itself resting against the earth
etc.

Does that make gravity any less true?

A nuanced sweeping generalised statement... sounds like an oxymoron to me

 

[chaos215bar2]

The discussion about it is much more nuanced, but let's take a controversial topic and, while avoiding the topic itself (it is not relevant here) look at a common statement... "Audio cables do not make a difference." Again, whether or not you feel the statement is correct is irrelevant here. However, in science such a statement is not allowed (people still do it anyway, but that is just people being people). A famous example to explain this was used by Karl Popper when he discussed the problem of induction (inductive reasoning). Before Europeans discovered Australia people lived in a world where they saw swans, many swans and all of those swans were white, therefore "all swans are white". It is an example of inductive reasoning and it is flawed, something that people discovered once they got to Australia and saw Cygnus atratus, the black swan.

In the spirit of this discussion, it would be interesting to see examples of exactly what you're referring to.

I'm certainly guilty of making such sweeping, generalized statements on occasion, but that doesn't mean I don't know such a statement is inaccurate. I do this precisely because, in the wrong context, my normal, pedantic attention to accuracy is just going to distract from the point being made.

A poster like Joe Rasmussen is a perfect example of this problem. It's a little hard to get into the full context since most of the original back and forth was deleted from that thread, but I think it suffices to say that the conversation was not on a level where, really, any nuance (let alone the level we're talking about here) was possible. Part of that was due to an immediate attack by the members here, and that's unfortunate. There's very little I can find that's really objectionable about Joe's first post aside from the tone. But there's a reason that thread became such a mess, and it's not just down to the members replying to the post I linked.

Getting back to @Wyville's example, this is why context matters. If this sub-forum were strictly limited to rigorous scientific discussion and moderated as such, I agree, a statement like "Audio cables do not make a difference." is obviously nonsense and would have no place in this sub-forum. But, this sub-forum is open to anyone and moderated with a fairly light touch, so when someone comes along who rejects the very concept of an objective performance metric and has a nasty habit of twisting and misrepresenting any nuanced statement to suite their needs, sometimes the only constructive response is the one that, while only mostly accurate, doesn't leave room for interpretation, "Audio cables do not make a difference.".

1+1 = 2. Sounds like a sweeping statement waiting to be contradicted by a glaring exception, that mathematicians shouldn't be allowed to make!

This misunderstands what the statement "1+1=2" means in the context of mathematics. Before you can say "1+1=2", you have to define, at a minimum, what "1" means, what "2" means (in practice, these would both be defined by their membership in some set), what "+" means (an operation on that set), and what "=" means (the statement that, when fully evaluated, two expressions represent an identical value).

(Note, this is one way to define natural numbers and arithmetic. There are others, both because counting and addition are such fundamental concepts and because being able to map from one understanding of a problem to an equivalent, but different one is frequently extremely useful in the context of mathematics.)

Once those definitions have been established, the statement "1+1=2", "2+2=4", or anything else you might know to be true based on elementary school math is no longer something that true simply because that's the way arithmetic works, it's a true statement that can be proven rigorously given the axioms of the system in which the statement is being made.

This is very different from something like Newton's law of universal gravitation, which, despite being referred to as a "law", only represents the best understanding we had of the gravitational force at a certain point in time. Yes, the "law of gravity" continues to be essentially correct and I don't think anyone with a background in physics could reasonably believe it's suddenly going to be proven totally wrong. But we already have a better understanding, in the form of General relativity, and we know that understanding is still incomplete.

Mathematics provides the rigorous tools used by science to study the world around us and is informed by, not rooted in, that world. Take Euclidean geometry as an example. (Hopefully most here have at least a passing familiarity with it.) General relativity tells us the universe does not strictly follow the rules of Euclidean geometry, but that doesn't mean Euclidean geometry is somehow wrong. Once you assume the set of axioms proposed by Euclidean geometry, everything that falls out is provably true. It's completely irrelevant that this doesn't quite accurately describe reality, and the system remains useful despite that shortcoming.

