Geoff:

Everyone likes to be published.

I believe that the problem with many tweaks is in the attempts to apply science to what is happening. By that I mean they DO hear a change but the attempt to explain the change with science is simply wacked, like the furor over demagnetizing records...Perhaps there is a real change in the sound but the explanation is bogus.

Can I begin a reply to Jim's article by referring to your observation above, JIMV ?

YOU are starting at the point where science has often started - at the OBSERVATION !! That not only has Michael Fremer, Stephen Mejias, John Atkinson (amongst many others) HEARD the improvement in the sound after a demagnetiser has been applied to records but so did the people who introduced the demagnetiser to the world of audio in the first place !! And, in hearing what they heard, they had to find some explanation !! Yes, people can dismiss the explanation but having dismissed the explanation, there STILL remains the original observations - that the technique gave improvements in the sound.

Jim uses blanket, dismissive statements such as "many audiophiles reject the very methods - scientific testing".

MY experience of many "audiophile" and "prominent industry folks" is that far from rejecting the scientific method, they are more aware, probably more aware than Jim, of the inability of conventional scientific testing to provide meaningful answers !!

There is a presumption by Jim (and by many others who agree with his outlook) that because there are no scientific answers being presented, that therefore NO scientific considerations have seriously been given !!

Jim says he "craves some certainty" - don't we all ?

With his narrow and dismissive outlook he separates out "the creation of a skilled audio designer" from " the creation of a jar of rocks". How then is he going to distinguish and cope when it is a "skilled audio designer" who is ALSO the producer of one or more of what he referes to as "preposterous products" ??

Jim's thinking (which is straight out of the text books) is that 'rigorous scientific tests' will 'tell all'.
I would suggest that he hasn't even thought about WHAT he is going to 'test', to even take him to the next stage of HOW he is going to 'test' and then WHAT he is going to test WITH !!

I know this because of how he writes and what he says.

Jim appears to believe that the "scientific method, used as a tool, is invaluable in the hands of honest people with the right set of skills" but he does not say who those people with the right set of skills are and what they would actually do.

From my own personal experiences, THINKING is the first 'skilled' action after an observation has taken place.

Jim goes on to say "(some people) making observations about easily audible things that no doubt could, with a bit of work, be scientifically verified".
How on earth is that going to be done with such as the demagnetising of LPs and CDs or such as the ART room resonance devices? In my experience many of the "prominent industry folks" are fully aware that there is MUCH doubt as to what verification can be obtained !!

Blanket dismissals of people's experiences - and I am talking here about "prominent industry folks" experiences does not advance knowledge any further. Jim would no doubt argue that he is not dismissing peoples experiences but would prefer more proof. I would say that stating that some would "prostitute themselves for the latest preposterous product" or that "some prominent industry folks have consistently failed to maintain a sufficiently skeptical posture" IS dismissive of their experiences !!

Jim's article seems to take any discussion no further on in 2011 than 28 years ago when John Atkinson was asked by members with the British Hi Fi world:-

The same reaction accompanied the claims that different cables could sound different and no matter how many people have tried to 'measure' or carried out DB trials to get meaningful results - nothing has still not been resolved !!

People are STILL saying similar words and demanding similar test results for other 'observed phenomena' so how is Jim's article any different ? Surely people should be wanting to move further along in understanding what is going on ?

Regards,
May Belt,
P.W.B. Electronics.

No Text

RG

[quote "Don't Feed the Trolling Tweak 'manufacturers'" [/quote]

Similar sentences and similar sentiments have been repeated regularly over these past 30 years.

"Don't encourage people to write about 'different cables sounding different'" !!
"Don't encourage people to write about 'some wires exhibit directionality'" !!
"Don't encourage people to write about 'cyogenically freezing different components to give improvements in the sound'" !!
"Don't encourage people to write about 'applying a demagnetiser to LPs and CDs to give improvements in the sound'" !!
"Don't encourage people to write about 'introducing tiny resonance room devices to give improvements in the sound'" !!
"Don't encourage people to write about .........and so it goes on, year after year.

