Since we have not created full AI we have no real idea of how it will "think" and behave. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately we will find out.
objective vs. subjective rabbit hole
There are many on this site who advocate, reasonably enough, for pleasing one’s own taste, while there are others who emphasize various aspects of judgment that aspire to be "objective." This dialectic plays out in many ways, but perhaps the most obvious is the difference between appeals to subjective preference, which usually stress the importance of listening, vs. those who insist on measurements, by means of which a supposedly "objective" standard could, at least in principle, serve as arbiter between subjective opinions.
It seems to me, after several years of lurking on and contributing to this forum, that this is an essential crux. Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective preference, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices? Or is there some middle ground here that I’m failing to see?
Let me explain why this seems to me a crux here. Subjective preferences are, finally, incontestable. If I prefer blue, and you prefer green, no one can say either of us is "right." This attitude is generous, humane, democratic—and pointless in the context of the evaluation of purchase alternatives. I can’t have a pain in your tooth, and I can’t hear music the way you do (nor, probably, do I share your taste). Since this forum exists, I presume, as a source of advice from knowledgable and experienced "audiophiles" that less "sophisticated" participants can supposedly benefit from, there must be some kind of "objective" (or at least intersubjective) standard to which informed opinions aspire. But what could possibly serve better as such an "objective standard" than measurements—which, and for good reasons, are widely derided as beside the point by the majority of contributors to this forum?
To put the question succinctly: How can you hope to persuade me of any particular claim to audiophilic excellence without appealing to some "objective" criteria that, because they claim to be "objective," are more than just a subjective preference? What, in short, is the point of reading all these posts if not to come to some sort of conclusion about how to improve one’s system?
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The answer to your question is no one can persuade you of any claim. Think of it as tasting wine. One can measure acidity, sweetness, color, transparency, viscosity, alcohol % and more, and a spectrum analysis can define all its components with great accuracy. But no one can persuade you how it tastes. It’s only you who can judge that ... and only after you tasted it, not after studying the measurement results. Still it’s helpful and fun to exchange information on a forum like this. |
What if they give you two glasses of the same wine and tell you they are different or put different labels on them. You then go on to describe how those two glasses are different when they are exactly the same. Personally I think the subjective/objective debate is vastly over stated in audio. Most of it is marketing driven. When companies are trying to make you feel good or bad about your purchases based on what you believe and not the detailed proven merits of their products, then you know you are being played (or should know). I see purely arrogance and ignorance at issue on both sides. In other words we are dealing with people and people don't like change or being wrong.
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Good analogy....
Yes you are right about inducing biases, but the way to become a musician for example is to learn how to listen then educating your biases or replacing them, or making it more difficult to be fooled by an external inducement of some biases...O even posted an article about the way a trainedc musician can evaluate chords trespassing Gabor limit... Anyway this possible conditioning of biases does not logically imply that subjective evaluation would be always deceptive attitude in all cases at all times and on all counts... Saying the opposite will be a sophism... And yes market conditioning FOCUS on the GEAR objectively with measures and subjectively with "tasting appeal" to the subject... Acoustic cues and factors are not focussed mainly on the gear but on the space-time environment and on the subjectivity valuable evaluation and their limits... All acoustic factors are objectively reproducible and under will control in psycho-acoustic experiments...No taste here, perception biases can be evaluated and measured in controlled conditions.... In my audio room or in a more rigorously controlled audio laboratory...
I think the same, the people who focus on gear tasting or in only measuring specs to pick the gear, are blind to the necessary acoustic and psycho-acoustic correlation between their perceptive experiences and the environment and the gear potential optimal working... And they are more easily fooled by their biases or "tastes" because they dont have any objective control on their biases or tastes like a means and tool to test them, and here i dont speak mainly about blind tests but more importantly about acoustic and psycho- acoustic listenings experiments in their room...... Acoustic factors are not mere equations, they are living events that must be intregrated by the ears body ...Acoustic is also an ART of listening ....
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"Flat" response is an engineering measured ideal for designing good pieces of gear... No piece of gear is perceived to be "flat" by specific ears in a specific normal room IN THE SAME EXACT WAY by all people... Because nobody hear the same way, and the ratio noise/signals thresholds change with age, heredity, hearing history, acquired biases and acoustic environment etc... Then a small room acoustic must be paired to the gear and tuned to complement individual biased ears of the owner IDEALLY... A.I. will do it in the few years to come and adapt any system/room to specific ears of an owner...Like an headphone with the Smyth realizer for a specfic head and ears...But the A.I. will do it for a room/system/ears... We can do it mechanically with Helmholtz method and some basic psycho-acoustic, if not optimally for sure like an A.I. will do it, in a satisfying way with a relative success... 😁😊 Anyway it is the best way to learn a bit about acoustic factors...
