Listening without interpretation...is it impossible?

Interesting replies!

@frogman Since none of us have a private language all our own, the very words we use to describe what we hear (to ourselves) are part of what others say. Your comment about the importance of developing a meaningful audiophile vocabulary speaks directly to that, and I completely agree. I also agree that descriptive terms which are too vague or too chaotically deployed do more harm than good.

@erik Yes, the context is so important, insofar as all words root back to contexts for their invention, development, and nuance.

@bobpyle It is all subjective in the sense that it is all rooted in subject's experience, but since what we experience emerges from interactions with others, embedded in particular cultural and historical forces, I'd prefer to say, "It's all inter-subjective." And since that's all we have access to, I'd be as happy to say, "It's all objective, though it varies as much as physical things such as snowflakes."

It is hardly earth shattering but the number of posts I see where people say just listen as if there was some way of getting back to an original pure experience that is not polluted by what people say may strike some as the antithesis of what they think they are doing. Sorry to underwhelm. 

@middlemass  Contemplate your navel? Are you up to it? 

@sns "Are non-audiophiles non-audiophiles simply because they don't speak our language, or is something inherent to them?" 

I think it has to do with vocabulary but also where they place their attention. I've heard that many musicians don't care about audio sound because they're more concerned with other things.

One thing which I definitely take away from the quotation is the idea that good discussions about audio have are integral to the changing meaning of the experiences of listening. Same thing has been true when I listen with a friend and we comment to one another --

"Notice that?" "That was kind of 'edgy'" "Really, I liked the 'sparkle' in that cymbal -- not edgy to me. Listen again." And so on.

Or when I read good writers reviewing speakers or other gear. They communicate a whole narrative of how they take the sound, how it moves them. And I listen again, with their words now part of my background. I don't necessarily am bent toward their words, but their words become part of what I anticipate, even sensorily.

@berner99

We also never really see a tree, a person, a sandwich etc. It is the nature of being a person with a mind: our minds filter everything we see, hear, experience, etc.

This is where we part company. I do not subscribe to the idea that mind is separate from body, that there is a "mental interface" between me and the world. That’s called "representational realism" in philosophy and it has a fatal flaw -- namely, that there is some way we could step outside of ourselves to view, simultaneously, both the "reality" and the "perception" in order to determine if the representation is correct. Cannot be done.

Rather than mind as "representer" of reality, think Darwin; think, adaptive organ for getting along in a wider environment. Think of perceiving-thinking as nodes in an ongoing and transactional sequence. Perceiving is like breathing. In other words, our perceptual experiences are world-involving transactions involving eyes, ears, brains, and eventually language. There is no interface between "us" and the "world." We are the world interacting with the world.

It is unlikely that your mind will let you see this

What is unlikely is that you have any idea what my mind will let me see. So let me invite you to speak just for yourself. But really, @berner99 I apologize for an  answer that was over your head.

Still, let 1000 flowers bloom.

Maybe my answer will help others and maybe yours will help some, too.

Take care.

@berner99 I cannot help you and will not try.