Mythbusters does Hi-Fi.

[Tyr]

Fantastic thread! Thanks for sharing your knowledge Arkless!

[PalsHuffMor]

Surely the whole point of formal study is to gain the knowledge and insights that have been established over years of human endeavour, and to benefit from that gained knowledge and experience.

This we hope, is 'objective knowledge'.

Our own everyday experiences are valid, but interpreting what is going on, and causes of phenomena are really quite difficult, and I cannot embrace a subjective stance in isolation, rather I superimpose it on my 'objective knowledge' and try to evaluate my experiences.

We may think of food as a purely subjective choice, but actually our preferences are often formed by our early experiences and formation, which are 'culturally' subject to a narrow range of exposure. I was seduced by my Great Aunts into sucking American gums in my early years, my being taught that they were a luxury. In fact they gave me cavities, and later acquisition of objective knowledge showed that sucrose directly causes cavities because of one particular high energy bond which it contains. I have not eaten 'popuist' sweets since '75.

I accept that gaining objective knowledge is, or can be hard, but it is worth the effort both for practical purposes, and because it enhances the mental facilities; most such challenges do.

If you want evidence of just how far from real understanding a purely subjective anecdotal life can be, and how it can lead us into a fantasy world, look at TV advertisements, and the inferred, if not stated 'realities' that they portray.

Marketing BS is just as harmful as 'deaf adherence' to measurements. 'This beats everything at up to ten times the price' style reviews and advertorial should set off alarms, as one example.

It remains that the test of objective measurement (and other areas of technical design) is subjective listening, not the other way round.

[Marco]

Surely the whole point of formal study is to gain the knowledge and insights that have been established over years of human endeavour, and to benefit from that gained knowledge and experience.

This we hope, is 'objective knowledge'.

Our own everyday experiences are valid, but interpreting what is going on, and causes of phenomena are really quite difficult, and I cannot embrace a subjective stance in isolation, rather I superimpose it on my 'objective knowledge' and try to evaluate my experiences.

We may think of food as a purely subjective choice, but actually our preferences are often formed by our early experiences and formation, which are 'culturally' subject to a narrow range of exposure. I was seduced by my Great Aunts into sucking American gums in my early years, my being taught that they were a luxury. In fact they gave me cavities, and later acquisition of objective knowledge showed that sucrose directly causes cavities because of one particular high energy bond which it contains. I have not eaten 'popuist' sweets since '75.

I accept that gaining objective knowledge is, or can be hard, but it is worth the effort both for practical purposes, and because it enhances the mental facilities; most such challenges do.

If you want evidence of just how far from real understanding a purely subjective anecdotal life can be, and how it can lead us into a fantasy world, look at TV advertisements, and the inferred, if not stated 'realities' that they portray.

I don't disagree with the points you've made, Dennis.

However, at the end of the day, you are who you are, and some of us simply aren't predisposed to a solely academic way of learning. We learn in other ways (through practical experience), which can be just as beneficial and rewarding, particularly depending on how you live your life and/or make your buying decisions.

Also, as true as what you say is about living in a "fantasy world", there also comes a point where you must have the confidence to trust your senses and gut instincts, and simply go with that 'feels' right, and then make your own mistakes or not, or forever be a slave to certainty.

This continual 'fear of being fooled', in the absence of proof to confirm what we experience as real, which some folk seem to suffer from (often those of a scientifically minded bent), for me doesn't equate to having a healthy state of mind.

I prefer to act like a human being, no matter how fallible my actions are, and be in touch with my senses and emotions, than as some notionally 'perfect robot', programmed to function solely on serving 'scientific facts'.

Marco.

[Macca]

...or if you are going to jump in keyboard first and tell people what kit is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.

Well yes, if you end up giving incorrect technical advice then that could certainly cause someone to waste time and money. Otherwise the hobby already has plenty of people saying 'My way is best', and most of them have no technical knowledge at all, so I'd argue that those two things are completely independent of each other.

[PalsHuffMor]

Well yes, if you end up giving incorrect technical advice then that could certainly cause someone to waste time and money.

And one might be able to correctly recite electrical theory but still have no genuine understanding or experience of how to implement it.

[RothwellAudio]

The perfect supply has 0% regulation, meaning infinitesimally low internal resistance.

Shouldn't that be 100% regulation? The perfect supply would have 0% voltage drop on full load as compared to no load - that would be 100% regulation, in my language at least.

[Arkless Electronics]

Shouldn't that be 100% regulation? The perfect supply would have 0% voltage drop on full load as compared to no load - that would be 100% regulation, in my language at least.

Nope... if you look at a specification sheet for a transformer it will give a figure for regulation in % and this gets bigger for smaller transformers..

[RothwellAudio]

Nope... if you look at a specification sheet for a transformer it will give a figure for regulation in % and this gets bigger for smaller transformers..

Yes, I remembered this after I'd posted. Still, I think when they say a transformer has 20% regulation they're being a bit lazy with their language and they're actually saying it is 20% off perfect regulation, ie 80%, or the full load voltage is 80% of the no load voltage.
Regulator manufacturers specify the same way, eg the specs for the LM317 say the load regulation is 0.3%, but it would make more sense to me to call it 99.7%.
Still, I doubt my argument will convince the entire world of electronics to revise its wording

[Pharos]

Marco, I don't think we have any conflict of views here.

Whilst I believe in the 'objectivist' philosophy to the extent of validating the established criteria, I also accept that they are not, and cannot, give an exhaustive account of reality.

I also accept that subjective listening is essential and central to audio, and that some objectivists may be so biased and bigoted in their belief in the objectivist stance, that without listening they could design something on figures alone which would sound abhorrent.

Science does not rule out human perception, in fact it relies heavily on it, but it also entails massive amounts of work via 'subjective' empirical testing as a part of the process to arrive at a hypothesis, then thesis, and then theory. This may last for years, but sooner or later a better model will be arrived at and adopted as 'truth'.

When we look at a voltmeter, we are each subjectively seeing a needle on a scale, and reading a value, which we then regard as an objective measurement.

[RMutt]

I might be convinced by the subjectivist argument if there was an example where an instinctive reaction managed to prove the physics wrong. Or rather the interpretation of the physics in that context. I have asked this before and have not been given an example. Here is a hypothetical situation. Someone says cable risers improve the sound quality of their speakers. A scientist says this cannot be true because the physics says it is impossible for the sound to change just by lifting the wire. Later another scientist does an experiment where he discovers that the impedance of the cable changes when it is raised off the ground. He finds an effect, and proves it scientifically, that previously was thought to be impossible. In this case the subjective judgement leads to a change in the scientific understanding. Obviously this is a made up scenario, but has it ever happened in reality?