Thanks for enlightening me re: censorship of posts. The first version of my post included a paragraph raising the issue of censorship (since I could not find my comment with a page search). So I thought the -1 was hiding my comment Then I found the "More" button, and discovered my comment... at the very bottom. So I deleted that paragraph, so I wouldn't create a red herring of my own... and to be fair to HN.
However, with your observation, I suspect my comment is censored, but I just can't tell. I don't care enough at this point to verify it. (My next comment will explain why.)
I grew suspicious after my bug report comment was ignored in favour of one with less content, so I logged out and refreshed the page - there was no comment. A friend also viewed the page and again, no comment.
Another thing that HN does is slow down your page loads if you have negative karma. Pages can often take between 10-30 seconds to load.
Sometimes less is more. The debate goes on. Why not just let the music play? And by that I mean high resolution music. All you need is one person who can hear high frequencies, and all the technical mumble-jumble becomes hogwash.
People actually _believe_ the 20KHz argument that anything above is inaudible. That's hogwash. I know because I can hear (or sense) higher frequencies, and I do not have the absolute best ears I've ever "met."
For example, last week I attended a A/V equipment event with very high-end equipment. It was packed --- over 600 people for one evening. 6 rooms of equipment. I'm sure all six served the same fare according to the 20-20KHz argument of this piece, yet they all sounded quite (or even extremely) different.
The 20 KHz argument is a myth. For people who can't hear the difference, no problem. But please do refrain from ruining or hobbling music for the rest of us... who can hear a wider frequency range.
Yes, some people are color blind. Does that mean the rest of us shouldn't use color? I hope not.
Music is an important wholesome and potentially emotional part of human life. Please do not cap it with "false optimizations".
24-bit/192 KHz is not inferior to CD quality sound. If you don't believe me, try a Linn system sourced on a Klimax DS with some high bitrate Linn classical music (or the Beatles Masters USB release!). If you can't hear the difference compared to low bit-rate (including CD quality) material, I assure you someone can. The low bit-rate will sound flat, hollow, less lively, or/and more coarse. Any number of problems exhibit at inadequate bit levels.
Vinyl is analogue quality (no discrete digital distortion). CD quality is a large step down from vinyl. A/V is just trying to get vinyl like quality from digital. We don't need nay-sayers impeding progress. If you can't hear the difference, please let someone who can hear make the informed decisions.
It's not a myth, but a fact established in laboratory studies. Your anecdotal claims to hear frequencies that scientific evidence suggests you cannot hear doesn't overturn science. I'd be convinced if you correctly identified which speakers were reproducing 21 kHz frequencies in a double-blind test, though.
Isn't science verified through (wait for it...) experimentation? So how does my hearing not invalidate your science?
That's the problem with the theoretical science. When it's false, it's false. Come up with a new hypothesis; this one's false as it pertains to human hearing. There's information theory, and then there's auditory reality. Reality confounds the theory as applied to hearing. I don't know where the fault lies, and I don't really care.
But it's really annoying and frustrating having people nix progress out of idealistic theory, "laboratory" studies, and ignorance. The experiments (my experiences and numerous others) don't lie.
Double-blind is great, but I can already tell the differences between all six rooms of equipment from last week. One of the rooms was so extreme, I wanted to run out of the room due to discomfort (but I was polite and stayed all 30 minutes). In other words, double-blind was unnecessary. Someone whose ears I respect a great deal, loved that room. Even golden ears don't all hear the same. But I don't need double-blind to confirm trivial experience. The proof is already in the listening.
> So how does my hearing not invalidate your science?
Because it's not a blind study. In audio, claiming something sounds better than something else is low-strength evidence, because it doesn't: 1) distinguish psychological bias (which is very strong in this area) from actual audible results; or 2) distinguish which characteristics of speakers, if any, you may be hearing.
If you can consistently ABX two speakers that have similar characteristics except that one reproduces frequencies over 20 kHz while the other doesn't (with identical performance below 20 kHz), I'd be convinced. One possibility is to use the same speaker but insert a high-quality 20 kHz lowpass in the chain during part of the test; or use the same speaker but with 44 kHz versus 96 kHz source material. I've never seen a controlled, blind case where a human can tell the difference there.
