Home Propeller Head Plaza

Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

But Presto....

What layman can possibly obtain all the necessary test equipment needed for testing of various hypotheses? I personally own a Gauss meter, a Genrad SPL meter, various o'scopes, various hand held ohm meters, one bench type ohm meter, Crown distortion meter, microscopes, etc., etc. I still do not have the capability to measure every possible parameter which may have an effect on sound.

What kind of instrumentation do most manufacturers have? Probably a bit more than I have, and probably newer and more sensitive gear, but probably not much more.

I once presented an interesting hypothesis and demoed the hypothesis to a manufacturer, who was intrigued with what he and his staff heard. Not content to simply accept my hypothesis, he bought the necessary instrumentation to measure the effect. He was able to measure the effect, but the test gear cost him $100,000. While he was pleased to have 'black box' verification, he was also a little put off by the fact that a set of human ears could clearly hear the effect without the need of 100,000 dollars worth of equipment.

Take the manufacture of perfume. Either you like the smell or you don't, but the best 'noses' can detect one part per trillion as can be determined by spectrographic analysis. Do you need the spectrographic analysis in order to make the judgement?

The Scottish government commissioned an expensive research project where they similarly analyzed the components which were responsible for the various flavors of the single malts. At the end, they had chemical corroboration for every variation which flavored the various brews. What does this have to do with your personal enjoyment of a particular label?

Music, like odors, can be very subjective. If you do something and it sounds better to your taste, that is all that is important. Others can claim it is merely a placebo, but it doesn't matter, if you can hear a difference.

I know from my experience, tracing the reasons for a certain effect can take years to track down. A lot of individual research needs to be made, and very few of us mere listeners can afford, let alone have the space for certain pieces of test gear.

But to answer your question, I have recorded multiple discs from the same CDR batch and using the same recorder. I have frozen one copy in a regular freezer, one with dry ice, and one with a combination of dry ice and liquid nitrogen. And yes, I have done this at different times with different discs. I have friends who have also replicated the experiment, one being a PHD with a degree in molecular biology. We have no equipment available to measure any
difference other that our ears (and eyes in the case of a DVD)can offer.

What's holding you back? Galileo's experiment was not explained til Newton presents his great work many years later. Does that lack of explanation invalidate what he observed? Here the observation precedes the explanation, but much of science and technology developed from chance observation. Look at Fleming and the discovery of penicillin. There are many other happenstances in the world. Remember Descartes? If you only use what has a rational explanation, that's your prerogative, but what is the price of a little harmless experimentation? Why have to wait for someone else to do work that you can replicate easily?


Stu


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Signature Sound   [ Signature Sound Lounge ]


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • But Presto.... - unclestu52 23:29:02 04/11/07 (0)


You can not post to an archived thread.