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Post by pinkie on Jul 6, 2014 8:49:46 GMT
On the subject of the definition of the terms, can I make the obvious point that the English language is dynamic and context-sensitive. It is accordingly not the case that because the terms are used in one context in one field (such as philosophy) they can only be used identically in any other context. "Our flight attendant confirmed that the plane would land momentarily in Houston, Texas" "plane" does not have the same meaning as "his strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe". Jesus was not claiming to be an airline pilot. And "momentarily" in this context does not mean, what we pilots refer to as a "touch and go". The plane would be stopping long enough for passengers to get off. To an Englishman, or in the context of "I was momentarily stunned" the word means "briefly". To an American, or in the context of "the plane will land momentarily" it means "will happen in the immediate future" We have the same issue in my field, and life can get a bit hairy with heated debates on the subject of inflation too. Most punters use the term to mean "rise in prices". So "house price inflation" or "wage inflation" (wages being the price of labour - for any Karl Marx's reading this post). But economists, at least originally, were referring to the devaluation of money. It goes back to Roman times, but was perhaps most notorious with the Plantagenets and Tudors. "Clipping" and "sweating" coinage. The idea being if there is £100,000 in the economy and you call it all in to the royal coffers, and issue 200,000 new pounds, giving the 100,000 new pounds back, you can hang on to the 100,000 spare ones for yourself. Of course, the problem is, once those new pounds find there way into the economy, there are only the same number of pigs, sheep and bushels of corn as before, so now a bushel of corn costs £10 when it used to cost £5. That's different from "pig price inflation" caused by 90% of the pigs dieing of swine fever - which is a supply and demand thing. "Real inflation" is a problem because we use money as a unit of measurement or value. Trying to add up accounts in a high inflation environment is like trying to quanitiy survey a room for decorating using a very elastic tape measure. The point is the term has different meanings in different contexts, even in the same field at the same time in the same country. Language is dynamic and context sensitive. "Objectivist" in HiFi does not have to mean the same as in Philosophy. And it does not have to mean "relies on measurement" although measurement is often a feature of objectivism. And DQ uses the term in this broader context himself. If I question whether Martin can hear the difference a mains cable makes, on the grounds that I can't, and there is no technical support for the phenomena, and suggest that the proof is to throw a sheet over the cables so that he (or a listening panel) can't see which cable is being used, and demonstrate the phenomena by identifying the cables just be listening to music without seeing them or knowing which one is being used, that is referred to as being "objectivist". But there was no suggestion that a measurement was needed. Just that steps were taken to ensure that the experience was exclusively attributable to listening, and not to other possible factors influencing human perception. Once it is accepted that "objectivist" can be used that way, the same dynamic context-sensitive principal applies to "subjectivist" and it becomes perfectly acceptable to be a cocktail of both -without bringing the philospohical house crashing down around our heads. In a HiFi forum the terms need to be discussed in the context of their usage. I think Dave Cawley put all of that rather more succinctly
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Post by John on Jul 6, 2014 8:59:16 GMT
With regards to USB cables I just a USB connector/adapter. My view point is to keep the cable away as much as much as possible. For me cables will always be a area that causes different view points and seem to give different experiences I moved away from expensive mains solutions as much as I can in my system and now use a combination of different batteries for most of the system. I would like to understand better why such polar opposite experiences
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Post by pinkie on Jul 6, 2014 9:03:05 GMT
s job. As far as leads etc are concerned, it has been MY experience that its 90% foo and I'm not interested. I just don't get involved in those threads but feel people should be free to spend their cash in any way they choose, if they are being led up the garden path that is not my problem - it ain't going to kill them. Which comes back to the beginning. I don't wish to police a public forum because its none of my business, its down to the owners and moderators. Quite. Marketing is marketing not "rip-off". A Rolex watch does not sell for the price it does because of the materials cost, plus £50 for putting it together. If you wish to chose a product on utilitarian grounds alone, then that is fine and Dandy. No question a £5 digital watch will keep time just as well as a £10,000 Rolex, but people should be free to spend their money as they chose. Indeed brand is often the only value in much we buy. And moving away from product based value will be essential for the future as the economy moves on to its next phase. Our children won't make their money walking behind ploughs, nor manufacturing motor cars. Most of them will earn a living providing services we can't even conceive of yet, and which accordingly are far from necessary. It is true that the Linn marketing dominance was tiresome - comical if you weren't trying to run Pink Triangle, or it would appear NVA. But it is not so different from VHS's dominance of Betamax, or the satelite wars. And the LP12, whilst pretty poor in its original state (the one that cornered the market) is just a record player not the great Satan. And like Triggers broom over on AOS, the Technics SL1200, if you change enough bits on it you can turn it into a much better record player than the relative bag of nails that was the original. And fixing that wobbling resonant sub-chassis is as good a place to start as any other. (Bye-bye LP12 BOING) All of us use marketing terms to present our products in a light that makes them attractive. Restaurants refer to dead fish as "goujons of pan fried plaice". NVA refer to a plastic box, with some cables, an attenuator, input selector and connector sockets as a "Passive pre-amplifier" when it is nothing of the sort. It is a "control unit" (its not like the term hasnt been used before in HiFi). It doesn't amplify anything, and so can't be a pre or any other sort of amplifier. Saying it is a "preamplifier" because it comes before the amplifier doesnt work either. That would make it a pre-power amplifier. Anyway a phono cartridge comes before the amplifier and nobody refers to that as a pre-amp. This doesn't make it a malicious rip-off. Just normal marketing Time for tennis
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Post by MartinT on Jul 6, 2014 9:41:12 GMT
You have now removed factual information that is not of my making. It is publicly available so its removal can only be described as censorship. Just because information is available elsewhere, it doesn't mean it's factual or even of interest to us.
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Post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew on Jul 6, 2014 9:51:37 GMT
You could apply that to any information. In this case it is a number of people publicly highlighting threats insults, even to the extent of physically threatening a persons wife and children, and there has NEVER been an apology!!
Regarding it as just information, then close the forum because that is what we are all doing. You are being selective as to what information is allowed here, and that according to my understanding of the English language is censorship.
But it is your call, just fez up to it, and it is then our decision if we wish to post on a forum that practices censorship.
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Post by John on Jul 6, 2014 9:56:41 GMT
Fair enough Richard its up to you if you wish to post here. We have explained our view point around this
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Post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew on Jul 6, 2014 10:02:09 GMT
Anyway back to the subject. The main problem with Subjectivism as published on the forums is individuals who wish to impose their subjective choices on other people - wolves and sheep syndrome. That is if anything becoming a bigger problem than the objectivist v subjectivist saga.
To the extent that some of these "wolves" have started to act as reviewers and virtually telling the sheep what to buy, even though they may not be paid for it which obviously point to the egotistical motivation. For me the point of subjectivism is that it is an individual process and also a learning process.
I suppose as with all thing human nature is behind this and there will always be sheep to be shorn.
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Post by John on Jul 6, 2014 10:07:01 GMT
For me the point of subjectivism is that it is an individual process and also a learning process. Agree But I think they could probably both be described as learning process and would fit in with our own learning styles
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Post by ChrisB on Jul 6, 2014 10:13:59 GMT
You seem to miss one vital component in the equation - the ability of the customer to make a decision. On your telling of it, it sounds like people are having guns held to their heads and being forced to buy products. No-one is being fleeced, ripped off, or conned. The price is set - the customer makes their own judgement whether to buy or not according to the evidence available to them. I find some of the prices charged for equipment and accessories as excessive as you do, I'm sure. However, the customer has the ultimate sanction: to choose not to pay.
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Post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew on Jul 6, 2014 10:15:25 GMT
From Pinky - "NVA refer to a plastic box, with some cables, an attenuator, input selector and connector sockets as a "Passive pre-amplifier" when it is nothing of the sort. It is a "control unit" (its not like the term hasnt been used before in HiFi). It doesn't amplify anything, and so can't be a pre or any other sort of amplifier."
I agree, but it has become accepted parlance, so I just follow the herd in this case. And just a small "by the way" reference to plastic is just to create a bad image in the readers mind. It is like saying a silver bracelet is made of metal, so the public would think tin. The case is acrylic.
"Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a transparent thermoplastic often used as a lightweight or shatter-resistant alternative to glass.
Although it is not technically a type of glass, the substance has sometimes historically been called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. The material was developed in 1928 in several different laboratories by many chemists such as William Chalmers, Otto Röhm and Walter Bauer and was first brought to market in 1933 by the Rohm and Haas Company, under the trademark Plexiglas. It has since been sold under many different names, including Acrylite, Lucite, and Perspex."
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Post by Dave on Jul 6, 2014 10:15:55 GMT
Instead of getting 'het up' about peoples differing perceptions regarding cables et al, perhaps instead it would be far more productive (and mature) to celebrate the fact that as individuals our experiences vary greatly. I, for one, find that rather fascinating...
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Post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew on Jul 6, 2014 10:18:07 GMT
Then how and why are "flavours of the month" created, and do you see those as good things?
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Post by Dave on Jul 6, 2014 10:28:45 GMT
Then how and why are "flavours of the month" created, and do you see those as good things? Amongst other things, the consumer will usually take into account others experiences regarding a particular product to help make an informed decision as to whether said product is worth shelling out for. Most cars available today have four wheels, does that mean those who buy a car with four wheels are sheep? To take your argument to its logical conclusion, and using cables as an example, are you saying that each individual cable should be totally unique? That is the only way to prevent a 'herd mentality' from taking root...
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Post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew on Jul 6, 2014 10:36:53 GMT
Your analogy with cars and four wheels is silly and not worthy of comment.
I ask again do you consider the creation of "flavours of the month" (FOTM) which seems a speciality of this industry as a good or bad thing.
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Post by Dave on Jul 6, 2014 10:43:13 GMT
Your analogy with cars and four wheels is silly and not worthy of comment. I ask again do you consider the creation of "flavours of the month" (FOTM) which seems a speciality of this industry as a good or bad thing. That is a leading question as you well know and to paraphrase your post above, not worthy of comment...
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2014 10:53:23 GMT
Then how and why are "flavours of the month" created, and do you see those as good things? Amongst other things, the consumer will usually take into account others experiences regarding a particular product to help make an informed decision as to whether said product is worth shelling out for. Most cars available today have four wheels, does that mean those who buy a car with four wheels are sheep? To take your argument to its logical conclusion, and using cables as an example, are you saying that each individual cable should be totally unique? That is the only way to prevent a 'herd mentality' from taking root... I think the problem is with cables especially but not exclusively people are not making an informed decision. The car analogy is not applicable as there is a far greater difference between models than say cables or even amplifiers. The usual scenario is that a flavour of the month product is created by one or two forum members promoting it. Then someone appears to buy or loan a cable and raves about it to the extent that they have to maintain that position or lose face. They end up buying it possibly for more than they can afford. Within months even same cable appears for sale on forums or Ebay because it is too long for new set up or some other excuse. A number of products that were forum favourites 12 months ago are now regularly appearing in the for sale columns. People with a few notable exceptions don't change stuff that often if they are satisfied.
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Post by ChrisB on Jul 6, 2014 11:08:21 GMT
In the case of cables, I don't think this is as much the case as you imply. I think that far more common is that people think that a change of cable is going to be some sort of magic bullet that will transform a system into something that it is not. There are often far more fundamental issues to address than the connecting wires. Differences ascribed to cables are so often ridiculously over-exaggerated - you can usually make a bigger difference by moving the speakers a little or even drinking a glass of wine. The result is that after a honeymoon period, the system no longer satisfies as it did. So on to the next over-enthusiastically recommended wire. When you know what's going on, you stop worrying about wires and start enjoying music more.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2014 11:16:14 GMT
you can usually make a bigger difference by moving the speakers a little or even drinking a glass of wine.I'll drink to that. Signed Obvious Steadman
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Post by ChrisB on Jul 6, 2014 11:23:15 GMT
Boom boom!
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Post by DaveC on Jul 6, 2014 11:24:27 GMT
you can usually make a bigger difference by moving the speakers a little or even drinking a glass of wine. Or drinking a cup of real coffee ? Dave
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