Yes the mention of Latour and reification (<smacks lips>, but as they say, "no relation") did hike my eyebrows about a millimeter or two --- but that was close to when Google said No more. I think I saw Gestalt fly by, always good for a round of knowing nods by the cognoscenti.
From what I read before I realized there was a hard limit, I was distantly reminded of the famous Gödel, Escher, Bach by the young Douglas Hofstadter. No puns found here in Gottinger, but with some resemblance between the works in the seeming attempt to enumerate about everything of any possible relevance to each author, who is at least widely-read. The phenomenon of GEB was that experts in a given one of the areas for which the DH multi-meld was attempted would read it and say "Well, he doesn't get that quite right of course, but I suppose the musicology and the logic [say] are o.k.".
Toole responded this AM and said he has not heard of him, but to keep him posted. Nothing from Olive yet, which is not unusual. Besides being preoccupied with affairs of state he probably hasn't thought of anything sufficiently sarcastic to say
Well I will give it a chance, and as I say, at the 56 dollar level I'm already committed. In fact I may well be, if this ushers in a school of post-Marxist Audio Studies. Cable construction and deconstruction mayhap?
I wonder what the guy's music is like (he is also a composer)?
I was cut off before that I think. I jumped around some, and was saving the circuit design for the end. Probably as well, only so much I can bear and still get a good night's sleep. It was bad enough watching Who's Harry Crumb, which rates a very generous 5.5 out of 10 on IMDB (or was that IM dB?)
My wife is out of town, so I got to listen to "Ghost Repeater" at a decent volume. I noticed that the title track sounds suspiciously similar to Sugar Magnolia. Nonetheless, better than a movie!
I botched my recollection of the Delbruck and Golomb review, which I managed just now to view online via JStor for a limited period. And they did have good things to say about the book, along with significant criticisms. The line I recalled incorrectly was "One hypothesis, difficult to refute, is that this book represents the author’s brave attempt to synthesize everything he ever learned."
JC, I will read the thing with an open mind. One of the requirements for a dissertation is that it be a significant contribution to the field of study. Perhaps acquainting musicologists with areas well outside their field is indeed a contribution, although precision here is probably sacrificed in the process. Of course there is an immense range over which that requirement of contribution can be fulfilled, and some theses are enormously better than others. Perhaps there is some gold in Dr. Gottinger's. It is at least nothing if not ambitious. I'm sure I'm getting more than a 56 dollar ream of paper.
What I gather so far from my truncated traverse is that he's pleading for a special status to be granted to the term "sonic signature". The job at hand (should one accept it ---bring up Mission Impossible theme) is to determine if that can be justified --- is there something that somehow, synergistically, endows the term with more than the sum of known and applicable psychoacoustics and signal/circuit theory? As I remarked to Toole and Olive, I can hear Occam sharpening his razor in the background.
JC, I will read the thing with an open mind. One of the requirements for a dissertation is that it be a significant contribution to the field of study. Perhaps acquainting musicologists with areas well outside their field is indeed a contribution, although precision here is probably sacrificed in the process. Of course there is an immense range over which that requirement of contribution can be fulfilled, and some theses are enormously better than others. Perhaps there is some gold in Dr. Gottinger's. It is at least nothing if not ambitious. I'm sure I'm getting more than a 56 dollar ream of paper.
What I gather so far from my truncated traverse is that he's pleading for a special status to be granted to the term "sonic signature". The job at hand (should one accept it ---bring up Mission Impossible theme) is to determine if that can be justified --- is there something that somehow, synergistically, endows the term with more than the sum of known and applicable psychoacoustics and signal/circuit theory? As I remarked to Toole and Olive, I can hear Occam sharpening his razor in the background.
Talking of subtle areas - I'm curious about peoples experiences with how long it takes for new, or newly modified audio equipment to run in.
Having finished a series of mods on DAC & Amps about six weeks ago, I'm somewhat surprised to find it still seems to be running in ( 4 - 6 hours use / day ) after such a long time.
What I am noticing in particular at present is increasing fluidity & transparancy.
Up until now I had thought a month was enough to stabilize the sound.
mikelm, I think the trick around here is to never use such words,
- perhaps better, say, to refer to the 'sonic signature' of the subjectively intrusive distortion artifacts, ...Seriously though, the time dimension plays such a huge part in SQ affairs, and it seems to be largely ignored or treated very casually by researchers. When I first really got stuck into the game this aspect drove me crazy with frustration, to the point where I gave away playing with the toys for many years, I didn't have the knowledge and understanding at the time to work out solutions - once you become aware of this factor you can hear it happening all the time in audio systems you come across ...
Of course, it's all about stabilisation of materials and the electrical behaviours that depend upon those materials, the time constants of some of these variations are very large - an audio system ends up being a dance floor for all these time constants engaged in their various routines, hence the typical experience of a system coming 'good' at some time, and the next day sounding like a dog ...
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One thing that resonates for me in analogy with wine tasting (here we go again but I promise not to go too off-topic) is that we are dealing when listening (~tasting) with a change in the listener (taster) as well as the equipment (wine). This is one reason why DBT is not much fun at all, whether T stands for testing or for tasting. There is a controversy about the effects of aeration/oxidation in wine, and Toole (with whom I drink more than critically taste) is not persuaded about the effect, having not found a convincing study that is sufficiently scientific. One night I prepared two samples of the same bottle of wine, with one subjected to a few hours of air in a wide-mouthed open container, the other rapidly decanted into a half-bottle and recorked. I got him at least to agree that there was a noticeable difference, but not quite to a level of preference. But we tasted them before we'd gotten to any level of inebriation, which confounds the perceptions (but can be very pleasant!).