Rgibran, Just how is asking people to keep silent about what they are experiencing moving things any further forward ?

Constantly asking people to keep silent is not a method to be relied upon to find anything out about anything.

Jim Austin did not simply ask "Please can we have more proof" - he obviously wished to shame people into keeping silent by implying (no, actually Stating !!) that some audio writers "seem eager to prostitute themselves for the latest preposterous product".

This was yet the latest (March 2011) of 30 years of - "Don't encourage people to write about ..........(whatever has given them improvements in their sound)"

Regards,
May Belt,
P.W.B. Electronics.

Seems to be working. Kudos to JA and Stereophile for presenting the scientific viewpoint.

RG

What we have here is failure to communicate. The viewpoint expressed by JA is not really the scientific viewpoint, it only pretends to be. It is actually the non-scientific viewpoint - the reactionary, anti-tweak viewpoint, the viewpoint held by those who never investigate the object of their scorn and angst, who simply react and rail against preposterous devices that make so sense to them. And isn't investigation really the most important part of being scientific, of searching out the truth? Is the definition of scientific method now up for grabs?

Tootles,

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
We Do Artifical Atoms Right

Although some of the tweaks raise my eyebrows, May, I couldn't agree more with you on this. Our understanding progresses via the things that _don't_ fit our current theories.

To change the subject, Bill Leebens sent me some old copies of Hi-Fi News that I don't already have in my collection. I was reading the May 1969 issue, and there, in Ralph West's review of the Duode-Janzsen electrostatic speaker, came across this sentence, in connection with the design of a tube amplifier to drive the electrostatic panels: "Peter Belt, of Duode Ltd, has done the job and most successfully too." I think people forget that Peter was a talented engineer.

Ralph West, BTW, was one of Art Dudley's role models as a reviewer, combining technical understanding with the ability and willingness to listen. I never met Ralph, as he had retired to live in France before I joined HFN's staff in 1976.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

[quote] "Although some of the tweaks raise my eyebrows, May, I couldn't agree more with you on this. Our understanding progresses via the things that _don't_ fit our current theories."

Would you believe, John, that even I raise my eyebrows at some tweaks !! Although, from the discoveries Peter and I have been making, I can see and understand where others are coming from.

You quote Peter as being professionally active in 1969. Peter and I have been involved in the audio industry since the mid 1950s when there were only valves (no transistors) and only mono (no stereo) and people do not seem to realise that I have worked alongside Peter for over 55 years - through moving coil, electrostatic (as you quoted) and low mass diaphragm orthodynamic loudspeakers and headphones and am fully conversant with audio matters.

Yes, if anyone knows conventional electronic and acoustic theories forwards, backwards, sideways and upside down, it is definitely Peter - so you can imagine how devastated he can be each time he discovers something affecting 'sound' which does not fit "our current theories" !

Regards to you,
May Belt,
P.W.B. Electronics.

Apparently what happened is many of the older, more experienced audiophiles decided quite some time ago there simply isn't anything beyond frequency response, signal to noise ratio and dynamic range, as measured for speakers or amplifiers or preamplifers. How does one manage to get through the thick, impermeable membrane of those minds that are made up, how can their suspicions be shaken? How many in our industry are living in the comfortable past of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s? "I was at the AES Convention back in 1965..."

:-)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_OdCx7pACI9M/TQg_rfB2zvI/AAAAAAAAAHs/nzGRTf8V1Z...

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

A true audiophile/music lover keeps an open mind . Even the experienced ones .
Open minded audiophile thats almost an oxymoron .

your brains start to fall out!

RG

I've certainly had some trouble with Mr. Austin and his disdain for truth, scientific and otherwise. The essay in question here is mild by comparison to past antics, as delineated in my Audio Asylum post from June 28, 2005, which I reproduce for all to see and appreciate.

Stereophile's "Jim Austin PhD" outted! As in, three strikes yer out!

Three times now has Mr. Austin been caught in baldfaced prevarication on AA boards. What faith can anyone have left in him, including his editor?

