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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mahgister, Before my above post, I didn't watch the video. It was supremely interesting....thanks for including it!!! The yin and the yang, the pros and cons, the balance sheet of everything we touch or do in life. Food for thought coupled with food to survive or, _______ _______ So may blanks to fill-in, where to start?? |
mahgister, And I'm talking about my audio room and listening to music! I'm not sure A.I. is particularly suited to art and our forum. But it is obvious that you've been pondering the AI question far more than I. What a philosophical post! Thanks for giving me something to consider, whether I find doing so pleasant vs sticking my head in the sand to escape it. Your: "we are unbalanced" statement is persuasively thought provoking. And indeed, human freedoms of thought, actions and speech have recently been excerpted and more easily parted with, far more readily and in numbers than I would have ever imagined, in turn for "comfort" and supposed safety. We have seen that there are no freedoms, unless they are fought for with the imperative importance and the loving protection they deserve. Once we have underestimated their utmost importance and have allowed them to be taken away, wining them back, will be a battle. You and your loved ones may be your friend and care for and about you; but no one else does, especially entities such as private and public businesses and governments. By definition, they are like AI, empathyless, soullessly inward-looking, self-preserving, caring only for themselves; quite contrary to the verbiage and lies that they spokespersons spout; which is the opposite of what they're trying to convince everyone. Science can be stranger than fiction. However, you are correct, the science fiction authors have been spot-on regarding many issues and subjects.
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Anyway, the time is already here where A.I. will manage acoustic perfectly and his link to the gear system and vice versa...Way "better" than any human acoustician...
It is already here in art and design, suppressing artists jobs on the net and in life , and in medecine with corporate global empire suppressing the doctors freedom and the natural way to disease control towards a complete technological domination...For the better on some counts but for the worst either.. Some will call that a progress, and it is in many ways a progress... It is also the human soul which is at stake...It is an evolutive boundary here... History emerge from evolution in the natural world with the creation of the symbolic/virtual world ( language), and history NOW enter anew in the sleeping evolution river with the merging and erasure of the natural word, his assimilation into a new symbolic/virtual world ( computations) ... It is an evolutive jump an end of history but unlike Fukuyama anticipated it... Global totalitarian mechanical state...
Why A.I. represent is not only a progress but a danger and a challenge? Because in art it is not the artificial perfection of the A.I. crafsmamship that is the more precious, but the meaningful imperfection of the humam eye and hand... Imperfection is the door to the history of human consciousness through art history...Machine art will have no history only some dates void of meaning referering only to new mathematical power...Spirit dont exist in this world... The choice is freedom/soul/nature/ versus technological idolatry... And more and more people have already lost their mind in this idolatry... We will miss imperfection tomorrow because only imperfection is the peak and the apex of the soul and spirit not machine perfection which is the most empty perfection possible... Our technology is too advanced for our mind state in this earth civilization on the brink of nuclear war right now...we are unbalanced...We dont even cherish freedom over confort, and there is no manifestation at all in the world right now against the nuclear war at the corner... Sleepwalkers accuses each others...Anyway....
The A.I. for example would have created a better acoustic room than my actual one which is, so astounding it was for me, anyway an imperfect one for sure... But what i would have lost with this A.I. work at my place doing all the job ? I would have lost the essential: my fun creative journey for 2 years in acoustic tuning and i would have lost what i gained in the journey: an integrated body/ ears sound/music experience and knowledge... I would have lost my creativity and my soul.... I choose imperfection at the end because there is only love where there is also imperfection...And without love knowledge dont maintain meaning... Machine cannot be creative, they play on their perfect computerized " prepared" ground and nowwhere else...They reduce the territory to a map more "real" than the territory itself... The goal of the perfect A.I. is an earth without inferior useless life organisms and the entire earth minerals will become his dead immortal body floating in space ... All science fiction writers anticipated it long ago, like Orwell and Huxley anticipated the "actual ministry of truth" that some illiterated zombies wanted to create right now... No protests ... We sleep....And buy computers...And we wait for a war...
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Wow! an amazing post @mrmb and well written!!
