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what value listening tests

Reply #75 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Quote from: greynol on
Yawn! (reprise)

As has been said before, I claim there is a pink elephant in orbit around the planet Uranus.  Until you can prove I am wrong, my claim must be true.

PS: I see you caught my post before my edit.  While it is painfully obvious that you are clueless about scientific method and even seem to reject it in favor of false world view based on blind and unprovable faith, it really had nothing to do with my point which is why I removed it.




Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method. It is a valuable technique, to be sure, but it is not all powerful. It does have limitations - something you seem to be unaware of i would think.

And your comment about blind faith is ridiculous. You are applying the scientific method to thoughts, processes in the brain. To ephermeral things like emotions, colour, sound. Can you measure sound? You can measure the waveform of vibrating air, but the sound you percieve in your head, whilst it is certainly induced by the vibrations picked up by the ear, is not the vibrationa themselves. Rather it is a mental image constructed by the brain from those vibrations. The image produced depends on the individual, the emotions of the individual, etc, and effected by mood swings, health, etc, and the personality of the individual. If you think you can measure it with a ruler, I think you must be pink and in orbit arounf Unranus yourself, lol.

I have a question for you - explain to me what sound actually is - i mean sound in the brain, not sound in the air. I dare you to even try. You'll fail.

what value listening tests

Reply #76 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Agreed. But then since it was an accident and not a planned test, how could it be repeated?

I suppose I could get my son or daughter to preload my mp3 player with a different sd card each morning without telling me which one - but then I would still know I was in a test, and my subsequent listening would be conditioned by that knowledge. hence, the test would be useless to me, since as I have stated in my post, that would, for me, invalidate the test. My basic principle for listening tests is that once you know you are being tested - the test is invalid.


Simple.

Your son or daughter (ideally a third party, rather than someone who could accidentally bias you) preloads your MP3 player every morning. Test days are randomly selected and you have no idea which day is test day. As this would mean you might need to have a dozen or more 'accidental tests' for statistical significance, you could conceivably spread this over a period of several months. I doubt even the most test-averse subject would find that too stringent.

what value listening tests

Reply #77 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
My basic principle for listening tests is that once you know you are being tested - the test is invalid.

This sounds like a pathetic cop-out to me.  Regardless, your "basic principle" is flawed.
Is 24-bit/192kHz good enough for your lo-fi vinyl, or do you need 32/384?

what value listening tests

Reply #78 –
Quote from: Gag Halfrunt on
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
People that believe whole heartedly in the scientific method will not accept any proof that the scientific method does not work unless the proof is in the form of the scientific method. Catch-22 I think.


Last time I looked, Sony had not appointed a design shamen to help develop its next generation of OLED televisions, Nikon does not employ someone to channel positive energy into its D3S camera body to allow it to work at high ISOs and Panasonic's Blu-ray players do not have to be inspected by white witches before final sign off. What makes the reproduction of sound so special that it tweaks the nose of science and laughs in the face of engineering when all these other consumer electronic disciplines don't?


But here's your problem in a nutshell: you are conversing with someone who, essentially, says "audio is beyond the reach of science". Recall that science, amongst other things, got human artifacts in space, allowed us to understand quantum mechanics and relativity, lets us photograph atoms (which we are aware of due to scientific effort), map out the effects of different pieces of DNA, make digital cameras, build computers, etc etc. But music reproduction is beyond its reach! Music reproduction!

I suspect you won't convince such a person.

what value listening tests

Reply #79 –
Really it all comes down to this. I assert there are aspects of sound (in the head not in the air) that cannot be measured by the scientific method. My detractors (everyone?) seem to be saying either that there are no aspects that cannot be measured, or perhaps that they are only interested in those that can.

This issue really exposes the limitations of science and the scientific method. Science can only deal with things that can be measured. If you cannot measure it, then Science is not interested in it (quite rightly so i guess).

Unfortunately, there are those who seem to draw the conclusion that if you cannot measure it and prove scientifically that it exists, it must therefor not exist. QED.

