boxer,
Why not try to understand an argument, rather than presume it is wrong and waste time misrepresenting it?
You've presented quotes AS IF they don't form part of a coherent stance, while not actually showing any effort to understand what you quoted.
My point has been that it makes sense that if a phenomenon is objectively real - that we are detecting something that is objectively changing a signal and that we can perceive this change - it makes sense to look both for measurable evidence of a change and evidence that measurable change is audible. At the very least, reliable evidence that *something audible* is happening to begin with.
But the problem for the way audiophiles tend to discern these things is "trust your ears." Which is to just ignore the facts we know about how our perception is NOT necessarily so trustworthy. We know that varios forms of perceptual bias can lead us to think we "hear" (or see, or whatever) things that aren’t actually happening. That’s one BIG REASON we have a scientific method to begin with! To try to route through these variables to more reliable results.
So if you say "X capacitor produces different sound from Y" capacitor, it makes sense to ask "how do you know?" Do you have measurements supporting this? Even so, are the measured differences in the realm you’d expect to hear, given the limits of our hearing? If you are simply claiming this on the basis "I believe I hear a difference" then there is the problem of sighted bias. How have you discerned between "I heard something objectively changing" and "I imagined it, due to biased perceptual errors?"
Those are exactly the questions science asks. Why in the world would you imagine audio to exist in some bubble where those questions are not relevant?
See, it doesn’t matter "who" you are when you are making the claim. What matters is the method.
No scientist establishes justification for a claim merely by saying "I’m a scientist, so you should just believe me." Or "I’m a Well Known Scientist, so you should believe me." No! That’s antithetical to science.Science recognizes that every human can be biased and in error, so ANY scientist proposing a hypothesis or claim needs to show his work, to show how he has weeded out the variables and how the work can be replicated by others.
So, back to Curl, it doesn’t matter a DAMN whether Curl is a well-known audio engineer. What matters for him is the same for any audiophile making a claim: What METHOD does he offer for vetting his claim that, say, capacitors "just sound different?" If he is taking no more steps to weed out sighted bias than the average audiophile, it’s just as dubious methodology as the average audiophile.
And...AGAIN...this is NOT AN ARGUMENT THAT CURL IS WRONG. Or that you or anyone else aren’t perceiving real things. It’s simply a lookat the TYPE OF EVIDENCE offered for the claims, and the liabilities of THAT TYPE OF EVIDENCE.
It’s like saying "I know it’s sunny outside!" I say" well, you may be right! How do you know?" You answer "because I flipped a coin - heads it was going to be sunny, tails it was rainy. It came up heads, so it’s sunny!"
Well, it MAY WELL BE SUNNY OUTSIDE, but the method you’ve used to come to that conclusion has some problems we can talk about.
Similarly, if MAY WELL BE THAT CAPICITORS (or AC cables etc) sound different...but the type of evidence on offer has some problems we can talk about (particularly if it’s the "I think I hear it, so I know it’s true" form of anecdote).
Do you get this nuance...yet? Do you think you’d be able to actually depict my argument without strawmanning?
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Nelson Pass, John Curl, and Ralph Karsten all believe in equipment
break-in, burn-in, or what ever you want to call it. The late Charles
Hansen did as well. The point wouldn't be that some electronics designers think AUDIBLE break in occurs (note the capitalized word), but what evidence they have for the claim. Do they have objective measurements showing the change and Do they have tests correlating the objective changes with their audible consequences, that control for well known listener biases? If not, it's just more of the same audiophile anecdotes, unfortunately. |
millercarbon, Further beating a dead horse, driving the point home, like a stake into
the vampires heart, we all know that the reviewer is perfectly capable
of then writing about his actual experience of the movie IN SPITE OF
EXPECTATIONS! That's essentially a re-statement of the old "I wasn't expecting to hear X, therefore X is real and not due to expectation bias." As has been pointed out countless times now, that's a naive understanding of how our biases work. There are many forms of bias Here's one list of cognitive biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biasesSimply listening FOR differences can lead you to think you hear a difference even if you don't expect to. It's just how our brains work.Or, you may not even be listening for a difference, but at some point perceive that "something sounds different in that track from last time" and then presuming there is some objective reason, the audiophile thinks "Ok, what have I switched between, or introduced in to my system lately? Oh...that power conditioner, THAT must be causing what I think I hear. Or "oh, I'm sure the sound is different, so it must be BURN IN." There are so many ways to misapprehend what is actually going on by ascribing a change in subjectivity to some objective change. This is why when doing, say, medical tests, scientists don't say "Ok, let's round up a bunch of skeptics about this new drug. If they take it and report subjective changes, then it MUST be due to a property of the drug!" Scientists don't do that because they know that's a totally ignorant account of how biases can work. That's why they use control groups, blind and double-blind testing. rodman99999 Anyone that discredits another’s abilities to hear improvements, in
