17-Apr-2018, 07:30
I’ll put a different slant on things. I didn't have a big problem with Reichert's article when I first read it and I don't have a lot of problems with Archimegos's article but even if he's right about Reichert I think he's wrong about some of his own claims.
Archimago says “…I read Mr. Reichert's article as unrealistically divisive and unreasonably bitter when he calls out against the "Self-proclaimed audio objectivists, like those that troll audio forums, are not scientists, or audio professionals... They are pathologically self-centered people...". By doing this, he has created a fairytale, but more so, a logically flawed "strawman" whom he then sets off to attack as if there are legions of these narcissistic "audio objectivists" he needs to warn otherwise defenseless "subjectivist" audiophiles against.” I disagree about the fairytale and the straw man, the people Reichert describes do exist and I do think their point of view should be disputed.
I have no problems with measurements, they’re indispensible. We wouldn’t have the gear we have without our current grasp of theory and a lot of measurements but measurements are not the be all and end all. Measurements don’t prescribe how a piece of gear will sound, they help us to understand why it sounds the way it does. Science rests on 2 foundations, observation and measurement, and there is no science without either but when push comes to shove and there is a situation where the observations and the measurements don’t agree with each other, which wins? If the observations can be satisfactorily verified then the observations win, further research ensues and the current theory gets modified.
Another quote from Archimego, my main problem with his approach: “Do we actually think that respected "high end" hardware designers don't understand these underlying principles when they create good gear? Are these physical characteristics of sound not universal and apply to all audio engineers and circuit designers transculturally whether designed and built in the USA, the UK, Germany, or China?” I think our equipment designers do understand the current state of theory but read the reasons put forward by the designers of some very well accepted gear for why they designed it the way they did and you will find people who designed similar components going down quite different routes for quite different reasons, and even citing beliefs which are not a part of currently accepted theory as part of their reasons.
Can you get the result right if you have the principles wrong? Archimego’s questions imply that he thinks we can’t but the history of science is actually littered with centuries of examples of people getting the result right and the reason wrong. Our current understanding of gravity starts with Newton but for centuries before that people were designing things which made highly effective use of gravity while believing that the reason those things worked was because of something very different to our idea of gravity. Our current knowledge of infection starts with Pasteur and the recognition of bacteria and the role they played yet physicians were saving the lives of people with serious injuries through the use of techniques like cauterisation and the application of poultices with what we now know to be anti-bacterial properties for centuries before the existence of bacteria was known. The Wright Brothers achieved powered flight and their achievements were doubted because the theories current at the time said it could not be done. Scientists wrote and published papers claiming that the Wright Brothers flight was a hoax and supporting their claim with copies calculations from accepted theory, all correctly done; the only problem was that their theory was wrong. Planes had started to fly despite the fact that theory said they couldn’t. I’d say that what history shows us is that we all have a lot to thank those people who believed in the supposedly unbelievable, ignored the fact that they had no proof that what they were going to do could not be done, did what was regarded as impossible, and delivered us the world we enjoy living in today. It's easy to come up with more examples where people got it right while getting the theory wrong.
Do I think it's possible for an equipment designer to hear something that isn't currently by our current theories and come up with a design that actually sounds better while providing an account for why it sounds better which may be right but could also be wrong, even very wrong? Yes, I do think that's possible. People have been doing that for centuries and there's no reason to think that there will be no more examples of that sort of invention now or in the future.
Now to there general topic of measurements and their value.
I remember back somewhere around the 60s/70s seeing disputes in audio magazines between those who claimed that they could hear differences between some amplifiers with identical THD results and the responses of their opponents who claimed that any 2 amps with the same THD had to sound identical. THD was reported as a simple percentage at the time and THD results didn’t show the harmonic spectrum of the distortion being measured. We now know that odd and even order harmonic distortions sound different and that 2 amps with the same overall level of THD can and do sound different if the spectrum of the distortion is different. Flash forward to the early days of digital and there was a fight between those who claimed that they could hear differences between CD players with identical THD and IMD measurements and those who claimed that players that measured identically had to sound identical. Then someone identified jitter and we started measuring jitter. What do you know? CD players with identical THD and IMD can sound different.
It’s no use relying on measurements if you’re not measuring the right thing. I have a suspicion that most current test reports which include measurements don’t measure everything that can be measured because of time and money constraints, and we keep finding new and useful things to measure which reveal things we could not previously explain. Until the 90s time really wasn’t considered as relevant to many measurements but now we have jitter measurements and waterfall plots for speakers and our understanding of how things work has improved but most improvements involve something which was the subject of disputed observation for some time before the observations were accepted and understood. The fact that some observations aren’t generally accepted and aren’t understood clearly has never stopped people making practical use of those observations and no scientist is going to assure us that our current state of knowledge and understanding is complete. We’re all still learning and it’s a mistake to think that we’re always going to be in possession of all of the measurements needed to show that some claim is right. As they say in science, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Lack of proof does not mean you must be wrong, just that you can’t prove that you are right. You may be right, you may be wrong, and proving whether you are right or wrong is often nowhere near as simple as many people think.
