Quote:
Nothing in Ethan's graphs says improved "soundstage", "imaging" or "clarity" as described in his advertisement.

That simply is not true. Here's a good example of room treatment improving imaging and sound stage:

http://www.realtraps.com/rfz.htm

See Figure 1 which addresses side-wall absorbers, and the last section about couch and chair reflections. In both cases, "perceived" imaging is greatly improved with the addition of absorption, and the accompanying response graphs show why. Yet again the damage is caused by comb filtering, and yet again absorption is the cure.

--Ethan

Quote:
Likewise, if Mr. Frog is asserting that readily measured multiple dB changes in frequency response are not significant to human listeners and do not directly correlate to audible improvements he is similarly incorrect.

Yes, and I'm still chuckling over that comment. Let's say I turn down the bass tone control by 15 dB at various frequencies, and show a graph of the change:

So Mr. Frog is saying this has no relation to what will be heard or perceived? And he's the one who said I don't know much about audio?

--Ethan

Quote:
There seems to be a fair amount of resentment

The only acrimony and resentment I've seen in this entire thread comes from you Jan! And later in this thread from the frog too. Me, I'm just explaining the science of audio as best I can. I have no attitude about this stuff, only some sadness that people who do not understand the scientific method can be so quick to dismiss it. And dismiss it so vehemently at that. It's like Sean Hannity. The man not only has uninformed opinions, he has very strong uninformed opinions. Jan is the new Sean Hannity.

--Ethan

Quote:

Quote:
There seems to be a fair amount of resentment

The only acrimony and resentment I've seen in this entire thread comes from you Jan! And later in this thread from the frog too. Me, I'm just explaining the science of audio as best I can. I have no attitude about this stuff, only some sadness that people who do not understand the scientific method can be so quick to dismiss it. And dismiss it so vehemently at that. It's like Sean Hannity. The man not only has uninformed opinions, he has very strong uninformed opinions. Jan is the new Sean Hannity.

--Ethan

And you do bear an uncanny resemblance to Alan Colmes!

Quote:
And you do bear an uncanny resemblance to Alan Colmes!

Amazingly so:

Quote:
Do you mean a "Come to Jesus" as in forming some sort of religious cult or as in experiencing a "Eureka" moment ?

A "Eureka" moment which followed a "Holy Shit!" moment.

Jan, again I doubt there is any one here that does not understand your concept of "thread unification". The thread itself however does not necessarily want to go where you want it to. Threads have a life of their own.

Quote:
If your Bishop Berkeley reference was an attempt to discuss perception, perhaps I could find more meaning to the idea if it were kept outside of your reasons why this thread is in my control. Would you care to restate the case for Bishop Berkeley?

Berekely was all about perception; esse est percipi ("To be is to be perceived"). That is, we do not know if an object has separate existence, all we have is our perception of that object.

Berekely posited that if we are not currently perceiving something it has no existence. (To solve the problem as to why tings were the same each time we perceive them and where our homes go when we are at work he argued that God harbors them and they are again made available and laid out before us.)

Empiricism is a branch of Western philosophy states that the origin and only reliable source of all knowledge is sense experience. As I mentioned, Berekely was the empiricist's empiricist; not only are our senses the origin of all knowledge, perception is the only source of existence - and then only in the perceiver's mind, not in absolute reality.

(Definitionally we have to be careful to distinguish between philosophy's definition of empirical and science's definition of empirical - they are not the same.)

Contrast this with Descartes' cogito (I think, therefore I am); that is, thought exists and as thought cannot be separated from me, I perforce exist.

Descartes was a 17th century rationalist, not an empiricist. He rejected perception as unreliable as the senses can be so easily fooled. He postulated a set of principles that one can truly know to be true. For example, thought itself cannot be doubted, we know it to be true. Descartes' method of analyzing the world is the foundation for the natural sciences.

My impression of this thread is that there are those of each persuasion, sensual empiricists and rationalists, who state flatly that the other's method of addressing the world is wrong. In fact you have specifically labeled me and others as "wrong". So why all the fuss when others do not buy into your point of view? It is simply part of discourse.

There is nothing new in an argument between rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism won out long ago in Western thought, primarily as we have found it eminently useful in understanding, predicting and manipulating the world. Thus we understand electricity and can build amplifiers, speakers and other expensive wonderful toys to amuse our senses.

