It has been 40+ years since the subjectivist crowd began pushing the idea that there exists audible qualities in audio reproduction that conventional measurement methods fail to detect.
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I cannot help but to conclude that subjectivists have not helped advancing the scientific understanding of audio reproduction by one iota in the last half century.
Cannot speak for the subjectivist crowd since there isn’t some coherent group with an agenda trying to advance something. But considering that for some of these stereotypes, scientific understanding of science is considered irrelevant, they can hardly be held to contribute to it. By the same logic, they could arguably claim that the audio science people have not advanced much of the science to really explain audible phenomena other than show a negative that some differences perceived are not real but that is far from advancing the science to relate measurability to audibility, to explain what measured phenomena correlate with validated perception of depth, openness, detail, etc., instead engaging in “no diffrence” nihilism to hide that lack of progress.
Where did I make a mistake? What I said: "Any device can have hidden anomalies". Do you disagree with this statement? I made no claim about the audibility of such anomalies. Certainly some of these can reveal themselves in a simple, typical test. But then, they wouldn't be considered hidden, would they?
If you read your own statement, you implied that devices have hidden anomalies due to boundary conditions but ASR is not about that, it is about finding obvious, etc.... This is where you are incorrect. Pops from a device are obvious auditory phenomena. The onus is on the measurement to discover and explain such issues. Which goes to the core argument of some that not all auditory perceptions are not necessarily discovered with a finite or current set of measurements. You just bolstered that argument by stating that you would not consider (or ASR would not test for) such hidden anomalies.
Conjecture "1. Given a finite set of well-defined measurements there is no audible difference that cannot be captured by that set of measurements" is trivially proven for digital audio.
This is wrong in that there is no definitive let alone trivial proof. This statement itself is not provable if you understood science because you would have to enumerate all possible audible differences (whether anyone has encountered it or not) and show that the measurement captures it. But it could be a null hypothesis
conjecture not a proven theory.
It can be falsified for a specific set of measurements by a single example of an auditory phenomena that is not captured by the measurement.
The behavior of certain digital zeros that result in pops between tracks that was not discovered in a device tested here is existential proof that the above is wrong
for this set of measurements.
Now you can say, I will augment that set of measurements once I find that audible difference that is not caught and that will be my next set of measurements. The listener will say, OK define that set of measurement and we will see what audible features are not handled by that. And it goes one but neither will result in a definitive proof. Absence of evidence of an audible difference that cannot be detected in a set of measurement is not evidence of absence of any such difference. So, one can hold on to that unproven conjecture but not claim it has been proved. And the listeners will hold on to their unprovable conjecture that any finite set of measurements will not cover all possible auditory experience.
Your signal comparison is flawed unless you can prove your signal is representative all possible inputs to that device as may happen in real life listening. There is no such proof. There is existential proof to the contrary. The effect of digital zeros in some sequence affecting a device is not captured unless it is accidentally captured as happened in the Emotiva case but the input signals used wee not sufficient for the Paradigm PW link. The problem is not with how much you know the process, it is with the limitations of the methodology and the implicit assumptions you are making which do not show completeness. It is like a software engineer saying, I will show that my code will faithfully compute a function for my inputs but not testing it for all possible inputs that may happen in reality.
Conjecture "2. For any valid demonstrated audible difference, there is a measurement we can devise to expose that difference" is harder to prove, but follows from Conjecture 1,
This as I have pointed out is a valid conjecture but as pointed out above, it is not a provable conjecture since there is no finite enumeration of possible audio differences to show that it is true over audible difference. But it can be falsified by someone coming up with an audible difference that cannot be captured by a measurement. The condition that there is absence of such evidence so far is not evidence of absence of any such difference, so will not prove that unprovable statement. But it is a valid conjecture to hold as long as one does not hold it to be proven true at any time. That is science.
Conjecture "3. For any given finite set of measurements, there can be a device which can be detected audibly but not by that set of measurements." I assume you mean difference? This one implies a limit to scientific inquiry. While there are a few known limits (like Göedel's theorem, or QM uncertainty principle) these are rare in science and require rigorous proof and abundance of evidence when proposed.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. The last statement makes no sense to me. The conjecture is based on the fact that if there is a device with a audible characteristic that is not manifested in any finite set of measurements, it will be indistinguishable in measurement from another device that is identical to it but without that characteristic and yet they will be different in audibility testing. So to show that conjecture to be true for a finite set of measurement, one would have to find a device who exhibits behavior not captured by that set of measurement.
A trivial hypothetical example. Let us say a simple set of measurements do not detect clipping. A device clips and the effect of clipping is audible. Now take another device that is identical to this one except it does not clip. In that set of hypothetical measurement, both would measure the same but one would be audibly different from the other.
The treatment of digital zeros has already shown this. It does not mean that the conjecture is proved however, because it is unprovable over a non-finite enumeration of possible measurements.
I suggest you try running through your application/interpretation of the "well known rules of science methodology and logic " again, but instead of audio, apply it to the existence of Bigfoot.
I already did to show your misunderstanding of the use of null hypothesis with the unicorn example earlier.
“There is no big foot on earth” is a valid conjecture and a valid null hypothesis because it requires one existential observation to falsify it in a finite space. “There is no big foot in the universe” is a valid conjecture but not a valid null hypothesis the burden of proof now is not on the big foot believer but on you because there is no finite enumeration of all possible universes. I have given the audible difference equivalents of the conjectures to show which are provable and which are not and where the burden of proof is as people seem to be unaware of this distinction even in a science based forum.