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Scientific Method Versus High End- Long (Rant?)

I have seen a number of posts/responses over the past several weeks referring to questions about one tweek or another and whether these have been proven to work. First off, I don't believe that its my job to prove with a scientific certainty that something will or won't work for individual systems. There are too many variables to predict with any certainty that someone will or won't notice a change (let alone an improvement) if they try this or that. The information offered by me and others is being offered to the group to try on their own and see if they notice an improvement or change.

The reason for this post is more about certain attitudes being displayed by the "scientific" crowd that believes that unless something can be reproduced in some testing methodology, its not valid. As I have state before here, I come from the sciences background (Chem E)and understand the scientific methodology; but I also understand its limitations. That doesn't mean I don't try to use science in my design or testing; what it does mean is that I will rarely try to prove something with scientific certainty. There is a huge difference between the two.

What the proponents of the scientific method often fail to realize is that the testing methodology itself will sometimes affect and predetermine the outcome of the phenominium being tested. This is one of the reasons you will sometimes get different results doing the same test in controlled environments. Its also why I dislike double blind testing in audio applications. In a double blind test the participants rarely know the system or the room and haven't fine tuned their ears to its particular sonic characteristics. Also, added to that the interaction between people and the impact of their physical presence in a room and I have no difficulty believing that they will not hear a difference. It would be difficult to do otherwise. Do you wonder why the majority of audio engineers couldn't hear the impact on the music of a watermarking schema proposed in the mid 80s that was later decried by the audiophile community? Take a look at the test methodology and you will see why.

I vastly prefer to have a piece of equipment (or a tweek) tried in various peoples systems. They know the sound of the baseline (their system) and can more easily tell if something changed or not. Assuming I've picked knowledgeable people, I will get useful feedback from these individuals which tells me something about how the equipment interacts with other equipment and rooms. I will get far more useful information from this than any sort of double blind panel. More importantly, I am more concerned about people's reaction to something than in validating it scientifically.

I could go on and on about the deficiencies of how people have chosen to apply the scientific method to problems in audio, but suffice it to say that much of this has been pysudoscience. Although some chemists and physicist would argue, math is the only true science. When it comes to audio, the scientific method is even less reliable since we do not have precise language to ascribe what is being heard, we know very little about how we hear, what the human hearing is accutely attuned to, and sound measurements correspondance to human hearing.

Bottom line, don't look for scientific certainty when it comes to audio. Take what is said in the spirit in which it is given- an observation by one or more people about something that changed their system for the better or worse. And whatever you do, ignore those who say something can't be because it is not scientifically proveable. These are people who like to be content in knowing that something can't exist because there is no scientific study to prove that it does exist. These are the same people who have never heard the difference between an Onkyo reciever and a Jeff Rowland integrated because there are no measurements which show it so.


Good listening

gjg



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Topic - Scientific Method Versus High End- Long (Rant?) - ggraff 07:52:59 04/8/02 (216)
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