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The OP asked it..so..here we go... In the science, physics, philosophy (philosophy is the father/parent of science), psychology, etc...meaning in the peak of all of this, in the true meaning of all of this...'objectivity' does not really exist. the only thing that exists is a subjective reality experience. Objectivity, the concept of it, the idea of it, the expression of it, pours entirely out of a subjective experience. in the real world of fundamentals in all we know, at the heights of academia, definition of reality, research, all of it......there's not one single objective consideration that can be proven to be real, including any ideas on 'reality'. The renaissance people of the past, the multi-skilled masters of the past, came up with the idea of objectivity to help themselves and others try and understand what this place is, and then be able to move the monkey aspects of the body around, but really -- that's about all she wrote. This, codified and categorized, labelled, defined, etc..this is part of the core of the enlightenment in western society and what become the rigors of western science. This was considered defined, to some extent, to prevent being lost in circularity (full knowing is not available), by Descartes in the over-simplified axiom (old school meme) of popularity, in the saying of "I think, therefore I am". This is not the base of the question, or the base of all the considerations, nor is it he final backstop of research and investigation, which is the dangerous part (calling it complete while it isn't--rookie mistakes). It (the Descartes axiom/meme) brick walls proper research into reality and stops it cold. Which is anti- science, and is generally used incorrectly by people (that fundamental rookie mistake). It is the dividing point between engineers and dilettantes. the central bulk of the IQ and awareness curve-- running around in the box, doing it's social thing. True actual full on scientists, who are the people who really attempt to unfold this complex and totally unsolved reality question, they look at the whole equation which includes their own unreality..as they HAVE to, or their musing is meaningless and rudderless. In other words, at the peak of all meaning and intent in science, it is still, beyond a shadow of a doubt.. turtles, all the way down. Never forget this, and don't get caught up in the idea that your expression through this thing we call a slightly evolved monkey body - actually means anything..... outside of it being a subjective experience in a non-inclusive reality (incomplete, therefore incorrect and destined to FAIL, if attempting to answer truly difficult questions) -- in a meat monkey body. Which is how one gets to situations (one of identical thousands if you look) where someone like Elon Musk, is totally correct, when he says there is very scant chance at all (ie, billions to one), that this impression of reality is an actual base reality. That this is a subjective experience, created on a skin or skein of some dimensional sort, and is information/differential or data based in some way or another. Max Planck, the father of quantum science said basically the same thing (again, one instance in thousands, if you look), where he called it an 'information field'. Every thing we know, in the cutting edge of all sciences, says the same thing. You are a thought form in a meat box of undefined parameters, and nothing is real - by the very methods of all possible forms of measurement. Physics in all it's musing and works--totally agrees with this premise. No choice, it is evident in all things for all talented and determined explorers. Descartes statement is misapplied (i think, therefore i am), and this allowed for the creation of engineering based science, but it is in no way a full representation of the real world. The bulk numbers who do not understand this Descartesian separation point in thinking... do not make their opinion in these matters 'real', if they disagree. It just makes them incomplete and incorrect. If they get angry about this, avoid them, avoid bringing the question up, when around them, and connecting with them, if one values their monkey meat box of a vehicle of experiencing this reality. THIS, all of the above, is why, in the physics department and all of it's subdivisions into science and training and academia.. that all of the professors, if pushed and asked, will tell you that there is no such thing as a fact, and all is theory. We get all these angry 'fact mongers' on forums, everywhere, on all forums..who don't understand this ..... and attack, demanding their own self security be reflected by me, into them... a thing that.. which ultimately...cannot and does not exist. ~~~~~~ So, very very importantly, here...we gotta keep this straight (it is the op itself)..it is quite critical to the subject at hand: objectivity is a thought experiment - nothing more. Where, if we go forward, in proper understanding of these critical points (stop windmilling and falling through an undefined blackness, angry and seeking hand-grips for your monkey), you'll have less stress in your life. |
Just how many university level physics departments have you been a member of, either as faculty, or a grad student? About the hardest thing to convince a fellow academic of is that their "theory" isn’t fact :-) ... but in more concrete terms, your statement is hollow and baseless. More accurately what they will tell you is that theories are for all intents and purposes factual, depending on the use, and that normally depend on the scale and/or how used. Newton’s second law at low velocities (wrt c), is accurate enough to be fact. Similarly Ohm’s law, and many other formulas used in electricity are accurate enough, where used, to be considered fact. They only break down when we approach very small scales (and theoretical discussions). A more modern model may be needed to properly model and develop a cell within a MOSFET, however, traditional models are many magnitudes more than sufficient to properly use that MOSFET in design and development of a Class-D amplifier. The same is also true of every other thing used in audio no matter the hand waving justifications given my people selling things.
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Someone who both disagrees with you, has the ability to clearly communicate why, and back up their arguments with verifiable information is not a "fact monger". Facts are facts. They don't monger. They simply are. The only anger I perceive is from those presented with facts, not being able to refute them. I will restate what I said previously. Anyone who tries to convince you to either feel good about your purchase or bad about your purchase due purely to holding a particular belief, and not by clearly communicating verifiable advantages, is trying to take advantage of you. |
Your claim is not false for sure but is not right either... Why? because objectivity is not a "fact" and subjectivity is not a "fact" either, subjectivity is more fundamental than facts, objectivity is more fundamental than fact too, but objectivity and subjectivity are an internal and correlated external and internal consciousness process...This process which work also between the collective and the free individual exist... The external part of consciousness is our own body, the internal part of our consciouness appear to us or is reflected as the external world through our body....Think about colors and sound sensation and perception and judgement...
Objectivity is not an individual thought experiment "of a monkey in a meat body" but first and last a COLLECTIVE thought experiment... It is the reason why science need, democray, freedom, and education to replenish itself from individual freedom and creativity... If not science will be impossible task...Objectivity is not an "illusion" it is a "meaning" focussing intentionality operated by a consciousness...Behind objectivity there is also an ETHICAL challenge... Science is in no way reducible to technology... In technology we go from parts to parts in an hypothetical theoretical prepared "whole" an external conditioned whole, a map which reduce diversities to external unity as a tool .... Science dont go from the parts to hypothetical whole ONLY through a theoretical map , but MAINLY must go from the internal whole perceived to the parts without an a priori map replacing the territory so to speak but with an onlooking internal gaze amplifying the diversities potentially there in the unity or in the perceived internal whole manifested in external indexes...It is a perception yoga intividual training, a self free educating ongoing process in consciousness... Individual creator replenish the collective view by this spiritual creativity and self control...Not corporations and universties... »History of science is science» Goethe The collective knowledge possession is not science by itself , it is only the basis on which some individual able to see the parts and the diversities coming from the whole like Faraday or Goethe will describe it without prematurely theorizing it and reducing diversities to an artificial map or a mere tool ... After these pioneering geniuses others will theorize it rightfully at the right time in history and will create the basis of new technology without destroying or reducing the science to this set of tools... But the fundamental moment of creativity in science is an individual one not a collective technological one...
