Why is science just a starting point and not an end point?
Measurements are useful to verify specifications and identify any underlying issues that might be a concern. Test tones are used to show how equipment performs below audible levels but how music performs at listening levels is the deciding criteria. In that regard science fails miserably.
Why is it so?
Why is it so?
238 responses Add your response
This thread is yet another example of an audiophile mistaking his own ignorance of the science for "a failure of science." pedroeb Try reading Floyd Toole's book: Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms It's LITERALLY about what you are referring to and explains many of the ways sound character has been correlated to subjective impressions, and how listener preferences can be largely predicted based on that research. So your thesis is simply wrong out of the gate. Read the book, it helps answer your question, if you really want the answers. |
I had used psycho-acoustic science in audio with greater profit and impact than i would ever think possible... There is no "science" by the way.... Save for a very general accepted methodology uniting all fields ... There is only "sciences" in the plural with each one field cumulating a big amount of data unrelated to all the other field for the most part... «History of science IS science» Goethe dixit 150 years before Thomas Kuhn.... This explain why most here underestimated psycho acoustic science impact for audio and read only impedance measures and other electronic market design guide... This is the same problem with mechanical control of vibrations which is a problem almost on par in importance with the design of the system part themselves ... Samething with the underestimated necessity of the electrical floor noise control... I just finish my last improvement... I damped my springs grid for peanuts one week ago and with a result which is very powerful and i affirm it, on par or almost probably with other very costly product.... I finished my last diffusive device control at no cost...With a more powerful impact than my other devices save the Helmholtz diffusers... Improving with minimal scientific facts then my 500 system which now sound too much good to be described and believed... Many self appointed scientists here ignored not only the hypothesis /observation experiment i used myself for most of my embeddings controls, but they confused it with placebo delusion by ideological ignorance of acoustic and other fields... Basic elementary facts were my only guide.....And the hearing human system described by experimental psycho-acoustic science.... My 500 bucks system is enough for me after comparison with anything i listened to ever in my life...It is not the best at all, but only one of the best ever in quality price/ratio and it is enough for me.... Think about that...... No need of marketing conditioning of consumers by reviewers or maketers for those able to think.....And using their ears ..... I hope to give hope to newcomers and catalyze creativity....I dont want to promote branded name products....All people did it....And reading that costly products were the solution never helped me....Creativity and the simplest science fact are more useful.... |
" Science is a methodology that allows you to detect patterns in data." "Science" is organized knowledge, not a methodology. "Scientific method" is the underlying methodology which results in the creation of scientific knowledge Detecting patterns in data is a component of "data analysis", and of recent the term "data scientist" has been coined to described individuals who study data analytics. " Once the patterns are validated and determined useful, then the science gets applied." Rather, once a hypothesis which is developed to explain an observation is tested to be correct, it becomes part of what we consider accepted science. I have yet to see a single self appointed "person of science" on this forum follow scientific method. Rather, most believe that an observation is false when they lack the knowledge to develop a hypothesis. That is antithecal to science and accepted scientific practice. |
Science and its application in Engineering provides people many good quality choices for their hifis. Even a way to sort through the complexity and figure out what is most likely to work best. But its always up to you which fruits of science and engineering you will choose to own. Good sound is not that hard, expensive to obtain, or rare anymore. That’s progress! But one also must consider what other features matter most to them. Especially with digital streaming where so many new opportunities and ways to enjoy good sounding music come into play. Many choices, many features, more complexity, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. OR you can remain in the stone age and discount all that new and confusing technology. Nothing wrong with that either. To each their own. YMM always V. |
