• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Good read on "The Great Debate"

#121
Faderoktopus said:
Confusing actual consumption data with some kind of natural selection must be a new record attempt in disregarding relevant factors:p. Factors such as marketing, trends, availability, price, consumer ideology in all its various shades, historical changes in actual preferences, technological advancements and ideological oppositions to these, visual aesthetics, brand loyalty/enmity, reliability, nostalgia and so on and so forth. Further comparing this 'natural selection' to the scientific method... well... Really?:eyebrow:
Martin
Click to expand...
If you do not think that players are making decisions based on their perception of performance and that such constitutes a selection process; then, that is your opinion. I am pretty down on current business ethics and practices, but I give our bass playing community a little more credit than you do.

BTW, you must not have read my post carefully. I in no way described that selection process as any part of Scientific Method. If you would like to think that to drum up some controversy, then have at it. I did give the link to Wikipedia's description of SM. You might want to review it.

Scientific Method only comes into play when someone is seeking to explain a technical outcome. The only relevant point of the paragraph you questioned was that I was attempting to put forth the concept that science usually ends up explaining these things after natural processes have already made them so. We very rarely use Scientific Method to prognosticate how things ought to go. SM gets gussied up to try to convince people how they should view things or behave or make buying decisions. That is frankly a misuse. The point of SM is to arrive at an objective understanding.

Suggest we get back to the topic so you cats can dialog on +/- of the two amp platforms.

I personally have gone to the micros for the most part because their tone works well for me and they are easy to go out and do gigs with. OTOH, I am all over playing an SVT backline when someone else moves and stores it. Oh, and the Acoustic 360 is still my favorite all time amp; and it is transistors.:D
 
#122
aborgman said:
Then we have drastically different ideas of what constitutes "ruler flat frequency response".
Click to expand...

I own a few channel strip type pieces as well. UA, Summit etc... There is a lot more to what these boxes sound like than frequency response. For instance, while they may be rule flat frequency response across the audible range, they will have different kinds of distortion. The Class A transformer balanced stuff wont have the crossover distortion that class AB stuff has.
Also transformer balanced gear has a certain thickness to the sound that electronically balanced stuff doesn't have. Maybe it is a slight compression? added harmonics?
There is a lot more to audio than frequency repsonse. There is also dynamic range, distortion, phase, group delay etc.
 
#123
bucephylus said:
If you do not think that players are making decisions based on their perception of performance and that such constitutes a selection process; then, that is your opinion. I am pretty down on current business ethics and practices, but I give our bass playing community a little more credit than you do.

BTW, you must not have read my post carefully. I in no way described that selection process as any part of Scientific Method. If you would like to think that to drum up some controversy, then have at it. I did give the link to Wikipedia's description of SM. You might want to review it.

Scientific Method only comes into play when someone is seeking to explain a technical outcome. The only relevant point of the paragraph you questioned was that I was attempting to put forth the concept that science usually ends up explaining these things after natural processes have already made them so. We very rarely use Scientific Method to prognosticate how things ought to go. SM gets gussied up to try to convince people how they should view things or behave or make buying decisions. That is frankly a misuse. The point of SM is to arrive at an objective understanding.

Suggest we get back to the topic so you cats can dialog on +/- of the two amp platforms.

I personally have gone to the micros for the most part because their tone works well for me and they are easy to go out and do gigs with. OTOH, I am all over playing an SVT backline when someone else moves and stores it. Oh, and the Acoustic 360 is still my favorite all time amp; and it is transistors.:D
Click to expand...

I give the community a fair amount of credit and would not exclude actual performance from the considerations of potential buyers. I only seek to illustrate that when you include the many other factors, then the viewpoint that you presented loses some realism. At least it does if one considers such an interaction between designers and consumers a somewhat linear path to better designs, which from your choice of words (natural selection process) I assumed you did. I freely admit that this was my reading, and if I have misinterpreted your message then I apologize. I do think that my reading was warranted, to some extent, by your claiming that ineffective designs are 'disproven' by the market, which to me seems to imply some sort of technological/commercial determinism. Again, my interpretation, I do not mean to misrepresent your argument but this is what I get from your post, along with your sober and reasonable explanation of the scientific method.

Also, even though my background is in humanities rather than natural science, I am fairly familiar with the scientific method, as well as its history and a few of its paradigms, and need neither a wiki link nor your condescension, which I feel was unwarranted

Peace

@JimmyM - you might be right, I am probably seeing ghost-posts from older threads. I might need to cheer up... and some coffee.;)

Martin
 
#126
Faderoktopus said:
...Again, my interpretation, I do not mean to misrepresent your argument but this is what I get from your post, along with your sober and reasonable explanation of the scientific method.

Also, even though my background is in humanities rather than natural science, I am fairly familiar with the scientific method, as well as its history and a few of its paradigms, and need neither a wiki link nor your condescension, which I feel was unwarranted

Peace

Martin
Click to expand...
Certainly no condescension intended; just trying to be clear, which can be a challenge with these posts. Different viewpoints are good. Actually necessary.
 
#127
Bill, Jerrold, are you familiar with anything similar to 'blind sight' in regards to our hearing?

Our conscious brain areas developed long after our ability to perceive movement without using the visual cortex, for example, and I'm guessing we might have developed similar aptitudes with regards to our hearing.

Since what we perceive consciously is tiny compared to what our unconscious perceives (or takes in) perhaps the whole idea of testing only what we are consciously aware of at a given time ignores a very large part of what we can actually discern.

I'm convinced the way we have measured our perceptions in the past has lead us up some blind alleys, and brain scans and imaging of where and what kind of activity our brains perform will be extremely revealing, and lead to a much better understanding of our unconscious, which no doubt performs the majority of what we assume our conscious selves are performing (or perceiving?).