Like the physicist Bohm student and Goethe student Henri Bortoft put it: «This is the dynamical thinking of the participant mode of consciousness, instead of the static thinking of the onlooker consciousness. This way of seeing turns the one and the many inside-out. Instead of many different ones that are the same, we now see one which is becoming itself in many different ways. What we have here is self-difference instead of self-sameness; each is the very same one, but differently, instead of each of the different ones being the same. We now have difference within unity, instead of a unity that excludes difference. Furthermore, it is concrete instead of abstract. So instead of “unity in multiplicity” we have “multiplicity in unity,” which is the unity of the living source.» https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/henri-bortoft/the-form-of-wholeness
«Faraday shared with Goethe more than merely an experimental approach. Just as Goethe made no attempt to theorize about the “hidden” nature of light, so Faraday declined to speculate about the “real” nature of electric currents and magnets. Instead, they both aimed to develop appropriate concepts for formulating phenomenological regularities and, in the process, emphasized the establishment of experimental links between simple and complex phenomena. These methodological similarities were noted by Hermann von Helmholtz in an 1881 lecture on Faraday, in which he stressed Faraday’s aim to express only “observable and observed facts, most carefully avoiding any interference of hypothetical elements,” and explicitly noted the similarity between Faraday’s and Goethe’s Exploratory Experimentation: Goethe, Land, and Color Theory by Neil Ribe and Friedrich Steinle https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.1506750 |
if someone doubt Goethe scientific value, read this: Dennis SEPPER, as the sober historian of science close reading Newton’s 1672 letter and Goethe’s Contributions to Optics, concluded: ‘I have come to believe that Goethe has an ampler conception of science than Newton, that he has a sounder notion of what an empirical methodology requires and a firmer grasp on the epistemological and philosophical issues involved…2’
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Mahgister and teo_audio, You put a lot of words down on this topic, but in my opinion they do nothing to advance the debate. To me they are nothing but special pleading sans any justification of said pleading offering no concrete relevance to the discussion. There is a another more apt but colloquial term that I will not use. It is already accepted that personal preference is real, and absolutely will deviate from whatever measure of accuracy one may choose, and that single components or certain groupings of components can cause these deviations resulting in their being preferred. The only question that remains is can audiophile detect changes that measurements say do not exist. That is a yes/no question. It will be very difficult to prove no, since negatives are rarely provable. However, the yes only requires showing that someone can do in some experiment that is considered reasonable. Increase the number of people and number of experiment will increase the confidence in the result. I think almost all here would agree that given the nature of the music creation process before it is in our hands, that objective accuracy is a false notion and even if true, that does not over-rule preference for enjoyment. If you cannot answer the question of whether audiophiles can truly detect differences that modern test gear says is not there, then all those multitudes of paragraphs are quite meaningless. |
The measurement does not exist alone... It exist with all other actual, and others possible measurements... I never say that audiophile can rival any measuring apparatus in his precise realm of application... I only say that objective measures and subjective appreciation must always be CORRELATED... It is the basic of psycho-acoustic... Sound perception is a complex phenomenon measurable only in a complex array of measuring experiments and not reducible to them even today...Because we dont have a universal accepted theory of hearing but many one with their complete sets of unsolved problems... And any acoustician know that it is sometimes more easy and more fast to use their ears to assess an acoustic situation than to measure...Then acoustic learning bias have a value which cannot be dismiss in favor of mere tools only for many reasons... Ears and measures are not enemies they are allied... I am not a pure subjectivist audiophile nor an Amir disciple... And philosophy can help to understand why technology cannot replace science, nor our measures tools replacing the ears/brain way of "measuring" for now in the actual state of our many hearing theories... I am a promotor of listening experiments at home to learn basic acoustic fact and experience... It is not science, even if based on some science, it is a playful art and the only way to learn how to listen by the way with musical training...Then i dont promote gear brand name like many audiophiles , i promoted acoustic listening experiments...
Sorry but your simplification is perhaps good when we face a specific technological problem in design to solve but in science complex situation are not always reducible to what our tool ask for... For the time being some human listener can assess and evaluate complex acoustic situation which we only begin to discover few years ago...( my article on limit of usinbg only Fourier analysis to explain hearing for example)
Then dismissing the value of subjective experience is simplistic psycho-acoustically speaking... I dont speak here about the design of amplifier and the measures that make them good design with a predictible potential good S.Q. i dont negate atmasphere psycho-acoustically informed thesis about measurements at all... I spoke about a larger perspective including also psycho-acoustic which cannot be reduced to narrower and goal oriented technological objective attitude nor reduced to a mere and anecdotal subjective taste and stance......
Being a scientist you dont like philosophy perhaps, but being a philosopher i dont like technological short-cut when we face a complex problem.... 😁😊
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We never listen to a SINGLE component... We listen to a chain of events on different scale... Then the set of measures which can make good design sound good exist yes, i never contested that, but nobody listen to an amplifier disconnected from a room /house/ system and without his own ears biases... Then ..... The matter under discussion here is the objective/subjective rabbit hole... It is a rabbit hole when subjectivist and objectivist are alone each one on their side...Not so much when we try to understand why two equal measured design components can be identified different indeed by listening alone, it is then a psycho-acoustic problem not a mere electronical problem... It can be deceptive illusion yes, or it can be a more subtle perception linked to other factors than the measured design itself , which factors that this well measured design dont encompass or dont control... Than this question is way more complex than your simplistic alternatives yes or no, which is a challenge you tailor made to subjectivist hard core audiophiles here to put them in a corner...But i am not one of them...Neither a measuring zealots negating hearing experiments value .... Measuring the right things is way more complex that usually think anyway but being a scientist you know that already and better than me...
I understand that you dont like my observations but they are related to the matter of this thread anyway... But i agree about my too numerous use of many words and i apologize.... But it is an another matter... Stop to reduce psycho-acoustic problems to tool design or to amplifier design only... 😁😊
My deepest respect for you....In spite of my annoying posts...
