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Quote from Jim :-
>>> Still, it's great fun, and I've got enough of a rebellious spirit to believe that, though 99% of the work that defies (willingly or unwillingly) scientific orthodoxy is likely to be worse off for it) occasionally the result is something brilliant and special--and something that would be inhibited by too much focus on scientific orthodoxy." Jim. <<<I suggest Jim, that your proposed 99% (of the work that defies (willingly or unwillingly) scientific orthodoxy is likely to be worse off for it) is too high as this only leaves 1% that might be 'brilliant and special' !!
A further quote :-
>>> "It's interesting to me that, as that article indicates, sometimes things that techy folks think are impossible end up being not just possible but demonstrable via blind tests. In other words, some of those audiophile staples proved to be things that the measurement folks couldn't measure. I think blind tests have problems, but I think we've given up on them too quickly. But clearly we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss something people claim to hear just because 1. we can't measure it, and 2. it hasn't (yet) been demonstrated in a rigorous test.
Jim " <<<Quote from theaudiohobby in reply to Jim.
>>> "Well, I suppose the challenge will always be how to seperate the wheat from the chaff, how do we identify valid observations?" <<<Quote from Jim Austin.
>>> "But the problem is made harder still by the fact that sometimes those folks are right and the scientists are wrong. You can't just dismiss 'em (well, some of 'em you can, but not all of 'em).
I just don't quite believe that John Curl is hearing things when he says he hears differences between caps. Or--however kooky it sounds--when Charles Hansen claims to hear differences between cable supports made of different kinds of wood, I don't exactly believe him (that just sounds too crazy), but I don't dismiss it outright either. Call me gullible but it seems to me that these are serious people with obvious technical skills, and the idea that they're faking it just isn't consistent with what I know (or think I know) about their characters (I don't know either personally, beyond our exchanges on the Internet and by email).
Keeping a truly open mind while not being taken in by hucksters is hard. It's a very delicate balance." Jim <<<
Jim. It should not only be the case of whether or not you believe if John Curl can hear the difference between capacitors or whether or not you believe Charles Hansen can hear the difference between different woods or whether or not you believe that Martin Colloms can hear differences in the sound from the same specification components but made of different construction materials and used in a PASSIVE position in a circuit !! It should not only be the case of whether or not you believe that John Atkinson can hear painting the edge of a CD improve the sound and where John says "As for an explanation, don't ask." Or whether or not he can hear the Ayre Myrtle Blocks placed under equipment improve the sound and where John says ""Don't ask me why they have an effect". Or whether or not you believe that Barry Willis can hear the Shakti Stones placed on pieces of equipment improve the sound and where Barry says "What exactly they're doing, or how exactly they're doing it, I'm not sure." Similarly when Wes Phillips placed his Shakti Stone on top of the Super T amp he was reviewing Wes said "giving the amp a heretofore unsuspected clarity and, yes, focus. No, I have no idea why the Shakti Stone works." Or whether or not you believe that Michael Fremer can hear de-magnetising a vinyl record improve the sound.YOU, Jim, should have been experiencing things affecting YOUR sound which should have left you as perplexed as they are !!! YOU should have been struggling to describe, from your personal experiences, instances when your sound had changed - and where you could find no explanation for what had happened from within conventional electronic or acoustic theories !!! If you have been listening for any length of time, then many of these things should have also been happening to YOU !!
It should not only be the case whether or not you believe Wes Phillips' description after fitting some of the Furutech Room Diffusers - "This is a hard one to explain - it sounds as if I'm finding more and more detail"
Of course Wes is hearing more and more detail just as do the people who describe hearing 'more and more detail' after trying the Clever Little Clock. Their descriptions of what they are all hearing are practically identical !! The 'more and more detail' they can hear has actually been there, in the room, all time - but they had not, previously, been resolving it correctly!!!Do you really think that all these people (and many other well known engineers over the past 30 years) would have risked their reputations describing their experiences if they did not believe it was important to do so ?
You make a snide remark about the Intelligent Chip ("made in that factory in China"). Do you really think Ken Kessler and Steve Harris would risk their reputation giving a demonstration of the said Intelligent Chip to an audience at a London Hi Fi Show a few years back just in order to have some fun ?
Do you really believe that Julian Vereker would risk being ridiculed by marking arrows (showing the direction they had to be connected) on some audio cables he made if he did not believe that it was important to tell people that the cable sounded better a certain way round.?
Do you really believe that Ivor Teifenbrum would risk being ridiculed by demonstrating how a telephone in the room could have an effect on the sound if he did not believe it to be important to tell people ?
Of course John Curl can hear differences in sound with capacitors of the same specification but with different insulation layers. Of course Charles Hansen can hear different woods sound different. Of course all these other people can hear what they claim to be able to hear.
With many hundreds of people describing hearing changes to their sound - in most cases improvements in their sound - with so many different audio systems in so many different locations - but where their descriptions are practically identical - "greater height, greater depth, greater width, better separation of instruments, better clarity, better focus, extension of treble and bass etc, the 1% of "discoveries which might be brilliant and special" is far too low !!
Regards,
May Belt.
Follow Ups:
I remember when my ex-girlfriend was making a Ph.D in psychology, every week she felt like she had a different mental disorder!! Lo and behold, it was the exact one she was studying in detail!I work in the pharma industry, placebo effect is a real effect and people do feel better...for a while. I am sure that your "treatments" effect the listener...just not permanently and with decreasing effectiveness over time...placebo effect.
I had another friend who was stressed and got some homeopathic "medicine" to reduce stress. For her it really worked, she took a tiny "pill" and she felt better. The ingredients of course were totally inert with no therapeutic benefit but she kept taking them anyway and "felt" better. When I saw that there was nothing actively harmful in them I just shut up and smiled and told her to go right ahead and take all she wanted...as many as she needed, which is exactly what the pharmacist told her.
Human psychology, what a fascinating inner world.
...but what makes you so sure that it is applicable to audio discernment to the degree so many are inclined to believe?
Why shouldn't it be if in all these other areas it is a quite prevalent and powerful force?? What makes you think its less in audio? The eye is a much more powerful tool and yet it is trivial to fool it...just watch a professional card sharp at work and just try to catch him fooling your eyes constantly. HOOOOWWWWWLLLLL!!! LOL!
Shifting gears a bit, to what degree does it affect one's enjoyment or perception of, say, Coca-Cola? Is it something to be afraid of? Or is it simply a little gremlin to account for when evaluating any given product?
I would say a not so little gremlin. It is easier to deal with if one is well grounded in what real unamplified music sounds like (ie. frequent live exposure) but still one must be on guard.
s
Between raving meter readers on one side and raving psychobabble on the other this place has gone to the wolves, HOOOWWWWWLLLLL!!! Where is a guy with a foot in both listening and measuring to stand?? Why knee deep in the S*#^ from both raving lunatic sides.BTW, Mozart's 40th symphony sounds sublime right now!!! AAAAHHHHH!
d
Oh sorry the last part of that one liner 180 degrees flipped polarity so maybe it didn't sound so good. LOL!!
00
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
Hi.First off, I am a subjectivist, but a rational one.
If I hear something consistently, I would definitely try to figure what have caused me such perception. Any scientific reasoning or technical background behind it, measurable or not, regardless, knowing very well measurement todate may not be capacable to substantiate it given our limited knowledge & valid instrumentation available.
But if such aural findings can not even be explained by basic scientific reasoning let alone rigid measurements, then I would be very skeptical on such sonic effects be psychological or even political. Or if someone made such claims publicly & substantiated them simply by stating "for an explanation, don't ask", what credit such person be given despite such person could be whoever some big shots.
Many find tube muscially sounds more engaging than SS despite the traditional measurement methodology, e.g. THD, noise levels etc tell us the opposite. But we know this is true because tube is inherently more linear than an SS active device. Given time, we can tell our perception as such be true despite current instrumentation cannot substantiate it.
Like $500 volume control wooden knob some vendors claim would improve sound bigtime without any valid technical support. My initial reasoning for such claim would be the heavy mass of the wooden knob might smooth out the resonance peak of the volume pot wiper shaft rotation. Yet, I want to see the resonance spectrum analysis without & with the knob on the volume pot before I would go for such spectacular commercial achievements.
So far, you've tried so hard to endorse all those somebodies' statements on their sonic findings e.g. florinated water pot, inked CD edges, coloured foils, blah blah blah, have you ever questioned them how they would substantiate the sonic claims they made in favour of those commercial products they are directly or indirectly involved?
Hopefully I am not found too upfront, until you can come up with some scientific reasoning to explain such sonic claims, I personally
would dismiss these claims as smoke mirrors with undisclosed agenda behind it.John Curl's sonic findings on capacitors is fully scientifically explanable if not adequately substantiatable basing on his THD papers he presented. I fully go for his finding.
May I suggest you refrain from any more commercial talks here as being a manufactuer yourself unless your further claims are at least scientifically more convincing.
c-J
Many find tube muscially sounds more engaging than SS despite the traditional measurement methodology, e.g. THD, noise levels etc tell us the opposite.But there IS a measurable difference it is not just perceived.
This 35 year old paper explains it pretty well.
...nowadays one must never, ever discuss sound.clark
.
a
you go CJ!
HiThere are at least two kinds of things happening on the fringe.
The capacitor example is a good one, none (except for pyrex high current caps) are a “pure” capacitance. To whatever degree the various imperfections govern the signal is a mater of measurement, what each sounds like if audible is subjective.
Again the example of the tube vs solid state issue is one where a convincing argument can be made for both side technically, particularly in light of more recent work on distortion audibility in music.
These things are all real, all show up in measurements in one way or another.These things (and in my case loudspeakers) represent the actual frontier of audio knowledge.
Past that edge (In my opinion) are the things like you mention.“Like $500 volume control wooden knob some vendors claim would improve sound bigtime without any valid technical support. My initial reasoning for such claim would be the heavy mass of the wooden knob might smooth out the resonance peak of the volume pot wiper shaft rotation. Yet, I want to see the resonance spectrum analysis without & with the knob on the volume pot before I would go for such spectacular commercial achievements.”
A simple test to see if your equipment could potentially benefit from the knob in question (and that is assuming it was a better dampener than the current knob).
Normally modern electronics (a potentiometer in this case) is not very microphonic and so is also not sensitive to vibration signal generation.
The knob, special pointy feet and other “vibration” based audio jewelry products “work” by damping vibrations etc which thankfully everyone knows are bad juju.
Turn the system on, with the volume at normal level, take your finger and tap on the current knob tap tap tap.
This vibration is orders of magnitude greater than any air born sound would produce.
Do you hear anything coming out of the speakers?
Now, play some music and tap, do you hear anything?
If you have a dirty potentiometer, it might crackle a little but normally vibration inducing electrical signal is not an issue. High sensitivity tubes can be microphonic however.
To me, the knob is audio jewelry and fully meaningless to what actually goes in your ears, only making a difference if you believe it did. If you just set your gear up with multiple knobs, you have a pretty strong motivator to hear an improvement.The problem is (I think) that the remaining ground left to explore is both unknown and very difficult to reach, it appeals to too small an audience now to attract much real R&D (compared to issues where real money is made). Also loudspeakers vary so greatly and transmogrify the signal SO MUCH it is not surprising there are so many different results.
