WBF: How Much Science Talk Do You Want to See?
- Thread starter amirm
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Amir, I encourage you to continue being yourself and speaking out for your beliefs and sharing your knowledge, I for one deeply appreciate the way you do it.
This is not a political race where your need to endear the masses, it is a forum where people interested in 'The best' (usually around A/V) can congregate and debate, share and learn.
Yeah, and if someone prefers reading fiction, there are plenty of threads for that.
Tim
Maybe someone could make a movie called "Audiophile Pulp Fiction". We already have plenty of writing in the genre, just need it made into a script and then movie.
Thank you Northstar--yes---voted pink/mauve, but sit close enough to yellow. I mentioned in my first post (in WBF and the thread) that I actually joined after "lurking" for over a year specifically to vote in the poll after reading the thread and the conversation(s) that prompted it. I've read Amirm on other sites over the last couple years, including in discussions going more than 5 years back in various forums, and that drew me here to just read, really.
Though music/recording/audio gear have been the most important inanimate
interests in my life since I was 6 years old (loved my magnavox and my Walt Disney records), I hadn't ever spent time on audio sites other than a rare visit over the years. They really popped up after I left the biz. I kept up on all the audio mags all those years, however, until a couple years ago. Now it's only Stereophile (subscriber) other than random acquisitions. My love of music and hifi gear has never waned, while operating on an ever-tightening budget. The last two years I have been reading regularly on a half-dozen sites and a few months ago I joined Head-Fi & CA for specific purchase-related education. Backtracking, there was one point around '98 or so when I would read on rec.audiohighend site (I think that was the name). That was where I first saw the kind of horror shows forums could be. While this is kind of a watering hole for the elite, gear wise and experience in high-end manufacturing/retail wise, I think it's a great place to read for folks like me, too.
Way more than you needed to know?
I will now attempt to fade back into the shadows and enjoy your posts. Thanks for making me feel welcome so quickly.
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Yeah, and if someone prefers reading fiction, there are plenty of threads for that.
Tim
Tim, I love your work here and as a supporter of good science I regularly value your point of view but this thing of referring to subjective views on experience as just being fiction is a distortion.
If people write with honesty on an experience then this is a valid and valuable form of evidence and can contribute to understanding.
All evidence has limitations and subjective testimony is much better qualified if the context of the experience is outlined but since when has the testimony of people in relaying an experience qualified only as fiction. It is reporting or testimonial but it isn't fiction unless people are lying.
In truth we are probably in as much danger of being misled from poorly applied science that takes science fact into science fiction.
You guys regularly give us great science here and lots of valuable insight and from this we can all learn much but I don't get how the purist measurement lobby is at all well served or even why it even needs to write off the value and integrity of the human experience just to prove a point.
People sharing their science and people sharing their experience is the ideal, both ultimately lead us to deeper understanding though I also understand how it can get a bit frustrating and messy for all those arguing across the illusion of the great divide.
Graham
Agreed. Most of the subjective comments here are peoples' experience, and valuable as that. The true fiction is less common, but not unseen. And I find it better to treat it with humor than outrage.
Tim
Is the forum harmed by the polls?
Is data on the myriad views in a forum a negative?
I am interested in what engineers have to say about the electronics, but only understand it to the extent that my knowledge of Ohms Law allows. To whom I listen depends on the extent to which they combine "experimentalism" with electrical theory. I prefer builders/manufacturers who combine the two, understanding at the same time that not everyone has the same preferences for all characteristics of sound. One of my amplifiers - of which i am very fond - is made by a gentleman who has no training in electrical theory (or so he says), but has been building stuff since the SET revival in the US began and his equipment is very much in favor in the SET community. I have another gentleman, an engineer, in mind, who has both the training and experience to build according to theory and to test with both his ears and measurements. He also makes very highly regarded SET equipment.
It can be if the data is not statistically valid and some regard it as if it were. Of course, none of us would do that! :b
+1. It seems clear from the poll results that there is no great divide and that those who rely on listening but also appreciate the audio science and those for whom the audio science is critical but also listen, are the vast majority of voters.
It seems that the combination of listening and appreciation for audio science is the basis for a better better understanding of our hobby. It is also interesting to see how as posts to this thread continue, the poll results are changing and the two majority lines are getting closer. In the analog/digital poll, the 2:1 ratio remained fairly constant.
In all the recent polls the pattern has been pretty clear after the first 10 votes. I look at choices 3 and 4 here as pretty similar; I think the word "critical" in choice 4 is a little iffy (I think "important" is probably more appropriate, but that may be just me).
Very true. It is why science must be debated. Few people are aware that science must be falsifiable or refutable.
Peter,
It is a foreseen result. Everyone loves science in debates but very few apply it totally in practice. Most people pick the part of the science that pleases them but find great pleasure tweaking their system to their sighted preference.
I couldn't find the corresponding thread you referenced on the digital analog forum. But, I am going to assume that's 2:1 for "science". I can understand that if the majority of respondents prefer over-sampling Dacs. This science of filtering is truly baffling to me. I can do the math fairly well, but I can't visualize (and am bored by) the issues being addressed in the math. I also am an owner of an Audio Note (UK) Dac, so I guess I fall on the side of the "corner solution" all experience, NOS crowd.
I decide by listening. That said, if I have trouble differentiating between two products, I might research the science to understand what I am or am not hearing. And at this point in my life, if the audible improvements are VERY VERY difficult to consistently hear (to my old ears) then I don't care what the science says - I don't buy!
An example of this(not to start a pi$$ing contest) is most all high rez music I've downloads. The science says it's better, but to my ears (sighted or blind) I cannot consistently hear the "improvements".
An example of this(not to start a pi$$ing contest) is most all high rez music I've downloads. The science says it's better, but to my ears (sighted or blind) I cannot consistently hear the "improvements".
