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General Asylum: Are Established Scientific Methods Too Simplistic for the Complex Nature of Sound and Audio? by Todd Krieger

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Are Established Scientific Methods Too Simplistic for the Complex Nature of Sound and Audio?

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"alot of objectivists are not really as csientific asvthey think they are."

After thinking about this for several minutes, I cannot necessarily agree with this generalization... BUT...

I do think the objectivists try to apply "established scientific methods" that are too simplistic for an utterly-complex process known as sound reproduction. And use those hard but oversimplified "scientific methods" to discredit "scientific speculation" based on its possible correlation to improved perceived sonic qualities. Simply because it **is** speculation, and speculation should *always* be trumped by the hard theories and methods. (This is why nobody has been able to come up with the "evidence" the objectivists so-often demand- The evidence they're looking for are hard theories behind the speculation.)

An example of this is "time smear" in Redbook digital playback. I personally hear a "loss of resolution" in typical Redbook CD playback. And I see the ringing in typical CD players' impulse response... I then listen to a player with a time-resolute impulse response, and I perceive a more-natural, more resolute presentation compared to typical CD players.... I then speculate (admittedly) that "time smear" correlates to the ringing in the impulse response, and believe that time-resolute filter algorithms should be the way to go in Redbook digital playback.... But the objectivist comes back saying that such an algorithm would be a step backwards because it violates Nyquist's and Shannon's theorems, and can also compromise frequency response.... There has yet to come-forth a hard scientific theory that covers time-response that would supersede the Nyquist or Shannon theorem. But in my opinion, sticking within the limits of established scientific methods of Nyquist and Shannon, without looking outside the box with not-so-established "time response" applications, **compromises** the potential performance of Redbook digital playback.

The problem is in my humble opinion, the established hard scientific methods and theorems are just too simplistic for the complex nature of sound and reproduction. And living on such methods alone IMO limits the potential of the sonic performance of an audio design. And limits the performance potential of an audio system.


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Topic - Why do most present-day audiophiles hate science? - middleground 19:50:13 01/27/03 ( 102)