their own systems, in their own listening environments, with their own
ears, should be considered condescending, insulting and/or(probably),
simply projecting their own ineptitude. Please see above, rodman. If you were to be involved in a medical study for a new treatment and they told you they'd be using double-blind protocol so that neither your nor the doctor's biases could confound the results, would you say "No, because the fact that, if I know I'm on the active treatment you won't simply trust my reports as TRUE, means you are being condescending, insulting and projecting your own ineptitude!" Would you think that's an appropriate response to the idea of controlling for the variable of human bias? I's simply a falsehood to say "if you didn't experience it, you have no grounds on which to doubt a claim." Particularly if the claim is in the form of anecdotal evidence, unsupported by objective evidence, careful testing. If you tell me you bought a perpetual motion machine, it won't matter how much you say "You haven't even tried it, so you don't have any reason to cast doubt on my claim!" The odds are you are simply mistaken, and you'd need to produce far stronger evidence than "I'm really sure this is happening, and that's good enough!" |
millercarbon
Until I took the time to actually listen and compare.
Have you ever gone a step further, and "actually listened and compared" without peeking? I have. So have many others. It can be very educational, if you are open minded enough to learn that way. We certainly can hear many things that "really sound different" (due to objective changes in the audible range). But we can also "hear things" that aren’t objectively there. So, how do we deal with possible confounding factors? Blind testing is one way to do it. Back in the late 90’s I had a couple CD players and a DAC and I was SURE they sounded different. It seemed so obvious! Yet some "objectivists" online said it was unlikely, that a properly constructed DAC should sound the same. (Though, with caveats). Here’s the thing though: I was willing to accept that I may have been mistaken. I admitted that I’m human, subject to the normal human biases, which could be influencing what I "think" I heard. So I was willing to TEST MY OWN PRESUMPTIONS, and try to distinguish the units without peeking. I did a number of blind-test shoot outs (matching volume output at the speaker terminals). Guess what? Positive results! I could EASILY tell the units apart, because they (apparently) REALLY DID have the different characteristics I thought I"d heard. That was really cool. (Strictly speaking, this doesn’t entail that the objectivists claim was
wrong; they left open that DACs/CDPs could be designed to sound
different. Rather, they were pointing out that a well constructed,
accurate DAC/CDP should be indistinguishable from another all other
things being equal. So it’s not like I "disproved" that particular
claim. Rather, I simply found support fro my own impressions that the
ones I owned had different sonic characteristics) BUT.... There have been other results in blind tests I’ve done that indicate that what I thought I was hearing was in error. Once I couldn’t peek at which device was playing in blind testing, the sonic signatures I thought were distinct just weren’t there to distinguish A and B. Again, this comes from being open-minded enough to simply admit "I’m human, I could be wrong in how I’ve interpreted from my subjective impression to what is really going on." It’s nothing to be afraid of. Really. It just takes opening your mind, a bit more bravery to truly put your "golden ear" to the test without peeking. |
millercarbon,
Those anecdotes are hardly accounts of a controlled tests.
And of course you include the usual disparagement of the other side having cloth ears, the old "you can’t hear differences because you don’t have finely tuned golden ears like me" trope. (This is always hilarious to me - I spend all day attending to incredibly fine audio differences, often tuning the recorded "sound of the air in a room" to within 1 db or less to tonally match other airs or tracks. Literally all day balancing the sonic and tonal characteristics of sometimes up to 50 tracks at once. Not to mention I've been obsessed with live vs recorded sound for 40 years and an audiophile for almost as long. But, I'm sure you are in a position to diagnose-over-the-internet my perceptual abilities just to try to stick the knife in because...well...it makes you feel better. Just beautiful).
Whereas I am not saying you are wrong in your claims. I’m actually open to the possibility of fuses sounding different, burn-in etc. I just happen to be aware of the pitfalls of purely subjective inferences particularly when it comes to controversial technical/audio claims. And I see for the most part anecdote in support of the claims, vs hard evidence. So, have not come to a conclusion at the moment. (Though I think there is good reason to infer that many audiophile claims are poorly supported and likely due to subjective errors).
