The invention of measurements and perception

onhwy614,134 posts12-31-2018 4:34pm

You’re being entirely arbitrary in your definition of what constitutes a measurement device. You seem to be hung up on intent. By that rationale a tree is not a measurement device, but to those who understand how information is encoded, it certainly can be. Climatologist routinely use tree’s growth ring as a record of past climate conditions.

The fact that we don’t have a comprehensive model (and accompanying measurements) of some of the finer points of audiophile oriented music reproduction, does not mean such a model cannot exist. You would really be hard pressed to come up with areas that are not capable of being studied via the scientific method. Possibly the single greatest achievement of humans is to understand that the physical world is systematically understandable.

@ onhwy61

Beings you introduced trees into this thread. Using a microphone and a recording device it can be proven a falling tree in a forrest will make a sound even if someone is not there to hear it.
Question is, how accurate is the recording of the sound of the tree falling and as it hits the ground? Can it be measured using other test equipment?
Jim

@clearthink: Your pathetic comments intended to besmirch my intellience and character belies the irony of your handle.

I see "clearthink" and hear "foggythink" in my head. 

There is NO divide between math and perfection. It's just delusional to suggest that there is. Human beings have been using math to craft beauty for as long as we've created art. All organic beauty is mathematically correct. We perceive it as beauty because we're governed by the same math that created the beauty. 

As far as audio systems go....
If the speakers produce mathematically perfect output, and if the source provides a perfect signal to an amplifier that perfectly amplifies it, and the sound is heard in a mathematically perfect environment, then the result will be indistinguishable from the live event. There's very little guess work in this. We make art out of the compromises actual parts and materials force us to make. The best we can hope to accomplish is to creatively juxtapose failings in such a way as to mitigate their obvious nature. To understand those failings we must measure them and quantify them. Only then can we understand them and manipulate them. That's how engineering works. 

kosst_amojan
As far as audio systems go....
If the speakers produce mathematically perfect output, and if the source provides a perfect signal to an amplifier that perfectly amplifies it, and the sound is heard in a mathematically perfect environment, then the result will be indistinguishable from the live event. There’s very little guess work in this. We make art out of the compromises actual parts and materials force us to make. The best we can hope to accomplish is to creatively juxtapose failings in such a way as to mitigate their obvious nature. To understand those failings we must measure them and quantify them. Only then can we understand them and manipulate them. That’s how engineering works.

>>>>>Actually that’s NOT (rpt not) how engineering works. The input is not perfect to begin with and the output is always a distorted and noisy facsimile of the input, at least to some degree. Not to mention sometimes the *best sounding* device has the highest degree of distortion. How can that be?! 😛

It’s a BIG mistake to think of an audio system as a closed system. It’s a mistake to think that a device must be in the audio signal path to affect the sound. We know there are many independent variables that affect the sound we hear. Some of those variables can be controlled but many can’t. If the weather interferes with your listening experience you can wait until the sun comes out or if you don’t like the sound during the day you can wait until nighttime. You have to know what all the variables are to have a chance of controlling them. I do not even have to broach the touchy subject of things that go bump in the night. It’s a mistake to think for audio systems we are ruled by mathematics or engineering. Beauty is not created by mathematicians or engineers. Beauty is not objective. It’s subjective. Beauty is in the eye 👁 of the beholder.

@geoffkait 

How can you use so many words yet say nothing that makes any sense? Try again.