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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: Re: "Snake oil cancer (and audio?) remedies" posted by Jim Austin on March 27, 2007 at 12:42:57:
Jim, its now become abundantly clear to me that you wish to remain willfully ignorant about science and audio, and that your arguments are specious, at best. But I love you anyway. Without head-in-the-sand "objectivists" like you, these discussion forums would be pretty boring, wouldn't they. So please don't think your contributions are "tiresome". I find them entertaining, and I'm sure I'm not alone. The subject matter is an important one, as it gets at the heart of all that is audio for audiophiles (what is and isn't real and valid).BTW, I'm not even suggesting here that you should debate me. I know that when I tried to engage you in debate a few days ago, it resulted in what I know just has to be the fastest cave-ins I've ever seen in over 20 years of debating audio with people on the net. I mean you hadn't even finished writing your first response before declaring yourself the "winner" of the debate, and then running away from the thread as fast as your legs could carry you, before you even received my reply. Which if I may be so humble, knocked your half-baked arguments clean out of the park, and even tidied up your spot for you after you amscrayed. But knowing how careful you are to avoid risking embarassment, I don't blame you for failing to meet my challenge.
However, I'm a little disappointed at the fact that you still seem to be trying to present yourself as "scientifically inclined", given how easily you give up when your views are challenged, or, as May noted, how glib your responses become. A real scientist would, for one, have the curiousity to examine the subject properly before dismissing it, and not offer simple-minded knee-jerk rhetoric to dismiss important subjects out of hand, before returning to "safer" trivial ones, that are less taxing on his areas of expertise. To my knowledge, you've never done so.
I'm at a loss to explain some of the comments I've read from you, such as where you seem to think that you have a "fresh take" on things here, or that it is others that are representing the status quo. I figure I must have read or misinterpreted that wrong, because there is absolutely nothing fresh about your views here, they passed their staledate by about 30 years, and you are representing nothing other than the 100% pure "status quo" of the audio industry in your views on audio. Most every argument I've seen you make, I've also seen it made by someone before you. Long before you. That's also why I don't need to debate you, because I've already debated you hundreds of times. Example:
Jim: "There only a few wingnuts who believe in such products..."
PR: No, there are actually thousands of audiophiles across the world who have found differences in such products that as yet there is no "peer-reviewed" scientific evidence for. Some of them include the editor of the magazine you write for, so you might want to be careful about who you call a wingnut....
Jim: "It's rare that scientific breakthroughs are..."
PR: You're finally correct on something. But check out what "rare" means. It means "possible", however likely or unlikely. Not only is it possible, but it happened.
Jim: "There are many would-be discoverers throughout history who were rightly ridiculed and proven false".
PR: And some who weren't. That btw is a variation of the preceding argument. Typical cynic's belief that because something seems unlikely, it must not be. Both arguments are meaningless comments and they say nothing about the products being argued, and more about the prejudices of those making the arguments.
Jim: "It has to be peer-reviewed evidence, otherwise I won't buy it".
PR: This is what audio cynics like you say when they confuse the various other scientific disciplines with that of audio. While we both agree that (the peer-review process) is certainly a viable tool in other scientific domains (although far from perfect), it is incredibly naive for you to think that somehow, the hobby of subjective audio should be directly comparable, simply because you want it to be.
But then, that naive view is perfectly in step with some of the presumptions I've seen you make to John Curl about the ABX comparator. While I can't speak for the rest of the Stereophile staff, I can say that I was embarassed -for you-, after reading that. To say that you "think it should be invisible..." shows that you are clearly not familiar with this device, and I believe its well known by any audio enthusiast worth his salt, that John is. (And btw Jim, yes, there IS someone alive who questions the efficacy of testing compression codecs under ABX methodology, to address one of your previous posts. I'm that someone, and I'm sure I've done more tests than you on all manner of digital processing software, including audio codecs. It is glib, ignorant statements like this that characterize much of what you write on the subject of audio, from what little I've read of you so far).
So then the question becomes, who are the "peers" and what do they decide is "objective evidence"? You can't objectively measure the effects of -any- of the products we're talking about here. So, in audio, since you obviously don't trust your own ears or your own mind (and given all that you write I'm not sure I would either if I were you), then all we have left to satisfy naysayers like you is the DBT. In fact, scratch the DBT, we only have the ABX test. The plain old DBT won't stand the scrutiny of the ABX "peers", they'll just see it as a subset of ABX. Ergo, the only thing that can be "universally accepted" as "peer-reviewed evidence", are statistically significant tests involving the ABX methodology.
But the ABX test has been discredited for many years, with far too much evidence that it -doesn't- offer meaningful data in the end. Your boss presented us with an entire litany of reasons why on his own forums, and the results of ABX tests when viewed collectively, even speak against themselves. If we are to believe in your "inidisputable scientifically accurate evidence" as demonstrated by the "infallible ABX test", there is pretty much NOTHING in audio that should make any difference, other than perhaps, speakers, -some of the time-. So it looks like we can all go home and trade in our hifi systems for an iPod and a cute looking speaker dock, yes?
But wait! Familiar with Dave Clark at all? He authored "Comparing Audio Components", in 1983, submitted to the JAES. According to your scientific standards of "proof" of the legitimacy of an audio product, the millions of people who think they hear differences among amps, preamps, cd players, wires, cables, electronic parts, etc etc, are all suffering from terrible placebo effects. Clark's comparator tests couldn't conclude differentiations among test subjects in all those things, including pick-up cartridges and even loudspeakers (p.337). So according to Jim Austin's "threshold of credibility", or "scientific standards" if we may, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN AUDIO THAT SOUNDS ANY DIFFERENT THAN ANYTHING ELSE.
You've just saved me a packet of money Jim, thanks! But.. on the sad side of things, it looks like you're out of a job. Because since it can't be objectively proven by indisputable evidence that there is anything to differentiate among audio components, you have nothing further to review. (And so-called "objectivists" wonder why audiophiles think they're silly!...).
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Follow Ups
- Re: "Snake oil cancer (and audio?) remedies" - Posy Rorer 18:32:35 03/27/07 (0)
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