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Slagle is the actual scientist here...

The scientific method is, in fact, conventional.

Objectivity is a cultural construct and, hence, subjective at base.

Man has no way to interface with the world except through culture. This is just the way we are. Science was collectively wanked into existence like Mormonism, blues, and tic-tac-toe.

Science, Mormonism, and blues change a lot..thank god tic-tac-toe is a constant... At least I hope so!

Culture runs deep --and, yes, cultural perceptions can seem natural and real-- but it is largely arbitrary. Cultural notions may conform to and offer plausible explanations for perceptible criteria, and people acting out cultural predilections fashion tangible worlds that appear to uphold cultural beliefs, but it is all a creative contingent overlay.

The subjective/objective split was hot stuff in 1648, but much progress in thinking has been made since Descartes. Philosophy of science for the last 100 years has taken the cultural basis of scientific inquiry into account more and more. Thinkers have pretty much given up on the billiard ball deterministic universe, We now know it is probabilistic, relativistic, and the observation of the world changes it. There is no perch from which to be "objective."

Once people are involved, with their preferences and tastes, varying acuities, and deep seated cultural understandings, the old tarnished mechanistic notions of science are even further out the door.

When music aesthetics is involved, science can play a supporting role, but that is about it. The proper basis for evaluation shifts to qualities appropriate to the goals, i.e. listening.

Chris, your top-down deductive approach is wrong minded and blinding you to learning experiences. You might measure a foot of silver and a foot of Home Depot copper with a Fluke (or look up resistance in a book without ever touching a piece of wire) and say there is no point in even listening for differences...but this is a wrong turn.

I assert that some silver wire in some situations does sound demonstrably different from copper.

On several occasions I have heard transformers with the exact same core and winding geometry and the silver sounded a LOT different (and better in these cases).

You guys are ragging on Slagle but he does empirical hands-on experiments (along with modeling) and you are resting on simplistic models of how the world "should" be.

In fact, at the last RMAF Slagle did stage such an experiment as described above. Blind A-B test of silver vs. copper step up trans. 10-12 mostly experienced audio pros in the room. The differences were clear to all of us within seconds. Vast difference. Repeated several times. Same findings.

You might say this impossible because your Fluke says so, but if you were there and did not hear the manifest difference(I'll hold off on 'better'), I would have to say you were flat-out deaf.

I did the same experiment with transformers made by Silvercore in Germany. Good German copper and 5N vacuum drawn silver. Same VAST difference.

I think that instead of "objective" what you all must be talking about is "empirical"...i.e. you want some empirically-based explanation.

That's cool...but how about getting off your fat lazy science book @$$ and doing some experiments and making observations...bracket out preconceived notions and listen to some of this stuff!

I can not explain on paper why silver sounded different in these cases but I can show you that it does or you can demonstrate it to yourself.

Oddly, the staunchest self-declared "objectivists" refuse to do experiments because they don't think they have to. Ironic.

Well the way science works, it goes both ways deductive/reasoning from general law and inductive/reasoning from particular cases. Observation of particular cases suggests problems with the general theory or models which requires revising the theory.

This is not a defense of crazy scientistic theories offered here and there to explain perceptions but a call to do the experiments.

Since music listening is the proper use of audio gear, this should be the proper test situation as well. Otherwise we are testing for the wrong things.

Admittedly, our ears are not scientific instruments...but that is precisely the point.

Saying people are imagining everything that isn't explained in Physics 101 because human perception is variable and tricky is a cop out.

Audio is totally about human aesthetic perception so we can't shy away from that. We must embrace it.

People who have never heard X have very little credibility on how X sounds or doesn't sound. Nothing one can read will change that.

Heed the call of empirical investigation, get off the damn computer, and experiment, experience, learn!


I remember my good friend John Camille talking about the day he heard differences in power cords. Camille was a scientist type of guy. His main hobby was "souping up" test gear.

He could not believe it or understand it, but he heard differences in wire. Did he deny it because he couldn't explain it? No. did he come up with a wacky pseudo-science explanation? No. Did he try to measure the hell out of wire with the best spectrum analyzers and selective voltmeters he could get? Yes. Did he find anything? Nothing conclusive in any way.

I think John was comfortable with the idea that "knowing that" and "knowing how" are two different things. Maybe a bridge can be discovered but the fact that that bridge does not yet exist does not invalidate "knowing that" wire can sound different.


Slagle is out there doing experiments, listening, doing measurements, running models. He is one of the top empirical scientists on the forum. Dr. Dave.

He might not have all the answers but he has a lot of very good questions.



------------------------------

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein

Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic



Edits: 09/01/12

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