Science (or natural science, which is what we're discussing here) is about matching theory to observation. Even the most well established theory is subject to reevaluation should evidence contradict its claims, because we cannot observe the axiomatic laws on which the universe operates. We can only observe, theorize, test, and come up with our best approximation. The mistake comes in assuming that science's best, rigorously studied approximation of reality is on par with one's own (warning; the linked page is complete nonsense). (Note, those links are the first two Google results for the search, "GPS Relativity".)

 

[Joe Bloggs]

...Even the most well established theory is subject to reevaluation should evidence contradict its claims, because we cannot observe the axiomatic laws on which the universe operates...

That's all well and good, but gets back down to what may be accepted as such contradictory evidence in the context of what we encounter from day to day on head-fi about the topics they are about. Which, to a first (or even second) approximation, is: none.

 

[chaos215bar2]

That's all well and good, but gets back down to what may be accepted as such contradictory evidence in the context of what we encounter from day to day on head-fi about the topics they are about. Which, to a first (or even second) approximation, is: none.

I think the portion you quoted actually gets at some of the fundamental disagreements that come up repeatedly in the context of high end audio.

Consider bit depth and sample rate.

Mathematics tells us that, given a certain bit depth and sample rate, we can perfectly represent a continuous signal up to a certain frequency and noise floor. (To be fully pedantic, it is possible to define encodings such as DSD which exchange one for the other, but that's not necessary to understand for this discussion.)

Science tells us that human perception, even under the best of circumstances, does not appear to be able to distinguish frequencies above a certain point, nor sounds below a certain pressure level. (And, medical science unambiguously establishes that sounds above a certain pressure level are a really bad idea if you intend to continue enjoying audio, thus giving us useful dynamic range.)

The problem comes in the gap between those two statements. The evidence tells us that gap is vanishingly small, to the point that it's really not up for discussion. But, science has to admit the possibility that the evidence is incomplete or flawed; the possibility that there is an audible difference between 16-bit and 24-bit audio (properly mastered), or between 48 kHz and 96 kHz.

The problem is, that's a discussion that requires a lot of nuance and the ability to view such a statement with perspective, understanding that while it could be true, it's also incredibly unlikely given current evidence and has been discussed ad nauseam to the point that it's not worth even bringing up unless you're bringing a truly new perspective to the table. Furthermore, a productive conversation requires either a whole lot of patience or the ability to admit that, if you're even having that kind of conversation, the chance that you're bringing an interesting new perspective to the table is, itself, vanishingly small.

 

[bigshot]

This forum isn't called "Science", it's called "Sound Science". Sound is defined as what human ears can hear, so the kind of science we should be talking about is the science of things we can hear. Too often people in this forum think that they have to cross every T and dot every I and if they don't, they aren't being "scientific". But by going down absolutist rabbit holes all we end up doing is leaving "sound" behind. The purpose of this group is to use scientific principles to make our home stereos produce audible sound with high fidelity. Audiophiles chase fantasies and half truths that don't improve the fidelity of their sound. Science people pursue theories that are based in fact so far that they are no longer grounded in audibility.

I've said this a million times, and I'll say it again... people in audio circles know way too much about the ins and outs of sound reproduction, but they don't know jack diddly about the science of human perception. It isn't hard to set up a few simple tests for yourself and get a feel for the thresholds of audibility. In fact, right there in my sig file are two videos that have done all the legwork of setting up the tests for you. It isn't hard to do a little reading on perceptual error... masking, the effect of bias, how level differences are perceived... the basic fundamentals of auditory perception. But how many people come in here claiming to be immune to bias or claiming to be able to hear things that human ears just can't hear? I will freely admit that I have a lot to learn about these things myself, but I don't see much factual discussion of that kind of stuff around here. I wish there was someone with expertise in that area that we could learn from.