You could be excused for thinking, having read the above, that I am one of those who believes that the “subjectivists” never get it wrong and that it’s only “self-proclaimed audio objectivists” who make mistakes. That’s not the case. Subjectivists make mistakes too. Neither side gets it right all of the time but anyone who asserts that a claim HAS to be wrong if it isn’t supported by current theory and measurements, or who asserts that it HAS to be right because a lot of people can hear a difference is making a claim that is wrong, most definitely wrong. Both sides get it right some of the time and both sides get it wrong some of the time.
Science proceeds from observation through measurement to theory and it’s worth remembering that while each individual observation made by an individual somewhere is nothing more than “anecdotal evidence” on it’s own, lots of pieces of “anecdotal evidence” gathered together, quantified and then processed, can form the measurements on which valid theory is based. Anecdotal evidence has been the start of a lot of science, in fact the evidence which provided the impetus for the activities which developed over many centuries into modern science was anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence should never be ignored but that doesn’t mean mean it should just be accepted blindly, it means it has to be tested and testing is a lot more difficult than many appreciate if it is to be done to a rigorous standard. If the testing pans out, then there’s something that is accepted and work on explaining and exploiting it reliably and effectively can proceed.
But that leaves the big question of how we should regard products which are claimed to produce results which have yet to be verified or are based on unaccepted theories. All we can do is to exercise caution. Some people will reject all such products and that means they’ll reject some products which do work and would benefit them. Some people will accept all such products and they’ll end up with some products which don’t deliver and end up wasting their money. The rest of us take a bet on some things and reject others based on a combination of what our ears tell us on one hand, what our thoughts and beliefs tell us on the other hand, and how much the thing costs and what we think our odds of getting the purchase decision right are. Get that decision right and we either have a product that enhances our listening enjoyment which we can enjoy while others are waiting for final proof that it works, or we have a lemon and a lighter wallet. Get it wrong and we’ve either got a wallet which still contains the cash that would enable us to buy the product we’ve rejected and aren’t enjoying even though it really does work, or we’ve avoided the lemon and still have cash in our wallet to use on other things which really do work. Notice that there are ways of getting the decision right or wrong regardless of whether the product actually works or not.
Archimago says “…I read Mr. Reichert's article as unrealistically divisive and unreasonably bitter when he calls out against the "Self-proclaimed audio objectivists, like those that troll audio forums, are not scientists, or audio professionals... They are pathologically self-centered people...". By doing this, he has created a fairytale, but more so, a logically flawed "strawman" whom he then sets off to attack as if there are legions of these narcissistic "audio objectivists" he needs to warn otherwise defenseless "subjectivist" audiophiles against.” I disagree about the fairytale and the straw man, the people Reichert describes do exist and I do think their point of view should be disputed.
I have no problems with measurements, they’re indispensible. We wouldn’t have the gear we have without our current grasp of theory and a lot of measurements but measurements are not the be all and end all. Measurements don’t prescribe how a piece of gear will sound, they help us to understand why it sounds the way it does. Science rests on 2 foundations, observation and measurement, and there is no science without either but when push comes to shove and there is a situation where the observations and the measurements don’t agree with each other, which wins? If the observations can be satisfactorily verified then the observations win, further research ensues and the current theory gets modified.
Another quote from Archimego, my main problem with his approach: “Do we actually think that respected "high end" hardware designers don't understand these underlying principles when they create good gear? Are these physical characteristics of sound not universal and apply to all audio engineers and circuit designers transculturally whether designed and built in the USA, the UK, Germany, or China?” I think our equipment designers do understand the current state of theory but read the reasons put forward by the designers of some very well accepted gear for why they designed it the way they did and you will find people who designed similar components going down quite different routes for quite different reasons, and even citing beliefs which are not a part of currently accepted theory as part of their reasons.
Can you get the result right if you have the principles wrong? Archimego’s questions imply that he thinks we can’t but the history of science is actually littered with centuries of examples of people getting the result right and the reason wrong. Our current understanding of gravity starts with Newton but for centuries before that people were designing things which made highly effective use of gravity while believing that the reason those things worked was because of something very different to our idea of gravity. Our current knowledge of infection starts with Pasteur and the recognition of bacteria and the role they played yet physicians were saving the lives of people with serious injuries through the use of techniques like cauterisation and the application of poultices with what we now know to be anti-bacterial properties for centuries before the existence of bacteria was known. The Wright Brothers achieved powered flight and their achievements were doubted because the theories current at the time said it could not be done. Scientists wrote and published papers claiming that the Wright Brothers flight was a hoax and supporting their claim with copies calculations from accepted theory, all correctly done; the only problem was that their theory was wrong. Planes had started to fly despite the fact that theory said they couldn’t. I’d say that what history shows us is that we all have a lot to thank those people who believed in the supposedly unbelievable, ignored the fact that they had no proof that what they were going to do could not be done, did what was regarded as impossible, and delivered us the world we enjoy living in today. It's easy to come up with more examples where people got it right while getting the theory wrong.
