[ScottMayo]

This thread's in serious danger of devolving into a discussion of epistemological ("How to know stuff": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology) murk. That would probably be a mistake; not only are the real arguments and positions in epistemology subtle and easy to screw up, but in my experience non-philosophers, which I think we all are, don't change their beliefs on the grounds of arguments, even when the arguments are done properly. We've already started into what looks like a Foundationalist vs. Coherentist argument, and that's just going to be the tip of the iceberg.

In a desperate attempt to pull this back to audio, and also to find out where people really sit in their views on reality, let's start with a question which should get things sorted out quickly:

Assume the IC doesn't actually make a physical change to the CD, but the owner of the IC hears an improvement in that CD. Is the improvement "real"?

[miklorsmith]

Nice spin:

The owner of the IC that paid the paltry sum thinks he has discovered the best deal in all of audio.  His buddy that comes over and doesn't hear the change thinks he's nuts.  It's a matter of perspective.

The chip reminds me of the ERS paper phenomenon.  It spread like wildfire among the talking heads and I bought some.  Didn't make sense to me but it was inexpensive so I gave it a try.  I still own it and I move it around, waiting to hear some change.  So far, nothing.  I've actually read a few places where people have said the stuff must be applied sparingly, as not to overdo the powerful effects.

When the chip came out to huge, critical acclaim I expressed my skepticism with my wallet.

These discussions of the nature of truth and knowledge will never end.    Only by discussing our beliefs with others do we question our own.  I think that even if no revelations occur, we are wiser for understanding the opposition's position better.  And over time, we may temper or alter our views.

For me, if "the chip" makes a discernable and repeatable difference, it's worth the price of admission.  If I'm fooling myself, that's OK.  I wish I could hypnotize myself that I have the best system in the world so I'd forget trying to improve it.  Ultimately, I don't build my rig for others.

[James Romeyn]

OK, I'll make it simple.  Is there any known clock with a quantitative error rate of zero?  

I anxiously await a response.

If the error rate of the most accurate clock known to modern science is a number higher than zero, no matter how many decimals are involved, to that numeric extent, the answer to the question "What is a meter?" is literally unknown & unknowable.  You can say it exists somewhere between two points, but it's exact distance is unknown.  

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but the definition of a meter given earlier is the distance travelled by light in a particular fraction of second.  As soon as you get a literally, absolutely, unequivocally perfect clock, we will have a concrete definition of a meter.  Till then, we got duelling clocks, duelling scientists, duelling definitions, etc, etc.........  And by the way, as soon as you pay some scientist to say he gots an errorless clock, I've got three who swear your scientist is dellusional or nuts or wrong or some type of strange clock zealot or...fill in the blank...How can anyone prove his clock has zero error?  What will be used to measure it's error rate?  The only thing that could measure it's lack of error, is, you guessed it, another darn clock.  This is what I've been stating all along.  The very very kernel or source of all belief is faith.    

If you want to disagree with this, please be my guest & have at it.  The answer to the question "What is a meter?", even using the poster's own choice of definition, is unknown & so far, unknowable.  It must & can only be taken on faith.  It is exactly, in every possible sense, the same as religious faith.  It's what that particular scientist says it is, no more, no less.  You have to rely on a measuring device that has no reference to infallibility, because the only device that could have an error rate of zero is not known to exist in this world.  It would in fact be, literally, supernatural.    

The fact that two people can agree the sun is overhead & there are no visible clouds has as much to do with the above as peas have to do with chrome plating.

Clocks work as well as we need them to, as does this computer, etc.  Does that change the mechanics of the way we come to believe what we believe?  No.  Does this fact offend some people?  You don't have to read any farther than Scotty's posts to find out.

[ScottMayo]

I wish I could hypnotize myself that I have the best system in the world so I'd forget trying to improve it.

You know, this is probably possible? You'd need less aggressive suggestion, something like "I am extremely happy with the way my stereo sounds." Hpynotherapy usually costs a few hundred, but think of the savings in gear. Heck, we could get you set up with a Sony receiver and a set of Bose speakers.  

Well, maybe not Bose. The cognitive dissonance could get painful.

[ScottMayo]

OK, I'll make it simple.  Is there any known clock with a quantitative error rate of zero?  

Sure. The one in my kitchen. It's all the other ones that are off.

