Pseudoscience in audio - Milind N. Kunchur

Well, with expectation bias, and other information about how humans make decisions is all related to this. It is part and parcel of it.

The problem being many people think they are being scientific, when they are not.

It's easy not to find/measure things when you don't want to or don't believe that they exist.

58 minutes ago, semente said:

It's easy not to find/measure things when you don't want to or don't believe that they exist.

Maybe there is nothing to measure - it is all in one's mind, maybe?

39 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Maybe there is nothing to measure - it is all in one's mind, maybe?

That seems to be the Buddha's view of things. Descartes may disagree... Foucault!

6 hours ago, semente said:

 

That seems to be the Buddha's view of things. Descartes may disagree... Foucault!

David Hume would say everything is in your imagination.

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

(Watch out for stuff like high capacitance speaker cables for example.)

You mean this?

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables1/OhmImprovements.html

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables2/OhmAndAway.html

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables3/TakeTheLead.html

8 hours ago, semente said:

 

You mean this?

 

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables1/OhmImprovements.html

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables2/OhmAndAway.html

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables3/TakeTheLead.html

Yeah, those kinds of effects...

Issues with the old Polk Cobra cable folks had talked about over the years with some amps.

But otherwise, Kunchur's just talking about 2m of RCA interconnects; here's the latest paper for direct access. To be more specific, I see this line:

"With the purpose of exploring differences between generic interconnects and audiophile ones, only single-ended (with RCA connectors) shielded coaxial style cables were tested since balanced cables are nonexistent in entry-level consumer audio. "

I don't think it's fair to say "balanced cables are nonexistent in entry-level consumer audio". Hmmm, I notice he said nothing about what "G"eneric cheap cable he used (so as to confirm it's even of coaxial construction if sold for audio use!). That alone as a scientific paper deserves IMO to be rejected for this paper being something nobody would be able to reproduce. The reviewers for IOSR failed.

14 minutes ago, Norton said:

This whole “science” tag is a misnomer.  At best what is being practiced is a technician role not that of a scientist -  using off the shelf measuring equipment to perform a routine set of tests on audio equipment is not exactly pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.
 

But where “objective” exercises  really fall down is in the interpretation of the results, which largely seem a subjective exercise to fit a review site’s chosen narrative.  For example, compare the recent negative measured  review of a Pass Labs HP amp at ASR, with that at Stereophile  describing the same amp as having “superb measured performance”.  Same amp, same measuring equipment, very different conclusions.  Which to believe?  And there’s the rub: same tests,  different conclusions, most readers are not going to repeat the tests themselves, so in the end it all comes down to subjective belief.

I have to say that whilst I do agree that there's sometimes dubious "interpretation of the results" I never "believe" listening reports for the simple reason that they're generally driven by personal preference and hardly ever an objective listening observation of performance. And because personal preference varies from person to person (hence the name) one person's is of little use to another.

In other words, I find listening reports by reviewers and users mostly useless.

Looking at Stereophile's measurements vs. ASRs, it's interesting to note that ASR, which is always shouting audibility thresholds, seems offended by 0.007% of second harmonic (I won't even go into the dumbness of SINAD) and by what John Atkinson describes as "AC supply components can be seen at 120, 180, 240Hz, etc., unmasked by the very low level of random noise, these are all way too low to be anywhere close to audibility."

On top of that, it is likely that both the "high" in comparative absolute terms second order harmonics and AC issues are intentional as they will produce euphonic results which Pass is fond of.

The divide will never end until measurists understand that accuracy is not always preferred. Some people prefer "good-sounding" distortion.

18 minutes ago, Norton said:

This whole “science” tag is a misnomer.  At best what is being practiced is a technician role not that of a scientist -  using off the shelf measuring equipment to perform a routine set of tests on audio equipment is not exactly pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.

That is not exactly true. It is easy to dismiss ASR for the biased ratings and the sneering at subjectivist/experimentalist audiophiles but there are many experts and reputed manufacturers participating in some of the conversations. You can learn a lot there.

I must say, looking into Kunchur's work is so interesting, I just had to publish a blog post on it:

"High End" Audiophile Science? On Milind N. Kunchur's hard-to-believe research articles.

Closed Minded people are always asking for numbers.
But you don't listen to numbers now do you.
Is every speaker that can go from 20Hz to 30.000Hz better than every speaker which goes from 40Hz to 20.000Hz?
Is every amplifier with a 1000+ damping factor better than every amplifier with 100+ damping factor?

No, so stop looking at the numbers and start listening.
Don't believe in audiophile networkswitches? Open your mind and start listening, if you do not like it, or you can't hear it as well, then you still don't have to deem it snake oil.
How can so many high end cables, networkswitches and power distributors be sold to so many people who hear the difference? Is each and every one of the people who buy that stuff fooled and tricked into believing they hear something?

I think not, a lot of stuff matters for your sound quality in high end audio, and it can't be always backed by numbers or a sort of science to measure it. A lot of manufacturers do a lot of listening tests besides measuring tests.

I think it's perfectly fine to say a lot of things are overpriced because a lot of things really are.
However, just straight up calling stuff snake oil or pseudoscience, because you think it's too expensive, that doesn't really mean anything.
Last thing : many people who claime some stuff is snake oil didn't even try to listen to the stuff they think they have an opinion about. That's just plain ignorant.

24 minutes ago, Butsers said:

Closed Minded people are always asking for numbers.
But you don't listen to numbers now do you.
Is every speaker that can go from 20Hz to 30.000Hz better than every speaker which goes from 40Hz to 20.000Hz?
Is every amplifier with a 1000+ damping factor better than every amplifier with 100+ damping factor?