Maybe people with 'golden ears' not only have more experience and training in identifying certain sounds, but also have developed the ability to trust or better be actually conscious of the great ability our unconscious has to discern stimuli.
 
#128
One Drop said:
Bill, Jerrold, are you familiar with anything similar to 'blind sight' in regards to our hearing?

Our conscious brain areas developed long after our ability to perceive movement visually usnf the cerebral cortex, for example, and I'm guessing we might have developed similar aptitudes with regards to our hearing.

Since what we perceive consciously is tiny compared to what our unconscious perceives (or takes in) perhaps the whole idea of testing only what we are consciously aware of at a given time ignores a very large part of what we can actually discern.

I'm convinced the way we have measured our perceptions in the past has lead us up some blind alleys, and brain scans and imaging of where and what kind of activity our brains perform will be extremely revealing, and lead to a much better understanding of our unconscious, which no doubt performs the majority of what we assume our conscious selves are performing (or perceiving?).

Maybe people with 'golden ears' not only have more experience and training in identifying certain sounds, but also have developed the ability to trust or better be actually conscious of the great ability our unconscious has to discern stimuli.
Click to expand...
I 100% agree with all of this. But I'm still going to pick out gear by how tight in the pants I get when playing it.
 
#132
Here's another twist regarding pre-amps.
Neve, SSL, API, MCI, Sony, Trident, etc. all make/made console preamp strips that are as good as good gets.
They are also as flat as reasonably possible.
They also all sound different.
I can not tell you one brand from the other by name, but can tell you if two recordings were made on the same board or not and have done so as many studiosI've worked at have had the above brands in different rooms.
If you add transformers vs. trasnformerless in the input path or discrete electronics vs. trasnistors you realize the flat EQ factor becomes meaningless.
 
#133
One Drop said:
Bill, Jerrold, are you familiar with anything similar to 'blind sight' in regards to our hearing?

Our conscious brain areas developed long after our ability to perceive movement without using the visual cortex, for example, and I'm guessing we might have developed similar aptitudes with regards to our hearing.

Since what we perceive consciously is tiny compared to what our unconscious perceives (or takes in) perhaps the whole idea of testing only what we are consciously aware of at a given time ignores a very large part of what we can actually discern.

I'm convinced the way we have measured our perceptions in the past has lead us up some blind alleys, and brain scans and imaging of where and what kind of activity our brains perform will be extremely revealing, and lead to a much better understanding of our unconscious, which no doubt performs the majority of what we assume our conscious selves are performing (or perceiving?).

Maybe people with 'golden ears' not only have more experience and training in identifying certain sounds, but also have developed the ability to trust or better be actually conscious of the great ability our unconscious has to discern stimuli.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's it (sarcasm)

The test subjects said out loud what they heard, but it goes against the popular though here so it must be wrong. We should do brain imaging and it will show their subconscious knows differently.

:hiding:
 
#135
Jim C said:
Here's another twist regarding pre-amps.
Neve, SSL, API, MCI, Sony, Trident, etc. all make/made console preamp strips that are as good as good gets.
They are also as flat as reasonably possible.
They also all sound different.
I can not tell you one brand from the other by name, but can tell you if two recordings were made on the same board or not and have done so as many studiosI've worked at have had the above brands in different rooms.
If you add transformers vs. trasnformerless in the input path or discrete electronics vs. trasnistors you realize the flat EQ factor becomes meaningless.
Click to expand...

If they measure the same then they sound the same. If they sound different then something is wrong with the measurement.

I think someone famous said that. :D
 
#136
sickest beast said:
tube and solid state amps sound different from eachother. isn't this common knowledge? why are people testing this?

if I want a solid state sound, I'll go buy a solid state amp. if i want a tube sound I'll buy a tube amp.

you guys are putting WAY too much time into this.

go play.
Click to expand...

If you wanted to play Blues you'd by a blue amp. :)

Modern Solidstate doesn't have a sound. It's all put in there by the designers.
 
#137
seamonkey said:
Yeah, that's it (sarcasm)

The test subjects said out loud what they heard, but it goes against the popular though here so it must be wrong. We should do brain imaging and it will show their subconscious knows differently.

:hiding:
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about the test specifically, I'm trying to learn about things by asking questions and contributing some things I've been thinking about for years. Actually trying to tie knowledge with experience so I can understand why I come to certain conclusions, and when I've made faulty connections and assumptions (sarcasm tied to implication)?


But we are who we are and I don't expect you to to have the slightest clue about what I am talking about. Fanatics never do hear anything but their own voice.
 
#138
In 20 years we will be laughing at the crude conclusions we drew from our crude measuring devices.

Every new and more powerful device we invent to measure things changes our understanding of what constitutes our universe. We are still at a primitive state of understanding of what matter is and how it behaves, and our current descriptions of various particles will not stand in a few year's time. We can measure 1 photon, but do we know what a photon is constituted of? How many other smaller particles make up one, that behave in ways we have yet to imagine, never mind describe or measure?

Our brains are infinitely more complex than we can even imagine. Is it really such a stretch for you to conceive of the possibility that we do not yet fully understand what it is capable of? We have invented crude logarithms that try to describe what our brains can do in much more complicated and subtle ways that we are unable to describe fully yet. This is not an argument against science, it is caveat that our science is as only as good as the questions we can ask.

Our lives and actions are ruled by our unconscious mind. You probably think you know what you are doing at a given moment, and maybe even convince yourself that you are acting in a conscious manner, and create scenarios to support this, but your conscious mind is only aware of the tiniest amount of activity that your unconscious mind is performing at any moment you are alive. This is what all current science in every field points to, and it's about time we started to realize this, however crudely and tentatively. This can all be measured with a brain scan.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back