Quote:
The only acrimony and resentment I've seen in this entire thread comes from you Jan! ...
It's like Sean Hannity. The man not only has uninformed opinions, he has very strong uninformed opinions. Jan is the new Sean Hannity.

There is no dealing with you, Ethan, when you get off those meds. Sure, sure, everyone sees that I'm the boogeyman here. You're just sweet ol' Ethan, stickin' up acoustic panels all over the place.

Quote:
Me, I'm just explaining the science of audio as best I can. I have no attitude about this stuff, only some sadness that people who do not understand the scientific method can be so quick to dismiss it. And dismiss it so vehemently at that.

Ethan, after so many reptitions, after so many mischaracterizations, after so many times when I've asked to just once show me where anyone dismissed your measurements as measurements, I can at this point only call you a bold faced liar.

Quote:
...after so many times when I've asked to just once show me where anyone dismissed your measurements as measurements, I can at this point only call you a bold faced liar.

This may be a terminology problem.

Jan, you stated: "no meaurements translate to a perception of sound by a human being."

If you mean that we cannot feed the measurements into a human and get that human to perceive sound you are entirely correct. Measurements are not perception.

On the other hand, Ethan's measurements correlate quite precisely with what a human being will perceive.

My impression, and apparently Ethan's as well, is that you and others were denying that acoustic measurements correlate with human perception. Perhaps you will clarify.

This is the same with soundstaging. No, the machine doesn't "experience" or "perceive" as we do as humans. However, the machine's measurements or other representations of soundstaging correlates quite precisely with our perceptions.

Thus, Ethan can measure which rooms will allow systems to demonstrate better soundstaging, and recording engineers can create soundstaging in a mix which wil then be perceived a listener.

That's it for me for the day. Off to make some music instead of talking about sound reproduction and basic first year philosophy.

Elk wrote:
Likewise, if Mr. Frog is asserting that readily measured multiple dB changes in frequency response are not significant to human listeners and do not directly correlate to audible improvements he is similarly incorrect. This is very basic, and well-established and can be read in any basic book on acoustics. Acoustics is a science, not speculation.

Ethan Winer wrote:
Yes, and I'm still chuckling over that comment. Let's say I turn down the bass tone control by 15 dB at various frequencies, and show a graph of the change:

(irrelevant graph edited out because this is a family forum and we'd like to keep it this way... -MJF)

So Mr. Frog is saying this has no relation to what will be heard or perceived? And he's the one who said I don't know much about audio?

Strawman alert! Times two. I note Mr. Elk that Mr. Winer has taken your strawman argument and ran with it, extending the strawman with yet more irrelevant graphs, disproving something I never claimed. That's another old game I don't care to play, it just stokes egos and wastes bandwidth. For the record, Mr. Frog wasn't referring to amplitude, but to Mr. Vigne's argument, that the data on the waterfall graphs don't prove a direct correlation with all the alleged claims made for these room treatments in the ads, which is what appears to be implied by them. And that is exactly what I already wrote, so it should not have been applied to specific characteristics I did not mention. Even if you can under some conditions measure some aspects of the claims (ie. soundstage), that doesn't mean the graphs shown proved a direct correlation with all the claims made for the product by its listeners. But then, the word "alleged" is there because Mr. Frog wasn't interested enough to scrutinize the ads for the room treatments, so the issue is really Mr. Vigne's argument. And he's doing fine with it, AFAIC. Still, I combatted my intense boredom and checked out the link Mr. Winer gave us in his defense, and read there "The audible difference was substantial, though when measured the changes do not appear as large as they sound." So here, the man himself is admitting that measured data may not necessarily correlate with audible experience. That would be my point all along (not that you can't ever predict some factors of audible experience by measured data, that I don't agree with).

Huh?

Now we have met the meta-strawman argument, claiming something which is not made of straw to be a strawman and ignoring most of what was posted.

I was very careful with my post. Mr. Frog's original statement was unclear, at least to me.

Mr. Frog originally croaked:

Despite the posturing and the waterfall graphs, nowhere that I've seen has Ethan proven that the measured differences are significant to human listeners, and directly correlate with the audible claims for the products.

Elk bugled in response:

If Mr. Frog is claiming that the Ethan has failed to establish that Real Traps products work and indeed greatly improve the sound of a less than acoustically perfect room, Mr. Frog is incorrect.