I like the "measurement objectivist activist" term. You should trademark it as you penned it. I would personally replace "activist" with "militant" though, or maybe "missionary" |
@mrmb ,Thanks, again for what you posted. All the best, |
My intent was never to try to “save” anyone; let alone someone from themselves and their purchasing decisions, quite the opposite. My post was bemoaning the activist, objectivist and their push to dismiss or purchase equipment based solely on their measurements. But of course I have no problems with measurements being part of the purchase decision equation and measurements are definitely important when treating a room. Hell, I have owned a Rat Shack analog meter before they were digital and when Radio Shack still existed.🙂 As I said, I have no qualms with objective, scientific, electrical engineering, acoustics and physics discussions as they relate to the audio hobby, or objective discussions and measurements in general; although I rarely frequent audio forums for those. But I do have qualms with the measurement objectivist evangelist proselytizing their seemingly new found religion. The measurement objectivist activist seems to be a fairly recent phenomena in the audio forums I frequent. Perhaps the holy church of the god of measurement is growing its numbers and is sending out evangelists to convert the unworthy, unwashed heathen subjectivists. I’m happy that the reverse isn’t the case. I have no need to tell anyone what they should do in regard to equipment selection. I will give advice from my experience and knowledge. But I understand that what I like or have found to be acceptable, will not be so for all; nor do I expect it to be; quite unlike the measurement objectivist activist, who has the “facts” and if you doubt them…well I have heard enough about science compliers/deniers in general, to last 10 lifetimes! Until the last decade or so, we forum members blithely and happily went along telling each other how we felt about a new component, an acoustic modification, a tweak, or how we felt about the music we were listening. Sure, there was misinformation, snake oil, hokum, or honest mistakes etc. When any information is being exchanged, overt, covert and unknowing misinformation and dis-information is expected and either kept, or thrown to side as we encounter it. If not, we learn by our mistakes and move on. We are confronted with those sorts of informational misfits and puffery daily from all directions, not just audio. However then, galloping in, came the measurement cavalry. Who seemingly just discovered that there were these potential pitfalls and hazards. Wow, imagine that!?! With the god of measurement objectivism on their side, the cavalry righteously informed us of the scientific method and all of the psychological methods we supposedly had been using to delude ourselves. Thanks, but no thanks for the information! I was educated in the scientific method and understand all we humans do to psychologically delude ourselves into believing what we want. I don’t need, or want the measurement objectivist activist cavalry coming in to save me from myself, under the auspices of preventing me from throwing my hard- earned money away on a poorly measuring component! The remarks I made previously in this thread, were an attempt to understand what seems to be the activist motivation of many objectivists and their: my measurements are god perspective and they should also be yours, because…well, you can’t argue with the god of objective measurements! To think otherwise, you must have confirmational bias, don't understand the placebo effect, don't believe or defer to double-blind experiments, blah, blah, blah. Objectivists obviously have every right to believe what they believe. But what’s the point of their measurement crusading zeal directed at a subjective hobby and on a forum such as this? If anyone chooses to select equipment based solely on measurable criteria or any other data that seems important to them, I say have at it. All should do likewise. All are welcome to buy measurably defective equipment or otherwise. There is no need to point that out. Get your rocks off, by getting your rocks off; not by measurement proselytizing to the unwashed masses and disbelievers, as if they don’t have a clue.
You should have a chat with the professional calibrator who setup the projector in my home theater. He said blah...blah...blah and “many others” agree. Both your acoustic engineer and my video calibrator could well be accurate in their pronouncements and assessments. That doesn't mean that the results of their efforts are preferable, or without rebuttal. I may prefer sonic or visual settings to be skewed from what the measurer, or the measurement device(s) suggest. Or their devices may be flawed, my vision or hearing may be, or their observations and conclusions may also be flawed, or not (as it were). As the room owners you and I are the final arbiters of what we prefer -- not the professionals and certainly not the measurements, unless we want them to be! As far as poppycock goes, and “everyone” does, or does not concur: who cares? I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. You're welcome to prefer what you do and I assume you would agree, that I am welcome to do likewise; regardless of some sort of accurate, inaccurate, or questionable objective measurements, or the advice of experts in their respective fields. My 2-channel audio room is for my relaxation and entertainment. I needn’t an expert involved to tell me what I should like, or prefer. However, I definitely have found that an aged distilled adult beverage positively helps.🙂 But, you may need or prefer a professionals hand holding and advice to be satisfied and that’s you and of course, I’m fine with that. Why should I not be? However, I don’t need or want someone to tell me what component sounds good, because it measures good and for me to think otherwise, is wrong headed and incorrect!
I'm not sure where that comment emanated. I'm here to acquire and offer subjective knowledge gained from experience. But I obviously get to pick and choose what is acceptable and isn’t. Of course, I may be wrong according to some. But isn’t that always the case? My way is not remotely the right way for anyone, but me. Nevertheless, there was a long and torturous path to get there. But yet, I’m still constantly learning and trying to refrain from making mistakes, especially the same mistake twice. However, my mistakes are mine, especially when they affect no one else on this forum, or elsewhere. How about you, do you have all the answers? How about your acoustic engineer(s), do they have all the answers? Or might other acoustic engineers agree to disagree, or have ancillary or divergent beliefs or thoughts – a tweak of this here, or there etc.? Line up a number, of any experts and there will be disagreement. Some disagreement may be subtle, other disagreements not so subtle. So much for the great and wise “everyone” you seem to banter about, as if that word has meaning?
I’m uncertain what knowledge is being discussed or is accepted or is unaccepted. I have no animosity for those fixated on equipment measurements to make purchasing decisions. Nor do I wish to tell them what to do or that they may be suffering from delusional auditory biases compounded by staring at measurement matrices for hours on end etc. So yes, I do have animosity for their overt and pronounced prostalizing, however. Measurement Objectivists Activists: have at it, by all means make equipment selections based on objective measures, or as you see fit. As such, measurement objectivists, should not object or have animosity against folks that manufacture or select equipment that do NOT meet the measurement criteria they value and if they do, what is the point of pointing it out. You go your way and I will go mine, no harm, no foul.
Whoo hoo, “everyone” that hears them raves! Consequently, I’m sure all other headphone manufacturers have thrown in the towel and conceded defeat. The best are indeed, measurably the best! I'm happy for Sennheiser's feat and that their headphones have “raves” by "everyone" that hears them. There’s that “everyone” word again. It may have meaning to you; it has none to me! Feel better now that “everyone” is in agreement? Throughout history there have been times when “everyone” has been in agreement about issues that later were found to be inaccurate, immoral, unethical and heinous, among but a few adjectives. But I suppose your use of “everyone” now as if it has meaning, is unquestionably accurate and without dissent or debate! There you have it, use “everyone” and the questioning ends, the subject is settled! Speaking of "everyone", there were posts on this site by an individual referencing a specific cable brand and citing the continuous rave reviews “everyone” in the reviewing industry provided, as if “everyone” and their findings were meaningful and indisputable. What a load of dung. My “everyone” will see and raise your “everyone”. Now, who is the hypocrite? Lastly, the pure equipment objectivist and subjectivist will always disagree. Neither should have the need or desire to convince each other that their equipment purchasing decisions are the wrong way or the right way. As long as the system owner is happy, there is no purely right or wrong decision in a subjective hobby such as this. Hence, as I previously mentioned, I relished the fact that the AudioPhileStyle.com forum peeled off the purely objective discussions into an “Objective-Fi” Forum, “the space for scientific / objective audio discussions”. There is obviously some overlap between the two. But activism from either camp should be dissuaded and moved into their respective domains for the civility and sanity of everyone involved.
