"Smarty"

I have been accused of many things in my engineering career, but I assure
you that "authority worship" has never been one of them. The most common
'complaint' I have suffered has always been: "Boy, he sure asks a lot of
questions." or "He won't take the obvious answer" I suffer these comments
gladly, since I believe this is the ONLY good way to reveal the actual
underlying facts and truth in technical areas.


** The explanation for many things is often simple enough to understand but
very hard for those not familiar with the matter to BELIEVE - Einstein is
said to have made such a remark about his theory of Relativity.

The usual solution to "wise up" the doubters is by use of a convincing
demonstration - however those same doubters can invent their own test then
come up with damn near anything.

What NEVER works is to hold a "mid air" debate using hypothetical examples
and thought experiments - cos that is little more than playing mindless
word games.

The nature of web forums IS such that it lends itself only to the latter
approach and renders the former near impossible.


Unfortunately, this same approach raises the hackles of Internet trolls,
technical wannabes, and pompous technical illiterates, who most certainly
inhabit the Internet in newsgroups, forums and elsewhere.

** See above for the explanation.

Anecdote:

Many moons ago, I came up with a simple demonstration that showed clearly
how a number of different make and model stereo power amplifiers sounded
exactly the same. This was to clear up the notion strongly held by their
various owners that each possessed its own, distinctive "sound".

Most who tried the new test were flatly unimpressed, returned to their old
and discredited test method and continued to believe in non existent
differences as before.

My simple test is explained he

http://sound.westhost.com/absw.htm


..... Phil