What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?
Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).
For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.
As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.
If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?
@dulledge: You CLAIM that you don't read what I post, because you can't fault anything I post. Nothing but excuses! You're nothing more than the typical uneducated/pseudo-intellectual, obtuse, Naysayer Doctrine adherent.
the CONTEXT where blindtest are the most used is in the pharmacological industry...--> then statistical meaning provide a value to the blindtest methodology...
I only need to test that 1 person blind to refute their claim.
Precisely i never negate the utility of blindtest i ONLY affirm that it make sense for small audible change....For one person working in a blackbox situation for example......
BUT there is no scientific validity associated to a blindtest without a statistical significant number of subject...
In the case of a " learned bias" like in the experiment of Anton a simple improvised blindtest cannot prove anything ... The reason is simple: you cannot ask to someone to be test for a bias he has not learned first.... Then to test a learned bias we must construct first a tube amplifier with directed wiring... And we must learn to LISTEN to the audible difference which is at stake.... A directed wiring amplifier is not a Ted Denney cable...We must work with one right amplifier first, and second we must LISTEN to it and learn about HOW to listen....Aftet that, a single blindtest for the user by the user is possible ( blackbox situation)... and ONLY after all that a general public blindtest is realizable...Do you understand this simple series of orderly event and fact?
I dont think you understand this because in a past discussion i remember that i cited wikipedia to prove that you have not understood the complex concept of "bias" ....For you it was the innate subjective factor making human prone to illusion... But a Bias can be learned and it is something that can make man able to perceive something deeper also.... Then the difference between the 2 types of bias ask for a different preparation before a blindtest....
Your main tac-tic is to First accuse somebody to be ignorant after that distorting what he has said and finally simplifying all toward your point..
You answer NO ONE OF THE TEN POINTS i argue about in my last post save the only one easy to distort...
You are pitiful....
i understand that you are done with me because it is too much work for you to read all the references i give and too complicated to refute real fact...
Stay with some aspect of Maxwell equation and dont go out....You will be safe...
At least now you have learned with me that psychoacoustic is not reducible to acoustic nor to any measuring tool either...
Again:
The Naysayer Doctrine (a faith-based religion) clearly has it’s roots deeply embedded in measurements and an antiquated view of electricity. I’d be interested in hearing what (if any) measurements have been taken and/or what experiments have been conducted, by the Naysayer Evangelists, or their Popes, that aren’t based on an Engineering/Physics understanding of electricity/electromagnetism from the 19th Century (ie: Ohm, Maxwell, Faraday, etc). The same cult was taking shots at Nikola Tesla, back in his day! https://nextexx.com/2020/06/18/why-do-scientists-hate-tesla/ He still managed to take the world, kicking and screaming into the 20th Century, with his inventions. A good read: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Invented-Twentieth-Century/dp/148122980X
@djones- "
Roddy9999999 just copies and paste the same idiotic post over and over." FACTS have no expiration date. I'll post those same statements, until one of your Naysayer Church congregants can prove them wrong, instead of trying to bury them beneath your piles of misguided blather (or pathetic jokes). Unlike your ilk: my only agenda is to encourage others to experiment with their systems. That USED to be the focus of this forum.
@dulledge: "May I suggest paragraphs, proper sentence structure, leaving useless capitals out and toning down the emotions. Not sure about anyone else, but I don't make it past a sentence or two." There is no, "emotion" to tone down. Caps merely emphasize points and I wouldn't waste any emotion on a poser. Nor: is there anything wrong with my Grammar. My posts contain only facts and observations. None of which you can refute. Hence: your continual twisting in the wind.
From an inexperienced and uneducated position, it may appear bad faith or a sophism. To someone with experience and knowledge, it is simply self evident, like jumping off a building is bad for you. Every single thing you have posted comes down to special pleading.
I know very well that you are intelligent then what it is?
Lack in reading analysis basic understanting?
Read your sentence i just put above....read it again...
NOTHING CAN CHANGE A SOPHISM INTO A TRUTH, or a well articulated reasoning...NOTHING....
After that, you add if not a lie a complete distortion : every post i wrote is supposed to be a "special pleading" about what?
FACT DONT NEED SPECIAL PLEADING.....
- About the fact that " musical timbre" is not a taste or a subjective color only, like you have pleading against turntable afficionados to defend the supposed superiority of accurate bits?
-About the fact that any recording process is a trade-off where no perfect timbre recording exist? and we need not only a source but a psychoacoustic control to recreate timbre perception ? It is a fact...
-About the fact that "imaging" perception in a room acoustic is more complex than what you were describing about recording and volume and speakers positioning and speakers specs? it is after this discussion that i created my "mechanical equalizer" reading about psychoacoustic to make my point... You wrote to me after that that the results i gained with my Helmholtz device was an illusion, a deception.... Very comic....
-About the fact that perception of pitch is not explained actually by reducing it to frequencies? It is a fact...
-About the fact that Essien was right about his claim that the same debate in psycho- acoustic like 2 hundred years ago continue today? I even give many modern references about this FACT...
