|
Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
|
|
|
Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
|
In Reply to: Maybe 0.1% posted by Jim Austin on March 11, 2007 at 09:09:27:
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.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Re: Maybe 0.1% - May Belt 16:20:18 03/11/07 (0)
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
