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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: RE: Your Brain & Music ---A Neurologist's Point of View posted by Ugly on January 11, 2008 at 19:53:36:
> > > "It seems a little tweaky to assume there aren't valid scientific reasons for what we hear" < < <
Of course there ARE valid scientific reasons for what we hear but for the scientists who you, Ugly, put so much faith in to do investigations, they, the scientists, would have to come out from under this 'warm scientific security blanket' - which, I would say, from what the history of science tells us, scientists are, initially, extremely reluctant to do !!
Logically, if there was NOTHING new to investigate, then the scientists would be OK under their scientific security blanket and it would be acceptable - because all would be known. Again, logically, for them then to have to investigate something NEW means that the NEW knowledge is outside their present knowledge, which means that they then have to come out from under that 'warm scientific security blanket'.
> > > "IF something new is uncovered in the future that is repeatable under laboratory conditions" < < <
This 'repeatable under laboratory conditions' is one of the most naive and prevailing attitudes in the world of audio which so many people fall into !!
If, over the past thousands of years, we all had had to wait until things were proved by being 'repeatable under laboratory conditions' I dread to think at what primitive position and in what primitive conditions we would be in today. Haven't you studied the history of science Ugly ? I am obviously not dismissing 'things being repeatable under laboratory conditions' as a scientific procedure - what I am emphasising is that one does not know, when trying to investigate something new, what one wants to test under laboratory conditions until numerous other investigations have already been carried out !! If people (and that includes scientists) are not prepared to investigate in the first place, then the point of 'testing under laboratory conditions' is never reached !!
Don't you know the story of Copernicus (the earth moves around the sun and not the sun moves around the earth) and how HE was ridiculed and pilloried by the scientists of the day ?
Don't you know the story of Joseph Lister (the 'germs are in the air' and his antiseptic techniques) and how HE was ridiculed and pilloried by the scientists of the day ? Don't you know that even some 10 years after his first successful cases were recorded in the British Medical Journal the majority of the medical profession in the USA were still Anti Lister (and therefore by definition against the 'germs in the air' theory and antiseptics) ?
Don't you know the story of Dr. Jon Snow who removed the handle of one street's communal water pump and halted the spread of cholera in that area ? Don't you know that he was ridiculed and pilloried because the majority of the medical profession wished to continue believing that the spread of cholera was caused by the foul air (the miasmata) ?
Don't you know that Charles Darwin kept the book he had written on his theory of evolution hidden in a cupboard for over 20 years because he knew just what ridiculing and pilloring he would receive when he published it ?
What about Alexander Fleming who discovered, quite by chance, that a particular mould had released a substance which had inhibited the growth of some bacteria left on a culture dish. That, because of insufficient support from the medical community, his initial research had to stop !!!!
Look now at today's 'world of audio' and the skilled engineers working in it. Do you really think that (say such as) Dr. Joe Bloggs, his six graduate engineers, working for five years at a cost of quarter of a million dollars/pounds on what - a speaker crossover network ? - (I have seen speaker crossover networks the size and complexity of an amplifier !!) OR on a new cone material for a loudspeaker drive unit would, really, come out of their 'warm scientific security blanket' to investigate a theory that the difference in the sound from different speaker cone materials such as Bextrene or Polypropylene is quite likely to do with something other than their actual reproduction of the acoustic information ? OR, that 'freezing' the components of the speaker crossover network or 'freezing' the components which make up a loudspeaker drive unit would give improvements in the sound ?
Why don't you read up on Ed Meitner's findings of 20 years ago. How he found that cryogenically freezing " cables, interconnects, electronic components, tons of solid state stuff, whole circuit boards, even speaker voice coils" and found that by doing so gained improvements in the sound ? If you, Ugly, revere the 'scientists' so much, then how can the 'scientists', working in audio, producing equipment to reproduce MUSIC, have Ed Meitner STILL saying "What I've found over the last 15 years of being in high-end audio is that most of the minds are pretty closed. And this is strange: It's the opposite of what you would expect. What's even more puzzling is that you have all this megabucks equipment out there where the cost of the treatment would be of no concern. It would be a tiny fraction of the overall cost."
Just about a year ago (early 2007), Positive Feedback Online sent around 50 questionnaires to various cable manufacturers asking a series of questions - and one of the questions was asking the manufacturer their opinion on the cryogenic freezing technique.
Some of the replies received were in the affirmative, although some manufacturers did not actually answer that specific question and some manufacturers were less positive. For example:
One manufacturer's answer was "Not yet a fully proven, widely accepted practice - too soon to tell !"
(and this 'too soon to tell' response is 20 years AFTER the freezing technique was first mooted and 17 years after Robert Harley's article on Cryogenic freezing appeared in Stereophile !!!!).
Another manufacturer's answer was "Musicians have been swearing by their cryo'd trumpets for years. But for audio cables, it is not something that I lose sleep over"
Yet another reply was "Not sure really. It appears to have little effect on materials already annealed."
What you should be considering Ugly, is not that the 'scientists' WOULD BE investigating if something was important but WHY they are not !!!!!
Regards,
May Belt.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Your Brain & Music ---A Neurologist's Point of View - May Belt 01/21/0812:32:39 01/21/08 (1)
- Wow! Great post May. - Ugly 16:57:10 01/21/08 (0)
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