Fascinating local radio program today: "A Professional Taste Tester Tells All"

[mhardy6647]

OK, silly title (of the above-mentioned radio program episode) notwithstanding...
@RickS's recently reanimated thread* has raised, I'd opine, some excellent points about why we're here.
One comment he made really caught my attention.

ASR has been more focused on human bias as a factor in audio decisions.

In that vein, and as an analytical scientist (albeit a mostly-retired one at this point), I think the issue of the audiophile ear (or ear/brain/psychology) "versus" objective, calibrated analytical instrumentation as tools for objective analysis is (still) a very interesting one. Perhaps even more interesting is the notion of the trained listener, which is (from my perspective) kind of an amalgamation of the two approaches. And that's where I am going with this post.

A locally produced (across the river in Vermont) radio program called Vermont Edition had an unexpectedly fascinating interview today with "a professional taste-tester" called Roy Desrochers. He turned out to be a wee bit more qualified than I was expecting, being, apparently, a trained chemist who started his career with the redoubtable consulting juggernaut Arthur D. Little over four decades ago when they, again apparently, were developing strategies for calibrated assessment of taste and aroma for the food industry.

Here's a link including the audio stream: https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2026-03-10/a-professional-taste-tester-tells-all

The notion of "calibrated human instruments" (mostly noses) looms large in the way such folks operate, and I thought he did a great job of describing that in enough detail to be useful and interesting without losing his audience. One assertion particularly caught my attention. Desrochers said that a trained human is a more sensitive detector of scent than a quadrupole mass spectrometer for odorants (so to speak) separated by gas chromatography! Mind you, the sensitivity of modern capillary MS methods can be exquisitely high, so I wasn't expecting that.

I am not actually suggesting that this notion of trained, calibrated human instruments ("noses") is analogous to the "golden ear" - if those golden ears were trained and calibrated! Indeed, I am willing to take Desrochers at face value when he claims that the olfactory system is more sensitive than any attempts at "electronic noses" to date. And I believe all y'all when you say that such is not the case for human hearing.

But the parallels to the subjective/objective 'debate' in audiophile-dom caught my attention, so, for what it's worth, I am sharing my semi-intelligible comments here. If you have any interest at all in the topic of 'taste testers' as human analytical instruments, give it a listen!
__________________
* i.e., https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/improving-asr-as-a-member-moderator.63885/

 

[xanalog]

Ignoring the senses of equilibrioception, nociception, interoception and proprioception/space; we are down to our 5 basic sense.

• Sense of Touch: Temperature, vibration, pain (etc.) science is well understood and documented
• Sense of Sight: Most complex and most scientifically explored. [imo]
• Sense of Hearing: Both objective/subjective mechanisms fairly well understood [thanks to our friendly PinkPanthers]
• Sense of Taste: Salty, sour, sweet, bitter, umami/savory. Yawn!
• Sense of Smell: Despite its crucial role in flavor/memory/survival, olfaction is considered the least studied and understood.

Advances in both neuroscience and AI are supposed to be unraveling the mysteries behind our detection and interpretation of odors [very subjective].
I don't much care what mysteries they 'unravel' about our smell detector because my "nose always knows!" but still no match for Fido's!

 

[mhardy6647]

Ignoring the senses of equilibrioception, nociception, interoception and proprioception/space; we are down to our 5 basic sense.

• Sense of Touch: Temperature, vibration, pain (etc.) science is well understood and documented
• Sense of Sight: Most complex and most scientifically explored. [imo]
• Sense of Hearing: Both objective/subjective mechanisms fairly well understood [thanks to our friendly PinkPanthers]
• Sense of Taste: Salty, sour, sweet, bitter, umami/savory. Yawn!
• Sense of Smell: Despite its crucial role in flavor/memory/survival, olfaction is considered the least studied and understood.

Advances in both neuroscience and AI are supposed to be unraveling the mysteries behind our detection and interpretation of odors [very subjective].
I don't much care what mysteries they 'unravel' about our smell detector because my "nose always knows!" but still no match for Fido's!

So, we need robot dogs [edit: dog noses, more to the point] in the commercial "taste" laboratories, then -- is that what you're saying?

 

[xanalog]

So, we need robot dogs [edit: dog noses, more to the point] in the commercial "taste" laboratories, then -- is that what you're saying?

Welllll! If you want the honest answer, here it be:
I saw no one had answered your post, and I did not want you to feel abandoned... [like Fido in the pound. And yes you can spare me the puppy-eyes!]
So, I figured I add a little bit of background (like bloviating) to your foreground.


ADD: I've heard previously (and topically) that our sense of smell and sense of taste do cooperate with each other; to notch-up their subjectivity, to another level.
I guess that would be similar to the cooperation of sense of sight with our sense of hearing. This maybe why when we watch KT88s glow, we subjectively add even harmonics to the 'mix'.

 

[mhardy6647]

I suspected as much, but I'm not above pandering (or being pandered... or is it being pandered to).
It really was a pretty good interview.

 

[antcollinet]

Even with trained listeners - blind testing is still required.