In that light it is even more effective to spend limited dollars marketing a plausible esoteric sounding explanation that most anyone can buy into and sell a simple knob at a huge profit. The modern efficient ethically indifferent cash vacuum business model.
There is no “truth in audio” police you know and plenty of examples of imaginary products. There are just a few folks that say “yeah but…” and maybe some more that get a little too “black and white” in that spirit.
There are also a lot of folks that desperately want this to not be true too.
Accepting there is “audio fraud” anywhere is potentially de-stabilizing for the mystical set..Real products don’t require BS to sell, aren’t “Quantum physics” and don’t require physics to be different than in other areas of science, if it sounds fishy and is expensive, your spidey sense is working, sniff out the truth with logical tests and comparisons if possible.
Like they say, keep an open mind but be suspicious.
Best,Tom Danley
When I'm playing a record several times in a row, without making any changes whatsoever to the system, I usually hear different details every time. Why, simply because each time my attention is directed to something else. The first time I may concentrate on the harp, the second time on the strings, the brass, the woodwinds, the next time I might notice all of a sudden that there is some kind of low-level low-frequent background noise, or tape hiss. Does this mean that these details were not there the time before? So what does the fact of discovering new details in itself mean?Human auditory memory is notoriously bad, as one has to note when reading literature of perceptional science (such as Science 1965, Bindra : Judgements of sameness and difference : experiments on decision time), so that I would not attribute too much weight to statements of the kind "I painted the edge of the CD with that green pen and it improved the sound/made new details become apparent".
"There are too many things happening, too many things being reported as having an effect on sound, by too many people to continue to have a rigid, blinkered approach."Nuclear fusion at room temperature "has been reported" yet in France construction work on the experimental fusion reactor has started, a project scheduled for 30 years, generating thousands of jobs in the region. Apparently "has been reported" is not quite sufficient. The basic problem with high-end audio is that there is, at no instance, more than "has been reported", something that could be considered as solid, convincing, irrefutable, repeatable evidence.
As long as there is no proof, the great majority of people will continue to have that "rigid, blinkered approach", which approach is, in my opinion, more than justified.
Klaus
...but advance with such an approach will be terribly slow IMO.I hear you on the perceived detail issue, this is a bear to deal with at times. The only reason I put up with it is my experience indicates that 'small' advances add up to something MUCH bigger over time and taken as a whole. Incredibly so. Over the last two years my audio dollars, excepting a tuner purchase, have gone nearly exclusively towards tweaks by Machina Dynamica, Xtreme A/V, and Herbie's Audio Lab. It has been VERY apparent that these products have improved system performance to an EXTRAORDINARY level. Nothing short of miraculous to a technological trogdolyte such as myself.
I think I'd qualify myself more as skeptical, rather than blinkered. I think that it's reasonable to want to see solid evidence before paying big money. No evidence, no money. "It has been reported" is not enough for me to draw my chequebook.The biggest impact on the performance of my system had the new living room with dimensions according to Bonello, the acoustically effective ceiling, the speakers themselves. No intelligent chip is capable of lowering reverberation time, no green CD pen is capable of spreading room modes appropriately, no myrtle block is capable of improving bad speaker dispersion. Get the most important part of the system, i.e. speakers and room, right, then forget about the rest.
As usual, YMMV, my 2 cents, IMHO.
Klaus
Used responsibly I applaud it actually. I also honor the sanctity of a persons will. Again, if used responsibly.As for forgetting about the rest, that's your prerogative. My prerogative is to push the performance envelope as best I'm able. I've found some tweaks to be highly effective in this regard. There is nothing wrong with either approach as ultimately we have only ourselves to please. You're pleased. I'm pleased. There's absolutely nothing not to like there.
If I have the budget, "It has been reported" is enough 'evidence' for me to investigate a given product if I feel sufficiently impressed with the person providing the recommendation. Just yesterday I had a friend contact me regarding his experience with the Acoustic System Resonators. He was wildly enthusiastic over the results he had obtained. Because of my regard for his opinion I would put them on my things to check out list, had I the means. Unfortunately I don't. He described the improvement as being 300-400% which of course is essentially meaningless except to say big. My own experience with some home brewed resonators incorporating Machina Dynamica Brilliant Pebbles have yielded some truly fabulous results as well.
Is there a point to all this? I'm not sure. ;-)
I think Alvin Firpo said it best when he said "You do what you do, I do what I do." Be blessed my friend.
Finally, I of course have to ask, "What are the Bonello dimensions?"
Bonello : A new criterion for the distribution of normal room modes,
JAES 1981, p.597For optimum room dimensions the following conditions should be met:
1. The curve spectral density of modes vs frequency should increase monotonically. Each one-third octave should have more modes than the preceding one.
2. There should be no double modes. At most, double modes only in
one-third-octave bands with densities equal to or greater than 5.
Schroeder : The "Schroeder frequency " revisited, JASA 1996, vol.99,
p.3240The Schroeder frequency fc is the frequency above which the standing waves are so closely spaced that they do not substantially affect the sound. It is dependent on room volume and reverberation time. The larger the room or the shorter the reverberation time, the lower that frequency. A low Schroeder frequency tends to make the frequency response smooth over a wider range.
The Schroeder frequency marks the transition from individual, well
separated resonances to many overlapping normal modes. It is
calculated as follows :fc = 2000 sqrt T/V
T = 60 dB reverberation time in seconds
V = Room volume in m3which has a a consequence that at least three resonances fall within the half-power bandwidth B (B = 2.2/T) of one resonance at frequencies above fc.
I choose to use Bonello rather than any of the other proposed methods (fixed ratio, Golden Ratio, Walker) because it's in line with the concept of the Schroeder frequency: the number of modes per 3rd-octave band rises up to a point where there are that many modes per 3rd-octave band that the individual mode is no longer distinguishable. Thanks to the acoustically effective ceiling our living/listening rooms has a (calculated) reverb time of 0.4 - 0.5 seconds which results in a Schroeder frequency of about 138 Hz.
Klaus
Were you able to make any meaningful comparisons between your new room and the previous environment?
In this case it was not possible, since the construction of the new room included demolition of the rear wall of the old room. However, the old room was quite bad in all relevant respects, it was/is smaller, non-symmetric in the acoustical sense (left wall bricks, right wall bottom-to-floor windows, all surfaces acoustically hard, the speakers were on the short wall close to the side walls. Room treatment was not possible, that's why I bought those speakers since they were able to address some of the problems.
Klaus
I trust you are satisfied with the new room. You seem to get involved with some pretty interesting projects. How would you describe the results you've obtained? Sadly, unless I move into new quarters at some point, I'll never have the opportunity to investigate these for myself. I'm still interested in learning about the details however, just in case.
The new room is better in all relevant aspects, reverb time is low such that intelligibility is outstanding, no more smearing, no more room boom. The overall response is much smoother due to the lower Schroeder frequency, so far I could not detect any room modes, and even if, my speakers allow for room correction, so it would be a matter of minutes to get rid of the mode. The speakers themselves provide crystal clear sound, without any stress or strain, even at elevated SPL.The speakers are on the long wall, so no more side wall reflections, thanks to the ceiling no more ceiling reflections, thanks to the good speaker dispersion the floor reflection is not really a problem. Definitely, the time I have spent in reading all those stuff about speaker design, psychoacoustics and room acoustics was well invested.
Klaus
nt
but beware, except for the turntable, it's all studio gear, including the infamous "Perfect.Period." preamp:-)
Klaus
...there being more than one way to skin a cat. And thanks for the invite, if I'm ever in your neck of the woods, I will be SURE to look you up.
you will have to hire a boat instead of a car:-) Amsterdam airport is at 6 m below sea level, our place is at -2. And our house doesn't float yet.Klaus
...and don't know when the opportunity will present itself again. But if it does, I'll be over to your place with bells on, provided you're still above water that is.
I go to a movie on a say-so, I try a new beer on a say-so, I read a book on a say-so. If I wait for all the "evidence" to mount and for the peer-reviewed journals to print it, the movie will be off the screens, the beer may become nla and the book available only in some cheaply-made paperback. Plus, everyone else will already have experienced them and be uninterested in my desire to discuss.People such as your antagonists seem never to enjoy themselves -- or the learning experience.
clark
ii
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
Your words.Having read the whole sorry JREF saga I am left wondering how you were so nervous about the exact, precise and totally stress free test conditions that you blew away $1M rather than do the test their way.
You could have walked it, Wellfed, with such EXTAORDINARY differences.
Specifics please.I can see where someone, so inclined, would buy into the picture Kramer took pains to create. What I don't understand is why they seem unable to see Kramer's egregious behavior.
Let's start with this, why do you think Kramer would feel the need to lie about our dealings, particularly asserting that he hadn't heard from me in a timely manner when he, in fact, had received correspondence from me just the previous day?
Kramer certainly comes across as a right PITA and very arrogant. Life is full of such people.You were after One Million Dollars!
However you never really got the hang of the idea that you were up for taking THEIR money and had to play by THEIR rules.
You were after One Million Dollars!
With endless delays and arguments about one or two markers, observers, videos, hiding the equipment etc etc you progressively came across as nervous, unsure, petulant and not at all confident that you could win unless everything was exactly perfect to your satisfaction or you could not hear the EXTRAORDINARY differences.
You were after One Million Dollars!
It ended up with them losing patience (remember most of the applicants are kooks so they must get very fed up with this!
Now you seem hung up on the assertion that Kramer lied to you. Maybe he did, but so what?
If you think they didn't want you to take the challenge it can only be that they believed you could win.
You did ask, and that is how I view it, without goig back and reading the whole thing again.
That's pretty much the way I saw it and I was there, watching it "live" thoughout the whole ordeal, even the threads that got deleted. It was one of those "watching a train wreck" sort of things.I think the bottom line is that they got tired and frustrated with Wellfed's demands and prerequisites and then realised he was not going to play by their rules (it's their money). That's when the whole thing fell apart and the back and forth between the two personalities got started. There were apparently alot of crossed communications and I don't think that breakdown helped things either.
I'm not defending Kramer either as he did come across as rather an ass but I can imagine his frustration after the overwhelmingly long period of time all this occured.
The crazy thing is THEY weren't willing to abide by their own rules. Specifically regarding dates. Their rules state that the testing need be accomplished within 6 months of the application date. I proposed test dates within their guidelines that were rejected for no other reason than they wanted to see an earlier test. They wanted reasons for everyone of my requests, they refused to provide me with any reason for their preferences. As per their usual policy they would take the contentions that arose and spin them in a way to make the applicant look bad. I never, EVER waffled on the dates I desired to be tested on. Is that the impression you were left with? Hell no. Kramer was more than just a "PITA", he was, and presumably still is, a conniving scoundrel. Trust me on this, with God as my witness, I would NOT say that about another human being lightly. I saw evidence after evidence of this in my dealings with him.It is unfortunate that I had events on my schedule at that time that I was not willing to compromise my enjoyment of by dealing with one so wicked. Had I not, I would have seen the 'process' through to the bitter end to expose the man for what he is; no good.
