Possibly the worst assumption in audio electronics

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In short, your derogatory statement about science is, at best, biased and misinformed opinion.

Your 'defence' of science is equally that.

Science progresses because it is, when practised properly, impartial.

Science absent scientists is nothing. When the methodology of science is followed precisely by scientists, then I agree, its impartial. But this doesn't happen in practice on average because whilst the methodology is impartial, individual scientists in general, on average most certainly are not.

Science doesn't care what the outcome of an experiment or observation is.

A methodology hasn't the means to care, so yes, agreed. Scientists in general do care about outcomes though and there's where jkeny's remarks are valid ones.


Scientific reasoning STARTS with a hypothesis, and only through repeated validation does the hypothesis become a theory. It is, for instance, no hypothesis that the speed of light is around 300,000km a second. It is, for all known and observable situations, a fact.

Not so. Probably in vacuo, but you did say 'all known situations' and did not qualify.

Glibly stating that science has a long history of dismissing observations is somewhat ironic given that the statement dismisses the vast majority of occasions when this hasn't occurred.

Faulty reasoning - that statement (which by the way is an observation, its an empirical fact - check history) says nothing about its antithesis.

Your experience in the thread on measurements shows the lack of insight you have into scientific method.

Do substantiate your claim please - show jkeny where he's mistaken.

I too would question (but not dismiss) any claim you make to hearing unmeasurable sonic differences. Your unsubstantiated observation, while interesting, is not evidence.

Now observations aren't evidence? Or just unsubstantiated ones aren't? How would jkeny go about getting his observation substantiated? Also no-one to my knowledge has claimed that they're 'unmeasurable' so where did you pick that up from?
 
Michelson Morley experiment was done in 1887. The idea that it was "rejected" is similarly nonsense. It took less than 5 years to come up with what turned out to be the correct explanation, a tribute to the genius of Lorentz.

Interestingly, the person who was most convinced that the experiment was in error was... Morley.
 
"I got attacked again for making my statement about science"

I don't remember you being "attacked". Is that = disagreement to you?

No, mere disagreement is not attack. But telling someone they 'seem quite obsessed' most certainly is an attack when presented without psychological evidence of the alleged obsession.

Would it be possible to leave out the ad hominems d'ya think?:D
 
Michelson Morley experiment was done in 1887. The idea that it was "rejected" is similarly nonsense. It took less than 5 years to come up with what turned out to be the correct explanation, a tribute to the genius of Lorentz.

Interestingly, the person who was most convinced that the experiment was in error was... Morley.
Sorry, I think you'll find it was first done in 1881.
Did the experimenters themselves & the scientific community at large not consider it a "failed " experiment - after all it was meant to confirm the existing prevalent view about light & "ether"
 
Sorry, I think you'll find it was first done in 1881.
Did the experimenters themselves & the scientific community at large not consider it a "failed " experiment - after all it was meant to confirm the existing prevalent view about light & "ether"

Wrong on both counts. Michelson did his first experiment in 1881. It was of insufficient precision and had some flaws, so he teamed with Morley to do a better one with tighter error bars. Michelson Morley was in 1887. The cite, for your edification is Am. J. Sci. 34 (333) 1887.

The idea was NOT to "confirm the prevalent view" but to distinguish between the aether theories of Fresnel and Stokes. The answer ("None of the above") was a great surprise and led to the brilliant theory of Lorentz who showed that these results, when looked at in a novel way, suddenly cleared up another mystery, that Maxwell's equations were not consistent with the Gallilean transformation.
 
I don't believe for a moment that science, as practised, is as objective & "pure" as was/is made out, do you?

As "is made out" by whom? And "practised" as in "jkeny's version of the practice of science?"

I note with irony that you're communicating with people 10,000 miles away nearly instantaneously because of an interlocking set of technologies that relied on basic science being correct in order to be developed. In a rare and treasured burst of coherence, abraxolito touched on an essential point- all scientists are humans and have biases. The system of science and the demands of evidence and replicability serve an averaging effect and are a proven mechanism for getting to better and better understanding of the nature of physical reality.
 
I note with irony that you're communicating with people 10,000 miles away nearly instantaneously because of an interlocking set of technologies that relied on basic science being correct in order to be developed.

No irony that I can see beyond that you're sticking to your well-worn faith-based claims about science. The network fortunately doesn't depend on the correctness of science, for then we'd never know if it'd work. Rather it works because the models - which are undoubtedly the products of sound science - work: they provide explanations and predictive power.
 
@ jkeny,

as scientific work is done by humans science can´t be _really_ objective.

Thomas S. Kuhns essay ´The Structure of Scientific Revolutions` is still worth a reading and covers a lot of aspects about human factors in science.

BTW, Zwicker and Fastl report in `Psychoacoustics´ movement of the basilar membran in the range of tenth of a nanometer for a sound pressure level of 60dB!
 
AES E-Library: Audibility of Linear Distortion with Variations in Sound Pressure Level and Group Delay
that name is familiar.....

just to remind that the receiver itself is likely to distort the signal.
The question then is: how much source distortion is actually audible?

Goodness gracious! What is meant by "linear distortion".

The author certainly understands Systems Analysis, so this is unforgivable - especially in an abstract published in a reveiwed journal article.

"Linear Distortion" is an oxymoron.
 
"I got attacked again for making my statement about science"

I don't remember you being "attacked". Is that = disagreement to you?

"am I supposed to just take it & roll over?"

Yes, we all have to from time to time. Otherwise we end up in a bar brawl, which is where you seem to be taking this once again!

Let it go ....

Can you go to private mail, please?

I am bored to read your attacks on Jkeny who did nothing wrong expressing his own point of view about priority of theories VS facts.

Sorry for OT.
 
'Linear distortion' is excessive phase shift, as with a phase shifter.

Oh come on now!

I understand that many folks on this forum do not have a technical background. However, you and Dr Geddes know better then this.

A phase shift is a perfectly fine linear operator. It iscertainly not a non-linearity and the word distortion should not be used. Why are we watering down systems analysis? These words have a meaning associated with them. Why do you want to corrupt them?
 
Similar term "Linear Distortions" was used in Russia long time ago to describe non-flat frequency response. There are also ways to correct such distortion. First way is to correct frequency response using linear devices such as filters. Another way is to use active devices and feedback, and in this case we no more can speak of them as linear distortions.

The main methodological error is, when method of active corrections of linear distortions is used, but the result is still called linear distortions.
 
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With all due respect, I think this corrupts a technical language.

These words have specific meanings. Once corrupted, then it becomes very difficult to communicate. I am a little surprised to see folks trained engineering and physics engaged in this.

Linear distortion can well have a correct meaning in engineering terms. If it accurately describes a certain situation there is nothing wrong with using it. The expression in no way suggests linearity and distortion. That's like saying that the expression "flattened curve" is a contradiction in terms and has no descriptive use in the engineering world.

John
 
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