What exactly is Feedback?

This thread is feedback on feedback about feedback. The information you get from input. If I put too much pressure on a blade going across the hone I get negative feedback. If I do it right I get positive feedback. Smooth is the feedback I am looking for and anything that eventually gets me there is the feedback I try to repeat. If I feel a bump there is a hair or grain on the stone and it needs to be cleaned. If I hear scratching it should decrease as I continue with laps. Anything short of that is telling me something is wrong.

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I would like permission to suggest that this is not feedback, at least in the honing sense. The hone provides feedback suggesting that it is sharpening the blade, or that the blade is in fact sharp. Tests provide sensation, or a reaction, or a sound that indicates the condition of the blade. The razor is not getting sharper and providing feedback in the moment, it is providing information post action.

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Close. I'd say feedback is the observation of the result of an action, by the originator of that action.

Audio output getting fed back in an amplifier is feedback.
Doing a survey of customer satisfaction is feedback.
The feeling of a razor moving over a stone is feedback.

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Originally Posted by BigJim

. But when you read/hear about someone doing rolling X's until they get good feedback--unless that term is previously defined--the ambiguity makes the comment less than helpful.

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:) And yet I know exactly what they mean from the term, it is all the same, even with the Feedback from your Stereo, most here understand exactly what you mean because we have experienced it.. But try and explain audio feedback to a person that has never listened to amplified music using only the typed word and I bet it will be a good bit of a chore :p

Experience is all relative, one you experience good feedback, be it Tactile, Visiual, Audio, -vs- bad feedback you will no longer question the term it will be as obvious to you as the Stereo Feedback...

Bruno nailed the Technical definition, it is the

"Observation of the honing Action through any of the 5 senses"..

Speaking of, I have no more razors that need honing. I have dulled and honed all 14 of them several times I don't want to risk over honing and frown it or something. Its a shame because it was just recently I experienced feedback and I would like to practice more.

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Originally Posted by ccase39

Speaking of, I have no more razors that need honing. I have dulled and honed all 14 of them several times I don't want to risk over honing and frown it or something. Its a shame because it was just recently I experienced feedback and I would like to practice more.

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Hah, that sounds way too familiar.
My poor collection was subject to massive exagerations hone-wise for the longest time:)

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Originally Posted by gssixgun

...one you experience good feedback, be it Tactile, Visiual, Audio, -vs- bad feedback you will no longer question the term it will be as obvious to you as the Stereo Feedback...

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I'm not sure if I'm educated or depressed by your comment Glen! On the one hand, if I should "know it" when I experience it, perhaps my honing and shaving experience has been rather lacking. On the other hand, the discussion here has proved fruitful to me; namely that I'm on the right track and not missing some ethereal "it".

I've been around live sound a lot, and over a long period of time. But I can remember several different occasions where feedback reared its head and the person holding the mic (or irreverently jacking with the board) looked up shocked and said something to the effect of "What was that!?!" Experiencing it didn't tell them what it was, but having someone to name it did...but that's also the benefit of learning to hone from someone as opposed to learning as you go.

Bruno's definition is certainly the most concise and clinical. But it also answers the question, as it were, as to what constitutes "feedback."

Peace,
Jim

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Originally Posted by ccase39

Speaking of, I have no more razors that need honing. I have dulled and honed all 14 of them several times I don't want to risk over honing and frown it or something. Its a shame because it was just recently I experienced feedback and I would like to practice more.

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HA! I do the same thing..:o