Sit down in a chair in a room with a stereo system and prove you can identify CDs treated with the Intelligent Chip. That's all.
So which rule(s) did I violate in the process of trying to get to that point?
Nowhere did I say you violated any rule(s). They simply wanted you to make up your freakin' mind about your "needs" to do the test and you could, or would, not.You carried on the same type of mind-numbing back-and-forth you're doing right now and THAT'S why the test fell apart.
Why would Kramer lie to you, about me? Why would he wish you to be deceived in the matter? Why would you choose to remain deceived by the guy?Note all the question marks, they're important.
a
Nothing more to add, really.
You are believing a lie if you accept things as they were made to appear. I'm surprised and disappointed too that you are willing to let a bald-faced lie slide past you so easily. One of life's mysteries I guess.
And I'll give you that it was, since there is no real evidence either way, just opinions (put me right on that one),Anyway, by that time the body was already a corpse and long beyond redemption.
It must be very difficult for your ego to accept that you blew $1M through intransigence. So now (ie since it happened) you claim your were cheated, lied to, etc.
Do you think you are blameless? Do you thing your behavour was OK?
You f**ked it up, Sir. Live with it.
Next question:Assuming Kramer lied in the instance noted, do you think that kind of character would have manifested previously in our dealings?
Hint:
It did.
Next question:
What does this say about the negotiation process?
It must be very difficult for your ego to accept that you blew $1M through intransigence. So now (ie since it happened) you claim your were cheated, lied to, etc.
My allegations are not new Cliff. If you check the JREF record you will see where I point out, or hint at, misdeeds on the part of Kramer quite early in the negotiations. Bear in mind that I showed restraint in this area because I was, in fact, trying to negotiate fair conditions in which to be tested. If you would look at the record you will see where I had little concern of the protocol itself and great concern over fair conditions, closely approximating my typical listening sessions as much as reasonably attainable. Do you think Kramer's call for me to have my back to the system fair or reasonable? Do you consider wearing a blind fold for the greater part of 5 hours per test (not iteration) reasonable? Even the deceived folks over at the JREF Forums were starting to become ill over his pronouncements.
Getting back to lies, and we've discussed only one so far, what is the intent of a lie? Is it not to deceive? Why would Kramer choose to deceive those following the proceedings?
Regarding my behavior, like everyone in a heated situation, I said things I'd preferred to have stated differently in hindsight. Let me tell you, manipulating connivers have a distinct effect on a person.
...but that FACT is not terribly germane to our discussion on the level we are at this moment.Let's personalize the question we're currently working on a bit and see if that helps matters along any.
Why would Kramer attempt to deceive Clifff, Ken Perkins, and AJinFLA, among others? I realize that we can only speculate.
...turn the system around and face the speakers to the corners. Good grief!clark
I've been hung up on that point since at least April 26, 2005 when I suspended negotiations with JREF because of Kramer's continued shenanigans.The "so what" involves Kramer being unable to negotiate his way out of a paper bag. If my experience is any indicator, and it should be, the JREF Challenge is a hoax perpetrated on humanity. I can, and will, point out many egregious acts if you are willing to listen. I wouldn't expect anyone to re-read the whole record, but at least look at the facts individually as they are presented.
I had been in a battle with Kramer over bad faith negotiations. I told him that I would suspend negotiations if that continued. His response was to lie to those following the matter and say that I had been remiss in contacting him. As a starting point with this discussion, why would he do such a thing?
You can get this Cliff, if you are willing to try that is. If we can't get past this lying point, any further discussion on the matter would be fruitless IME. I would like to find one person, with the objective bent, that is truly interested in learning the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
...in fields far apart from audio. The Challenge is pure PR.clark
"Kramer's egregious behavior"You'll have to specify that because we don't see it.
____________________________________________________________
"Nature loves to hide."
---Heraclitus of Ephesus (trans. Wheelwright)
nt
...is that in a weird way May seems to agree with you--and with me. In a post below, she writes:> > Peter, by one of those chance events so loved in stories of discoveries, was already understanding that the "gremlins" were, in effect, adversely affecting the human being (the very person listening to the music) !! Similar results to what Enid had been observing but a different explanation !! < <
Where she departs from our common view, Klaus (and from the "reality-based community" as one of GWB's advisors described it) is that--if I understand--she still insists that these are real--not psychological--effects. Which is to say that you don't have to know that there's a piece of colored foil on your wall, or a picture of your CD player in your freezer, in order for these "tweaks" to improve the sound. I'm quite ready to acknowledge that the effects are "real" in the sense that if someone were to do an fMRI scan on your brain it would indicate a response very much like what it would be if there was an actual difference in the sound. But May is suggesting, or seems to be, that through some (psychic, I suppose, by definition) medium of communication, these bits of stuff, or circumstances, work directly on our brains to alter what we hear. It seems to me that there is, behind this an intractable, almost ethical commitment to the idea that whatever we perceive must be real, that our senses couldn't possibly deceive us. I don't know whether this is a religious or ontological conviction, but the concrete reality of what we perceive seems to be her point of departure.
I'm sure May will correct me if I've got it wrong.
Best,
Jim
Jim
They must in the main perceive what is real. I think your distinction between what is "real" and what is "psychological" is untenable. Our senses never can distinguish the "real," only what they can sense and what the mind responds to. You and Klaus are no better off than May, just wanting to know for sure that the tiger is going to pounce on you rather then her saying "I am out of here."
Everyone who listens to the Shepard tone or experiences the Franssen effect will immediately notice that not in every case what we perceive is real, far from that.As you said, there's stuff which affects the sound waves arriving at our ears and there's stuff that affects our perception, weed and single malt belonging to the latter group, as are possibly most of the tweaks. IF a tweak alters the sound waves in one way or another, I'm sure it can be measured.
May has not replied to your post so I suppose that one can safely conclude that you've got it right.
Klaus
How do you discover that putting a picture in the freezer improves sound reproduction ? Even if you don't understand the mecanism, you need to base your theory on observable facts like Semmelweis and Pasteur did.If somtimes it works and sometimes it doesn't (like the Bell's products), there's only one conclusion : it's not a real correlation.
So the product can't be measured, it relies on unobservable forces and works only in certain cases. Forget about science - If you were in a court of law, would you accept such evidences ? I don't think so.
Hi.Believe it or not, everything evolves from its physics, or in lay term: "unobservable forces" as you want to put it. You might even claim it be the supernatural powers from the Almighty.
We should pursue the scientific reasoning on such "unobservable forces".
Years back, I was ignorant enough to carry out some minus 30C deep freeze of my DIYed cables & tubes in my freezer. I did so because of the scientific reasoning on metal molecular stress release at sub sub-zero temperatures. Not because of someone's bigtime claims on sonic improvement in cold storing a CD in the freezer.
If there is no science behind it, known to us or not, I would dismiss it as snake oils or smoke mirrors with commercial interest behind it.
Law court is a venue for logical understanding or interpretation on superficial evidences made available there & only there. Music is an untimely sonic perception, basing on physics which we may not know so much todate.
c-J
Oh, BS, Klaus.
Let me guess - you have an explanation for this, right ?
LOL
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
All of the above.
d.b.
Yes, people vary !!
Regards,
May Belt.
nt
It is easy to NOT hear something. Just do an ABX test with it. However, it is also easy to NOT hear something, especially when the editor of the magazine he is working for is on a campaign to remove tweaks from the agenda, because of previous experiences, or perhaps he just didn't hear any difference with his listening set-up. It has happened a number of times with the chip. So what? We heard a difference in our listening room at the CES, and that is my experience with the chip.
I don't think so. I would consider not listening carefully a waste of time. What I have to avoid is to NOT hear differences, because I cannot, at first, consider what is changed as useful or important. I have been guilty of this over the decades, and continually still have to be reminded that I have not experienced or know everything that is useful in making a better audio design.
For example, 15 years ago, a technician brought some high speed rectifier bridges in, and said that they sounded better. I virtually chewed him out, saying that 60 Hz rectification does not need high speed diodes.
Then HP reviewed my Vendetta phono stage and found a slight problem.
A few years later Bob Crump, before he and I worked together, unilaterally put high speed diodes (16) where I had put 4 diode bridges in his Vendetta phono stage and insisted that there was an improvement in sound,
Then, a friend of mine, working at Comcast as a video tech, measured slow and fast diodes with a high frequency spectrum analyser, and found that standard diodes spit garbage into the megahertz region! He published his results in 'TAA' more than 10 years ago.
Finally, I modified my own unit, and now I offer a 'D' upgrade one of which is sitting on my workbench as we speak for some lucky Vendetta owner. Thank goodness that I was able to apologize to my technician, who told me first about diodes, and I had rejected his input, in the meantime.
Sometimes it's easier to HEAR something than it is NOT to hear it.Jim
...so did I. No affect. Then again, I listened to it on my own, at home, in my own system, alone, and not at a show or some other public event. Check out JA's characterization of his experience with Enid Lumley's pizza-box tweak.http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/305stph.html
Cheers,
Jim
Jim. I am usually very careful on spelling out clearly what I want to say. If I have any fault it is that I can overemphasise in order to make sure that I am understand.I think there might have been something I said to you which might have been misunderstood. When I listed what various people in the world of audio had observed, and then went on to say that if YOU had been listening over many years, that YOU should have been hearing what they heard. I did not mean that you should have been struggling, deliberately listening repeatedly, to try to hear what they have heard, I meant to say that if you had been listening regularly, over many years, then some of the things that had happened to many of these people SHOULD, by now, have happened to you !!
I do not know John Curl or Charles Hansen but I do know what happens in real life. In real life, things so often happen by chance.
To generalise, to explain myself. If you have two boxes of a particular specification capacitor, the boxes from different manufacturers but with the capacitors of exactly the same specification and if a particular circuit calls for a particular specification capacitor, then an engineer should be able to go to either box and use a capacitor from either box (which is what engineers have done for decades !!). But, IF one day (say) John Curl replaced a capacitor with a (presumed) identical capacitor but now heard that the sound was worse (or better) - it does not matter whether the sound was worse or better - if it should not have altered at all then at this point an (audio) engineer - worth his salt - ( for this story John Curl) should investigate why ! If, after investigation, the engineer cannot explain why the sound changed - he only knew that it HAD changed - and any measurements showed no differences in the signal - then that engineer, if he was making an audio product, would surely chose to use the capacitor which 'sounded' the best ?? Even though there might not be an available explanation as to why.
For any lay people reading this let me choose another - equally bizarre - circumstance.
If you have a remote control which requires AA batteries, then you should be able to fit either Duracell AA batteries or Ever Ready AA batteries and not alter the sound !! But, if you suddenly replace the batteries and find that the sound has got worse - this does not make (technical) sense. Any engineer will tell you that this does not make sense !! But, what happens sometimes in audio is as bizarre as that !!!!If therefore you are a designer of audio equipment and you provide a remote control with your equipment, then you (should !!) be investigating different types of batteries to see which 'sounds' the best and which 'sounds' the worst. You have to investigate lithium and non lithium, rechargeable and non rechargeable - and so on !!.
This has happened with wires, with insulation materials, with printed circuit boards, with plastics, with heat sink materials, with passive components, with lacquers, with equipment housing, the list is endless.