I am more open minded. I accept that there are things that science cannot measure or prove wehether they exist, but I still accept that they could exist. And I believe that some things can be proven by means other than by the scientific method. I think it is logical and reasonable that there must be more to sound than can be measured in an a/b test. Sound is obviously unbelievably complex, even at the level of the waveforms themselves, not to mention what must be going on in the brain. Scientists know so little about how the brain processes sound, how the brain matches up harmonics with fundamentals, how it attaches emotions like "hard" and "bright" and "tinny" to the sound it hears. To me to make the assumption that a A/B test can explore and enumerate and encompass all those compexities, seems to me to be either madness or at best an incredible ability to over simplify. To me it seems all too obvious that you cannot meaure all that complexity with such a simple ruler.

A scientist (or several) once said that extraordinary things require extraordinary proof. If I said that it an mp3 player does not sound as good if the headphones have been dunked in a cup of tea, would everyone shout "prove it or shut up"? I think that my assertion is actually an obvious, ordinary one - that sound is very complex, and that simple listening tests do not completely describe or encompass something that complex. To me this sounds like an obvious common sense statement, one that I would have thought would not need to be proven. Quite the contrary, I would think my detractors are the ones who should have to prove their assertion, which to me sounds quite extraordinary - that a simple a/b test can measure something as complex as sound. To me that is quite extraordinary.

I believe that my experience with sound has proven (to me) that there is more to sound than meets the eye (or the ruler). That I cannot rip open my brains and show the proof to people on the forum, or expose my brains to a telepath that others could share my experience, means I cannot prove it to others. Hwoever, I believe that common sense and reason can show those with an opn mind that what I am saying at least could be correct.

But if you are a died-in-the-wool prove it or lose it wheres-my-ruler kind of person, then I may as well go somewhere else (can I hear applause?).

what value listening tests

Reply #80 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method. It is a valuable technique, to be sure, but it is not all powerful. It does have limitations - something you seem to be unaware of i would think.
While that might be true, there is not a single thing you've said to expose any possible limitations of double-blind test methodology in this discussion.

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
You are applying the scientific method to thoughts, processes in the brain.
No.  I'm applying scientific method to what is a very easily testable claim: A sounds better to you than B.
Is 24-bit/192kHz good enough for your lo-fi vinyl, or do you need 32/384?

what value listening tests

Reply #81 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method. It is a valuable technique, to be sure, but it is not all powerful. It does have limitations - something you seem to be unaware of i would think.

And your comment about blind faith is ridiculous. You are applying the scientific method to thoughts, processes in the brain. To ephermeral things like emotions, colour, sound. Can you measure sound? You can measure the waveform of vibrating air, but the sound you percieve in your head, whilst it is certainly induced by the vibrations picked up by the ear, is not the vibrationa themselves. Rather it is a mental image constructed by the brain from those vibrations. The image produced depends on the individual, the emotions of the individual, etc, and effected by mood swings, health, etc, and the personality of the individual. If you think you can measure it with a ruler, I think you must be pink and in orbit arounf Unranus yourself, lol.

I have a question for you - explain to me what sound actually is - i mean sound in the brain, not sound in the air. I dare you to even try. You'll fail.


As I've said earlier, the scientific method got you the audio system you listen to. It's kind of hard to dismiss scientific method without also dismissing the applications of that method.

We've come a long, long way in developing cognitive neuroscience in recent years. The old 'you can't see a thought' philosophical argument is eroding as we are identifying and honing neuroimaging techniques that do just that. For example, if you play a musical note, the auditory cortex (specifically Brodmanns 41 and 42) show activity under fMRI investigations; play the same note with accompanying vocal in a language you understand and Broca's area in the inferior frontal gyrus trigger as well. Play a note at a different pitch and different areas of Brodmanns 41 and 42 can be seen as reacting. Other regions also fire off, possibly as result of memories triggered by that particular piece of music. The more the music affects the listener on an emotional level, the greater the activity in these areas. At the moment, we don't have the ability to see a note-for-note activity map in the brain, and whether that will ever happen is speculative at best, but that's not bad for less than 30 years work.

