Okay. But this is your proposition/hypothesis? IOW, there is nothing published relating audio listening to other local oscillatory patterns?
Frankly, I'm tired of reading the same thing over and over again: "the mind is too complex to be understood", "the quality of sound is too subjective", "the world of wines and its tasting is bs" and similar insipidities without any scientific basis, but based only on ignorance and deductive as fallacious logic.
If all researchers thought this way there would be no progress!
My point is entirely the following: logic cannot and must not replace knowledge.
Otherwisw, it looks like the Age of Darkness.
If something seems too complex, it should be addressed anyway by studying it, not by dismissing it with entirely personal than destructive deductions.
Moreover, from educated people, or at least they claim to be, who boast of knowing their subject despite never having designed anything Audio and not having the faintest idea of what the sense of Hearing is.
Does this still need to be explained?
Well, I've proof that it's an insipid and ignorant deduction, but I won't present it because my experience with the Propagation of Sound that makes the air vibrate, but not move the air, was frankly dramatic.
The audience in question, with very few exceptions, maintained their personal beliefs regardless of the scientific authority of what I presented as a simple popularizer, certainly not because I had discovered it myself.
So I'll never do something like that again.
Instead I want to use the same weapon: logic!
There are many areas of human knowledge that are extremely complex, such as the senses, but this does not mean that we continue to wallow in ignorance without shame, we inform ourselves, we study, we delve, and we look around.
What about other human evaluations of events that do not have a numerical classification derived from a machine?
You study, you learn and you teach other ones how to evaluate impartially with your senses, since there are no machines for that.
There is the collective perception of the senses that must be valued and appreciated here too.
If that is too much for you then you really do not love Audio, but something different from it: your trivial logic.
I, who love Audio, want to establish the right to describe one's listening experiences without being unfairly attacked by other's ignorance, nothing more.
If all researchers thought this way there would be no progress!
My point is entirely the following: logic cannot and must not replace knowledge.
Otherwisw, it looks like the Age of Darkness.
If something seems too complex, it should be addressed anyway by studying it, not by dismissing it with entirely personal than destructive deductions.
Moreover, from educated people, or at least they claim to be, who boast of knowing their subject despite never having designed anything Audio and not having the faintest idea of what the sense of Hearing is.
Does this still need to be explained?
Well, I've proof that it's an insipid and ignorant deduction, but I won't present it because my experience with the Propagation of Sound that makes the air vibrate, but not move the air, was frankly dramatic.
The audience in question, with very few exceptions, maintained their personal beliefs regardless of the scientific authority of what I presented as a simple popularizer, certainly not because I had discovered it myself.
So I'll never do something like that again.
Instead I want to use the same weapon: logic!
There are many areas of human knowledge that are extremely complex, such as the senses, but this does not mean that we continue to wallow in ignorance without shame, we inform ourselves, we study, we delve, and we look around.
What about other human evaluations of events that do not have a numerical classification derived from a machine?
You study, you learn and you teach other ones how to evaluate impartially with your senses, since there are no machines for that.
There is the collective perception of the senses that must be valued and appreciated here too.
If that is too much for you then you really do not love Audio, but something different from it: your trivial logic.
I, who love Audio, want to establish the right to describe one's listening experiences without being unfairly attacked by other's ignorance, nothing more.
It may well be that there are none. Because this image of the organism would first have to be sufficiently established. But this is not to be found in medicine or biology or psychology and also not in chemistry and only in a few areas of physics: Search for elektro universe. For example, Thunderbolts Project. Or Plasma universe.
When it comes to discovering and developing your own oscillating organism and electro-organism, then look for artificial electromagnetic fields, e.g. cell phone, for example, and expose yourself to them, or have your teeth pulled by a dentist: It may well be that you are one of the "fine vibrationalists" who perceive teeth as foreign objects and as resonators in the whole organism. And here it is enough to create asymmetries: right - left, and also top - bottom. And the organism swings completely askew, right up to the point of collapse. But doctors can't predict this, because they don't have this in their training (e.g. medicine, see above;-)
Logic. Can lead to methods of recording and systematization. And audio is indeed complex, and it needs a comprehensive development of complex qualitative methods, but when you start DO it yourself, the curtain will increasingly lift and an audio world will be comprehensible and also predictable, i.e. substantiating the developed theories;-)
Logon , I dont think that treating people : ignorant , stupid , insipidus , fallacious , trivials , will help you in any way to get where you like to , free speech leads you to read people you don't agree with , no need to insult them .........