And, dismissing people's experiences (many of them highly respected engineers) as "suggestion, the placebo effect, imagination, mood changes, audio faith healing, belief, and effective marketing' is blinkered to say the least - and, I might add, unworthy of anyone who calls themself a scientist.
So, Jim, what I meant was that at some time during your listening life you should have encountered one or more of these instances when the sound changed when it should not have changed !! When there was no explanation from within conventional electronic or acoustic theories to explain why. That you should have encountered circumstances (probably like Charles Hansen must have done) when the sound changed and you were taken aback saying "Wait a moment, wait a moment, all I have done is change the wood I am using. THAT should not have changed the 'sound'. I must investigate further."
Regards,
May Belt.
May,Please answer this simple question about your views. It's not a trick; I'm just trying to understand you.
Is it possible, in your opinion, for a person to believe they perceive something and be wrong? That is, is it possible for me (or you) to smell a smell, or see an image, or perceive a difference in sound that isn't really there? Or is it a matter of personal conviction with you that every difference you perceive is by definition 'real'--whatever 'real' might mean to you?
Jim
I would propose a thought experiment. Suppose a listener has a recording of an Italian opera where the soprano is way down in the recorded mix. On first listening, the listener does not understand the lyrics.Suppose this listener undertakes a study using the libretto in Italian, along with a translation. He listens multiple times and learns the lyrics and their meanings by heart. In the end, he clearly hears the soprano and he also feels an emotional impact from the way she emphasizes her vocals.
There has been a real change in the listener. His brain has physically changed to accomodate a new set of information. Most people nowadays consider memory to be a physical change in the brain.
There is also a different sort of reality to this. The listener now gets far more information from the recording of a musical event, and this is real information that existed in the original event.
This "tweak" has changed the listener and brought more real detail from the recording. This is not controversial. Similarly, one could propose that meditation or exercise prior to listening, or some method of concentration during listening, could have real benefits in getting more real information from a recording.
What May Belt is proposing, it seems to me, are sort of magic rituals to be performed prior to listening. I would also expect that some people will find benefit in these. And as she honestly states, "people vary," so some will find no benefit.
I do not think there will ever be agreement on the efficacy of ritual behavior. For some it will work and effects will be real.
> > What May Belt is proposing, it seems to me, are sort of magic rituals to be performed prior to listening. < <If this was right then I would agree with you, but I don't think it is. I think what May is proposing is that somehow changing the environment, even without the listener's (conscious or subliminal) awareness, affects what the listener hears. One doesn't need to know the "tweaks" are there--even subconsciously--for them to have an affect.
Perhaps I'm wrong.
Jim
You are quite correct Jim, that is exactly what I propose.Now, to reply to one of your earlier postings.
> > > "Where she departs from our common view, Klaus (and from the "reality-based community" as one of GWB's advisors described it) is that--if I understand--she still insists that these are real--not psychological--effects. Which is to say that you don't have to know that there's a piece of colored foil on your wall, or a picture of your CD player in your freezer, in order for these "tweaks" to improve the sound." < < <
Jim, I think the stumbling block is the definition of "reality" and I think this is the point we reached and got stuck at during our previous exchanges.
We have to reach an agreement on how to define 'reality'.
My thoughts :-
Your 'reality' is the audio signal travelling through the equipment and what happens to that signal plus the 'reality' of the acoustic information, presented into the room via the loudspeakers and which then reaches the human ear drum.
That anything which happens past there is still a form of 'reality' but a 'reality' which is induced by "suggestion, the placebo effect, imagination, mood changes, audio faith healing or effective marketing"My 'reality' goes past the ear drum as far as the working memory.
Let me divert briefly to an earlier example I gave - that of two boxes of capacitors. With exactly the same specification but from two different manufacturers.
If an engineer is making a radio controlled clock and the circuit requires a particular specification capacitor, then that engineer should be able to go to either box, fit a capacitor from either box and the radio controlled clock should work perfectly. That is one form of 'reality'. Let me call it 'general reality'If, however, an engineer is making a piece of audio equipment and that audio circuit requires a particular specification capacitor, then what is important is that the capacitor used should be the one which 'sounds' the best. Now, that is another form of 'reality' - a much 'tougher reality' than the 'reality' required for getting a piece of electrical equipment working !!
If you are wishing to detect something by Sonar (sound waves), then you will transmit sound air pressure waves and, hopefully, be able to detect something. That is one form of 'reality'
If, however, you are designing a loudspeaker diaphragm, then what is required is a design which will present information contained in the sound air pressure waves, into the room, in the best way possible. Now, that is another form of 'reality' - a much 'tougher reality' !!I presume that that is what you would refer to as 'sound' ?
Both examples would be described as 'reality' but with differences in interpretation.I think, Jim, we will still be in agreement at this point.
What I propose now is an 'even tougher reality' and it is this next part which will be the 'tricky bit'. And that is regarding what YOU are going to call 'physical' and what YOU are going to call 'reality'. Does your definition of 'physical' stop at the ear drum ?
I personally would say that - from the ear drum, the whole way through to the working memory, where the information reaching the working memory is interpreted by the working memory in order to construct a 'sound picture' to present to the brain - is 'physical' !! Physical because there is still mechanical and electrical activity going on - even though we might not be able to measure it inside the head. In my concept, at the point where the information reaches the working memory, that is the point where 'interpretation' takes over from 'physical'. At what point - along that path - would YOU regard it as 'ceasing to be physical' ? Does your definition of 'physical' stop at the ear drums ? If not, where does it stop ?
I would also regard that whole path I have just described to be 'reality' - what I would call "even tougher reality".
I don't like to be simplistic but if I have to be in order to get our concept over, then so be it !
It is not that we (human beings) are going on nicely, living our lives, and suddenly we detect danger - and go under tension, prepared for flight, fight or freeze - which is the usual way that people understand it. They KNOW that they are OK until they see a spider and then they immediately freeze, rooted to the spot, hands all clammy - I know exactly how to describe it because it is ME !!!
Our concept is slightly different. Our concept is that we (and the earliest of creatures) are programmed, by evolution, to be reading/sensing our environment every second. We are programmed to try to make sense of the environment and if we (and the earliest of creatures) cannot resolve the situation then we are programmed to remain under tension until the situation CAN be resolved. Our concept is that, in the modern environment, we are UNABLE to resolve correctly what is going on - therefore we (subconsciously) remain under tension - producing stress chemicals !!To illustrate what I mean with a simplistic example. We have endless power cables, strewn all over the place, pulsating all the time. Yes, we all know that there will be an electromagnetic field around those cables but the engineers state that conventional theory dictates that this field will decay with distance so the engineers say "X feet away from the cables, there will be no electromagnetic field, therefore there will be no problem" !!! End of discussion. Because they can measure that X feet away there is definitely no electromagnetic field present !!!
Supposing, because of our evolutionary programming, we ARE able to detect this pulsating energy - however many feet we are away from it. Our eyes are seeing no danger but our senses (what sense ??) can detect it's presence. But, although we can detect the pulsating energy, we still cannot resolve it - so, as I have explained earlier, Nature (evolution) dictates that we remain under tension until the situation CAN BE resolved. Supposing, in our attempt to resolve the situation, we INTERPRET this pulsating energy, coming from winding cables strewn around the environment, as "Watch out, there's a dangerous Cobra about".
Supposing you now do something to those cables. Supposing you lift them up off the ground. Supposing you suddenly find that your sound has got better. "What on earth has happened ?" you say. Mention this and you will be laughed around the audio industry !!! Ring any bells ?? A simple explanation could be that you have inadvertently changed the energy pattern, surrounding the cable, to one which you are now INTERPRETING as "It's OK, it is only a harmless grass snake." Therefore being under less tension, therefore producing less stress chemicals, therefore allowing your working memory to better resolve the information reaching it. You now describe the improvement in the sound as 'greater height, greater depth, greater width, sparkling treble, better separation of instruments, the sound suspended in the air' and so on. Recognise the description anyone ?
Surely what I have described comes under the category of "Physical" ?????? Something physical happening in the environment producing a physical reaction in the human being and that physical reaction affecting how the musical information is resolved.
You would be surprised how little it takes to alter the interpretation of what we are sensing from within the environment. That is why we have described so many 'free' tweaks in the past. Try describing to the world of audio how tying a Reef knot in a cable gives an improvement in the sound !! No magic rituals are required, no magic incantations, no belief - just experimentation !!!!!
No electronic text books have to be re-written.
No acoustic text books have to be re-written.
No one has to get 'hot under the collar' !! As many people (engineers) seem to do.Regards,
May Belt.
The first step is to propose a hypothesis. You have done so, and I can say that it shows a great deal of thought has gone into it.But you are not done, you have only started.
The next steps, if you choose to undertake them, would be to design careful controlled experiments to test your hypothesis, to perform them, to make public both the complete experimental design and the results so that they can be independently verified by other experimenters.
This really would not be so hard. If some foil in a room affects the energy, it would be easy enough to poll listeners with the foil installed or not installed, random choice. They cannot know whether it is installed, that is part of the control of the other variables.
And then statistics could be gathered. And complete results could be published, so that others could verify the results independently.
I assure you, if various other people reproduced the positive results of such an experiment, you would find few skeptics left.
But without such data, a hypothesis on its own is worth little.
In any case, I now see very clearly the defect in your thinking. The challenge is to explain it in a simple way. You are presuming the existence of some energy field that 1. is generalin the sense that the nature of the "threat" doesn't matter, and 2. that this energy field can influence our minds via an unknown mechanism. Both parts of this proposal are dubious.
You like to invoke evolutionary explanations--but in evolutionary terms there's absolutely no reason that we would have developed sensitivity to, say, electromagnetic fields, since very few (and very weak) fields existed until a little more than a hundred years ago. I need not even mention how silly it is--in evolutionary or any other terms--that an electrical cable sitting on a carpet (neither of which--carpet or cable--existed during our evolutionary history) would be perceived as hostile. (Is it because it looks like a snake? why is a snake on cable risers less threatening?)
Your answer, it seems, is that we are intrinsically sensitive to "threats" of any sort. It's not an electromagnetism field but a "threat" field that we respond to. We haven't been selected, in the evolutionary sense, to respond to electromagnetic fields, but to "threat" fields.
But this logically preposterous. Going back, again, to your evolutionary picture: mutation and natural selection can give rise to adaptations in our genetic makeup, but this mechanism cannot alter our surroundings. The idea of a "threat" field is anthrocentric in the extreme: an energy field that exists in nature that warns us of danger? You will need a religious, rather than a scientific, explanation for the existence of such a field. It presumes that someone is looking out for us.
I could go on to point out that no such field has ever been detected,and that our ability to detect it has never been demonstrated scientifically, and so on. But it's not necessary. Your explanation makes no sense.