It’s too bad you come to audio discussions with others who don’t believe just as you do with such a strong desire to insult, millercarbon. If you could just dial down the naked hostility there could be actual conversation.
(Hope that was short enough, Andy ;-))
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@rodman99999
I suspect your post was deleted because the forum attempts to maintain a policy of encouraging conversation, rather than exchanges of insults.
So a post that is essentially comprised of insult, even if it doesn’t name the individual it is directed towards, is seen as counterproductive and such posts are discouraged by being deleted.
I dislike "cancel culture" as much as anyone, but I have no problem with a forum attempting to keep some level of decorum to promote productive conversations rather than trolling or insulting ones. When you are discouraged from resorting to ad hominem and insult, it encourages you (or should) to produce actual reasoned content and interact with the points made by other people.
If you have an idea that you can actually support through reason, argument, evidence, best to do that rather than through insult (or without adding insults).
I see millercarbon still can not resist the impulse for insult. That’s a shame.
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jl35 also beware of anti-expectation bias, as you may prefer to not like it so that you don't have to buy it... Yes, there are possible confounding factors one all sides too: "I don't think there will be a sonic difference between A and B, so I won't pay attention enough to notice it." |
Those that are so adamant, regarding their beloved theories/opinions/biases(regardless of the source), while refusing to acknowledge that ONLY experimentation(the heart of the Scientific Method), provides PROOF, regarding anything discussed. Most of those are proffering their opinions, without ever having tried what’s being discussed. What you hold true, in your listening room, is all that matters. Experiment and trust your ears.
That’s a common misstatement about the nature of science (typically used by people who place undue levels of confidence in their own subjectivity). "Try it for yourself and see if it works" is an empirical method. But it’s not the SCIENTIFIC empirical method. Everything that underlies the power of science, it’s success, and what makes science more reliable lies in that difference. The problem is that people are prone to all sorts of biases and cognitive errors and laziness when discerning cause and effect. "I wished on my magic crystal last month that I’d get a job...and what do you know, I got a job, my crystal must have done it!" "I put on my magnetic bracelet, and eventually my cold went away. The bracelet works!" In other words, we tend to be very sloppy in attending to all the variables in our explanations, which is why countless contradictory belief systems flourish. The Scientific method arose largely as a response to this problem by proposing hypothesizes with testable consequences, using parsimony to select among explanations, controlling for known or possible other causes, etc. This is why, as I pointed out to rodman before, a scientific study on a new drug would not consist of simply giving him the drug and asking rodman if rodman feels like it works. The test would control the effects of bias, placebo effect and/or other known variables. The work of a scientist who did sloppy work, not controlling for known variables, would be dismissed, for good reason. If rodman *really* wanted to test his findings consistent with the scientific method, he’d be acknowledging the reality of bias, and controlling for it. Blind testing being such a method. A method he and many audiophiles seem to instead reject. (Which is ironic, since the more rigorously controlled method would ACTUALLY rely on "trusting your ears" and not your "eyes and ears.") There is of course nothing wrong with just buying gear and trying it, feeling like it makes a difference we like, and buying it. As I’ve pointed out a million times, I don’t go trying to test everything I buy with scientific rigor. But let’s be intellectually honest and understand and admit when we aren’t doing so with a "scientific" mindset. And it’s intellectually honest to calibrate our claims and beliefs with the quality of evidence we have.The problem arises when people simply insist their subjective inferences aren’t or can’t be wrong because "my ears don’t lie! you can’t tell ME I didn’t hear it," which is a plain refusal to face the reality of the strength of sighted biases. |
That one was for you, geoff. Glad you liked it ;-)
|
I sometimes imagine these guys with their wives, honey the coefficient of friction seems a little off tonight, but lets get Larry in here to double-blind you so I can be sure. Funny. I sometimes imagine audiophiles stopping otherwise normal parties to subject guests to demos of their audio tweaks like cable elevators, tuning bullets, unplugging and plugging in cable tweaks. Real "life of the party" stuff. Of course, that’s a joke. No audiophile is that tweak-focused to do that in real life to his guests. ;-) |
SO; the bottom line of all this discussion(according to some) would be,
"It’s a waste of time, trying to upgrade your system/listening pleasure,
by actually auditioning(LISTENING), since YOU’RE too inept to tell if
there’s an improvement in sound, without a degreed Scientist present, to
PROPERLY conduct experiments on your proposed purchase and
determine(for you) if it’s POSSIBLE for that component/tweak, to
positively affect what you might hear."