Scientific methods can be used to measure all sorts of performance criteria- volts, amps, volume, etc. Human beings however listen and rate performance based on their own personal evaluations of all of these combined. Scientific methods can be used to try and determine things like the weighting a particular listener gives each measurement, but it would be an inference based on their actual choices. This is all a long-winded explanation because you said, "science cannot predict how humans perceive sound" which is correct. But you then finish the sentence with, "but should be able to measure the performance of equipment!" But science can. The discipline you seek is called logic or deductive reasoning. In it you will learn to avoid combining unrelated clauses as if they lead to a conclusion. They don't. They are unrelated. They lead to naught. |
Let's take a trip back to 7th grade... the scientific method is:
In term of sound, you can test for distortion, frequency response, rolloff, stored energy, and many other things that can indicate you have a problem. The missing elements are time and perception or space between the sound that isn't measurable. So... to me science isn't letting you down it's your expectation of science. |
Science is a methodology that allows you to detect patterns in data. Once the patterns are validated and determined useful, then the science gets applied. Engineers trained to apply science to solve problems do that. Then others benefit from the fruit of their labors. That's how it works. Plain and simple |
The idea that science is either a starting point, or an ending point is misguided. Science is a tool for us to organize our thoughts and derive models to help explain the universe we live in. You observe something, you make hypothesis, you try them out and see if they work. Science is not metrics. It is not quality assurance. It is the process that very much includes human experience, explains some of it, and then looks for the next opportunity to enhance our understanding. It is neither supreme to nor independent of human experience. To everyone who thinks measurements for audio gear which were widely adopted over 50 years ago equals science, that there is your problem. Science generated those measurements, but it does not say that should be their end point, the last measurements for all time. The fields of room acoustics and head related transfer functions IMHO show just how much more there was left after that. I believe that the field of audio equipment measurement and explanation is still pregnant with opportunity for science to continue expanding and for that expansion to reach the hobby press, but it has not happened yet. Those measurements, codified half a century ago are not the start and end of audio science. Those who apply them as the only standard of quality are not scientists. They are technicians. |
| Post removed |
@millercarbon. +1 I was trained as a scientist and practiced professionally as one for ten years. I have used the methods and approaches for my entire life in all aspects of my career and life. Science is the starting point and it is like peeling the layers of an onion… you learn about one layer after another, towards full knowledge at greater levels of detail. If high end audio had a large multidisciplinary group of scientists that were not working for profit and we’re publishing their results for the last fifty years we would have research documenting all component characteristic and be able predict several levels below where general knowledge is today. Many companies have drilled down many layers.. typically in the design processes and material science. But they do not make it public knowledge for obvious reasons. |
'Why is science just a starting point and not an end point?' Is a scientific, "end point" possible? For inquiring minds, as opposed to the (so common) expiring ones: https://www.livescience.com/65628-theory-of-everything-millennia-away.html |
"Reality is merely an illusion," Einstein once admitted, "albeit a very persistent one." re: that falling tree... https://blog.oup.com/2011/02/quantum/ |
| Post removed |
Science is a starting point because it is a method or process not an end result. Science is a method of understanding the world from a certain perspective or point of view. Science can tell us for example that the Shroud of Turin is so many years old, made from what kind of fabric, by what process, what pigments were or were not used, and so on. Science cannot tell us whether or not Jesus Christ was wrapped in it. That is a conclusion human beings and human beings alone can reach, on the basis of science, or not. To use but one example. People mess up all the time misunderstanding science. Science can tell us how to build a nuclear warhead. Science cannot tell us whether we should build the damn thing. Thus it is nutty to invoke science in sound. Science is great for helping people figure out how to build better components. It is great because science does so much to eliminate the effects of value judgments. But then when the component is built how do we decide if it is any good or not? On the basis of value judgments. That is why science will always be a beginning and never the end. |
Why is science just a starting point and not an end point? These two statements in the opening thread, are pre-concieved, and sound like the answers are formed already. And they should read, to get audio techs to answer and give the other side. "Is science just a starting point and not an end point?" "How music performs at listening levels is the deciding criteria. In that regard does science fails miserably" Cheers George |
