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Re: Audio academe is embodied by the AES. Have you read their Journal lately? If so...

Posted by May Belt (M) on April 4, 2007 at 14:33:02

In Reply to: Audio academe is embodied by the AES. Have you read their Journal lately? If so... posted by clarkjohnsen on April 4, 2007 at 08:36:58:

>>> "Please find below the Middle Section of the Article by Robert Jahn published in Journal of Scientific Exploration:

Even more seriously, it is an establishment that persists in frenetically sweeping legitimate genres of new anomalous phenomena under its intellectual carpet, thereby denying its own well-documented heritage that anomalies are the most precious raw material from which future science is formed.

And for this intellectual crusade we have very little science in hand: very little vocabulary, a scant concept base, and few mechanics, assessment criteria, or experimental facilities. Another major intellectual break-out, of a scale, vision, and courage comparable to that of the quantum era, is required to start science rolling forward again.

What should be the character of this break-out? First to be emphasized is that we do not need any destructive revolution that discards sound scientific methodology or threatens systematic scientific logic. Rather, we require an evolutionary broadening and deepening of the scientific venue and perspective,

But to extend such provincially circumscribed correlations into more universal theoretical formulations representative of the global interplay of mind and matter will require far more expansive and courageous scholarly creativity. " <<<<

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I think the relevant quotes above, researched courtesy of Geoff Kait, give a very succinct example of the kind of attitude you and John Curl have described, of such an organisation as the AES and even of so many members of the audio industry.

As I have pointed out before, one of the key sentences is "anomalies are the most precious raw material from which future science is formed." If such as the AES (and certain members of the audio industry) cannot even acknowledge or allow to be discussed so called 'tweaks or mods' then they will never know what problems are lurking - waiting in the undergrowth - to undermine the very foundation of their knowledge Just at the moment they are feeling secure - clutching their scientific security blanket.

If these people will not take notice of what others' observations and experiences are (should be) telling them, then the majority of people wanting to gain so much pleasure from listening to music will just be floundering in the dark Numerous people, all over the world, with all manner of different audio equipment are describing such improvements in their sound as to appear unbelievable. When is the world of audio going to sit up and take notice and investigate ? What is unbelievable is not what people are reporting but the phenomena that is happening, that is affecting the 'sound' and that people are deliberately IGNORING !!!

If the majority of audio engineers believe that ALL problems stem from what such as capacitance, resistance, inductance, the dielectric effect, microphony, static, RF interference etc etc are doing to the audio signal and that they - the engineers - (technically) have these problems covered then, obviously, the problems which 'tweaks and mods' are uncovering are regarded as just a divergence that NON engineers are introducing and 'muddying the waters with' !!!! What they are not realising is that the 'tweaks and mods' are exposing anomalies - and if there are anomalies, then that means that ALL IS NOT KNOWN and ALL IS NOT UNDERSTOOD. I cannot make it plainer than that !!!

When someone does something unusual and finds that it gives an improvement in the sound, when no improvement was expected, then that means that prior to doing whatever it was, there MUST HAVE BEEN a problem which has just been exposed !!!! A problem now highlighted because it had been removed to some extent. But, if the AES and other audio engineers WILL NOT investigate these reported happenings, then they will never know that there is a problem (correction - many problems) to investigate !!!

To give some examples. If you can 'de-magnetize' a CD or a vinyl record, or a cable and gain an improvement in the sound i.e. (if you can hear an improvement in the sound, then this means that you are now hearing additional information which allows the working memory to create a better sound picture) then this means that there was a problem there previously which had not been identified, which had not been known about, which had not been recognised - UNTIL !!! This is the anomaly issue I keep referring to. Something which happens which goes against known beliefs, which goes against contemporary knowledge and against expectations. Which, to any good scientist, should ring sirens !!! Sirens which say "We should investigate." And, even more particularly, should ring sirens in the minds of people who profess to be involved with SOUND !!!

If you can apply a chemical to the label side of a CD, to the labels of vinyl records, to the outer insulation of cables and gain an improvement in the sound, then this means that there was a problem there previously which had not been identified, which had not been known about, which had not been recognised - UNTIL !!! Again, another anomaly. Again, something which should ring sirens !!! Sirens in the minds of people who profess to be involved with SOUND !!!
These are just two of numerous other anomalies !!

Read about peoples' observations and their descriptions of the improvements they have heard when doing some of the most unusual things. They cannot ALL be dismissed as "suggestion, the placebo effect, imagination, mood changes, audio faith healing, effective marketing".

It is too easy for people to dismiss others' observations that they heard improvement in the sound. If people only describe their experience as "the sound was better", then yes, it COULD easily be dismissed as imagination etc but when they give detailed descriptions of greater spread of the music, greater height, greater depth, greater width, better separation of musical instruments, then those descriptions cannot be achieved solely with IMAGINATION. Would that it could !!!

The people who have experienced all these improvements by doing something extremely unusual know that they have entered what the scientist Michio Kaku refers to as the "land of three dimensions" which the Flatlanders (the people who only know the experience of living in a two dimensional world) just cannot understand what the others are describing !! Once you have experienced the three dimensional world, then you can no longer use the sentences which belong in the land of two dimensions. Obviously, as the members of the AES have been described, they do not seem to have any understanding of what happens in the land of three dimensions, do not seem to even know that there is such a world and, it would also appear, neither do the engineers who hang onto their every word and believe that they must be an all knowing, all seeing special tribe of people !!
Regards,
May Belt.

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