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#361
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
If Karl senses that A possesses x, and that B does not possess x, then he can tell that they are different. QED. If what you were saying were true, then why would time-distal testing be unreliable? The question is whether, if we receive different information on two occasions, we must as a matter of psychological fact be able to judge *that* they are different, and be able to do so in the context of a test. Suppose you have two signals, A and B, each of which lasts one minute. Consider the following statements. (1) On comparison of corresponding short snippets, you are not conscious of a difference between any short snippet of A and the corresponding snippet of B. (2) The information you extract from A, upon listening to it in its entirety, is exactly the same as the information you extract from B, upon listening to it in its entirety. Does (2) *follow* from (1), given everything we know about psychology? Two issues are relevant he we are not always conscious of information processed in perception, and the information we extract from a signal that extends over time may or may not be the same as the sum of what we extract from short snippets in a testing situation. Now consider (3): (3) The information you are *conscious* of when you listen to A in its entirety is exactly the same as the information you are conscious of when you listen to B in its entirety. Again, does (3) follow from (1)? I do not see how it does. What we are conscious of is the tip of the iceberg. Not being conscious of a difference in (1) is consistent with extracting different information in (2). And if the total information you extract is different, there is no assurance that the information you will be conscious of (a portion of the total information) will be exactly the same. Moreover, although what we are conscious of on listening to A in its entirety may not be the same as what we are conscious of on listening to B in its entirety, that they are not the same cannot be shown directly through any properly constructed ABX test, since those things cannot be compared in a time-proximate way. But the proposition that they are the same (or different) is not unfalsifiable, since there can be indirect evidence for it. Mark |
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#362
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 11 Aug 2005 00:05:50 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 9 Aug 2005 00:03:16 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: What does "work" mean here? By now, you should not have to ask that question. Work' means that they have proven to be the most effective method for differentiating small byr *real*, acoustic differences which cannot be differentiated by other means (aside from measuring, of course). It is not obvious that the goal of differentiating real acoustic differences is equivalent to the goal of modeling auditory perception. Irrelevant to the question. The relevant question is (to formulate it one way) whether certain tests establish that the same information is received by a listener from two sources, and that is a question of modeling auditory perception. How do we know that they work? Many decades of experiment. Why do they work?# Bottom line, who cares? We ought to. Who's 'we'? Most drivers do not understand the Otto cycle, but their cars still work, and that is what is important. "We" (those who ought to care about it) is anyone who maintains that we *know* certain things on the basis of the tests. But basically, it's because audio memory is short... This is interesting. How short? Seems to be only a few seconds. Best ask the psychoacousticians - that's what they *do*, basically. Interesting because certain kinds of music theory depend on the idea that there is perception over longer spans of time; and it seems obviously true, since we make sense of period construction in music where the first phrase is antecedent (question), the second is consequent (answer), where the succession of phrases takes up more than a few seconds. Bottom line - quick-switched DBTs *work* better than time-distal presentations. Maybe this has been shown if "work" *means* modeling acoustic differences, rather than modeling auditory perception. The reason I ask is that I suspect there is more than one kind of aural memory at work. For instance there is a kind of musical memory, in which we make sense of phrases and periods, antecedent/consequent relationships, and so on. That sort of musical memory is relevant to perception, although perhaps in a different way than is the audio memory you refer to. Why do you suspect such a thing? What *evidence* do you have that it exists? The coherent experience of music over spans of time. Mark |
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#363
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 11 Aug 2005 00:07:33 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 9 Aug 2005 00:03:16 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: In other words, I don't see why they *should* work. Maybe that's the kind of explanation I'm asking for. Your failure to understand something that has been explained to you at least a dozen times, is not a failure on the part of the test. What's been stated over and over is *that* they work. And yet, you seem to be scrabbling around for some strange theory that would run counter to this. Why? I am not looking for any strange theory; rather I am asking what theory supports your positive claim (and how that theory rules out things that, if true, would be counterexamples). I don't believe that the tests establish perceptual or informational equivalence, and, presumably, asking why they do from someone who claims that they do is a way of finding out. What seems to be the case, though, is that you're insisting *that* the tests establish this, and that it is known that they do, but "who cares" why they work,[1] which seems to me a rather unserious position, and kind of contradictory. Mark [1] Date: 10 Aug 2005 00:25:13 GMT, Message-ID: |
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#364
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 11 Aug 2005 00:05:17 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Why is there any necessity that stimuli that persist over time, and that are in short corresponding portions indiscriminable, should have identical perceptual effects when heard over longer time spans, since small effects can accumulate over time? Can they? What evidence do you have for this? Maybe I am misinterpreting your position in this entire discussion, but I thought you were making a knowledge claim. You are saying something like, on the basis of certain kinds of tests we know that the relevant sources are perceptually equivalent, that listeners can't pick up different information from the sources if the tests turn out as they do. So if you (in particular) know this, then presumably you know whether the above propositions are true or false. And if this is a matter of knowledge rather than mere belief, then you will be able to explain why those things are true or false. You are the expert, and I am merely saying that I don't see how these things are known, because for all I know, certain things could be the case. So, if you know, then it isn't really fair to demand from me, a non-expert, evidence that things I think might be the case are in fact the case. You should clear up the matter, and advance knowledge all around, by explaining why, say, small effects can't accumulate over time. By the way, evidence that small effects can accumulate over time is provided by, for example, TTS. The longer you listen to a signal, the greater is the amount of TTS, at least within certain limits. Anyway, what about my suggestion that signals that are indiscriminable in short corresponding portions can sometimes induce TTS (temporary threshold shift, or auditory fatigue) at different rates? Correct or incorrect? Thanks. Certainly, there's no evidence in support of such a theory. What is the reason, if any, to think that it can't happen? Without such a reason, does anyone *know* that the tests are reliable in the way you say they are? Mark |
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#366