-About the fact that the brain is not a computer and human perception could not be reduced to any artefact or tool? it is a fact agreed upon by many great scientist in all fields....
-About the fact the the map (tool) is never and could never be the territory( human brain/body) ? It is a methodological fact and not only a simple fact ....
-About the fact that blindtest is not a circus but a serious STATISTICAL method then it makes no sense to test any other thing in audio than borderline audible change...Blindtest improvised with few people cannot prove or disprove anything... It is a fact.... Blindtest is a STATISTICAL tool ...Or a simple way for an individual to test a borderline small change nothing more...
-About the fact that BIAS are a highway with 2 directions not only your favorite one, and all bias are not equal? it is a fact....
-About your stubborn habit to distort anything that someone could say and twisting it to a ridiculous proposition, like taking anton experiments to be a pure bias, when it is not, a string of experiments with many other people implicated cannot be explained like a temporary deception with an audio cable....
I will stop here i am tired and there is other sophism of you i forgot in the last discussion one month ago....
You never answer to argument if there is no precise electrical knowledge because it seems you understand Maxwell basic ....You are unable to think out of a known equation...Sarcasm is not philosophy of science....
And read some new book, materialism is a dead body....
My post are not a "special pleading" but only about an evidence: human are not machine and sorry but save for more powerful technology we know nothing almost about the universe....Our big improvement in the last centuries is precisely that we are more conscious of our ignorance than in the past....Guess why yourself ? it will be a practice in thinking....
What kind of knowledge do you have? Are you psychoacoustics specialist? Have you read any book about psychoacoustics? Do you have any knowledge of electronics or acoustics or the human brain science?
Yes that's a correct assumption. Very little around mics and no recording. Why, are musical signals not fragile around microphones and recording sessions?
If musical signals are terribly fragile maybe we should help them along with good sound systems/stereo/hi fi etc etc etc....
There, fixed it for you....and you’re welcome....
Not to jump to conclusions but your quip about the fragility of musical signals leads me to believe you really haven’t spent much time around microphones and recording sessions...is that a correct assumption ?
I thought the original experiment was reversing a wire in a tube amp and not measuring a difference but hearing a difference? The conclusion was signals unknown to science and humans sixth sense and no other conclusion was possible.... well except the obvious..
@dulledge: The last time I posted the 96% figure, as regards what scientists recognize as an UNKNOWN, in our universe: you replied: "Anyone that knows anything about science knows that you could never assign a number like 96% to what remains a mystery as that would imply knowing exactly what we don't know. People not very good at science are pretty terrible at anti science rants disguised as pro science rants. It was good theater though." That made your total ignorance of the sciences and what Physicists, around the globe have recognized for decades, blatantly obvious. ie (again): https://science.time.com/2013/02/20/telescope-to-hunt-for-missing-96-of-the-universe/ and: https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy Your ignorance of basic science wouldn't be quite so tragic, but for your pathetic posturings on AudiogoN's pages. My minor was Psych and though we didn't have Dunning-Kruger as a reference (in the Sixties); we often spoke of, "pseudo-intellects", as sad and to be dismissed. This time: you ignore the point of the post (Science is always limited to our instrumentation's abilities, knowing how/what to measure and the latest theory) and deflect to the Physics of what's happening on our planet. I've mentioned before, in these pages: those whose understanding of electricity is limited to the measurements and theories, conceived by the Nineteenth Century's (1800's) scientists, can't fathom how our highly complex/terribly fragile musical signals can be affected by our cabling/wiring/wave guides. Those of us that took advantage of available higher education, were taught by our Physics professors and lecturers, back in the Sixties (as opposed to those of Case's EE Dept), a number of electrical theories and experiments/proof (ie: Wave-Particle Duality, QED, the polarization of dielectrics, etc), developed/performed in the Twentieth Century, that open the door to a plethora of possibilities, as to why many of us observe (hear) differences in improved wave guides, or anything else we alter in our systems (NOT as though that was ever our Prof's intended application/goal). Even back then: we were taught that electrons DO NOT MOVE through a conductor, but rather oscillate over minute distances (within the atom), with an AC signal. The signal itself moves as a wave and ALWAYS toward the load. The Naysayer Church is too buried in it's own antiquated doctrines, to even allow for the possibilities that MODERN Physics proffers.
You accept that you will die jumping off a tall building because to you, it is very obvious you will reach a high rate of velocity before hitting the ground, and based on other examples of people hitting immovable objects and dying, you accept that you are not special and you will die too.
For those with the relevant knowledge, the physics surrounding what will happen when you change the direction of the wire, the quantification of the potential impact on the signal, and how that relates to limits of not just human hearing, but of all the other potential variables of what is likely to change when the wire direction changes, that has nothing to do with the direction of the wire, such as connection points, component drift from heating and cooling, environmental conditions, etc. is such that that person, with relevant knowledge, can say, unequivocally, that NO, you can’t hear a change in wire direction. It is no different from your ability to know you will die jumping off a suitably tall building unless you introduce another variable, like landing on something soft.