If I understand your position, there is absolutely no way you can prove me wrong.  


---
"Creating coherentist reality by fiat, since 2005."

[kfr01]

OK, I'll make it simple.  Is there any known clock with a quantitative error rate of zero?  

I anxiously await a response.

If the error rate of the most accurate clock known to modern science is a number higher than zero, no matter how many decimals are involved, to that numeric extent, the answer to the question "What is a meter?" is literally unknown & unknowable.  If you want to disagree with this, please be my guest & have at it.  It must & can only be taken on faith.  It is exactly, in every poss ...

You're still missing the point.  The fact that some infinitesimal error rate exists doesn't debunk the merits of time, the clock, or any of the science in between.  It just means there is some limit to our technical abilitiy.

You're right.  There will always be some error rate involved.  What a construction worker calls a meter on the job might never meet the laboratory or theoretical definition of a meter.  

Good job.  Nice observation.  We get it.  No need for any more examples like this.

What we have trouble doing is following your reasoning through to your conclusion.

The perpetual existence of error does not negate the underlying scientific principles or the usefulness of measurement.  

If I build a speaker and the plans call for a 12" long cut, is my cut exactly 12"?  Of course not.  

Does this negate the concept of an inch, the usefulness of an inch as a unit, or somehow make the fact that any speakers ever get built an issue of religious-like faith?

No.  The speakers get built.  No religious-like faith involved.  My cuts based on the unknown were still useful, accurate enough, and 3 of my friends can jump up and down on the miracle of a cabinet.

I knew with REASONABLE CERTAINTY that my cuts based on the "unknown" unit of an inch would fit together.  Reasonable certainty, verifiable certainty, and principles of physics, are much different than a strictly faith-based belief. [/i]

I could test, 1,000,000 times, the REASONABLE CERTAINTY that my saw would make a cut 12" long with enough accuracy for my application.  The fact that there will be some small error does not negate the utility of measurement.  Nor does it negate the fact that I can be reasonably certain about the results of my cut.  I can KNOW that 12" cut, regardless of some small error, will meet the requirement of 12" that the building plans call for.

One definition of faith is:  "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." (see The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed.)  i.e., you CANNOT test ONCE the REASONABLE CERTAINTY of a strictly faith-based belief.  

Certainly you can see the elementary distinction between scientific reasonable certainty and a strictly faith-based belief.

[ScottMayo]

Religious faith, in my dictionary, is: "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." i.e., you CANNOT test ONCE the REASONABLE CERTAINTY of a religious belief. I am not a religous person, but I have incredible respect for those that are, because religious faith requires commendable conviction to that which cannot be tested and rest on logical proof or material evidence.

Urgh. That dictionary needs a little work. A number of religions, and mine to an extreme degree, are based on statements about history and a series of logical constructions from those statements. The claims that are not testable, are not testable for the same reason that history in general is not testable. I don't know if I like a definition of religion that covers just about any study of history.

(Note to moderators, this is a comment about the definition of a word and not the beginning of a religious thread. )

[kfr01]

Scott:  I see your point and agree.  I'd also like to stay away from the religious realm; something I obviously know little about.  I edited my above post to reflect your valid point and removed almost all references to religion.  (Please let me know if you are satisfied, via PM or regular post, with my edits; I do not with to offend anyone because of my non-religious background.)

We both seem to agree that one cannot test either history or religion in the same manner one may test principles of physics and other sciences; a key distinction that RibbonSpeakers.net is missing.

[_scotty_]

The fact that two people can agree the sun is overhead & there are no visible clouds has as much to do with the above as peas have to do with chrome plating.

Exactly, you appear to have grasped the Non-Sequiter flaw in your early argument. I said

Non-sequiter
The term Self- Evident is unrelated to presupposition, belief or faith.
When one observes the sun is overhead in a cloudless sky neither presupposition or belief is necessary to be cognizant of it's presence.

Your argument equating faith with belief has already been shown to be invalid
in my earlier response which I will repeat here.  

The only thing necessary to refute this argument is a belief supported by the knowledge of material evidence or logical proof and not
based on faith.