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Wow. Although I am a philosophy professor, and I have started "philosophical" discussions on this site before, I didn’t intend this one to be. "deludedaudiophile" is not deluded about this: all I was suggesting is that, if a forum like this exists to share informed opinions about the quality of gear (and I think that is its main purpose), then those opinions should be "informed" by more than just personal preference. They should be supported by "objective" "facts." The quotation marks are made necessary because of comments from mahgister (as usual), teo_audio ("the OP asked [for] it"), and several others. If you come here just to vent spleen or enthuse about your enthusiasm, fine; do that. But if you’re going to advocate for some audio technology, whether it be a brand, vinyl vs. digital, tubes vs. solid state, or whatever, I am open minded enough to be convincable. To convince me, however, you will have to make an argument of some kind. That is going to appeal to some set of values we hold in common as rational beings with bodies. These sorts of things are what I meant by "objective." Of course, the objective is really just what a plurality of subjects agree about, as teo_audio was, I think, trying to say. We don’t experience the world itself, we experience a certain kind of sense input from the world which we process in our brains in a certain way. Different sorts of animals will experience the "same" reality differently. But there are, of course, features of our experiencing mechanism that we all share in common, if we are humans. That's why we all agree that it's "true" that 2+3=5 and that a straight line is the shortest path between two points. That shared reality is what we call "objective." It's really more like subjectively universal. FWIW, and to placate mahgister, let me quote his beloved Goethe once more (I’m copying this from a previous thread that was deliberately "philosophical"): Goethe: "...it is possible to say that every attentive glance which we cast on the world is an act of thoerizing.... Theorizing is inherent in all human experience, and the highest intellectual achievement...would be to comprehend that everything factual is already theory." Goethe’s Faust ends with these great lines, which also conclude Mahler’s Eighth Symphony: "Alles vergängliche / Ist nur ein Gleichnis." Untranslatable, but basically the same idea expressed in prose in the words I just quoted—so, something like "Everything that passes / Is but a symbol [or parable]." |
First, do not confuse my posts with teo-audio...Answer each one of us separetely we are not a GROUP save in your head perhaps... Second, when Goethe was speaking about "every glance is a theorizing act" remember that he spoke about a totally grounded incarnated act from the onlooker BODY and MIND united not from a theorizing position outside the world...Goethe is an embodied mind philosopher BEFORE this philosophical position exist in science ( he read Spinoza and like it more than Kant)...I only insisted in my post about this embodied mind position of Goethe , which do not negate that every glance is a theorizing act but pointed to his body grounded origin ... It is the meaning of this deep maxim of Goethe : "history of science is science"... This is phenomenology before Husserl...Any theorizing act must be grounded in history and in the body....
Third if you teach philosophy you know how to read? no?
This is my post and this is yours side by side ... I say the samething as you in different words... my post : « The external part of consciousness is our own body, the internal part of our consciouness appear to us or is reflected as the external world through our body....Think about colors and sound sensation and perception and judgement... Objectivity is not an individual thought experiment "of a monkey in a meat body" but first and last a COLLECTIVE thought experiment... It is the reason why science need, democray, freedom, and education to replenish itself from individual freedom and creativity... If not, science will be impossible task...Objectivity is not an "illusion" it is a "meaning" focusing intentionality operated by a consciousness...Behind objectivity there is also an ETHICAL challenge... Science is in no way reducible to technology...»
your post :
My post in no way contradict yours... Then why attacking me with NO ARGUMENT save amalgamating my post with another poster ? my post is a correction and an answer to teo_audio post, which correction go in the same direction as you... Then why mixing me with teo-audio in your rant? If you dont like me say i dont like you... But dont twist my argumentation linking it to another poster perspective , it is ridiculous...And dont try to use Goethe against me you will loose the argument... Be ethical ... I adress each poster individually and specifically... Try the same...
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Now i will answer to your asking question as OP...in very few words because you dont like my post it seems... 😊😊 Read about psycho-acoustic, and you will discover the middle ground position, the deeper one that you are failing to see and read Henri Bortoft books on Goethe if you want to understand Goethe and his link to the actual deep debates in psycho-acoustic science ... Explaining it will be too long post to be appreciated here .... 😊😊😊😊
In simpler word: you cannot assess and describe a change in sound if you dont know what acoustical cues are and which acoustical factors are at play in the change...Electronical design measures so good they are to give us good basic gear are not enough to give us good sound...We need psycho-acoustic education and a mimimal controls over the system/room/ears related parameters...I called that listenings experiments...They implied objective measures and objective disposition of content in the room and subjective learning training experiments... Speaking of "colors" without knowing what "timbre" is in psycho-acoustic, being an objectivist or a subjectivist nevermind which one, will not help.... Colors are not something deceptive, or the result of an unbalanced piece of gear added to a flat neutral more well designed other piece of gear, they are usual perceived phenomena called "timbre" perception in a room...The gear system is there, the more neutral possible, to acoustically translate the recorded acoustic information from the lived event to your uncontrolled or controlled room...
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Interesting suggestion @snilf, but the reality of this forum is that folks will post whatever they choose and even if there were an expectation to support subjective opinions with objective facts, those facts would be chosen by the individual posters resulting in debates about the authenticity, validity, and/or applicability of the supporting facts - bringing us right back to where we are now, regardless of philosophical musings. |
I give up. Mahgister, how you can think I'm "attacking" you is a mystery. I did not "equate" you with teo_audio; if anything, I was contrasting the two of you. The point about the dubiousness of the "objective" is the only point of contact here, and that's a point with a deep and noble pedigree. In any case, do you not recall the several exchanges we've had in the past year about Goethe, Kant, Nietzsche...? Does my recognition that you cherish Goethe constitute an "attack" on you?! Sorry. This isn't a philosophy forum. I'll restrain myself in the future. |
I apologize i misread the "tone" of your post... My only excuse is that i am a bit sensible this week, i have been harassed for few days now the first time here even in my mailbox by a not very amicable dude... This explain partially my fast reaction...My english understanding of subtles implicit meaning in the syntax and word choices is sometimes defective too... Please dont be hurted by my "tone" in my reply to your post... Here we dont see the emotional context... And please dont restrain yourself in the future because of me, i will be very sad if you do so...I like discussion .... I respect you completely and sincerely apologize... My deepest respect to you... I wish you the best from my heart.... I am really sorry.... |
@mahgister your condescending wording followed by a apologetic approach happens all to often. My post happened to be a quirky attempt at humor but you missed the mark. The key words on my toggle switch "trivial pursuit." A trivial pursuit is something for which ones takes an interest but is ultimately inconsequential. Your focus was on "flat" and it lead from there. Not every post is an argument which needs to be in some form or fashion clarified. Is it clear? |
You are right and i apologize... I cannot change my poor mastery of the english language subtleties nor my passionate temper... But i can sincerely apologize when someone is right... i hope that this count in my credit... Because i like to discuss too much and i am afraid this will not be my last apology... With my deepest respect... And gratitude for your forgiving ....I cannot negate that i am sometimes condescending and you dont merit that at all... By the way with rational people i like to be corrected if i am wrong... Truth matter more than anything else in the world...On par with love and freedom his two sisters... Anyway perhaps my exemple will set a direction for those who never apologize? 😁😊 |
I’ve enjoyed reading the many intelligent and varied comments in this thread immensely. I got into this hobby over fifty years ago because I like listening to music. The entire thing of watching a guy sitting in his house and sending an electrical charge through a piece of audio gear, and then declaring with complete certainty that said piece of gear is either good or bad, seems to be something that is an outgrowth of our fascination with social media and ad driven excess. It’s funny how you never see someone standing or sitting in an actual laboratory where testing is done for purely scientific purposes. |
No ill feelings harbored here mahgister, only a outsider observing outcomes in search of the ever illusive "audio nirvana." I'm well aware of your age, love of discussion and language barrier which leads me to believe ... you're a lost cause :-) Let me refresh your memory a bit. I'm the guy who offered a hot bowl of kick butt homemade chicken noodle soup when you were feeling under the weather. Good day
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I am somewhat different from most who post here as I import and wholesale gear to professional engineers who record for a living. Measurements play a role in confirming what you think you hear or pointing out what you didn't hear. Most who’ve been in the business full time know that they hear things they cannot measure and vice versa. Understanding these limitations of measurement AND the limitation of your hearing is the key. Neither will be right all the time and a mix of both usually is best.
