Why do some Objectivists fear Psychoacousitics?

Ethan Winer

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Objectivists are terrified at the prospect of a world that contains unexplained phenomena ... So I would sate that Objectivists fear psychoacoustics because 1. It is poorly understood 2. It relegates their "measurements" to less than 20 percent of the significant events that actually occur in perception ... Now if that isn't a great troll, I don't know what is.

Well I agree about the trolling part anyway. :D

Seriously, others already showed that science-minded folks actually embrace psychoacoustics rather than reject it. I refer to the frailty of hearing perception all the time in my posts, to explain why people believe that magic outlet covers and LP demagnetizers ad nauseum change the sound when clearly they do not.

IMO, the ones who are "terrified" are those who are highly vested in their current view. Whether actual financial investment, or just years of incorrect beliefs when challenged by scientific proof. There's also the "I want to believe" mentality, not unlike the appeal of TV shows like Celebrity Ghost Stories and the X-Files. These people prefer for things to remain unknown, and reject attempts to explain and quantify.

--Ethan
 

cjfrbw

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Ayn Rand was a nutcase.

P

The New Yorker had a fairly extensive article on Rand that I read last year. By all accounts, from childhood she suffered a forceful if semi delusional personality disorder. The Ayn Rand who stated that "reality should never be faked" was, in fact, an invented, fictitious persona.
What passed as her philosophy was cobbled, cribbed, derivative, and largely unoriginal. She clung to words like objectivism, rational, and reason rather like a drowning person grabs at pieces of drift wood hoping the pieces might fashion themselves into a boat, or as talismans that she hoped would infect and justify her world view.
What is most interesting about Ayn Rand is that she managed to generate a mythology from her personality disorder that allowed her to create compelling fiction. It is not unusual for poets and authors of fiction to create mythologies for the purpose of motivating and structuring their works. William Butler Yeats and William Blake would be examples. You could say that Rand's fiction is the fashion statement of her personality disorder.
However, there is a difference between effective, seductive literary devices and viable philosophy.
 

JackD201

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Well I agree about the trolling part anyway. :D

Seriously, others already showed that science-minded folks actually embrace psychoacoustics rather than reject it. I refer to the frailty of hearing perception all the time in my posts, to explain why people believe that magic outlet covers and LP demagnetizers ad nauseum change the sound when clearly they do not.

IMO, the ones who are "terrified" are those who are highly vested in their current view. Whether actual financial investment, or just years of incorrect beliefs when challenged by scientific proof. There's also the "I want to believe" mentality, not unlike the appeal of TV shows like Celebrity Ghost Stories and the X-Files. These people prefer for things to remain unknown, and reject attempts to explain and quantify.

--Ethan

In my opinion those are very broad strokes Ethan. The examples you cite dwell in the fringes. Personally, I use hospital grade outlets not for the supposed better sound but rather the sight of arcing is something I can never quite get used to. Never mind that they were designed so oxygen tents won't burst into flames. My point is that one need not nor should not condemn those that do because as in anything else, not all reasons in this hobby may be ultimately about sound.

I do agree that those that might fear this comparatively fledgling science rely on the early findings and selectively use portions of the same as crutches as I've stated earlier. However, those that lean more towards the subjectivism within this context, which may translate to people that "trust their ears", need not be so because of ego related issues alone. The trust in ones ears may come from years of continuing self education and training. As a recording engineer, I am certain that most of the time you yourself make decisions based on what sounds "right" or "true" without having to double check each and every parameter change with zoomed waveform analysis vs the raw mic feed. The same way that as an acoustician you go great lengths to cater as closely as possible to the clients requirements and corollary to that their tastes.

Also, personally I like mystery but again it does not mean the childlike curiosity for how things work is hobbled by this. In fact I think is the opposite. It is a sense of mystery that proves many a time to be that which feeds the need for further investigation that eventually leads to discovery. Paradoxically it is those that feel that the current paradigm is all encompassing , that are constrained by what morphs into dogmatic thinking.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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The New Yorker had a fairly extensive article on Rand that I read last year. By all accounts, from childhood she suffered a forceful if semi delusional personality disorder. The Ayn Rand who stated that "reality should never be faked" was, in fact, an invented, fictitious persona.
What passed as her philosophy was cobbled, cribbed, derivative, and largely unoriginal. She clung to words like objectivism, rational, and reason rather like a drowning person grabs at pieces of drift wood hoping the pieces might fashion themselves into a boat, or as talismans that she hoped would infect and justify her world view.
What is most interesting about Ayn Rand is that she managed to generate a mythology from her personality disorder that allowed her to create compelling fiction. It is not unusual for poets and authors of fiction to create mythologies for the purpose of motivating and structuring their works. William Butler Yeats and William Blake would be examples. You could say that Rand's fiction is the fashion statement of her personality disorder.
However, there is a difference between effective, seductive literary devices and viable philosophy.

