netchord wrote: > you've completely (obtusely?) missed my point. none of my experience > invalidates your own, and the the reverse should be true as well. There is an important point of misunderstanding here. Of course no one's experience invalidates (or validates, for that matter) anyone else's. But that is not the point. The point is that "experience" (i.e. personal perception or observation) is just about the worst evidence there is for anything, apart from the very trivial. There are good evolutionary reasons for why we are pattern-seeking, and cause-seeking organisms, but this means that we very, very frequently see patterns and infer causes where there are none, in all sorts of areas of life. The scientific method has been developed over the years in order to exclude the consequences of this, so that we can understand, more closely, actual reality.
netchord wrote: > you'll recall my initial post in this thread, which simply stated that > it would not surprise me if someone else can hear the difference between > compressed and non-compressed files, since i've had the same experience. > you, and others here, have said it's not possible, and i'm imagining > what i hear. Like garym, above, this is not what I'm saying. The open question is, whether there is a -causal link- between the compressed codec being used and what you hear. No one has denied that it is possible, but equally, it cannot be said that there -is- a causal link until other possible (and perhaps more likely) explanations have been ruled out. Ruling out such explanations is what controlled testing is about. I should add that even if it was proven that it was not the file format that accounted for the differences that you hear, it still would not mean that you are imagining what you hear - only that the reasons for the differences you hear do not lie in the file formats. I can understand why people get confused on this point, and therefore become a bit defensive. netchord wrote: > to which i'd retort, if i cared, that perhaps you should listen with > more imagination. the act of listening to music, whether live or > recorded, is not something one does with only one sense engaged. This is fine as far as it goes. But it only goes as far as one person's perceptions, in one place, at one time. It is precisely the "imagination" which must be excluded before your experiences can be generalised and therefore become an interesting and useful contribution to a debate or discussion about the mechanics of audio reproduction. But when you are simply sitting back to allow a piece of music to transport you to another emotional place, rather than trying to evaluate a particular component or codec, then by all means engage all your senses and all your imagination - I'm sure that's what we all do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ darrell's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13460 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98630 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
