Audio Banter - View Single Post

**Steven Sullivan** · November 3rd 06, 09:08 PM posted to uk.rec.audio,rec.audio.tech

In rec.audio.tech wrote:

Steven Sullivan wrote:
In rec.audio.tech wrote:

Steven Sullivan wrote:
In rec.audio.tech wrote:

Not at all. But then maybe iIm actually understanding what I read.

But not the parts about the limits of human hearing, or the sources of errors
in interpreting what is heard. These are what I was referring to as 'the
well-documented limitations of listening'.

Suffering from an identity crisis?

Not that I'm aware of...why would you think so, from the above
excerpt?

You should read up on them, they're *gold*.

I have actually. that is one of the many reasons I get such a laugh at
the idiots on Usenet and their complete misapplication and
misinerpretation of psychoacoustics. The idea that human hearing is
wrong while technical measurements are right when it comes to this
hobby is a prime example of that misapplication.

The idea is that human 'hearing' has well-known confounding factors to accuracy which create a
significant risk of 'hearing' differences that are purely imaginary, or misconstruing the
actual source of the difference. The other idea is that human hearing has natural limits in
terms of measurable quantities -- frequency, for example.

The most glaring, most prevalent, and most regularly-occuring 'misapplications' of these ideas
are, of course, found in the audiophile press and subjectivist audio forums, which tend to
ignore the consequences of the first idea , and always give secondary status to the latter
one, in favor of hypothetical factors which await scientific discovery.

So once again, your ire is grossly misplaced, if it's the misapplication of science
in the audio hobby that vexes you.

Yeah if the meter readers can't corilate the numbers to the aesthetic
experience there must be something wrong with the aesthetic expeience.

Hmm...did anyone *here* say that?

Pretty much.

Don't think so.

Even you are subject to Bias stevie. You se what you want to see.

I see what you want to see, too. It's quite obvious.

Do tell. What is it I want to to see? Share with us your insight.

You first.

the perception must bend to meet the expectations given to them by the
measurements.

Well, correlation of objective reality to subjective reality has its merits.
It allowed the creation of things like audio gear and recordings.

It did? I had no idea Edison was relying on that.

Well, maybe you should do some reading on his work, too, then.

How about filling us in?

Well for starters, Edison did these things called...*experiments*. If they didn't work, his
subjective wish that they did, wasn't an overriding factor.

Btw, are you aware that audio technology has advanced a bit since Edison's day?
Though of course, the sound of wax cylinders probably has its advocates even today.

interested in that than in promoting what they believe (often without basis)
are audible limitations of digital.

Maybe they are just looking for an explination for what they hear?

Oh, you mean, an objective correlate of their subjective experience? I thought that
was a nonstarter for you?

Maybe you are struggling with pronouns. When I say "they" i don't mean
"me."

Ah, you mean people like Keith,

No i don't.

my reply to whom set you off on this latest tirade.

tirade? Suffering from hypersensitivity? Did it really bother you that
much to be the sucker who set up my joke about meter readers all
sounding the same? It was just a poke.

Oh, snap, you got me again. I just don't get this sarcasm thing at all.

Pretty basic English don't you think? "I" don't worry so much
about explinations unless I think they can narrow the scope of things I
look out for when making purchases. "My" focus is on thr results not
the explanations for those results.

Scott, you'd do best not to chastise others for their command of English.
You've embarrassed yourself enough as is.

Big difference between speeling errors and mistakes like confusing
"they" with" I."

Scott, your defense of 'they' against mean old 'me' was that maybe 'they' were looking for an
explanation of what 'they' hear. All I did was point out the oddity that 'you'
would offer 'that' as a defense of 'them', since 'you' had already 'pretty much' claimed that
looking for explanations for what 'one' hears, is a chump's game.

But really I don't think it was as much a language
problem with you as it was the trappings of your prejudices. Like I
said, you see what you want to see, not what I actually write. You talk
about me embarrassing myself. OK put up or shut up. Without taking
something out of context cite one thing that I have said about the
subject of LPs v. Cds on this thread that you think was embarrassingly
wrong. only rules are it has to be about the subject, I had to actually
say it and you have to leave it in the context inwhich it was said.

Well, since you ask....

You embarrass yourself by losing your **** in public so floridly and often, when you aren't
muzzled by moderators. You embarrass yourself with your silly challenges and call-outs and
pathetic attempts to get people to play your word games. You embarrass yourself with your
often wince-making command of spelling and grammar, which simply can't be attributed to typos,
even as you're calling someone else a dumbass. You embarrass yourself by claiming to be
deeply amused (it comes off as angry, btw) by the misuse of science yet spending hardly a
titter on the jaw-dropping excesses of the audiophile press , manufacturers, and hobbyists in
that area. You embarrass yourself by presenting false choices as the only choices, because of
need to use words like *only*, such as when you wrote, in this thread:

"That is true if one of the following circumstances exist.
1. Your TT gear sucks
2. You are near deaf
3. You are so consumed by anti analog biases that it takes over your
judgement. "

But most of all you embarrass yourself the way all such as you do: by not realizing what a
train wreck you appear to be.

But you have hit on a wonderful example of the usefulness of explanations:
they help you evaluate the claims of advertisers and manufacturers. If the explanation is
technically or logically dubious, there's a good chance the claim is too.

That may or may not be.

Brilliantly observed. Next time, consider trying 'it is what it is'.

I've never really spent any time trying to study the
connection. But we aren't talking about that.

And there's the switch...you do that when you're on the ropes. But let's consider: how did we
get here? I'm pretty sure I was replying to *something* you wrote. If you're going to say
'you might be right, I don't know', you might at least include what I was *possibly
correcting* you about. I have a feeling it was something about the utility of explanations.

Would you say the same is
true of audiophiles? Would you say the claims of cause offered by
audiophiles in any way reflects the claims of theaesthetic experiences
that spawn those explanations?

It can reflect *on* the claims of aesthetic experience, certainly. What do you make of the
courtiers' oohs and aahs over the beauty of the Emperor's new clothes?

It's funny that having hit upon this, you backtracked immediately from it.

How did I back track?

It's pretty obvious in the original post. You really should consider including context.

if that is so terrible but attacking the perceptions as wrong because
they don't fit the meter reader's formulas is completely reasonable.

What's usually wrong is not the effort, but the execution. Vinylphile 'explanations' of
digital tend to be laughable nonsense.

But you love that don't you? makes you feel better about your faith in
the almighty meter.

Vinylphile stereotypes of the reality-based population tend to be laughable
nonsense too.

IOW yes.

Scott *in excelsis*.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason