Speakers have not evolved to the point where their faults elude measurements. Unlike electronics! The speaker that measures better always sounds better! OTOH electronics (amps, preamps, DACs, streamers) have become largely transparent to the source, irrespective of price. This is good for the budget-conscious audiophile! Today the biggest sonic improvement lies in buying a better measuring pair of speakers.
Empirical Evidence?...the gap between subjective and objective
As a curious music guy without science background, I stand in awe and gratitude for audio's accomplishments in the last half-century. From Julian Hirsch's "Stereo Review" to the here and now, Julian's measurements calling the shots vs "trust your ears." I solidly embrace both camps. Hard science gets us close, then the loosening of emotions in guiding us home.
Some years ago, I stood on a lower Manhattan Street corner, absorbing the cacophony. Surrounded by moving objects, sirens, vendors, helicopters, humanity...how can 2 channel replicate this? A distant friend with the pockets to chase high-end surround, smiles. More importantly, how could that experience be measured and compared with any degree of accuracy? "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Thoughts?
More Peace, Pin
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I could not disagree more.
What measures better? Measurements of the large Magnepans don't measure well at all (or any dipole) but that doesn't stop them from sounding very good if not world class when you are talking 20s and 30s.
I don't want to be unkind but Hirsch was deaf. Even back in his day, every piece of gear had a different sound.
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Audio experience and audio science goes hand in hand... Subjectivity and objectivity must always be correlated with the subjectivity being the pilot... It is true about electronic design of Dac, amplifier, or speaker... But it is way more evident in acoustic/psycho-acoustic science which is mostly experiments and not only theoretical ... We must learn and only may learn to listen by acoustic experiments in our own room NOT by buying gear and plugging it in a wall by the way....It make me smile when people claim that they listen to 50 amplifiers then they know....They know amplifiers then not sound experience which is an acoustical /psycho-acoustical experience ....Imaging, dynamic, soundstage, LEV/ASW ratio etc bass, timbre perception, all these cues we must learn to control them in our room , nevermind the gear if it is basically an already well chosen one to begin with ... Anyway nobody know the real peak working potential of their audio system if the room is not well controlled to serve it optimally... Especially true in small room because of the way worked reflections and reverberation time... It is possible with speakers to create an intimacy like in headphone and with a sound filling the room... I know because i did it... No headphone i ever used (8) can rival a well controlled room... The Op is wise...
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...and then there is this...
Cary Audio Design CAD-805 monoblock power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com |
The measurements in Stereophile magazine back up the extensive listening tests. Not like ASR who barely listens to the equipment. I carefully read the measurements in Stereophile and have been since Stereophile started taking measurements. However, I can stare at the numbers all day long but unless the product has major flaws the measurements don't tell me how the product sounds. On top of that I don't think ASR serves the audiophile community, it serves the mass electronics market. I have never seen a statement loudspeaker tested and every speaker JBL makes gets a recommendation and I have only heard a few huge JBLs that I might live with, the L200 being one of them. How do you measure, scale and power? Rear firing drivers? Room interaction (frequency response isn't the whole story). Like Stereophile, I listen first. |
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This is a point that I and others have brought up before in similar threads. I truly believe that a lot of objectivists who argue here can hear the differences that others do and simply dismiss them as insignificant. The underlying reasons are not important. What is, is that they are dealing in bad faith. All the best, |
The question you asked is very good. I read it carefully but could not find anyone to help me understand it. Anyone can describe it correctly here https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/empirical-evidence-the-gap-bik-between-subjective-and-objective |
Thanks, viridian and nonoise ... Your feedback has spurred my thinking. Having grown-up around live music, the improvement of even tiny increments in that direction, for me, loom large. Through the tunnel-vision of my logic, I've assumed those differences matter greatly to others as well. With a moderate audio budget, I easily justify expensive plugs and outlets, which may indeed horrify the practicality of another. My process is gathering the best possible system for my room, then rolling up my sleeves. It becomes an emotional process, incremental gains, always moving towards more musicality and truth of timbre, things sounding as they do in life, in a real space, never boring. As veridian succinctly put it, "Audio is a big tent, with room for all of us." More Peace, Pin |
Interesting ... It is my opinion also but i am way less knowledgeable than Julian Hirsch for sure in audio system evaluation... For me the difference between piece of gear for sure exist but the acoustic and psycho-acoustic environment are at least on the same footing and most of the times exceed them...
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i think you judge too hastily... Ignorance and/or different perspectives by different people are not most of the times expression of "bad faith"... Accusing people dont help here...Understanding is better because acoustic experience is not anyway simplistic matter at all... In a word "subjective gear fetichism " or "objective tool/gear fetichism" are fetichism and ignorance of the nature of acoustic experience, not "bad faith" they express legitimate perspectives disconnected from the other complementary perspective... It is not so much political oppositions here, but instead different perspectives excluding the other...Then ignorance more than "bad faith"...