@pedroeb- "You mean there can never be any consensus?" I've been hanging around this site, for 11 years now, as well as watching the debates, between those of the most esteemed theorists of various scientific fields of endeavor, for several decades, regardless of the facts that have been established, through experimentation and testing, over those decades. SADLY, I can confidently assert: NO! Someone, somewhere, as I recall, with much more insight than me: said, "If any man be ignorant, let him remain ignorant." I'm guessing that means; unfortunately, it's their choice and you can't do anything about it. |
Mahgister, your legs may be doing the walking but your brain is controlling the show. So many things happen when you walk that you are totally unaware of. Your arms swing and the muscle attached to your pelvis tighten to keep the opposite side from falling when you pick your legs up. Same is true of hearing.You completely missed my point and answered back with a common place fact.... « If there is millions of neurons in the guts we can think of the guts to have a brain of their own, it is the same for any organs even the ears, then we can say that the brain is all over the body, and we can say that the body is INTO the brain»-Anonymus Smith To understand read Wilder Penfield... And you completely missed the point of frogman and answered in the same way with a common place fact... music is NOT sound.....music is a spiritual life.... Sound is not..... In this case it is not "bad faith" from you, it is plain to see that your nose is glued on the floor.... I am sorry for you.... I apologize for my rudeness.... I am too passionnate.... |
No one said anything about “dislike”. Of course one has to like music to some degree to bother with stereo. Not a question of “dislike”, but rather the level of involvement in one pursuit vs the other. **** ......Stereo systems are not (subjective) **** Really? Then why such varied ideas as to what “good sound” is? **** If you want to improve the performance of your system an objective approach will get your there faster at much less expense. **** Not so sure. |
Mahgister, your legs may be doing the walking but your brain is controlling the show. So many things happen when you walk that you are totally unaware of. Your arms swing and the muscle attached to your pelvis tighten to keep the opposite side from falling when you pick your legs up. Same is true of hearing. @frogman, I seriously doubt people who dislike music spend serious money on stereo systems. Music preferences are purely subjective and a matter of taste. Stereo systems are not. If you want to improve the performance of your system an objective approach will get your there faster at much less expense. |
There was a time when one could look at a contributor’s profile and see, not only all of that person’s posts in the various threads, but also the tally of total number of posts according to category (“analog”, “digital”, “misc”, etc.); posts in threads either initiated, or participated in. When participating in or following a discussion where the topic was, or turned to, the issue of objectivity (science) vs subjectivity I would find it interesting to look at a poster’s post tally according to category after trying to guess which category would have the most, or the least, number of posts. Not always, but the OVERWHELMING majority of the time the objectivist would have very few and usually zero posts in the “music” category, or passing mention of that general topic in posts in other categories. Not sure that one can make general assumptions, but likely that there is something to extrapolate from this curious factoid. |
Science has to be applied. That’s what engineers do.Science has to be created and studied with thinking experiments and perceptions... Any application come after that and will exclude something and include something else in it, it is a trade-off exhange...It is an art with freedom... Engineers applied some rules derived from science but there is a trade-off at each walking pace, then engineering is like medecine an art also.... Great engineers are artist not just scientific mind... They are able to improvise and able to navigate all trade-off choices.... It is the reason why Henri Poincaré whom was at the same time one of the greatest mathematician and physicist of his century was proud MAINLY to be an engineer first and last... He was consulted as so in a great mine disaster for which he did the complete analysis...Science applications not only mimic art but are an art in itself....Leonardo Da VInci amalgamate the two like Michel- Angelo.... |
Human ears don’t interpret and perceive sound the brain does.For sure you are right .... But When i walk it is ME who walk, not my legs or only my brain... In the same way I interpret the sound to be music for me because my ears and brain act as one... In a word "distinguishing" does not mean "separating".... « If i understand your ears can think and your brain listen ?»-Groucho Marx 🤓 « If there is millions of neurons in the guts we can think of the guts to have a brain of their own, it is the same for any organs even the ears, then we can say that the brain is all over the body, and we can say that the body is INTO the brain»-Anonymus Smith |