Brad Lone Mountain/ATC USA |
Great post to read... Your experience is confirmed by what i knew reading psycho- acoustic articles... |
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For the people supporting the subjective approval method, how do you go about making a purchase? Buy everything and try it at home? How do you narrow it down? I don't see how auditioning in any other place than your own room, with your set-up, would be relevant either because it will not perform the same. And how can using other's opinions be any better than measurements? Their system, room, ears are not the same as yours. |
First, I feel that anything sold on the market has already gone through some extensive testing and certification in order to be sold. Having to retest it to satisfy some paranoid fears is overboard behavior. I also keep in mind that what I listen to in a store or audio show is not how it's going to sound in my system. Something you learn after a few rodeos. I don't walk on eggshells anymore out of some unfounded fear of getting it wrong and especially to not meeting up to others expectations or standards. The only way you'll know is through trial and error. You'll get a good idea of what it can sound like when auditioning and will only know when you finally get it home. Even then, there's going to be adjustments to make until you're satisfied and for the most part, you will be. All the best, |
Probably very few are still following this thread, so I'm going to risk a few provocative comments. First, as to objective measurements. The scientifically-trained engineers who create the stuff we buy rely heavily on measurements to work their magic. That's an incontestable fact. So saying that measurements are irrelevant is like saying that, if you are a believer in God, knowing God's intention when creating the world is irrelevant to our enjoyment of it. That may be so, but only given certain perverse assumptions. If you want your understanding of experience to correspond as closely as possible to the Creator's, you need to know the creator's criteria. Second, there are many ways for a system to sound good. The wine analogy I, and others, have used here and in other threads is an analogue: comparing one fine system to another is a bit like comparing a fine Pinot Noir to a fine Cabernet Sauvignon. They're different, all right, but it would be absurd to reject the one on the basis of what one values in the other, or vice versa. Bottom line: expensive systems almost always sound better than inexpensive systems, even if in different ways, and they do so to everyone, not just to audiophiles. We obsess over microscopic details that most normal people neither notice nor care about, and those constitute the majority of "debates" on this forum. But I have not yet meet a person with ears who is not impressed by a "good" system, even if such a normal person doesn't consider the cost and emotional investment necessary for assembling that good system worthwhile. Third: Chacun a son gout/De gustibus non est disputandem. Some of us like listening to Tool or Metalica; others can't stand such music, and prefer string quartets. Some of the latter love Beethoven's quartets but can't stand Bartok or Shostakovich. Those different sorts of music are so different in character, content, and aural impact that it would be crazy to suppose there should be universal agreement about what constitutes the best possible musical reproduction. But this does not contradict my second point, and it relates that point to my first: all music—indeed, all sound—is ultimately a matter of frequencies over time. That's a matter of physics, interpreted by brains attached to bodies. So the technological devices designed by engineers to reproduce those sounds with the greatest objective accuracy will, almost always, be the ones that listeners prefer, no matter their musical preferences. A distorted tone will not compellingly convey Hendrix's feedback, nor the sweet woody sound of a fine violin. |
BTW, I reread the teo_audio post, wow what a great read. I would have never expected to read something like that here. I found it very insightful in bringing the two worlds (the scientific world and spiritual world) into a complete thought. Many involved in the creation of music know about the emotional communication that music (and other forms of art) brings to the table (no LP pun intended). These thoughts are impossible to quantify or objectify. Yet, they are real enough some devote their lives to it (musicians) and others (engineers) devote their lives to helping musicians get the "sound" they hear in their head on a record. These engineers are often the true blood brothers to audiophiles, as both share a deep love of "the sound of things". Brad |
As somewhat of a philosophy fan myself... I think your initial post started with a bit of conceptual muddying. Right here: Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective preference, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices? The muddiness starts with your referring to subjective "preference" rather than "impression." The tension between the "subjective" and "objective" in audio, that is the tension that tends to make it look like some people are divided in to different camps - e.g. "subjectivist/objectivist," comes from an epistemic divide. This epistemic divide is over the question "How do we evaluate the performance of audio gear?" To generalize, the objectivist takes a more engineering/scientific stance to this type of knowledge. This combines an appeal to measurable characteristics (important insofar as they have been fairly reliably correlated to SUBJECTIVE impressions), with a central acknowledgement of the problem that humans are quite fallible and prone to bias effects. (Hence, listening tests controlling for bias effects become relevant). So when it comes to our perception, "A seems to sound different/better than B," the objectivist will consider that with respect to the plausibility against what is known in technical terms, and look for technically plausible explanations, and he will hold subjective impressions, his own included, as suspect to the degree that such claims are more technically implausible. (And hence blind testing becomes ever more relevant). In contrast: The subjectivist holds his Subjective Impressions as "inviolable." He trusts his senses, his perception, to deliver accurate, reliable results, as the final arbiter of the "truth of the matter." "If I routinely hear a difference between A and B, then there IS a sonic difference between A and B" and if objective evidence doesn’t support this, well so much the worse for that "evidence." It must be wrong because my perception is right.