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Without measurements there is no acoustic treatment well done... Without measurements there is no mechanical room tuning controls... Why? Because the BALANCE between reflective/absorbing /diffusive surfaces is the KEY... but it is not enough, even the location is important... And in the mechanical control side of acoustic, how someone could tune many, many , resonators without adjusting size volume, neck/mouth cross ratio? and critical locations?
Measurements are mandatory in acoustic... How to make them ? You can apply EQ. But no EQ. will be able to do the COMPLETE job right... I chose at no cost to make it by ears like someone tune a piano, in fun times months long experiments... It worked more than great... Cost me nothing but it take a dedicated room for me...And much time...Much....But you can do minimal experiments in a living room and take care of the esthetical aspect, which i did not do... My basic materials were cheap and anyway i am creative but not crafty at all... 😁😊
Now there is acoustic but there is basic psycho-acoustic measures also... I also used measures of distance here, locations of diffusers and resonators with a foldable treated wood screen behind my position.... Psycho-acoustic help us to correlate in timing the front/back/lateral reflections with the first frontwave coming from speaker A and from speaker B for ear A and ear B... All this is impossible without measures experiments... This is the bad news... The good news is it is way more easy to do it with your ears in ongoing listening experiments...Nothing is more fun than learning... A small room is a complex set of geometry, size, topological factors, and specific acoustic properties content materials distributed in the room ...I dont own a program able to compute all this for my human ears and in place of them... Acoustician have learned to use their ears and measures...In small room acoustic reverberation time will not be used like in a great hall...We must tame them for postive effect... All which i talk about you can search on the internet and study basic... Why? Because learning acoustic by ears will help you to learn HOW to listen and WHAT to listen to... The concept of "listener envelopment and sound saurce width ratio, for example, will no more be a "chinese" concept or the deceptive illusion it is for some ignorant, if you read only about it without experimenting with it... Acoustic is easy and complex, easy if you go slowly, complex because it will take a long time with experiments... But trust me the results and the fun exceed any non necessary short satisfaction related to an upgrade....If your gear choice is good to begin with for sure...
There is another aspects of measurements that is more difficult to understand for ordinary customers: electronic measurements... Here there is arguing without end... For sure the designer measurements are essentials for pairing components, but there is no way that electrical measurements all by themselves can predict good sound...It can predict only a POSSIBLE good sound, because the designer know his art of trade-off... Some... A good component must be paired with other components and not only that his full potential cannot be experienced in a bad room either or other non synergetical components... Then measuring components to VERIFY design sheets is good...Like Amir do... Promoting the idea that this is enough to know if a component will sound good is ignorance...This is what some few of his zealots do... Then listening without measurements is ludicrous, and taking ONLY one species of measurements, electrical one, without taking the other acoustic and psycho-acoustic measurements is ludicrous too...
I know what i know by experiments... And reading acoustic basic, and applying it...
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@thyname and @mrmb , do you not see the irony and hypocrisy that you are doing the exact same thing, but just selling a different form of religion? That should be obvious to you. I was not exaggerating. MRMB wrote 22 full paragraphs to accuse others of proselytizing. If that is not trying to sell a particular way of thinking I don't know what is. That tweak comment, to me, is very revealing. I find it gross exaggeration that people who use measurements are only interested in measurements as a determination of quality. Obviously those people exist, but they are the exception. Most people I have met who rely on measurements in this hobby, especially when I was working through our custom room, use measurements as a tool to understand what is happening, or what is not happening. They use it as a guide to achieve a particular sound, as opposed to buy and hope, or playing mind games on themselves with questionable devices as @mitch2 identified. The term he used, "subjective rhetoric" was overly kind. I much more appropriate term comes to mind.
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^^^^^^^^
Yup! Well said again @mrmb ! This type of behavior is likely subject to several psychologic diagnosis and studies on mental health I suppose. Savior Complex, Hero Syndrome, etc. etc. I cannot explain it another way |
Are you familiar with the term hypocrite? What were the last 25 or so paragraphs you posted? Who were you trying to save.
You should have a chat with the acoustics engineer who designed and tuned my room. I believe the term he would use is poppycock. He does not think soundstage and imaging is at all intangible and many others I talked to do not either. Perhaps that comes from your lack of knowledge that others do not lack?
If you start with the assumption that other people could not possibly have the knowledge you lack then you are destined to repeat the mistakes they have long overcome.
There is enough animosity on both sides but not accepting the knowledge or experience of either makes little sense.
On a side note, the most revered headphones, very very expensive Sennheisers ($30K) have very very low distortion. They measure about as perfect as possible. Everyone who hears them raves. What can we learn from that?