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On 12 Aug 2005 00:14:10 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 10 Aug 2005 00:17:38 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: One more example if you will (and I apologize, too late, for the profusion of them). Could someone please tell me if the following is possible. You have two signals, A and B, each constant. Signal A contains a sound that masks another sound. Signal B is indistinguishable, on short-snippet comparison, from signal A. But because masking is going on in signal A, its intensity is greater than that of B. Therefore A causes auditory fatigue (temporary threshold shift, or TTS) at a different rate than B does. Therefore, the perceptual effects of A will differ from those of B. After you hear A for three minutes, a given sound may be inaudible, whereas the same sound would be audible after you hear B for three minutes. But if you only compare short excerpts in the test, A and B will sound identical to you. Does that make sense, or have I stated something implausible along the way? Thanks in advance. You have stated that they are of different intensity, which disqualifies them from the likelihood of being indistinguishable. OK, I guess I'm missing something then. Suppose sound A masks sound B to such an extent as to render B inaudible. In such a case, won't A+B be indistinguishable from A alone? And won't A+B have a greater intensity than A alone? Masking occurs at levels of 45dB or so below the fundamental, which would imply a negligible intensity difference. The usual standard for guaranteed inability to distinguish two sounds by SPL alone is +/- 0.1dB, equivalent to an underlying content of about -35-40dB OTOH, one can certainly introduce a secondary tone at say 3kHz to an underlying pink noise signal 40dB higher and have it be readily audible. Indeed, that's one of the ways in which you woulkd determine the masking thereshold. OTGH, that's *not* the kind of thing that would make one amplifier different from another, or especially cables. You also *claim* that the sound which contains a low-level masked component 'therefore' causes auditory fatigue, I was saying, therefore they will cause auditory fatigue *at different rates*. You have no evidence that this is so, it is mere supposition. If the intensity is different, the rates of fatigue are apt be different. Is that an artificial assumption? Yes, since the intensity difference is necessarily below the threshold of our ability to discriminate it. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#367
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On 12 Aug 2005 00:45:17 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 9 Aug 2005 00:06:13 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: To be precise, ABChr is currently considered to be the ultimate DBT, and is the basic model used by those developing advanced lossy compression codecs such as AAC and MP3. p.s. What are those DBTs compared *with*, in order to show that they are more sensitive? Is the comparison systematic or anecdotal? Over the years, with sighted listening, with single-blind listening, and with non-time-proximate AB tests. In the world of professional audio and psychoacoustics, the comparisons are of course systematic. If we compare tests A, B, C, and D, and observe that A is the most sensitive of them, isn't it going beyond the data to conclude that there can't be some other test E, waiting right around the corner, perhaps constructed in a different way, that would be more sensitive than all of them? Indeed, but no such test has yet been discovered. OTOH, *any* kind of sighted test may immediately be discarded, If we have a choice between asserting that there can't be such a test E, and remaining agnostic about it, which is less overreaching? Is it not dogmatic to assert that there can't be such a test? Who has suggested such a thing? Scientists are constantly searching for better tests. That's how ABChr supplanted simple ABX. There are lots of hypotheses we can have ample reason to reject, but I don't see how this is one of them. Suppose I go to a circus sideshow and the performer guesses the number that an audience member has written down. Do we have reason to reject the hypothesis that it was mental telepathy? Yes, because not only has no one described a plausible mechanism for it, our background theory entails that it is extremely unlikely that there could be any such mechanism. If there were such a mechanism, then it would involve transmission in the space between the people, but no such transmission has been detected; and we have excellent theoretical reasons for supposing that if there were some such transmission then it would be detected. In the audio case, we have statistics, but not a larger theory that would explain (at any rate, no one here has convincingly explained) why we shouldn't think that a more sensitive test, or other evidence, could be waiting for us around the corner. However, we can already discard any form of sighted test, or any test involving more than a minute or so between listening periods. Hence we simply seek better short-term time-proximate tests. Mark p.s. That's why we should care "why it works," because that tells us what the statistics *mean*. Statistics don't 'mean' anything, they simply tell us the probability that the sounds really were differentiated. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#368
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On 12 Aug 2005 00:46:27 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 10 Aug 2005 00:17:38 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: One more example if you will (and I apologize, too late, for the profusion of them). Could someone please tell me if the following is possible. You have two signals, A and B, each constant. Signal A contains a sound that masks another sound. Signal B is indistinguishable, on short-snippet comparison, from signal A. But because masking is going on in signal A, its intensity is greater than that of B. Therefore A causes auditory fatigue (temporary threshold shift, or TTS) at a different rate than B does. Therefore, the perceptual effects of A will differ from those of B. After you hear A for three minutes, a given sound may be inaudible, whereas the same sound would be audible after you hear B for three minutes. But if you only compare short excerpts in the test, A and B will sound identical to you. Does that make sense, or have I stated something implausible along the way? Thanks in advance. You have stated that they are of different intensity, which disqualifies them from the likelihood of being indistinguishable. You also *claim* that the sound which contains a low-level masked component 'therefore' causes auditory fatigue, but you offer no evidence that this is true. As ever, you create an artificial scenario and make baseless assertions about it. p.s. So you are saying that we know, in fact, that *whenever* two sounds cause TTS at different rates, then the sounds must be distinguishable from one another in a short comparison? Yes. To suggest otherewise would be an extraordinary claim, for which you would be required to supply extraordinary evidence. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#369
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On 12 Aug 2005 00:49:14 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message ... On 10 Aug 2005 03:02:51 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote: snip, not relevant to below I think he'd also be bothered by the small number of peer-reviewed published dbt's in the audio world, since it might be many millennia until the "corrective effect" provided enough checks and balances to assert itself. As ever, you have this completely wrong, Harry. If indeed there *were* opposing evidence, then the effectiveness of DBTs would not be so bleedin' obvious as it currently is, and such results certainly *would* be published in peer-reviewed journals such as the AES. Shame that you and all your ilk have been totally unable to provide any such evidence.................. Notice the sidestep. Tests purporting to be "evidence" not published, or made open and transparent, because they are "obvious". Accordingly no response by "real" scientists able to critique test. Somehow that is the fault of "me and my ilk", right Stewart? Yes, it is. You make extraordinary claims, hence it is up to *you* to supply the extraordinary evidence in support. No one is expected to supply evidence that the Moon is *not* made of green cheese. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#370
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Ban wrote:
2.) TTS. We will not encounter such high levels which would cause a TTS during a listening test. We will also perceive the too high of a level as painful, certainly nobody will accept to participate or continue with the test. I guess I'm missing something then, because there is a graph showing TTS as measurable from sources going as low as 20 dB (in Moore, An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, p. 148). FWIK this is not true. With 75dB exposure over several hours test showed around 6dB TTS. I can not perceive of anybody having that with 20dB SPL. Maybe that 20dB was not an absolut level? I don't have that book but at that low level a TTS seems improbable. What *is* important is the kind of stimulus used. With a pleasant musical material the TTS turns out to be much less than some technical sounds like nasty squeaking noise or (filtered) white noise of the same level. Moore (5th ed., btw) is reporting this from another source, so not all the details are there, but he shows the sensation level of exposure running from 20 to 100 dB. There is a 1000-Hz "fatiguing tone," with exposure duration of 3 minutes. With a test tone of 1000 Hz at sensation level 20 dB, the graph shows a TTS of about 1.8 dB. Mark |
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#371
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Buster Mudd wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: The reason I ask is that I suspect there is more than one kind of aural memory at work. For instance there is a kind of musical memory, in which we make sense of phrases and periods, antecedent/consequent relationships, and so on. That sort of musical memory is relevant to perception, although perhaps in a different way than is the audio memory you refer to. Umm...didn't this get addressed in this very same thread months ago? See my post #348, from June 24th @ 10:29am. Yes, musical memory and audio memory are totally different things. Thanks for pointing that out. A failure (on my part) of yet *another* kind of memory. :-) Mark |
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#372
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 00:46:27 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: p.s. So you are saying that we know, in fact, that *whenever* two sounds cause TTS at different rates, then the sounds must be distinguishable from one another in a short comparison? Yes. To suggest otherewise would be an extraordinary claim, for which you would be required to supply extraordinary evidence. -- OK. What would happen if you took an audible sound and added a high intensity ultrasonic component to it? Would it be distinguishable from the original sound (on short comparison), and would we expect it to cause TTS at the same rate as the original? Mark |
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#373
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 00:14:10 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 10 Aug 2005 00:17:38 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: One more example if you will (and I apologize, too late, for the profusion of them). Could someone please tell me if the following is possible. You have two signals, A and B, each constant. Signal A contains a sound that masks another sound. Signal B is indistinguishable, on short-snippet comparison, from signal A. But because masking is going on in signal A, its intensity is greater than that of B. Therefore A causes auditory fatigue (temporary threshold shift, or TTS) at a different rate than B does. Therefore, the perceptual effects of A will differ from those of B. After you hear A for three minutes, a given sound may be inaudible, whereas the same sound would be audible after you hear B for three minutes. But if you only compare short excerpts in the test, A and B will sound identical to you. Does that make sense, or have I stated something implausible along the way? Thanks in advance. You have stated that they are of different intensity, which disqualifies them from the likelihood of being indistinguishable. OK, I guess I'm missing something then. Suppose sound A masks sound B to such an extent as to render B inaudible. In such a case, won't A+B be indistinguishable from A alone? And won't A+B have a greater intensity than A alone? Masking occurs at levels of 45dB or so below the fundamental, which would imply a negligible intensity difference. The usual standard for guaranteed inability to distinguish two sounds by SPL alone is +/- 0.1dB, equivalent to an underlying content of about -35-40dB Ah, I see, thanks for the information. Mark |
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#374
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Buster Mudd wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: The reason I ask is that I suspect there is more than one kind of aural memory at work. For instance there is a kind of musical memory, in which we make sense of phrases and periods, antecedent/consequent relationships, and so on. That sort of musical memory is relevant to perception, although perhaps in a different way than is the audio memory you refer to. Umm...didn't this get addressed in this very same thread months ago? See my post #348, from June 24th @ 10:29am. Yes, musical memory and audio memory are totally different things. Hi Buster, I went back and reread your post. My thought now, in the present context of discussion, is something like this: musical memory is real, and we do pick up information about musical passages extended over spans of time. So it makes sense to ask if time-proximate comparisons are sensitive to all the information we pick up in this way. If they are not, then it is fair to say that there is more going on in perception than the tests are sensitive to. If they are, it is fair to ask how we know that. What do you think? Mark |
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#375
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
However, we can already discard any form of sighted test, or any test involving more than a minute or so between listening periods. Hence we simply seek better short-term time-proximate tests. Listeners pick up information about properties of musical passages extended over time. Is *that* sort of perception always measured most sensitively by short-term time-proximate tests (as opposed to other kinds of tests, such as ratings tests)? It would seem not, because proper short-term time-proximate tests are impossible to do in this case, because we can't compare the perceptual effects of extended passages in a time-proximate way. (If we go about measuring the perception of temporally-extended properties by comparing short snippets, then we are assuming that the perceptual effects of the passage supervene on what can be discriminated in short snippets. How do we know that?) So what should we do now? Should we ignore the perception of such properties? Or should we measure it through other kinds of tests? Mark |
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#376
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
Statistics don't 'mean' anything, they simply tell us the probability that the sounds really were differentiated. What statistics "mean" is, among other things, what implications they have for the future, or as-yet-unobserved situations, and figuring out what those implications are requires interpretation. That requires theory. It is theory that distinguishes between the ways we expect future situations to be like past ones, and ways we do not expect them to be so. Goodman, in Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, writes engagingly on this. *If* there are any temporally extended properties of musical passages that we perceive, then short-term time-proximate tests would not be suited to measure that perception.[1] I would have thought that that was interesting enough, as a point about the scope and limits of such tests, and enough to justify skepticism about whether such tests prove perceptual equivalence (because, for all we know, there are such properties). But if one doesn't find this interesting or significant unless it's actually true that there are such properties, well, there are. And there is excellent reason to think that short-term time-proximate tests are not well suited to measure the perception of such properties. Mark [1] Unless we assume some kind of supervenience thesis, of the perception of the whole on the perception of the parts. |
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#377
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On 12 Aug 2005 23:39:32 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: If Karl senses that A possesses x, and that B does not possess x, then he can tell that they are different. QED. If what you were saying were true, then why would time-distal testing be unreliable? It's not unreliable, it's less sensitive to very small changes. The question is whether, if we receive different information on two occasions, we must as a matter of psychological fact be able to judge *that* they are different, and be able to do so in the context of a test. The best method would the one that Harry advocates - immediately after listening, write down your impressions. If, over time and many such exercises, you have a consistent reporting of 'x' for system A, but not for system B, then you make a good case. Suppose you have two signals, A and B, each of which lasts one minute. Consider the following statements. (1) On comparison of corresponding short snippets, you are not conscious of a difference between any short snippet of A and the corresponding snippet of B. (2) The information you extract from A, upon listening to it in its entirety, is exactly the same as the information you extract from B, upon listening to it in its entirety. Does (2) *follow* from (1), given everything we know about psychology? Since you pose this as a logical exercise, then the answer is no. Two issues are relevant he we are not always conscious of information processed in perception, and the information we extract from a signal that extends over time may or may not be the same as the sum of what we extract from short snippets in a testing situation. You're doing it again. What you state above is merely your opinion, not any kind of *fact*. Where is your *evidence* that we are not always conscious of