I may be wrong but this is not the place to talk about the " collective perception in the deep " , you may be in the wrong place , everyone will talk about hes own subjective experience , and all together it doens't make any relevant point
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You absolutely have that today.
Sadly, it may not come with this addendum
Some are attacking not (with) by ignorance, but with intelligence and logic.
As mentioned earlier, there are other sensory experiences where a common language has been built within a community / population. My earliest example was with wine way back in post #20. There are a number of resources that have been linked / discussed throughout the thread showing examples of attempts to standardize how people "critically" listen. There are a number of resources that have been linked / discussed to help with an understanding of why no two people may actually 'experience' what they 'hear' the same way even when presented with identical stimulus. Further, there have been a number of posts with excellent references to the level of consistency / accuracy / precision of auditory 'measurements' both within and between populations.
IF I can infer a bit of what you seem to want at heart... I'd say you'd perhaps like to be understood when you make statements re: the 'sound' of a system or what you 'hear' and moreover, you'd like to understand others when they make similar statements.
That is a challenge in and of itself (IMO) - That's even separate from adding any component of an "evaluation" whether that evaluation is objective or subjective.
Taking something perhaps very simple. Cold / Hot with H20 as an example.
Let's say I tell a close friend from another country that I prefer my tea "hot, but not too hot".
We have a measurement system for temperature. Across the world even something that simple can be confused. If I further clarify, and I say I want my water at 180 for my tea, someone in another part of the world might not immediately understand b/c they are familiar with other units, and I did not specify the units. Even if I did specify the units, and more clearly said I like the water at 180F for my tea, they may not understand immediately and fully b/c they have to translate in their head to their 'measurement system' of Celsius perhaps.
Then ask them if that 180F is "hot or cold". That's subjective. Let's again say their native tongue is not English, but they are semi-fluent. So, in their brain, they translate hot or cold to their native tongue and use their own life's experience to try and provide their personal interpretation of whether they think (perhaps) 82C is chaud ou froid (in their opinion). There is no absolute definition for "hot" or "cold".
Now... let's for the sake of discussion say that hypothetically the world agreed that "hot" was anything above >=100C and "cold" was anything <100C.
Which would you prefer?
1) Standing in a pool of 85C water up to your neck for 1 hour
2) Having a uL of 105C water dripped on your arm
You are standing in "cold" water
You have had a drip of "hot" water on your arm.
The experience of "hot and cold" will be remarkably different.
That's a grossly simplistic analogy, but I hope my point comes across.
The subtleties of communication and understanding around even the same stimulus within a small population when it comes to hearing are a challenge.
I applaud your efforts to want to have a polite discussion around "how we can better communicate our experience and find a common understanding" (my loose interpretation of your words) even while thinking that your efforts may be futile.
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You absolutely have the right to describe your listening experiences in any way you like. No one is taking that away from you.
But this is a public forum and there are people here who have different listening experiences from you, and they have just as much right as you do to express their opinions.
Nothing you have presented so far is proven. It's all conjecture about what might happen some day. So, if some people don't share your views that is the risk you take when presenting them here.
What is unfair is you calling other people's opinions as ignorance just because they don't agree with you.
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It seems that you always fall into the same misunderstanding: you personalize to yourself what is said perhaps in relation to a statement of yours, do you remember that it already happened on another thread?
I said that a certain logic is trivial, not the person who applies it unknowingly (I hope he doesn't do it intentionally).
I've not addressed any offensive adjective to anyone, neither in this thread nor in any other part of the forum: I challenge you to find one single episode.
If (I repeat, IF) you replace a knowledge with a logic which proves to be trivial, I did not say that you are trivial as person, perhaps I said that you are not yet aware of how a certain speek that seems logical is instead ignorant.
I did not say that you are ignorant, and therefore I don't see any offense.
What about the following statement of yours instead?
May be you wanted to appear "smart"?
I'm happy with your words.
Thank you very much also for this.
It did.
I realized your point, but sorry if i say that's not my point yet.
Since I've been on this Forum I've seen a lot of those things, first of all addressed to me.
Then I noticed that it happened with other members too, then those other members started to be afraid of being attacked and didn't share anything anymore about their exeperience of listening.