Excellent analysis. I'd only add that the biggest problem with Rand's work and legacy is that she and her followers lost touch with the most important aspect of her work; that it was fiction.

P
 

Ethan Winer

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the sight of arcing is something I can never quite get used to.

I said outlet covers, not outlets. Though replacing AC outlets with the goal of improving sound quality is not sensible either IMO. If people put it the way you did, to ensure a solid connection, I'd have no problem. Not that I've ever seen arcing in any of my 60-cent Home Depot outlets. But a good outlet doesn't have to cost hundreds of dollars, and claims of cryo treating are even more ridiculous IMO.

I am certain that most of the time you yourself make decisions based on what sounds "right" or "true" without having to double check each and every parameter change with zoomed waveform analysis vs the raw mic feed.

Of course, but it's very rare that I'll get a sound I like and never change it later in the mixing process! Just as often something will sound good to me one day, lousy another day, then good again a week later. If I had changed AC outlets during that period I might be tempted to believe the AC outlets were responsible for the change. I'm sure this is the case for every single person who believes AC outlets change the sound! But they're wrong. It's their ears and perception that changed.

--Ethan
 

Mark (Basspig) Weiss

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Wow. It just boggles the mind, the sheer magnitude of ignorant, uninformed, opinions based on hearsay (and probably from Nat Branden's camp) that have been expressed here about Ayn Rand. As someone who met her several times during the early 60s, I too held those views until my first meeting her. My self-generated assumptions about her were all wrong.

This is a woman who saw all that she valued destroyed during the Bolshivek takeover.. her father owned a successful busines, which was siezed by the Communists. She made the only sensible choice, which was to leave the USSR. She worked a number of menial jobs when she first got here, including in wardrobe department at a movie studio at the time Cecille DeMille was directing. She started writing fiction soonafter and became famous for THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED (which predicted our awful state of affairs way back in 1957).

What Rand did was identify the laws of reality and find a way to apply them consistently. Philosophy, like physical science, is an exacting science, despite what so-called mystics and philosophical pundits claim. AS demonstrates that ideas lead to concrete results, a/k/a that if you evade the laws of reality, live your life as if A can sometimes be B, reality will respond in a predictable manner. Her philosophy teaches in part that "nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed". Political leaders failed to grasp this concept, over millenia of fallen dictatorships and socialist oligarchies.

What might be helpful is to actually READ her essays and non-fiction books and understand the concepts. Of course, there are minds so corrupted out there that you could state A is A and they would not accept it. Those are the minds I refuse to grant any of my time to. They are common among Imams and religious fanatics.

Mary Ann Rukavina, who is now married and last name change to Sures, has written an online diary of her years working for Ayn Rand. Mary Ann and I are aware of the way Ayn was, not the way her detractors paint her falsely. This is a good place to get to know who Ayn Rand really was:
http://facetsofaynrand.com/

Obviously, I am in the viper's nest, and will waste no time arguing with those who discredit Reason as a tool of cognition, in favor of some voodoo mystical "meaning" in life, but I could not let factually inaccurate information stand un-challenged.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Wow. It just boggles the mind, the sheer magnitude of ignorant, uninformed, opinions based on hearsay (and probably from Nat Branden's camp) that have been expressed here about Ayn Rand.

While I'd hardly think of one passing, and pretty clearly unserious ("nutcase") remark and two paragraphs, all in two posts as "a magnitude of ignorant, uninformed opinions," and I don't know Nat Branden, you're obviously a Rand devotee, and I meant no offense. Please accept my apology. I meant no offense and didn't mean to stir political controversy in an audiophile thread.

P
 

FrantzM

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Meanwhile it remains that Psychoacoustics as a real discipline would help further the reproduction of music in the Home. I personally lament the unfortunate curve taken by a good portion of the High End Audio Industry cottoning to the new fad some have termed Audio Relativism. There is no goal except whatever pleases a given or a group of individual fidelity and realism be damned... Several manufacturers are too pleased to oblige and we now, have more than ever I would think in High End History a vast numbers of gears whose only merit is to be expensive tone controls ... Some cables come to mind but also amps, preamps too
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Meanwhile it remains that Psychoacoustics as a real discipline would help further the reproduction of music in the Home. I personally lament the unfortunate curve taken by a good portion of the High End Audio Industry cottoning to the new fad some have termed Audio Relativism. There is no goal except whatever pleases a given or a group of individual fidelity and realism be damned... Several manufacturers are too pleased to oblige and we now, have more than ever I would think in High End History a vast numbers of gears whose only merit is to be expensive tone controls ... Some cables come to mind but also amps, preamps too

Audio Relativism. I like that. A better fit than subjectivism. I suspect, however, that it is a new name for a rather old fad.

