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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: Seeking advice from engineers posted by PranaBindu on February 1, 2006 at 23:27:50:
My best advice for you is to concentrate on first principles - engineering is _not_ about training you to use the latest tools (ie software) to help you solve problems (as seems to be the trend in education these days). Your education should give you the ability to _develop_ said tools at least conceptually.The first thing to remember is that engineering is about learning to solve problems by breaking them up into tractable components while keeping an entire system view. Sure there is a lot of technical detail about individual subjects but you are there to learn how to _learn_. You will also get a sense that everything is based on a model and every model is a comprimise sometimes involving an incredible amount of complexity.
Most of my engineering exams were open book - and that drives home the point - the problems you had to solve could never be directly transcribed or derived form what was in the book - you needed to understand what was going on, be creative, and formulate the solution yourself. Hopefully where you will be going will follow this approach.
From an audiophile perspective some things become obvious:
1) Stringing together best-of-breed components does not necesarily give you a best-of-breed system.
2) Much of the "unexplainable" behaviour is unexplainable because our models for everything from signal transmission to aural perception may not be accurate enough in some respects.
3) You room is probably the biggest source of variability in a system. A great system may sound terrible in a room because of what it _can_ do and a mediocre system may sound better in the same room because of what it _can't_ do! The system includes _everything_ - that is the basic rule of engineering.
IMHO, the audiophile norm of trying to pick a bunch of the "best" components make little sense from an engineering perspective. Check out the latest Soundstage editorial about "extreme synergy" at a newish trend in audiophilia at a closed system approach.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Seeking advice from engineers - macaque 04:41:34 02/04/06 (0)
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