It’s pretty obvious why this epistemic divide would produce clashes. (Very much like atheists debating against faith-based beliefs). But the key point here is that it would be clearer and more to the point is that referring fo "subjective preference" doesn’t get at this issue. Because "preference" tends to presume there IS a difference to "prefer." Virtually no "objectivist oriented audiophile" I know object to anyone having different preferences. They are more concerned about claims to KNOWLEDGE based on subjective IMPRESSIONS. So if a subjectivist says "I preferred AC cable A over AC cable B in my system" the objectivist has no problem with preference, only with an objective claim hidden within, which is that cable A actually DOES sound different from B. All too often these conversations get confused when subjectivists appeal to "preference" in which they are clearly begging the question that the objectivist actually cares about. Therefore, your original question would have been more on point to ask something like: Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective IMPRESSIONS, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices?
(I would hope it’s not necessary to add this caveat, but just in case: The discussion of people being "objectivist" or "subjectivist" is a generalization to clarify the points that tend to come in to tension. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a broad range of attitudes among audiophiles, who can be anywhere on a spectrum between the two epistemic positions. Even a single audiophile may be more "subjectivist" about some of his purchases, more "objectivist" about others...or his attitude may change on a whim from one time to the next).
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+10 @prof and well stated. |
Thanks, prof (from one to another, apparently) for taking my OP seriously. However, I suppose I buried what I’d meant to be a fairly simple point in too much philosophical baggage, and confused even a careful reader like you. You suggest that my original question was "muddied" by misusing the term "subjective preference" when what I really meant was "subjective impression." Accordingly, you restate my question as really being this: "Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective IMPRESSIONS, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices?" But no, that is not what I meant to ask. OF COURSE subjective "impressions" are inviolable. As Kant writes, although this insight is more commonly associated with Nietzsche: "In a representation of the senses —as containing no judgments whatsoever—there is also no error." Subjective impressions are just that; they make no claim, by themselves, to being "right" or "better" or, well, to being anything other than what the subject himself or herself experiences. But that is indisputable, and not what I was asking about. What I’d like to know is how those who deny the validity or value of measurements, of "objective" criteria of some kind, and who (reasonably) appeal to the experience of listening to music on audio equipment in place of looking at graphs and other data, would wish to recommend this or that component, this or that recording or playback technology, or indeed, anything else of an evaluative nature. How, briefly stated, do you mean to persuade me that your "subjective impression" is such that the judgments you make because of it (your "subjective preferences") are judgments I should be persuaded are reasonable, well-informed, and worth taking seriously? How, that is, is your subjective preference to be defended to another subjective mind without appeal to objective criteria like measurements? You don’t have to defend your "subjective impressions"; they’re yours, they can’t be mine, and they make no evaluative claims. As Nietzsche tweaked the Kantian lesson, "The senses don’t lie at all; it’s what we make of the senses that introduces truth and lies." But I’m sorry I brought this whole thing up. Someone above sagely remarked that the reason he spends time on this site is to share enthusiasms. I guess I’m just hung up on wanting enthusiasms to be shared with sufficient passion and cogency that I might be persuaded, by reading your post, to share yours. There may not be "objective facts" in the experience of "sound quality" other than those that can be measured, and the consensus is that measurement geekhood is a matter of barking up the wrong tree. Sure, that makes sense to me; if I wanted objective evidence, I would go to the measurement gurus for it. But I would appreciate more articulate expressions of enthusiasm than are usually found here. |
@snilf :
I hope not, but I think you are clearly missing the point the objective measurement activists make in these audio forums. And militantly so. In their perfect world, no one will be allowed to share any subjective impressions, unless backed by “science”, in other words, by either independently certified by third party panels blind tests, or, measurements. If not, everything is null and void, basically hallucinations.
I am copying below the comment from the master of them all these folks, who is currently posting under a 13th username in Audiogon. This sums it all, their psyche.
I just stated rather clearly that until you either prove beyond reasonable doubt that the claims are really heard, or provide some relevant scientific basis for differences to be heard, then the posts are simply self indulgent. |
Ah I see. I was thrown by your talking about the contrast one finds in forums like this between the appeal to the objective vs the subjective, and that you felt you were identifying a "crux" of the matter. My view is that this is not the "crux" of the contrast between the two approaches (it is the epistemic divide I argued for). However, if I understand your clarification, we are to presume (at least for sake of argument) those subjective preferences that are veridical - that true sonic differences were heard, resulting in the impressions and preferences. So for instance if we take two speakers that measure quite differently, with audible consequences for their character, then we can imagine a subjective approach vetting the design simply based on one’s subjective impression, vs an objective approach vetting the design on measurements, data etc. I still think this needs some conceptual clarity. If we are ONLY talking about "preference" then, yeah, so what if you like X. Doesn’t mean I’ll like X. That’s kind of obvious and I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is really the "crux" of any matter here. Preferences differ, we all know that - I don’t think anyone takes mere preference as informative about how gear performs. The exchanges that actually seek to be INFORMATIVE here, including from "subjectivists," are an exchange of subjective IMPRESSIONS and descriptions of gear. So I have to presume we are talking about the more interesting question of whether purely subjective IMPRESSIONS or descriptions - "I liked X speaker because it has THESE characteristics...." can be informative. Ok, then, as someone with a foot in both worlds I’ll attempt an answer. I’m an "objectivist" in the epistemic sense I described earlier. I do not take my subjective impressions to be the absolute authority, delivering unvarnished Truth about the performance of audio gear. On the other hand, I sometimes