information processed in perception? The second part is of course true, since it doesn't actually say anything. However, when testing for small acoustic *differences*, the weight of experimental evidence suggests that short snippets are best. Now consider (3): (3) The information you are *conscious* of when you listen to A in its entirety is exactly the same as the information you are conscious of when you listen to B in its entirety. Again, does (3) follow from (1)? I do not see how it does. Agreed. So what? What we are conscious of is the tip of the iceberg. Not being conscious of a difference in (1) is consistent with extracting different information in (2). No, it isn't - this is simply another of your baseless assertions. And if the total information you extract is different, there is no assurance that the information you will be conscious of (a portion of the total information) will be exactly the same. Correct - but that's a BIG 'if', for which you have zero evidence. Moreover, although what we are conscious of on listening to A in its entirety may not be the same as what we are conscious of on listening to B in its entirety, that they are not the same cannot be shown directly through any properly constructed ABX test, since those things cannot be compared in a time-proximate way. But the proposition that they are the same (or different) is not unfalsifiable, since there can be indirect evidence for it. There can also be indirect evidence that the Moon is made of green cheese, but it has yet to be demonstrated. Sometimes an egg is just an egg. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#378
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On 12 Aug 2005 23:40:42 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 11 Aug 2005 00:05:50 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 9 Aug 2005 00:03:16 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: What does "work" mean here? By now, you should not have to ask that question. Work' means that they have proven to be the most effective method for differentiating small byr *real*, acoustic differences which cannot be differentiated by other means (aside from measuring, of course). It is not obvious that the goal of differentiating real acoustic differences is equivalent to the goal of modeling auditory perception. Irrelevant to the question. The relevant question is (to formulate it one way) whether certain tests establish that the same information is received by a listener from two sources, and that is a question of modeling auditory perception. No, it's a question of examining the test results. How do we know that they work? Many decades of experiment. Why do they work?# Bottom line, who cares? We ought to. Who's 'we'? Most drivers do not understand the Otto cycle, but their cars still work, and that is what is important. "We" (those who ought to care about it) is anyone who maintains that we *know* certain things on the basis of the tests. We know that people can (or can not) detect an audible difference. When considering sound quality, that is all that matters. Yes Evadne, life really *is* that simple. But basically, it's because audio memory is short... This is interesting. How short? Seems to be only a few seconds. Best ask the psychoacousticians - that's what they *do*, basically. Interesting because certain kinds of music theory depend on the idea that there is perception over longer spans of time; and it seems obviously true, since we make sense of period construction in music where the first phrase is antecedent (question), the second is consequent (answer), where the succession of phrases takes up more than a few seconds. Indeed, but we are not listening for *difference* in that case. You are once again conflating audio memory and musical memory. Bottom line - quick-switched DBTs *work* better than time-distal presentations. Maybe this has been shown if "work" *means* modeling acoustic differences, rather than modeling auditory perception. 'Work' means that they are the most sensitive method for differentiating small audible differences. Period. No deep philosophical insights required, they simply *work*. The reason I ask is that I suspect there is more than one kind of aural memory at work. For instance there is a kind of musical memory, in which we make sense of phrases and periods, antecedent/consequent relationships, and so on. That sort of musical memory is relevant to perception, although perhaps in a different way than is the audio memory you refer to. Why do you suspect such a thing? What *evidence* do you have that it exists? The coherent experience of music over spans of time. Which has nothing to do with our ability to detect *differences*. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#379
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On 12 Aug 2005 23:41:12 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 11 Aug 2005 00:07:33 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 9 Aug 2005 00:03:16 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: In other words, I don't see why they *should* work. Maybe that's the kind of explanation I'm asking for. Your failure to understand something that has been explained to you at least a dozen times, is not a failure on the part of the test. What's been stated over and over is *that* they work. And yet, you seem to be scrabbling around for some strange theory that would run counter to this. Why? I am not looking for any strange theory; rather I am asking what theory supports your positive claim (and how that theory rules out things that, if true, would be counterexamples). The results stand on their own merits, no 'theory' is required. You don't need a theory to support the results of experiments, you have that completely back-asswards. I don't believe that the tests establish perceptual or informational equivalence, and, presumably, asking why they do from someone who claims that they do is a way of finding out. What seems to be the case, though, is that you're insisting *that* the tests establish this, and that it is known that they do, but "who cares" why they work,[1] which seems to me a rather unserious position, and kind of contradictory. I'm not insisting anything, other than that level-matched time-proximate DBTs are proven to be the most sensitive way to discover small acoustic differences. You seem to be living in a world of thought experiments, with no interest in the *reality* of the situation. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#380
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On 12 Aug 2005 23:41:57 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 11 Aug 2005 00:05:17 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Why is there any necessity that stimuli that persist over time, and that are in short corresponding portions indiscriminable, should have identical perceptual effects when heard over longer time spans, since small effects can accumulate over time? Can they? What evidence do you have for this? Maybe I am misinterpreting your position in this entire discussion, but I thought you were making a knowledge claim. You are saying something like, on the basis of certain kinds of tests we know that the relevant sources are perceptually equivalent, that listeners can't pick up different information from the sources if the tests turn out as they do. Quite the opposite, I'm saying that the available evidence suggests that longer sessions are *less* sensitive than short snippets. So if you (in particular) know this, then presumably you know whether the above propositions are true or false. And if this is a matter of knowledge rather than mere belief, then you will be able to explain why those things are true or false. You are the expert, and I am merely saying that I don't see how these things are known, because for all I know, certain things could be the case. I am not 'the expert', the available evidence is there for all to see. The test results stand on their own merits, there is absolutely *no* requirement that they be 'explained' in any way. So, if you know, then it isn't really fair to demand from me, a non-expert, evidence that things I think might be the case are in fact the case. You should clear up the matter, and advance knowledge all around, by explaining why, say, small effects can't accumulate over time. The evidence suggests that they do not, that in fact they dissipate rather than accumulate. *Why* this is so, is another question, and does not alter the *facts* of the matter. Amid all your suppositions and theorising, you seem unable to grasp this simplest of concepts. By the way, evidence that small effects can accumulate over time is provided by, for example, TTS. The longer you listen to a signal, the greater is the amount of TTS, at least within certain limits. As has already been pointed out, that is a physiological effect that occurs at high SPLs, and has nothing to do with our ability to detect small differences. This is *very* far from any kind of demonstration that *small* effects accumulate. Anyway, what about my suggestion that signals that are indiscriminable in short corresponding portions can sometimes induce TTS (temporary threshold shift, or auditory fatigue) at different rates? Correct or incorrect? Thanks. Certainly, there's no evidence in support of such a theory. What is the reason, if any, to think that it can't happen? The reason is that there's no *evidence* that it happens. Life is much too short to hunt down every unlikely theory, especially where all the available evidence points in the opposite direction. Without such a reason, does anyone *know* that the tests are reliable in the way you say they are? Because every time you try them, they work. That's the *definition* of reliability, and needs no 'reson' to support it. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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On 13 Aug 2005 14:37:02 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 12 Aug 2005 00:46:27 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: p.s. So you are saying that we know, in fact, that *whenever* two sounds cause TTS at different rates, then the sounds must be distinguishable from one another in a short comparison? Yes. To suggest otherewise would be an extraordinary claim, for which you would be required to supply extraordinary evidence. -- OK. What would happen if you took an audible sound and added a high intensity ultrasonic component to it? Would it be distinguishable from the original sound (on short comparison), and would we expect it to cause TTS at the same rate as the original? I don't know, and I have no expectations either way. Neither should you. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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On 13 Aug 2005 14:38:24 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: However, we can already discard any form of sighted test, or any test involving more than a minute or so between listening periods. Hence we simply seek better short-term time-proximate tests. Listeners pick up information about properties of musical passages extended over time. Is *that* sort of perception always measured most sensitively by short-term time-proximate tests (as opposed to other kinds of tests, such as ratings tests)? It would seem not, because proper short-term time-proximate tests are impossible to do in this case, because we can't compare the perceptual effects of extended passages in a time-proximate way. (If we go about measuring the perception of temporally-extended properties by comparing short snippets, then we are assuming that the perceptual effects of the passage supervene on what can be discriminated in short snippets. How do we know that?) So what should we do now? Should we ignore the perception of such properties? Or should we measure it through other kinds of tests? You seem to forget that there's no inherent time-limit to DBTs, so there's absolutely nothing preventing anyone from making exactly this comparison. However, not one single person to my knowledge has *ever* been able to discriminate the sound of two items by this method, which could not more easily be discriminated in a short-term test. And let's face it, with all the posturing we see in this forum, one of the 'subjectivists' like Harry or Ludovic would sure as heck have broadcast any such success. Harry keeps banging on about his 'monadic test', but has never actually had the courage to do one. Guess why? -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 23:41:12 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 11 Aug 2005 00:07:33 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 9 Aug 2005 00:03:16 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: In other words, I don't see why they *should* work. Maybe that's the kind of explanation I'm asking for. Your failure to understand something that has been explained to you at least a dozen times, is not a failure on the part of the test. What's been stated over and over is *that* they work. And yet, you seem to be scrabbling around for some strange theory that would run counter to this. Why? I am not looking for any strange theory; rather I am asking what theory supports your positive claim (and how that theory rules out things that, if true, would be counterexamples). The results stand on their own merits, no 'theory' is required. You don't need a theory to support the results of experiments, you have that completely back-asswards. If Mr. DeBellis is associated with Columbia University, I can't help but wonder why he keeps flogging this horse on RAHE. At Columbia there are likely world-class perceptual psychologists he can consult with on these matters, not to mention a well-stocked library. I took a class by Diana Deutsch (now at UCSD) when I was a student there back in the dim mists of the 80's. -- -S "God is an asshole!" -- Ruth Fisher, 'Six Feet Under' |
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Ban wrote: 2.) TTS. We will not encounter such high levels which would cause a TTS during a listening test. We will also perceive the too high of a level as painful, certainly nobody will accept to participate or continue with the test. I guess I'm missing something then, because there is a graph showing TTS as measurable from sources going as low as 20 dB (in Moore, An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, p. 148). FWIK this is not true. With 75dB exposure over several hours test showed around 6dB TTS. I can not perceive of anybody having that with 20dB SPL. Maybe that 20dB was not an absolut level? I don't have that book but at that low level a TTS seems improbable. What *is* important is the kind of stimulus used. With a pleasant musical material the TTS turns out to be much less than some technical sounds like nasty squeaking noise or (filtered) white noise of the same level. Moore (5th ed., btw) is reporting this from another source, so not all the details are there, but he shows the sensation level of exposure running from 20 to 100 dB. There is a 1000-Hz "fatiguing tone," with exposure duration of 3 minutes. With a test tone of 1000 Hz at sensation level 20 dB, the graph shows a TTS of about 1.8 dB. That is still considered masking, as the TTS is centered about 3.3kHz. The masking has quite a long time constant, and with these low levels a TTS needs to be lasting much longer than 5min. Somehow there is a continuous transition. But one thing is the higher frequency area of the TTS, it occurs maximally in the 3-4kHz region and is independent of the spectral content of the primary signal. When you use pure sounds, there is a bit of memory what range the sound was in. But I would say it is more an processing artefact, whereas the TTS has measurable stress on the hair cells and needs certain substances and time to repair the damage. With certain pharmaca it is possible to greatly speed up the cure and even preventing the TTS at all. -- ciao Ban Bordighera, Italy |
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"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
... On 13 Aug 2005 14:38:24 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: However, we can already discard any form of sighted test, or any test involving more than a minute or so between listening periods. Hence we simply seek better short-term time-proximate tests. Listeners pick up information about properties of musical passages extended over time. Is *that* sort of perception always measured most sensitively by short-term time-proximate tests (as opposed to other kinds of tests, such as ratings tests)? It would seem not, because proper short-term time-proximate tests are impossible to do in this case, because we can't compare the perceptual effects of extended passages in a time-proximate way. (If we go about measuring the perception of temporally-extended properties by comparing short snippets, then we are assuming that the perceptual effects of the passage supervene on what can be discriminated in short snippets. How do we know that?) So what should we do now? Should we ignore the perception of such properties? Or should we measure it through other kinds of tests? You seem to forget that there's no inherent time-limit to DBTs, so there's absolutely nothing preventing anyone from making exactly this comparison. However, not one single person to my knowledge has *ever* been able to discriminate the sound of two items by this method, which could not more easily be discriminated in a short-term test. And let's face it, with all the posturing we see in this forum, one of the 'subjectivists' like Harry or Ludovic would sure as heck have broadcast any such success. Harry keeps banging on about his 'monadic test', but has never actually had the courage to do one. Guess why? -- Because it takes at least 300 people and a large facility. Good enough reason? I'm very short of time for last few days, so I'm outta here again for a few more. Harry |