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Interesting take on the matter! This is exactly my experience as well -- It is as if reviews of audiophile products are purposely used as a foundation for "audiophile bashing" discussions. In many cases I refer to measurements -- especially when it comes to speakers, for example, where one can partly correlate the actual sonic result with certain real-time measurements. |
snilf, I understand your position and accept your logic. But let me suggest that the situation isn’t as dire or impossible as you may believe, or have expressed. However, it may be time consuming and as such, may be considered difficult. Many posters here, post on other audio sites. Find the ones you gel with sonically and equipment wise and go from there. Fortunately, I have managed to be around a lot longer than CD’s, the Internet, iPods, cell & bag phones, Walkman’s, cassette recorders and 8-tracks; coming from a time when audio shops and component sales were profuse, measurements were published, but reliable reporting, information and personal observations were scarce to non-existent. Thus, I can’t stress enough how beneficial the internet and forums such as this, have been to me and hobbyists in general and the audio hobby specifically. And it wasn’t that way because someone published equipment measurements, discussed electrical theories, the pros and cons of individual parts etc. Some of those discussions, may aid equipment designers, but individual parts are not the end all, be all, to we end users. In fact, I have found designers and their designs to be far more important and relevant, than the mix of their parts. Over the decades, I have learned about and bought equipment after spending untold hours and then more, reading and researching. If enough time is spent, it is possible to wade through the chaff to find the wheat. By doing this, I've bought and enjoyed several wonderful, decently priced, boutique components. Without forums such as this, I would never have found those. I have met with people at their homes and audio stores and found individuals on forums with similar sonic preferences and equipment tastes like mine. We have been able to share a glass of wine, observations, preferences and together, we have come to similar conclusions. I have learned from those. The learning was NOT quick or easy, but it was doable. There are many very high-quality components; who many will agree are just that. But we each develop our own tastes and preferences with our own audio tastes that may be the same as others or not, as you suggested with your wine analogy. Who is right, wrong or otherwise? In total, no one. It is a subjective personal hobby where minds can meet to agree, or disagree. In the end, it is all about what pleases us, not others. But we must learn just that, through trial, after trial. Once, a really good frequency response level is attained, especially a superb, nuanced and detailed midrange, incremental improvements can found be in the intangibles and mainly unmeasurable areas, such as soundstage and imaging. These provide the ability to recreate the illusion of being in a recording room, a concert hall, or smoke-filled jazz and blues club – close your eyes and your there. Well of course not really, but goosebumps and a feeling of being there are possible and important. Until those so-called intangibles are heard, they are unknown. Just as until a really good wine or whiskey is sampled, or varietals are tasted, their positives and differences are unknown. As much as some want to diss the golden ear premise, to learn what is good or what one prefers, one needs to sample many and varied audio systems, including for example, speaker types such boxed cones and domes, open baffles, panels/ribbons/eltrostats, horns etc. But live instruments and music for points of reference, must also be sampled. For example, I fondly recall the first time I took my percussionist son to an acoustically great performance hall, for a symphonic performance. I leaned over and asked him what he thought? He said it sounds like the audio room, dad. Well of course it didn’t! But it was a good approximation, in that instruments sounded like the instruments they were and music was equally enjoyable in both places. I do agree that jaw dropping hyperboles abound in reviews and forums when changes to our system's may be thought to produce same. But you know when that new component is inserted (let alone a tweak is made), no one but us would generally know the difference. We then become accustomed to the status quo, until a until another change is made. Suffice it to say, that I have heard many more good, or great systems than otherwise. They might not have been my precise cup of tea, but the performances they recreated were entertaining and fun to listen to. Isn't that what we're seeking? Once a certain level is attained, sideways or incremental moves are possible, but difficult and the law of diminishing returns kicks-in. I think there are those that want system builds to be quick and easy. They are not! But objective measurements and parts are easy to prioritize and quantify. Simply seek 1) the best measuring component; 2) with the parts that everyone agrees are good; 3) at the all-important best price; 4) voila you’re done! You can then feel good about your choice(s), because the measurements said you should and they were the best, for the bucks spent! So, I can see why some go in that direction and remain there. But I would hypothesize that is only an impatient few and not the majority of us, or we wouldn’t be here.
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Thanks to mrmb for directness: "I buy equipment based on my sonic preferences; more importantly however, I almost exclusively come here to read posts from others regarding their personal sonic preferences and experiences." And to mitch2 for calling out hyperbole: "how much reliance do you have in posters who report that the sound of their systems are 'totally transformed' just about every time they install a new cable, fuse, or other tweek? Is that even possible, or are they just prone to exaggeration?" But my original post really had a fairly simple point that these two extremes don't address. I come here for advice in solving audio problems (for which the dearly departed MC was more helpful than anyone, even when he was wrong—which was most of the time) and for input on purchasing decisions. Now, if the only relevant criterion in audio is how it sounds to you (or me), then it's a mistake to seek advice on purchasing options from anyone else. But I don't believe that's the case. I also make, and taste, a lot of wine. By the logic of most who have responded in this thread, it would be pointless to suppose that there are any objective criteria when it comes to something so obviously a matter of taste as wine. And yet, the differences in cost between bottles is enormous, as it is between audio components. One hopes that those differences are not just driven by the placebo effect, and that seeking advice from fellow enthusiasts who have lots of relevant experience would not be a complete waste of time. In fact, of course, there is "objectivity" in wine tasting: someone with experience and a refined palette can reliably identify the grape, the vintage, and the quality of what they're tasting. This is what I thought I was looking for in audio on this site. But if that's to be true, then there must be a way to mitigate "subjective taste" with some kind of appeal of objective facts. Bottom line: I guess I won't come here looking for informed advice anymore. I'll just enjoy my own ears, and my own system, and not pretend that anyone else can tell me anything that might educate my judgment on such subjective matters. |
