Talk but not walk?

May I ask, exactly, and respectfully, what the heck is this thread about? I mean, I’m looking for meaning, relevance and knowledge here, and I find none.

Air molecules DO NOT move away from the source! There is NO net movement. The wave propagates through the air and displaced molecules return (they are bouncing around like mad) to their previous net positions once the wave has passed.

Where you guys come up with this crap is beyond me. Please stop the pseudo science and learn some physics once in awhile.

And Michael: Please define what you mean by "empirical testing" because, frankly, my BS detector is off the charts with that term. There is no such thing as "empirical testing," that's an OXYMORON; there is empirical evidence that is derived from direct and indirect observation and experience. Is that what you're asking here?

Hi Michael,

OK, I accept that. Then why bother with a walk vs. talk thread to begin with, if for a reason other that to stir the pot (again and again it seems to becoming Audiogon Forums' raison d’être)? For entertainment purposes? OK, I can accept that. To be enlightened? OK with that too. For fun, heck yeah!

Wiki, huh?

I have a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology and experience working at both the research bench as a senior scientist and in clinical chemistry as a medical technologist. I’ve published. In the biotech business world I’ve help design control experiments and help set quantitative standards with NIST for customers in cliincal diagnostics, pharma discovery and biotechnology labs globally. I know what the empirical method is.

What concerns me about your OP is that you didn’t try to define or design what empirical methods an average audio enthusiast, walkers and talkers, likely lacking in advanced measuring equipment other than a VTF gauge and maybe an SPL meter from Radio Shack, should use other than her/his own ears. If you could help us understand that, then this perhaps this so-called empirical approach you use to delineate, and divide, walkers vs. talkers, might make some sense, at least as to how we all might apply such practices to find results and conclusions that we can all agree too.

That’s why it’s art, thank goodness; a walk is as valid as a talk in art.

Thanks, I am polite; I’m asking questions.

(Mr. Bill) "Oh noooooooo..."

Michael: After I last posted here I checked out your website to learn what this tuning stuff is all about. I see you have several approaches to optimizing the triad of audio elements. So we are alike in that I have sought my own version of "tuning" through the years, but my approach is very different than yours. My version of "tuning" is more focused on room treatment (absorption and diffusion) and speaker/listening position/placement. I am also a proponent of time and phase correct speakers with wide response drivers and 1st order crossovers. I am not into taking protective covers off of electronic components and placing such items on multilayer wood plinth stacks and girders that fill up the listening space. I’ll theorize that all the acoustic reflections you get off of all that stuff in the listening space are as impactive as any mechanical vibration mitigation. My theory, based on personal observations that are constantly evolving through trial and error, is that a good stand is very important, and for that reason I have enjoyed Pierre Sprey’s maple, steel and brass stands from Mapleshade. I was initially attracted to Pierre’s approach because his aerospace engineering background appealed to my interest in material sciences and control of resonance by design. It works. I have also heard Adona stands and was impressed. But ultimately, I would rather get to a point where my system sounds sufficiently enjoyable so that I can simply listen to music and forget about the hardware and more "tuning." In my mind, that’s still walking. Theory is mostly talking (one exception is subatomic nuclear physics math), but it should be based on the walking performed previously, otherwise, it’s simply conjecture and hand waving, and there’s nothing wrong with expressing an opinion. Experiments are the walk, no doubt, and if 5% of the time one learns something that advances understanding from pure experimentation, even if the result is no change, then that is informative. I don’t understand your approach and why you "walk" the way you do with your experiments. Perhaps a little about the basis of this here would be informative to those of us curious to know what is the scientific/engineering/acoustic grounding of some of your configurations and constructions? Why do you think they work from a physical standpoint? WHat exactly is vibrating, the transformer? A platform is not going to stop that. I also respectfully disagree with you about your use of the term "audio code." Audio is analog; there is no code. A sinewave may be a "code" in terms of a mathematical formula, but it’s not music. The proper term is timbre and it’s an important one to use when referring to (from Wiki!) "the character or quality of musical sound." Again, there is no code, just as no two systems are ever alike, even if they were composed of exactly the same components and room dimensions/materials, they will never exist in the same time and space. Hence, no code; the variables are virtually infinite. And, the recording process is fraught with distortions, (phase, time, etc) that accumulate from violin to speaker to ear. Minimizing distortion of timbre throughout the recording/playback chain is the key. Please explain why removing a chassis accomplishes this?

I am so confused.

I see what look to be products on the site, not services. In fact, I dont really see anything offered for sale, either. I’m used to selling products and services of value. Without being able to convey that effectively to customers one doesn’t have a business model. Clearly, I’m a few cards short of a full deck.

OK, I’ll go away now and quietly sit in the corner.

I know, I said a few pages ago that I would go sit in the corner. But this banter reminds me of my days long ago in the fraternity I belonged to in college for a couple of years (sophomore and junior). By my senior year, I’d had enough of the toga parties with the food fights and next morning the front and back doors left open and the neighborhood dogs in the dining room eating all the floored food. And the drunken, mysogynistic crap from the "emboldened" brothers who thought they were god’s gift to women. It was all trolls under the bridge. I left my senior year and they asked me why and my answer, perhaps juvenile of me, was that I had outgrown it. But, I had, and I couldn’t express it in another way. It just seemed such a waste of intelligence and creativity to dumb down the quality education we were putting the finishing touches on. It amazes me to this day that the Greek system is still alive and kicking in 2018, even though many universities have done away with it, and many chapters have been suspended for hazing. But, being the only boy in a six kid family, other than signing up for the military, and I did consider that for a time, that was my one chance to live in a 100% male environment for a couple of years. At least I got that experience. Wasn’t what I had hoped for or expected.

So, what’s my point? I read these darts, jabs and veiled threats, and the one ups you guys bestow on one another, and I wonder, is this the "talk" that constitutes a self-admitted group of audio enthusiasts who have ultimately become so bored with everything, that it is now frat house slobbery?

What happened to the suggested empiricism of the OT? Or, am I accurate in concluding that that aspect died pages ago and who cares anyway what this is supposed to be all about?