Do I think it's possible for an equipment designer to hear something that isn't currently by our current theories and come up with a design that actually sounds better while providing an account for why it sounds better which may be right but could also be wrong, even very wrong? Yes, I do think that's possible. People have been doing that for centuries and there's no reason to think that there will be no more examples of that sort of invention now or in the future.
Now to there general topic of measurements and their value.
I remember back somewhere around the 60s/70s seeing disputes in audio magazines between those who claimed that they could hear differences between some amplifiers with identical THD results and the responses of their opponents who claimed that any 2 amps with the same THD had to sound identical. THD was reported as a simple percentage at the time and THD results didn’t show the harmonic spectrum of the distortion being measured. We now know that odd and even order harmonic distortions sound different and that 2 amps with the same overall level of THD can and do sound different if the spectrum of the distortion is different. Flash forward to the early days of digital and there was a fight between those who claimed that they could hear differences between CD players with identical THD and IMD measurements and those who claimed that players that measured identically had to sound identical. Then someone identified jitter and we started measuring jitter. What do you know? CD players with identical THD and IMD can sound different.
It’s no use relying on measurements if you’re not measuring the right thing. I have a suspicion that most current test reports which include measurements don’t measure everything that can be measured because of time and money constraints, and we keep finding new and useful things to measure which reveal things we could not previously explain. Until the 90s time really wasn’t considered as relevant to many measurements but now we have jitter measurements and waterfall plots for speakers and our understanding of how things work has improved but most improvements involve something which was the subject of disputed observation for some time before the observations were accepted and understood. The fact that some observations aren’t generally accepted and aren’t understood clearly has never stopped people making practical use of those observations and no scientist is going to assure us that our current state of knowledge and understanding is complete. We’re all still learning and it’s a mistake to think that we’re always going to be in possession of all of the measurements needed to show that some claim is right. As they say in science, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Lack of proof does not mean you must be wrong, just that you can’t prove that you are right. You may be right, you may be wrong, and proving whether you are right or wrong is often nowhere near as simple as many people think.
You could be excused for thinking, having read the above, that I am one of those who believes that the “subjectivists” never get it wrong and that it’s only “self-proclaimed audio objectivists” who make mistakes. That’s not the case. Subjectivists make mistakes too. Neither side gets it right all of the time but anyone who asserts that a claim HAS to be wrong if it isn’t supported by current theory and measurements, or who asserts that it HAS to be right because a lot of people can hear a difference is making a claim that is wrong, most definitely wrong. Both sides get it right some of the time and both sides get it wrong some of the time.
Science proceeds from observation through measurement to theory and it’s worth remembering that while each individual observation made by an individual somewhere is nothing more than “anecdotal evidence” on it’s own, lots of pieces of “anecdotal evidence” gathered together, quantified and then processed, can form the measurements on which valid theory is based. Anecdotal evidence has been the start of a lot of science, in fact the evidence which provided the impetus for the activities which developed over many centuries into modern science was anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence should never be ignored but that doesn’t mean mean it should just be accepted blindly, it means it has to be tested and testing is a lot more difficult than many appreciate if it is to be done to a rigorous standard. If the testing pans out, then there’s something that is accepted and work on explaining and exploiting it reliably and effectively can proceed.
But that leaves the big question of how we should regard products which are claimed to produce results which have yet to be verified or are based on unaccepted theories. All we can do is to exercise caution. Some people will reject all such products and that means they’ll reject some products which do work and would benefit them. Some people will accept all such products and they’ll end up with some products which don’t deliver and end up wasting their money. The rest of us take a bet on some things and reject others based on a combination of what our ears tell us on one hand, what our thoughts and beliefs tell us on the other hand, and how much the thing costs and what we think our odds of getting the purchase decision right are. Get that decision right and we either have a product that enhances our listening enjoyment which we can enjoy while others are waiting for final proof that it works, or we have a lemon and a lighter wallet. Get it wrong and we’ve either got a wallet which still contains the cash that would enable us to buy the product we’ve rejected and aren’t enjoying even though it really does work, or we’ve avoided the lemon and still have cash in our wallet to use on other things which really do work. Notice that there are ways of getting the decision right or wrong regardless of whether the product actually works or not.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