 It has also been pointed out in earlier responses to your arguments by myself and others that a measurement with range of error or a probability distribution for a value is not equivalent to an abstract concept, reread the definition for abstract again.
In as much as this discussion has me repeating the exposures of your earlier flaws in reasoning I can't see the point continuing it further.
I was never offended by the content of your posts I was only concerned with the  inconsistancies and critical flaws in reasoning contained within them.
Your opinions and beliefs are not disturbing to me and only the flawed logic
supporting them is of any note. The reason this subject came up was a criticism of the explanation for how the "Intelligent Chip" functions and that document contains similar errors in logic only on a larger scale. It is this
attempt to BS the potential purchaser through this flawed argument that I and others find offensive.
Scotty

[James Romeyn]

Every belief, including the accuracy or lack thereof of any clock, including yours, is based on a presupposition that is unproven & unprovable.

[Music Machine]

What RibbonSpeakers is saying is that he doesn't know anything.  I'm starting to agree with him.

Let's teach him something.

Ribbon, An instrument used to measure how much time passes during one revolution of the earth might be inaccurate. However, the correct answer is still one day.  Now you know something.

[ScottMayo]

(Please let me know if you are satisfied, via PM or regular post, with my edits; I do not with to offend anyone because of my non-religious background.)

Please do't be concerned about offense in that sense. It's not offensive to lack knowledge abot something. It's only offensive to *deliberately* lack knowledge about something, a very different thing. At any rate, my own religion is offensive - the phrase "the offense of the cross" has been thrown around by theologians for a long time - and there's absolutely nothing I can do about that (or would, if I could). So I tend not to get offended by what anyone else says, either. If you're worried about it or want to discuss particulars, pm me; we can't discuss religion here.

[ScottMayo]

Every belief, including the accuracy or lack thereof of any clock, including yours, is based on a presupposition that is unproven & unprovable.

How do you know?

You're making a Foundationalist statement to deny the basis of Foundationalism. Yes, that's fun, but it's not going to work. If you're in the other camp, you're in good company, but you have to stop talking about things as if they are "real" in the sense the rest of us are using. You can only make claims about consistancy; and I can assert that my kitchen clock *is* accurate, and it's possible to construct a consistant universe from that claim.

That doesn't leave you with much, as far as I can tell.

[clarkjohnsen]

when you get right down to it, there is absolutely no difference whatsover between religious "faith" & "science". This is because, as described above, faith is eventually the very source of every belief. No matter what evidence a person observes, that person will in the end believe whatever in the world they want to believe.

Well said, and bravo! Ain't it the truth!

This explains why each & every "scientific" measurement has a range of error.

Oh it's worse than that! Almost every measurement nowadays is statistical. No one who really know his stuff cares to speak in solid numbers.

On a practical level, to quote scientific jargon to support one's belief that an audio product is physically incapable of providing good value to an audiophile, & to deride a person who does not agree with you, is disrespectful or possibly worse. Especially if that person has no direct personal experience with the product, & is using "scientific" third party reports for his case.

Yeah but isn't amazing how many of them confrom to that bad behavior? Nor do they speak to you, they sneer at you.

clark

[clarkjohnsen]

...Fortunately, such sophomoric attitudinizing carries no weight here...

Just 2 weeks on this board and already...?

steve

Baby, I may be new here, but I been around!

Or are you suggesting that such attitudinizing is appropriate here? If so, I withdraw my remark.

clark

[clarkjohnsen]

I derided the product and its "inventor."

You certainly did! And without ever having heard the thing.

Y'see, once anything has been proved to one's own satisfaction (as the Chip has been to mine), one has two paths to choose from (or hell, why not take both?):

1) Use and enjoy it.

2) Take it apart and figure it out.

But what sense does the second make, without having first experienced something? The folks who are so eager to disprove the proffered theory have done nothing to deserve standing. Whatever they have to say, constitutes mere taunts from the sidelines. The players on the field are always the ones worth listening to.

clark

[clarkjohnsen]

All this grand talk about the Intelligent Chip...

Yet when I was at Scott's and he held the Chip in his hand, not a single question or comment arose from his lips. He passed it right back to me and that was that!

No interest in trying it, none whatsoever, was manifest.

And now he speaks with such certainty on it.

And wishes to get away from epistemology (which I introduced here, with a pithy quote from Polanyi) and back to audio.

But I guess to some people "audio" means yakking it up, not listening.

[Sigh]

Well... I note this thread began more-or-less with talk about Reality Check CDs, so I'll take you back.. way back...