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 23:39:32 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: If Karl senses that A possesses x, and that B does not possess x, then he can tell that they are different. QED. If what you were saying were true, then why would time-distal testing be unreliable? It's not unreliable, it's less sensitive to very small changes. There can be interference from intervening stimuli. People forget. The question is whether, if we receive different information on two occasions, we must as a matter of psychological fact be able to judge *that* they are different, and be able to do so in the context of a test. The best method would the one that Harry advocates - immediately after listening, write down your impressions. If, over time and many such exercises, you have a consistent reporting of 'x' for system A, but not for system B, then you make a good case. Suppose you have two signals, A and B, each of which lasts one minute. Consider the following statements. (1) On comparison of corresponding short snippets, you are not conscious of a difference between any short snippet of A and the corresponding snippet of B. (2) The information you extract from A, upon listening to it in its entirety, is exactly the same as the information you extract from B, upon listening to it in its entirety. Does (2) *follow* from (1), given everything we know about psychology? Since you pose this as a logical exercise, then the answer is no. Two issues are relevant he we are not always conscious of information processed in perception, and the information we extract from a signal that extends over time may or may not be the same as the sum of what we extract from short snippets in a testing situation. You're doing it again. What you state above is merely your opinion, not any kind of *fact*. Where is your *evidence* that we are not always conscious of information processed in perception? "[T]he results of ... recent psychological investigations provide empirical support for the importance of unconsciously perceived information in determining cognitive and affective reactions" ("Psychological Investigations of Unconscious Perception" by P. M. Merikle et al., Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, No. 1, 1998, pp. 5-18). The second part is of course true, since it doesn't actually say anything. However, when testing for small acoustic *differences*, the weight of experimental evidence suggests that short snippets are best. Now consider (3): (3) The information you are *conscious* of when you listen to A in its entirety is exactly the same as the information you are conscious of when you listen to B in its entirety. Again, does (3) follow from (1)? I do not see how it does. Agreed. So what? Does the experimental evidence you refer to deal systematically with information derived over temporal spans? If it does not, then how is it valid to infer anything about the perception of that class of information from results about another class of information? What we are conscious of is the tip of the iceberg. Not being conscious of a difference in (1) is consistent with extracting different information in (2). No, it isn't - this is simply another of your baseless assertions. See above re unconscious perception. And if the total information you extract is different, there is no assurance that the information you will be conscious of (a portion of the total information) will be exactly the same. Correct - but that's a BIG 'if', for which you have zero evidence. For all we know, they're different. That's all I'm saying. Moreover, although what we are conscious of on listening to A in its entirety may not be the same as what we are conscious of on listening to B in its entirety, that they are not the same cannot be shown directly through any properly constructed ABX test, since those things cannot be compared in a time-proximate way. But the proposition that they are the same (or different) is not unfalsifiable, since there can be indirect evidence for it. There can also be indirect evidence that the Moon is made of green cheese, but it has yet to be demonstrated. True but my point is simply that the suggestion that perceptions can differ in information received, even when they are not compared in a time-proximate way, is not an unfalsifiable claim. Sometimes an egg is just an egg. Mark |
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 23:41:57 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 11 Aug 2005 00:05:17 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Why is there any necessity that stimuli that persist over time, and that are in short corresponding portions indiscriminable, should have identical perceptual effects when heard over longer time spans, since small effects can accumulate over time? Can they? What evidence do you have for this? Maybe I am misinterpreting your position in this entire discussion, but I thought you were making a knowledge claim. You are saying something like, on the basis of certain kinds of tests we know that the relevant sources are perceptually equivalent, that listeners can't pick up different information from the sources if the tests turn out as they do. Quite the opposite, I'm saying that the available evidence suggests that longer sessions are *less* sensitive than short snippets. I thought you were saying, or that it followed from what you were saying, that if someone can't distinguish A (SACD) and B (CD) in a test, then it's very likely that there's no difference between the sonic properties that the person is perceiving in A, and the sonic properties he's perceiving in B. A subjectivist might reply, but when you listen to a whole song, in a relaxed way rather than in testing, there is a difference; in other words, the information the listener picks up from A in that situation is different from the information he picks up from B. I thought you were denying that, i.e., saying that from the test results we know that the information the listener gets from the sources won't be different. So if you (in particular) know this, then presumably you know whether the above propositions are true or false. And if this is a matter of knowledge rather than mere belief, then you will be able to explain why those things are true or false. You are the expert, and I am merely saying that I don't see how these things are known, because for all I know, certain things could be the case. I am not 'the expert', the available evidence is there for all to see. The test results stand on their own merits, there is absolutely *no* requirement that they be 'explained' in any way. So, if you know, then it isn't really fair to demand from me, a non-expert, evidence that things I think might be the case are in fact the case. You should clear up the matter, and advance knowledge all around, by explaining why, say, small effects can't accumulate over time. The evidence suggests that they do not, that in fact they dissipate rather than accumulate. *Why* this is so, is another question, and does not alter the *facts* of the matter. Amid all your suppositions and theorising, you seem unable to grasp this simplest of concepts. By the way, evidence that small effects can accumulate over time is provided by, for example, TTS. The longer you listen to a signal, the greater is the amount of TTS, at least within certain limits. As has already been pointed out, that is a physiological effect that occurs at high SPLs, and has nothing to do with our ability to detect small differences. This is *very* far from any kind of demonstration that *small* effects accumulate. TTS affects perception because it affects the detection of small differences (of sounds heard subsequently). And the amount of TTS increases with exposure, so it does exemplify the accumulation of effects. As to whether they are small effects, or whether TTS occurs only at high SPLs, I cite Moore, Intro to the Psych of Hearing, 5th ed., 2003, p. 148. I am not an expert and possibly I am misreading him, but the graph seems pretty clear. Anyway, what about my suggestion that signals that are indiscriminable in short corresponding portions can sometimes induce TTS (temporary threshold shift, or auditory fatigue) at different rates? Correct or incorrect? Thanks. Certainly, there's no evidence in support of such a theory. What is the reason, if any, to think that it can't happen? The reason is that there's no *evidence* that it happens. Life is much too short to hunt down every unlikely theory, especially where all the available evidence points in the opposite direction. Fair enough, but I don't get the idea that the eventuality in question has really been explored, so the absence of evidence doesn't prove much either way, so how do we know it's unlikely? Doesn't seem like a situation in which we *know*. Without such a reason, does anyone *know* that the tests are reliable in the way you say they are? Because every time you try them, they work. That's the *definition* of reliability, and needs no 'reson' to support it. It depends on what "work" means he enables the detection of the smallest momentary differences, or is sensitive to differences in what a listener picks up over longer spans. How we get from the first to the second (if that is indeed something you are saying we should do) is a question of how data should be interpreted as applying to further cases. Mark |
