"Things that cannot be measured"

[Descartes]

Meh. There's fun 'I'm trying sweetbreads for the first time" and there's the "let me explain why a McDonald's hamburger tastes the best".

It just doesn't.

Yep but to some people regardless how much money they have they still prefer The Big Mac with fries

 

[egellings]

Sure, but it is also comparably ignorant to suggest there can't be a difference because all the classical measurements say its the same. Certainly too much faith in science is more forgivable than not enough, but I would have to believe a pragmatist arrives somewhere in between.

That despite enormous incentives to do so, no audio company has reliably demonstrated that their gear sounds better than the competition once controlled for known variables is probably the most significant thing in favour of our current understanding of audio science. They would love to sell intangible magic if they could. I'm just weary of becoming so overconfident in the current state of audio science that we can comfortably discard any suggestion to its incompleteness. Agree with others that my intuition suggests we have more or less 'solved' electronics and the most likely fields for major advancement are in loudspeaker and DSP.

It's not a matter of faith; it's a matter of testability.

 

[masterhw]

It's not a matter of faith; it's a matter of testability.

And everyone at every point in history has tested using the state of the art available to them... but the state of the art has evolved to follow our understanding. What counted as sound science in the 50s would get thrown out today. While I think we're closer to the audio science of 2100 than we are 1950, it is ignorant to act as though our current methodologies capture everything there is to know. This doesn't mean they aren't still useful. Such is science, doing the best we can with what we have and being envious of what the next generations will get to take for granted

 

[kemmler3D]

Our understanding of anything is and will be incomplete. But appealing to unknown possibilities is not a valid argument.

Sure, but it is also comparably ignorant to suggest there can't be a difference because all the classical measurements say its the same.

Depends on context. Our understanding of how gravity works in the context of throwing a ball across the room is complete. We can compute it exactly, even accounting for air resistance, rotation of the ball, and so on.

While you could rightly say "this doesn't account for quantum effects or magnetic fields, or unknown forces that might act on a ball" we also rightly regard those as irrelevant for the purpose of projecting the path of a rubber ball.

The fact that physics is known to be incomplete (quantum gravity, etc.) also doesn't matter in that case.

Some things in audio are like this. Some differences are too small to be heard regardless of what the difference is. There isn't some additional measurement you could perform that would show a change of 0.1dB to the frequency response being audible.

Just like I don't need to go find a different type of ruler to prove my cat is shorter than me, nor is there any valid appeal to ignorance that opens the possibility of my cat being taller than me.

I could imagine discovering some specific mode of distortion turning out to be more audible than previously realized, but AFAIK this is really unlikely at this point. And if you can show that all forms of distortion are below -100dB (for example) do we accept it's inaudible, or do we just keep hoping the cat turns out to be taller than it looks?

 

[watchnerd]

I would say this is conceivable, at least in the context of speakers. For example, people seem to have a strong reaction to horn speakers with large woofers. I am not aware that we have solid experimental data that would explain that or debunk it. Good experiments on the audible differences between transducers are not trivial, which is why Toole and Olive are big figures in the industry. I don't think either has suggested there's no work left to be done in their field.

On the other hand... Just because I don't know something doesn't mean nobody knows it... The level of knowledge of some guy on ASR is not definitive.

In terms of recordings or electronics it's hard to imagine we're recording, playing back, and hearing something interesting without realising it. We measure fidelity at every step of the chain, it can be easily pushed beyond any known threshold of audibility, we can extract every difference with deltawave, so... there is really nowhere for novel features of audio signals to hide at this point.

Keep in mind that studio folks are messing with audio and visualizing it day in, day out. If there is a form of distortion that's interesting in any way, someone has probably made it into an effect by now.

I think we have a perfectly normal explanation for the appeal of horn speakers and big woofers.

Generally speaking, they're very efficient, by quite a bit.

And they can handle big dynamic swings better than most types of speakers.

So this can give them a certain "realism" that seems more life like, especially given the same types of drivers are used in PA speakers at live events.

 

[ahofer]

it is ignorant to act as though our current methodologies capture everything there is to know.