@celtic66 - You post entertained me. F1 engines are designed without limitations which is different than assembly line produced engines, but they are absolutely designed with extremely tight specification. I'd bet that 99% of what they do is designed with CAD prior to the first prototype with reliable results. This can only be done if they understand the science behind every aspect of the design and materials. They can reliably predict if the design will produce the power and torque that they want along with the associated power bands along with reliability. It's a fairly perfect example of the objective point of view though I don't see anything similar being possible with audio if for no other reason than there are so many external factors that the designers cannot control. |
"Reasonably inexpensive"? What's the heck does “reasonably inexpensive” mean? Reasonable cost wise, is only reasonable in the eye of the beholder and their bank account. When it comes to discretionary spending, why would I pass any reasonableness judgement on any seller or buyer? In fact, why would I pass judgement on anyone but myself and my wallet? Besides, if someone wants to spend their income on a $3,000 fuse, or $47,000 on a gold & diamond encrusted 1-meter IC and wear it around their neck as jewelry, why would I, or anyone care, or use the term "harm", when NO harm is always the answer? Frankly, I'm happy that there are people with disposable incomes to buy whatever fuses they choose and more! And if they don't have the disposable income, again why should I care; or consider posting or arguing the insanity (to me), of some of the questionable products (to me) pawned-off as being beneficial? I don't know about anyone else, but living within my means, began with my first job at 14. It is a lesson that must be learned long before buying non-essentials, let alone luxury items like 100% of the audio items discussed in this forum. If you have it, there is always someone who will want it and will do whatever it takes to get it. This includes every relationship you have and every possession you own, including your money. Does anyone with the ability to read and comprehend this forum and thread not understand this basic fact of human nature and life? So yeah, have fun, buy those $3,000 fuses that have no known electrical measurable advantages and enjoy! |
@mrmb , Quite … Once upon a time most of these tweeks were reasonably inexpensive so where was the harm ? $3K fuse anyone |
@mrmb , Well said.
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IMO, rather than be persuaded, people should review both subjective opinions as well as objective measurements and specifications, compare those with their own experiences, and then come to their own conclusions. However, any information on these forums could (should?) be viewed with healthy skepticism. Measurements can be both scientifically correct but also misleading in that the parameters being measured may or may not have the degree of impact on how something sounds as you might be "persuaded" to believe. Likewise, subjective opinions rely on the experience and bias of the person providing the opinion. For example, how much reliance do you have in posters who report that the sound of their systems are "totally transformed" just about every time they install a new cable, fuse, or other tweek? Is that even possible, or are they just prone to exaggeration? When the same tweek fails to have a similar effect on the sound of your own system, common themes here are that your system is not resolving enough, or you didn’t let it burn in long enough, or maybe you just don’t hear well. I find it helpful when I am able to view the poster’s virtual system as their equipment choices provide some context or basis for their opinions, as do their previous posting history. How about manufacturers who blur the lines between objective scientific facts and subjective hyperbole. As an example:
All of the above is claimed to result from placing 5 very small cylinders or discs ("the size of a shirt button") on the walls of the listening room and/or on the speakers - I find this an amazing blend of scientific claims and subjective rhetoric. |
@mmb +1 |
I applauded the day one of the forums I frequent -- Audiostyle.com -- created an "ObjectiveFi" section for objective zealots. I have no problem with electrical engineering and physics discussions. I have no problem with discussions about why capacitor “A” might be objectively better than “C”. What I do have a problem with are measurement zealots – i.e., component “C” must be better than “G” because its noise measurements are better, or it contains "X", or it doesn’t contain "A" etc. This forum among all the others I began frequenting decades ago, formerly had very few postings about snake oil, double blind testing, confirmational bias etc., as if those terms and the term buyer beware, weren’t already known and understood. And if the premise of caveat emptor wasn’t learned in one’s teens before discretionary income was sufficient to buy a CD, let alone the type of hardware being discussed in this forum, using an audio forum for that sort of post and education is too little, too late! Thus, the goal of far too many objectivist posters, seems to be the need to save equipment buyers from themselves. The purpose of their posts is to cite how correct they are, because their measurements say they are. Perhaps they want to quantify their choice or purchase. They seem to get the adrenalin rush of an activist naysayer and debunker, by deriding equipment manufacturers and owners, based on the measurements that seem to prove how bad their equipment is, or how bad their buying decisions are. Great, if that’s the objectivist’s thing, buy a Topping DAC and have fun listening to its measurements. My experience in my audio room is strictly a subjective, emotional one. Equipment measurements have been available forever, from when Hi-Fi was basically a DIY hobby. While I may have glanced at measurements, especially at input and output values, I have never chosen a product based upon anything but listening to it! Duh, that’s what I do with it. I don’t give a damn how a component measures. I make equipment buying decisions solely for my enjoyment not someone else’s! So, I could care less whether the item I choose is floating in snake oil, its distortion measurements suck, cables can’t make a difference, or someone’s measurements prove that I can’t be hearing what I am. I buy equipment based on my sonic preferences; more importantly however, I almost exclusively come here to read posts from others regarding their personal sonic preferences and experiences. There is no audio heaven road map, no reliable equipment choosing matrix based on objective measurements, nor should there be. If that day comes, we will all be listening to the same hardware. |
More food for thoughts here:
Intro to the article "A Critique of the Critical Cochlea: Hopf—a Bifurcation—Is Better Than None" A. J. Hudspeth, Frank Jülicher,2 and Pascal Martin3