Back to the present, and my new column on the subject.

And the addendum, although lengthy, is choc-a-bloc with listening experience -- if that matters. Although short on theory.

http://positive-feedback.com/Issue22/cjdiaries.htm

Have a great Saturday Night alive, everyone!

clark

[ScottMayo]

All this grand talk about the Intelligent Chip...

Yet when I was at Scott's and he held the Chip in his hand, not a single question or comment arose from his lips. He passed it right back to me and that was that!

No interest in trying it, none whatsoever, was manifest.

Well, in fairness, the test I had in mind would have emptied it of charges, which I admitted up front, and you said something about buying my own. It didn't seem right to press on anyway.

I'm perfectly willing to do the same kind of deal here, as I offered on the Isoclean fuse - folk who believe, can put up a wager against me. I'll arrange things so that if I win the wager, I gain zero (eg, my winnings only cover the cost of the ICs, which will have been proved useless), or lose up to $60 if I'm wrong (and then I will write a full description here of what the IC did).

I'll run the test as an ABX, in front of witnesses, single blinded (double, if people show up and are willing to help honestly). With repeated trials and statistical methods. I will be FAIR, because I have no interest in having my reputation damaged with a rigged test.

What is boils down to is, I'm willing to test any tweak I don't believe in, fairly, in front of witnesses, and I'm willing to take a financial loss if I'm wrong, just so long as, if I'm right (ie, the tweak is useless), it's not my money that went to support the charalatans. (I absolutely don't spend my money on products I believe are hokum, which is why I arrange these things as zero-gain wagers.)

What some folk don't get is that I would be happy, overjoyed in fact, to find an inexpensive tweak that made an unambiguous improvement in my sound. I'd very likely become a dealer for the product. How could the news be better than "this costs $25 and it works?" Sign me up for some of that, no matter how weird.

By the same token, I have nothing but contempt for manufacturers who package nonsense and lies for cash.  

Anyway, before anyone volunteers for the bet, let me be utterly fair: I'll state the reason why I know the IC does nothing.

A CD contains information. The only way to move or change information is to spend energy - an immutable physical law. The IC does not contain enough available energy to move or change information. Before someone starts to protest that it works by making plastic clearer or something, that's a change in the information content of the cd and is covered by the same physical laws. Before someone starts talking about about quantum effects, quantum effects do not overturn information theory. I'm willing to risk $60 on the belief that the folk at Golden Sound are not in fact better quantum physicists than the like of Timpson and other folk, who have been showing that Shannon's work applies perfectly well to the quantum domain.

So bring it on, believers. I've got an extremely revealing and transparent system at my disposal, nothing to gain, and hokum to flame.  

[clarkjohnsen]

Well, in fairness, the test I had in mind would have emptied it of charges.

Yes, whatever that was. The test I had in mind would have used a coupla CDs and a coupla charges. But let it pass, let it pass.

I'll run the test as an ABX, in front of witnesses, single blinded (double, if people show up and are willing to help honestly). With repeated trials and statistical methods. I will be FAIR, because I have no interest in having my reputation damaged with a rigged test.

LOL! Why not just try the frikkin' thing first?!

I'm willing to take a financial loss if I'm wrong.

Hey! Wonderful guy that I am, I'll let you try it without a loss.

...just so long as... it's not my money that went to support the charalatans.

Whatta guy! What an open mind!

I have nothing but contempt for manufacturers who package nonsense and lies for cash.

And you can back that assertion, how? (By the way, he takes checks and VISA too.)

Anyway, before anyone volunteers for the bet, let me be utterly fair: I'll state the reason why I know the IC does nothing.

Good Lord! The man is hopeless! Does this sound like a situation where any fair listening can happen?

The IC does not contain enough available energy to move or change information.

That's good to know. Uh... how do you know it, again?

So bring it on, believers.

This statement too is not indicative of an atmosphere where dispassionate science can operate.

I've got an extremely revealing and transparent system.

Beg to differ, sir. It sounds hopelessly digital. The speakers at least portray that aspect accurately.

Remember, I said that at the time.

clark

[ScottMayo]

I'll run the test as an ABX, in front of witnesses, single blinded (double, if people show up and are willing to help honestly). With repeated trials and statistical methods. I will be FAIR, because I have no interest in having my reputation damaged with a rigged test.  

