Let's forget about being politically correct

Shubert, you are swinging to the other end, without need I don't think; I didn't say that science had no value, much less no meaning; in fact, I believe I said the opposite (please see above again).

On the assumption that you are playing a devil's advocate role, let me address what you ask.

First, the "What Is," aka Reality, is quite accommodating in its suseptibility to cognitive approximations, science being one of them. Now, if you want to set up an assumption so that your assumption will work, that's OK (as in a differential finite assumption so your math will work), but I don't know how ingenious (read: novel) that is; all mathematics is based upon axioms. And, yes, I'm glad it works; I like my stereo, this chair, my car.

Yes, science is ideas - I think that is implicit in what I said, my reference to tools/technology being the product of empiric methodology (although Homo Habilis struck a rock and used it to kill, so technology is not limited exclusively to what science has wrought in that regard. A quickening as of late, let's say).

Can you walk out your front door and point to "science"? No, because it is not a thing, but an abstraction that refers to a set of assumptions about reality. I have gone into this before, so I'll be brief, but the cognitive orientaion of the "scientific" mind is orientated towards matter, or form, hence the "materialism" in scientific materialism. Modern science, as it has evolved as a discipline, however, is quite tied the exercise of the result of that power of the mind focused on matter, namely, an increased power to manipulate matter, which forms we call tools. So, no, science is not the tools it produces from an exercise upon matter of its assumptions, but the assumptions themselves, ie its thought-rules.

Last, while, yes, science can be used to see Oneness as reflected in the interconnectedness of the material plane, if you believe that it is only experienced that way, then you are limiting yourself by that assumption - which is, I beleive, what I said above, not that science per se has no meaning. It has relative meaning in the context of experiencing as a whole, and not determintive, and has greater applications, obviously, upon the material plane (cascading axioms or not).

If you choose to see holism from the sum of its reductionism, then that is a good pointing too, but modern science as a discipline remains highly enjoined to the product of its thought-rules: technology, or matter manipulated into forms of itself for purposes of utility, namely ours. Add to that the Capitalist assumption of infinite greed and the accumulation of product, mix it up with the scientific materialist/tecnologic tie-in and you've got...well, what we've got. And, alas, what we don't have...

I am going to lift my imposed self ban on posting at Audiogon to respond to this thread.

Saying that in general tube preamps are better than SS preamps to me really has no meaning. My example of this would be when I got my Ayre K-3x w/phono stage preamp. Before, I was using a Sonic Frontiers 3SE preamp (the best tube preamp SF ever made) and a seperate pur tube phono stage (made by Cursio Electronics out of San Jose, CA). The SF3SE had upgraded Brimar tubes in it, and I liked the piece very much.

However, I brought the Ayre K-3x into my system, and all I can say is WOW! The K-3x with phono was a significangly better linestage in my system than the SF3SE. It was also a much better phono stage than my pure tube phono preamp. What does this tell me??? This tells me it is meaningless to make the generalization that tubes are better than SS for preamps. One must listen for themselves and make that decision on a case by case basis.

Getting into abstract philosophy of science and music rhetoric is an interesting endeavor. And I can tell Asa has studied a lot of philosophy primarilly because one of my majors is in philosophy. But where the rubber meets the metal, one must make a determination for themselves.

Before I made this preamp move to the K-3x, I had friends and 'experts' tell me there was no way is hell that the K-3x could outperform the SF3SE. They also said that the K-3x phono would in no way out perform a pure tube phono stage... Go figure...

Funny thing is that if someone with a good ear were blind folded and listened to my system, they would probably think it had at least 1 tube component. My system does sound more like tubes than SS. I have friends who are tube freaks (and hate SS) that love the sound of my system.

So much of listening to music is subjective. We all hear a little differently. Some of us cannot hear altogether. We all have mostly different systems more or less. We all have different rooms. And recordings... People tend to forget that the music they hear from a system first goes from the artist into a mic through wires into a mixer device of sorts into some sort of medium writer then onto some sort of medium which is then transposed/copied onto another medium which we play in our systems. If you really want to get technical, our music systems will never be able to actually portray music because science tells us that due to the vast difference in nature between music projected from an instrument and music projected from a speaker. There is a great article that was in Stereophile on this subject:

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?78

I try to always write from experience and not from the theoretical. I strongly feel that following generalizations in audio like gosphel is not a good thing. It is like reading the specifications of a manual and thinking you know how a piece sounds. I personally have no idea how any piece would sound in my system until I put it in my system.

This is the difference between experience and the theoretical. One can theorize about anything, but in the end, one is not going to really learn anything until a person has experience. Philosophy and rhetoric (and advise) only get us so far. One can read books all day about music and listening to music. But this does not give us any experience with music. You have to do the listening if you want to experience music. We have to try out different things in our respective systems if we are going to learn about them and how components/cables/cords can influence the end sound of our systems.