So, in answer to your question, from a neurological perspective, sound is synaptic activity in the auditory cortex, excited by cochlea nerve stimulus from the basilar membrane in the inner ear.

what value listening tests

Reply #82 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
This issue really exposes the limitations of science and the scientific method.
It exposes your ignorance of ABX testing and simple common sense, perhaps; but certainly not the ability of an individual to demonstrate that he can tell the difference between two stimuli without prior knowledge of which is being presented.

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Unfortunately, there are those who seem to draw the conclusion that if you cannot measure it and prove scientifically that it exists, it must therefor not exist. QED.
When faced with an alternative of fanciful and counter-intuitive psychobabble that has never demonstrated any repeatable basis in reality, it makes more sense to stick with what is well understood and commonly accepted (read: placebo effect).

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
I believe that my experience with sound has proven (to me) that there is more to sound than meets the eye (or the ruler).
Don't delude yourself, you've proven nothing.

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Hwoever, I believe that common sense and reason can show those with an opn mind that what I am saying at least could be correct.
As can that pink elephant orbiting Uranus.
Is 24-bit/192kHz good enough for your lo-fi vinyl, or do you need 32/384?
 

what value listening tests

Reply #83 –
well magneticrabbit, let me give you some credit here. If your contention holds - that (for some people more than others) there are differences that may be perceived in "just" listening that might not be perceived in "careful test" listening - then there is value to a test where the listener isn't really in test-mindset.

so good for you for doing it once.
now, the reason that you need to repeat it is to rule out the possibility that you were guessing or lucky or just happened to choose the correct one, thinking you heard a difference even when you didn't. (You can call a coin flip correct at least 50% of the time)

So the question for you is, can you maintain the "it's not a test" mindset long enough to complete repeated trials, and thus figure out whether you actually can replicate the differences you think you hear?

Quote from: magneticrabbit on
In future when I make this kind of quote, I will say "Scientists used to think the sun revolved around the Earth", or "Scientists used to think heat was a weightless fluid called caloric". Actually I chose this example because I thought more people would be familiar with it, and also I did'nt realise how pedantic people would be, and the modern tendency to for people to nit pick everything to bits.

As for the earth-flat and science issue, it's just an example that people use all the time, and is completely bunk, and I get annoyed with it being out there b/c I study this stuff in the course of my Ph.D. work. Maybe pedantic, but you'd be amazed at how many people think that Columbus' voyage was opposed in Italy b/c the Catholic Church had a vested interest in believing that the world was flat.
If you think I'm simply an example of "the modern tendency to nitpick everything to bits" - well, then you should go read yourself some medieval natural philosophy.
I'd prefer for people to cite accurate examples when they're making an argument, that's all. And I assume that most people on this forum would prefer their own arguments to be accurate, as well.
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

what value listening tests

Reply #84 –
Quote from: timcupery on
As for the earth-flat and science issue, it's just an example that people use all the time, and is completely bunk, and I get annoyed with it being out there b/c I study this stuff in the course of my Ph.D. work. Maybe pedantic, but you'd be amazed at how many people think that Columbus' voyage was opposed in Italy b/c the Catholic Church had a vested interest in believing that the world was flat.
If you think I'm simply an example of "the modern tendency to nitpick everything to bits" - well, then you should go read yourself some medieval natural philosophy.
I'd prefer for people to cite accurate examples when they're making an argument, that's all. And I assume that most people on this forum would prefer their own arguments to be accurate, as well.


Also, I have a hard time understanding how people can believe that whole civilizations, some of them mainly sea-going, could believe that the earth is flat. I grew up on an island and, let me tell you, seeing a ship come up over the horizon does not leave much room for interpretation. Maybe if you see it once or twice, but if your civilization is built on seafaring, well...

what value listening tests

Reply #85 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
...If you have a fully double blind listening test which has the result that AAC is a better codec than say, WMA - is that proof? The subjective judgements of a handful of ordinary human beings like myself? That proves nothing, except perhaps tha the people in the test are no judge of good sound. How can you tell who is a good judge of sound - do they have a sign on their forehead or something?...


That proves that the handful of ordinary human beings (and probably includes you too) are unable to differentiate (not judge) between a and b so they can settle for the lowest file size without loosing any quality (they weren't able to hear it anyways).

what value listening tests

Reply #86 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Really it all comes down to this. I assert there are aspects of sound (in the head not in the air) that cannot be measured by the scientific method. My detractors (everyone?) seem to be saying either that there are no aspects that cannot be measured, or perhaps that they are only interested in those that can.

This issue really exposes the limitations of science and the scientific method. Science can only deal with things that can be measured. If you cannot measure it, then Science is not interested in it (quite rightly so i guess).

Unfortunately, there are those who seem to draw the conclusion that if you cannot measure it and prove scientifically that it exists, it must therefor not exist. QED.


Come on. "we" assert, not that there do not exist unmeasurable things (or that they're uninteresting), but that sound quality isn't one of them.

Your "detractors" are not arguing with that. You also asserted that you like WMA better than mp3 (or something along those lines), and that this preference cannot be detected unless one is not actively looking for it. That is actually what they (ie, the "detractors") are disagreeing with, not the existence of unmeasurable things (which is obvious: I'm married; do you really think I did this because I measured something that told me "yep, get married to her"?).

I have a hard time believing you really do not realize these points, though. So, if you're going to build strawmen, at least don't be obvious about it.

what value listening tests

Reply #87 –
At least one person in this thread has voiced the opinion that I do not follow or know much about the scientific method. This kind of ironic since i believe it is exactly the reverse.

In your listening tests you deliberately avoid giving the listener information about what they are listening to, in order to avoid pre-conditioning them into an expectation which could influence their judgement during the test. This is indeed following the scientific method. There are a number of other precautions you take to eliminate false results, also in line with the correct scientific method.

However, at the same time you conveniently sweep under the carpet the obvious psychological  impact that knowing they are in a test will have on the mood of the listeners, and which must also affect their judgement and affect the results of the test. It is surely impossible that a listener will be unaffected by the difference between a normal listening situation, where they are listening for pleasure, and one where they are focussing their attention of the music in order to render an objective judgement on it.

I believe that you do this because you have no other choice, simply because there is no way to eliminate this affect - no way to conduct a test without the test subjects knowing it, and without the knowledge affecting the situation. This aspect of the tests is simply being ignored.

This affect which cannot be compensated for by the scientific method is skewing the tests to some extent, and to an extent which is hard to determine, and this invalidates the tests. Either all external influence has been removed or it has'nt. The proper scientific method is to eliminate all external factors that might affect the experiment, not just some of them. If you have;nt eliminated them all, you are not doing good science.

And if, as probably in this case, is either impossible to allow for this factor, or at least no one has thought of a way to do so yet, then you should at least acknowledge this weakness in the tests, rather than present them as most seem to have, as if the result came down from God himself, as incontravertable fact, proven by proper scientific method, when in fact they clearly are not.

The reality is that the majority of the area of sound as experienced by human beings is subjective - i dont think this has to be proved - is obvious. Some aspects of sound can be objectivised and measured, but some cannot. To  suggest that people cannot even talk about the subjective bits, or perhaps even make any form of reference to this aspect of sound, without providing "proof" is rediculous. Just as rediculous is to suggest that the only bits that matter are the objective bits that we think we can measure in a listening test. Or that anyone who brings up this other area in a conversation is either a troll, or someone who is inherently unscientific. (The latter is particularly funny since science is my second love, next to music.)

I have no objection whatsoever in people performing listening tests, scientific or otherwise, so long as they are aware of the limitations of those tests. True many of my tests have limitations, most of which I think I am aware of. But these wonderful AB type tests do so to, regardless of how scientific you have convinced yourself they are. They are perhaps the best listening tests that can be conducted - but they are not the perfect measureing devices you think they are. They are badly compromised by their inability to eliminate mood bias from the test subjects. If that is taken into account, then the tests can still be useful. However, on this forum no one seems to be doing so - unless I am badly mistaken.

what value listening tests

Reply #88 –
[quote author=Light-Fire link=msg=692888 date=1268270519]
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
...If you have a fully double blind listening test which has the result that AAC is a better codec than say, WMA - is that proof? The subjective judgements of a handful of ordinary human beings like myself? That proves nothing, except perhaps tha the people in the test are no judge of good sound. How can you tell who is a good judge of sound - do they have a sign on their forehead or something?...


