In Reply to: "How Does One *Prove* You Can Hear Different Cables" posted by Caymus on May 12, 2006 at 15:10:01:
"Just because you THINK you heard something does not mean it’s real."In my book scientific observation always starts with DESCRIBING, if not DEFINING, and CALIBRATING your instrument of observation. In a hearing test the instrument of observation is not a microscope or telescope or a scintillation detector as used in particle physics, but the ear-brain system.
How do we describe and define and calibrate the ear-brain system? You cannot use a microscope without knowing HOW IT WORKS. But the dbt-taliban always uses the ear-brain system WITHOUT KNOWING HOW IT WORKS. The reason they don't know PRECISELY how it works, is that NOBODY KNOWS PRECISELY HOW IT WORKS.
So the dbt-taliban uses a NOT-WELL-DEFINED measurement instrument. Like measuring lengths with a mumbter instead of a meter. How long is the mumbter? Well, more or less this long (spreads out his arms somewhat), but the length varies with temperature, humidity, age of the observer, etc.
So far for the "scientific" attitude of the dbt-taliban.
A second problem with dbt's is that it becomes increasingly UNclear what you are testing. Is it the sound of the amp or cable or amp plus cable, OR is it the quality of your hearing?
So what is the device under test? Is is the cable, or is it the ear-brain system?That's why they ALWAYS mix things up. Instead of talking about how the cable sounds (what it does to the sound, to be more precise), they always and endlessly talk about what you hear. So they SUGGEST that it's the cable that is under test, but in their book it is in the end ALWAYS the hearing system that is under test.
Well, I have NO PROBLEM AT ALL with hearing tests, but let's then make the ear the subject of the test and let's not swap cables and the like, but let's test pre-masking, post-masking, pitch detection, loudness level in relation to critical bandwidth and so on.
That the previous poster is a scientific poseur becomes clear when he talks about the difference between "what you hear" and "what you THINK that you hear". This is one of the pets of the dbt-taliban that shows, fortunately for the rest of mankind, their utter incompetence in matters of psycho-acoustics.
Because, as we do NOT hear with our ears, but with our brain, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEARING AND THINKING TO HEAR. It is the same thing. ALL hearing is thinking that you hear something. That is the DEFINITION of hearing: becoming conscious of sounds.
"Becoming conscious" is BY DEFINITION a thought process, the result of processing information in the brain, that is, of THINKING.So when the dbt-taliban objects to your statements and sayss that you THINK that you hear something, they actually complain that you HEAR something. The reason they complain is that they themselves HEAR nothing. -They can't tell a trumpet from a jet plane.
It's jealousy, envy, malice and spite that makes them tick. They are a poor lot.
Ernesto.
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Follow Ups
- Re: "How Does One *Prove* You Can Hear Different Cables" - ernstr@xs4all.nl 18:09:17 05/13/06 (4)
- So you solve scientific problems "by definition!" ROFL - Pat D 20:14:49 05/14/06 (0)
- Re: "How Does One *Prove* You Can Hear Different Cables" - andy19191 00:04:44 05/14/06 (2)
- Bad choice! This is not a power of suggestion/bias demonstration, - bjh 16:35:54 05/15/06 (1)
- Re: Bad choice! This is not a power of suggestion/bias demonstration, - andy19191 23:49:08 05/15/06 (0)