If CD quality (44.1 KHz/16 bit) is that good, why hasn't the market for vinyl (analogue >> 192 KHz/24-bit) just withered away and died (instead of reviving)?
The psychological component is a red herring. Even though I already have a system (bias), I don't care about the other systems. I went to the show for enjoyment, education, and appreciation. Some of the systems were unknown to me (no bias), and some were known and surprised me in some ways (again, some bias overridden). So bias can be important, but it's not relevant in this case. So bias doesn't invalidate my experience.
As for the double-blind and high frequencies, I believe I've already done the test. I have had my hearing tested several times. One of them, I recall the tester actually asked me to repeat some tests... it was funny. The testing was at very high frequencies. I believe she thought I was guessing the higher/lower frequencies... and getting lucky. So (I strongly suspect) she wanted to "prove" to herself what you want to prove --- that noone can hear above 20KHz. I disappointed her. I think she even threw in some placebo tests (no frequencies at all). It was funny. She never explained herself. I suspect she just thought I got lucky again.
How to really test this stuff? Get one of the audio designers to test... but they will laugh in the testers' faces. They do this stuff for a living... to build real products... for real live customers who can hear the differences. Dave Wilson was at the A/V show. Try listening to a pair of Wilson Audio speakers. I bet he can hear better than just about anyone... His speakers (when sourced and driven properly) are that good. But he wouldn't waste his time on such tests. He has customers to serve and a business to run.
I doubt lab experiments look to disprove their theories once and for all. That's a social prejudice built into the lab experiments. Fix that, and you'll end up with a better hypothesis.
Thank you for the constructive and positive feedback --- breath of fresh air.
The politics red flag you raise seems appropriate for a technical site like this one (but the topic of the thread was lobbyists and politics). So, daring to defend my comments, they were on-topic for the copyright/lobbyists issue under discussion (and I don't think there really is room for a full disclosure explanation of the comments).
Perhaps I'll have something of value to say on more technical topics, but the anonymous "big brother" introduction was (and frankly still is) a bit chilling, especially considering this site isn't even mass media (AFAIK).
Copyright issues might be seen as an "edge case" at HN if it were not for the fact that software is so intimately affected by copyright law.
On the "big brother" bit - I think you should understand that HN is not designed specifically to welcome newcomers who are outside the target audience. You are expected to find and read the rules and to work out how everything works - as an instance, there is no "search" facility - you are expected to know how to use Google to search this site.
Anyone who is not comfortable with this is probably not that interested or involved in the subject matter. If you are, then please join in and make a contribution.
[edit] Just noticed the "Search box at the bottom of the comment page - when did that arrive? See - I am just out of date.
To illegalize lobbying permanently, we have to clean house as a nation (easier said than done). That amounts to doing at least three things on a permanent basis:
1. Purge congress, and rehab it with genuinely honest legislators (not career politicians) --- for each and every state (or at least the vast majority of them).
2. Purge at least 5 corrupt Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) members, and replace them with honest, real justices. But you can't just fire SC justices (unless we change the law, that is; see #1, above)... so this process could take time (i.e., not overnight). And two more things relating to SC justices: first, we need to remove or rehab the corrupt farm system of justices which feeds corrupt ones to SCOTUS candidacy in the first place (and probably the farm system for politicians for #1, above), and second: ...
3. We need to purge the executive office of corruption, including the political party running as both democrats and republicans --- and rehab our political system to create real choice, honest Presidents and cabinets, and select honest SCOTUS justices (i.e., second part of #2, above). Only then should we expect to make any real progress as a nation, or more to the point, only then should we expect to have any chance to derail our current national train wreck.
So, your observation and point are spot on, but we have our work cut out for us. We need Democracy to work, but ours has not been so resilient under pressures of wholesale internal corruption. Can we recover our democracy, or, as far as our national political will is concerned, are we already the walking dead (harsh, but perhaps true)?
Bottom line: we need to rehab our democracy, our nation, our culture, our political expectations, and our political will, and perhaps our political science education system (i.e., from missing in action to addressing organized corruption head-on in curriculum), and then have a go at rehabbing as a nation.
However, with your observation, I suspect my comment is censored, but I just can't tell. I don't care enough at this point to verify it. (My next comment will explain why.)