Likewise, if Mr. Frog is asserting that readily measured multiple dB changes in frequency response are not significant to human listeners and do not directly correlate to audible improvements he is similarly incorrect.

Finally, Ethan has posted some graphs of analysis of other products that claim to change the frequency response in a room - but in fact fail to do so. This application of basic acoustic measurement is also legitimate.

OTOH, Mr. Frog my be making an entirely different point - in which case I defer to him to clarify as he sees fit.

(Note the Elk invitation to Mr. Frog to elucidate his froggy thinking. Pasteurized does not often meet waterlogged.)

Mr. Frog has now clarified his point:

...measured data may not necessarily correlate with audible experience. That would be my point all along (not that you can't ever predict some factors of audible experience by measured data, that I don't agree with).

I know grok Mr. Frog's point and whole-elkedly agree. Some aspects of audible experience we have down cold and can measure it. Yet I share Mr. Frog's belief that there are aspects we do not yet know how to measure.

Now the question: what can we not measure and why is this the case?

Oh, Elk! Thank you so much for the Philosophy 101a class in how we have come to accept wholeheartedly Descarte's methodolgy as the one and only truth, the whole truth so to speak. What a stupe I've been! It must have come from all those years I spent in Plato's cave! That silly old man! Very dark in there, you know. All we had were shadows on the wall cast by a shaft of light. We had to believe the light was real and he wanted us to accept the shadow was caused by something obstructing the light. What else could we believe in? What else, I ask you! (Philosophy 101b)

Geesh, Elk, do you think you're the only one with a brain?

I see by your post here; 04/28/08 05:54 PM you may be getting a glimmer of light - a shadow perhaps! - of my repsonse here; 04/28/08 01:36 AM.

Yes, perception is not a cognitive ability within a machine!

If we could not leap that single hurdle, there was no further hope for this thread. If we could not understand that my oven turns off when the chicken reaches 170 degrees due to my actions and perceptions, we were lost. If my setting the oven to turn off when the chicken reached 170 degrees implied I endowed the over with perceptive capacities - even the capacity to "cook" which is a purely perceptive ability (unless you watch "Test Kitchen" on PBS), then we were lost.

To go further, if we endowed letters alone to have some power of perception, then what do we provide actual words made of letters? If I write "LOVE", what is your perception? "L" "O" "V" "E"? Or is your perception of what the the letetrs that they from a word? What is your pereption of the word? It is, for most of us most of the time unless you are being obstinate, what the word "LOVE" implies? All the letters are already in the room. It is only our perception of their organization and then our perception of the word's meaning that amounts to anything.

If I write "castato", what does that mean? If you don't speak Italian, probably not much. But the same letters are there as in the language you use to "perceive" the word "LOVE". They are in the room. It is up to you to organize them and perceive their meaning. If I write a word that has no meaning to you in a language you know- ugh! this unabridged dictionary is heavy! - "od", what does that mean? If I tell you the definition, then you can perceive its meaning when you next come across it or something synonyous with it. (Go look it up.)

In the same way, if Ethan's client sees the words "improved soundstage" in an ad, he will understand "improved soundstage" from his previous perceptions of "soundstage" and his associations with the words "improved" and "soundstage". Two separate ideas!

However, it will have meaning only when he perceives the improved "soundstage", the very sound that forms the "soundstage", within the room. There is no inference of "improved soundstage" in the collection of squiggles found on any graph though Ethan may tell him it proves the soundstage will improve. Until he perceives the soundstage and "measures" it against his own cognitive memory of what was, there is no "improved soundstage". Ethan's charts and graphs are simply "od's". Furthermore, there is no evidence that what Ethan's client perceives after being told "the soundstage will improve" is any more or less due to "placebo" than what Ethan claims for the Mpingo discs.

Now, Ethan has acknowledged precisely that here;

Quote:
See Figure 1 which addresses side-wall absorbers, and the last section about couch and chair reflections. In both cases, "perceived" (my emphasis) imaging is greatly improved with the addition of absorption, and the accompanying response graphs show why.

Except the graphs do not show why . They simply indicate what Ethan has come to recognize (recognize - cognitive) as the measurement he sees on paper when he perceives an improved soundstage.

