Audiophiles should learn from people who created audio

To invent a side that doesn't exist to justify a stance so one can stand on their soapbox and say it with a straight face is sad, indeed. 
You're getting way too worked up about this. 

What! Whoa!! Hey, what did you do with the Kostco-emoji with the sense of humor. Oh, I forgot. There isn't one. Oh, well, rant on, sweet pea. 😡

So why should I care if our hobby is "ridiculed", and who says that's even the case? I'm not in this for anyone but myself and my love of music. I trust my ears, I like what I like, and could care less what people think about it.

Uh, it hasn't deterred you. 😳

Isn’t it odd that the majority of posts are about the things that have the least sonic signature: electronics and cables (not to mention fuses, grrrr...), and far less about what matters more: speakers and, above all, the room. Room interaction does not even have its own category. Why?

As most people have no idea how important it is.

When they do understand how important it is, they have no idea what to do about it.

When they hire an expert on the subject, even the experts can screw it up.

It is a poorly researched area, with poorly explored complexities that are even more poorly realized in what they are.

Solutions are variable, to say the least.

The only expert I’m aware of who professionally guarantees his ’studio quality and beyond’ results from a closet sized space up to a pro level 3 million-10millon cube space... is my biz partner and friend, Taras.

He’s done the most impossible spaces you can imagine, that all other acoustics and noise control companies have walked away from, and will not touch. In my recollection, he has never failed in acing a job that is considered impossible.

You do like shouting, don't you?

Once some folks STOP ridiculing others over electronics, after market cables and fuses who are BTW simply sharing their experiences then we can focus on room treatments which I agree is very important and often overlooked in grand scheme of things.

Isn't it odd that the majority of posts are about the things that have the least sonic signature: electronics and cables (not to mention fuses, grrrr...), and far less about what matters more: speakers and, above all, the room. Room interaction does not even have its own category. Why?

teo_audio wrote,

"Engineers and the vast majority of scientists are almost never (99.95% +) trained in the psychological and physiological aspects of mind, nor are they multi-disciplinarians, for the most part. The engineer is the most behind the eight ball in this scenario at hand. Realization, or discipline of mind - is key, here."

>>>>>Not sure what you’re getting at. First of all, when I went to school engineers were required to take at least one course in psychology. Also, we all know by now there can be some "psychological issues" involved with audio, like expectation bias and placebo effect but these psychological issues can be *controlled* with careful testing so I think their influence might be overblown. But everything is not as it seems in this great hobby. Not by a long shot. Queue scary music.

There is a whole undiscovered universe of what is more properly called "mind-matter interaction" involved in the hobby that was the realm of Peter Belt (RIP) and PWB Electonics for many years, at least 30. Silver Rainbow Foil and the Red X Pen being excellent examples of this category of audiophile product. As well as my Clever Little Clock. There are quite a few of these audiophile products that go BUMP in the night. But iit might be a mistake to say mind-matter interaction is "psychological" as that word is frequently used in the pejorative sense. I’d opine that the fields of human evolution, biology and sensory perception are probably more appropriate to this phenomenon. It is not a trick of the mind, some sort of subliminal marketing ploy or a cheap parlor trick. It’s an automatic involuntary (subconscious) response to external stimuli. We don’t need ALL engineers and scientists to be trained in psychological aspects of audio, we only need one or two. I’m not trying to set the world on fire. I’m just trying to start a flame in a few hearts.

Science comes after observation. Observation is the origin point.

If the science ends up nullifying the observation and the observation persists, then the science may be wrong, ie, not sufficient to discern or negotiate the given situation. Science is a servant, a tool, a methodology, it is not an arbiter of reality.

The danger is that fallible humans tend to put dogma into science when science has nothing to do with dogma or projection of dogma.

If one finds themselves running in circles, then it is a problem of an incomplete question. As question and answer are a mirror of one another. Premise comes after observation and before science. Discipline of the mind remains integral to all.

Engineers and the vast majority of scientists are almost never (99.95% +) trained in the psychological and physiological aspects of mind, nor are they multi-disciplinarians, for the most part. The engineer is the most behind the eight ball in this scenario at hand. Realization, or discipline of mind - is key, here.

This complex question requires many disciplines to be discerned and fully negotiated in order to solve it. It is no simple question.

