I don't think a "special section" for subjects like informational fields affecting perception of sound is needed. Just some tolerance for the -fact- that this is a (little known) area of research that some audio researchers have studied in a serious manner, and found to have merit. Regardless of the prejudices of our time that has not yet been willing to seriously explore the connection between the presence of "fields" that affect our perception of sound, and our perception of sound. For this reason, I maintain that my thread on informational fields, -was- in the proper category of "Bass". Because contrary to what the moderators here believe, it -was- related to music and bass guitars, as it is purported to improve the sound of either. And even if as moderator you don't believe it can do that, doesn't mean it belongs in a special category. If people think its hogwash (the usual reaction), there's no gun pointing at their head insisting they go into the thread, if they think the discussion is meaningless folly. People!: understand, YOU control the mouse pointer. Not the other way around. Click where you want to click. The original title of my thread made it clear what the subject was. At least, until the moderators decided to change it at some point in order to mock me and the subject I raised (and now my original title is no longer available). This I note is an agression I've never seen before in 22 years of internet discussion groups. I would expect such on a forum run by 14 year olds, perhaps.
Another insulting act of agression on the part of many, that I took offense by, was to label me a "troll". Despite the fact that this too is a predictable accusation that will inevitably be made of me, every time I try to talk about subjects like informational fields. Let's get something clear: I am NOT a "troll". Wikipedia defines it as such:
"An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion."
I did NOT come here with the primary intent to provoke users into emotional responses, or disrupt normal on-topic discussion (again, my question was related to music & its instruments). Users have a choice as to how they respond to concepts they don't believe in. Calling me a "troll" is a way of flinging the responsibility for their insane reactions on to me, as though I am forcing them to react like fools and madmen, and "disrupt" their own forum. Especially when everyone else was trolling ME. Especially those coming into the thread not to stay on topic and advance the conversation, but to call me a troll. I just wanted to get an intelligent conversation going on this subject. Which is almost impossible on -any- discussion group, except that of Beltists themselves. Yes moderator Billy, even on Audio Asylum's "Tweak" forum. You see, Belt's ideas are too controversial even for the internet's largest audio forum's Tweak subforum. So they created a special sub-subforum to isolate and prevent "pollution" of such ideas from their Tweak subforum, called appropriately, the 'Isolation Ward'. Which as about as dead as the victims in Friday the 13th, since most people don't even know where the staff have hidden it.
Did you acctually read this? No, thought not. I didn't at least - but hey, at least I got to quote an insanely long post to the joy of other members. Username probably got an account on anontalk, since he is not here. Just throwing the idea out there. Xtreo out.
This forum appears to have a slightly different approach to controversial subjects in audio: you just kill the thread. Maybe I can see that happening if its nothing but a flame war, but that was not the case with my thread. I avoided responding to very inflammatory and insulting responses to me, to avoid a premature thread-slaying by the moderators, and many were still very much engaged with the subject when this second thread was killed, and some had wanted to post their test experiences but never got the chance. This kind of heavy hand on the moderation tiller looked to me like some authoritarian father who says "Ok you boys down in the basement, that's enough fun for one night! Shut up and go home!". Geez, I guess this topic about improving musical and bass sound is too off-topic for Off-topic!! I can see from reading some of the comments in the (only) two threads I've read on this site, that premature thread-killing by the moderators is a frequent occurence. I would hate to remain on a board like that. Given that there were so many people interested in contributing to my thread, and many are paying money to do so I see, who exactly does it serve to kill it like this?
TalkBass forumers can continue to choose to not believe a word I say, but since there was much silly blind speculation on this, I might as well say a few words on my own behalf as to why I came here....
One of you, I forget who, came very close to guessing. Sometimes when I am bored, I do a search for the term "Peter Belt". My intention is to find groups discussing him (Which inevitably start out with "Oh, I remember that name from back in the 80's. It is synonymous with "snake oil"). Two things worth noting here: Belt NEVER went away. He continued to produce his controversial products, bringing out many new ones, since the 80's. Those who think his name is synonymous with snake oil only "know" that by reading bad press, or hearing what others say. Rarely have such condemners ever actually tried his products, particularly the more expensive effective ones (such as the pen someone took to mocking). It is simply assumed, derived from nothing but mass hysteria, that it's all a scam. But I digress. The reason I search for the name is to see if anyone is putting out an old idea they heard of Belt's that I can try. Usually, these idiots will say something like "Isn't he the quack who said that if you cut a notch into the blade of your AC plug, it will improve the sound? Even if the plug is NOT plugged into anything?!". That stuff is pure gold to me, because every mocked idea was something that did indeed work.