Quite often people have preferences for flaws in equipment that isn’t neutral.Precisely what is interpreted like a flaw by an engineer can be a positive for a listener... It is because here there is 2 level of experience that ask to be correlated in the best way possible :the design engineering one and the listening experience...But the correlation process is dynamical measurement process between many dimensions and between many parameters in each dimensions, not a static definitive process once and for all under all aspects... Even neutral is an asymptotic point or direction not a fixed reality.... That’s different from from saying that we can’t measure what’s going onYou explained very well in the case of amplifiers some CORRELATION between harmonics level and perception and the trade-off choices laid in front of the engineer... But the perceptive experience is related to acoustic and to many other dimensions with all different parameters .... Audio is a field related to many, many scientific fields and subfields and you know that way better than me... Then there is scientific rational rules to use but no simple TRUTH reducing human experience to only rules and replacing all POSSIBLE experiments by only one.... Sometimes a simple experiment speak volume in an imprevisible way.... This is the reason why there is improvement coming from all directions.... Science will alway be the starting point and human experience and freedom the endpoint... Save for those who put their hope in the replacement of man by machines and the replacement of freedom by laws...But reading you i know that you are not one... My best to you.... |
But the way human ears INTERPRET and PERCEIVE the sound experience in a specific room with specific gear is different for each of us...I met a reviewer that claimed he didn't like bass. Quite often people have preferences for flaws in equipment that isn't neutral. A great example is SETs which have a variety of flaws that interact nicely with human perceptual rules. Tubes exist OTOH because many solid state amps have brightness and harshness due to improper application of loop feedback. That's different from from saying that we can't measure what's going on. We can. But designers (particularly in high end audio) aren't always coming from an engineering background (or they probably would not be building SETs...) and to further muck things up some designers simply don't have the will (or are constrained by their employers) to make something that is actually neutral to the ear. |
Of course, one could make judgements and opinions of the sound - that’s a starting point, not an end point.Good post.... Not only we can interpret the sound of this amplifier experience but we will interpret it differently in different conditions...The fact that electronic design can produce good amplifier does not means that there is ONE only good amplifier for ALL ears at ALL ages and with different histories... And in perception what one will call illusion for one will be reality for another one...Any perception is a mix of illusion and reality....The eye/brain create the perception of space for example.... It is simple to understand that through any perception we relate not only to what "seems" a static EXTERNAL object but we participate to an experience that create in a way many aspects of the phenomenon for us.... It is relevant for ALL phenomenon but to different degree... A table is a table in a room different for each one of us, even if we all accept that this is the same table, but a table is not a table in the same way that a wave is a sound interpreted and translated in a specific qualitative experience by the ears/brain at some moment the qualitative diffreence between the experience of an object and a sound could be more intimate and personal.... Nevermind the good correlation between the electronical design and the relation to the way the ears perceive the results, the experience itself cannot be accounted for by numbers and measures only....Even adding acoustical and psychoacoustical laws to electronical design... In this debate objectivist versus subjectivist is for sure children play and not a wise division.... Because in perception that make no sense nor in science.... |
Bob Carver accepted the amplifier challenge from Stereophile, many years ago, and won. He showed that he could duplicate the sound of an expensive amplifier chosen by Stereophile with one of his amplifiers appropriately modified to sound the same. The staff of Stereophile could not identify any difference by extended listening tests over a couple of days. Bob didn't use a trial-and-error method and judge by listening to achieve his win. He used what he knew from experience and from scientific principles. Bob used his extensive knowledge and experience in amplifier design to duplicate the transfer function of the expensive amp in his amplifier, to a sufficiently high degree to win the challenge. The "transfer function" is well-known to scientists and engineers. He also knew that if a difference between the two amplifiers is made sufficiently low to be inaudible by human ears, then the listeners could not identify any difference between the two amps. He used science and knowledge of human hearing, thresholds of hearing. @Millercarbon said it first in this thread, that science is a method. Bob used the scientific method, and technology by measurements of the amplifier to make both amplifiers sound indistinguishable from each other by listeners, without having to listen to either amplifier. The ears can be fooled. Scientists, composers, and musicians know this. That's why in a controlled scientific study, the interfering variables are either eliminated or controlled in a test. Sighted auditions of equipment without the proper controls are invalid to make scientific conclusions. Of course, one could make judgements and opinions of the sound - that's a starting point, not an end point. |