Most recently, regarding a letter of mine published in the July Stereophile re: the GSIC, I asked Mr. Austin a question about it. He professed to never having seen that letter. Later he wrote, “It occured to me as I was reading Clark's letter--first time I'd seen it (I just got my July issue on Saturday)--that there may be a pattern in his responses.” He proceeded to perform an amusing if fatuous (and disturbingly rambling) analysis of my personality, but the fact remains (and this is killer) if in fact that issue he just received was the first time he'd seen my letter, then why does his printed response [in Stereophile] begin, “Mr. Johnsen and Mr. Conroy”? Either the man cannot read, or he is trying to cover his tracks. In either event his memory must be failing, yet he was pleased to convey to us that this was indubitably the first time he'd read the letter. In any event I have already gleefully characterized his Stereophile response as WAY LAME.

But it gets worse, and here I think a halt must be called to Mr. Austin's mischief. Recently he wrote, “He [Johnsen] insists on putting quotation marks around things that aren't quotes; he's done it here on AA and he did in his letter to Stereophile. And on this forum he denies any wrongdoing. I honestly believe that he doesn't think it's wrong.”

That's mighty white of you, Mr. Austin. But let the record now show the truth. Here's what in my letter I quoted him saying about the GSIC: “There's nothing in there that, according to known laws, could cause the effect people say it has. I believe these people are running a scam.” So, I misquoted him in Stereophile, eh? Utter nonsense. Part one, which I quoted verbatim, without ellipses, appears in this post:

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=general&n=365121&highlight=jim...

Part two (“scam”), also verbatim and without ellipses, appears here:

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=general&n=366241&highlight=jim...

Hard to deny, but we'll see how he handles it. Or, not.

Earlier even than that, he attacked me for another alleged misquote:

“Let the record show that Clarke Johnsen presented, in his subject line, what he clearly intended to be accepted by readers as a direct quote from my post, but which was not written by me and in fact did not resemble it very closely.” LOL! It was word for word! Here's my post, see for yourselves; look back and forth.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=general&n=382285&highlight=cla...

I pointed out the congruence of my post and his, and he came up with this howler: “He has proven himself incapable of honest, serious debate... or at least unwilling, which is much more likely.” Always with the calumny, this Mr. Austin. What is one to do?

I replied, simply, “Let the record show that I quoted Mr. Austin VERBATIM and now he tries to diss me.”

He: “Clark: You're lying. In the message itself you quoted me verbatim. In the subject line, you twisted and distorted my words. What is written in the body of that message is not what is written in the subject line. As others have pointed out here, you've cherry-picked the words you wanted to, rearranged them without elipses, then put quotation marks around them as if they were mine. That's dishonest.”

Well, OK, so I'm dishonest and, to his mind, likely worse but he's too polite to say. Trouble is, he's saddled with the FACT that I didn't cherry-pick words, nor rearrange them, nor “put quotation marks around them as if they were [his].” No, indeed. They WERE his! Each and every one of them, complete and in order. “Rearrange”? The man must be mad. I responded, “That's an outright lie, Mr. Austin. Show us where. SHOW US WHERE.”

Apparently (aberrantly?) now unable to forego the abuse and defamation: “I'd just like to see you acknowledge that the fake quote you presented in the subject line was intentionally misleading. Everyone can see that now Clark. You might as well admit it.”

I replied, quite reasonably and nearly for the Nth time, “What is written in the subject line of that message was EXACTLY what was written in the body.” (Earlier I had pointed out that the subject space would not permit the totality of his sentence.)

But there it ended, with Mr. Austin evidently overwhelmed by the truth, and rather than letting us see him sputtering he gave up the battle. Pity, though, that he never issued the apology he promised, if I should show him wrong.

no text

RG

Apparently he has a personal problem with supercilious people.

:-)

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
We Do Artifical Atoms Right

Clark, that was interesting reading the back discussions (which I obviously missed at the time).

I notice that Jim Austin did not talk about how something 'sounds' only about what is (or is not) in the text books !!

John Atkinson is correct when he says :-

Regards,
May Belt,
P.W.B. Electronics.