Best,
Jim
I now see very clearly the defect in your thinking, Jim. The "mechanism" to which you are referring doesn't alter our surroundings. The hypothesis is that it alters our perception of our surroundings. When a woman walks down the street alone at night, hears footsteps behind her, goes into full alert mode... is someone looking out for her? You're the one making presumptions here, about "religious" explanations for scientific phenomenon, and that "no such field has ever been detected", or that it hasn't been demonstrated scientifically. Such fields have been detected and researched for about a quarter of a century. Some further empty presumptions on your part, include personifying an audio cable as a "snake", and then concluding that the "snake" must appear "less threatening because its on risers" (just silly). Here's a hint for you: the electrical cable is, in this sense, not much different than the carpet its sitting on. And raising the cable may not "make the snake more threatening", as you seem to think, but one thing it does change is its interface to the carpet. It is because of the fact that cable and carpet did not exist in our earliest history, that it may be regarded as hostile to us today, on some level.Have you any idea how foolish your notion is that because something sounds "silly" to you, it has no merit? You should consider learning more about a subject before attempting to present yourself as an expert on it, else you are no better than a dogmatic fool. You're drawing conclusions about a subject when you are clearly not in a position to do that, as its based entirely on what you've learned about other things. The fact that I see you misunderstanding so much of what is being explained to you, says you're not the qualified expert you seem to think you are. You should be in "learning mode" here. That means asking more questions, making less presumptions.
Best,
PR
Right on PR. Jim always presumes that he knows what works or not , and will condemn others, without even first trying it. He did it to me, bigtime.
Hi Posy. This is your first post, I notice. Did May dig you up and get you to post in an effort to save face? If so, then she made a mistake, since she did a far better job defending herself than you have done defending her. I'm not going to waste much more time on this, but it won't take time to dispatch you and your specious arguments.> > The "mechanism" to which you are referring doesn't alter our surroundings. The hypothesis is that it alters our perception of our surroundings. < <
Yes, but there must still be a mechanism. My point--which is transparent--is that you cannot affect a person's 'perceptions' in the absence of some sort of mechanism to act ON THE MIND. I didn't say, nor did I intend to say, anything about the surroundings. May has already said that the Belt products work even if you don't know they're present, that even subconscious awareness is not required. So they influence the brain...how, exactly? By what mechanism do they influence your perceptions? Hence the "threat field" that I hypothesized.
It was May, not me, who introduced the idea that the cable was somehow a 'threat,' and that putting a cable on risers made it less threatening. I suggested the snake analogy only as a way of understanding the nature of the "threat"--since no other reasonable explanation was on offer. And your explanations make no more sense than hers--less in fact. Why would separating two things that didn't exist in our evolutionary history reduce the "threat"? In evolutionry terms their very existence, let alone their existence in proximity, are irrelevant. Why, for that matter, would a cable on carpet be perceived as a threat, while a stereo system, or the electricity that makes it work or floor polish, or the chemicals in the fabric or leather of your listening chair, or even musical instruments--none of which have existed for an evolutionarily relevant period of time--NOT be perceived as threats? It's an empty theory; it has no content. It seems to me nothing more than a feeble attempt at a theoretical explanation for which a far simpler explanation is available: the exhaustively demonstrated, ubiquitous fallibility of human perceptions. The rest is gloss.
Posy, you are ignorant, and you do May no favors by trying to defend her, even if she requested it. In our interactions she managed to maintain a certain nobility. So do her a favor and leave off. Let this die. I will waste no more time with this.
Jim Austin
> > Hi Posy. This is your first post, I notice. < <Hi Jim. You did research on me? Already?? Well, I'm flattered. I usually don't receive that much scrutiny until the second post. You're wrong though (again). I've posted here over many years, probably started before you came. Can't remember what my moniker was though, long time no post. You know if you stopped making presumptions about everything and every one, you'd learn a lot more. Just a suggestion.
> > Did May dig you up and get you to post in an effort to save face? < <
"May"?? Who's "May"?
> > If so, then she made a mistake, since she did a far better job defending herself than you have done defending her. < <
Sorry, wrong again, Jim. I'm not defending anyone. I only, ever and always represent myself. However, if you're speaking on behalf of Stereophile, then I would say JA made a mistake hiring you to write for him. For someone who has no fear of writing so many personal opinions about science and audio based on wrongheaded presumptions, possibly leading so many of the Stereophile flock astray, I can't imagine what value he thinks you bring to audiophile consumers. I noticed that when you got all hostile and defensive like you've been, like you are more than ever I should say, well you end up saying a lot of things in your posts that are based on a lot of wild assumptions. I thought that needed correcting. And after seeing your subject give up trying to get you to understand anything, I thought I'd give it a whirr myself.
Not that I expected to do any better than her, with you. Because if JA has a "semantic curtain" put up, you seem to have a "semantic concrete wall, 12 inches thick". With a hole made by a 5/8" drill bit, where you dare new ideas to squeeze through, if they can. Don't worry though, I don't have it as my goal to get you to embrace Beltism, let alone get a grip on the basics. My goal is to have fun. Isn't that what you're here for?
> > I'm not going to waste much more time on this, but it won't take time to dispatch you and your specious arguments. < <
Oh please don't hurt me Jim. I'm afraid I bruise easily. And if I start crying, trust me, it'll be embarassing for the -both- of us.
> > > The "mechanism" to which you are referring doesn't alter our surroundings. The hypothesis is that it alters our perception of our surroundings. < < <
> > Yes, but there must still be a mechanism. My point--which is transparent--is that you cannot affect a person's 'perceptions' in the absence of some sort of mechanism to act ON THE MIND. I didn't say, nor did I intend to say, anything about the surroundings. May has already said that the Belt products work even if you don't know they're present, that even subconscious awareness is not required. So they influence the brain...how, exactly? By what mechanism do they influence your perceptions? Hence the "threat field" that I hypothesized. < <
You're not listening again. You were told there is a mechanism. You even referred to it as a "threat field". I refer to it as an "energy field", but your term will do fine for our purposes. The field -is- the mechanism, Jim. I believe May gave the puzzle away in this clue:
"Supposing, because of our evolutionary programming, we ARE able to detect this pulsating energy..."
Do you need more "transparent" than that to understand the mechanism by which this phenomenon may work?
> > It was May, not me, who introduced the idea that the cable was somehow a 'threat,' and that putting a cable on risers made it less threatening. I suggested the snake analogy only as a way of understanding the nature of the "threat"--since no other reasonable explanation was on offer. < <
Instead of presuming something as silly as "the cable has now turned into a snake", why don't you simply -ask-, if you don't understand something. You needn't be afraid of your ego surviving the ordeal of asking questions or remaining available to learning bold new concepts about the science of audio. I'm sure it's big enough to handle it. You were offered a very lengthy and dare I say reasonable explanation about the nature of the threat concept here: http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=prophead&n=30401&highlight=threat+may+belt&r=&session=
...But you didn't get it. It seems you're not too big on subtleties, Jim. Why is that? Let me help you connect the dots. You were told by the OP that this energy field may be interpreted as a threat, such as a dangerous "Cobra!". You were then told that it may be possible to change the energy pattern by merely manipulating the cable, so that the pattern no longer registers in your mind as a threat, and is now a "wee harmless grass snake". You interpreted that simple explanation as the "audio cable is a snake", entirely missing the analogy that was proposed to you.
> > And your explanations make no more sense than hers--less in fact. < <
Maybe if you make a little more effort to understand what you're being told, things might make a little more sense to you? Just a suggestion. Also, it might help if you made the hole in your semantic block just a wee bit larger.
> > Why would separating two things that didn't exist in our evolutionary history reduce the "threat"? < <I believe the concept is, those two things are a "threat". Many things you may do, or not do, change the energy pattern, which makes you react slightly differently (constantly altering tension levels). I don't know that simply lifting a cable up from the floor will "reduce the threat". Whilst I don't wish to speak for anyone, I believe that what May was suggesting to you was meant as a hypothetical example (the word "supposing" used liberally, was the giveaway clue on that one, for me). IOW, a "possible" alternate explanation (to the electrical one) for the changes people experience when using cable risers. I know you can change the energy pattern of an object simply by placing it on another object, and if so, the reverse must also be true. So the example she may have proposed isn't impossible, I suppose.
> > In evolutionry terms their very existence, let alone their existence in proximity, are irrelevant. < <
According to who's principles and what research? You're just making another assumption based on your notion that they haven't been around for all of our evolution, aren't you? Can you at least -try- to be careful about that?
> > Why, for that matter, would a cable on carpet be perceived as a threat, while a stereo system, or the electricity that makes it work or floor polish, or the chemicals in the fabric or leather of your listening chair, or even musical instruments--none of which have existed for an evolutionarily relevant period of time--NOT be perceived as threats? < <
Who said they're not? Let me come at you from a different angle: if you saw some "weird alien space being" in the middle of your den one day, would you perceive it as a threat or go on with your business as if it wasn't there?
> > It's an empty theory; it has no content. < <
No, you're confusing the theory with your posts. I can understand how days of reading both will get you all mixed up like that. The theory makes a lot of sense to me and many others familiar with the subject under discussion. However, it should be recognized here and now that you, Jim Austin, are not one of them. You have no extensive experience with the devices that support the theory.
I think the problem we see with you is that you need to acquire that experience before attempting to tackle the theories. According to John Curl, it seems to be an idea you've never considered before. Well, you should. Perhaps then the theory part of it will start to make better sense to you, and you'll find that it was just your empty pre-Beltist rhetoric that had no content. The effect is more important than the theory, anyway. I'm sorry if you felt you were lead to believe otherwise.
> > It seems to me nothing more than a feeble attempt at a theoretical explanation for which a far simpler explanation is available: the exhaustively demonstrated, ubiquitous fallibility of human perceptions. The rest is gloss. < <
Thanks. Because if you are correct, then you've just explained for me and everyone else why you are unable to wrap your head around the idea that audio doesn't end at the electron. How did you put it again? "The ubiquitous fallibility of human perceptions". Yes, well said. Goes a long way to accounting for your prejudices.
> > Posy, you are ignorant < <
Now you're getting personal. And really, really contradictory, in light of all you've shown here recently. So is the ad hominem really necessary, Jim? Is it your insecurity grumbling again? If so, perhaps you can feed it a Clark bar. At least manage to keep it at bay until the end of your reply. (Doesn't look like either of you will have to hold out much longer).
> > and you do May no favors by trying to defend her, even if she requested it. < <
Now you're going off making assumptions again.
> > In our interactions she managed to maintain a certain nobility. < <Indeed. Which is more than anyone can say for -you-, isn't it, given how crudely I saw you behaving in these "exchanges" you refer to. Well I'm sorry Jim, I deny the rumours, I'm not part of the Royal family. Although I did once know someone who looked like the Queen Mum, if that impresses you at all? No? How about Queen Latifah, then?
> > I will waste no more time with this. < <Now I get it. It must be your voracious scientific curiousity that inspired JA to hire you in the first place, because he heard you came with a scientific background. Nonetheless, given your performance in this thread so far, I think you've probably made a wise decision here. You're right, you're better off sticking to what you know, and 'safe subjects', that you can do a better job of pretending to be an expert on. Thanks for giving this old-school Beltist a few good laughs, anyway. And don't stop making all those assumptions about everything that you're so very good at. I'm afraid that if you do, you'll lose the greater part of your imagination. Cheerio!
PR.
OK Jim, at least I tried. And I am glad I tried.Regards,
May Belt.