No, so stop looking at the numbers and start listening.
Don't believe in audiophile networkswitches? Open your mind and start listening, if you do not like it, or you can't hear it as well, then you still don't have to deem it snake oil.
How can so many high end cables, networkswitches and power distributors be sold to so many people who hear the difference? Is each and every one of the people who buy that stuff fooled and tricked into believing they hear something?

I think not, a lot of stuff matters for your sound quality in high end audio, and it can't be always backed by numbers or a sort of science to measure it. A lot of manufacturers do a lot of listening tests besides measuring tests.

I think it's perfectly fine to say a lot of things are overpriced because a lot of things really are.
However, just straight up calling stuff snake oil or pseudoscience, because you think it's too expensive, that doesn't really mean anything.
Last thing : many people who claime some stuff is snake oil didn't even try to listen to the stuff they think they have an opinion about. That's just plain ignorant.

Ignorance and closed-mindedness is when you make statements about things you don't understand and yet, are certain that you've got it right. Do a little research on audibility studies, perception, and fallibility of human senses. Then see how that is used to qualify the numbers and measurements that you find so ignorant. Maybe you'll change your mind... if it's truly open.

6 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Ignorance and closed-mindedness is when you make statements about things you don't understand and yet, are certain that you've got it right. Do a little research on audibility studies, perception, and fallibility of human senses. Then see how that is used to qualify the numbers and measurements that you find so ignorant. Maybe you'll change your mind... if it's truly open.

I am not talking numbers here, i am talking ears.
I never said i think numbers are ignorant, i think that people who only look at numbers and don't even bother to try and listen to some of the things they think they have an opinion about are ignorant.

10 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

I have an opinion that you can't jump 20 feet high or run a 10 second mile. I don't need to see you try to do this to know this is true.

Sure Paul. But if a few thousand people gather on a forum and report that some radical new running shoes they bought allowed them to jump and run like never before, would you be open minded enough to look deeper into it—even if it went against your preconceived notions?

Just now, Superdad said:

Sure Paul. But if a few thousand people gather on a forum and report that some radical new running shoes they bought allowed them to jump and run like never before, would you be open minded enough to look deeper into it—even if it went against your preconceived notions?

Not any more than if a few thousand people claimed that Earth is flat. Keep your mind open, but not so open that the brain falls out :)

Audio is still in a pretty silly state, compared to many other, far more disciplined fields of human endeavour and interest, for a few reasons: no-one dies if the SQ is pretty poor; there's a pleasure in just having blingy stuff on show, even if it doesn't perform; and women are not involved much, which means men's egos can go down very deep rabbit holes, with little consequence.

Getting reproduction right is a taking away exercise, not an adding one. Which very few understand. Tweaking done well is the heart of the process of "taking away" - all good science works this way; improving the precision of taking a measurement ... you see, a playback chain is a measuring device, of a recording, with the 'numbers', results assessed by one's ears ... .

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Audio is still in a pretty silly state, compared to many other, far more disciplined fields of human endeavour and interest, for a few reasons: no-one dies if the SQ is pretty poor; there's a pleasure in just having blingy stuff on show, even if it doesn't perform; and women are not involved much, which means men's egos can go down very deep rabbit holes, with little consequence.

 

Getting reproduction right is a taking away exercise, not an adding one. Which very few understand. Tweaking done well is the heart of the process of "taking away" - all good science works this way; improving the precision of taking a measurement ... you see, a playback chain is a measuring device, of a recording, with the 'numbers', results assessed by one's ears ... .

Sure, Frank, if you only used your ears to evaluate the tweaks, this would all be very true and a good way to go. I’m afraid you don’t. You use your eyes, your expectations and your brain. The combination is very imprecise and more often than not the result is that you hear a difference when you’re expecting a difference and not when there really is one. It’s easy to measure this: just use a proper blind test and the obvious tweak improvements will vanish for most audiophile tweaks. Until you decide that you really want to know the truth, you’ll continue to fool yourself.

The problem, Paul, is that you don't believe that people can hear the presence or absence of low level distortion in playback - but, this anomaly is what stops audio from sounding 'real'; and so it follows, that the closer you get to eliminating this, the more 'real' it will sound. Turns out that the Truth is, that this degradation can be, subjectively, excised completely - which makes playback sound, yes, Really Nice. Unfortunately, you come from a place that believes that Really Nice presentation occurs because various types of distortion are doing "good things" to what you hear - and that really accurate reproduction is going to be a bit unpleasant, most times ... so, different worlds ...

On 8/17/2023 at 2:54 AM, fas42 said:

The problem, Paul, is that you don't believe that people can hear the presence or absence of low level distortion in playback - but, this anomaly is what stops audio from sounding 'real'; and so it follows, that the closer you get to eliminating this, the more 'real' it will sound. Turns out that the Truth is, that this degradation can be, subjectively, excised completely - which makes playback sound, yes, Really Nice. Unfortunately, you come from a place that believes that Really Nice presentation occurs because various types of distortion are doing "good things" to what you hear - and that really accurate reproduction is going to be a bit unpleasant, most times ... so, different worlds ...

It's not a problem, Frank. I know what level distortion I can hear because I specifically tested for it. The problem is that you can imagine that you can hear levels of distortion below any human capability, and that is enough for you to believe that you do.

7 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

I know what level distortion I can hear

Which one, THD+N?