Otherwise the resolution of it would be in the record and all of us would have moved on and be wasting our time with some other misunderstood issue.

@willemj I think we agree on things more than I initially thought. I’m a sceptic and remain sceptical until I experience any improvement myself. I would never say this is scientific. But it’s what I have to work with. As we’ve said, there isn’t a lot of research funding in the audio realm, there aren’t a lot of technical, peer reviewed papers. There’s a whole world out there to play in about discover. I know that the way I do things rubs you the wrong way, but it isn’t indicative of how I view science. It’s indicative of how I like to play and explore.

So nobody noticed the irony of the "quote" from the very top of the linked article? 

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
----Mark Twain

Yep, they've been fooled too: Mark Twain didn't say that. Nobody knows who actually came up with the phrase 

Yup, that’s all one can expect from a self proclaimed F5 clown 😉

Eek!

This is, of course, interesting because we know from the measurements that there is a difference. Methodologicaly the problem is that you do not believe it is big enough to show up in a double blind listening test, and it is beyond the level where by common consent it is believed the limits are of human hearing acuity. So it could just be expectation bias. How do we decide that what you hear is real?
My real concern is when measurements show that there is nothing there, or even, that the audiophile marvel measures badly and is still praised by golden ears.

@willemj  

I agree that intrumentation is far more resolving and reliable than human hearing.

However, it is still astonishing that we can hear up to 10 dB below the noise floor. Our hearing is very much like a spectrum analyzer. I dont subscribe to the idea we can hear the shape of wavefronts - this is nonsense. However, given enough audio signal it is astonishing how well we can work out the frequency content. 

In theory, and according to the designer, there shoukd not be an audible difference from Benchmark DAc 2 to DAc 3 but I hear something. Extremely subtle and I admit that I would not detect this in a blind test but with rapid A to B I hear something. Instrumentation of course sees quite a difference in THD+N performance but at a level that should be inaudible.

Having been involved in work on video projection engines(how individual circuits I gear affects final outcome), both analog and digital, the optical intricacies (glass coatings, lens design, etc)..the screens, their placement, their design at the (photonic/atomic level)..the interlacing and associated scaling algorithms, and so on....basically the entire pathway..even the entire package of the image capture devices (including their fundamental physics) ..the entire package, in all it’s minute and interconnected overarching intricacies -and many aspects that folks don’t generally understand yet....and then going back to how people see...how they see differently...

....I can say that visual people suffer from the same complex issues as do the audio people.

I've done probably...1000-1500 'single cause analysis' tests in the video work in these mentioned areas. At least double that number in the world of audio. This is why I'm (now) in my 50's and getting into finally publishing works as product. The apprenticeship was fairly long it seems.... I like pure research, and selling product, building product - kills the fun of pure research. It's a grist mill, business is..it can ruin a mind and a life with ...well..what we see here in these threads. I avoided it as long as I could.

Picture quality is a whole different thing from sound quality IMHO. For TVs folks march down to their local Best Buy or Target or whatever, check out a few TVs in their price range and figure out right away which one they like. They know what colors look like and constrast and saturation, without any doubt. Any yahoo in town can easily see differences among TVs. But audio is a completely different animal. Audiophiles stress over everything. One problem I suspect is that audiophiles for all their bluster aren’t very sure of what their listening to and uncertain as to how to proceed to improve whatever it is they've got. it's a sticky wicket.

Those who can't 'see' the difference between cables will never admit that their hearing is not skilled/ sensitive enough It's easier for them to jump to the false conclusion that all cables are the same.

No correlation between intelligence and visual skills, science says.

That is the implication of a new study which shows for the first time that there is a broad range of differences in people’s visual ability and that these variations are not associated with individuals’ general intelligence, or IQ. The research is reported in a paper titled "Domain-specific and domain-general individual differences in visual object recognition" published in the September issue of the journal Cognition and the implications are discussed in a review article in press at Current Directions in Psychological Science.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-visual-intelligence-iq.html

Same goes for hearing vs intelligence.

Appealing to authority or those who sound like they know something, does not correlate with excellent hearing skills. It’s all over the map.

Which shows that bringing a well spoken argument about how humans can’t possibly hear beyond measurements, is a full on red herring. When the evidence brought by many hundreds of thousands says different, then the well spoken argument means nothing.

