VansEvers - Support - If I Can't Hear It...

If I can’t hear it, it doesn’t exist...maybe.
by: Mike Vans Evers

‘If I can’t hear it, it doesn’t exist,’ and, ‘if it can’t be "proven" with a Double Blind Test (DBT), it doesn’t exist,’ are prime objectivist declarations. These war cries are used with great vigor to condemn the subjectivist’s observations that different audio system wires and cables "sound" different. Many objectivists go further and ‘reason’ that because DBTs have been unable to "prove" the existence of sonic wire differences, all those who say they can hear it, must either be lying or are misguided by marketing claims, and have opinions that are the result of the "Placebo Effect." (Let’s dispense with the ones who lie immediately, as they do neither side any good. If you’re lying, you’re lying, and eventually you’ll trip yourself up.)

Objectivists get frustrated, and often a little angry when, in the face of what they consider a lack of proof, the subjectivists still insist that wires and cables do indeed have a "sound." Of course, the subjectivists also get frustrated, and often a little angry when they point out the flaws in DBTs and the objectivists still insist on the sacred cow status of Double Blind Tests.

On the surface, the arguments for the need for DBTs can seem to be on solid ground. (However, we shall see shortly that this solidity is an illusion.) In any event, the argument that the lack-of-DBT-proof is itself a "proof" that wires don’t have a sound, is scientifically 100% incorrect. The only valid comment you can make about a Double Blind Test whose goal isn’t proven, is that this particular test wasn’t able to prove the goal, not that the goal is false.

Using a scientifically false statement as a premise, and then taking logically correct steps from that starting point will always lead you to an incorrect conclusion. (This is just bad science, but some call this sort of mistake ‘pseudo-science.’) The lack of DBT "proof" is not a valid premise for saying ‘all those who say they can hear it must be misguided by marketing claims and have opinions that are the result of the "Placebo Effect."’

Let us continue refuting these objectivist claims by looking at another of their favorite, but equally ‘myth-taken’ catcalls, the "Placebo Effect." We can visit its fall from stardom (and pedestal transformation from marble to quicksand) in an article found in the Tampa Tribune, May 24, 2001.

Researchers say ‘‘placebo effect’’ fake
By Susan Okie of the Washington Post

Surprising new evidence has called into question the existence of the "placebo effect," the widely accepted principle that people with various illnesses will often improve if given a dummy pill or sham treatment.

For a half-century, doctors have been taught that this phenomenon is partly responsible for drugs' effectiveness. Researchers have taken it into account when testing new medicines. Biologists and psychologists have searched for its cause. Ethicists have even debated whether doctors could justifiably deceive patients to take advantage of it.

But in the most comprehensive effort yet to evaluate whether placebos work, Danish researchers conclude that they have little effect after all and should not be used outside research settings.

Their analysis examined 114 studies of various symptoms or disorders and found that the placebos were no better than no treatment for most of the problems studied.

Placebos did appear to produce modest benefit in studies of pain and in some other studies where the outcome was similarly subjective.

(For the sake of continuity, intervening parts of the article have been omitted.)

...Among individual conditions, only pain showed evidence of a modest but significant placebo response.

Even for pain, "I'm very much in doubt" whether the effect is real, Hrobjartsson* said. "The difference between placebo and no treatment could also reflect reporting bias" on the part of the study participants." (* Asbojoern Hrobjartsson of the University of Copenhagen and the Nordic Cochran Centre, the new study's principal author.)

As a result of this article we see that the use of the "placebo effect" has a ‘valid counter example,’ and has now become a questionable tool for arguing the claims of those who hear cable and wire differences.

The next datum to absorb is from an article of importance by Dr. Greg Comnes in issue 117 (April/May 1999) of "The Absolute Sound." In part this article discusses the limited usefulness of the Double Blind Test (DBT). It is interesting to note that the results from numbers of traditional clinical double blind trials of the three top antidepressant medicines, each trial lasting 4 to 6 weeks, showed that each drug provided patients relief from depression equally well, i.e. one did not work "better" than another.