All humans use the same hearing perceptual rules. For example, to sense sound pressure all human’s ear use the higher ordered harmonics. All human’s ears have a masking principle and so on.You are absolutely right.... And it is IMPOSSIBLE to contradict that... But the way human ears INTERPRET and PERCEIVE the sound experience in a specific room with specific gear is different for each of us... It is the reason why in the publicity of the marketing of electronical equalizer company recommend it to make any consumers free to use it for different kind of music, different room, different TASTES.... Then affirming that there is a precise CORRELATION between electronical design and human perceiving experience is one thing and very true, but true also that no ears/brain will interpret exactly in the same qualitative terms all the conditions of a sound and musical experience... This is why there is so good choices between so many different types of gear... In my post then i was speaking about ALL factors and parameters in an audio experience not about the correlation between gear measurements and sound experience ONLY which is a fact of engineering like you had explained it very well in another post about amplifiers.... Perception of a color is the same for all human by law of physical optic, but many other parameters are at play that make the experience transcending optical physical law.... Psychological and neurophysiological laws and personal histories add also their weight... It is Goethe who created neurophysiology of perception arguing against some limititations of Newton approach...The 2 goals of these 2 geniuses were DIFFERENT more than contradictory.... This is the same here....We have physical acoustic and psychoacoustic and the listener personal history....My post was about all that and were not a negation of the correlation bewtween measures and perception which is the basis of all audio technology... On the other end reducing human perception to electronic design is NOT possible for the time being....Correlating is not reducing....In a word all factors pertaining to the audio experience and interpretation cannot be put in the design... |
- Listenings experiments is the ONLY way to tune and fine tune the quality we ask for and which qualities are IMPOSSIBLE to deduce only from any set of measurements nevermind how big it is and how precise...All humans use the same hearing perceptual rules. For example, to sense sound pressure all human’s ear use the higher ordered harmonics. All human’s ears have a masking principle and so on. Because there are a good number of measurements that never make it onto a spec sheet, IMO/IME the above quoted statement is false. If you understand the human hearing perceptual rules and design for them rather than a spec sheet you can easily design a circuit that will sound good the human ear. |
Can anybody please tell me what Magister is talking about? He lost me several posts ago. Must be my dyslexia.Dont make of a possible useful tool a UNIQUE solution for all acoustic problem and for all people.... Helmholtz mechanical equalization work differently than electronical equalization without the SAME limitations ... Instead of a tone frequency response for static walls and for a microphone feedback.... Imagine a large bandwith response (an instrument timbre) crossing different dynamic pressure zones of the room FOR YOUR EARS feedback Now instead of the buttons and dials of your E.E. imagine the tuning by mechanical modification of the ratio volume/neck lenght-diameter of each Helmoltz resonators.... Instead of listening to the electronically modified frequency response of the speakers imagine you listen to the tweeters and bass driver of each speakers marked out by many resonators mechanically modified so and localized so to help each ear to compute the direction of the sound and the way each eraly and late reflections will constitute each firt wavefront for each ear.... Then instead of creating a sweet spot which have an accuracy in millimeter with total chaos and no more usefullness out of this narrow spot which become no more sweet at all, Think about a modification of ALL the room resonances with the introduction in many well choosen spots of a set of different pressure engines (helmholtz resonators). The results: acoustic controls at will of imaging,soundstage,listener envelopment and source width and more importantly a control of the timbre experience which is music itself and no more only "sounds".... BUT