But I've argued with him that I've had bottles that I kept for days and changed from day to day, in many cases dramatically improving. SY and others could probably account for specific chemical changes that would at least provide a plausible basis for the perceptions.
In audio, the notoriously short-term memory of most for certain discernibly audible things is often cited as justification for rapid sequencing among objects under evaluation. But although I can't cite studies to support, I suspect that there are other long-term perceptual shifts that also exert an influence. So at the end of the day or days, what we perceive as a change in the equipment may be difficult to separate from a change or adaptation in ourselves, or even other seemingly unrelated effects.
This all would be plausible, if I could see a pattern in my state of mind, or degree of eagerness to want to be persuaded that the sound has a certain quality, vs. another. Unfortunately,
, over many, many years no such pattern has emerged - but, patterns been have striking in terms of equipment behaviour, related to aspects of the environment in which it operates. And consistent, extremely consistent - over many years of assessing the sound.Accidental adjustments have been as powerful an indicator as any: for 3 days, say, the sound has had a certain, positive quality - so, on the 4th I should 'expect' the sound to be as good - but it's not ... so, why? I do some hunting, and discover that, say, the cat has been hyper earlier in the day and has managed to disturb some part of the fairly fragile, experimental setup - nothing in the electrical sense has altered, but the physical attributes are not as they should be. Restore that status ... and, the SQ is restored ...
Also, I use the nail dragged across the saucepan technique to pinpoint trouble areas. To immediately jump to another metaphor,
- if I want to know which is the most comfortable mattress to sleep on I don't politely lie on each in the manicured showroom ... I drag each outside and throw on a pile of the sharpest stones I can find, and bounce up and down energetically on my bum - this tends to be a giveaway ... Edit: I've found a good technique is to 'want' each new system I listen to to be really, really good - I build the expectation that it will very much impress me, beforehand. So, on first exposure you 'hear' the good points, but then if it has SQ problems that internal charade starts to crumble in the face of the increasingly obvious issues ..
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Just to add a touch more OT 'plonk', but relevant to 'expectation' - French wine down under in years gone by was only the rubbish, unless really decent money was paid. When we visited France many years ago, doing tourist trail things, same story: close to undrinkable wine with ridiculous prices attached.
Then, we chanced upon the town of Chablis in the rented car - this is a style I've always enjoyed. Ahh-ha, I thought, finally get to sample some decent stuff, at the source itself. But no, first wineries only had tasteless rubbish that they were willing to serve up, with plenty of attitude to boot; then, finally found a major 'house', with a convivial, English,, hostess. Tried the $10 bottle - tasteless nothing, yet again; the $20 effort - hmmm, cheap cask wine; the $40 one - okay, something you wouldn't be ashamed of taking to a barbeque; and finally the $80 top of the line - at last, a decent wine, something that was worth drinking with a nice meal!
Expectations of what "should have been" this close to the 'real thing' didn't help one iota with the reality you got ...
Then, we chanced upon the town of Chablis in the rented car - this is a style I've always enjoyed. Ahh-ha, I thought, finally get to sample some decent stuff, at the source itself. But no, first wineries only had tasteless rubbish that they were willing to serve up, with plenty of attitude to boot; then, finally found a major 'house', with a convivial, English,
, hostess. Tried the $10 bottle - tasteless nothing, yet again; the $20 effort - hmmm, cheap cask wine; the $40 one - okay, something you wouldn't be ashamed of taking to a barbeque; and finally the $80 top of the line - at last, a decent wine, something that was worth drinking with a nice meal!Expectations of what "should have been" this close to the 'real thing' didn't help one iota with the reality you got ...
I started reading the linked thesis on 'Rethinking Distortion'. I gave up after 24 pages of audiophile myths and unsupported assertions. My impression is that it is nonsense. Would anyone like to persuade me to read further? For example, does the author actually make any verifiable claims, or proper analysis? That sort of stuff might pass for 'research' in a music (or sociology) department, but it is not serious academic work. Is Dr. Sokal lurking anywhere?
mikelm, I think the trick around here is to never use such words,
Yeah, this thread reminds me of that book "men are from mars women are from venus" only in this case it's the staunch objectivists vs those who are comfortable with objective results & subjective opinions.
Not quite sure why subjective comments stir such strong reactions. Are they really so offensive ? One get's the feeling that some around here want to eradicate subjective comments in the way they would eradicate a cockroach infestation.
Is there some underlying unspoken pseudo religious doctrine at play here ?
Given that JC, who's work this thread is dedicated to, despite his best efforts has still not managed to find a measurement system that fully accounts for everything that he can hear, it seems to me there is a valid argument for discussing both objective & subjective input.
Action And Reaction....
Dan.
...yes, and when insights are gained, predictions can then be made.
Dan.
Obviously a fairly recent visit. About 35yr. ago a friend brought back a Grange Hermitage from one of the finest vintages ever, a real 100 pointer, tasted like cola and several things unmentionable (SY understands). Even it was only $50 AU (1977 exchange rate). A personal anecdote in 1999 I took my whole family to one 2 star and one 3 star in Paris, after a long look a the lists I was able to find absolutely incredible values (I don't think a single bottle was over $40 US except maybe for the 1985 Leroy Volnay). At the 2 star the chef came out surprised that an American ordered his two personal favorites.
Wine is now a fashion product not unlike audio, it requires an investment of time and interest to get the most out of your money. Just this weekend totally surprised myself with a Zind-Humbrecht Gewurz. at $26. They have even started to accomodate folks looking for more traditional wine. Please don't take this wrong (or personally) but I find Aussie wine to be one the least dollar values around.
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