You really did help me to think this through.Best
Jim
Jim, I have no problems answering but I know that it would take a lot of 'toing and froing' - not the sort of thing for the 'quick response' method of Prop Head. Can I ask you to try to plough through the LONG discussion I had with some on the Stereophile Forum - the link to this I gave in a reply today to John Curl. Maybe there will be some answers there for you about how I am approaching this whole subject - which will go some way to 'filling you in' and then we can take it from there. At least, if you can, we will be further along that path than we are now.I want to get you away from the thoughts that I am in the area of 'psychic'. It is an unfortunate word because it resonates with 'ghosties and goulies and things which go bump in the night'.
I can assure you that Peter and I are sane, sensible, down to earth, both feet on the ground Yorkshire Folk but have been thrust into thinking 'out of the box' in trying to explain just what is going on around us - and more importantly - what is affecting us - which in turn affects the way we resolve the musical information.
I am sorry to get so annoyed but Klaus comes over as believing that Peter and I are so shallow and so stupid that when we hear such as a piccolo which we had not been particularly aware of previously, we jump up and down shouting "Eureka - improved sound".
I do believe that there is something physical happening in the environment which in turn is having a physical effect on us which in turn is then physically affecting how our working memory is interpreting the musical information we receive from the ears.
Where are we (you and I) going to place Tinnitus ? It happens in the head. Is it therefore physical ? It can come and go. If it can get worse with stress is this a physical happening ? If, as some people have found, that it can be eased by doing yoga, is this also a physical happening ? What if people report it varying but MRI scans show no changes ? In other words, no measurements show when it gets worse or gets better - so are you prepared to believe what people describe ? All this goes on without there being any external (acoustic) stimulus. Are you thinking that Peter and I are (somehow) experiencing sounds (shall I be flippant and call them P.W.B. Tinnitus) - in the head - and believing them to be 'real'. That we THINK we are hearing greater height, greater depth, greater width, greater separation of instruments etc and describing them as 'real'.
Regards,
May Belt.
...everyone here who listens for him- or herself.Wellfed asked, "Which is tastier? The pudding or its recipe?" We all know where Klaus stands, poor dear.
clark
Not everyone.Jim
May,I had read that discussion already, but I still find myself not knowing the answer to the question I asked.
Is there anything, in your view, that you/we perceive that isn't real?
Thanks,
Jim
Obviously, Jim, there are things which we perceive - where we have guessed wrong. Such as touching something in the dark, thinking we identified it but found out we were wrong. Or tasting something without looking first, thinking we had identified it correctly but found out we were wrong !!If you have read through what I had written and still do not have an understanding, then I am at a loss how to explain it differently.
> > > "You don't have to know that there's a piece of coloured foil on your wall etc .... in order for these 'tweaks' to improve the sound." < < < - your quote Jim.
No, Jim, you don't have to know that there's a piece of foil on your wall. But you go on to suggest that we believe that these 'bits of stuff work directly on our brains'. There is something you are not fully understanding and I do not know how best to describe it if you have not already understood. You have to 'throw an intellectual switch' and look at the whole thing differently and from a different angle.
It is not that the Foils etc are 'improving' the sound. You cannot add information that is not already there. What our treatments do, in the environment, is reduce an ALREADY hostile situation. The modern environment is a MESS - a mess for human beings !! The mess is already there, causing problems for us because we are not able to resolve the environment as a friendly place ! We are therefore under constant tension - but are not realising it - that is until we do something which gives us the reassuring signals which we are searching for - which we have been programmed by millions of years of evolution to look for. The more safe we feel, the more we can relax, the less stress we are under, the better we can resolve the information which is already there. So, our treatments do not IMPROVE the sound, they REDUCE an already adverse effect. But, the result is the same. The sound is perceived as having improved. The information giving greater height, the greater width, the greater depth, the better separation of the instruments etc has been there, in the room, all the time !!!
We are the result of millions of years of survival programming - to read/sense our environment every second of every minute of every hour of every day of our lives - searching for signs of danger/predator/intruder and, if this cannot be resolved correctly, then we stay under tension (on the alert) prepared for fight, flight or freeze !! So, in the modern environment, we are under persistent tension.
But, at the same time as being programmed to read/sense our environment for signs of danger, we are also programmed to read/sense our environment for signs of reassurance, signs telling us "Its, OK, you can relax, the danger has gone away."
Over 20 years ago, Peter, by chance, did something which completely ruined his sound. The story is well known and would take too long to repeat it yet again here. It was only months later that, from another field of science, the field of biology, that he discovered that the cause of the ruined sound was because he had used what is known in plant life as a 'stress chemical' and then, it suddenly dawned on him that it had been us (human beings) who had reacted to that 'stress' chemical and gone under tension - causing the (musical) information being processed by our hearing mechanism to be adversely affected. Recognise the description of "harsh, aggressive, shouty" sound , anyone ? Recognise doing something (some tweak or other) and hearing the sound be so much better ? Ring any bells ?
Regards,
May Belt.
"We are the result of millions of years of survival programming - to read/sense our environment every second of every minute of every hour of every day of our lives - searching for signs of danger/predator/intruder and, if this cannot be resolved correctly, then we stay under tension (on the alert) prepared for fight, flight or freeze !! So, in the modern environment, we are under persistent tension."jj often mention overdetection of differences. Overdetection of differences would appear to be helpful for survival. It can be expensive in choosing audio equipment and tweaks, though.
There is an amusing discussion of Burdan's donkey in J. Henri Fabre's chapter on caterpillars.
____________________________________________________
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.
I would think this "danger/predator/intruder" response could be likened to fight or flight. If that's the case then it seems our sympathetic nervous system prepares us by heightening all of our senses, including hearing. So when we relax after the danger has passed our senses would be lessened. Isn't this exactly opposite of what you are saying?
...that our senses are under tension due to sub-optimum conditions within our environment. Once these conditions have been adequately countered The more safe we feel, the more we can relax, the less stress we are under, the better we can resolve the information which is already there.IOW, our ears become more golden. (just messing with you May ;-), like you apparently, I don't care for, or buy into, the golden ears argument)
I don't buy it. I'm not saying the Belt's products don't work (I haven't tried them), just their theory for why they work doesn't make sense to me. Have there been tests to show we hear more information when we are relaxed? Again, I would think during this fight or flight scenario (which May did put forth) one would have the most acute hearing. My guess is the Belts might really be on to something, but science can't explain it yet.
As a Creationist I find the concept of evolution to be absurd. As an audiophile I find I will take improvement wherever it may be found. I've heard a few P.W.B. items that were profound in their effect. I'm blessed by May Belt and P.W.B. in more ways than one — I think I may be in love with her mind. ;-)
and the implications are interesting. Let's reverse things. It suggests that you would be able to deduce the presence (or absence) of colored foils by how good the music sounds to you.Let me ask a followup question. Recent science has shown that subliminal effects are real. Your brain can be affected by things you are not conscious of. Your brain knows it there, but "you" don't. But there has to be some way that these things can affect the brain--to convince it that it's environment is less hostile than it was--and it seems to me that in what you are describing that's not the case. How does our brain know it's there? Is it via one of the established senses, or something else?
> > > "We cannot respond to threats we are not aware of." < <Can you turn it on it's head Jim ? Can you look at it differently ?
Yes, there is that way of looking at it and as you have suggested, we cannot respond to threats we are not aware of. What I have just proposed in a reply to another of your postings is that we (from the earliest of creatures) are programmed to make sense of our environment and, if we CANNOT, because of a multitude of mixed signals or because of a multitude of ill defined signals causing maximum confusion, then Nature dictates that we (from the earliest of creatures onwards) remain under tension !!! So, it may not be a case of merely responding to a 'danger' signal, it may be a case of not being allowed (by Nature) to relax because to relax without the environment being 'proven' to be safe, would leave any creature in danger !!! The most important thing overriding everything else is for us, (or any creature) to survive in order to replicate.
Recall how anxious one can get if you have lost something, if you have mislaid something. Completely irrational anxiety. Your life is not in any danger but something !!! is unresolved. Similarly, if you cannot remember where you parked the car. Your life is not in any danger and yet the anxiety until you find the car is irrational ! These are, in my opinion, just simple examples of Nature dictating that you have to make sense of your environment before it will allow you to relax.
> > > "How does our brain know it's there? Is it via one of the established senses, or something else?" < < <
I think it has to be something else, some primitive sense, because it has to have been successful long before the senses (hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste) as we know them ever evolved. The earliest of creatures, somehow or other, had to be able to sense their environment - in order to survive, in order to replicate - and obviously they were successful, or we would not be here now !!! So, that asks the million dollar question. How were those creatures (are we) sensing certain things ?
Regards,
May Belt.
I thought I would add that I completely accept the notion that our psychological state affects how we perceive music. And I accept that we are not always consciously aware of things that affect our psychological state. But there must be SOME mechanism for manipulating that psychological state. We cannot respond to threats we are not aware of.Jim
And, some people hear the effect of colouring the edge of CDs with the colour green and some people don't !! Where does that get us ?You mention John's experience with one of Enid Lumleys 'tweaks' where he ceased to hear the effect after a time had elapsed. Does that mean that because of THAT experience, we now have to presume that John no longer hears the effect of colouring the edge of CDs with the colour green ? Or no longer hears the effect of the Ayre Myrtle Blocks or ......... and so it goes on ? When are we going to sit down and discuss the subject rationally ?
Regards,
May Belt
c
I agree, May. Did you ever get to know Enid Lumley? She was a good friend of mine, and I hope she is still doing OK. I experienced many of her tweaks and mods, and they worked for me! She was simply ahead of her time, and many of her suggestions, made many years ago, are standard stuff today.
About 20 years ago, when people were beginning to hear about Peter's discoveries, I was told about Enid Lumley and what she called "gremlins" affecting her sound. I had a brief correspondence with her just at the very point when she had decided to leave the world of audio and writing for The Absolute Sound. A great pity. I think many people in the world of audio treated Enid abominably !!One of the problems which faced Enid was that she was trying to explain the "gremlins" by them having an adverse effect on the signal or having an adverse effect on the acoustics whereas Peter, by one of those chance events so loved in stories of discoveries, was already understanding that the "gremlins" were, in effect, adversely affecting the human being (the very person listening to the music) !! Similar results to what Enid had been observing but a different explanation !!
If you are interested John, Positive Feedback Online have just published an article by me. And, in the middle of this article is a link to a long (very long) debate I had a few months back with a few people on the Stereophile Forum.
Regards,
May Belt.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue30/belt.htmIn the 3rd paragraph of the article there is a link available to a section of the Stereophile Hi Fi magazine's on line Forum (copy below).
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=13145&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1
This particular section in the Stereophile Forum is very long (spread over quite a few months) but I would recommend that people try to read it all because I have written much background information regarding some of the discoveries by P.W.B. Electronics.
...that are now accepted as standard?
One of her tweaks was plugging a fairly large 8uF (polypropylene, 200V) cap across the power line. I now have two 10uf caps across the power line in my living room. One for audio, and one for video.
rationally??With a faith based system.
Pull the other one.
--
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
> rationally??
