IM Distortion, Speakers and the Death of Science


One topic that often comes up is perception vs. measurements.

"If you can't measure it with common, existing measurements it isn't real."

This idea is and always will be flawed. Mind you, maybe what you perceive is not worth $1, but this is not how science works. I'm reminded of how many doctors and scientists fought against modernizing polio interventions, and how only recently did the treatment for stomach ulcers change radically due to the curiosity of a pair of forensic scientists.

Perception precedes measurement.  In between perception and measurement is (always) transference to visual data.  Lets take an example.

You are working on phone technology shortly after Bell invents the telephone. You hear one type of transducer sounds better than another.  Why is that?  Well, you have to figure out some way to see it (literally), via a scope, a charting pen, something that tells you in an objective way why they are different, that allows you to set a standard or goal and move towards it.

This person probably did not set out to measure all possible things. Maybe the first thing they decide to measure is distortion, or perhaps frequency response. After visualizing the raw data the scientist then has to decide what the units are, and how to express differences. Lets say it is distortion. In theory, there could have been a lot of different ways to measure distortion.  Such as Vrms - Vrms (expected) /Hz. Depending on the engineer's need at the time, that might have been a perfectly valid way to measure the output.

But here's the issue. This may work for this engineer solving this time, and we may even add it to the cannon of common measurements, but we are by no means done.

So, when exactly are we done?? At 1? 2? 5?  30?  The answer is we are not.  There are several common measurements for speakers for instance which I believe should be done more by reviewers:

- Compression
- Intermodulation ( IM ) Distortion
- Distortion

and yet, we do not. IM distortion is kind of interesting because I had heard about it before from M&K's literature, but it reappeared for me in the blog of Roger Russel ( http://www.roger-russell.com ) formerly from McIntosh. I can't find the blog post, but apparently they used IM distortion measurements to compare the audibility of woofer changes quite successfully.

Here's a great example of a new measurement being used and attributed to a sonic characteristic. Imagine the before and after.  Before using IM, maybe only distortion would have been used. They were of course measuring impedance and frequency response, and simple harmonic distortion, but Roger and his partner could hear something different not expressed in these measurements, so, they invent the use of it here. That invention is, in my mind, actual audio science.

The opposite of science would have been to say "frequency, impedance, and distortion" are the 3 characteristics which are audible, forever. Nelson pass working with the distortion profile, comparing the audible results and saying "this is an important feature" is also science. He's throwing out the normal distortion ratings and creating a whole new set of target behavior based on his experiments.  Given the market acceptance of his very expensive products I'd say he's been damn good at this.

What is my point to all of this?  Measurements in the consumer literature have become complacent. We've become far too willing to accept the limits of measurements from the 1980's and fail to develop new standard ways of testing. As a result of this we have devolved into camps who say that 1980's measures are all we need, those who eschew measurements and very little being done to show us new ways of looking at complex behaviors. Some areas where I believe measurements should be improved:

  • The effects of vibration on ss equipment
  • Capacitor technology
  • Interaction of linear amps with cables and speaker impedance.

We have become far too happy with this stale condition, and, for the consumers, science is dead.
erik_squires
Classical Turing machine, quantum Turing machine are linked to general algorithm theory for programming or partially auto programming networks, Qbits and Bits are only that, actual or virtual bits on an actual or virtual tape....


Hardwire can be quantum that’s all.... A.I. cannot be magically conscious because his hardwire is quantum grounded....


The reason why living organism are intelligent cannot be explained by quantum mechanics only....

Oh, and let’s ignore von Neumann, Shannon, Kalmagorov, Erdos, Godel, Well, Turing, Hardy, Nash ....
This is name dropping without direct link to the points in discussion.... all names i drop where motivated ONE by ONE , by some points that were discussed in each post, not throw in mass like you just makes the case...

Ok i am a bit tired..... i thank you for the discussion.... i wish you the best....
I have to say, all things considered, it's better to be artificially intelligent than genuinely stoopid. 
“Ever see a cat try to jump across a big gap .. think no way he is going to make it, and sure enough, does not? That cat had self belief that they could make that jump. He couldn't actually, but he truly believed he could. Other animals make and use tools. We are not unique in that way. Our biggest advantage is we achieved enough intelligence to enable formal communication and formal communication has allowed us to pass down knowledge generation to generation such that we can keep building on previous generations,”

heaudio123 - your example of a cat attempting to jump a wall as what demonstrates belief is so naive, I am afraid it is impossible to have further discussion with you. You see, even IF your example did demonstrate belief as a sensibility that cats possess, no computer could ever begin to decide it ‘needed’ or ‘wanted’ to jump the wall, for any or no reason at all, other than what would qualify as need or want for that cat. And that’s how impossible anything even marginally more than that AI is capable of - but thank you for your reply just the same - kevin
?Just wanted to let everyone know that I am artificially intelligent(AI).

Thank you,
Tim"
We all thought you were a real brunette.
Artificial Intelligence....

Interesting term, if one stops to consider it obliquely   (an assumed specialty....*wry g*....)

Consider Pandoras' Box....opened by curiosity, a hallmark of intelligence.  The 'what/why' of modern thought....'modern' being an assumption, as 'modern' being a rather slippery time frame consideration....

"I was told not to open this....But, it can't be that bad, and I wonder what's ....."

Ooops.

Are we intelligent, or do we simply think we are?

Since the inverse of that statement implies a blind faith in the progression of human and humane progress and activity regardless of historical fact and present day fumbles and foibles....

I remain unconvinced....

(...and I thought Tim was a red head, myself....)