Machines have no cogitive capacity. Therefore, perception can only be attritbuted to reasoning beings, those beings that have exhibited the ability to perceive cause and effect. "Perception", or cognition - recognizing what we are perceiving, is an "if A then B" instance. Squiggles on a piece of paper are not an indication of the same. They are an indication that you have the capacity to perceive "that" when the machine supplies "this group of letters". And you have programmed the machine to spit out those "letters" by way of your human cognition or perception. If, as with the Cathedral Panels, the machine says "no squiggle" and the client says "improved soundstage", which is correct?

(From Frogs post above: "The audible difference was substantial, though when measured the changes do not appear as large as they sound." So here, the man himself is admitting that measured data may not necessarily correlate with audible experience.")

One problem here has been Ethan's inability to pay attention to the very words he uses. He uses "perceived" but wants it to be attributed to his machines. It cannot exist there! If Ethan could step away from his machines long enough to realize who is doing the perceiving of the improved soundstage, he might leave behind the idea his machines are cognitive beings.

Perception is everything!

This is simply another case of Ethan wanting to play both sides of the fence while sitting atop the fence. If that is logic, then I need to return for 101c.

Quote:
Now the question: what can we not measure and why is this the case?

I've just provided the answer to that in the above post. If you don't know what you're looking at and you're not willing to lift than damn heavy unabridged dictionary to find out what you're looking at, you cannot "measure" something because the meaurements you take will have no meaning - to you! That does not mean the letters are not already in your head (in the room) and the word is not already in the dictionary.

"If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad; if it measures bad and sounds good, you have measured the wrong thing."

- Daniel R. von Recklinghausen,
former Chief Research Engineer, H.H. Scott http://hhscott.com/4000-.htm

In the late Richard Heyser's words, "I no longer regard as fruitcakes people who say they can hear something and I can't measure it

Once again, Jan, I invite you to set forth your position without attacking others' posts or views and without snide dismissive comments.

What positive contribution can you add to this thread?

(Sorry for the exegesis on perception. It had not occurred to me that this was both irrelevant and so well known as to be of no interest. My mistake.)

Quote:
"The audible difference was substantial, though when measured the changes do not appear as large as they sound."

Yes, but a clear improvement was measured too - the peaks and nulls were greatly reduced! My comment is that the sound was so very improved that I expected the graph to be even flatter. This is very different from "I heard a change but measured no difference" which is the words Froggy is trying to put into my mouth.

Jan nailed it earlier when he said people are talking past each other. The main problem I see is that only some of the people are doing this.

Me, I stick to the facts only and never call others bone heads or idiots or liars etc. As I always say, you can tell who knows what they're talking about and who is full of crap by seeing who has to resort to name calling.

--Ethan

Quote:
If my setting the oven to turn off when the chicken reached 170 degrees implied I endowed the over with perceptive capacities

Actually, adding a thermostat to the oven is indeed endowing it with perception. Same for any other negative feedback device such as the float and valve in a toilet. When the bowl fills the toilet "knows" it should shut off the water intake.

Quote:
Furthermore, there is no evidence that what Ethan's client perceives after being told "the soundstage will improve" is any more or less due to "placebo" than what Ethan claims for the Mpingo discs.

Okay Jan, you really are an idiot. Or at least dishonest. Or intentionally being a jerk. The "evidence" is not only in the graphs, but also in the universally accepted improvement from adding absorption at reflection points. Only a few people buy into too-small disks and dots, but nearly everyone who has tried absorption at reflection points agrees it improves imaging. And the improvement reported is huge and undeniable. Of course, science is not a popularity poll, but even using your own argument that perception matters most, far more people's perceptions favor real acoustic treatment over too-small tweaks.

Jan, even though I just broke my own rule of not insulting people, please do me one big favor. If you do nothing else, please at least do this:

I would love to see a photo of your listening room and speakers and gear. Or if not a photo, at least a list of what you have. But preferably a photo. I promise I won't make fun of you. I probably won't even comment. But I'd really like to know more about the environment in which your perceptions live. Fair? Thanks!

(Of course I know Jan will not share his system info because he's ashamed of it. Why else would he refuse?)

--Ethan

Quote:
Actually, I had originally posted my reply in "Charts", and then I saw an entire new thread had been created, following talk in "Charts" on creating a new thread from it, called "Perception". Though I did not think a new thread was warranted, since we were discussing perception, I assumed my reply should be in the new thread called "Perception". I also assumed that the old thread, "Charts", would just die on the vine, and we were moving to new digs. I don't see the point in continuing the old thread myself, if it's already been decided to create and contribute to a new one, and its confusing to keep shuttling between the two.

