darrenyeats wrote: > I'm going to talk science now. Excellent. "To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning."
> One must distinguish between scientists and engineers. Scientists > conduct experiments to break current theories in order to improve or > replace them. Engineers seem to know what they know. I think that is a rather simplistic (and somewhat offensive) view of engineers (in the sense of "a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical, social and economic problems" as opposed to someone who runs a train or twiddles knobs in a studio until all red lights light up). To quote wikipedia: "Engineers develop new technological solutions. During the engineering design process, the responsibilities of the engineer may include defining problems, conducting and narrowing research, analyzing criteria, finding and analyzing solutions, and making decisions. Much of an engineer's time is spent on researching, locating, applying, and transferring information." > Not every problem with listening tests can be solved. No. But it would be very bad science to throw away the baby with the bath wather by declaring "there are some issues with listening tests, thus listening tests are useless". Do you know of any better ways to avoid perceptual bias (the biggest single challenge in audio)? > At the end of the day we are middle-aged men arguing on an audiophile > internet forum...no harm done but none of this stuff is particularly > important either. We should be enjoying ourselves and perhaps shooting > the breeze with a drink whilst listening to some good tunes! > Incidentally, I am sure if we met face to face that's what we'd do! And we would probably end up arguing about the choice of music and the quality of the drink... :) OK, I'll get my anorak... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Julf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=42050 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97489 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
