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02GF74 - 13/1/09 at 05:43 PM

here

some interesting reading about speaker components - gist is that the difference in capacitors are immesurable yet the effect can be heard by people.

Simon - 13/1/09 at 08:24 PM

Is that one of those obscure magazines, the type if which is used for cheap laughs on Have I Got News for You.

I read the first two lines and dozed off

ATB

Simon

smart51 - 13/1/09 at 08:35 PM

Do you think the name ClarityCap has an R missing near the end?

cd.thomson - 14/1/09 at 09:56 AM

"100 per cent of listeners could pick out the difference with only 20 minutes of training" said Paul Dodds, a researcher AT WREXHAM BASED CAPACITOR MAKER CLARITY CAP.

As a scientist articles like this make me literally furious. Its not restricted to obscure mags like this either, BBC news is just as bad.

This is a pseudo scientific trial funded by people who are trying to prove the difference rather than by an actual scientist trying to find a result with no predefined answer.


Can you spot the problem here?

"I have never seen a unicorn in Nottingham and neither has anybody I have ever met. There have also never been any pictures or reports of a unicorn sighted here"


"Therefore there are no unicorns in Nottingham"

Peteff - 14/1/09 at 10:04 AM

I love the sound of gobbledegook going over my head in the morning

iank - 14/1/09 at 10:08 AM

There are two obvious possibilities

Either they are cheating/rigging the trial to sell their highly priced products
or they aren't actually measuring the thing that makes the difference and are thus incompetent.

The idea that they are 'training' the observers makes cheating sound (pun intended) rather likely. real trials by real scientists are double blind and are actively designed not to require training as it brings in a whole lot of psychological problems into the results.


p.s. the unicorn thing is an example of not being able to directly prove a negative.

cd.thomson - 14/1/09 at 10:13 AM

I knew there would be a selection of scientific minds here .

I dread going round to see my parents when my mums read something written by somebody in "hello" about homeopathy.

More often than not I end up having to defend genetics against witchcraft! (I'm a geneticist )

Mr Whippy - 14/1/09 at 10:43 AM

This is all a bit geeky for so early in the morning…

cd.thomson - 14/1/09 at 10:50 AM

you posted that at 11:43 Mr Whippy, I guess your basically saying that geekyness has no place at all in the mornings whether its early or not!

Mr Whippy - 14/1/09 at 10:52 AM

quote:
Originally posted by cd.thomson
you posted that at 11:43 Mr Whippy, I guess your basically saying that geekyness has no place at all in the mornings whether its early or not!


save it for the Startrek forums btw its only 10:53...

[Edited on 14/1/09 by Mr Whippy]

cd.thomson - 14/1/09 at 10:55 AM

Damn server timer!

and I'm on the late today.

and it took me hours to get to work this morning thanks to the car issues.

Can I not just work off the locostbuilders time just for today?

Mr Whippy - 14/1/09 at 11:03 AM

there's usually a clock at the bottom right of the screen

flak monkey - 14/1/09 at 12:42 PM

If some you are saying that you wouldnt be able to hear the difference between a cheap stereo out of Currys and something like my seperates system you seriously need your ears checking.

Granted there is a lot of hype about expensive kit (they have to sell it somehow!), but not all of it is unjustified.

Theres more to it than what can be measured on an oscilloscope or multimeter. Especially when it comes to speaker design....

cd.thomson - 14/1/09 at 12:46 PM

No, I'm not saying anything of the sort.

I'm saying that this test was unscientific. Its like when the original research into tobacco found no health risks (and was funded by the tobacco companies themselves!)

I'm an audiophile myself and pay close attention to my rms's and impedances, but not the resistance of a capacitor when its surrounding components have a much higher resistance

Liam - 14/1/09 at 10:12 PM

As a scientist, surely you don't believe all research involving or funded by commercial organisations is automatically dishonest/rigged/a publicity stunt or whatever? In fact the majority of all scientific research and development is carried out, or otherwise funded by corporations/industry! Besides - if you'd read to the end of the article you'd have noticed the work in question was part of a DTI funded scheme anyway

Also, having to train participants of a study doesn't equal cheating. I for example could hardly participate in a study comparing... I dunno... genome data, without being trained to know what I'm looking for. We don't know whether this was double blind or not.

Still, that said, the articly does read a little like an advert for capacitors

Liam

RK - 14/1/09 at 10:35 PM

Well, when my mum told me and my cousin that she, my aunts and my grandmother, could hear Santa's bells coming, and we looked up in the sky and could see stars, and we were sure that he was in there somewhere, he was obviously there, or there wouldn't have been presents under our trees the next morning would there?

MikeRJ - 15/1/09 at 12:04 AM

It's clearly a complete load of crap.

quote:
Conventional test gear is not detecting the phase changes Dodds has looked at. “It sounds like black magic, but it really isn’t,” he said. “It is just that the ear is better than £5,000 or even £10,000 test gear.”


The ear is NOT better than test gear since it's connected to a brain which can be influenced by countless other inputs including suggestion. Additionally no two ears are the same, and all ears degrade with age. What might sound unreasonably bright to a teenager might sound quite flat to a 50 year old.

Test instruments are impartial, you don't need to "train" them to get a result, and that result is repeatable.

The great thing about saying the ear is the best instrument (for the peddlers of overpriced, over hyped audio junk), is that no-one can prove or disprove results.

flak monkey - 15/1/09 at 08:06 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Liam
As a scientist, surely you don't believe all research involving or funded by commercial organisations is automatically dishonest/rigged/a publicity stunt or whatever? In fact the majority of all scientific research and development is carried out, or otherwise funded by corporations/industry! Besides - if you'd read to the end of the article you'd have noticed the work in question was part of a DTI funded scheme anyway

Also, having to train participants of a study doesn't equal cheating. I for example could hardly participate in a study comparing... I dunno... genome data, without being trained to know what I'm looking for. We don't know whether this was double blind or not.

Still, that said, the articly does read a little like an advert for capacitors

Liam


Nope, I dont believe most of the research into the very high end of the audio stuff, and this article is no exception. It is a poorly devised experiment. (when you are looking at spending £15k on an amp, thats getting excessive in anyones books)

What I do tend to disagree with is that the test gear is always right. Look at the results of speaker tests (on a website such as stereophile) and you will understand. The actual quality of the sound you get doesnt always match the readings. A lot of it with hifi is personal preference, so at the end of the day, believe your own ears, not anyone else or the lab equipment

Liam - 15/1/09 at 05:43 PM

Dont believe? Tut tut - that's not very scientific. Religious even.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not defending the bo**ocks surrounding a great deal of high end 'audiophile' products. Just playing a bit of devil's advocate! Truth is that article doesn't give enough information about that particular work to support some of the claims of "definately bull**it" that are being made here. Holding back the cynicism, on the face of it, it's a government funded initiative to find methods of reliably quantifying audiophile waffle. Could actually result in a reduction of audiophile nonsense and expensive products verging on blatant fraud. So fair play to the study!

Liam

[Edited on 15/1/09 by Liam]