I'm in agreement here. I think the disussion should have remained here. But it is under a better heading in "Perception". Shall we allow this thread to die?

Quote:
Once again, Jan, I invite you to set forth your position without attacking others' posts or views and without snide dismissive comments.

You mean like, "Okay Jan, you really are an idiot. Or at least dishonest. Or intentionally being a jerk."

I don't think my using Ethan's name invokes a disparagement. I have to use Ethan's name in some cases whether I wish to or not.

Quote:
Me, I stick to the facts only and never call others bone heads or idiots or liars etc. As I always say, you can tell who knows what they're talking about and who is full of crap by seeing who has to resort to name calling.

ROTFLMAO

Oh, you mean like, "Okay Jan, you really are an idiot. Or at least dishonest. Or intentionally being a jerk."

Ethan, you are and always will be a bone head.

Now, please stop playing these games with perception. No one other than you perceives you as anything other than what you are, Ethan.

And your room treatment and system components are ... ???

C'mon Jan, spill. If you're not ashamed of your system and listening room, why else will you not tell us what you have?

Quote:

Quote:
Once again, Jan, I invite you to set forth your position without attacking others' posts or views and without snide dismissive comments.

You mean like, "Okay Jan, you really are an idiot. Or at least dishonest. Or intentionally being a jerk."

I don't think my using Ethan's name invokes a disparagement. I have to use Ethan's name in some cases whether I wish to or not.

C'mon, Jan! You can do it! Tell us what your beliefs and ideas are! Let's hear 'em!

Stop whining about everyone else - take up the torch and present a positive statement of your listening principles!

Quote:
Stop whining about everyone else - take up the torch and present a positive statement of your listening principles!

And please also tell us what your gear and listening environment are so we can know "where you're coming from" so to speak.

--Ethan

Ethan, go check the Dead Zone for my reply to you.

Stephen, I didn't apologize for what I said, I said forgive me for being so blunt in response to what is now the third very rude comment about my components.

Stephen, would you send this to the Dead Zone if I called him a prick?

Elk, I don't know what you want from me. My "listening principles" are what I have stated. I listen for enjoyment of the music and the system has to be as transparent to that purpose as my budget allows. Does someone here do differently?

And would you please lay off the "strap on a pair" and "stop whining"? You're about as entertaining as Ethan.

There are some issues you need to deal with on the last page. They don't have aything to do with what I own.

Sorry Jan, but I hoped you would actually put something up worth considering.

It's easy to criticize. It is much more work and takes a lot more internal fortitude to take a clear positive stand. You dodge every opportunity to do so.

I'm done. The others are correct. This thread is useless.

That's brilliant! Ethan still believes my oven knows how to cook and you can't see your way through a clear explanation of why it can't. Brilliant, just brilliant. You aren't sorry for anything. You're looking for a way out of admitting anything. You hijacked the direction of the thread and now you're looking for a way out.

Ethan's request (nay demand) for you to supply a photo of your room/equipment is, really, in my opinion, distraction techniques.

Quotes from Ethan to Jan :-
>>> "I would love to see a photo of your listening room and speakers and gear. Or if not a photo, at least a list of what you have. But preferably a photo. I promise I won't make fun of you. I probably won't even comment. But I'd really like to know more about the environment in which your perceptions live. Fair? Thanks!
(Of course I know Jan will not share his system info because he's ashamed of it. Why else would he refuse?)
And your room treatment and system components are ... ???
C'mon Jan, spill. If you're not ashamed of your system and listening room, why else will you not tell us what you have?
And your room treatment and system components are ... ???" <<<

There will never been two identical rooms anywhere in the world and yet the sentences used by different people, in different places in the world, with different equipment, in different rooms are practically identical after using such as the Mpingo dots, the Harmonix dots, the Shakti stone and numerous other such things. I.e 'Shimmering treble'., 'expansion of the sound'., 'better separation and definition of instruments'., etc. Etc. If the sentences describing their experiences are similar, then the effect perceived must be similar. Just because others may have tried the same devices and not experienced the same results does not negate other people's experiences. All it means is that it makes it that bit more difficult to explain the phenomenon.

This is one of the points I have attempted to make in my articles in PFO referred to. Read what these journalists have written. Different devices, different techniques, different rooms, different equipment, different people involved but similar descriptions and CERTAINLY the same SURPRISE at the changes in their sound !!! Imagination ? I don't think so. Suggestion ? I don't think so. Mistaken ? I don't think so.