However, the higher number of real world variables found in some other types of tests (not DBTs) have actually made them more important contributors to the "pharmacoeconomics" of treating patients efficiently. (An important factor in a multi-billion dollar industry.) In these tests it was found that patients were actually much more likely to remain on one antidepressant rather than another...one did work "better." A direct contradiction of the Double Blind Test results. The drug company’s conclusion was that while double blind tests are useful, they are hardly the last word--as many would have us believe. (See Mitchell, et al., "Effectiveness and Economic Impact of Antidepressant Medications: A Review," The American Journal of Managed Care Vol. 3, no. 2, February 1997.)

Now we can objectively discount one of the objectivist’s favorite tools (the double blind test) because it’s been discovered that its inherent and rigidly limited test conditions can produce incorrect results. (Have we been steered in the wrong direction? Have we had the gender wrong all this time? Hamburger anyone?)

That leaves us with our very first argument, ‘if I can’t hear it, it doesn’t exist,’ to bounce around. Here are a few paragraphs from a book called "Waves and the Ear," (Bergeik, et al., "Science Study Series" from Doubleday, 1960, pages 102-103). They will establish one reason why Joe Schmoe can hear cable differences and Joe Blow can’t.

"We do not hear instantaneously. Somehow a complicated sound which is a sequence of spectral patterns succeeding one another Arings in our ears@ for a moment after we have heard it. It is during this moment that we can best imitate an unfamiliar sound. Of course, the sound does not truly ring in our ears; it is presumably stored momentarily in the brain B just how is not clear.

Most of our memories of sounds are of a different sort. They are not transient; they are permanent. We have stored in our heads a host of sound patterns. It is after these that we pattern our speech, and it is with the aid of these that we identify the words that we hear.

That these are learned patterns is clear. An Indian from a certain language group may be unable to hear the differences in the English words park : bark, gross : grows, sweet : Swede, fine : vine, pluck : plug . Yet the same Indian, and all others who speak his language and who exhibit this same defect of discrimination, insist that an English speaker's "p's" in "peel" and "pool" are two distinct sounds, and so are the "k's" in "kin" and "skin," and the two "l's" in "lily."

*Words of an unknown tongue flow into our ears in a largely undifferentiated stream, yet we hear words of our own language with distinctness. Our ability to discriminate in this way grows with learning, but experience shows that such learning is a slow process. It is for this reason that I cannot take seriously simple-minded experiments purporting to show how many pitches or levels of sound we can recognize. It seems that the answer must depend largely on learning over a long period of time.

The most interesting sounds to us are complex sounds and complex sequences of sounds, and it is about the hearing of such sounds that we know the least. WE KNOW THAT OUR ABILITY TO DISCRIMINATE AMONG SUCH SOUNDS DEPENDS ON TRAINING, but we do not know in any quantitative way how far such training can be carried." (The asterisk and caps are mine-MVE.)

Musical instruments and nature create the majority of the aforementioned complex sounds that we love to listen to, and find most interesting. Whether it is the sound of a songbird, the wind whistling through the trees, an ensemble of musical instruments, or the sound of an actor investing her lines with emotion, it is the complex nature and the many components of that sound that draws us in. Clear, gritty, forceful, ethereal, strong...these are just a few of the many descriptive words used to describe the sounds that emotionally affect us.

Many words have been written to try to describe such complex and moving sounds with words that move us in a similar fashion. Many words have also been written to try to describe why one performance lacks certain qualities and nuances thought to define those performances having the last word in quality. It should come as no surprise that music’s special qualities and nuances are very important to many people.

Training, whether self-taught or schooled creates higher level listening skills, which are literally the result of the building-up and flexing of one’s mental "muscles." In a July 4, 2003 Tampa Tribune newspaper article (NATION/WORLD p.7), Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reports on a new technique to enhance tactile sensitivity in elderly people. This technique was developed at the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany. Here are a few sentences from this article on the work led by neuroscientist Hubert Dinse, which has been published in the current issue of the journal Science:
"Studies have shown that repeated exposure to subtle signals–such as barely perceptible changes in musical tones–can improve sensitivity to those signals, a form of sensory enhancement that has been documented in musicians. Research has shown these enhanced abilities are the result of the brain gradually reconfiguring itself to devote larger portions to the task at hand."

The existence of "Golden eared" people has thus been scientifically verified. These people, with their higher level listening skills, can recognize a particular nuance of a complex sound where another who hasn’t these skills won’t. Why is this important? A good quality instrument’s sound is complex. The addition of even one more instrument raises the resulting level of sonic complexity many times. Then when one or more instruments are played in a physical space, this raises the level of complexity even more, because the sound you hear is a combination of the direct sound from the instrument and the sound that has first reverberated, or bounced off of a wall, ceiling or floor one or more times before reaching your ears.