...anomalies point the way.

Or, taking another P.O.V., the textbook with its enshrined procedures is the real anomaly.

Mr. Gibran: The "personal problem" is not mine.

I am not sure to whom the 'they' refers. By 'they' do you mean the manufacturer or inventor of the tweak? I agree with the argument that a listener should listen to the tweak before condemning it as illusory. I also agree that a listener should not decide a tweak has no merit based on the explanation the manufacturer or the inventor gives for the tweak.

I read this statement as suggesting that if the manufacturer or inventor has no idea why the tweak works, then the manufacturer or the inventor must find an explanation for why the claim it works, even if they have no idea, rather than just simply admit they have no idea. Do I have that right?

These are two very different and distinct issues. I think Jim's mistake is that he allows his opinion of the explanation to inform his opinion of the tweak itself, despite the fact he may never have heard the tweak. On the other hand, you seem to suggest that a manufacturer or an inventor of a tweak should create an explanation why the tweak works, even if they have no idea if the explanation is right, makes sense, or is simply impossible given scientific facts.

Where I come from, that is called lying. Another word for it may be fraud. That being the case, I am not sure you are helping the cause.

If what you mean is that JA or Fremer had to come up with an explanation, then perhaps I need to read their piece again, because I do not recall them attempting to provide an explanation for what they heard. I am loathe to comment on a posting's composition, but when you use the word 'they' in a sentence which follows another sentence which contains more than one subject, it becomes a little confusing and difficult to determine who the 'they' refers to.

One issue I rarely, if ever, see a manufacturer of tweaks comment upon are those generally accepted examples of nonsensical explanations for tweaks that some manufacturers or inventors come up with to explain why their tweak works. Move beyond the issue whether it works or not. That is an issue only listening can answer. On other hand, creating an explanation out of whole cloth, that makes no scientific sense, or is contradicted by known scientific facts, only because the manufacturer or inventor feels compelled to come up with an explanation, is dishonest. That some manufacturers feel compelled to create explanations, and other manufacturers never seem willing to call them out on it, hurts, I think, that portion of the high end industry's reputation with the larger audiophile population.

Sorry, I was not as clear as I should have been. If I answer that I was meaning the manufacturer of the tweak was 'they', this is still not as explanatory as it should be.

You see. What can happen, more often than people realise, is that something can happen which unexpectedly changes the sound - either it makes the sound worse when it should not have changed the sound at all or it gives an improvement in the sound when no change to the sound should have taken place (from a conventional electronic or acoustic point of view) !! What I suggest happens when it is engineers who hear the improvement - is that they usually go through a technical 'check list' - looking for a suitable explanation.

Is it to do with resistance ?
Is it to do with inductance ?
Is it to do with capacitance ?
Is it to do with magnetism ?
Is it to do with vibrations ?
Is it to do with the dielectric effect ?
Is it to do with microphony ?
Is it to do with static ?
Is it to do with RF interference ? And so on.

If one explanation from that list COULD 'fit the bill', then they use that explanation as the best explanation !!
I am of the opinion, from countless years in the world of audio, that a lot of 'tweaks' are not produced from what is gleaned from general electronic or acoustic 'text books' but are discovered by a chance event.

Two examples come to mind.

One is the technique of cryogenically freezing bits and pieces, wires and components and gaining an improvement in the sound. Such a technique will not be found as a basic technique in electronic and audio instruction manuals - it will have been a technique which was discovered by chance or as a result of other (probably unrelated to audio) experiments. But, having discovered that such a technique gives an improvement in the sound, then an engineer discovering it will try to find an explanation WHY that technique improves the sound !! An explanation used from other experiments and uses (using the technique to relax metals etc) may not now fit as an explanation as to why a cryogenically frozen CD 'sounds' better !! A different explanation may now have to be thought of for a disc carrying digital information !!!! However, that does not imply (as you have hinted at)

That manufacturers producing cryogenically frozen CDs are being dishonest with what explanation they have chosen but merely that the engineers will have chosen the best explanation they can find from their conventional 'check list'.

