[The Pieman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif it is nice when someone can show a scientific approach to the sound of a product as well as an opinion as basically, there is too much needless bashing here at headfi - much more than i have experienced at any other 'serious' audio site.

Excellent This is part of what I look for, a more balanced approach to this debate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif I share your frustration with the absoluteness of some members. No matter what you might say or do to "prove" you hear what you hear, they will persist with their arguments for the sake of argument that what you think you're hearing (even if anyone sitting where you're sitting could easily hear the same things) can't possibly be heard. That's what they think, but of course they've never bothered to listen for themselves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevenkelby /img/forum/go_quote.gif 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.

Good call

Only a few people have actually cottoned on to the fact that science was only a partial reason for this post. My main reason for this post was to attempt to highlight the inability of some Head-Fi members to remain flexible and open to other possibilities, instead use science to justify there absolute opinions. I find that this basically turns some threads into battlegrounds by quelling open discussion and devaluing the quality of aforementioned threads.

Thankfully scientists don't behave in a close minded manner like these people. Scientists are generally I believe open to new possibilities and ideas and hopefully aren't too fixated on empirical data.

I would just like to see a more reasonable and well mannered approach to the forum and some of its more controversial areas.

cheers
Simon

 

[hempcamp]

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Originally Posted by Kees /img/forum/go_quote.gif 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.

You are jumping to incorrect conclusions about the sentiments of a good skeptic, and I think the few skeptics here on head-fi are good ones.

A good skeptic says (explicitly or not) "given your evidence, this cannot exist because it goes against scientific principles" not "this absolutely cannot ever exist."

There are far too many people in the audio world (and on head-fi) who make substantial claims based on "experience" that go against every grain of accepted science, and even sometimes mathematics and formal logic ("2+2=6 because I heard so!"). They do so without providing a shred of evidence other than "it sounds different/better to me and that's all that matters." That, I believe, is a far more insidious absolutism because it leads to the bandwagon effect.

Knowledge relies on the fact that we don't accept every proposition to be true simply by perception alone. Our senses often deceive us, which is what makes illusion and magic possible, superstition common, and why we are often mistaken about what we see, hear, smell, and feel (even more so about what we remember about those perceptions). This is especially true when there is a vested reason for perpetrating the bias, either unconsciously or dishonestly (I spent a lot of money on this product! or I make money on this product!).

Enter the problem: many audio enthusiasts and head-fi members are vehemently (and absolutely) opposed to accepted methods we mortals use to help determine the veracity of these fragile perceptions. But short of a rigorous application of these methods, when someone states something that is so out of line with the general body of beliefs (e.g. a given set of binary numbers is either identical to or not identical to a given set of binary numbers of the same size), there is no reason to suspend belief, run out and purchase the latest device, and hear for oneself.

If such rigorous methods were used to back up some of these difficult-to-believe claims, then I assure you that many of us skeptics, be they amateurs, university researchers, or audio professionals, would suspend our disbelief momentarily in order to search for a better explanation (because if many of these claims were proved true, someone could win a Nobel prize!). That, my friend, is what science is all about.

--Chris

P.S. -- I think hydrogenaudio goes too far and is the other extreme from head-fi. There are situations where measurable differences lead different observers to different conclusions, and if we had to perform DBTs every time we wanted to say "I really like the HD-650 better than the K701," we'd all likely go mad and truly not have time to enjoy the music.

 

[Arainach]

Quote:

I don't believe that science can explain everything. If that was the case we wouldn't need scientists. I was always under the impression that scientists spent a lot of their time investigating the unknown. yes unknown.

Err....what? Saying 'science doesn't know everything right now is not the same as saying 'science can't explain everything'. The point of science research is to be able to explain more and more.

 

[monolith]

I believe hempcamp makes an excellent point when he says that the other extreme of "absolutism", trusting your ears and nothing else, it's potentially much more destructive than purely scientific methods, especially since, as I've said, scientific methods must necessarily also include personal opinions.

 

[Wmcmanus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hempcamp /img/forum/go_quote.gif P.S. -- I think hydrogenaudio goes too far and is the other extreme from head-fi. There are situations where measurable differences lead different observers to different conclusions, and if we had to perform DBTs every time we wanted to say "I really like the HD-650 better than the K701," we'd all likely go mad and truly not have time to enjoy the music.

That's what it's all about for me, enjoying the music. Music is one of my true passions in life; all of the gear that I use to listen to music is just part of an extended hobby (the whole audiophile thing) surrounding that passion, but is not necessarily a passion in its own right. I really don't want it to be a bunch of work. Thus, to me anyway, having to "prove" that what I hear with my own ears is something that I actually hear (simply because someone else tells me that what I've heard couldn't have possibly been heard) is just as silly (to me) as the notion of going out and trying it for yourself is to you.

This doesn't mean that my mind is closed to science; it simply means that I trust my ears, especially when they keep telling me the same thing over and over and over again in a controlled test where I don't know if I'm listening to A or B but can easily identify A or B again and again. Then I observe others who are able to make the same distinctions. Then someone (or more likely a gaggle of someones) comes along with the typical nay, nay, nay, but won't bother to do the listening for themselves.

All of this is just another way of saying that no matter what side of this debate you might fall on, the repeated behavior of the strongest proponents on the other side can become terribly annoying at times. But that's life, so we all learn to cope in our own ways (mostly by chuckling to ourselves about how wrong the other side must be). We all "know" what we know, whatever it might be that we think we know. This could either be based on what we think science tells us about the situation or based on what we think our ears tell us.