> With a faith based system.There is nothing necessarily irrational about faith. As I suspect is the case for most people, I have had several long and stimulating discussions with intelligent people with strong religous convictions. The key point is that such people know what is based on faith and what is not and so can reason and converse in a normal and convincing manner. One may fail to accept the steps involving faith but since these are about matters that do not lie in the scientific domain (unlike audiophile beliefs) there can be no real dispute or resolution and so it is reasonable and rational to agree to disagree.
The difference with most audiophiles, although not all, is that they generally do not accept that faith is involved. Instead they prefer to believe their ill informed interpretations of their experiences and what they would like to believe over the explanations offered by established scientific knowledge. This would indeed be irrational if the audiophiles actually understood the basis of scientific knowledge and therefore what they are opposing but there is little on this site to suggest that they do. From a position of ignorance about what is going on and a refusal to find out one could make some sort of case that audiophiles are rational but it is of very restricted kind and, in my experience, precludes normal discussion/debate which I have generally found to be no problem with people with strong convictions based on faith.
Which is tastier, a good pudding, or its recipe?
> Regarding audio, I'll take experience over explanation any day of the
> week...But that is close to what you are doing wrong.
Sticking with your subjective experience that this chip enhances your listening pleasure is fine and will raise no objections except, possibly, from the more extreme antiaudiophiles.
But you do not leave it there. You push that the chip acts in the objective domain and you can prove it. It is far more this that makes you look a fool rather than your subjective experience.
PHP? ;-)
Individual anecdotes and mass "Emperor's New Suit" are not in there.
nt
I would say that you prejudged the chip, even before you tried it. I would find you an unreliable witness in this case, and I am surprised that you have not excluded yourself from any listening tests with the chip.
...and now I'm to be criticized or listening? Sheesh!
Listening, AFTER you trashed me for hearing a difference is biased listening.
LOL
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
You are just being stupid again, man. Wellfed did not walk into the trap that they were setting for him. I would have never bothered in the first place.
Lord Curlvader, the farce may not be as strong in you as previously thought. This should be an easy million for you. Shame. Think of all the capacitors you could buy.
Perhaps Master Johnsiwan of the Boston order of the Jedi might feel the inkling to be $1 mil richer, or can he not detect the presence of the farce in these chips?cheers,
AJ
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
It's really QUITE sad that people actually believe that it is. I had my doubts going in, but I can tell you with certainty from personal experience, the JREF Challenge is NOT any more real than 'professional' wrestling. Some people fall for it, some don't.
==
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
You learned that it's hard to beat someone at their own game.I learned that professional wrestling isn't real. Please be aware that every trailer park resident in central Indiana now knows your name... and they shore ain't happy with ya'll! :)
Thanks for the heads up. ;-)
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=37581http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1029878&postcount=1113
One Example of Contradictions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed
Do you have evidence of me contradicting myself?
Sir,
You do contradict yourself. Here's an hour's research on just your commitment to do a DBT. In particular, I note that you used the volunteer resources of the Forum Members to development your DBT protocol and then never used that protocol.Regards,
GulliverThe evidence:
Quote:
Originally posted by edthedoc 03-30-2005 04:38 AM, Page 5 of Audio Critic Thread
Wellfed, it would be so easy for you to do a simple double blind trial in the comfort of your own home. It would save everyone a lot of time, and you a lot of embarrassment. Please think about doing this before you go any further.Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed 03-24-2005 11:14 AM, Page 5 of Audio Critic Thread, quoting and referring to edthedoc's post above
Thanks, now that I have a methodology I will do just that. I have to wait for another GSIC to arrive which will happen early next week.Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed 03-30-2005 09:55 PM, Page 5
For those interested, I will definitely have performed some type of DBT with the GSIC by April 10.Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed 03-31-2005 04:35 PM, Page 6
I will be doing my own DBT sometime next week, presumably on the weekend, and will report my results on Monday April 11th, or sooner. At that time I will be in contact with the recommended local observer to set up a test for August 2005Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed 04-04-2005 10:32 AM, Page 8
On another note, as you know I plan to do some blind testing on myself this coming weekend. This presupposes to some degree assistance from family members. Since they have little patience for my audiophile pursuits can you give me any suggestions for testing myself with minimal assistance by others? My intent is to return with the results of my own test on Monday, April 11th. I don't have the luxury of multiple GSIC's to work with. I have one unspent chip along with two spent devices.Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed, 04-09-2005 02:28 PM, Page 10
Due to the turmoil of recent events I have decided to postpone the self-testing I proposed for this weekend. I have found that the agitation of mind has become so great at this time as to disallow for a valid result. View the complete record regarding my claim if you are curious as to why I would choose the following course.I am going to take a few weeks off and then, with the assistance of Steve Eddy, submit to testing in a valid and fair environment, free of distraction and contention. I will be submitting a protocol proposal to Kramer by midweek as originally planned. I have no plans to view JREF Forum content until the testing with Steve Eddy has been completed.
Cluck cluck cluck cluck, waffle waffle waffle.
cheers,
AJ
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
I strongly suspect Kramer was banking on that. I can't say I understand why he desired to pull the wool over sceptical eyes though.What do you make of the lie Kramer resorted to? What purpose do you think he had in mind? What place do lies have for an organization supposedly committed to truth? Why do you think Kramer chose to pop open this little gem on April 26th, 2005?
Now have you tried placing some of these unspent Intelligent Chips on your head?cheers,
AJ
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
Why wouldn't people be up in arms over it? How would people react if I had done the same thing? How can you, and so many others, be SO clueless about this fact?If you care to continue discussing the matter, I insist that you at least address the first question. Why WOULD Kramer lie about our negotiations? Why would he lie like this shortly after I had appraised him that I would be tabling the matter until after my granddaughters birth if he continued to deal with me in bad faith.
I'm all for having a good time around here, but I'd really like a serious and considered response from you this one time at the least.
...it could be billed as Wellfed vs The Amazing Randi ... in a no holds barred one-fall grudge match! :)
Wellfed vs. The Miscreant Administrator ... Will Good prevail over Evil?I choose to think good and happy thoughts about James Randi himself. Perhaps I'm naive. ;-)
> I choose to think good and happy thoughts about James Randi himself. Perhaps I'm naive. ;-) <If you choose to believe something that has no basis in scientific or rational fact, you're a subjectivist! LOL
Someone did try to win the million using the IC and failed. So you think they were affraid of you ? They actually know that the chip works ? They are covering-up the evidences ?
...is that they were afraid of the test being limited to 10 iterations. This being outside what they'd have preferred from a statistical standpoint.Contrary to what AJinFLA would like to believe, I didn't run away from the Challenge. I simply put the matter on hold after it became apparent that Kramer was incapable of negotiating in good faith.
I had a number of personal events slated to occur over the summer of '05 that I wasn't willing to have disturbed by the acrimony and uncertainty JREF created in the negotiations. The most significant being the anticipated birth of my first grandchild.
The straw that broke the camels back was this assertion from Kramer on the JREF Forum
Good One !!!
[Quote:
Originally posted by Wellfed
I have considered being my own observer...]That's a good one, and an entirely different paranormal claim. You'll have to send in a new application...especially since I haven't heard a peep from you since last week when you promised a new protocol within hours.
A most curious, deafening silence.
Oh, and by the way, Piano Teacher is who he claims to be.
Did anyone here really accuse him of being something else?
If so, I must have missed it.The reality of the matter is I had written to him via email twice the previous day dealing with a sticking point involving the protocol, one of the correspondences he actually responded back to me on. A most curious bit of bullshit, wouldn't you say?
Also, the sticking point I refer to was created by JREF, AFTER I had promised that a revised protocol would be forthcoming shortly. He knew only too well that I was working on a solution to the protocol vanity that JREF themselves had introduced. He also chose to twist the 'my own observer' comment, the context of which being discussion of what it would take for me to drop my own requirement of having my own observer present to monitor the integrity of the JREF testers. The JREF Forum integrity concern being that my own observer could conceivably alert me by the use of bird calls emanating from a loudspeaker set up outside my home.
Bear in mind that this 'crisis' is only one example showing JREF incapable of negotiating in good faith. This came on the heals of another battle that established that I was only required to do 10 identifications, per my original claim.
I could go on... If you are truly interested in learning the truth, I will.
x
You're gonna' love me. That's a given. :-)
--
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
Just click on any of the files to hear a subjectivist discuss why he backed out of being tested/exposed.cheers,
AJ
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
In Pleasantville all the roads are, like, circular and people In Pleasantville are convinced there aren't any roads beyond Pleasantville. Visitors to Pleasantville must be careful not to mention they're from somewhere else, or that there are roads, some of them long ones, outside Pleasantville. Otherwise people in Pleasantville can become all hostile and uppity like.For the people in Pleasantville, everything is pretty much, like, known - if not by them specifically, then by SOMEONE. At least written down in books, somewhere. And if the rare fact must be found, or some mystery explained, no problem - the folks of Pleasantville head over to the Pleasantville Library, where all facts and explanations are, like, written down.
Where mythical people are all as dumb as rocks. Where you are the only person with a brain who has ever been born. Where all the books are wrong and the only truth is on unknown Internet websites.
nt
it can be very refreshing in the tropical heat.
What are we to make of Dave's posting just above? ;-)
...[but I get ahead of myself: "The story posits a two dimensional world (Flatland). The narrator, a humble square, guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. Square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland), and attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension."]Then one day a being from another dimension visits Flatland. As this being passes through their space, they all can see this point that becomes a line which then expands and then contracts to a point and disappears. Nothing like that had ever been seen before! Many deny it happened, that those who claim they saw it must be delusional. They argue and argue until one day the sphere makes another pass through their territory and more people see the phenomenon.
s
It is curious how there is so much polarization about this stuff.
In reality if your really looking for answers, you consider anything, which appears to be such. It is certainly true of most who design, however, it is the rare exception when you find something anomalous which can be exploited into something new.Making the water muddier is the FACT that many products exist in “hifi” which work by faith that they work in reality. This is no different than any other area in our lives where companies are after your spare cash.
For example, the new age movement in general, healing crystals, gasoline magnetizers, fancy cloths, jewelry and fancy cars and countless other things are valuable to us only because of how we think of them, not because of what they do in the physical world..From the end user (customer) point of view, it is intended to be as clear as glass, on purpose and it costs real money to make it that way:
For instance, you see the ads, you put a gasoline magnetizer in your car and you get better mileage.
Who can deny that, obviously only a skeptical subjectivist fool would ever deny it works when you can see it makes a difference..On the other hand, you have the objectivist point of view that says that since scientifically the gasoline is not altered in any way by the magnetic field, that any improvement in mileage is only due to the knowledge / desire present when one installed the magnet and then subconsciously leading to driving more conservatively.
To the objectivist engineering type, this answer also couldn’t be more clear or different than the end users view.Both groups beliefs are firmly anchored in what they observed / taught / know to be true.
Both groups are right, the user gets better mileage, the scientists are right, the magnet has no effect whatsoever on the gasoline or chemical reaction or the amount of energy released.
The subjectivist sees a miracle product kept from us by the oil companies, the Objectivists see a well known ploy to separate the crowd from its spare cash thru bogus nonsense and the power of suggestion.Aren’t both sides are right then?