Right? Wrong. The problem is you'll need to actually accept nuance, rather than black-and-white answers, in order to understand the point that keeps being made. As I'd repeated: no one needs to do science in being an audiophile. Practice it however you wish, whatever makes you happy. Buy a new power conditioner and it seems your system sounds better? Enjoy. But the more a claim enters the realm of "controversial" (and by that I mean "controversial among experts who have relevant knowledge and expertise"), if you really care about truth and having intellectual humility, then you would simply admit that, though personal experience seems to validate a positive claim, it isn't the type of data that would settle the matter, due to all the issues already pointed out. If you say "I heard a difference and I'm good with that"...fine. But when people leap to objective claims "therefore my experience has verified the claim and anyone who doesn't hear what I hear is at fault" then, that's going to get some pushback for the hubris it is. As I've said: I have plenty of gear I haven't scientifically tested, and I have not advocated it's necessity for enjoying high end audio. |
This is all coming down to being a great case of helicopter parenting amped up by a surfeit of hubris. You haven't indicated who you are talking too. But... Tell me: Who in this thread has been admitting "I don't know the asnwer. I haven't decided yet. I'm still looking at the evidence." Who has admitted to the "other side": You could be right in reporting what you hear. Is this admission of fallibility, tentativeness, and allowing the other person could be correct coming from millercarbon? Rodman? I'd hate to go have a meal with some of you as you'd ruin the experience. 😄 Not me. I'm nuts about food, restaurants, fine dining etc, and I dine out regularly with a large variety of family, friends and acquaintances. Just this weekend I had a 14 course tasting menu meal with a pal at the best restaurant in the city (not something I can regularly afford) that I'm still dreaming about. Had tons of fun talking food with the rest of the diners at the table. Most attempts to psychoanalyze other people on a forum fail because, especially when we find they disagree with our view, the impulse is to characterize them in a way that makes us feel superior. Personally, I'm sure millercarbon, rodman, and most others here are terrific people when not engaged in audiophile turf battles, and they are likely plenty smarter than I am overall. |
rodman Ok, so you are re-iterating what I pointed out you already said.Along with simply re-stating a disregard for known variables in human perception. (Again...would you have similar "disdain" for researchers who control for biases???? If so, you’d show yourself to be anti-science. If not, how do you imagine audio becomes magically separated from the problem variable of human bias?).
ie: ONLY experimentation, PROVES whether theories or opinions/biases are correct(no theory has ever proven anything).
What kind of experimentation "proves" it? The kind where you have no control for well-known biases, or the type where you control for it?
The second is PLAINLY an encouragement for OTHERS to trust THEIR ears, and the third speaks for itself.
How exactly does your truth theory work, in practice? If for instance we sat down in front of your system, swapped AC cables, and you perceived a difference and I perceived no difference, which perception points to the truth? Are you justified in concluding from your perception that the cable objectively altered the sound signal? If so why would your perception be privileged in apprehending "The Truth" over mine? Or would you grant that I would be justified in my conclusion, from my own perception that "there was no audible alteration to the sonic signal?" Do you subscribe to some form of "everyone has their own truth" concept? (If so...have you ever thought that through)? I’m just trying to understand what you actually mean, in practice, and it’s implications. |
rodman Note I said "But when PEOPLE leap to objective claims..." I didn’t say you had made that explicit claim. Though millercarbon has made essentially that claim many times, continually insulting people who "can’t hear" the obvious sonic differences of various tweaks he tells us about. But you seem to have conveniently forgotten the nature of your own posts in this thread, filled with invective against those of us voicing skepticism. There was indeed have a similar apparent point implicit in what you keep writing:
You’d claimed "ONLY experimentation(the heart of the Scientific Method), provides PROOF, regarding anything discussed. "
And that an example of this was just testing out devices in your system: What you hold true, in your listening room, is all that matters. Experiment and trust your ears. So, you are trusting your ears to tell you the truth. Then you are moving from that to discredit anyone who raises any skeptical challenge to this method:
Anyone that discredits another’s abilities to hear improvements, in their own systems, in their own listening environments, with their own ears, should be considered condescending, insulting and/or(probably), simply projecting their own ineptitude. Perhaps, to be pitied.