LOL! Why not just try the frikkin' thing first?!

That's what I'm offering to do, try the frikkin' thing. Under conditions that make "trying" unequivocally fair and honest. You wouldn't want an unfair or biased test, would you? How would that help anyone?

Whatta guy! What an open mind!

You don't get any points by heaping scorn on a person offering to do a test, you know. If you're sure it works - and you've said as much - you ought to be overjoyed about the chance to show the world that you're right, under fair conditions. What precisely do you have to lose, after all?

It's funny how some people get ad hominem when you mention real testing. "He can't test, he has an opinion! That's close-minded!" Which is an interesting stance to take, if you think about it. Anyone with enough interest in science to construct a valid test, probably has enough background in science to form an opinion about the IC. And if you can eliminate people with that kind of knowledge from the conversation, well, that does make it easier to sell things.

And make no mistake - an inert piece of material can change the perception of sound. Remember the pizza-box-tripod? Remember the photo in the freezer? The people at Golden Sound, I think, do. And it's because of that sort of effect - well understood and documented many times - that FAIR tests and healthy skepticism are what audiophiles should demand. Trust your ears - in fact, don't trust anything else. Especially not any a priori knowledge of what's being heard.

Jim Austin said it better: http://stereophile.com/asweseeit/505awsi/ (I know Clark has read this one - he responded to it. He didn't say anything except to invoke a hope in the unknown, but he responded.)

So let's open up a test to external verification. Here's how I propose to test - people are invited to suggest improvements and point out flaws.

We will procure two new ICs, GSIC-10's. I will mark one with a blue dot and one with a yellow dot (using permanent magic marker). This will not affect the test: the maufacturer suggests you make marks on the IC to count off the charges anyway, so it clearly works in the presence of marks.

I will roll a die to choose one chip, and I will use it to upgrade 30 disks. (I will set aside those disks and they will not be used in the test.) In other words, I will totally drain it of charges, and then some. The other chip, I will drain of one charge. I will write down which colored dot corresponds to which chip, and put that bit of information in an envelope. So now we have an inert chip and a usable chip, and I know which is which and have committed the knowledge to paper, so I can't lie afterwards. I will also weigh and examine the chips before and afterwards, to make sure there's nothing obvious about the chip that can give away which one is used up.

Then we'll bring in listeners. We'll do a few trials with both chips - no more than 9 per chip, because otherwise both chips will be out of charges. We'll take breaks between trials, so people don't get Tired Ear Syndrone. We won't let the listeners know which chip is used in any test and I won't let the administrators know what the colored mark represents. We will use a pair of dice, each thrown by one person and summing to even or odd, to pick which chip is used for each trial. That way, no single person has control over the order of the tests. We will not let the listeners see the color of the marks, either. We will tally the listeners impressions independently; they will record either "no difference", "possible difference (favoring A or B)", or "clear difference (A or B)."

Each trial will be a single AB. Listen to an untreated disk (as many times as the listeners want), treat the disk, and play it again.

At the end, I will give everyone a copy of the raw tallies, and then open the envelope that contains the info on which chip was live. And I will publish the same info here.

We'll use my RM/x - even if VMPS isn't your cup of tea, I think everyone who has heard them would call them revealing and detailed speakers. We'll use my modWright Denon 2900, because I think most people respect Dan Wright's work, and the player itself, unmodified, isn't too bad. I propose to use my Bryston preamp in Bypass mode and my Bryston 6B-SST as the amp, but I'm willing to swap in another amp and preamp if someone feels they have something significantly more detailed and accurate. If someone wants to bring in a power conditioner for the preamp and source, I'm game. There is no syrup in this configuration: bad CDs sound bad, good CDs sound good. Everyone who has auditioned the system, except for Clark, has offered only pure praise for it.

We're not looking for a very subtle change - the manufacturer's ad copy promises "The sound of the upgraded disc more closely resembles the sound of a remastered version, with less congestion, more information, greater dynamic range and more air." I suggest that you'd have to be deaf not to pick out changes like that; this shouldn't be so tough.

Anyone see a flaw?

Here's hoping I'm wrong and the chip nails the test easily. I'd be willing to be found a fool, if I also find such a cheap, effective upgrade.

---
"For in the absence of rigorous test procedures and a certain level of consumer cynicism, snake oil flows freely." -Stereophile