I'd assume the same for tasters.

I have no knowledge to judge the performane of SOTA chemical sniffers as against humane olfactory senses - but see no reason as to why it would impact on our understanding of audio measurements vs hearing. I suspect it is much easier to measure a 1 dimension against time of a sound wave, than it is detect all the different molecules that our senses can.

 

[mhardy6647]

Nor did (do) I -- but the notion (claim) that a human nose can be a more sensitive detector than a quadrupole MS (EDIT: umm... mass spectrometer -- I reckon most know what an MS is, but maybe not everybody ) caught my attention.

Dog nose... sure... but a human nose!?

 

[xanalog]

Even with trained listeners - blind testing is still required.
I'd assume the same for tasters.

You'd need a nose clip.
But there is this other problem, which I had to confirm w/my halucinating-agent in residence:

When you chew or swallow food, odor molecules travel from the back of the mouth to the nasal cavity through a process called retronasal olfaction, where they stimulate olfactory receptors.
Studies suggest that up to 80% of flavor perception comes from smell, making it a dominant factor in how we experience food.
The brain integrates signals from both taste buds and olfactory receptors in shared regions, creating a unified experience.
Without smell, even strong tastes like sweetness or saltiness lose their depth and identity.

A proverbial back-door, if you will.

 

[mhardy6647]

A proverbial back-door, if you will.

 

[Keith_W]

If a human nose can exceed the detection ability of a machine, all it means is that the machines need more development. After all, at one point in our history, humans could run faster than machines.

 

[pjug]

Here's a link including the audio stream: https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2026-03-10/a-professional-taste-tester-tells-all

Ha, I was listening to that driving south on I-89. The maple syrup talk almost made me want to turn around and go pick up some good stuff at Silloway Maple.

 

[Axo1989]

I suspected as much, but I'm not above pandering (or being pandered... or is it being pandered to).
It really was a pretty good interview.

I want the Olfactory Panda t-shirt.

 

[Timcognito]

My Grandma said "the nose, knows" and she and I had/have sensitive snoz's. My wife who was trained in taste testing during her work at Foremost as a chemist and food scientist, trusts me to tell her that if something smells rotten, if she can not. Not bragging, might be delusional. No golden nose jokes, please.

 

[antcollinet]

No golden nose jokes, please.

Sorry - no can do.

trusts me to tell her that if something smells rotten, if she can not.

You do realise of course that most competently prepared food has levels of rotten-ness significatly lower than the human nose can detect - that is not just you, but any human nose on the planet.

Thus, given the unlikely nature of your claim, we have to assume that without cut size matched blind sniffing, the most likely cause of your rotten perceptions is nasal bias.

If you trust your nose, please trust ONLY your nose. And not the visual greyness of the ribeye.

 

[mhardy6647]

This place has had interesting effects on me.
I was listening to yet another puff piece on NPR about the Artemis mission this morning, but my attention was attracted by... nay, fixated upon the following statement:

Artemis II has 10 science objectives for the flyby. One is to observe color variations on the lunar surface. Changes in color can indicate the composition of the minerals on the surface. These changes are hard to detect with satellite images.

"This is something that human eyes are just incredibly good at teasing out nuances about," said Young.

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/06/nx-s1-5773187/nasa-artemis-ii-moon-lunar-flyby

 

[MCH]

As a curiosity: GC-olfactometry exists, but the objective is to identify which of the components in a sample smells, not to detect, let alone quantify them. I very much doubt there are many molecules for which the human nose has a lower detection limit than a modern GC-MS, but maybe I am mistaken and some exist.

 

[mhardy6647]

As a curiosity: GC-olfactometry exists, but the objective is to identify which of the components in a sample smells, not to detect, let alone quantify them. I very much doubt there are many molecules for which the human nose has a lower detection limit than a modern GC-MS, but maybe I am mistaken and some exist.

View attachment 522749

I would think so as well (or at least I would have thought so). Modern MS methods can be stunningly sensitive.

 

[eddantes]

Seems to me - that a human "instrument" is a very adaptable combo of detectors and processors, and if that "instrument" can be set to a task that does not carry any inherrent "preferrence" to that"instrument", then the human can indeed be an excelent resource. Unfortunately in audio - I don't believe one can remove the "preference" from the process (as opposed to detecting colour variation) and so here we are back at ASR.

 

[JeffS7444]

This place has had interesting effects on me.
I was listening to yet another puff piece on NPR about the Artemis mission this morning, but my attention was attracted by... nay, fixated upon the following statement:

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/06/nx-s1-5773187/nasa-artemis-ii-moon-lunar-flyby

Am guessing that politicians tasked the scientists with selling this to the general public beyond saying how cool it is. Of course it would be even cooler if someone could solve the problem of radiation exposure outside of Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere.

 

[mhardy6647]

Am guessing that politicians tasked the scientists with selling this to the general public beyond saying how cool it is. Of course it would be even cooler if someone could solve the problem of radiation exposure outside of Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere.

for the lower-energy stuff, spacecraft of lead.
for gamma rays... really, really, really thick walls.