On one hand you mention that capacitors can sound different from each other, well if one uses the M word (measurements), one also sees that essentially no capacitor is a “pure” capacitor, they have things which stop them from being a pure reactive element.
They also can have hysteresys and internal absorption and other effects, which are all well known in electronic design and necessary to deal with at higher frequencies and currents than one finds in audio
Same for essentially every other kind of passive part, they all have secondary effects, this is no mystery except in hifi magazines where creating an air if mystery and romance is important.
Magazines are after all a “for hire” marketing agent for manufacturers in the guise of a source of information (which is normally also supplied by manufacturers).
It is curious too how some expect measurements to tell you how something sounds, another conceptual fly in the soup thanks to the magazine education of end users..
Why would anyone expect a measurement in hifi to be different than any other kind of technical measurement. A ruler doesn’t tell you how smooth or what color, how pleasing or how heavy something is, it only tells you how large it is. To find the other things, you need other measurements and they never tell you “how it is” subjectively unless someone made that decision to correlate say a given unit of surface roughness to glossy appearance (a subjective judgment).
Measurements, at the very best, only answer the question they ask.You cited some examples of people who were certain.
Do you really think that all these people (and many other well known engineers over the past 30 years) would have risked their reputations describing their experiences if they did not believe it was important to do so ?You make a snide remark about the Intelligent Chip ("made in that factory in China"). Do you really think Ken Kessler and Steve Harris would risk their reputation giving a demonstration of the said Intelligent Chip to an audience at a London Hi Fi Show a few years back just in order to have some fun ?Do you really believe that Julian Vereker would risk being ridiculed by marking arrows (showing the direction they had to be connected) on some audio cables he made if he did not believe that it was important to tell people that the cable sounded better a certain way round.?Do you really believe that Ivor Teifenbrum would risk being ridiculed by demonstrating how a telephone in the room could have an effect on the sound if he did not believe it to be important to tell people ?Of course John Curl can hear differences in sound with capacitors of the same specification but with different insulation layers. Of course Charles Hansen can hear different woods sound different. Of course all these other people can hear what they claim to be able to hear.
I would offer that ones level of conviction is no indicator of the validity of the argument, also, conviction can be purchased or even innocently misplaced.
Consider lawyers who often lie for a living, the Doctors who supported the tobacco industry and said publicly there were actually health benefits to smoking, not just the possible dangers were overblown. Consider legions of politicians who are willing to adopt any posture, say anything to be elected. Consider that when it is not a question of life safety, that retailers are willing to say what ever it takes to make the deal. Too often it seems to be the ones who have “sold out” or over simplified that appear to have the strongest convictions.
Consider that it is well know that a dollar spent on marketing produces more results than a dollar spent in R&D. Consider that to the mass market, the mfr’s need to assure the “mark” (customer) that they have the latest greatest “so by this”. It is natural that they use measurements to sell, to promote the goodness of x,y or z based on numbers that don’t lie, its just the people that use them to sell that do.
Consider that the same forces that taught that in effect “measurements now mean nothing” have also said in effect that you can’t leave it up to your ears either. Judgments made using only ones ears without prior knowledge are not to be trusted, are flawed from the get go..
If you can’t hear the difference without knowing which was which first, than your lack of prior knowledge apparently stopped your ears from detecting the formerly obvious improvement right? The “flaw” of blind listening in hifi seems to be centered on the fact that it is an effort to remove the subconscious knowledge and ”suggestion” part from what you actually can detect with your ears (bad juju). This is perhaps like installing a gas line magnetizer one someone’s car without telling the person it had been installed.
I suppose the makers, sellers and there minions may be right, that high end hifi could be different than every other area of human perception and somehow these things don’t apply, but I bet not. Rather I think it is easier to package some little doodad with a mystical explanation and tag it with a high price denoting “goodness” and sell it to those gullible enough to bite. The idea that expensive little wood blocks, an expensive wood knobs, a magic chip, a bottle of stones could make a difference in the real world is a tribute to how low the industry has sunk and why it continues to shrink.
For many technical people, these kinds of imaginary products and there marketing have truly made hifi a Joke.
Best,
Tom Danley
Hi Tom,A well reasoned post. I do question one thing, you said:
"...no capacitor is a “pure” capacitor, they have things which stop them from being a pure reactive element. They also can have hysteresys and internal absorption and other effects, which are all well known in electronic design and necessary to deal with at higher frequencies and currents than one finds in audio..."
Sadly, my experience is that you can't blithely ignore secondary capacitor characteristics in any application. One of the things that separates the men from the boys in electronic design is having enough knowledge and experience (usually painfully gained) to know just what aspects you CAN ignore and which are crucial for a particular use.
They are especially tricky in audio because the wide bandwidth can bring many of the secondary factors into play. I happened to read a post by John Curl the other day that I really appreciated as he pointed out that what a Cap. is being used for in the circuit is a crucial issue. I had been tempted to write something similar because IMHO the notion that certain capacitors are simply "good" and others "bad" regardless of usage is quaintly naive.
By the way, having spent a lot of my early career doing RF, I used to feel that audio was so low and slow that anything would work. Well, years later when I had a job designing sensitivity systems at audio frequencies I found out that indeed almost anything will work, just not very well.
Regards, Rick
--
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
May,Thanks for your post.
> > Of course John Curl can hear differences in sound with capacitors of the same specification but with different insulation layers. Of course Charles Hansen can hear different woods sound different. Of course all these other people can hear what they claim to be able to hear. < <
Past exchanges I've had with you make me think there may be a semantic issue lurking here. You, I think, are committed to the notion that whatever anyone hears is necessarily real, whether or not it corresponds to any change in the physical world, outside a person's mind/brain/spirit. I would grant something less far-reaching: that most people who claim to hear something really do "hear" it, in the sense that "hearing" is a complex phenomenon involving ear AND brain, and subject to a wide range of "priming" influences (there's a whole psych/neuro literature on this). So in that sense--but only in that sense--I would acknowledge that most people who claim to hear something do indeed hear what they claim to hear. (I DO think there is a contingent that claims to hear something so as not to be thought ignorant or uncultivated. Which reminds me of a cruel joke friends of mine--occasionally with my involvement--used to play at parties when I was a child. someone would tell a joke which made no sense, and everyone else--the majority who were in on the joke--would laugh uproariously. And the poor sap who wasn't in on it almost always laughed along with them, humiliating himself.)
As a scientist and as an audio writer, I feel a responsibility to credit ONLY--or at least mainly--those effects that act on the sound (in its data, electrical, or acoustic stages) and not those that work only on the brain. If I were writing for psychology journals I'd take a different approach. (If I seem to be hedging a bit, it's because I believe that you have to love your stereo to get the most satisfaction from it. I've written an AWSI for (I think) the May Stereophile that gets at this issue).
So: You believe that anything anyone "hears" is real; this, anyway, is my understanding of your position. I believe that most of the time they really do hear it--they perceive a difference even if there is no change in the external physical environment--but I'm far less inclined than you to take such changes--those that occur only in the brain and not in the world--seriously.
And, though such things are very hard to quantify--and though 99% is only the roughest of estimates--I'm still pretty comfortable with that estimate. 99% of the time, I'd say--maybe more--sticking with scientific orthodoxy is the better choice. There is no better argument for this position, in my view, than the Belt/Kait products. This is what too much emphasis on unfounded, unscientific mysticism buys you. It's a poor value, IMO. Occasionally someone with a deep, intuitive understanding of how a system works is better off not knowing the rules. Since it's tournament time, think of basketball, where a brilliant athlete can afford to be out of position, but the team that wins the championship, most likely, will be the one that plays solid defense and blocks out on defensive rebounds.
In my message I was describing a rare process of technical creativity, which is possible only for people of the the highest level of technical attainment and insight, like a great athlete or an improvising jazz musician but in a different realm. That's a very rare occurrence. 99% is probably too low.
In the past I've found these exchanges tiring and pointless. Probably I will not pursue this further.
Be Well,
Jim Austin
Jim. Thank you for your courteous reply. I would probably agree with you. The exchanges we have had in the past would, I agree, just be merely repeated again - and again.I know exactly what you mean when you say that "most people who claim to hear something really do "hear" it, in the sense that "hearing" is a complex phenomenon involving ear AND brain" but you then go on to qualify that statement (I might say as a divergence) "that you DO think there is a contingent that claims to hear something so as not to be thought ignorant or uncultivated". Yes, so surely that is when we begin to try "sort the wheat from the chaff"? AT SOME POINT we have to start to take notice of what (some) people are saying - what {some} people have observed and what they are describing. Surely you would not class such as John Atkinson as being within the 'contingent of people who claim to hear something so as not to be thought ignorant' ?
So, we now start at the point that there are SOME people whose judgement we trust, who we will listen to when they are describing what they have discovered or have observed.So, moving away from the blanket (all enveloping) statement "there is a contingent that claims to hear something so as not to be thought ignorant or uncultivated" and to something (someone) specific. When John Atkinson states that painting the edge of a CD green gives him an improvement in the sound but is not prepared to give an explanation or when John describes using the Ayre Myrtle Blocks placed under equipment to improve the sound and where John says ""Don't ask me why they have an effect" - are you going to dismiss what John says as "hearing the effect of these things inside his mind/brain/spirit" ?
Who are you going to listen to - anyone or nobody ?
You say that as a scientist and as an audio writer, you feel a responsibility to credit ONLY - or at least mainly - those effects that act on the sound (in its data, electrical or acoustic stages). If that is your stance, then I respect it but it means that you can never therefore consider listening to (some) people - people whose experience you trust - describing things changing sound which, by no stretch of the imagination could be having an effect on "the data, on the electrical or acoustic stages". So, by that stance you limit what you can consider in exactly the same way that Peter Aczel rigidly limits himself when, in the section dealing with cables, he says "The simple truth is that resistance, inductance and capacitance are the only cable parameters that affect performance in the range below radio frequencies"
Thereby dismissing such as Jean Hiraga (editor of the French audio magazine Revue du Son) who, in the late 1970s described how he could hear differences in the sound from different cables - through the past 30 years to today - with numerous engineers (who would regard themselves just as you do as a scientist and as an audio writer) describing hearing exactly what Jean Hiraga heard !! Whilst at the same time knowing that conventional electronic theory dictates that any changes to the signal which may take place along a cable half a metre (20 inches !!) long would be so infinitesimal that no one, no human being, could possibly HEAR it - let alone describe the changes in the sound that they do describe !!
There are too many things happening, too many things being reported as having an effect on the sound, by too many people to continue to have a rigid, blinkered approach.
I always understand science (and scientists) to be about teasing out what Nature does and how Nature does it.
But, if you find our exchanges tiring and pointless and feel that no progress can be made, then we will agree to end it here !!
Regards,
May Belt.
Telling someone what they "should" be hearing."YOU, Jim, should have been experiencing things affecting YOUR sound which should have left you as perplexed as they are !!! YOU should have been struggling to describe, from your personal experiences, instances when your sound had changed - and where you could find no explanation for what had happened from within conventional electronic or acoustic theories !!! If you have been listening for any length of time, then many of these things should have also been happening to YOU !!"
This of course is the kind of crap that perpetuates the silly fued between the Hatfields and the McCoys.
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