What is available to us is to identify, and verify in proper blind testing, an audible difference not explained by measurements (ie that isn't visible in the waveform over time at the listening position). Can anyone show me one?

So we can have confidence without in any way claiming that science is over. "There are observable phenomena that we can't explain" is a limitation of science. "We haven't yet identified a new phenomenon readily detectable by human senses" probably isn't.

 

[kemmler3D]

I think we have a perfectly normal explanation for the appeal of horn speakers and big woofers.

Generally speaking, they're very efficient, by quite a bit.

And they can handle big dynamic swings better than most types of speakers.

So this can give them a certain "realism" that seems more life like, especially given the same types of drivers are used in PA speakers at live events.

Sure, plausible. This and a few other explanations make some sense to me, but I don't think I've seen the data that describes how people react to this, or how preferences map against it, or whether dynamics are the explanation, or something else - anything along those lines.

So, not like this can't be measured, I am just not aware that it has been.

 

[antcollinet]

Not everyone likes a big T-bone steak, not everyone likes vegetarian food.

Right - but that is more analogous to the music (eg Rock v Classical), than to the reproduction gear.

 

[tmtomh]

Sure, but it is also comparably ignorant to suggest there can't be a difference because all the classical measurements say its the same. Certainly too much faith in science is more forgivable than not enough, but I would have to believe a pragmatist arrives somewhere in between.

That despite enormous incentives to do so, no audio company has reliably demonstrated that their gear sounds better than the competition once controlled for known variables is probably the most significant thing in favour of our current understanding of audio science. They would love to sell intangible magic if they could. I'm just weary of becoming so overconfident in the current state of audio science that we can comfortably discard any suggestion to its incompleteness. Agree with others that my intuition suggests we have more or less 'solved' electronics and the most likely fields for major advancement are in loudspeaker and DSP.

I think the part of your comment that I've bolded here is really important. We cannot be 100% sure that there are no unmeasurable - or as-yet not measured - aspects that might contribute to differently perceived sonics. But the overwhelming evidence is that the available measurements, when done properly, can discern differences in gear beyond the thresholds of humans' ability to hear those differences. In other words, the measurement equipment is more sensitive than we are, so if it shows no difference (or if it shows a difference we already know to be too small to be human-detectable), then we can be very confident that we have the whole story. "Very confident" is not "100% certain," but that's true of every single scientific question or topic.

And to bring in a previously discussed point in this thread, a very large percentage of the aspects that are proposed as "unmeasurable" are in fact measurable, and most aspects proposed as "maybe this makes a difference and we haven't looked into it yet" have actually already been looked into.

 

[JeremyFife]

I would say this is conceivable, at least in the context of speakers. For example, people seem to have a strong reaction to horn speakers with large woofers. I am not aware that we have solid experimental data that would explain that or debunk it. Good experiments on the audible differences between transducers are not trivial, which is why Toole and Olive are big figures in the industry. I don't think either has suggested there's no work left to be done in their field.

On the other hand... Just because I don't know something doesn't mean nobody knows it... The level of knowledge of some guy on ASR is not definitive.

In terms of recordings or electronics it's hard to imagine we're recording, playing back, and hearing something interesting without realising it. We measure fidelity at every step of the chain, it can be easily pushed beyond any known threshold of audibility, we can extract every difference with deltawave, so... there is really nowhere for novel features of audio signals to hide at this point.

Keep in mind that studio folks are messing with audio and visualizing it day in, day out. If there is a form of distortion that's interesting in any way, someone has probably made it into an effect by now.

Horns with large woofers also look feckin impressive ... that's got to play a part. I've never heard a pair though - I'd love to!