Not me though.
Since it is simply ridiculous that on an AUDIO Forum one cannot describe one's own listening experiences relating to a system or a device because otherwise one is attacked by someone's ignorant logic.
Do you see what I mean?
Since no one reprimanded those uncivilized and ignorant behaviors, they continued and continued to do so and other members posted their listening experiences less and less.
Now I want to reverse this obscuring course of things.
I want to establish that right to express oneself freely from fear of attacks, then it will be those who will test what has been described to confirm or not, but it will still be a beautiful and constructive thing.
Especially compared to the obscuring behaviors above.
Some members have addressed the most aggressive invectives to me simply because I had dared to say something about what I perceived from the change of 16 binding posts in my speakers and in my amplifier.
And so began my journey to reach a different status of these wrong things.
Those same people (I'm not addressing any of the members who posted in this thread) are not even too "courageous" because they did it to me who had not yet posted many comments and for me it was also frustrating, as you can imagine.
But those same people are careful not to do it in threads where famous people post (if of course you know who I'm referring to) who do not disdain at all listening (and therefore also sharing) the listening.
Just as an example, I read your post on another thread regarding the Topping power amp.
I'm sorry that you couldn't buy it anymore, but I also noticed that many of us have asked and are waiting for someone to buy it and then share their listening experiences.
What could that listener possibly say?
It has beautiful, controlled and full-bodied bass, but not flabby.
The mids come out sharp and clear, but not shrill.
The highs are never harsh or dry and appear very extended.
If the listener has a system in which those characteristics adapt well, he can also think about trying it.
Where is the reason for saying that we are all different and we all have a different brain and what the member reported cannot be worth anything?
Simply, it is not true.
Because he can.
It does not have an absolute value, no, it does not, but it has a value.
That listening experience has a value.
It is simply not possible that that amplifier instead proves to have rubbery and booming bass, confused and unfocused mids, and strident and harsh highs.
It is not possible.
There could hypothetically be very small differences due to the other pieces of the system, but not enough to overturn those shared impressions.
And that listening experience will have been useful to others.
That is its purpose!
By the way:
I recently read an article in Audio Science Review where a well known Class D amplifier had some strange distortion behavior, it turned out that it was due to the material the connectors were made of, when changed the amplifier measured fine.
I haven't found that article, but I will.
It does serve to state that those who railed against me could be wrong, and that their logical beliefs ("All connectors sound the same, it's not possible that they sound different!") was and is simply an ignorant statement.
https://harmanhowtolisten.blogspot.com/2011/01/welcome-to-how-to-listen.htmlShall we just leave the personal accusations aside?
I've seen two references to Harman, How to Listen, in this thread. Why not dig a little deeper into that nice material?
I mean:
a) a beautiful material,
b) but it does not lead to practicing detecting "physical" changes in one's own system in terms of sound. And as far as I know, it does not refer to these connections.
These are actually audio exercises for beginners. The fact that these are often not done, or are bad-mouthed, is also due to the low-complexity training of many "discourse participants": they learn, for example, also practically by line or number visualization measurement methods: Switch on - circuit closed - current - switch off - circuit interrupted - no current. The complex process current is usually not taught;-)
Aside: it may well be that even comparing different devices is problematic. Each device has its own noise pattern, which may not lie in the directly comparable audible range, but is a memorable pattern, a memorable impression, informal. Only the replacement of single parts, for example, changes this pattern, which becomes recognizable when comparing a device with itself. But since it is "informal", both unknown and not, or hardly, to be verbalize, this is not a topic in audio discourse. I mean;-)
I did not read the whole tread, but this is my point:
There were extensive studies done at Harman about this subject by people like Sean Olive and Flloyd Toole. They did extensive measuring and double blind tests on large scale and tried to predict the taste of listeners with various degree of experience and knowledge about listening to speakers. What they found is a generalised preference curve (a curve that please most peopleà), the so called Harman curve, that is not flat, but very smooth tilting down to the treble.
But they also found that that curve pleases most people, but not all. Personal preference is real, and depends on a person. Harmonic distortion and bass heavy reduced treble sound pleases a big minority of the listeners (the oldskool sound). Pure neutral monitors are by a minority very fatiguing or bright. But that the Harman curve is a very usefull curve for speaker builders on comercial scale is true, those who are close please the most of their potential customers.