In other words: someone skeptical of the conclusions you’ve drawn from your experience is at fault. And you’ve included all sorts of insults and invective against those of us skeptical about your claim. So, really, yeah...you also seem to be an example of the problem I pointed to, where you have decided based on your "trusting your own ears" that what you hear is "true" and then you go on to cast aspersions at anyone who may doubt as being "rock-headed." Why the dogma regarding subjective experience, where instead of admitting we can be wrong, you seem to promote first-hand subjective experience as "the only way to truth" about what is going on in an audio system? Why is it *so hard* to admit you could be in error? That’s not the same as admitting you *are* in error. Just that it’s possible. We’re human right? Give it a whirl: It’s good for the soul. ;-) |
geoff, >>>>Yes, I know, that’s why I said you or anyone else
can’t draw conclusions based on one test. In other words, nobody can.
Your argument was a Strawman. Amazing, you still don't get it. I wasn't presenting an argument for a conclusion based on the listening results I depicted. I was asking what type of conclusions rodman thinks HE could draw, and giving variations "do you think THIS is a reasonable conclusion? Do you think THAT is a reasonable conclusion?" etc. You clearly interpreted it as if I were arguing for those conclusions, and trying to diss me for it. Sloooow dooooown geoff. Sloow doown. I know it's your thing to try to knock everyone down a peg, but it wastes even your own time to end up looking silly by not bothering to understand what your object-of-derision is actually writing. You aren't going to have any feet left if you keep firing holes in them like this. Well, unless you like the feeling of shooting your own foot, which also would make sense of your posting here ;-) |
geoff,
In your rush to judge you have, as usual, misunderstood the point. If you ever slow down to read before firing off a rant, it would have been blazingly obvious I wasn’t taking about what conclusions I would actually draw in the scenario I outlined, but rather probing rodman with questions about what conclusions HE would think to be reasonable.
rodman,
I asked you sincere questions to try and understand your position.
Ok, you don’t want to have a conversation where you think through your position to show anyone else it actually makes sense. I guess the whole "here are the reasons why you should take my claim seriously" stuff is just "blah, blah, blah" to you? (I infer this from your constant disparagement of any questions about your claims).
I find that strange, but if that’s how you like to roll, suit yourself.
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rodman wrote: What, "claims" have I made?
Uh....these: while refusing to acknowledge that ONLY experimentation(the heart of the Scientific Method), provides PROOF, regarding anything discussed. Most of those are proffering their opinions, without ever having tried what’s being discussed. What you hold true, in your listening room, is all that matters. Experiment and trust your ears. Anyone that discredits another’s abilities to hear improvements, in their own systems, in their own listening environments, with their own ears, should be considered condescending, insulting and/or(probably), simply projecting their own ineptitude. Perhaps, to be pitied. Are you unaware that the above quote constitute a series of "claims?"Ones that you have continued to make? Again: If you and I sat in front of the same system and swapped, say, power cords, and you think you heard a difference, and I think I heard no difference....on your view...what does this tell us about the actual piece of equipment we are "testing" this way? In your view, would such a "test" imply the cable did in fact change the sound, but only you heard the change? Or....what? If we care about what is actually happening, whether a cable (or tweak) actually DOES change the sonic signal, just saying "try it for yourself" as if that will decide the matter is of no help, if "trying it for yourself" can yield contradictory results for different people. Why be so resistant to these perfectly reasonable questions about your ideas on this question? |
@boxer12
geoff, geoff, geoff,... They are the victims here. Just trying to teach
us that we can't possibly be hearing what we are hearing.
Who is "they?" Me (in this very thread): There is of course nothing wrong with just buying gear and trying it, feeling like it makes a difference we like, and buying it. As I’ve pointed out a million times, I don’t go trying to test everything I buy with scientific rigor. ..... I am not saying you are wrong in your claims. I’m actually open to the possibility of fuses sounding different, burn-in etc.