Science agrees with this basic premise and point. At least in the idea of minimally tested theory (this is one test of many that have been done in this area). Which is all science can be, which is well tested theories, not facts. Einstein and Feynman and any scientist of renown you can quote -understand that science works this way. Science does not dictate reality into unknowns... it merely attempts to describe reality as witnessed. Nothing more.

Those who can’t ’see’ that, will continue to ramble and attack. Until they stop.

To be replaced by another who still does not get it.

Just to point out there are not very many Standards for audio, unlike say the Military or the FAA and other Government agencies that have Standards for practically everything, including toilet seats on Air Force One. Also, business is not conducted like it is in Government or the Military as there are no proposals, no evaluations, no third party testing, etc. There aren’t even any requirements! So, aside from a UL sticker here and there and Redbook standard for CD, everything in audio seems to be catch as catch can. There is no standard for polarity, no standard for dynamic range, or for SNR, for that matter. No standard for resolution, even for Sound Quality. As always we are at the mercy of the industry wonks and marketeers. 😳

“Flat Earthers” is an apt description of some individuals on this forum."

Flat Mirthers too...

Agreed. They've been busy lately. I've had all kinds of posts removed this past week, probably close to 10 or so. Before that, I had two posts removed in approximately 6 months.

I am fairly sure that the Op and I will never agree on anything bar possibly the over zealous actions of the mods on this site.
In fact this is the most unusual discussion forum I have ever been in where the mods appear to just be faceless entities who hack and slash at posts that displease them with no reason given.
Most other forums the mods are active well known members who regularly join in discussions them selves and if they feel a member is becoming a donkey hybrid will step in with a friendly warning first.
Why does this matter?
Well take this thread for example, it has had a fair number of posts removed which has had the result of turning it from a coherent thread to a bit of a disjointed mess as reading from the start it is obvious some posts are replies to a previous post that as it now no longer exists makes little sense any more.
Just my ramblings and I am sure a mod will be along shortly to obliterate this post........

Who died and left you in-charge of audiophile society 😉

+1 Fortunately it is an innocuous hobby. Let's rejoice that as yet these quacks are not in charge of medical testing, even if the same arguments can increasingly be heard in that arena too.

"In our hobby the only factor that is matter is our hearing and no 'scientific' neither 'science' theory will tell me what is good or bad for my hi fi system, "

Oh dear.

If you feel it; it's real!  Yep, in this hobby, lets just pretend science never happened, it's methods and results don't apply in the magic world of the audiophile.

And we wonder why our hobby is ridiculed.

Years ago, I went from generic 12 gauge speaker cable, to used Cardas Quadlink 5C, ( mostly bought on Audiogon), and was suprised that despite my preconceptions, cables do make a difference in sound. I have never desired to move up to more expensive cables. I am sure much more expensive cables would sound even better, but am satisfied ,and enjoying what I am hearing. I have changed speakers, amps, turntables, preamps , over the years. The Quadlinks have always stayed.

@teo_audio - that last link is incredible! Materials science is blowing up right now!

In our hobby the only factor that is matter is our hearing and no 'scientific' neither 'science' theory will tell me what is good or bad for my hi fi system, Of course there are many brands that are selling ridiculous price cables that not justify its costs but there are many others with really good cables that do improve the sound the only test for us is to make a demo and to decide what is good for our system.

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-voltage-driven-liquid-metal-fractals.html
this first one..is >>>HUGE<<<. ok? The implications and pointed to directions/ramifications.... are huge. That one alone stinks like a thousand yet to be realized patents.

https://phys.org/news/2014-09-scientists-surface-tension-liquid-metals.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-liquid-metal-soft-robotics-closer.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-liquid-metal-discovery-ushers-chemistry.html (Liquid metal discovery ushers in new wave of chemistry and electronics)

and so on....(a hundred other news stories in physics)

Basically, electrically controlled quantum aspects-that range into mass related plasma considerations. So no, not the same as wire. Barely on the same planet.

Indeed. And I’m guilty of the same silliness, even though I’m aware of it. I’m not at the point where the center of gravity of my consciousness is at that level. But I’ve worked enough to raise it to the point that my moments of clarity are enough to see the dogma I’m operating from, allowing me to occasionally transcend and reprogram it. It’s hard freaking work! And when it’s not even acknowledged in society, it’s not surprising most people just roll with the dogma they’ve acquired and don’t question it.