And that's how I came across TalkBass. I don't know what Peter Belt was doing on this forum, but you guys were indeed talking about him - and very recently. So, being a Beltist, I decided to defend Mr. Belt, against a of tidal wave of ignorance about him, his products and his revolutionary ideas. That thread was closed prematurely, while many were still posting to it, and even before some had the chance to fulfill their promise to report their results of Belt's tweaks. After that, I had no intention of returning.... Until I got the idea that it might be interesting to throw a free tweak idea up here that I thought might be more effective than any of the free tweak ideas people were discussing in the closed thread (something about $39 fuses). It would serve two purposes: give narrow-minded reactionaries a good chance to hear the Belt effect, and give me a chance to test the effect on something I have never tested it on or heard it being tested on: a musical instrument. I may have "forgotten" to mention this, but... I'm not a musician. I know nothing about bass guitars, and have never played a musical instrument. (I suppose now the moderators will close my account; oh horror of all horrors...). I thought if some bass player were to try my experiment and find it improved (or at least changed) the sound of his instrument, that would be news to me. And if not well, at least the arguments would be interesting. And they were. I am sorry I did not have the time to respond to everybody, as I would have liked to. Though I have no problem debating the hypotheses, I did not feel to since most everyone who asked me to do so, wouldn't even take the trouble to try my experiment first, when all it took was 1 minute of their time and a black marker. If the experiment can't convince, the concepts behind them are not likely to either.
And anyway, all that does is play on people's thick and nasty prejudices. If they think the concepts are BS, people are either not going to then try the experiment (they pretty much told me this), or their experience will be colored by their unwillingness to suspend disbelief during the later trial period. They assume if the concepts don't make sense to them, then the experiment is a load of malarkey. Neither the concepts, the products or the free ideas are things that sell themselves. The only way you can get what Beltism is about, is when you hear a distinct change in your sound; despite having no influence on acoustic pressure waves or the musical signal. That occured with me 20 years ago, and thousands of other once-skeptics, who are now solid believers, and have tried dozens of different Belt-based products or ideas, each time improving their sound.
And for people to get to that point of witnessing the effect, is not as easy as I would like, certainly. (Although I have to say, I just did a blind test on my wife and she picked out the CD with the message). It might take better listening abilities than they have, it might take a better or more tests than they are willing to engage in (which is why I suggested people try 9 CDs at once bearing similar messages, instead of just the one), it might take more superior products that have a greater impact than any free tweak ideas. Until that happens, the entire revolutionary phenomenon that is Beltism is written off by undetermined skeptics as a cult of delusional lunatics who believe in "magic" and tin foil hats. At no point do they question how a placebo can possibly work for 25 years, over hundreds or thousands of different trials, with hundreds of people around the world, using products that have been positively interviewed by numerous audio journalists over the last two decades, create different distinct sounds in the minds of listeners, pass a blind test study with 1,000 subjects where 75% heard the changes, and be continually heard as distinct improvements by spouses and friends over a period of no less than decades. Because all that would harm the "safe" conclusion that there is nothing but wishful thinking behind any of this, and it's all an evil scam perpetrated by "frauds and trolls".
PS. I got intel from an undercover source, and it tells me Maki is really Mark Wilson. If you recieve my super secret undercover message, do respond in equal manner with your insight on the matter.
Okay, so why did the few who were brave or curious enough to do tests on my humble little experiment not reveal differences? I'll try to answer that, but I know already that no one's going to like my answer. Or any that doesn't say: "Because it was BS all along". Mine doesn't say that. Rather, I say that we can't come to a conclusion about Beltism, or morphic messaging (which is what my experiment was based on, and only one of many methods of improving perception of sound used in Beltism), based on what we've seen here. To do so would be premature, in the scientific sense. But since most people only pretend to be "scientific" and "objective", (even as they claim scientific background), I know they will indeed come to a conclusion, based only on this one experiment and the few who responded to it. There are a number of reasons why I wouldn't do that:
- No one, but -no one-, who claimed to have carried out the test, gave any details of their experience, that would reveal whether they followed my instructions or not. I don't know what they listened to or how they listened to it. Or important details, such as whether they kept all messages out of the room while listening, and whether they listened to the same tracks.
Given that some members said they didn't care about my instructions and were going to do this their own way, such as sticking something on their guitar cord during a live performance and expecting the audience to be blown away, I can not assume the tests were carried out properly. Neither should anyone else.
