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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: Answer My Specific Question. posted by thetubeguy1954 on May 15, 2006 at 10:56:07:
> C'mon now. How can you say "Without providing sufficient information
> about what was actually done nobody can explain your results without
> speculation/guessing." When I wrote down EXACTLY what was done, step
> by step, via step 1-6.No you omitted many things of importance.
The first concerns the levels, if they were not within about 0.1dB then you will be interpreting small level differences as subjective differences. Not surprisingly, the loudest is almost always interpretted as superior. Since you made no attempt to address this it has invalidated the results of the experiment.
You and your friend had a knowledge of which cables were in place and that a change had definitely taken place. This is almost certain to predispose you (and me) to hear a change. There is no mechanism in the experiment to quantify this (and similar visual/cerebal influences) and back it out of the results to leave the unbiased audible difference.
You did not perform a basic check to see if a small difference can consistently be perceived and no difference can consistently not be perceived. This is straightforward in a blind test but more difficult in a sighted test. It is harder to hear small differences in the presence of distortions typical of home audio systems and in the presence of indirect sound. Knowing where this threshold is for your system is required in order to interpret the results.
In a valid experiment controls would be used.
You have not reported details of the experiment such as the cables and their electrical parameters, the source, amplifier and output impedance, speaker and its input impedance and the room. This is required in order to highlight and understand any anomalies.
You have not "done the numbers" to determine what differences would be predicted from the simple electrical laws you probably learned in school. Again, this is required in order to highlight any anomalies.
You have not reported the results of the experiment except in anecdotal form. In real experiments the results can often be useful long after the initial conclusions drawn have been shown to be false.
I am sure I have missed at least as many problems as I have found in your experiment.
> I'm very interested in how one who hears differences in cables could
> prove to someone else they actually hear this difference, without
> the usual ABX, DBT arguements.You need to establish that the differences you have perceived are due to the change in cables and not other factors. Since you have admitted so many other factors into your original experiment as well as the change in cable this is obviously not possible without repeating the experiment in a more controlled manner.
The rules for doing this are governed by the "scientific method". If you are perverse enough to want to perform sighted tests then the experiment becomes very difficult and less accurate because of more variables but is still possible at least for cables.
The key difficulty is probably how to introduce controls. You would need to be able to control independently the cable connections and the sound received at the ear. That is, when cable A is connected and seen to be connected the subject may hear either the sound for cable A or that for cable B. This could be achieved by visual deception and some form of switch or, more tidily, by using a DSP to swap the transfer function of one of the cables for the other. For a passive device like a cable this is unlikely to be particularly difficult and is straightforward to check since the test would be for identical signals.
> I haven't heard an original comment from one Objectivist yet.
I am afraid that is the fault of science. Annoyingly those that take the time to study what mankind has already discovered tend to end up learning the same thing. Of course, it is much more interesting when people can just make things up but the scientific method tends to put something of a dampener on all that.
> They all site what others did and others wrote,
Yes, I am afraid that is how science works. It tries to come up with laws and reasoning in order to avoid having to perform an experiment every time you want to know something.
> but I'm speaking from direct experience. I did steps 1-6 above
> personally and came to my own conclusions. I believed I wouldn't
> hear differences in cables and was shocked by just how much of a
> difference I heard.Indeed and instead of concluding: oh I am new at this and might have cocked this up since all these studious scientific types and all these well established physical laws taught in schools and universities predict something else. You concluded: I am right and all these studious scientific types and all these well established physical laws taught in schools and universities are wrong. This is ignorance/arrogance bordering on the completely bonkers.
> I am not angry but find it insulting that you and other Objectivists
> would dispute what I KNOW I've heardAs far as I know nobody is disputing what you heard. What they are disputing is your conclusion that it is cable changes and not other factors you introduced in your experiment that are responsible.
> as you site your DBT, ABX,
I have not cited blind testing beyond pointing out that it is somewhat perverse to avoid it since it knocks out a lot of unwanted biasing influences.
> Few of you talk from your own direct tests.
Again we are back to science and how it works. In many ways a scientist/engineer has failed if they have to resort to expensive experimentation to determine something that is already well established by science. The point of science is to explain via cheap predictions what is going to happen.
> You might not like my experiment, but at least I attempted to prove
> something to and for myself!Now this I can fully agree with.
> In doing this and the resulting shocking conclusions
No they are not shocking, they are just wrong because you do not understand that you have not measured what you think you have measured because the experiment was badly flawed.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Answer My Specific Question. - andy19191 14:01:31 05/15/06 (0)
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