A challenge to the "measurement" camp


I’ve watched some of his video and I actually agree on some of what he said,
but he seems too confident on his insistence on measurement. For those
who expound on the merits of blind test and measurement, why not turn
the table upside down?

Why not do a blind test of measurement? That is I will supply all the measurement
you want, can you tell me which is a better product?

For example, if I have a set of cable, and a set of measurement for each
individual cable, can you tell me which is the best cable based on measurement
alone? I will supply all the measurement you want.
After all, that is what you’re after right? Objective result and not subjective
listening test.

Fast forward to 8:15 mark where he keeps ranting about listening test
without measurement.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=katmUM-Xelw

By the way, is he getting paid by Belden?  Because he keeps talking about it
and how well it measures.  I've had some BlueJean cables and they can easily
bettered by some decent cables.  
andy2

Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

Not sure why he insists that gravity is the warping of space is anything but a theory

If you're not sure you must not be a very good reader because he already said why. When a guy with 23k irrelevant posts bothers to actually answer straight up you should give credit where credits due.

This "anything but a theory" actually solved a problem in astronomy, where the orbit of Mercury was known to be off by some infinitesimally tiny amount. This "anything but a theory" came along and showed that Mercury was close enough to the Sun for its gravitational effect on space and time to perfectly account for the discrepancy in the orbit of the planet. I was going to insert a link here but its way past time you started doing your own work and not just scamming off of those who actually know stuff. (Was thinking of another word but stuff is more your reading level.) 

Gravitational lenses offer another demonstration of this "anything but a theory". Galaxies are very massive, and so this "anything but a theory" predicts they curve space and time around them. If this really is the case then the light from other much more distant galaxies will be bent around them. Sure enough, there are many such examples of distant galaxies that appear in the wrong location, or sometimes even appear as double images, because of the way the light from them is bent as it travels near the galaxy in between. 

This one I will provide a link, since its a funny smiley face, much like the one on my face right now, as I contemplate just how utterly, thoroughly outclassed you are here. And always. And not just by me. https://www.thoughtco.com/introduction-to-gravitational-lensing-4153504
Move along. Please.
He wants to talk logically. But then the very next thing he does is commit logical fallacy upon logical fallacy, until within barely a minute he’s talking about "magic cables".

The fact of the matter, as you seem to already know, is many people are indeed able to not only hear differences between cables but evaluate and rank them. Different listeners prefer different cables just as different listeners prefer different amps, cartridges, or speakers. If the alcoholic wanted to talk logically he would talk about how stupid it is to have the big fancy speaker sitting behind him because all his same reasoning applies, and if all wire can be is a tone control then speakers are tone controls on steroids!

But instead he uses the speaker as a prop telling us to respect his "logic" because, speaker.

Seriously though, the "tone control" argument is a giveaway. Tells us that is all he is capable of evaluating. Listening is a skill. Like every skill it can be broken down into little bitty bits. Baseball breaks down into the skills of running, throwing, catching, hitting, etc. Listening breaks down into the skills of volume, frequency, dynamics, tone, harmonics, imaging, timbre, layering, grain, glare, etc.

Only a very partial list of skills but notice I’ve listed them in roughly their order of simplicity. Pretty much anyone can easily hear and tell which volume is louder, which frequency is higher, which thing is more or less dynamic than another, and what tone is open or boxy or bright or dull. These are the low hanging fruit. Pull any random person off the street and ask, they will pick these out no problem.

Harmonics, now its getting a bit harder but still most people can hear the difference between a sine wave and the more complex structure of the same note on a musical instrument. Timbre, the particular harmonic signature of every individual instrument, now its getting harder. A lot less people can hear the difference between a violin and a viola, tenor and alto sax, etc when playing the same note.

Already its getting hard and we’ve barely scratched the surface of listening skills. Grain is the quality of sound that can range from very coarse and etched, to extremely smooth and liquid. Grain changes as components burn in and warm up - but only for those who have developed the skill, the ability to hear and recognize grain.

I’m just getting going. There’s a whole bunch of these sonic character traits people that take forever to explain, and even longer to learn to reliably hear. But once one does develop the requisite skills then hearing these things is child’s play.

Okay now here’s the thing. People like the alcoholic with nothing to say about any of this, people who rely on the crutch of the pathetic "tone control" argument, are telling us more about themselves than anything to do with wire. What they are telling us is, "I can’t hear!" They are telling us they are lousy listeners.

Personally, I am inclined to believe them.