Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)


About 25 years ago I was inside a large room with an A-frame ceiling and large skylights, during the Perseid Meteor Shower that happens every August. This one time was like no other, for two reasons: 1) There were large, red, fragmenting streaks multiple times a minute with illuminated smoke trails, and 2) I could hear them.

Yes, each meteor produced a sizzling sound, like the sound of a frying pan.

Amazed, I Googled this phenomena and found that many people reported hearing this same sizzling sound associated with meteors streaking across the sky. In response, scientists and astrophysicists said it was all in our heads. That, it was totally impossible. Why? Because of the distance between the meteor and the observer. Physics does not allow sound to travel fast enough to hear the sound at the same time that the meteor streaks across the sky. Case closed.

ASR would have agreed with this sound reasoning based in elementary science.

Fast forward a few decades. The scientists were wrong. Turns out, the sound was caused by radiation emitted by the meteors, traveling at the speed of light, and interacting with metallic objects near the observer, even if the observer is indoors. Producing a sizzling sound. This was actually recorded audibly by researchers along with the recording of the radiation. You can look this up easily and listen to the recordings.

Takeaway - trust your senses! Science doesn’t always measure the right things, in the right ways, to fully explain what we are sensing. Therefore your sensory input comes first. You can try to figure out the science later.

I’m not trying to start an argument or make people upset. Just sharing an experience that reinforces my personal way of thinking. Others of course are free to trust the science over their senses. I know this bothers some but I really couldn’t be bothered by that. The folks at ASR are smart people too.

nyev

@mastering92 , all valid points.  It’s a matter of figuring out, among all the flawed approaches to evaluating gear, which is the least flawed.  I agree the answer to that is unequivocally the use of our own senses.

To your point with blindfolds introducing a “probe effect”, I’m not sure if it’s in my head or not, but I feel like there could be a difference in sound when I put my glasses on.  What I know for certain is that transparency is increased when I look to the floor, as opposed to when looking straight forward.

 

As a scientist, one of the really cool things I get to experience a times is an observation that does not make sense or is counter to consensus.

 

It is important to remember that "consensus" among scientists is science by democracy - it is not scientific at all, just our current opinion and can change in an instant when new information is gained.

 

When I see someone point at a measurement and state boldly "that is not audible," I am reminded of the same being said about MP3 when Apple first started pushing the format. Same thing was said about jitter for many years, engineers stating boldly that human hearing is not that sensitive to time.

@joshua43214 , in my non-scientist opinion you are describing the ideal mindset of a good scientist.  Scientists are supposed to be sceptical.  But at times it’s also helpful to remain at least a little bit sceptical of scientific consensus as well, especially when new data is brought forward.