That proves that the handful of ordinary human beings (and probably includes you too) are unable to differentiate (not judge) between a and b so they can settle for the lowest file size without loosing any quality (they weren't able to hear it anyways).
[/quote]

Or they were'nt able to hear it during the listening test. Does that mean though that their brain might not have noticed the difference subconciously, and brought it to their attention (if you like) by not providing as much pleasure while they were listening? Something that they also would not notice.

This is my point. Why assume that bacause someone did not notice something in a listening test, an inherently unnatural way to listen to music, that they would not subsequently be affected by it? Remember we are talking about ordinary people who might conduct these tests, not seasond sound professionals.

what value listening tests

Reply #89 –
Quote from: aclo on
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Really it all comes down to this. I assert there are aspects of sound (in the head not in the air) that cannot be measured by the scientific method. My detractors (everyone?) seem to be saying either that there are no aspects that cannot be measured, or perhaps that they are only interested in those that can.

This issue really exposes the limitations of science and the scientific method. Science can only deal with things that can be measured. If you cannot measure it, then Science is not interested in it (quite rightly so i guess).

Unfortunately, there are those who seem to draw the conclusion that if you cannot measure it and prove scientifically that it exists, it must therefor not exist. QED.


Come on. "we" assert, not that there do not exist unmeasurable things (or that they're uninteresting), but that sound quality isn't one of them.



I am going to try and put myself into the mindset of some of the other people on thsi forum for the duration of this response. Here goes.

[newmindset]
Please provide scientific proof that sound quality is not one of them - otherwise I will reject that assertion.
[/newmindset]

what value listening tests

Reply #90 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Quote from: aclo on
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Really it all comes down to this. I assert there are aspects of sound (in the head not in the air) that cannot be measured by the scientific method. My detractors (everyone?) seem to be saying either that there are no aspects that cannot be measured, or perhaps that they are only interested in those that can.

This issue really exposes the limitations of science and the scientific method. Science can only deal with things that can be measured. If you cannot measure it, then Science is not interested in it (quite rightly so i guess).

Unfortunately, there are those who seem to draw the conclusion that if you cannot measure it and prove scientifically that it exists, it must therefor not exist. QED.


Come on. "we" assert, not that there do not exist unmeasurable things (or that they're uninteresting), but that sound quality isn't one of them.



I am going to try and put myself into the mindset of some of the other people on thsi forum for the duration of this response. Here goes.

[newmindset]
Please provide scientific proof that sound quality is not one of them - otherwise I will reject that assertion.
[/newmindset]


Well I can't. I can't prove that mathematics has any relationship whatsoever to reality either, apart from the fact that it works under a certain set of conditions, although to a lesser extend. It's the same (cue infinite discussion along the lines of "aha, prove that it works" etc).

But of course you can reject it, that's fine. What's not is asserting that everybody else has missed some obvious point (do you think this argument has never occurred to anybody else here?).

Teapot orbiting Uranus, as usual... I always found philosophical discussions pointless. But go ahead and enjoy them!

what value listening tests

Reply #91 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
...majority of the area of sound as experienced by human beings is subjective - i dont think this has to be proved...


All the area of sound as perceived by human beings is objective. However the human imagination is extremely subjective.
So you should ABX our codecs, chose the more useful and then let your imagination run free later on when listening to your music.

It looks like you have some kind of psychological blockage that don't allow you to accept truth in certain situations.