«The sense of hearing achieves its striking sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and dynamic range through an active process mediated by the inner ear’s mechanoreceptive hair cells. Although the active process renders hearing highly nonlinear and produces a wealth of complex behaviors, these various characteristics may be understood as consequences of a simple phenomenon: the Hopf bifurcation. Any critical oscillator operating near this dynamic instability manifests the properties demonstrated for hearing: amplification with a specific form of compressive nonlinearity and frequency tuning whose sharpness depends on the degree of amplification. Critical oscillation also explains spontaneous otoacoustic emissions as well as the spectrum and level dependence of the ear’s distortion products. Although this has not been realized, several valuable theories of cochlear function have achieved their success by incorporating critical oscillators. The technical specifications of the human ear are remarkable. We can hear sounds that evoke mechanical vibrations of magnitudes comparable to those produced by thermal noise (de Vries 1948; Sivian and White 1933). Hearing is so sharply tuned to specific frequencies that trained musicians can distinguish tones differing in frequency by only 0.1% (Spiegel and Watson 1984). Finally, our ears can process sounds over a range of amplitudes encompassing six orders of magnitude, which corresponds to a trillionfold range in stimulus power (Knudsen 1923). These striking characteristics of our hearing emerge because the ear is not a passive sensory receptor, but possesses an active process that augments audition in three ways (reviewed in Hudspeth 2008; Manley 2000, 2001). First, amplification renders hearing several hundred times as sensitive as would be expected for a passive system. The active process next exhibits tuning that sharpens our frequency discrimination. Finally, a compressive nonlinearity ensures that inputs spanning an enormous range of sound-pressure levels are systematically encoded by a modest range of mechanical vibrations and in turn of receptor potentials and nerve-fiber firing rates. The active process additionally exhibits the striking epiphenomenon of spontaneous otoacoustic emission, the production of sound by an ear in the absence of external stimulation. Although considerable attention has been devoted to these properties in mammalian and especially human hearing, the four defining features of the active process are equally characteristic of nonmammalian tetrapods (reviewed in Manley 2001).»
conclusion of the article : A second common goal of engineering is stability: whenever possible, it is desirable that apparatus be immune from spontaneous oscillation and other instabilities. The ear’s behavior offers us little choice but to accept the presence of oscillators within the cochlea, given that spontaneous otoacoustic emissions are ubiquitous. Even though these oscillators operate individually at the brink of instability, however, the mammalian cochlea as a whole is generally stable and reliable. Evolution plays by rules different from those of the best engineers: the least sliver of selective advantage trumps the esthetic and practical considerations of circuit design. The evidence discussed throughout this review suggests that the positive qualities of a critical oscillator–including amplification, frequency tuning, and compressive nonlinearity–have led to the selection of an active process operating at a Hopf bifurcation.» https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944685/
Overemphasis under the characters in the text is mine... 😁😊 |
This is not an argument AGAINST anything i said from the beginning of this thread.. It is a common place fact...We need also to translate quantization into anolog way...So what? My argument are that the hearing system is deeply non linear, brain included... Which make it able to do a very refine analysis of way more powerful resolution than science tought of possible before... And brain hearing dont work like any tool we have...Because sound recognition is also based on some semantic evolutively acquired filters and not only pure physical constrainsts...These interpretative filters are distributed in the "music" of the electrical field itself directing the neurons... My argument is there is no way we can replace listening experiments by our electronical tools numbers in audio ... Psycho-acoustic is based on the CORRELATION between a subjective perceiver and an OBJECTIVE installation with a sets of measures...The important word here is not objective but correlation....And this correlation is two way yes, but the subjective element is the fundamental one... It is precisely the object studies of psycho-acoustic to understand WHY "accurate" in an objective way differ from "accurate" in a subjective way for example studying the acquired semantic filtering biases of musician and their superioir ability to perceive sounds... It is precisely becsause of the non linear structure of the hearing systemnot only of the cochlea that science study the way to analyse the signal/noise ratio on different scale and for different "semantic" aspects of the working brain...In some case noise become signals and more signals noise... Then some few zealots in ASR claiming that a dac is reducible to some electrical measures whitout the need to listen to it to KNOW it is ridiculous...Like those who reject any measures set a priori...
« In a sense, once established, the field imposes itself on the neurons like the conductor of an orchestra in which each neuron is a single musician, says Dimitris Pinotsis, the study’s lead and corresponding author. Even if the musicians change, the conductor still coordinates whomever is in the chairs to produce the same result. “This ensures that the brain can still function even if some neurons die,” says Pinotsis, an associate professor at University of London and a research affiliate in the Picower Institute. “The field ensures the same output of the ensemble of neurons is achieved even after individual parts change. The brain does not need individual neurons, just the conductor, the electric field, to be the same.”»
https://news.mit.edu/2022/neurons-are-fickle-electric-fields-are-more-reliable-information-0401 |
I am glad to be less "deluded" than the crowd...if you must think for answering me... 😊
Thanks for your appreciation ... Anyway.... My point is simple .... Evaluation of gear by some selected sets of measures make sense ONLY in some hearing theory context... Now for your argument here about bi-stability....
The non linear nature of the hearing ability are not only in the physical structure of the cochlea but in the brain itself...Neurons are not the ultimate processing levels units at all.... Microtubules are... First read Penrose-Hameroff and also this guy Anirban Bandyopadhyay : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYX9c10ECAE He want to create an artificial brain with time crystals technology...With "music" or hierarchical rythmic structures in parallel processing not bi-stable digital structure... https://www.routledge.com/Nanobrain-The-Making-of-an-Artificial-Brain-from-a-Time-Crystal/Bandyopadhyay/p/book/9781439875490
And meditate this news: https://news.mit.edu/2022/neurons-are-fickle-electric-fields-are-more-reliable-information-0401 «In a sense, once established, the (electrical) field imposes itself on the neurons like the conductor of an orchestra in which each neuron is a single musician, says Dimitris Pinotsis»
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I'm reminded of the rich man & Lazarus story Lazarus, the beggar died and went to Paradise. Rich man ends up in Hades and crying out to Abraham
OTOH, you have hundreds of people who are ear witnesses, yet you want a machine, built by a man to tell you the final "truth"? IOW you want the truth but only on YOUR terms. Nah. truth is truth, no matter who believes it. Truth does not line up to man's whims. Man needs to align with truth. One of the biggest problem with the progressive mindset is that it has little or no understanding of human nature. The ramifications of that are tremendous |
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I am thinking one of us knows those terms much better and used them daily. I don’t think it is you. You appear to redefine terms as you see fit.