nothing is perfect.... It may be not practical for a living room BUT it is acoustically superior to control the room for the speakers instead of changing the speakers in relation to the room... We can use the two for sure, but advising people about electronical equalization ONLY AND MAINLY without speaking about his limitations is not the way.... And human ears dont listen TONE, they listen TIMBRE.....In music for eaxample a "tone" is a pitch perceived by the ears listening to a singer voicing it with his unique timbre.... Electronic is not acoustic and cannot replace it and acoustic is not music experience and cannot replace it ....They can be only relatively translated in one another... Also mechanical equalization is more natural and less costly.... Then instead of making fun of me instead of arguments try to think out of your user manual booklet.... |
Thank you Atmasphere. Listening is important only as it applies to the individual. I know what I like to hear but that might not be what you want to hear. An amplifier that measures beautifully in the lab might sound very different in different installations due to interaction with the speaker's impedance curve. These interactions result in frequency response changes that are easily measured. My ESLs will change dramatically with different amplifiers and all of them measure well. The ESLs will go from 30 Ohms down low to 1 ohm if you are lucky at 20 kHz. There is no surprise here at all. You have to get an amp that matches your speakers. Some speaker will sound the same with practically any amp, a high impedance speaker with a steady impedance curve. Subtle changes are just as likely to be imagined as real. It takes careful AB comparison to be sure. You have to know the limitation of human hearing and proceed with caution. You can not just declare that one amp sounds better than another when the changes are subtle. When an audiophile makes a bombastic , declarative statement they are more likely wrong than right. Intelligent listeners do not make statements like this. Any obvious difference has a reason that can be measured and usually occurs in the realm of frequency response. There is always a reason a piece of equipment sounds better. If your ears can hear it than it can be measured. Measuring devices are quantitatively far more accurate than your ears. I did not say measuring equipment is more sensitive than your ears. I suspect it is but I do not know for sure. Can anybody please tell me what Magister is talking about? He lost me several posts ago. Must be my dyslexia. |
Test tones are used to show how equipment performs below audible levels but how music performs at listening levels is the deciding criteria. In that regard science fails miserably.Actually it doesn't. But science is rarely applied when doing measurements. If you want the measurements to show what you need to know in order to know how the equipment will sound, don't hold your breath because spec sheets are generally created as a sales tool. Now it is a simple fact that we can measure and correlate what we measure to what we hear and that is entirely due to studies of how the ear works, mostly done in the last 50 years. If you want to know what to look for, take a look at a post I made on another thread (sorry, its long): Distortion is in all forms of amplification. Of course we want it to be as low as possible but the ear poses some real challenges. So the bottom line is the distortion signature is more important than how much distortion is actually present. That is what the spec sheets aren't showing and why there's often a disconnect between what you hear and what is measured. Its not that we *can't* measure it, its simple because most of the time we simple *don't* measure it. |
| Post removed |
@perkri. “Which is why I added Nelson Pass. You don't think he listens to his amps for the final tuning? From Stereophile in 2017: https://www.stereophile.com/content/nelson-pass-circuit-topology-and-end-science... “ Exactly. I have heard this from many high end audio designers and have personally experienced it in auditioning equipment continuously over the last fifty year. I learned within a couple years. It is obvious to experienced high end audio users, designers and sales folks. |
audio 101 for children: -measurements are essentials to know what we are speaking about and establishing recognized scientific standards designing electronic piece of gear.... - Listenings experiments is the ONLY way to tune and fine tune the quality we ask for and which qualities are IMPOSSIBLE to deduce only from any set of measurements nevermind how big it is and how precise... Why ? Because many dimensions are at play which no limited measuring tools in their range of application can take into account simultaneously when what is designed is designed FOR ANOTHER HUMAN EARS.... Then audiophiles and engineers trusting only measurements must be rare birds indeed .... We are not all zealots of our own tool for sure....And most importantly deaf audiophiles and deaf engineers are very rare species.... |
I'm sure they all listen to their products where did I say otherwise? I know John Siau at Benchmark does. https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/listening-vs-measurements |