Either way, we're all equally convinced. I feel just as sorry for those who won't ever try it for themselves (and thus will never know what they are missing) as they do for me for wasting my money (and deceiving myself by believing controlled listening tests).

 

[Sovkiller]

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Originally Posted by MatsudaMan /img/forum/go_quote.gif Scientists/engineers don't know anything about music.

Einstein used to play violin, and IIRC other scientists as well used to played other instruments, that is a completelly wrong assuption from your side, many of the audio designers and founders of audio brands, and electronic musical intruments of our time, used to play instruments, and get into electronics, just ot try to include it in their own performances, see Moog, Les Pauls, etc....this kind of arguments that just serve as a troll....

Science explain a lot of what we hear, but unfortunatelly there are other very subjective parameters, that always will be excluded from science, as those related to the emotions. Also why not, there should be one or another extra parameter that had slipped all these years of development in science, specially in electronics, but IMO even while it is true that science is not able to explain all what we hear, it is true also that there are a lot of things that we beleive we hear (placebo, believes, voodoo, snake oil...etc...) and others that are completelly against the laws we know till now...IMO those can never be explained by science neither...Don't ask for a miracle...

 

[ph0rk]

Science isn't a wrench - it is a technique for tightening bolts.

There are many ways to amass (and then analyze) empirical data. Don't forget that first person experience is the foundation that empiricism is based on. When you audition gear and pick which piece you prefer, you are engaging in something very akin to science - it is just poorly generalizable to all cases. An issue easily remedied by aggregating the data.


Science can be done with human ears as well as electronic instruments - so if a human can hear it, science can try to explain it.

 

[The Pieman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif I believe hempcamp makes an excellent point when he says that the other extreme of "absolutism", trusting your ears and nothing else, it's potentially much more destructive than purely scientific methods, especially since, as I've said, scientific methods must necessarily also include personal opinions.

Fair comment. I don't know if it is more destructive, who knows There is always extremes on both sides of any argument. I am not a proponent of no science, not by a long shot.

cheers
Simon

 

[monolith]

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Originally Posted by The Pieman /img/forum/go_quote.gif Fair comment. I don't know if it is more destructive, who knows There is always extremes on both sides of any argument. I am not a proponent of no science, not by a long shot. cheers Simon

Well, the kind I describe leads to people spending vast sums of money on things that seemingly don't (and even if they do, most of the users wouldn't know it) do anything. At best, the scientific-to-the-point-of-being-unreasonable audiophile would miss out on some hairsplitting improvements that may or may not result from such things.

Of course, the all-that-matters-are-my-ears camp will surely line my pockets with gold when I get into the high end cable and isolation game. I'm surprised more people don't do that, actually. Seems like a license to print money.

 

[jcx]

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Originally Posted by monolith /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, the kind I describe leads to people spending vast sums of money on things that seemingly don't (and even if they do, most of the users wouldn't know it) do anything. At best, the scientific-to-the-point-of-being-unreasonable audiophile would miss out on some hairsplitting improvements that may or may not result from such things. Of course, the all-that-matters-are-my-ears camp will surely line my pockets with gold when I get into the high end cable and isolation game. I'm surprised more people don't do that, actually. Seems like a license to print money.

someone thinks there's gold lying around for the taking:

goldensound

 

[monolith]

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Originally Posted by jcx /img/forum/go_quote.gif someone thinks there's gold lying around for the taking: goldensound

Fantastic. I like how they don't even bother to not use the word "magic".

 

[MrScary]

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Originally Posted by Trippytiger /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well said!

I know know "I just wanna Rock"

 

[smeggy]

I don't know why there's the assumption that disbelievers haven't 'tried it for themselves' when many (most?) of us came to that conclusion by going down the cable route at some stage. Arguing that we should try *every* disputed cable ourselves, as if that one will finally open our eyes to your truth is a ridiculous assumption. If we don't hear it with the first two or three, what makes anyone think the next one will sound any different? Unless it's so badly made that it totally screws the signal, chances are it will make no more of a difference to us than the others. Think about it.

You say you "trust your ears" or "listen for yourself" and yet, when we hear no difference when we do that, our opinions are dismissed. If we then look for reasoning for this lack of difference and discover our findings broadly backed by science and DBT we're vilified for being disbelievers and therefore slaves to flawed science. It's a no win situation. You say science cannot explain everything in audio and that is undoubtedly true. However, science is pretty good at disproving claims based on pseudoscience and placebo. But of course, the argument then goes to say all these tests are flawed

Control group testing with placebo is widely used in science and medicine to either prove or disprove something. Why is this testing not accepted in audio?

Like I say, no win scenario. For either side.

 

[Marados]

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Originally Posted by smeggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif DBT

Definitely the key word. You can basically shatter any pseudo-scientific voodoo magic in the audiophile word with DBT.

 

[ph0rk]

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Originally Posted by smeggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Control group testing with placebo is widely used in science and medicine to either prove or disprove something. Why is this testing not accepted in audio? Like I say, no win scenario. For either side.

minor niggle: Science has never proven anything.

It has, however, disproven quite a bit.

It really is as simple as a DBT or even better aggregate DBT/consensus analysis (get 50 people, have em all go through some DBT trials). This will tell you whether or not random tweak X has an effect that is audible by a correspondingly large segment of the population.

It will not tell you whether or not that change (if there is one) sounds any good. Anyone claiming that needs to reread an elementary school science text.