P
 

JackD201

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Hi Frantz, it is well within the realm of possibility that the reason there are so many choices is that there is no universal consensus as to what sounds faithful and true. If that is indeed the case the proliferation could be attributed to the rise in opportunities. I'd say these opportunities are simply born out of the lack of satisfaction with what is easily and readily available. By this I'm not talking about the big audiophile brands but rather the mass market brands because even the biggest players owe their existence to this lack of satisfaction or outright dissatisfaction. I also put forward that since no piece in either the recording or reproduction chain is perfect then logically ALL pieces of equipment are tone controls whether we like it or not. So to me it's really about degrees here. Deviation from the mean. Psychoacoustics, as I understand it, can be the tool with which the mean itself is defined. As a science however it still takes must take into account the outliers. The fact that audiophiles, who within the larger context of the global audio market can be considered as outliers, disagree so much points in the direction that it is not a normal distribution.

Yet while new niches spring up everyday, there are signs of convergence. MC carts ring less and MM carts are getting more extended. Average loudspeaker sensitivity has gone from the low eighties to the high eighties despite wattage being cheaper than ever before. Conventional wisdom's average speaker cable gauge from no standard to 12 gauge and this may go larger. Solid State amps have gotten smoother and Tube amps more flexible under dynamic changes in speaker load. With a time machine, a mass market player like the Oppo would slay most any giant in 1988. The list goes on and on. Could it be that we are all just being impatient? Fads will rise and fall and the good products will stand the test of time. Maybe it is our responsibility to demand better performance but maybe we are not meant to be the final arbiters.
 

microstrip

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Psychoacoustics is a dangerous subject in audio. Subjective (listening) tests are much more time consuming and expensive to carry properly and validate than making measurements. You need many people. You need to have a good knowledge of statistics to create valid experiments and interpret the resulting data. It is easy to accept that a distortion figure 0.1% is better than .01%, but analyzing qui-square figures is not so easy. BTW, the people who promote challenges claiming for 100% certitude with a single person should study basic statistics and psychology before claiming they are proving anything.

Since our time in this planet is limited, as well as our resources, we have to combine both methods if we want to make real progress. Happily it has been done by the manufacturers – they have Audio Precision and listening rooms - and it is why audio is today better than 10 years ago.

It is curious that some rigid objectivists listen to MP3 and find it acceptable at the higher sampling rates. But they hate Psychoacoustics ...
 

terryj

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It is curious that some rigid objectivists listen to MP3 and find it acceptable at the higher sampling rates. But they hate Psychoacoustics ...

agreed with everything yopu said...until this.

did you fall for the thread title? did you read the thread? how did you arrive at this conclusion? Unless you meant subjectivist, ie a typo?
 

Ron Party

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Indeed Terry. By definition MP3 and psychoacoustics go hand in hand. Carl was admitedly trolling when he started this thread. It's OK, everyone gets a one free troll pass.;)
 

JackD201

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Makes me wonder if it wouldn't if preamp manufacturers had just left them in their products. And if they had, would it have quelled the need for tweaks in general.
 

microstrip

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Makes me wonder if it wouldn't if preamp manufacturers had just left them in their products. And if they had, would it have quelled the need for tweaks in general.
My speakers (Soundlab A1 PX) have separate bass, middle and treble controls. Once they are properly setup with the help of an analyzer, "tweaks" such as cables and mains purifiers are much more evident. If your system does not have resolution enough or the tonal balance is severely tilted there are no tweaks that can improve it.
 
Ron, I think you are entirely wrong is stating that subjectivists by definition reject the scientific method. I have spent a career applying the scientific method to political science where measurement is even more difficult than in audio. People lie about if and how they vote and government lie to obscure their policies and their impact.

Measurements, if valid, are wonderful. Measurements in audio, however, little correlate with what people hear and prefer.

As an undergraduate in EE I faced the insistence that Ohm's law all that needed to be considered. Any one with ears, however, knows that power cords sound different and that amps isolated from vibration sound quite different from those that vibrate.

Objectivists are not all knowing of what is going on in the world or universe. Engineers can make things that work, but scientists know we have much to learn.
 

still-one

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