The study (for those with an AES subscription): https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=12206
I think to judge a speaker or a hifi system, you need both measurements and listening (preferable abx blind testing) to really judge a speaker. But at the end, a speaker is there to enjoy your media (music, HT, ...), so whatever floats your boat is valid. For some it will be very neutral, for others coloured in a specific way, and in my experience, that specific way can also be measured and put into numeric values.
There were extensive studies done at Harman about this subject by people like Sean Olive and Flloyd Toole. They did extensive measuring and double blind tests on large scale and tried to predict the taste of listeners with various degree of experience and knowledge about listening to speakers. What they found is a generalised preference curve (a curve that please most peopleà), the so called Harman curve, that is not flat, but very smooth tilting down to the treble.
But they also found that that curve pleases most people, but not all. Personal preference is real, and depends on a person. Harmonic distortion and bass heavy reduced treble sound pleases a big minority of the listeners (the oldskool sound). Pure neutral monitors are by a minority very fatiguing or bright. But that the Harman curve is a very usefull curve for speaker builders on comercial scale is true, those who are close please the most of their potential customers.
The study (for those with an AES subscription): https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=12206
I think to judge a speaker or a hifi system, you need both measurements and listening (preferable abx blind testing) to really judge a speaker. But at the end, a speaker is there to enjoy your media (music, HT, ...), so whatever floats your boat is valid. For some it will be very neutral, for others coloured in a specific way, and in my experience, that specific way can also be measured and put into numeric values.
cumbb,
In my book, listening is a skill that can be learned.
The accompanying software is a tool that helps develop that skill and helps the user to discover details and nuances many people are never able to detect without.
It is an almost mandatory requirement to the physical tuning of a sound system, or at least a great help.
But it is not effortless, like any learning curve.
In my book, listening is a skill that can be learned.
The accompanying software is a tool that helps develop that skill and helps the user to discover details and nuances many people are never able to detect without.
It is an almost mandatory requirement to the physical tuning of a sound system, or at least a great help.
But it is not effortless, like any learning curve.
They also explain that material vibrations modulate current, i.e. electrical signals, which gives everyone a tool to tune its system using different materials and their mix. And that according to listening impression. This is what is denied by many of our fellow campaigners - they should have a look at these Harman files more often;-)
... and even refined with time and experience.
Thanks for this contribution, which I of course totally agree with.
After all, everything that concerns the senses must be learned continuously, starting from the newborn and without ever stopping.
It's not easy and not for everyone, but it can be done.
If it can be done, then it should be done, especially on an Audio Forum. IMHO
In some cases it would even be a duty to do so.
Just a bit like how knowledge should be, right?
I can't imagine an audio designer of speakers or other pieces of equipment who ignores the basics of Hearing...
Me not at all , I do not invent , I build stuf other people invent 😎
and I use to assume my words as a grown man 😉
.
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Then what is your point? It started off that you wanted to discuss (as the title of your thread) and the contents of your first post...I'm happy with your words.
Thank you very much also for this.
It did.
I realized your point, but sorry if i say that's not my point yet.
"Judging Sound Quality: Preference or Skill?
impartial evaluation = It sounds good, but I don't like it.
Personal preference = It sounds bad, but I like it.
Just like when you taste food."
Some people have pointed you toward some extensive resources to help you in your endeavors... IMO. You're not the first, and you certainly won't be the last to try and understand this. Heck, you may even create some new thoughts of your own and share them. You've said what you want, but (maybe I've missed it) you haven't shared one idea about how you'd go about doing it. When others point you toward resources that describe how others have attempted similar things... they seem to be brushed off.
You: I want to have a conversation about 'this'.
Everyone: Excellent, here are some resources that others have created about 'this'
You: Some people are mean to me, and I want them to be nice.
Now, you seem to be on a more personal endeavor to get everyone to "play nice according to your rules", which is fine, but that's a bit tired. I continue to applaud your efforts, but ... now sadly, your endeavor seems to be even more futile. Unwatching b/c the thread is less productive/science and more personal, and while you claim to want it to be otherwise, you fuel the fire yourself. My last suggestions - Ignore those that in your view don't contribute productively and reply to those that spark your curiosity and continue the conversation in the direction that most helps you get to where you want to be. It's your thread.
Happy trails,
Patrick
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