And I pointed out I hadn't come to a firm conclusion on the matter myself. |
millercarbon, That a high end audio designer gave up providing objective or reliable methods for vetting his designs hardly supports your case. The Curl quote is just appealing to the same subjectivity as you are; it's assertion, not justification. Pin it to the top of every thread where someone is trying to invalidate
actual human experience just because it is beyond the measure of their
silly primitive instruments. Sure, if you just go about ignoring everything we know about sighted bias. And it's hilarious to see you call measurement instruments "silly" and "primitive." Did you stop for a second to consider why the instruments were developed in the first place? Yeah...to measure things not only that our sense can detect, but that our senses can NOT detect - to go BEYOND the capabilities of our senses. You do know that distortion profiles and various objective electrical phenomena can be measured that you with your Super Duper Golden Ears can't possibly hear, right? Or...maybe you don't know this? It's hard to tell, frankly. I've actually had more coherent conversations with flat-earthers, who at least try to offer objective evidence for their claims vs constant repetition of personal assertions. |
boxer, No, I'm honestly representing what I argue for and believe. Insofar as you would include me in your previous complaint: boxer: They are the victims here. Just trying to teach us that we can't possibly be hearing what we are hearing. You are making a strawman. I have been explicit in pointing out I'm NOT claiming: "you aren't hearing what you claim!" I'm pointing out instead "You MAY be hearing what you claim, but the method you are using to come to your conclusion or argue for it isn't as reliable as you seem to assume." C'mon, we can do nuance around here can't we, to understand another person's point of view rather than dismiss it with strawmen versions? |
@boxer12 So clearly the answer was "no, I will not do nuance, and I will continue to strawman you." You did of course completely strawman my position as telling you: "we can’t possibly be hearing what we are hearing." You believe that measurements trump personal experience & there is nothing that can be said to persuade you of this until science catches up to our hobby. As I’ve pointed out: we can also have "personal experience" pointing toward the existence of a real phenomena. It’s just that, if we want to be more careful about the inferences we are drawing, increasing some control over that type of personal experience can be helpful. So for instance, I had no measurements to back up that some CDPs and DACs seemed to sound different to me. But I did do some listening with some better controls for bias that suggested that there was in fact a sonic difference to be heard. The times where I think "measurement trump personal experience" are when measurements have been correlated to human thresholds of experience. We can measure a signal at 30 khz, but if you claim to hear it, and all you have is an anecdotal claim, then, yeah, given what we know about the usual human threshold of hearing, appealing to the measured frequency of that signal to cast doubt on your claim makes all the sense in the world. I’d hope you are rational enough to agree. In the case of fuses, AC cables etc, I’m NOT saying there is no phenomenon there, that there is nothing measurable, that people aren’t hearing anything real. I’m simply pointing out that the evidence that HAS been offered tends to be dubious (as in technical/psycho-acoustic claims from high end cable manufacturers that other people with relevant expertise dispute, along with anecdotal uncontrolled listening ’evidence.’). Though there has been some intriguing measurements offered for burn in (drivers), capacitor change, etc. The way you phrased your strawman seems to contain the implicit claim that there is a phenomenon that science "hasn’t caught up to" yet. How dogmatic of me to ask what kind of evidence there is for the claim! So, again: Not claiming break in doesn’t exist. Not claiming "you can’t be hearing X" or that it isn’t audible if it does exist. Not claiming to know the answer. Willing to accept it happens. Just looking for evidence beyond audiophile anecdote for the phenomenon. Someone doesn’t have to be a scientist to measure something - someone with some engineering knowledge can do it.Don’t have to be a scientist to bring in some bias controls. Just have to be willing to do it. And as I’ve said many times, no one has to do ANY of this to enjoy high end audio. We can all put whatever we want in our system and go on what we experience. But if we are going to make *claims* about what is going on in audio gear, then it’s perfectly fair to look at what type of claims are being made, and on what type of evidence they stand. I use tube amplification. To me it produces much more enjoyable sound than any SS amps I’ve had. That’s good enough for me to own the tube amps - no science offered, none demanded of anyone else. BUT...if I want to CLAIM that my tube amps produce objectively "better" or "different" sound than an SS amp, I’d have to admit that, while my claims are on some plausible ground given how tube amps can measure/interact with speakers within our hearing thresholds, that it remains *possible* what I "hear" is influenced by listening bias, and no I haven’t done blind tests to establish otherwise. That’s just being intellectually honest about the nature of the evidence I rest my decision upon. Hey...I could be wrong. But I ain’t selling my tube amps any time soon! We don’t have time to put everything to scientific testing. The problem for me arises mostly with people who vehemently pronounce their subjective impressions are, for all intents and purposes, infallible, insofar as they will not countenance any skepticism of their experience or talk of the problem of human bias; that if someone else doesn’t hear it, that could ONLY be due to insufficiency on their part, not possibly on the part of the audiophile making the confident claim himself. That is actually a form of dogmatism that many "subjectivists" seem self-blind to.
As a consequence of this opinion, what you believe to be "nuance" doesn’t exist.
No, it appears your willingness to engage with nuance doesn’t exist. I don’t suppose you would be willing to admit that your characterization:"we can’t possibly be hearing what we are hearing"was inaccurate? Given that I’ve explained numerous times that certainly is not my position? It would take allowing yourself to observe nuance in the position of someone you don’t agree with. I’m rooting for you to do so....but, that’s up to you... |