And in a way, Audiophiles are scientist. Through a lot of trial and error we build our systems to sound better and better (hopefully). This last judgement may be somewhat subjective, but science is a lot ways IS SUBJECTIVE. Especially when related to the human body. I like pointing out that Nutritionalists love to debate about what is a good diet for us (see Mr. Atkins). The operation of the human body is still a mystery to science in a lot of ways, and only likely stories have described certain things. Scientific explanations themselves are likely stories that are surpassed by more likely stories when more accurate data has been obtained. Audiophiles are scientists of sorts... scientists that are have a very small test group making the experiments and judgements. It may not be like black and white number theory, but it is better than putting change in a spring wound meter and assuming that you are going to get your full 30 min for putting in two quarters. (On a side note, it took some 10 year old kid to do an experiment for a science fair on the old spring wound parking meters to see if actually one got the amount of time they had paid for. The meters he experimented on deviated so much (from exact time) it caused such a scare in the city (I think some folks sued class action), that all meters were replaced with digital ones. This pretty much set a trend for the entire US. No 'adult' or 'expert' initiated the childs experiments although as adults we are the ones that pay seriously for parking.) Go figure...

KF

Asa: Yes I was playing a fool's role. I did not say you are
indifferent to "science". I am saying that "science", in a positive way, is just one way to view the world. Its world view is different in content then say a worldview of a
shaman in some far away place in a far away time. But the
fundalmental purpose of each nonetheless is the same. To grasp the "Other".

"Science" is a two edge sword because it tries to demystify the "Unknowing" by objectifying the "other". Yet at the same time by just his "objectification" of the "other" , "science" has created a system in which the "other" is no longer of relevance, only Man himself has meaning. Or so he thinks. Yet Man still seeks the "other", but only through the opaque pane of rationalism called "science" ie. the materialism created through his , as you call it "the manipulation into forms". To put it crassly, the more you want, the more you are in search of the "other". And Materialism is never going to get you there.

Shubert: I'm not sure if you heard, but today it was announced that, perhaps, a Russian mathematician had proved Poincare's Theorem. To do this he employed a mathematical device to "round" geometric space. In other words, in order to prove the postulate, an approximation device was used (actually, that device was already found earlier, but there were still some large "bumps" left on the solid; the newest device is an extension of that one, which removes the remaining large bumps; an approximation device used on an approximation). They say it will resolve many vexing Newtonian spatial problems in higher math, so that's a good thing - especially because the guy, if his peer group agrees that he's right, about two years from now, he'll get $2 million from the Clay Foundation, and undoubtedly the Field's Medal on top of that. BIG discovery - but, its still an approximation...

On the "Other" part: yes, science grasps what it can of the other. The problem is when one confuses the material with sentience, or being. Yes, science is anthropocentric - human centered - yet, not only in its reduction of human mind into a thing, but also non-human mind into meaninglessness, which is actually what I study. This, IMHO, is the biggest problem we, as a species, presently face. Its not about cognition, but about transcending an attachment to the power of cognition over the objectified "Other", in matter, in human mind as categorized as matter, and, in non-human being as categorized as a product-thing, as matter; and, its about a concurrent opening of empathic identification with being where "other" evaporates...

TOK, hello. You make some very good points, especially about the fact that the proof is in the subjective pudding. In other words, how can you describe the color purple to a blind man? The premise is that only experience is the final arbiter, for yourself. With that said, carrying that position to the extreme and saying that dialogue becomes radically relative because only listening will tell you the truth is, well, epistimologically unsound - to use some "philosophy" - because that position relativises all knowledge that is conveyed. In other words, although I say that words or math is an approximation, saying that does not reduce all such knowledge to a relativistic morasse (as Shubertmaniac was worried about above, and Immanuel Kant before him). And, I might add, by relativising all knowledege as equal, you negate dialogue, even the opinion, interestingly, that you just gave. As you might know, philosophically speaking, that is called a performative error, meaning that you give an opinion that all opinion is equal, so how can that opinion itself be truer?

So, I assume you must not believe that completely because you do offer your opinion as a basis for your belief: that based upon a comparison between one tube preamp and one SS pre you, impliedly, assert your position. However, a proper empiric experiment, at least one that is brought to a peer group, needs a higher sample rate in order to be valid.

But I can take your opinion without the empiric validity because, well, I have a personal context: I've read your posts and have the feel that you love music and have some pretty good ears (the Ayre IS a nice piece). Well, then, in that context, all I can say is that I'm glad that you have found happiness with the Ayre and its certainly not about dueling preamps here. What I would ask is that you keep your mind open to expanding your sample, say, to a AudioNote Kondo, or a Supratek, or a Joule (although that wouldn't be my personal recommendation in your situation), or a Callisto. Frankly, Brimars or no Brimars, I think you might hear something over time with the Supratek, or if you pulled it out. Again, glad that you are happy. Thank you for braving the breach with your thoughts.

Shubertmaniac, well said. I think it is important to try to maintain an appropriate balance between the scientific, the anectodal, and that emotional response with which we clumsily and perhaps inadequately try to ART(?)iculate, both expressively and receptively.