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Giving an image instead of an answer will do only for children... It is very popular now to think by associating "bubbles" in the head instead of articulating ideas and reasons... Do you think it is in your favor? An emotional reaction is not enough in discussion... I can send you also a sarcastic "image" and my remark about your judgement will then disintegrate in a mere child play... Are you able to discuss? or just to class people in two groups: bad faith one and good one ? The fact that you think my remark is an "attack" instead of an instance or an occasion of a possible dialogue speak more about your attitude here than about me...
By the way who is the psychopathic "joker" here which is unable to discuss and who answer by desesperate gesture ? You see sometimes sarcasm is a mirror....
To resume the point under discussion, most people here in audiogon are not of " bad faith" but take position that does not make sense in the long run to understand audio experience ... It is only so because they focus their attention mainly on the gear, subjectively with their ears, or objectively with analysing tools, but the necessity to CORRELATE subjective perception and objective measures and dispostion in the room dont appear to them like it is : the foundation of acoustic and psycho-acoustic experience and experiments...
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Hey I really like playing table games because they are great example of Empirical Evidence as a whole when each game progresses. |
He said that only for the pleasure to call some in "bad faith" perhaps and stirring an already troubled pot... This is a question of acoustic concepts and then of ignorance not of "bad faith" or belief... It takes few thinking minutes and a simple science aricles search to understand that WE CANNOT distinguish from a background something or an information for which we have not concept......We will automatically dismiss this information as meaningless or like an unperceived background or the 2 at the same times mostly ... Most perception is a learning process of recognition, all the rest is put under the rug as non existing phenomena... It is true also in acoustic where the background is noise and the information is hidden in it......Why do blind people perceive all forms of houses and tress, and cars around them cycling blind without errors and not you? It is because you never learned to access this information, it is a noise for you and me... How can you ask for example to someone to detail his experience of "listener envelopment/source width" or LEV/ASW ratio if he never experiment it CONSCIOUSLY ? Someone here very knowledgeable accuse my description to be an "illusion", not knowing that there is no pure objectivity in acoustic separated from a perceiving subjectivity... "Illusion" in music /sound is sometimes our REALITY it is called "meaning"...... It is a question of knowledge and experience in learning experiments not of belief..
Than accusing others of "bad faith" only mirror the accuser himself...For sure there is times to times bad faith but it is impossible to accuse an entire group which think and experiment otherwise... Ignorance and lack of acoustics experiments exlain everything in acoustic experience, bad faith justify the person speaking and accusing perhaps, and explain nothing... It is " ideological" babble at best,,, By the way it is not a " table game" but a CORRELATION optimization process between subjective and objective factors... Audio is not a gang stake game or a marchandise marketing game first... It is first and last acoustic knowledge and experiments ... Period....
We all wanted a great musical experience with an optimal sound experience at the least cost... This has nothing to do with miraculously superior piece of gear either, even if they exist for sure... It is related to mechanical, electrical and acoustical and psycho-acoustical controls in the system/house/room...
In a word the best measured numbers for a piece of gear will not replace a good room and a good room wil not make a badly designed piece of gear a better one... In physical acoustic all empirical measures and objective disposition SERVE psycho-acoustical experience and research...And all discoveries about the hearing process and his subjective aspects help us to design improved objective acoustical environment... The audio system itself is a tool not the only cause factor nor the goal of the acoustic experience... Then listening the gear without any objective measures nor any objective acoustic disposition around it is ignorance... But measuring pieces of gear without listening them in the rightful acoustic environment to assess the relation with the measuring process is without much value and is another kind of ignorance, a different hobby at best...
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At the time he was the best source of information about audio gear but he did his listeners a disservice if he heard differences but suggested they were not significant. It's better to let the listener decide if they are significant. |
There is three level of quality design/price ratio if i symplify for the sake of my arguments...Low, mid and high end S.Q./price ratio.... Most of the times if we stay on one level for comparison , differences between two amplifiers will exist but will not be so significant and big as compared to what will give money placed in mechanical, electrical and acoustical embeddings controls... Then it will be a disservice to audio consumers to encourage them to upgrade instead of adressing the way they install an amplifier in their system/room/house... It is there that the difference in REAL improvement will be huge... Not just only a flavor taste difference about this 10,000 bucks amplifier and this 15,000 bucks one... Then before accusing him of misleading people perhaps we must think twice... Informing people sometimes is saying to them what they dont want to hear: buying costly piece of gear and listening to them is not enough to create an audiophile experience even if the difference between a 10,000 bucks amplifier and a 25,000 one can exist indeed... Upgrade sometimes even from mid to high end cannot replace acoustic for example... Audiophile experience is less a question about money than about knowledge...
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