If you insist in being "subjective" (nowadays another world for delusional). I sugest you go here. A place for "people" like yourself.

what value listening tests

Reply #92 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
However, at the same time you conveniently sweep under the carpet the obvious psychological  impact that knowing they are in a test will have on the mood of the listeners, and which must also affect their judgement and affect the results of the test. It is surely impossible that a listener will be unaffected by the difference between a normal listening situation, where they are listening for pleasure, and one where they are focussing their attention of the music in order to render an objective judgement on it.

If rendering a decision about X being A or B is so utterly difficult under the immense pressure (sarcasm) of what is really a trivial test, you might consider the obvious: you really cannot tell the difference.  Again, this sounds like a cop-out predicated on the fear that you may not pass.

The interesting thing here is that you still don't seem to understand how to interpret the results of an ABX test.  ABX is only designed to show that a particular individual can discern a difference between a particular pair of samples at the given time of the test.  If you tried the test with a cold or immediately after attending a very loud concert, you might not do so well if you took the test under more favorable circumstances.

Anyway, what's wrong with setting up an ABX test that lasts all day long?  You can surely manage to decompress at some point in time, can't you; or are you going to give pathetic excuses about how hard it is throughout each and every day?

To be frank with you, there are a few people here who can regularly ABX 320kbit mp3 from lossless with what might seem to be ordinary, non-killer samples to most people.  None of them have ever whined about how difficult it was knowing that they were testing themselves.  I could be wrong, but your excuses give me the impression that you are not one of these people.
Is 24-bit/192kHz good enough for your lo-fi vinyl, or do you need 32/384?

what value listening tests

Reply #93 –
Quote from: greynol on
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method. It is a valuable technique, to be sure, but it is not all powerful. It does have limitations - something you seem to be unaware of i would think.
While that might be true, [...]

I don't think that's true at all, I'm always irked when pseudoscientific bullshitters go to this line of argument. As a great philosopher once put it: "It works, bitches". It takes as much faith to "believe" in science as it takes to "believe" that if you throw yourself out a window you'll go down instead of up. Now, a wishy washy relativist might say "But what is really up and down, but human constructs?" To which I would reply why don't you go find out. These arguments about ascribing any kind of faith-based "way of knowing" the same weight as science, by trying to bring down science to its level is really disingenuous, annoying, and even if they don't realize it, everyone that's not Amish knows it deep down.

what value listening tests

Reply #94 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
At least one person in this thread has voiced the opinion that I do not follow or know much about the scientific method. This kind of ironic since i believe it is exactly the reverse.

In your listening tests you deliberately avoid giving the listener information about what they are listening to, in order to avoid pre-conditioning them into an expectation which could influence their judgement during the test. This is indeed following the scientific method. There are a number of other precautions you take to eliminate false results, also in line with the correct scientific method.

However, at the same time you conveniently sweep under the carpet the obvious psychological  impact that knowing they are in a test will have on the mood of the listeners, and which must also affect their judgement and affect the results of the test. It is surely impossible that a listener will be unaffected by the difference between a normal listening situation, where they are listening for pleasure, and one where they are focussing their attention of the music in order to render an objective judgement on it.


Let's say that knowing that they are particpating in a test completely eliminates any listener's ability to hear any difference betweeen audio gear. That means that any listening test, whether blind or sighted, ABX or ABC/hr, long term or short term, will always have a null result.

What about the zillions of times people have known that they were taking a listening test and actually heard a difference? Must all be an illusion, right?

If you can live with that, so can I!

BTW the logical fallicy that you are pursuing is called "poisoning the well".  Don't feel particularly proud of it, as it has been tried dozens of times before in exactly this context. At least one Usenet newsgroup, once a vibrant forum for discussion of audio, was completely trashed and burned by golden ears when they realized that they had no logical legs to stand on.

What you ignore is the fact that knowing that they are taking a test has not kept people from hearing differences that were known to be audible by any other logical means. The only cliamed audible differences that haven't been confirmed in proper listening tests are the ones that aren't supposed to be actually audible anyway.


what value listening tests

Reply #95 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
However, at the same time you conveniently sweep under the carpet the obvious psychological  impact that knowing they are in a test will have on the mood of the listeners, and which must also affect their judgement and affect the results of the test. It is surely impossible that a listener will be unaffected by the difference between a normal listening situation, where they are listening for pleasure, and one where they are focussing their attention of the music in order to render an objective judgement on it.

