yes, I agree. it IS a matter of structure. and I believe (ha!) that fundamentally different people rarely manage to get along. they tolerate each other, at best.
but I would add that people are dynamic beings that change. I used to believe some wild theories until they started making no sense. I used to refute some wild theories until they started making sense.
I never quoted ABX tests as ultimate proof. at least not in this thread. I believe that some of the arguments against them are valid. I practically never use ABX tests as validation methods when I buy something.
Jocko Homo? that bitter man who founded another forum where the only useful thing that he ever posted was that good BNC connectors are a must for S/PDIF? while constantly ignoring that the whole clocking scheme is backwards and that it has practically created a whole industry? the guy who got fed with it and founded another forum where he never posted anything useful at all? but where he constantly reminds everyone that he hates diyers?
does he qualify as a "dreamer"?
do I need to remind everyone that the forum I'm speaking about contains a thread where they measured USB jitter, in order to prove that it is "evil"? while currently a $200 USB DAC can achieve vanishingly low jitter levels, by means of async USB (the only clocking scheme that makes sense)? due to the "objectivists" at ADI and TI? how did the 'dreamers' help in that respect?
I don't believe there's right and wrong. objectivity and subjectvity. not saying which is which LOL. but I do believe that humans evolve by controversy and thrive on conflict. this is how we work. the clash of these two approaches is necessary,
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You are more 'skeptical' than I realized, Mr. Push-Pull. I was not referring to you directly, when I spoke about skeptics. More SY and SE.
Now, Jocko Homo and I are colleagues. I must say that I have learned more from him than most people here. I miss realtime practical design engineers here, as they used to be. The 'dreamers' are far more 'impractical' than Jocko Homo.
Jocko perhaps founded another forum, because he hoped to get more 'openmindedness' in the discussions. I know that the people that I work with are more 'openminded' than many here, and Jocko would fit in that group.
Now, Jocko Homo and I are colleagues. I must say that I have learned more from him than most people here. I miss realtime practical design engineers here, as they used to be. The 'dreamers' are far more 'impractical' than Jocko Homo.
Jocko perhaps founded another forum, because he hoped to get more 'openmindedness' in the discussions. I know that the people that I work with are more 'openminded' than many here, and Jocko would fit in that group.
If 'expectation bias' is real (and I have proved that it is for me, at least) then nothing that I hear beyond the most obvious, can actually be trusted. From this I extrapolate that it is probably the same for everyone else, and I scour their words intently for signs that they also acknowledge their own fallibility. But they very rarely do, which immediately makes me suspicious of their claims.
I agree that ABX testing is not necessarily proof of anything. But I can't understand how the brilliant prophets and visionaries can't also prophecy or envision an unconventional objective test to back up their claims, if only to shut the meter-reading objectivist dullards up. I guess they feel they it is beneath their dignity to condescend to such a thing.
I don't follow your logic. Perhaps I wasn't being clear.
The scientific process of thinking about stuff, forming a theory about stuff from knowledge and thinking, developing a testable hypothesis, performing an experiment to test the hypothesis, publishing results, and having others repeat your experiment and arriving at similar results actually does work. It's a rather thorough process and it's open-ended. It's also descriptive, i.e. it describes how we think stuff works. It also allows for the development of further thoughts on a topic, hence, the open-ended aspects.
The problem I see is that some people discard the scientific process because they "don't believe in it" or "can't prove it". These people also seem to confuse things like causation and correlation. Or that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
~Tom
By definition all perceived sound is in your head. The originating impulses may exist outside, but unless you've ascended to a higher plane the closest you'll get to direct experience are the reconstructions in your head.
It's OK to be suspicious Coppertop. However, if you are suspicious enough to NOT trust your ears, it is difficult to make progress in audio design.
May I ask how you did this test? Where in the chain did you replace a piece of wire with that capacitor?
You see the problem, THORIATED? It doesn't matter what you hear, they will NEVER believe you. It is against their 'belief system'. Just like the church officials of old. '-)
I had the same problem 34 years ago, when I replied that I could hear the difference between a discrete vs IC (5534) in an A-B test. How I had hoped that the 5534, that came to me, with good intention, would save me from (Man-Years) of extra development, but it could be heard, and I had to admit that it was so, and I did, in print. Dr. Lipshitz gave me the SAME questioning as vacuphile just did to you. It is part of their 'dogma'.
I had the same problem 34 years ago, when I replied that I could hear the difference between a discrete vs IC (5534) in an A-B test. How I had hoped that the 5534, that came to me, with good intention, would save me from (Man-Years) of extra development, but it could be heard, and I had to admit that it was so, and I did, in print. Dr. Lipshitz gave me the SAME questioning as vacuphile just did to you. It is part of their 'dogma'.
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True, which is why those of us who actually trust our ears use them exclusively for evaluating changes, rather than making excuses about why that's no good.
No John, I am just curious. In order to learn from what Thoriated tested to come to his conclusion, it is only fair to ask him how he did it. I have an open mind. Some locations for capacitors might be more critical than others.
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It's not the ears, John, it's the brain. And if you would take the time to engage yours, perhaps you would understand. But your ego and vanity seems to keep getting in the way.
se
Yes, this does did to be part of the process, the dreamers and the pragmatists need to tussle to some degree, to maintain reasonable balance. The trouble is, the pragmatists tend to run the show, meaning that the dreamers feel rather trodden upon ... 🙂
It was between the preamplifier and power amplifier in my home stereo. An associate switched between the capacitor being in circuit or being bypassed. There were no 'tell tale' artifacts such as noise during switching or background noise differences to tell whether the capacitor was in or out that I could determine. The power amplifier's input impedance was over 100K Ohms, so any low frequency phase shift artifacts should have been negligible.
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No, I don't accept that. A scientist, or engineer or inventor's assessment of his own work may be a useful short cut in developing something new, but ultimately only others can validate it - if they get the chance.
In the field of audio, I think we see a pretty large discrepancy between the musical tastes of engineers and 'normals'. To most people round here, jazz, Dave Brubeck's Take Five or someone called Diana Krall are held up as the material we should judge our systems by. This taste for anodyne pap then leads to the experts declaring that vinyl and valve amplifiers are the ultimate. This meme has spread to such an extent that 'normals' now believe it, too. Thus engineers' ears, I believe, are holding back progress, not accelerating it.
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As an example of something which it is certainly in the head, which is totally real for the people who experience it, is the "invisible speakers" trick. Excellent fodder for testing, evaluating the way people perceive sound; however, actually achieving this quality of sound consistently is no mean feat, therefore the whole exercise becomes even more tenuous to contemplate.
It's in the same ballpark as achieving a super vaccuum, or ultra low temperatures: certain phenomena only take place in these "extreme" conditions, but the level of effort required to bring them about is not trivial. At least in these instances the researchers knew theoretically that these states should be achievable, therefore they were motivated, to strive to make them happen ...
It's in the same ballpark as achieving a super vaccuum, or ultra low temperatures: certain phenomena only take place in these "extreme" conditions, but the level of effort required to bring them about is not trivial. At least in these instances the researchers knew theoretically that these states should be achievable, therefore they were motivated, to strive to make them happen ...
As a side note, in a ears-only test of data compression, I only scored "random chance" with Take Five. With a more modern recording (it was a female vocalist, DDD, can't remember who it was), no problem, I put all the tracks in the right order. Could it be the limitations of analog master tapes?
I can't listen to Diana Krall.
Perhaps this material isn't chosen primarily on the basis of musical enjoyment.
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