I don't like to make reference to other people's rooms or equipment when they are not directly involved with the discussion taking place but I would refer people to a 'posting' on Audio Asylum, in the Tweaks Section, under the heading "John Risch, regarding your basstraps, could you pls point me at the current URLs detailing..." Posted on the 23rd April. That particular person has posted photographs of his listening room and is asking advice.

Anybody who knows P.W.B. Techniques will go deathly pale at the sight of that listening room.
I would also suggest that the people who produce Mpingo dots will be able to see at least 20 different places to position Mpingo dots to great effect !!
DITTO Harmonix Discs !!

And I can see at least 100 different places to apply our Treatments !!!

And yet, all the person whose room it is has highlighted as (probable) problem areas are two ceiling angles !!!!

Regards,
May Belt.

This thread STARTED as "Acoustic effects and size matters" and it is in that particular area where I was interested in responding - after Jan requested that others join the debate.

So, to continue on this particular thread and starting with your various sentences :-

>>> "I and others however are also not wrong in finding such tweaks ludicrous on their face."
And "Yet I share Mr. Frog's belief that there are aspects we do not yet know how to measure." And. "Yes! Another step is to examine, analyze and test in an effort to understand why the world is as it is." <<<

Of COURSE, on the face of it, such tweaks appear ludicrous !! To anyone with any intelligence, they appear ludicrous !! The more skilled you are in electronic theory and acoustic theory, the more ludicrous they appear !! We are investigating something ludicrous !! So, having established that can we move forward and not go round and round ?

************

Ending at the hypothetical story (just used in the "Acoustic effects and size matters thread") and now back to the real, modern, world.

We believe that something similar to the story I have just told is actually happening. That we (human beings) are programmed by evolution to constantly read/sense our environment for danger/predators/intruders in an attempt to 'sign off' our environment as 'safe'. But, because of what we have filled our modern environment with, we (human beings) now cannot 'sign off' our environment as 'safe' therefore remain under tension.

We (Peter and I) did not start all this from the point of inventing a particular concept and then considered how we could produce devices and techniques to go along with that concept. We started with observations - of the sound first being ruined (with no explanation as to why or how) then, months later, a glimmer of an explanation appeared as to why this had happened. On following that particular clue we ended up with the best sound we had ever had - and this was AFTER 30 years working in the audio industry - in Hi Fi retailing and then manufacturing moving coil, electrostatic and orthodynamic headphones and loudspeakers.!!

The first observation/experience had left us considering how we (human beings) must be programmed to read/sense our environment for signs of danger. After the second observation/experience we also began to realise that we (human beings) are also programmed, by evolution, to constantly read/sense our environment for signs of reassurance - for signs which tell us "It's OK, you can relax, the danger has gone away."

From the numerous experiments we have done over these past 25 years, we have realised that Nature has many techniques - many ways of providing the 'reassuring' signs - and these various techniques must have been successful !! What we believe is happening is that we (and many others) have been discovering some of Nature's techniques for providing signs (energy patterns) of reassurance. As I illustrated in my previous story, we are sensitive enough to detect minute changes - if those changes are important. Where there can be differences in people's different reactions is what different people (from their life experiences) are finding important and may react to (or not). Different people will react to different interpretations of danger and different people will react to different signs of reassurance.

Someone else has coined the phrase "electrosmog" so I will use it for the purpose of this discussion. All you have to do is to look around you at the environment we have created for ourselves - and you will realise how difficult it must be for us (the product of evolution) to now be able to 'sign off' our environment as 'safe'. Say, for ONE hypothetical example, there are at least 20 pulsating AC power cables, scattered around the room. It is not WHAT they are - it is HOW we are interpreting them - it may only be that because of their very presence, pulsating away, we cannot sign off our environment as 'safe'. And, if we cannot 'sign off' our environment as 'safe', then Nature dictates that we remain under tension until we can !!

Before I get the usual reactions :-
1) That any electromagnetic field surrounding a power cable will decay with distance, so X metres away from a power cable, there would be no problem because there would be no electromagnetic field. OR
2) The reaction similar to the one I got from Jim Austin - that if, in the evolutionary past, we had never been exposed to the AC power as a danger, then we would not regard the AC power cable as dangerous, therefore would not now react as though it was dangerous.

