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Take it on faith: A cease-and-desist letter to those who only believe in measurements

Faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith). Faith is often considered to be distinct from and even contrary to science. I argue science is based on faith. Specifically, it is faith in the belief that measurements are always correct, and they alone can reveal the world around us. However, there is no evidence that this approach will always provide a correct and complete depiction of our environment.

I am not anti-science. In fact, I am all about science. I was a science major in college. I taught high school biology and chemistry. I employ science every day in my current career. I also use it to make decisions when it comes to audio, and I can point to a scientific basis behind my equipment decisions, speaker/listener locations and room treatment. I believe John Locke’s scientific method is a wonderful boon to mankind.  But although data may rule my life, I know that science has its limitations.

The scientific method is an empirical approach and relies on our eight senses or extensions thereof to measure phenomena, enabling us to better understand and control our environment. People who embrace this approach believe if something cannot be measured, it cannot exist. They have total faith in this approach and deny the credibility of others whose senses do not or cannot yield something in units. In essence, these disciples take it on faith that measurements are the only true way to make sense of the world. However, we just may not have developed the instrument that enables us to measure the event. Early digital is a good example of our senses superseding the limitations of our understanding of the technology and hence, our measurements. Other examples of this include our past beliefs that we could destroy mass, that the earth is flat, and the universe is not expanding. And cables and amplifiers all sound the same.

Others find their senses can reveal events that are not apparent to some and may not even be measurable. Some people can smell faint odors or feel a slight breeze that others cannot.  My wife can find a Petoskey stone on a beach out of thousands of rocks; I cannot see it even when I am standing over it. Different cables, fuses, amplifier topology, or cartridge design may or may not result in the same or even any data points and may or may not sound alike. But just because you cannot hear a difference nor measure a difference does not mean there is no difference. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, just as good sound may be in their ear.

Some of us have at least as much faith in our ears as we do in our REW software and associated hardware. I start room setup with acoustic theory and then confirm with measurements, but the final placement is always a result of what sounds most pleasing. I would not know how to determine speaker toe-in using a microphone.

While I will always have to trust my senses, I am not handicapped by relying solely on those that are associated with a number.

 “…not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” William Bruce Cameron, 1963

tcutter
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,046 posts
 

Learning to optimize a system and the components working in a room is made  by listenings...

listening how ?

With acoustics concepts understanding... Then using mechanical devices or/and DSP  to optimize them..

Also using vibrations controls and  electrical clean channels and source...

Then for those who laugh without understanding a minimal  rule in audio experience:

There is no  single "defining parameter to focus to" but many parameters all interacting together inside your brain through your ears...

To act on the room for example you must use your ears  not just a "single acoustic parameter"...You must hears many interacting acoustics factors,the ASW/LEV ratio cannot be thought with a single parameter because it is the result of many parameters not only acoustical one but mechanical,electrical and at the end DSP one...

When someone design an amplifier he is guided by standard  parameter he can adress one by one for sure...

But designing an amplifier is not the same as optimizing his working with other gear pieces in a specific acoustic room ..

 

 Why do you think people ignoring how to optimize what they have enter in perpetual frustration and in an upgrading race ?

Because they ignore the basic optimization process which cannot be defined by measuring a single parameter but only by acoustic and psycho-acoustic concrete experience...

 Then why laughing? 

You are laughing for what or at whom ? 

You think designing a dac is the same process as optimizing a system /room ? 

it is my turn to laugh... smiley

 Small system/ room acoustic optimization has nothing in common with great Hall acoustic architecture, guess why? ...

 

it is learning to optimize any system"

-problem is a defining optimization parameter to focus on! LOL 

 

 

 

 

tommyu
45 posts
 

+1

Mahgister

 

The audio game is simple: it is not buying the best system in the world, it is learning to optimize any system at any price and be happy once this is done... Trust me any synergetical system at any price can be satisfying... Any high end system even the costlier one is frustrating if it is not well optimized ...

 

tcutter's avatar
tcutter OP
394 posts
 

It’s the tweaking, stupid...

(Apologies to Misters Clinton and Carville)

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,046 posts
 

I prefer the word "optimization" to the word "tweak" because the substantive "tweak" refer  most of the time in audio threads to device you can buy as a Shumann generator like the one i used also and use them as "tweak"... You buy a device ...

But mechanical,electrical,acoustical and DSP optimization ask not just for buying a device as solution but to create a process of feed back between listening and tuning  using your ears with homemade devices  also as an Helmholtz resonators or any other devices which nmodify the acoustic content or the vibrating geometry of a room  and not just  ready made devices.

What matter is the process of hearing when a modification is introduced not buying a device .But to hear something we must learn how to recobnize it ...

Some sell "tweaking" device at high price but they dont sell optimization as a process or acoustics books, because without basic concepts our brain cannot process what enter the ears lacking the necessary concept..

 

We cannot perceive as meaningful a phenomenon unknown with no corresponding concepts... Any sound convey  many information load we must learn to decipher ...

A child must learn how to distinguish the sound of a wooden resonating sphere, a metal sphere vibrating, and the differences between spheres with one hole in the center or with many hole around it  etc ...

 

 «My girl tapping a banana from the market is an acoustician ?»--Groucho Marx in lovecool

bartsw's avatar
bartsw
232 posts
 

Audio aficionados have at least 60 years of observational data, cross-referenced, using numerous speakers and equipment during their lives to confirm there is something wrong with the recordings. It is absolutely right to make adjustments. Room corrected flat is scientifically wrong for the ears because it does not factor the data from the recordings. Any other type of measurement is also only partial data points. Measurement marketing has really been abused.

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