- This experiment is normally something reserved for audiophiles, who are likely to have more experience listening to highly resolving systems, and have more of an interest in improving their sound (as opposed to some here who stated they don't care about improving their sound). Musicians may have their own skill set, but I don't know that it applies to something like this.
- Out of the clear blue, dj????? claimed to have tested 10 people - with no advance notice that he would, and no word to me about how best to conduct such a test, with my morphic message. Instead, he insisted that whatever method he used was the correct method, and before I could say anything, insisted that he could read my mind, and so "predicted" I would cite "foul play". That to me indicates this could be an excuse he was setting up for himself in advance, if there was any suggestion on my part that he never undertook this major test. Well, there is a suggestion on my part that he probably did not do any test, because one, I saw no details that would reveal a real test had taken place, and two, the anger and animosity coming off of this guy toward me in his test report, and his comments that followed, indicate that this could well have been a "set up". Something done merely because as a means of attacking me and my experiment. Even if that wasn't so, he admitted to having such a negative bias toward me and my experiment, that conducting the test on himself would be useless. In such a case, if you are claiming you are an objective "student of science" (as he was), you simply get someone else to conduct the test or you make sure it is a proper DBT, to where you can't be an influence. And you just present raw data. Which means you don't make conclusions yourself, since you can't be trusted to remain objective in your analysis. In his conclusions, it sounded like dj was ready to have me arrested for sharing a free tweak!
Although none were quite the vein-popping lunatic that dj????? was, many were against me for not bothering to explain what was behind this idea. And more than a few responded with knee-jerk "wacky sound enhancing ideas" of their own, that conveniently prevented them from thinking any further. The difference is, my idea is based on practices that have been practiced by hundreds for decades, has been confirmed under review and blind test, and is not derived from some idiot on a talk forum's knee-jerk response to me, but some rather brilliant avante garde research into the science of sound by PWB, headed by Mr. Belt, a classicaly trained audio engineer with 50 years of experience in the industry, developing pioneering technologies. So what does Sheldrake have to do with this? Nothing, in direct. His work on morphic resonances has nothing to do with sound. Plenty of researchers base their work on previous research done by another researcher. If some wanna-be play scientists here can't or won't understand that, that's their problem. Belt's concepts can not be reduced to bite-size mini-raviolis for the palatibility of people who can only eat ravioli. They are lenghty for reasons that have nothing to do with attempting to dupe people; but in my last few words, I might as well cook up some ravioli for those who may have felt cheated by my aversion of the topic:
In a nutshell, Belt's hypothesis, has been centered on the observations: not the other way around. It states that to some degree, there is a part of our brain that has never evolved. Or rather, that we have retained all of our biological "programming" throughout our evolution as a species. We may have adapted, but we never lost what we once were. Thus it is believed that we are constantly reacting to our environment, which contains fields adverse to our earliest senses. Things we are constantly doing are constantly changing the nature of these fields, and affecting our senses (usually not to a degree you would consciously notice it, even under critical listening). Under this phenomenon, the trick is to affect the fields to a degree that one could consciously notice it, under at least critical listening. There are many ways that Belt has found to do this; one is affecting morphic fields via messages, which is what my experiment attempts to do. I already know how loony all this sounds but I can't stress this enough: there is avante garde research like this done all the time, all around the world, in any number of different fields of study of alternative sciences. Just because you've never heard of it and it hasn't gone through the difficult, expensive, political process that is peer-reviewed study, it is nothing but sheer stupid ignorance to dismiss all of it, with mocking laughter and incredulity. To behave this way, is above all, NOT a scientific attitude for anyone to hold. It's more of a... Luddism approach. That's what I saw when I first saw you people disrespecting Belt and crapping all over his products and research, neither of which you knew anything about. You saw yourselves as musicians too clever to fall for "snake oil" that entice gullible audiophiles with more money than brains. I just saw ignorant Luddites. I still do to a great extent, but I think we're both better for the exchange, and more educated from it. I think though there is still a *lot* that isn't known, or understood about Beltists, that bassists and Beltists now understand each other a lot better.
No matter how the tests were conducted, or what the end results were concluded, I thank everyone who humoured me long enough to give my (sincere) experiment a whirl. If I insulted anyone during my exchanges, please understand that I only did so because it amused me very much. I hope there are no hard feelings! Rock on, bass dudes! You make the rockin' world go round...
"An Alternative Look at Sound and the Perception of Sound" by May Belt:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue36/belt.htm
"Challenging the conventional":
Link Removed