Our problem isn't that our science isn't stringent enough. It's that we are only applying science to one side of the equation- sound reproduction; and we are neglecting the science of the other side of the coin- auditory perception. When I was a kid, me and my friends had a saying... "What mom doesn't know won't hurt her." Well, I have a new saying now... "What I can't hear doesn't make my stereo sound better."

 

[castleofargh]

You make good points and I honestly do not know how it can change. A problem here is that this section of the forums is pretty well isolated. So when you talk about conversation stoppers for actual scientists, the regulars here are causing that as well. We come in and look at the discussions going on and see people who profess to be scientific make all the rookie mistakes in the book and our response is... "Where on earth do we even start?" Because this is such a tight-knit community mistakes are constantly reaffirmed as being "science" and if anyone comes in to say anything about it, then they are ridiculed and branded the enemy. Heck, yesterday already someone was making assumptions about me in such a way. There is clearly a strong interest in science here, but you are actively hamstringing any chance of there being a meaningful scientifically informed discussion here. And that I suspect is the reason why these discussions are banned elsewhere in the forums, because nothing is as disruptive as a person who stakes a claim to a "scientific truth" they reached in an unscientific way. And people do this all the time with the best possible intentions and it is heartbreaking for those of us who have dedicated our lives to science. You miss out on all the good stuff and you just get stuck in lifeless arguments.

you're correct about this sub section being hard to get into(at least psychologically). beside how that tends to be the case for any specialized group, the entire hobby and the rest of the forum rely on sighted impressions for pretty much everything. this section rejects sighted impressions so long as the question we wish to answer isn't "am I enjoying this?". it's not a small hurdle to pass. and I'm guessing that way too many people get taken by surprise when we start blaming them for what's perfectly natural almost anywhere else.
I get that, but I also get that almost anywhere else is clearly and factually doing it wrong and as a consequence promoting misunderstanding, and nonsense models about everything audio. right now, I can't think of a forum version of the toddler area at the swimming pool so they can familiarize themselves better with the concept of objective reality and conclusive evidence. if something like that exists, I'd be happy to try and implement it.
it's not the only problem as we already agreed. this section is full of issues, some were installed the day it was created. but the sighted impression thingy is one problem that's not going away anytime soon.

now about people who would like to join and participate but somehow get pushed away. I'm going to look candid here, but I believe that if you come with an idea or an experiment and provide some supporting evidence, many people will take your views seriously, including the many who read this but rarely post. when we have some method, some data, we can have a conversation about it. it might still degenerate into battles over details(it probably will TBH), but at least we'd be discussing a situation we know something about. so we could use a little bit of rational thinking to convince and demonstrate(when possible). it's not just "u'r wrong!", "no u!".
bringing data is the single most effective way to create and carry on a topic. and that's what people here keep asking for, even if they do it like bullies. instead of trying to win an argument about all cables, the person who really cares should take 2 cables and get as much information about them as possible and test them in all ways available to him. documenting any of those experiments and sharing that information, that's science. then everybody will look it up, argue on how to interpret it on how conclusive it is, on the probable flaws etc. data creates the conversation and moves it to the next step. obviously whatever going on with those 2 cables in that specific setup is never going to give a universal answer about all cables, but there is no universal answer because cables can do and be many things. so I'd be in favor to just dump all the vague questions asking for a definitive answer. those are just damaging for this forum. if I was king of my castle, I would probably lock or delete such topics when they're created, along with the one where the title or the first post is a loaded gun that can only ever make people mad. science doesn't try to disprove vague stuff, and tries to remove biases, that would sort of be justified. but it would need to become an actual rule on Head-fi if I am to do it repeatedly, and I'm not sure the admins would agree to that. they have that annoying little thing about freedom of speech(or at least the very American version of it). the main idea as I understand it is that apparently I can't make people shut up just because they annoy me. so I'm not sure removing topics because they're not sciency or specific enough, would pass as a rule.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