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Steven Sullivan wrote:
If Mr. DeBellis is associated with Columbia University, I can't help but wonder why he keeps flogging this horse on RAHE. At Columbia there are likely world-class perceptual psychologists he can consult with on these matters, not to mention a well-stocked library. I took a class by Diana Deutsch (now at UCSD) when I was a student there back in the dim mists of the 80's. Good idea. The reason I'm here (RAHE) in the first place is that I saw that the topic was discussed here, and I thought it was intriguing. I just haven't gotten around to asking anybody here at Columbia, but your idea's a good one. I'll report back anything of interest. Mark |
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 13 Aug 2005 14:37:02 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 12 Aug 2005 00:46:27 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: p.s. So you are saying that we know, in fact, that *whenever* two sounds cause TTS at different rates, then the sounds must be distinguishable from one another in a short comparison? Yes. To suggest otherewise would be an extraordinary claim, for which you would be required to supply extraordinary evidence. -- OK. What would happen if you took an audible sound and added a high intensity ultrasonic component to it? Would it be distinguishable from the original sound (on short comparison), and would we expect it to cause TTS at the same rate as the original? I don't know, and I have no expectations either way. Neither should you. Fine by me. For this reason, I should have no expectations either way about whether there is a counterexample to the claim that short-term-time-proximate-indistinguishable sounds must be perceptually equivalent over longer time spans. I am happy to remain a skeptic. I'll be going on vacation for a few days, so in the meantime, thanks to all for the correspondence so far, which I've enjoyed and learned from. Mark |
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 00:12:05 GMT, wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: Now, if you can show reliable and repeatable *evidence* for 'cable sound', that really would be interesting! If you can show any "evidence" that is reliable and repeatable for no cable sound that would be very interesting. In your endless semantic nitpicking, you miss the most basic point - probably in a deliberate attempt to obfuscate that most basic point. In typical Stewart Pinkerton fashion your response is a lame attempt to obfuscate by offering an irrelevent unfonded insult instead of a legitimate answer to the question. IOW you can't show any evidnce that is repeatable and reliable for no cable sound and yet you demand it of others with opposing beliefs. The old objectivist double standard is alive and well I see. That cables should have any kind of sound is an extraordinary claim that flies in the face of engineering knowledge, and indeed common sense. Pure postering via hyperbole. I can just as easily say the opposite and it would have as much meaning o here we go. That cables should not have any kind of sound is an extraordinary claim that flies in the face of engineering knowledge, and inded common sense. Please feel free to cite any published reliable repeatable evidence that would prove otherwise. It's not up to me or anyone else to prove that cables do not have a sound, it's up to *you* to prove that they do. No, it's up to you to prove they don't. That is your claim. It is nothing more than talk until you come up with the goods. So far when asked for repeatable reliable evidence all you have to offer is insults. Very weak indeed. Scott Wheeler |
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"Mark DeBellis" wrote in message
... Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 12 Aug 2005 23:41:57 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 11 Aug 2005 00:05:17 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Why is there any necessity that stimuli that persist over time, and that are in short corresponding portions indiscriminable, should have identical perceptual effects when heard over longer time spans, since small effects can accumulate over time? Can they? What evidence do you have for this? Maybe I am misinterpreting your position in this entire discussion, but I thought you were making a knowledge claim. You are saying something like, on the basis of certain kinds of tests we know that the relevant sources are perceptually equivalent, that listeners can't pick up different information from the sources if the tests turn out as they do. Quite the opposite, I'm saying that the available evidence suggests that longer sessions are *less* sensitive than short snippets. I thought you were saying, or that it followed from what you were saying, that if someone can't distinguish A (SACD) and B (CD) in a test, then it's very likely that there's no difference between the sonic properties that the person is perceiving in A, and the sonic properties he's perceiving in B. A subjectivist might reply, but when you listen to a whole song, in a relaxed way rather than in testing, there is a difference; in other words, the information the listener picks up from A in that situation is different from the information he picks up from B. I thought you were denying that, i.e., saying that from the test results we know that the information the listener gets from the sources won't be different. I'm reminded of the kid who flunked his geometry quiz. "I know the material inside and out. It's just that the tension I'm under in the test situation drives eveverything right out of my mind. Now if I could just kick back, relax and take my time, I'd ace this test for sure." "Well, says the teacher, why not take the test into the teacher's lounge, lie back on the sofa, put on some soft music, and then do the test." "I'd still be under tension because I'd know it was a test. But I know the stuff. Really, I do" Norm Strong |
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Buster Mudd wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: The reason I ask is that I suspect there is more than one kind of aural memory at work. For instance there is a kind of musical memory, in which we make sense of phrases and periods, antecedent/consequent relationships, and so on. That sort of musical memory is relevant to perception, although perhaps in a different way than is the audio memory you refer to. Umm...didn't this get addressed in this very same thread months ago? See my post #348, from June 24th @ 10:29am. Yes, musical memory and audio memory are totally different things. Hi Buster, I went back and reread your post. My thought now, in the present context of discussion, is something like this: musical memory is real, and we do pick up information about musical passages extended over spans of time. So it makes sense to ask if time-proximate comparisons are sensitive to all the information we pick up in this way. If they are not, then it is fair to say that there is more going on in perception than the tests are sensitive to. If they are, it is fair to ask how we know that. What do you think? I think you keep harping on this notion that our perceptions of these two very different phenomena should somehow be similar. The phenomena (musical memory & audio memory) are similar only in that they are initially triggered by an auditory stimulus; beyond that they are so dissimilar, both in their own content & in the methods by which we perceive them, that to refer to them both as "information we pick up in this way" is to incorrectly characterize them. We *don't* pick up both types of information in the same way once the auditory stimulus has gotten past the ear. |
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The answer is quite simple:
We do not claim anything that needs to be proven TO anyone. We simply listen to the cables and make our purchases. It is quite frankly not Mr Pinkerton's place to say anything about our purchases. The notion that a 'listening test' consducted using an ABX machine is equivalent to a DBT is incorrect. It is not. This debate, now entering its millionth iteration, cannot be resolved under any conceivable circumstance because no-one wants to accept the burden of proof. The standard of 'extraordinary claim' cannot be invoked, because it is certainly plausible (at the very least) that cables could indeed affect sound. To say that it is an extraordinary claim that cables can affect sound is simply false. It is NOT an extraordinary claim. It MAY be false, but it is NOT an extraordinary claim. Let's be clear about what an extraordinary claim IS. Here's a useful reference: http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/ufo.html An extraordinary claim is somthing along the following lines: That you have been abducted by aliens That you can read minds That you can move objects by thought That you can see the future That the dead can be raised THESE are extraordinary claims. That cables can affect sound is simply NOT an extraordinary claim, and therefore NO extraordinary evidence is needed to support it, any more than saying different bottles of wine taste different. I can certainly tell one wine from another when drinking from several bottles, though I may not be able to identify them when asked to do so in a blind situation (depending on the types of wines). Those are different tasks. It is perfectly possible to be unable to tell which wine is which even though I can tell them apart when tasting the various bottles one after another. It would depend on the type of wine involved. |