don’t care that much about measurements and prefer ultimately to hear a component (speakers especially) for myself. To be consistent I scale my claims to the evidence I can present. If I think I hear differences between two different speaker designs, the plausibility that I’m actually hearing different sonic characteristics is very high, so my suspicion of my subjective impressions won’t be undercutting. If I think I hear a difference between, say, a tube amp and a solid state amp, that too is technically plausible...though not as sure (depending on the amp designs) as with the speakers. Hence I scale my confidence (and any claims) downward. If I think I hear a sonic difference between 2 well designed solid state amps, on technical grounds (given how low distortion would be with each amp), I’d scale my confidence level in my impression, and any claims I made based on that impression, well down (fully understanding any skepticism of the claims based soley on my subjective impression). So I know how to play nice with the "objectivists" (which I often mingle with over on the ASR forum, for example). HOWEVER, I do find that the objectivist approach can start to become too dry, too reductive. Everything comes to us through subjectivity, and much of human interaction involves our attempt at describing "what it’s like," and we are often successful enough in this to arrive at useful intersubjective agreement. When I listen to music through a sound system the amount of subjective details are so rich, they just aren’t adequately described or conscribed by something like "speaker has 3dB boost at 1k" or whatever. That’s a technical description...but a 3dB boost at 1K "sounds like" something - It changes the subjective experience, the sonic impression, of voices, certain instruments etc. It’s that "sounds like" character I’m interested in, and I love to exchange subjective impressions on "what things sound like." So I place high value in exchanging notes with other audiophiles regarding our subjective impressions, and on (well written) subjective reviews. (Whereas these are much disparaged as unreliable or simply made up b.s. and imagination, by the "objectivists" on ASR). Ok, so having said all that: I can’t necessarily tell YOU what YOU will accept as informative from my subjective descriptions. But I can tell you what I can get from careful subjective descriptions. Over the years I’ve come to note how I respond to certain sonic characteristics - e.g. I seek a sense of "density" in the sonic images, of solid air-moving mass. I seek a sense of "organic warmth" where appropriate - voices sounding like flesh and blood, the wooden instruments having that recognizable woody timbre, reeds sounding "reedy" brass "brassy" as I recall those things. A "disappearing" act for the speaker with expansive soundstaging and precise imaging. A sense of presence and texture - the subtle texture that makes a bongo or bowed instrument sound "right there" rather than something encased in glazed amber, removed from me. Etc. When I read a subjective review, or read the report of a well-spoken audiophile, and see that they notice and care about some of the same things I do...that they seem to "hear like me, care about what I care about," that makes me sit up and take notice. And if for THEM the gear is ticking those boxes, that in of itself may be enough to make me feel it’s worth seeking out an audition. My confidence level increases once I’ve heard some products that these audiophiles have described, and found that, yes, the product DID have the salient characteristics I was looking for, as was described in the review. Paying attention like this has led me to some very satisfying gear, including purchases. (E.g. Michael Fremer’s original review of the Conrad Johnson Premier 12 amps I own is so bang on, in terms of describing what I hear, it’s eerie. I was also led to the Audio Physic Virgos early on via his review, which also sounded just as he described). Another for-instance is having read Art Dudley on the Devore Fidelity O-series speakers. Some of the characteristics he cares about, and described hearing in the Devores matched some of what I was seeking. Several other reviews were consistent with Art’s. When I sought out the Devore speakers they did indeed have JUST the qualities described by Art, qualities I found immensely attractive. (In this case, a rich, full sound, that was also vivid and smooth in upper frequencies with immediacy and texture, along with a sense of dynamic ease an "life energy" to music through those speakers). Another example for me are the Joseph Audio speakers. They don’t sound like the Devore speakers, but they do other things that I also love. In particular, a combination of clarity and relaxed warmth, a purity of tone that sounds incredibly grain-free, revealing the exactness of instrumental timbre. These exact qualities were described in virtually every Joseph Audio Pulsar (and Perspective) review I could find. The reviewers almost to a one NAILED the sonic descriptions of "how these speakers sound." And in that sense I find the reviews informative and useful. I used to write reviews a long time ago and the most gratifying aspect was how many people wrote to me that they heard the item under review and that I’d described "exactly what it sounded like" to them. So the fact I have found sonic descriptions from some other audiophiles accurate, and some have found my own descriptions accurate to what they hear, gave me some optimism that purely subjective descriptions could be informative and of some use. So, speaking to your challenge: how can I convince you that I might have something informative to tell you simply based on my own subjective impressions and preferences? I think it’s up to you to make that connection. For instance, you could go through some of my thread where I do nutshell impressions of lots of speakers (as well as extensive impressions) and see if they seem to match anything you have heard. If so, you might start to grant some credence to my descriptions of gear you haven’t yet heard. Here’s my thread: |
i am not a subjectivist nor an objectivist.....Because this is a confused division by a confusing crowd...
By the way i like prof balanced post above ....
It is very important to not confuse 2 things here: The engineering aspect of the relation Subjective/objective correlation... The psycho-acoustic aspect of this correlation... The fact that some piece of gear, for example an amplifier, can be designed in a very well controlled way, in relation to human perceptive characteristical abilities, has been very well advocated and explained here by atmasphere... He say that all aspect of human perceptive qualitative impressions can be theoretically related to some protocols in the designing process itself, then by a precise set of measures... I dont have any reason to doubt it...He is a very competent designer and he even said that Alas! this optimal set of measures that can be used for a rightful evaluation of a piece of gear is not always there.... I dont doubt that either... Then if we pick a piece of gear it is useful to consult or buy from a designer who knows what he speak about.... But in most case the customer is in the obligation to pick by listenings because all optimal and possible measures that will guide the choice are not there or even not used...