I would emphasise again that it is HOW we interpet what is there, in our environment, not what it physically is !!!

Bringing perception back into the story. I use the following example often - some people get what I mean, others react as though I am talking nonsense.

You go into a room full of people, a gathering held regularly every Saturday night always with a good atmosphere, so there was no reason why you would expect anything different. But this night, as soon as you enter the room, you feel a tense atmosphere - an atmosphere (as I describe) you could 'cut with a knife'. There are no measurements you can make to 'measure' what you are sensing - but you are sensing it. How ? A third eye ? A sixth sense ? How ?

Some people simplistically say "Oh you would be able to SEE tension on people's faces". But that means that a blind person, entering the same room, would not be able to sense the same atmosphere.

Someone else says "Oh the blind person would be able to HEAR the tension in people's voices". But that means that a blind and deaf person, entering the same room, would not be able to sense the same atmosphere.

So, what is going on ? Some inherent survival instinct ? Or just imagination? Or, a completely automatic reading/sensing of our environment ?

But HOW ? Reading/sensing with WHAT ? Before people give me the usual answer i.e 'we use all our five senses' - think about it seriously. Some form of ability to read/sense the environment must have been used by the earliest of creatures - long before any of the senses as we know them ever developed ! That ability MUST HAVE been there, and been successful, because these earliest of creatures survived and replicated and we are here now, millions of years later !! So, what detection system did THEY use ? And, to be able to warn each other of danger and also to convey reassurance means that they must have had some form of transmitting system and some form of receptor system.

What I believe we have discovered is how to superimpose, on objects in our environment, reassuring energy patterns which we have been programmed, by Nature, to search for, so that when we detect those energy patterns, we can relax and conserve energy !! I believe that the people who produce such as the Mpingo dots and the Harmonix discs also stumbled on something similar. I say 'stumbled' because they did not develop such products from conventional theory text books - if such things had been explained in the text books, there would be no controversy - everyone would understand how they worked !! I think what must have happened with them is similar to what happened with us. They suddenly found, after doing something in the room, that their sound had suddenly improved !! Then made something suitable which other people could easily use and demonstrated these things to others - who also heard similar improvements !! And so to today. The only thing I am in disagreement with them is their description as to why their devices work. They have tried to find explanations from within conventional theories - explanations such as 'vibrations', 'resonances' etc.

************
The subject of this thread was 'with acoustic effects, does size matter ?'

How about NO size ? Not even a small object the size of a dime ? How about a Cream or a Chemical applied to a small area ?

Nordost do a chemical which, they claim, if applied to the labels of vinyl records, to the label side of a CD, to the outer insulation of cables - including AC power cables - you will experience an improvement in the sound. The explanation they put forward is that their chemical is 'dealing with' problems caused by static.

We have not heard Ethan's view on this Nordost chemical so we don't know what his reaction would be if some people described hearing an improvement in the sound, in their room, after applying some of the Nordost chemical to Ethan's Room Acoustic Panels !!

We have a Cream which we say if a small amount is applied to the labels of vinyl records, to the label side of CDs, to the outer insulation of cables - ALL cables - including AC power cables - you will experience an improvement in the sound. But, OUR explanation has nothing to do with 'dealing with' static !!!!

Similar basic element (a chemical)., similar method of application., similar descriptions of the improvements in the sound gained. Is Ethan going to dismiss all those ?

As I say, we do not know Ethan's view on such as the Nordost Chemical but we do know the view of Jim Austin - someone else who calls himself a scientist :-
>>> "Nordost liquid? Never heard of it, never tried it. A static charge on speaker cables could affect the sound in principle, but I doubt it." <<<

Staying on the subject of chemicals changing 'sound'.
Sonus Faber say they use a lacquer on their speaker cabinets "which is friendly to audio".
Dieter Ennemoser has a lacquer (C37) which he claims if applied to anything and everything will give an improvement in the sound.

I wonder if Ethan has ever tried such lacquers on his Room Acoustic Panels ?

What would he do (what would he think) if he was listening to exactly the same disc, through exactly the same equipment, with exactly the same speakers, feeding exactly the same acoustic information into the room, the room with exactly the same acoustics, with exactly the same acoustic panels in exactly the same position, with exactly the same measurements but with his sound much improved after applying a particular chemical, cream or lacquer ????

Regards,
May Belt.

It's time to close this thread, I think. Thanks to all who did their best to contribute in a positive and productive manner.