[Chickenman]

Science can't explain why the KSC-75's are only 15 bucks and sound so dang good!




Sorry, just HAD to say that.

Truthfully, science does have some part in audio, but not all because some things just can't be proven.

 

[ericj]

Science has the potential to measure all things in audio.

Scientific measurement theory for audio needs to keep pace with the technology, though. For example, I read a good article that argued that we need new metrics for audio fidelity when measuring "Class D" amplifiers. It seems that a class-D amp can measure very well using all the metrics used for traditional amps and still sound bad.

I refuse to accept the argument that some audio metrics are immesurable, and i question the ears and discrimination of anyone who makes that argument. It can all be measured, if we develop the right tools.

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dura /img/forum/go_quote.gif Since science will learn a lot tomorrow it doesn't know or can't explain everything today. Putting complete trust in not yet complete science doesn't seem very scientific to me.

I believe I covered this when I said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif Again, this isn't a matter of "you haven't heard them so you can't comment on it". All you have to do is think about the situation. This isn't some mystical physical singularity where an as-yet undiscovered grand unified field theory is required to explain something science can't currently explain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chickenman /img/forum/go_quote.gif Truthfully, science does have some part in audio, but not all because some things just can't be proven.

Science is everything up to where you express your opinion on the sound, as I've said. You can even go so far as to try to correlate what you prefer with what's going on physically. I believe that's called psychoacoustics.

Throwing around blanket statements like the one I've just quoted is meaningless. It's true that some things can't be proved. The axiom of choice is formally unprovable in common mathematics, for example. That doesn't have anything to do with a simple test to see whether two things sound different, or using well-studied physics to see whether a certain design is physically sound.



Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif I refuse to accept the argument that some audio metrics are immesurable, and i question the ears and discrimination of anyone who makes that argument. It can all be measured, if we develop the right tools.

Well said.

 

[shigzeo]

i think that science however cannot measure plaecebo

 

[Kees]

Science is about investigating and finding new explanations for as yet unexplained phenomena.
If you state that a phenomenon can not exist because it is not scientifically explained yet, you go against everything science is about. You even deny the sole purpose of science.
It is like saying your map is the real world. If it is not drawn on the map it cannot be there...
Get real.

 

[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marados /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science explains all. It explains every mechanism in action of the actual, physical production of the noise, and it strives to explain all the chemical reactions that occur within your brain, which end up producing what you hear, and your emotional disposition towards it.

I am afraid we are not living in a world as small and managable and controllable as you would like it to be.

 

[The Pieman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science has the potential to measure all things in audio. Scientific measurement theory for audio needs to keep pace with the technology, though. For example, I read a good article that argued that we need new metrics for audio fidelity when measuring "Class D" amplifiers. It seems that a class-D amp can measure very well using all the metrics used for traditional amps and still sound bad. I refuse to accept the argument that some audio metrics are immesurable, and i question the ears and discrimination of anyone who makes that argument. It can all be measured, if we develop the right tools.

I am struggling with this a bit as I find this contradictory. You refuse to accept that some audio metrics are immeasurable, but at the same time infer that some measurement tools may need to still be developed. Mmmmmmmm........

cheers
Simon

 

[The Pieman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kees /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science is about investigating and finding new explanations for as yet unexplained phenomena. If you state that a phenomenon can not exist because it is not scientifically explained yet, you go against everything science is about. You even deny the sole purpose of science. It is like saying your map is the real world. If it is not drawn on the map it cannot be there... Get real.

Beautifully stated. Part of what I have been trying to say in my own stilted way.

cheers
Simon

 

[stevenkelby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marados /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science explains all. It explains every mechanism in action of the actual, physical production of the noise, and it strives to explain all the chemical reactions that occur within your brain, which end up producing what you hear, and your emotional disposition towards it.

This is highly incorrect. Science does not explain all about audio. Science does not explain all about anything and it never will. There is no area of research in which we can say "We now know all there is to know. Theoretically, science aims to explain all, but it never will. Scientists know this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif I refuse to accept the argument that some audio metrics are immesurable, and i question the ears and discrimination of anyone who makes that argument. It can all be measured, if we develop the right tools.

You are saying that there are audio metrics which are immeasurable, due to the fact that we have not developed the right tools, yes?

Simon, your issue is nothing to do with science, subjectivism, proof, experience etc. I know exactly what you are getting at, and yes, those guys bring me down too.