Like I said before, you still have not provided any proof that this is happening and that this has a significant influence.

Quote
This affect which cannot be compensated for by the scientific method is skewing the tests to some extent, and to an extent which is hard to determine, and this invalidates the tests.

False. Generally medication doesn't suddenly stop working because it is taken out of testing and put in the real world.

Quote
The reality is that the majority of the area of sound as experienced by human beings is subjective - i dont think this has to be proved - is obvious. Some aspects of sound can be objectivised and measured, but some cannot. To  suggest that people cannot even talk about the subjective bits, or perhaps even make any form of reference to this aspect of sound, without providing "proof" is rediculous. Just as rediculous is to suggest that the only bits that matter are the objective bits that we think we can measure in a listening test. Or that anyone who brings up this other area in a conversation is either a troll, or someone who is inherently unscientific. (The latter is particularly funny since science is my second love, next to music.)

It's not really interesting to talk about the subjective bits, because it all ends in: "This is your opinion and this is my opinion".
"We cannot win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win."

what value listening tests

Reply #96 –
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
This is my point. Why assume that bacause someone did not notice something in a listening test, an inherently unnatural way to listen to music, that they would not subsequently be affected by it? Remember we are talking about ordinary people who might conduct these tests, not seasond sound professionals.


That's the point of listening tests, they can be done by anyone. You seem to think they're being done by scientists in white coats.

what value listening tests

Reply #97 –
Quote
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method.

Yeah, we're just as fundamentalist as those we criticise, right? Except for those little things called evidence and self-assessment/correction. Next you'll tell us that global warming is a religion.

I only skimmed your posts, but they look like overwraught, protracted armchair philosophy about intangible and unmeasurable qualities of sound that we can't hope to quantify or control, but should account for anyway. Who's relying on faith? Sound is pressure waves in air. That our brains can't perfectly represent the physical world is irrelevant; modelling is what they do, approximation and interpolation included. We can only work with what we have, and unless you've a way to conduct listening tests (etc.) without participants knowing, the current ways will have to do. I suspect they're good enough anyway. If you don't get that nice warm and fuzzy feeling under scientific conditions, avoid them.

Anyway, if the participants' perceptions are somehow influenced by knowledge that they're involved in a test, shouldn't said perceptions be influenced in the same way or 'direction' for each treatment? That approximates a control, given the difficulty of conducting a test without them knowing.

what value listening tests

Reply #98 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
Quote
Your beliefs are based on faith - faith in scientists and the scientific method.

Yeah, we're just as fundamentalist as those we criticise, right? Except for those little things called evidence and self-assessment/correction. Next you'll tell us that global warming is a religion.


When the dialog sinks to this level, ignoring the simple fact that science is testable and religion isn't, there's no real hope for a dialog.

Conclusions from evidence are not "faith", they are conclusions.
Faith is belief in the ABSENSE of evidence.

Until the little cheap shot is retracted, I see no point in dialog with Mr. Rabbit.
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J. D. (jj) Johnston

what value listening tests

Reply #99 –
[quote author=Light-Fire link=msg=692895 date=1268272341]
Quote from: magneticrabbit on
...majority of the area of sound as experienced by human beings is subjective - i dont think this has to be proved...


All the area of sound as perceived by human beings is objective. However the human imagination is extremely subjective.
So you should ABX our codecs, chose the more useful and then let your imagination run free later on when listening to your music.

It looks like you have some kind of psychological blockage that don't allow you to accept truth in certain situations.

If you insist in being "subjective" (nowadays another world for delusional). I sugest you go here. A place for "people" like yourself.
[/quote]

You actually really believe that sound as percieved by humans is entirely objective? Seriously? Or are you winding me up? I honestly can't tell.

What is the meaning of the quotes around the word "people" in reference to myself? Are you being abusive, I honestly can't tell?

It's not April the 1st, is it?

 
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