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wrote:
The answer is quite simple: We do not claim anything that needs to be proven TO anyone. We simply listen to the cables and make our purchases. It is quite frankly not Mr Pinkerton's place to say anything about our purchases. The notion that a 'listening test' consducted using an ABX machine is equivalent to a DBT is incorrect. It is not. This debate, now entering its millionth iteration, cannot be resolved under any conceivable circumstance because no-one wants to accept the burden of proof. The standard of 'extraordinary claim' cannot be invoked, because it is certainly plausible (at the very least) that cables could indeed affect sound. To say that it is an extraordinary claim that cables can affect sound is simply false. It is NOT an extraordinary claim. It MAY be false, but it is NOT an extraordinary claim. Let's be clear about what an extraordinary claim IS. Here's a useful reference: http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/ufo.html An extraordinary claim is somthing along the following lines: That you have been abducted by aliens That you can read minds That you can move objects by thought That you can see the future That the dead can be raised THESE are extraordinary claims. INteresting, then, that James Randi has extended his monetary offer to include certain high-end audio claims. That cables can affect sound is simply NOT an extraordinary claim That's not the claims being talked about. It's that cables that *measure* essentially the same sound *different*. THAT is an extraordinary claim. |
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On 17 Aug 2005 23:22:33 GMT, wrote:
The answer is quite simple: We do not claim anything that needs to be proven TO anyone. We simply listen to the cables and make our purchases. It is quite frankly not Mr Pinkerton's place to say anything about our purchases. If that's all that happened, you'd be quite right. However, we do keep hearing lots of nonsense about cable A *sounding* different from cable B, and that's a whole other matter. It is quite frankly not your place to prevent someone pointing out the *fact* that audio cables all sound the same. The notion that a 'listening test' consducted using an ABX machine is equivalent to a DBT is incorrect. It is not. Excuse me? It quite obviously *is* a DBT - that's the whole point of it. This debate, now entering its millionth iteration, cannot be resolved under any conceivable circumstance because no-one wants to accept the burden of proof. Quite true, sadly. The standard of 'extraordinary claim' cannot be invoked, because it is certainly plausible (at the very least) that cables could indeed affect sound. Please explain what possible mechanism exists which would cause two nominally competent cables to sound different. Hint - no such mechanism has *ever* been suggested, outside of the 'microdiodes', 'Golden Section stranding' and other fairy tales dreamed up by cable marketeers. It is a matter of plain physical fact that all cables *should* sound the same. Unsurprisingly, that's also what any blind comparison will show. To say that it is an extraordinary claim that cables can affect sound is simply false. It is NOT an extraordinary claim. It MAY be false, but it is NOT an extraordinary claim. Of course it is. It flies in the face of everything we know about a.c. electricity and conductors. Let's be clear about what an extraordinary claim IS. Here's a useful reference: http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/ufo.html An extraordinary claim is somthing along the following lines: That you have been abducted by aliens That you can read minds That you can move objects by thought That you can see the future That the dead can be raised THESE are extraordinary claims. So is the claim that cables sound different. As with aliens, it's not sufficient to say that you know someone who thought he heard a difference in a hi-fi store - we need *evidence* that such a ridiculously unlikely event occurred. Try taking your claims of 'cable sound' into any University (even Duke!) and see how well it is received by the electrical engineering, physics and even acoustic specialists. You'll be laughed out of the building, and quite rightly. That cables can affect sound is simply NOT an extraordinary claim, Of course it is, it's an absolutely *ludicrous* claim with absolutely no basis whatever in the physical world. This is not changed by your baseless assertion that it's *not* an extraordinary claim. and therefore NO extraordinary evidence is needed to support it, any more than saying different bottles of wine taste different. I can certainly tell one wine from another when drinking from several bottles, though I may not be able to identify them when asked to do so in a blind situation (depending on the types of wines). Those are different tasks. It is perfectly possible to be unable to tell which wine is which even though I can tell them apart when tasting the various bottles one after another. It would depend on the type of wine involved. That's the pooint - you *can* tell that wines are different. This does not apply to cables, despite your desperate attempt to *pretend* that this is not an extraordinary claim. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#398
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 12 Aug 2005 23:39:32 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: If Karl senses that A possesses x, and that B does not possess x, then he can tell that they are different. QED. If what you were saying were true, then why would time-distal testing be unreliable? It's not unreliable, it's less sensitive to very small changes. But that illustrates the point. If you can tell A and B apart in a time-proximate presentation but not a time-distal one, then, in the latter, you are perceiving different things but aren't able to tell *that* they're different. Mark |
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#399
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 12 Aug 2005 23:39:32 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: If Karl senses that A possesses x, and that B does not possess x, then he can tell that they are different. QED. If what you were saying were true, then why would time-distal testing be unreliable? It's not unreliable, it's less sensitive to very small changes. But that illustrates the point. If you can tell A and B apart in a time-proximate presentation but not a time-distal one, then, in the latter, you are perceiving different things but aren't able to tell *that* they're different. Not sure why Mark is making something that is simple so hard to understand. You can't tell that they are different (or the same) because your audio memory is too short to be able to detect subtle differences between two presentations that are far apart in time. |
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#400
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Stewart:
Claiming that cables sound different to a listener is, unfortunately for you, NOT an 'extraordinary' claim. As I said before, it MAY be false (it remains to be seen), but not every false claim is extraordinary. It is false to claim that I can run my car on lemon juice. It is false, easily disproven, and ridiculous, but NOT extraordinary. It calls on no unknown or unknowable forces or factors. The history of science is full of people who made claims that appeared to be incedible but later turned out to be true. Think of Pasteur, who claimed that microbes caused disease. He was scoffed at. http://www.varchive.org/ce/accept.htm http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/reject.htm Think of Alfred Wegener and continental drift. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html http://skepdic.com/refuge/altscience.html Skepticism is all well and good. I am a skeptic, too. One of the reasons that Alfred Wegener's ideas were rejected was that there was 'no known mechanism' by which the continents could be moved. Does that ring a bell? But any schoolboy will notice that the Eastern outline of South America and Western outline of Africa match almost perfectly... The evidence is right before our eyes when we look at the map. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tectonics/pangaeabig.gif http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:S...fossil_map.gif Those who experienced that cables sound different to them do not (I hope!) ascribe the causes to some mystic source, but simply some as of yet undiscovered mechanism, just like Alfred Wegener did. |
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