 

[dura]

Science is the way we formalize a validate our knowledge, but it is how we use that knowledge and how aware we about about its lacks (a real blind spot) that determines its value.
When CD came out is was claimed ot sound much better then vinyl, because distortion was clearly less.
The statement about the distortion was easily proven scientificly, but the problem was vinyl sounded better (especially in the 80s when CDPs did not sound very good) to everyone who took the time to sit down an actually listen instead of looking at figures. like kees says, the map is not the world.
Before that, in the 70s, scientifc measurement proved the new cheap Japanese transistoramps had far less distortion then valveamps, (often things like 0,002% or so) so the sounded better. Except that they didn't, clearly the numbers didn't tell the whole story, or people where looking at the wrong numbers.
Is science to blame?
No, it is the unfortunate inclination of people who use a reducted set of measurement to try to capture a complex phenomen in a few simple figures often overseeing crucial factors.
My brother is an engineer and tries to pick his wine this way; the older it is and the more alcohol it contains and and the more expensive the better it should be.
Complete rubbish, but these are the only figures he can find on a bottle and he needs figures.
Is that scientific? No, it is an almost autistic need to reduce reality to numbers, even if the numbers are hardly related to the quality you want to measure.

 

[Kees]

^
Well said.

 

[shigzeo]

yes, but here we have a similar view that the more expensive a gear is and the more obscure the name is often, the better. big companies with big marketting departments cannot sound as good for things such as cdp, portable audio, dac etc.

essentially, we take the stance without measurements that only our ears (and placeabo can figure it out). it would be nice to have a good review based on both scientific study and experiencial manufacture but we don't have that.

very well said though. i think what was mentioned above was more of a scientific approach to marketting rather than actual science where vinyl and cheap transistors are made to sound better. that is very much just a push from a company.

naturally if a company claims the impossible for a price, these claims need to be tested from a variety of different angles, not just one. when it comes to audio or video or anything really but essentially where our mind plays tricks on us as well, it would be nice to approach sound with as many weapons as we can rather than rely on one or the other

 

[monolith]

This has degenerated substantially.

ericj's statement was not at all contradictory. To say "everything in audio is measurable" is not the same as saying "we are currently equipped to measure everything in audio".

You can argue that science doesn't explain everything about anything, but that'd be a silly argument. There's always some minute, esoteric fact about a given situation that might not be totally formalised physically (perhaps micro black holes are being created and destroyed from the everpresent quantum foam in the core of VD cables, and that's why they sound so good!), but we're not really dealing with anything at that level of complexity. Basically, while it's technically true that not everything to do with audio reproduction is strictly explicable scientifically, that's essentially a moot point when dealing with this kind of stuff. This isn't sub Planck-length physics, this isn't the inside of the Sun, this isn't the edge of the observable universe.

The other problem is that you shouldn't necessarily equate scientific understanding with good sound. You have to use science to come up with things that can affect sound (or show that things can't affect sound), then after that decide whether these effects are desirable or otherwise. Attempting to correlate these two things falls into the realm of psychoacoustics.

Science can also be used to judge equipment makers. A recent example comes to mind wherein a manufacturer claimed distortion and gain levels that were simply impossible for the device they'd built. Great sounding equipment or not, I don't want people lying to me in order to sell things.


Also, to argue that there's more to explain because science is there to explain unknown things is circular. Not only that, but the obvious fact is that people seem to need to be reminded of scientific methods and reasoning when dealing with things that are already well explained. In order for new things to be explained by science, they need to be discovered first. An example of such would be ericj's note about Class D amplification. That said, I certainly don't know of any other such issues.

 

[Roam]

In my opinion, the problem isn't measuring, rather, it's making the right measurements and correlating the measurements to listener perceptions. In other words, figuring out why, how, and if certain metrics will affect sound the way which listeners claim they do. That's the hard part.

 

[Marados]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevenkelby /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is highly incorrect. Science does not explain all about audio. Science does not explain all about anything and it never will.

Your statement only holds true depending on what scale we're talking about. If we're talking about following everything down to a quantum level, and continue to try and explain it more in-depth (sound is a longitudinal wave of air. What is air composed of? What are atoms composed of? What are sub-atomic particles composed of? What causes the wave to move? What is a force? What is momentum? etc) then we will reach a level where we cannot explain it - yet.

Quote:

There is no area of research in which we can say "We now know all there is to know.

Correct. I'm not saying this, however.

All I'm saying is that there isn't anything science can't explain, given time - that isn't to say we know everything yet, of course.