you're correct about this sub section being hard to get into(at least psychologically). beside how that tends to be the case for any specialized group, the entire hobby and the rest of the forum rely on sighted impressions for pretty much everything. this section rejects sighted impressions so long as the question we wish to answer isn't "am I enjoying this?". it's not a small hurdle to pass. and I'm guessing that way too many people get taken by surprise when we start blaming them for what's perfectly natural almost anywhere else.
I get that, but I also get that almost anywhere else is clearly and factually doing it wrong and as a consequence promoting misunderstanding, and nonsense models about everything audio. right now, I can't think of a forum version of the toddler area at the swimming pool so they can familiarize themselves better with the concept of objective reality and conclusive evidence. if something like that exists, I'd be happy to try and implement it.
it's not the only problem as we already agreed. this section is full of issues, some were installed the day it was created. but the sighted impression thingy is one problem that's not going away anytime soon.

now about people who would like to join and participate but somehow get pushed away. I'm going to look candid here, but I believe that if you come with an idea or an experiment and provide some supporting evidence, many people will take your views seriously, including the many who read this but rarely post. when we have some method, some data, we can have a conversation about it. it might still degenerate into battles over details(it probably will TBH), but at least we'd be discussing a situation we know something about. so we could use a little bit of rational thinking to convince and demonstrate(when possible). it's not just "u'r wrong!", "no u!".
bringing data is the single most effective way to create and carry on a topic. and that's what people here keep asking for, even if they do it like bullies. instead of trying to win an argument about all cables, the person who really cares should take 2 cables and get as much information about them as possible and test them in all ways available to him. documenting any of those experiments and sharing that information, that's science. then everybody will look it up, argue on how to interpret it on how conclusive it is, on the probable flaws etc. data creates the conversation and moves it to the next step. obviously whatever going on with those 2 cables in that specific setup is never going to give a universal answer about all cables, but there is no universal answer because cables can do and be many things. so I'd be in favor to just dump all the vague questions asking for a definitive answer. those are just damaging for this forum. if I was king of my castle, I would probably lock or delete such topics when they're created, along with the one where the title or the first post is a loaded gun that can only ever make people mad. science doesn't try to disprove vague stuff, and tries to remove biases, that would sort of be justified. but it would need to become an actual rule on Head-fi if I am to do it repeatedly, and I'm not sure the admins would agree to that. they have that annoying little thing about freedom of speech(or at least the very American version of it). the main idea as I understand it is that apparently I can't make people shut up just because they annoy me. so I'm not sure removing topics because they're not sciency or specific enough, would pass as a rule.

This comment will have no benefit to this topic, but I’m still saying it. Even if I disagree with some of the things you say, I appreciate you for at least saying it without coming off as a complete as@hole. Call me old-fashioned, but I appreciate civility. Humor, to boot, is just a nice cherry on top.

 

[bigshot]

This sub forum was created to get critical thinking and evidence based questioning out of the rest of the site. It was in essence a banishment group. When there are so many other forums on Head-Fi that allow subjective impressions, it isn't fair to come in here and engage in non-critical thinking and loudly expressing opinions with no basis in fact. That isn't playing by our rules. You can feel free to question us. We question our own all the time. We even disagree and we remain civil with each other. Disagreement isn't the problem. Not playing by the rules is. People can't march in here with an anti-intellectual chip on their shoulder and expect to be treated with kid gloves. We are perfectly able to be civil. But it requires respect for what this group is about.

If you don't understand how the group dynamics work here, lurk more.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

This sub forum was created to get critical thinking and evidence based questioning out of the rest of the site. It was in essence a banishment group. When there are so many other forums on Head-Fi that allow subjective impressions, it isn't fair to come in here and engage in non-critical thinking and loudly expressing opinions with no basis in fact. That isn't playing by our rules. You can feel free to question us. We question our own all the time. We even disagree and we remain civil with each other. Disagreement isn't the problem. Not playing by the rules is. People can't march in here with an anti-intellectual chip on their shoulder and expect to be treated with kid gloves. We are perfectly able to be civil. But it requires respect for what this group is about.

If you don't understand how the group dynamics work here, lurk more.

Who is this directed at?