Do you know a characteristic of a system where stochastic resonance will work? It must be bistable. Your leap of faith in another thread wrt non-linearity in hearing and DAC operation, missed that the researchers in the papers you linked highlighted the non-linearities in the physical nature of the cochlear. It would appear the bistable element in hearing would be neurons that relates to stochastic resonance. That would mean they have an element of quantization, making them digital in some fashion, not analog. Digital has fundamental non-linearity due to quantization too. Do you have anything that reveals limits of quantization of human hearing? If not, I have to assume it would relate to minimum hearing thresholds. It appears that digital audio has been using this principle as well since its inception with dithering. Which brings me back to how I should have started this thread and why I do not read your posts. Is there any point you are trying to make, because so far, you have not made one. To give credit, you are attempting to relate experience to scientific principles even if, in my opinion, your attempts appear misguided. Far too many posts come across as a call to magic.
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Science is history of science nothing else say Goethe... Hearing is UNKNOWN territory because hearing is very intimately linked to all the relation between the brain and the body more than even the visual system ... The greatest error in this ASR ideology is thinking that a piece of gear has a sound quality by the virtue of some partial measures set out of any listening experiments and out of any room and out of any link to the other gear parts... Some ASR disciples are as deluded as are some audiophiles...Perhaps more because listening is the basis of psycho-acoustic , not electrical measures... Some like deludedaudiophile use the concept "accurate" and "noise" in a confused way...They conflated the two possible meanings of the word "accurate" for a non linear detection system like the ears or for a linear tool detection system and they confused the two ways the ratio signals/noise can work for a linear detection system and for a non linear detection system... Then calling audiophiles in MASS to be deluded is too much... Many ASR disciples are not less deluded... No one own science....
The method by which scientist can study the way introduction of noise can help non linear detection system is called: stochastic resonance method... The way the cochlea is non linearly structured make it able to use an Hopf bifurcation tool analysis inherent in the small fibers cells of the internal ears... The ears are not a PASSIVE detector system but an ACTIVE non linear one able to amplify ...Then is ability to resolve information exceed many hundredth of times any passive system... |
Yes. Answer begets question, question begets the answer. It takes one back to the idea of ’the longer the question has been around, the more fundamental the error in it’s formulation." This part of why science refuses, categorically, the idea of facts, and that in exploration, in the idea of science, that all is theory....as theory can be altered to find the new data, to deal with the frailty and error and incompleteness of the humans in the equation. Facts are for engineering so that makers don’t make bridges out of ideas or unproven thought experiments. Engineering is one step down from science. Engineering that is inclusive of exploration is not engineering, per se. It is akin to finding pathways in exploration to make things, to make real objects, things that exist outside the mind of the individual and can be shared. Pundits can conflate the two, if they are not careful or have not truly delved into the methodologies of science and the reason for those methods. which takes you back to that axiom of ’the longer the question exists, the more fundamental the error in the formulation of the question.’ Thus, understanding complexities, stubbornly unresolved, that are attempting to unfold in the mind of the given observer, requires the growth of the observer, in order for the observer to cognate the given complexities therein. That quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti: Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. The large amount of time that this audio quandary has been in front of us.. states to all, if they find the mental capacity within (themselves) to realize it... is that the complexities are outside of (currently applied) modern science that is audio related (and utilized by the group that squabbles), until said sciences, or rather, the pundits that argue incessantly.... learn to encompass all components of the equation which are required in order to solve the quandary in front of the given seeker/observer. The subjectivists, many of whom might try to utilize scientific methodology correctly..... urge caution and second looks. Science begins with observation, observation is king in science. Observation does not go away, in the face of science that says the observation is at fault, if the scientific methodology is the part that is truly at fault. which it can be in people who are frail and faulted, which all humans are. This is especially applicable in complex unresolved question and answer sets. The objectivists can and many times do, call out the subjectivity, incorrectly, without any form of real scientific objectivity. as true and correct objectivity includes the observer in the complex equation. where with humans... the observer as part of the equation... has to deal with human frailties like ego issues around the idea of expression, intake, and not knowing, internal filtering, mental constructional issues... and how that plays out in the mind and in human interactions with the world. In other words, human frailty.. as tied to expressions in psychology.
To science, any observer or explorer in the world of audio, who claims that the subjectivists are at fault and are imagining things, are incomplete un-educated observers and have neither the authority nor the knowledge nor (quite possibly) the innate scientific capacity (quite possibly well outside their wheelhouse unless they grunt spectacularly hard--ie, grow) to lay fault in a large swath of audio subjectivist claims. This, in clarity, to a mind that reads the above and cognates it, might lead one to conclude that things like ASR (the psychosis is right in the naming!) are deeply at fault and are miss takes on science and it's fundamental meaning. Where it is more akin to being a complete misapplication of the fundamental of science. a factualization of science --which is dogmatism - which is engineering. They've got both their pants and their head on - totally backward. Old engineers yelling at clouds. |
Now a question? for deludeaudiophile... HOW non linear detection ears/brain structured system can use noise in a way an ordinary electrical detection instrument could not?
