The basics of Ethos

[Marco]

The purpose of the Art of Sound is to explore ways of ensuring the musical message embedded in recordings reaches your brain via your audio system.

Yes, that's it in a nutshell

Marco.

[Marco]

Several of my friends over the years have shown the ability to discern perfect pitch just by listening to a note. They could tell if the note was off pitch by small amounts. In the past our survival in the wild was based on a keen sense of sight and hearing. Being able to judge distance and direction accurately could mean the difference between life, or death, at the hands of a predator. The human brain is a very complex organ that is capable of processing sensory input in a way that focuses on important data and ignores unimportant data. Many have reported hearing signal events buried in the noise floor.

There are plenty of examples of audio equipment with exemplary measurements that do not convey music in a comprehensible way. On balance I will take what I hear over measurements every time.

Nail > Head > Hammer...

And so what does that tale tell? Always ultimately have faith in your senses!!

Marco.

P.S Also think carefully why the word "ultimately" has been emboldened.....

[Marco]

When I was doing research into "Infra bass and perceptions of reality in sound staging", which followed on from something Graham Holiman started. We found that a lot of what we did was indeed measurable, but a lot of what the large group of test subjects perceived was not, both they and us the crew could hear the effect, without going into the full details of something thing that is a large corporations Intellectual property, I will say it took almost three years to work out what was actually going on.

So when someone says they can hear what I can't measure, or I can hear it myself, my approach is to accept that people very probably, can detect the effect, then look for a new way in which this can be measured. That for me is proper exploring science. The closed minded "if I can't measure it, it isn't there" approach is not the attitude that made scientific advances, it's what has held science back.

Hear, hear!

On AoS, we most certainly aren't 'against' the use of science or measurements validating our subjective experiences in audio, provided that both are applied in the correct way (as outlined above), and not merely used as a tool to bolster the prejudices of the blinkered and close-minded, posing as members or sympathisers of the scientific fraternity.

Marco.

[Marco]

On AoS we don't have anything against objective information, as long as those providing it:

1) Don't cherry pick the details of a post that miss the intent of the discussion and thus serve to subjectively crap on the discussion. Participate in the discussion being had, not the discussion you want to derail it into. That is an issue regardless of objective/subjective questions.

2) Don't assume their facts are the only facts relevant and use them as a club against others. Contrary experiences from others may provide additional relevant data. The tone of the presenter should not imply his/her data and his/her grasp of them is the only thing that is important.

3) Don't mix in opinions along with facts, and then claim they are only presenting irrefutable facts.

4) Don't arbitrarily drop into a conversation in a way that effectively disrupts it to "set others straight", but refuse to engage in the terms of the conversation being had, and subsequently refuse to argue on any terms other than theirs.

5) Don't demean others by entering their conversation and then saying you have zero interest in their experience.

6) We need to value people, not just data.

Marco.

[Above is courtesy of Brucew268].