If one wished to achieve the lowest possible level of complexity, music would have to be played in an anechoic chamber (no room contribution). Then it would be merely (?) a complex sequence of complex sounds. In real and imagined spaces (because of natural and electronic reverberation) music becomes an interactive complex mix of direct and reflected complex sounds in complex sequences...in other words, music cannot help but to have many qualities, and many, many nuances. It should easily be seen that without some form of training, recognizing all of the qualities and nuances created by the sound of music in real and imagined spaces is NOT a ‘given.’ (Review at * if needed.)

A wide range of listeners will have a wide range of listening skills. Some listeners will have ears of gold; some will have ears of tin. Some will be able to recognize the subtle differences between the sound of a violin and a viola, or between a Stratocaster and a Les Paul. Some will consider these differences ‘huge,’ and not subtle at all; some will feel the differences to be so minor as to be unimportant, and therefore non-existent.

It should be clear at this point, that if you can’t recognize some of these nuances in the first place, it would be rather improbable, if not down right impossible for you to be able to perceive changes in these nuances brought about through the comparison of different audio system wires and cables.

Some will hear differences; some won’t. This is normal. Some people can track animals in the wild; some can’t. Some can win at poker, while others can’t. Listening is a skill, and like any other skill, it can be learned, to one level or another. The choice is up to you.

In Conclusion:

In general:

Reality is composed of an incredibly vast number of simple and complicated processes that interact in far too many ways to naively assert that a single type of test* holds the key to unlock all problems, and answer all questions. (* See: "A new Science," by Stephen Wolfram, pages 6, and 791-792.)

While we know "a lot," reality is still more complicated than our current understanding of the science behind even the common place events we see around us everyday: see www.ftexploring.com/askdrgalapagos.html. Science is a quest for more knowledge–not a "we already know everything" game.

In addition, that which "science" ridicules today, may become scientific "fact" tomorrow. The September-October 2002 issue of "American Scientist" shows that a scientific basis exists in the star gazing used by the farmers in the high Andes in Peru and Bolivia to predict the coming rains which in turn determines the best crop planting schedule. Star gazing has been completely disregarded by the scientific community...until now.

In a comment* about glaciers and why one vanishes and another seems unaffected by today’s warmer weather, Dr. Dan Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey lead scientist says, "It makes you question what you know, which is the real point of science." The lesson is that reality should make you question what you ‘know’ -- not the other way around. (*See:"Glacier Science Races Time, Heat," The Tampa Tribune, Nov. 30, 2002, NATION/WORLD, p.19.)

For the objectivist:

For the Subjectivist:

their

For all:

You can be brainwashed by marketing claims and reviewer endorsements IF:

Situations ‘A’ & ‘B’ can be difficult to correct. You will, more than likely, be relatively easy prey to a salesman’s need to preach disenchantment of something you already own so that you will buy something new and "better." You will need trustworthy help to make correct buying decisions...this can, unfortunately, be hard to find. It will often take as much time to find such help as it takes to learn how to listen well enough to wisely make your own decisions.

Situation ‘C’ can be corrected by going to see and hear live acoustic music and as many other audio systems as you can. Go to a music store and find a guitar teacher who has many different guitars, and pay him or her $20 for a half hour lesson on the sonic differences between the different guitars. You can also go to a University or Community College music department and find an under graduate instructor who would be happy to play a number of different orchestral instruments for a modest fee. This way you could hear each instrument one at a time and really get an idea of what each one sounds like. This same music department will have many cheap ($0 to $5 per person) concerts of acoustic music. Many will have a wide range of concerts, classical, jazz, and vocal, every semester.

Read reviews and go hear the reviewed equipment. Compare what you hear against what the reviewer says. Over time, if you are passionate and diligent, you’ll begin to be able to predict what components will work well with others. If you harness your passion, one day you might progress so far as to be able to read between the lines of marketing tools like ads, brochures, and most reviews. (Marketing is the ultimate predator in the realm of the penultimate predator.) You’ll then be able to build a truly musical and satisfying audio system without the need to consult anyone else – AND, do it for much less than many would have you believe it takes.

Rev. 4.2 Copyright 2002, 2003 Mike Vans Evers

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