It's so much easier and automatic to identify with the contents of consciousness than with the process itself

Todd,

One could draw a parallel with politics.

teo_audio
Thus the scientists are invariably... incredibly excited ----to know more.

>>>>>Apparently they aren’t THAT excited. 😁 Cables made of lead are more controversial. For audiophiles.

A liquid is almost a solid, but not quite. (A true fluid, fluid at the molecualr level, not a slurry full of gross chunks--a fundamental difference) The lattice is simply not there and thus the high delta interactives are not the same. Nor is the high current interactive stable (flipping the high delta equation [the mass equivalence aspect] on it’s head). The signal or load affects the parameters. The system is dynamic. Which wire cannot do. The math is basic and not specific as the specifics remain unknowns due to their incredible complexity.

Thus the scientists are invariably... incredibly excited ----to know more.

Experimentation is still in the beginning stages of definition, as it involves the current (it’s always changing and evolving--as per the norm in science) highest levels of math we use to describe reality. Including quantum mathematical systems/descriptives.

Cables made from lead are more controversial. Besides liquid is almost a solid. It’s only a phase away. You can’t get in too much trouble that way. Mercury is a liquid at room temperature. Glass is a almost a liquid at room temperature. Now, does that mean fiber optic cables are almost liquids? You decide. 🙄

I want someone to attack the liquid metal audio cables. And say they are somehow not new and not different. How they sound the same as wire and how they can't measure differently.

Please bring your scientists in tow. Please. I'm begging you. Bring entire university physics departments and multi-dgreed (science specialties) heads of scientifically based companies, people with multiple degrees and people who head their entire fields of physics and research. Bring them all.

The moment you ask them to rally and rail against this intrusion into your little war against audiophiles and their hearing of differences...concerning this liquid metal signal transferring technology, vs various wire in any form... is the moment they'll individually and as a group, look at you like you've got three heads. Not a single one of them will take it in inch further, or get involved with you..

Of course it's different. The entire edifice of science says so.

@don_1

I agree that the Audio industry is doing just fine. Better sounding components and reasonable prices for great equipment. My point of that article was my belief about certain components as speaker WIRE, interconnects, and the money gouging companies who sell these products st exorbitant prices. But to each his own. Just my opinion. AND THE SKY HASN'T FALLEN AS OF YET!

My definition of GOUGING is monopoly on a necessity and companies charging more than normal.   Basically low supply, normal/high demand so price rises.   IE:  hurricane, water or gasoline supply low so prices jacked up.    Whether justified is dependent on the situation.

But with cables, it's NOT a necessity.   Owners choose to buy them and SUCCESSFUL companies just listening to their customers.

Cables are part of a system so will rise or fall along with components.

BTW, Gordon Holt is no Warren Buffet IMO!

@geoffkait agreed! Ken Wilber uses the term scientism. I like that. It's the ossification of what should be a fluid and dynamic understanding of the world using science into a dogmatic structure where anything that hasn't been 'proven' by science is deemed to be nonexistent or inconsequential.
It's all underlaid by the mind's desire for certainty. Always having to figure things out is stressful and makes it difficult to maintain the illusion of an independent self operating upon the world. And that is frankly terrifying for most people. I see it almost every time I teach a yoga class or meditation session..

The above says it all.

This seems appropriate, an excerpt from the Intro of Zen and the Art of Debunkery,

As the millennium turns, science seems in many ways to be treading the weary path of the religions it presumed to replace. Where free, dispassionate inquiry once reigned, emotions now run high in the defense of a fundamentalized "scientific truth." As anomalies mount up beneath a sea of denial, defenders of the Faith and the Kingdom cling with increasing self-righteousness to the hull of a sinking paradigm. Faced with provocative evidence of things undreamt of in their philosophy, many otherwise mature scientists revert to a kind of skeptical infantilism characterized by blind faith in the absoluteness of the familiar. Small wonder, then, that so many promising fields of inquiry remain shrouded in superstition, ignorance, denial, disinformation, taboo . . . and debunkery.

• Put on the right face. Cultivate a condescending air certifying that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Adopting a disdainful, upper-class manner is optional but highly recommended.

• Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous," "trivial," "crackpot," or "bunk," in a manner that purports to carry the full force of scientific authority.

• Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will send the message that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it -- and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.