The answer to this is the beginning of explanation about the way some very simple devices i created for myself worked in improving the sound experience in my room... 😁😊
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You are right but with an important remark: One group subordinate hearing eliminating the subjective perceiver to electrical measures , the other group CAN or MAY read a specs sheets but subordinate this measures to the subjective perceiver impressions...To interpret any measures we must do it FROM A PRECISE hearing theory... In psycho-acoustic which is the science studying perception of sound the objective installation and set of measures are there to serve and study the perceiver impression not to erase it at the end and declare it an artewfact or a deceptive illusion like you said.... Then one group is, if not as deluded than the other, some Amir disciples, perhaps more... Why ? We dont understand human hearing which is a highly non linear phenomenon , with the actual Method inherited from Helmholtz and Fourier.... Then yes you are right the two groups must respect one another, but calling audiophiles "deluded" will not help.... Which is the more "deluded" group at the light of true science in the working not dogmatic science, guess which one? Those who despise the most the opposing group... Listening experiments are the only personal way to learn how to listen, and anyway is the basis of psycho-acoustic...Not electrical design tools used in the wrong theoretical context...
The human ears is trained in nature recognition sound environment, timing transients are very important in this context and detected and interpreted by our highly non linear cochlea/brain tools... Then all our dacs for example specs sheets are based on wrong hearing theory reducing all hearing phenomenon to Fourrier method...... «Science is the history of science» Goethe
it is not me who say that but these 2 mathematical physicists : Jacob N. Oppenheim and Marcelo Magnasco of the Laboratory of Mathematical Physics at Rockefeller University have conducted experiments indicating that the human brain does not use the Fourier transform when resolving a cacophony of noise into individual sounds and voices. While the Gabor limit associated with the Fourier transform stipulates that you can’t simultaneously determine a sound’s frequency and duration, the 12 musicians subjected to Oppenheim and Magnasco’s battery of tests beat the limit by as much as a factor of 13. The Fourier transform cannot, therefore, fully explain the machinations of the human brain. "The actual algorithm employed by our brains is still shrouded in mystery," says Magnasco.
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@deludedaudiophile I like your addenda. |
@hilde45 , I think that video needs to be paraphrased. To me, here is how this subjective vs. objective boils down:
One group says I trust the science without realizing that there is no science that guarantees the accuracy of the underlying fundamental product, the music. The other group says I trust my ears without understanding but more importantly accepting the basic limitations of us humans. If neither group is willing to accept the fundamental flaws in their approach and learn from the other, then neither will move forward. |
To the point of specs, F-1 engine 1.6 ltr. displacement engine produces between 600-1,000 hp. Cannot find anything even near that kind of hp with 1.6 ltr. engine from any manufacturer. All about proper design and engineering. Very expensive design and engineering which throws the specs out the window. |
Listening to audio is a personal thing. I am under no illusion that what I am listening to is similar to any real performance. It is manufactured. I don't feel I need to experience exactly as intended, because as intended is just manufactured by another human just like me with their own preferences and feelings. I did have a room designed and built that would eliminate what I can only call flaws as I don't think those ever help my subjective enjoyment. Now I have a canvas on which I can paint the music I want. |
In the end, you buy equipment to impress yourself audibly, visually, and viscerally, within your set budget constraints. It is you that ultimately must be happy with the end result of components gathered and interconnected. To base a purchase soley on a measurement is ludicrous. A measurement does not always dictate how something will ultimately sound to one’s ears and in a specific room. You should listen, at all costs, to something before buying, although not easy in today’s world with so few brick and mortar establishments. Tastes, in both equipment, music, room furnishings, differ greatly. It’s good to be you and listen to what you want and through a piece of equipment that is titillating to your own ears. No one else is chewing your food for you. |
I paid an acoustic engineer to design and setup the acoustics in my room. He took a lot of measurements and made adjustments to finalize the result. It sounded better than anything I had previously. For most music and most of my moods it is great. There are times, though, more my mood than anything, where I use the AV processor and one of the ambience surround modes. It sounds more alive and I enjoy it. Other times it just sounds fake. My cheap headphones have never rocked. The moderately expensive ones, those rock. I recently purchased some IEMs on a whim that were measured for very very low distortion. If the measurement is accurate, the distortion is not that much higher than Sennheiser's stupidly expensive flagship. I have not heard that one, so I cannot make a comparison, but there is something sublime about the low distortion and perhaps it is the distortion without room reflections, but the proverbial "I am hearing things I never heard before" is happening in spades. |
I did the measurements thing for the first 20 years, then I wondered why my cheap a$$ headphones rocked and my system didn't. It was then I decided I wanted my system to please me not the scientists. I tune my system to give a pleasing performance, I care not one wit what it measures. |
"gear brand name tasting fetichists" and "alleged objective measuring tools fetichists" are only that : gear fetichist ot tool fetichist.... We must develop our listening abilities with a systematic CORRELATIVE set of listenings experiments between objective dispositions and devices and subjective evaluation this is called : acoustic and psycho-acoustic science... Opposing objective measures and subjective evaluation is child play...negating the importance of one over the other child play too...
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It is interesting to see both camps picking a topic like this as a hill to die on. I guess I’m of the belief that if something sounds good to my ears,it sounds good to my ears. To me this hobby is about reproducing music to my tastes. However,if someone likes to narrow gear down by measurements, I’m not paying their bills,they get to choose whichever they like. The way we hear things,is certainly open to interpretation. |