You cannot give lesson in logic to anyone my dear friend you use constantly sophism, using in your conclusions what is already in your premises, negating anything out of your vicious technological circle...
Equating the act of jumping from a cliff with the act of pointing to someone the evident fact that there is more to hearing than what someone can measure in a wire is, if not bad faith or stupidity, at least a sophism...
Read wiki to understand what it is...
You NEVER aknowledge your error or simplification disccusing with me, about " timbre" neither about "pitch perception"... Even when i was evidently right....You prefer to call others crook or liars , Essien and a pro musician speaking about timbre...
i even pointed to you specialized books for that indication...
To no avail, your arrogance is more than anybody here can deal with...
But i can think and read....
Your simplification and materialist blind alley is easy to spot...
Awake yourself and instead of insulting the intelligence of others think about your own subject matter and field, audio, in a more enlightened way...I know very well that you are more knowledgeable than most in audio by the way , i am not stupid....But your understanding go not very far out of that...
All human perception is not reducible to numbers...
Is it difficult to understand? Dont be afraid you will not put yourself at risk in the border of a cliff...Reading Einstein like you say dont erased Newton...Respecting the transcendent aspect of perception dont put you at the mercy of ghosts either....save in your sophism...
By the way if anton-stepichev was a dealer of cable arguing about marketing i will not be here.... I am interested by original experiments not by cables or sceptik ideology....
I understand that different kinds of listening test have drawback. But we don’t have other tools right now. When I tweak my system I noticed AB test are not the best thing to make any conclusions. After each tweak of upgrade I preferer to listen the system for a relatively long period of time with a different kind of music. This methodology helps me against placebo effect. For example, when I do a tweak / upgrade I’m sure it has to work! And in the AB test in the particular piece of music with a self-hypnosis it can sound better. But after a longer period of listening I start to feel the sound of the system goes to the wrong direction. And it worked many times. I have a simple measherment equipment that sometimes I use. But it can’t help me in the most cases to make a decision (as well as professional measurement made by Sterephile or other audio editions).
What kind of knowledge do you have? Are you psychoacoustics specialist? Have you read any book about psychoacoustics? Do you have any knowledge of electronics or acoustics or the human brain science?
If you truly believe this, then go jump off the nearest tall building and see how it goes.
Using sophism to negate someone experiments is one thing...like putting that on the same footing than cables sellers arguments....
Claiming false affirmation because of an ideology is another thing: pitch perception is only a subjective illusory fact reducible to frequency or objective acoustic for example and computerised by the brain ...This is simplification for the sake of an ideology...do you think all people are children here?
Putting in mouth of adversary simplistic affirmation to debunk them easily after that is NOT THINKING....
People were failing amplifier blind tests 40 years ago. I would hope a Benchmark AHB2 doesn't give any sound characteristics and that's my guess from its measurements.
The difference between science and some audiophile that in science the experiment is over the theory. If in the experiment theory falls - science throw out the old theory and looking for a new explanations and theories. And in the audio the listening test it is a final experiment. We use audio for listening and not for measurements. For example, when we take a more complex equipment like wire but amplifiers. Does anybody can predict an amplifier sound used measurements? The modern measurement tools and theory don't give us answers. There are not enough correlation between measurements and sound.
Our models are sufficiently accurate for audio to make concrete conclusions.
Saying something right does not erase all possibilities and dont suppress fact...
And especially dont reduce human hearing to be an obsolete tool....
And dont prove that the brain is a computer save for comic science fiction book or for some genius like Wolfram in need of a too simple hypothesis to conflate the map and the territory with an algorithm able to generate the two...
Like the Escher hand drawing itself....Or the Muchausen baron....
All religions are cults. We’re born, live, die. That’s it. Consciousness is a byproduct of our large brains. Pretty simple.
I am sorry but no newspaper never help me to understand reality...cult are not only official or unofficial religions...Some scientist belief are also cultism.... Look at transhumanism.... The most powerful and growing cult ....It is not scientology but transhumanism...
Only hard deep books and mostly intuition and experience help me....No sheep walking behind cult leader...
And in this deep books no one confuse brain matter with consciousness...In my experience my brain is not me at all....Call that an illusion if this help you sleep better...Meaning is not a flow of proteins...The distribution of prime numbers is not a perceptive illusion or a fact coming from random atoms hitting each other.... It is the opposite physicist has discovered some links between energy distribution and the unknown dynamics of primes numbers... Meaning is not born from random atoms or toughts to die a meaningless death...Use your imagination more and less your logic.....
And nowadays it is easy to look for information that go beyond, this mantra: " were born,live and die"...
Love and thinking are not compatible with materialism....
And like i said pure materialism is a dead idea in science...Read Bernado Kastrup articles it is easy to read....
The best way to take a look at the universe was formulated by Blaise Pascal: bet on the more fecund idea... You lost nothing at worst and gain everything at best....
If you read his life you will see that he was not stupid at all....
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