 

[masterhw]

an audible difference not explained by measurements

the measurement equipment is more sensitive than we are, so if it shows no difference (or if it shows a difference we already know to be too small to be human-detectable), then we can be very confident that we have the whole story

I have no doubt that anything observable to us can be captured in a measurement. What makes this science is that it is not a priori clear what we're supposed to be looking for and using what test conditions to effectively encapsulate everything that affects our perception of sound. Every methodology & measurement commonplace today once was not. Our ears are not microphones and it is only relatively recently with CEA-2034 & Klippel/Spinorama methodologies we have a standard procedure capturing the directivity of sound that influences our perception. Though it was before I joined the audio hobby, I have to imagine not all that long ago you could have had two loudspeakers producing the same in-room response but sounding different to humans, and no broadly accepted explanation why. This was reproduceable and was eventually solved (and, obviously, could be captured by sensors much more sensitive than our ears).
Many members here do an excellent job of meeting extraordinary claims with some variation of "has this been blind tested?" which while annoying to receive I'm sure, is sound scientific approach. Rejection on the basis of having no existing explanation is not sound science. Though I understand why it must be exhausting to entertain every extraordinary claim and it is much more practical to dismiss most claims as uneducated.

 

[mhardy6647]

Horns with large woofers also look feckin impressive ... that's got to play a part. I've never heard a pair though - I'd love to!

It can be life-changing.

 

[ahofer]

Not everyone likes a big T-bone steak, not everyone likes vegetarian food.

But they can tell them apart!

 

[ahofer]

Though it was before I joined the audio hobby, I have to imagine not all that long ago you could have had two loudspeakers producing the same in-room response but sounding different to humans, and no broadly accepted explanation why.

Interesting. I’m sure there’s some historical perspective here at ASR.

However, we certainly could measure the magnitude of reflected sound at given time intervals. And, more importantly, it was an observable difference, related to/created by the equipment. And that’s how we got a measurement standard. So it all starts with “there’s an audible difference, controlling the experiment so that I can identify the equipment as the independent variable”.

There’s certainly much we can’t measure if you don’t restrict the measuring to equipment signals and sound waves. If you do, which I believe is the spririt of this thread, we need that controlled observable difference to point us in this new and unknown direction.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Horns with large woofers also look feckin impressive ... that's got to play a part.

Sure, that's a bias. Mine is that horns with large woofers look archaic.

 

[Cbdb2]

What counted as sound science in the 50s would get thrown out today.

Examples? Im talking about science not technology, and you need to define "sound". I can give you plenty of example of old science thats still correct. Theres Archimedes principle from 2000 years ago, Maxwells equations from almost 200 years ago, relativity from 100 years ago etc etc etc

 

[watchnerd]

Sure, plausible. This and a few other explanations make some sense to me, but I don't think I've seen the data that describes how people react to this, or how preferences map against it, or whether dynamics are the explanation, or something else - anything along those lines.

So, not like this can't be measured, I am just not aware that it has been.

Well, a lot of JBL speakers have horns and big woofers and they did a crap ton of preference testing.

 

[Travis]

Sure, plausible. This and a few other explanations make some sense to me, but I don't think I've seen the data that describes how people react to this, or how preferences map against it, or whether dynamics are the explanation, or something else - anything along those lines.

So, not like this can't be measured, I am just not aware that it has been.

Dr. Toole tested horn speakers for preference, he has published the results. The preferred DI curve of a horn loaded speaker is different according to him, instead of smooth and sloping upwards, you want it flat from where midrange takes over.

He says on blind preference testing there is no difference between a good measuring conventional and horn loaded speaker.

 

[Duke]

Dr. Toole tested horn speakers for preference, he has published the results. The preferred DI curve of a horn loaded speaker is different according to him, instead of smooth and sloping upwards, you want it flat from where midrange takes over.

I must have somehow overlooked that, and imo that's an important piece of information! Can you tell me where he said that? I'm not asking you to dig it up, just point me in the right direction, if you remember where it was.

 

[Travis]

Well, a lot of JBL speakers have horns and big woofers and they did a crap ton of preference testing.

You beat me to it. After Toole went to Harman from the NRC is I think when you see him publishing on horn speakers, and of course the M2 is used in a lot of presentations.

I don’t question the methodology, or results, of anything he has published because it consistent with what the speaker luminaries have been saying about frequency response and controlled directivity in since the 50s.

But can you imagine what would have happened if blind testing resulted in good measuring horn speaker consistently rated below an average or poor measuring conventional speaker?