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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

It doesn't matter. Do you understand that point?


So, the truth doesn't matter to you. Understood.


Surely you're not so naive as to believe that science is about 'truth'?
It's certainly not. It's about predictive power and repeatability. This
is elementary philosophy of science.

The rest of your post is irrelevant, and if you believe that science is
about truth that means we can no longer continue this discussion.
Science provides 'instrumental knowledge', not 'truth'.
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 8 Oct 2005 22:27:19 GMT, wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

It doesn't matter. Do you understand that point?

So, the truth doesn't matter to you. Understood.


Surely you're not so naive as to believe that science is about 'truth'?


It would be naive to think otherwise.

It's certainly not. It's about predictive power and repeatability. This
is elementary philosophy of science.


Quite so - it's about establishing what is true, and what is mere
speculation. This is highly relevant to this newsgroup.

[ Moderator's note: It may be relevant, but it is likely to be boring
to others unless it includes actual audio themes, so please return to
an audio discussion. -- deb ]

The rest of your post is irrelevant, and if you believe that science is
about truth that means we can no longer continue this discussion.
Science provides 'instrumental knowledge', not 'truth'.


It tells what is most likely to be true.



The truth about 'truth' is that in any inductive generalization, all
you can achieve is a high degree of probability. But, each iteration is
wholly unrelated to the others. Flipping a fair coin 1000 times may
yield 1000 heads in a row, without influencing the next flip.

What science can accomplish is never more than 'appoximate truth'. If
two hypotheses are equally accurrate in predicting outcomes (at least
within a certain domain), they are both equally true. In
non-relativistic situations, the accuracy of Newtonian and Eisteinian
physics are quite equal. Only at near light-speed does Newtonian
physics fail.

If, in my experience, the cables show a high degree of correlation with
a percieved sonic difference, whereas Optrix does not (when handled in
a similar fashion) the probability is greater that the audible
difference is in the product than 'in my head'. In other qords, $100
Monster Cable is actually better than $50 Monster Cable, but Optrix is
worthless. This is so self-evident that it defies belief that you would
contradict it.

Your account is simply insufficient. Claiming 'bias' simply won't work,
because you need another layer of explanation to explain why the 'bias'
works sometimes and sometimes does not...reminds me of wheels within
wheels within wheels....

[ Moderator's note: Speaking of "wheels within wheels", this subthread
has become extremely circular and repetitive. No more posts will be
accepted for it unless something rather different is posted. -- deb ]
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 6 Oct 2005 02:38:23 GMT, wrote:

Steven Sullivan wrote:

Not important at this point in the argument. Pinkerton denies that I
heard the difference. He cannot do that.

He denies you heard a real difference. He doesn't deny that you
*think*
you heard a difference.

Proof?


He is correct, that is my position. Since you refuse to do a blind
test, you have no way of knowing which is true.


It doesn't matter. Do you understand that point?

But *physically*, not at all necessarily equivalent. Not all beliefs
are true.

But in this case it does not matter. If it is IN PRINCIPLE impossible
to distinguish between:

A) A cable that ALWAYS sounds better because of something in the
listener
B) A cable that ALWAYS sounds better because of something in the cable

what difference does it make? The observed phenomena are the same.


Rather than being impossible, it is in fact very easy to make such a
distinction - you remove from the listener only the *knowledge* of
which cable is connected. If they remain distinguishable, then it's
something in the cable.


Consider the computer in 2001, HAL. Let's say HAL predicts a component
failure. Dave goes out to replace the component and finds that it is,
in fact, defective. Is HAL right or not? Let's say HAL does this with a
100% success rate. Later, we find out that HAl had no way of knowing
that the component would fail. Does that make HAL wrong?

It does not matter! If the correlation is 100%, that's all that matters
in science!

No, that is not where the answer lies, because things *other than*
the actual sound can still highly influence the 'perception' -- enough
so that one can still come to the 100% wrong conclusion about whether
the sound is different or not.

Read my lips: It does not matter.


Perhaps not to you as part of a buying decision, but when you insist
on claiming - as you have done - that it's due to some audible
property of the cable, then you come unstuck.


I'm claiming that if the perceived difference correlates exactly with
the presence of the cable in my system over a period of many trials,
and that similarly-conducted trials of other products have shown NO
differences at all for some products, that there is nothing wrong with
the method per se. I have repeatedly stated that I have found no sonic
differences at all with a spray-on cleaner whose producer made
extravagent claims for it. I tried this product in exactly the same
manner as the cable, and founfd it utterly worthless.

So, now you have to explain how 'my head' not only can make differences
in cable that appear only when the cable is in my system, but also
refrain from doing so when the CD's are cleaned with the wonder-cleaner
Optrix. The simpler explanation is that the products are responsible
for what I hear or don't hear.

Optrix made no difference whatsoever. The cables did.

http://www.amusicdirect.com/products...sp?sku=AOPTRIX

Do you understand how this presents a problem for your hypothesis?

It's Occam's razor time!


There are only 2 possibile ways changing cables can make an audible change,
that I'm aware of.

1. The termianls were not clean and the changing of them removed oxidation
that was incrfeasing resistance. This would likely only change the sound
when the new cables were first installed.

2. One pair of cables is so different in gauge that its resistance causes
an audible change, but it would have to at least a 20% difference IIRC.

If the cables you are discussing do not fall into one of those 2 categories,
then any change you percieve is perception and nothing but you wanting it to
be that way. The only way to be sure is do a blind comparison. where you
don't know which cable is which.


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