Another example is the Schumann Resonance room device.
The Schumann Resonance device was originally produced as device for promoting good health. However, it would seem that someone who had such a device in their room (primarily from a health aspect) became aware that whilstever that device was present in the room, the sound of their audio was much better !! From that observation more people began to use it as a device 'for improving sound'.

But, in introducing that device now as a 'sound improving device', the producers would struggle to find a description which fits in with the world of audio !!

Let me pose a situation.

Did the engineers at Nordost decide, one Monday morning, that they wanted a chemical to apply to the label side of CDs, to the labels of LPs, to the outer insulation of cables (including AC power cables) and therefore worked on that idea until they produced their ECO 3 chemical ?
Or, did an engineer come in to work one Monday morning and say "Something weird happened this weekend. I had been cleaning a light fitting with a particular chemical and noticed that one of my audio interconnects was dirty - so I cleaned that as well with the same chemical. But, when I then sat down to listen to some music, the sound was SO much better. I think we should check it out !" The other engineers DID 'check it out' and found a chemical which could give an improvement in the sound which they decided to introduce to the audio world as ECO 3. I would suggest that they then went down their conventional check list looking for the best explanation and settled on "It is dealing with static" on CDs, on LPs, on the outer insulation of cables. That the build up of static on such as the outer insulation of cables must have been adversely affecting the signal being carried by that cable !!!!!!!!
They are not being dishonest - it IS the best explanation from their 'conventional check list' !! The problem which exercises other engineers is that they want 'measurements' to prove that the chemical, when applied to the outer insulation of cables, is actually doing something which alters the signal travelling along the cable !! And, if they try to do 'measurements' and can measure no changes to the signal, then they declare that 'therefore the claims (that the sound is improved) are a load of nonsense' !!

The problem (regarding the explanation that the build up of static is adversely affecting the signal carried by the cable) rears it's head when further research and experiments are carried out. Because you can apply the SAME chemical to the outer insulation of the cable of (say) a table lamp, sitting passively on a coffee table, some 20 feet away from any audio equipment, with the cable dangling passively (not even connected to the AC supply) and you can gain a SIMILAR and further improvement in the sound !!!!!!!!!!!!! But there IS no audio signal travelling along the table lamp cable !! So, how can the sound be affected ?

So, you now have the 'observation' (that the sound is better) but the original explanation no longer holds water !!

The reason why I mentioned the 'demagnetising affair' is because the improvements in the sound described by Michael Fremer, John Atkinson, Stephen Mejias and others after a demagnetiser had been applied to LPs and CDs, caused a huge controversy on the earlier Stereophile Forum with people arguing that there is not the required elements within LPs and CDs for them to be magnetised (or subsequently demagnetised) to SUCH an extent as to produce the improvements in the sound being described !! So, in throwing out the bathwater (dismissing the explanation) the naysayers threw out the observation also !!

But, that observation still stands !!

A similar furore to the one centred to LPs and CDs happened with the ART devices. Those arguments raged around 'how can such tiny devices, in the room, improve the sound?' The devices were repeatedly being dismissed as a 'load of nonsense'. So, again, out with the bathwater went people's observations !!

But, those observations still stand !!

I don't regard manufacturers and producers as being dishonest - I see them as struggling to find meaningful explanations !! I know the paths down which they are travelling - we have been along that same journey !!!!

I am not saying that manufacturers SHOULD create an explanation (i.e any explanation !!) But that it will be usual (as engineers) for them to TRY to find some sort of explanation !!!!

You are correct, James, with your comment :-

And there is another aspect which comes from your further comment :-

That certain people should be far more careful in condemning those who DO listen to certain 'tweaks' and who are prepared to report their experiences. Not only are some people prepared to condemn a 'tweak or tweaks' as 'illusory' but also choose to use disparaging remarks such as "those (reporters) seem eager to prostitute themselves for the latest preposterous product" !!!

That is way out of line !!

Regards,
May Belt,
P.W.B. Electronics.

than the preposterous products and claims foisted upon audiophiles as sound improving tweaks!!

RG