When a recording engineer take a PERSPECTIVE on an acoustic musical event, he practise his ART with a set of trade-off choices which will be conveyed by the analog/digital chain of the audio system with the least possible distortion from this CHOSEN informed acoustic perspective....The gear system ONLY convey the chosen information to the speakers/room... there is not a UNIQUE original event, but as many that there is listeners in the Hall or microphones... What do we have here? Then It is not a small change which is subjectively and objectively analysed and interpreted here like the change associated with a piece of gear , but an enormous set of possible acoustic choices and changes which will affect the acoustic translation of the recording event in the room and by the room acoustic complexities... There is NO REPRODUCTION here, like high fidelity marketing trumpet it, there is an acoustic TRANSLATION....In your room also like for the recording engineer there is a trade -off set of choices which are related to your gear choices and your listening history and acoustic set of controls or the lack of.... Electrical engineering accuracy is not synonym of acoustic accuracy... Sound transparency is an engineering concept which do not have the same meaning as acoustic transparency... like engineering electrical accuracy is not acoustic accuracy.... Then in this debate promoting blind test, which is only a single tool among all other psycho-acoustic tool to separate impressions in three groups: positive biases, negative biases, and illusion, blind test is not always practical in a single case and is not meaningful anyway in the general case... Why? Because subjective impression and subjective impression in psycho-acoustic condition must be correlated at the end and not merely separated by a blind test ... Then all this debate subjective/objective is generally superficial and confuse the engineering concepts of sound with the psycho-acoustical concept and the acoustical concept of sound.... In a word: there is no reproduction of sound at the end but an acoustical translation... The recording engineer has his TASTE AND TAKE on the event and you have your own ACOUSTIC TAKE AND TASTE in your small room... But your listenings experiments in your room are acoustical and psycho-acoustical experience....
Every audiophile must learn OBJECTIVELY by basic acoustic to control his impressions... Every audio designer must learn psycho-acoustic to understand human SUBJECTIVE impressions and learn the way to control them by his design .... Confusing these two different perspective is arguing in the wind...And entertaining useless agressive arguments between gear fetichist and electrical measures zealots... |
IMHE whenever people of sound mind are presented with a truly excellent system they will all agree that it is excellent. The reference is live music. Can a system make you believe with your eyes shut that you are in front of a live band given a good recording? If it can not then you might have work to do and money to spend. The best systems can do this. Play Bela Fleck's My Bluegrass Heart. Are the musicians standing in front of you in real size? Bela is center right, the violinist is center left, bass is dead center and there is a guitarist far left and far right, standing right there. Close your eyes and you can see them. The violin is smooth as silk. Every string on Bela's banjo is present and accounted for. This does not take fancy wires or power conditioners or fancy stands for speakers or gunk to put on your connections. All it takes is good equipment mated correctly with proper management of acoustics and equalization. |
I would argue it takes only average equipment in a good room. Before I had all my new equipment in my listening room, I had our old home theatre system in there. Not a cheap system but not what many here would call audiophile. Everything worked. Imaging was perfect. Sound was "balanced". When the main system went in the biggest difference was clarity at higher volumes and better bass from the new subs. At low-mid volumes they were surprisingly similar. |
All my audio journey confirm to me that you are right... But a good room is an acoustically minimally if not optimally controlled room... Most untouched living room are not "good room", it is why people unable to control their subjective impression with objective acoustic installation think to upgrade by unsatisfaction even if they will not say it openly...Acoustic impotency is not a good adviser.... And yes it takes only average very basic good gear to reach heaven because there is a minimal S.Q. threshold that can satisfy any music lover even if the system he own is not the best there is..
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Prof—and yet again, mahgister, and mijostyn too: thanks so much for your insightful comments. Prof, I will look at your "thread"; this is just the sort of writing about audio I love to read: about the equipment, but grounded in an appreciation of the reproduction of the real sound of instruments. Your paragraph about the woody timbre of woodwinds, the brassy sheen of the brass, voices that sound like flesh and blood rather than electrons...that's what I seek, too, in listening, and also in reading on this forum. FWIW, I also share your privileging of the subjective, if I may put it that way. It is "like something" to be an experiencing consciousness—like something to be a bat, but also like something to hear a string quartet or a beautiful soprano. It may well be that such a subjective experience is conditioned by neurons stimulated by physical phenomena, but as mahgister never tires of pointing out, psychoacoustics is where the subjective and the objective meet. In any case, you put your finger on the fallacy of supposing that only objective measurements are intersubjectively communicable. I completely agree that, even if my reaction to, say, a given speaker is due to its bump at 1 kHz, or whatever, I don't experience that pleasurable sensation as a 1 kHz bump—and what matters, of course, is how the physical phenomenon is perceived, not how it may be described in terms of physics. One certainly can, as you so eloquently show, persuade others without leaving the shared realm of the subjective. Thanks for the treat of reading all this. |
Ah! Prof, I just looked at your thread—and realized why I recognized your "name" on this forum! I actually copied and pasted that thread some time ago into a document for storage in my "audio" file on the hard drive of this laptop, for future reference. It is a wonderfully clear and vividly descriptive account of a lot of desirable speakers, as the reactions to it from just about everyone also attests. Frankly, I’m not sure why I frequent this forum, or why, for that matter, I even consider myself an audiophile. Yes, I’ve loved good audio equipment for most of my life; most of the time, I enjoy music more in my living room than I do live (a point of contention between my wife and me; she was a musicologist and music critic in her former life in Europe, and is more interested, I think, in the social aspect of live performance than in the music itself). But, despite my love for audio equipment, I don’t own much. My system sounds very good, and I have lots to compare it to: we have a very active audio club here on the California Central Coast, and I’ve had many opportunities to critically listen to systems in purpose-built acoustically controlled rooms that are vastly more valuable than mine. But I don’t covet any of them, and have long been happy with what I have. And by "long," I mean decades: my amplification, turntable and speakers all date from the last millennium. So, in other words, your experience, critical acumen, and talent for expressing your "impressions" are much appreciated to the extent that they share our common enthusiasm so effectively—but not because they might be useful as guidance for purchases, since I don’t feel I need to make any. I guess I’m lucky that way. Back to the music, then! The Orpheus performance of Beethoven’s music for "The Creatures of Prometheus" is playing now, and is just gorgeous. The overture to this "incidental" piece is well known, but the rest of it isn’t, although it should be for anyone who loves Beethoven’s middle period. And the audio quality of this recording is stunning! One of the dance movements begins with a harp on the left, then the violins join, also on the left but in front of the harp; then a single flute, also on the left—which is joined by a bassoon way over on the right toward the rear of the orchestra, and then by a clarinet next to it, toward the center from the bassoon. A few bars later, a solo cello carries the theme, also very precisely located in space in front of the bassoon and clarinet, still on the right. And every instrument has a tremendously realistic, almost tangible presence and accurate timbre. This is audiophile bliss! |
