FUD, intellectual honesty, digital facts, and the TAS articles...

[Wombat]

In that whole series I find their finding that perfect digital copies of files sound different the most insane .

This TAS article is discussed on several places.
I am really curious how many people feel now "officialy" confirmed. Now they say "I knew it all the time"
On diyaudio there lately just someone described how the sound gets worse after every copy. Time to retype my old word documents before the text becomes to blurry

[totoro]

This TAS article is discussed on several places.
I am really curious how many people feel now "officialy" confirmed. Now they say "I knew it all the time"
On diyaudio there lately just someone described how the sound gets worse after every copy. Time to retype my old word documents before the text becomes to blurry

Haven't you ever heard of bit-rot? It's a huge problem in the software industry, where we have whole source-control repositories go bad.

[darrell]

However, in the photography world, there is also nonsense, at least in the mass market - see the marketing of ever-greater megapixels in low-end cameras where the limiting factor is obviously the glass.

As far as audio is concerned, progress can still be made in the loudspeaker area. What about active speakers with built-in room correction, which do not need to be placed out in the room, far from boundaries? I know I've just described a Meridian system, but I mean more towards the mass market.

[ralphpnj]

This TAS article is discussed on several places...

And most hilarious of them is on TAS's own forum where you can see up close just how off the wall this mystery PhD really is. It's like watching a TV show about alien abductions where the abductees have these elaborate stories because they believe that the more details they provide the more believable their wild tales become.

Here's the link: http://www.avguide.com/forums/comput...-audio-quality

Enjoy!

[sckramer]

As far as audio is concerned, progress can still be made in the loudspeaker area. What about active speakers with built-in room correction, which do not need to be placed out in the room, far from boundaries? I know I've just described a Meridian system, but I mean more towards the mass market.

Also couldn't SPDIF be eliminated as an option to hook things together? Basically make everything act like TCPIP!!!

That is where the so called "bit rot" comes from!

[totoro]

Also couldn't SPDIF be eliminated as an option to hook things together? Basically make everything act like TCPIP!!!

That is where the so called "bit rot" comes from!

I hope everyone could tell I was joking. Just in case anyone couldn't, I was joking .

[totoro]

After a little google stalking (actually, just going to the discussion page linked to above:

http://www.avguide.com/forums/comput...-audio-quality

and doing a google search for Chuck Zeilig), I came to the following linkedin page, which has the same photo he is using on the discussion page:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/charles-zeilig/16/353/636

Apparently he has a PhD in "Physiology and Molecular Oncology" from Vanderbilt issued in 1975.

I have no idea what such a degree that long ago entails. I would guess that he doesn't know much about electrical engineering, computer science, or psychoacoustics, which would all be relevant.

In any event, we can't disregard what he says just because his degree is pretty much irrelevant to the subject at hand (that would be essentially making an ad hominem). We _can_, however, disregard any claims to authority made on the basis of his doctorate.


He _should_ know something about experimental design, which makes this stuff somewhat puzzling.

[ralphpnj]

Apparently he has a PhD in "Physiology and Molecular Oncology" from Vanderbilt issued in 1975.

Oncology is the study of cancer which makes Dr. Zeilig about as qualified to write about computer based digital audio as my endocrinologist. While I don't ask that everyone who writes about audio have a background in audio what I do expect is that when they write something that so directly contradicts all known scientific knowledge and evidence that they at least back it up with some real proof. Making fancy tables of and assigning numbers to what are basically just sighted listening tests does not make "I heard a difference" into real proof.

As an aside I just want to say that I'm not against good sounding audio equipment, even the high priced stuff, and judging by some of the signatures on this forum, so are many other members. What I'm against is use of pseudoscience as a means of justifying some of their misguided beliefs.

[totoro]

Oncology is the study of cancer which makes Dr. Zeilig about as qualified to write about computer based digital audio as my endocrinologist. While I don't ask that everyone who writes about audio have a background in audio what I do expect is that when they write something that so directly contradicts all known scientific knowledge and evidence that they at least back it up with some real proof. Making fancy tables of and assigning numbers to what are basically just sighted listening tests does not make "I heard a difference" into real proof.

As an aside I just wantth to say that I'm not against good sounding audio equipment, even the high priced stuff, and judging by some of the signatures on this forum, so are many other members. What I'm against is use of pseudoscience as a means of justifying some of their misguided beliefs.

Ok, I shouldn't have said I had _no_ idea what his degree entailed. I know roughly what oncology is. But I have no idea what math or relevant science he might know. Perhaps a fair amount. Perhaps very little.

I agree with you completely that any arguments by authority made by him would be frivolous. I love the part where he says two identical files ripped by different programs are inherently different sounding, then goes on to claim that location on a different part of the disk could cause the differences, and doesn't seem to see that the second explanation, as exotic and unlikely as it is, would make the first _less_ likely, rather than more.

It's good for a laugh anyway.

[pippin]

We know these results drive engineers crazy.

I believe here we have a severe misunderstanding of engineers.
Engineers are NOT dumb morons who can't hear the words.

To the contrary, engineers are VERY well capable to see and understand these results, learn from them and use them to build sophisticated and expensive - actually VERY expensive - equipment honoring all of the findings and even to market and sell this equipment once they've built it.

And no, they will NOT be unhappy about all of this let alone being driven crazy by it.