Objectivist or Subjectivist? Give Me a Break
- Thread starter Jeff Fritz
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Hello Atmasphere
Same here on the local dealers. You almost have to know someone who has a system to really listen to one these days. When I was a kid I could ride my bike to at least 2 dealers Designatron and Harvy's Sound. They used to lets us hang out and listen to music, fun down to earth guys. I purchased my first real stereo using money I saved from my paper route and my first real job. I was what 16 at the time.
I had so much fun with that rig! Fun Times!
Rob
The sad thing is that while the gentrificaton of hifi is not responsible for its near demise (that would be the transformation of the listening experience into a portable 24/7 model), it is standing firmly in the way of any possible comeback. If that kid could even find a hifi store in his neighborhood today, his paper route money wouldn't buy him big feet for a turntable. A whole system? That would take a second mortgage on his father's house. There is no "entry level" anymore, and little in the levels that do exist justifies their costs.
My first system, bought at deep discount from the store I was working in at the time, was a Thorens, an HK integrated and a pair of Altec Lansing Valencias. It is very easy, in today's "high-end," to get the same level of technology and no better sound while spending tens of thousands of dollars. No need to wonder why the young find other things to entertain themsevles.
Tim
Objectivity or/and subjectivity; we all need a reference by which we can assess accurately our evaluations. ...Both in measurements from the most up-to-date tools, and our set of ears, which lose its true value with age. ...In a balanced foundation.
And that 'reference' is the one we're accustomed to, the one that we listen to most frequently at home (hardware & software).
...Can it be something else?
And change the room's furniture and everything has to be re-evaluated anew. ...In both aspects of objectivity and subjectivity.
And that 'reference' is the one we're accustomed to, the one that we listen to most frequently at home (hardware & software).
...Can it be something else?
And change the room's furniture and everything has to be re-evaluated anew. ...In both aspects of objectivity and subjectivity.
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Tim,
Unhappily no. I remember that Naim systems were often associated with Linn sources and electronics, and that later Naim entered the source and speaker market with their own products. Their CD players are known for their very good performance in many audiophile circles - some people use them in systems using other brands. But for me Naim is mostly a closed system. As far as I remember they now manufacture their own active speakers and active crossovers.
Just frequency response, THD, IMD and signal to noise ratio figures.
I accept all the "fooling" theory, but prefer the risk of analyzing and scrutinizing others opinions, weighting them with my experience, since the "measurement camp" does not present anything that we can use to evaluate sound quality of sources and electronics - many of them they just say they should sound all the same if designed competently.
Oh well. My experience is shallow, to say the least. One amp and pre, quite a few years ago. Hardly worth mentioning, really. But I did frequent a couple of British boards for awhile where Naim was discussed with some frequency and I don't ever recall anyone mentioning any design characteristics that would create any obvious incompatibilities with most hifi. Skeptic that I am, I assumed that closed system thing was just a sales strategy like the power supply upgrades.
Tim
THey didn't use RCAs and XLRs. They had their own harness thing going using if I'm not mistaken their own impedance matching scheme. Gimmick to lock you in or something with actual benefits? No idea. Bottom line is without some sort of adapter you couldn't connect them to anything non-Naim even if you wanted to. Again, If I'm not mistaken they started adding standard connections in recent years.
I see the word SHOULD used a lot and I think that the science really does support that. HOWEVER, there's a world of difference between SHOULD and DOES.
If there's anything that irks me it's the over-reaching of some "objectivists" that elevate their small scale experiment conclusions to statements of absolute fact. Relativity is still a Theory but man some guys talk as if their findings are Laws already. Get some humility and use the language of real scientists I say. Leave some room for heaven's sake. It was only this year that the friggin Ampere got it's own value instead of a derived one. There's always more to know and discover.
While it is true that no one experiment can ever prove a universal negative, and in fact nothing except exhaustive testing of everyone can demonstrate a universal negative, and even then only for when each person took the test, there is in fact a very strong probabilistic weight that can be calculated and assigned to many repeated tests IF AND ONLY IF those tests are well run, with positive controls (as well as negative) and so on.
As to "theory", you parrot a basic, and mistaken idea of science. Science has accepted theories, no more. "fact" is not what science determines, it determines the best available theory.
As to the theory of Relativity, you would appear to be promoting the idea that there is something wrong with that. If you wish to win that argument, you will need to overcome some substantial evidence. What was your point there?
It is true that some theories are very nearly laws, in that they are well accepted, heavily tested, and found accurate. When such laws are revised, it is nearly always by addition, i.e. adding some understanding, in other words that the theory was incomplete, as opposed to wrong.
So, now that we've straightened out what science actually does, what was your objection again.
J-J if you would actually read what I wrote closely. It is the LANGUAGE I object too. Conclusions must be qualified. Every scientist in every field does this and that is the way it should be. Unfortunately, what we do see in forums is people that do say that everything there is to be known is known dismissing observations outright. Sure many or even most of these may be imagined but there is always the probability that some are not. The significance of these statistical outliers is another story. These may or may not be relevant to a particular topic but that is not the point. My point is simple. Unless you can not account for all variables, the conclusion must acknowledge the scope and limitations
On a test bench measuring two different wires, one might get the same measurements. Great. They SHOULD sound the same. I've got absolutely no problem with that. Put the two wires in a different environment however and they could sound different couldn't they. Put them in a RFI polluted environment like the condo I used to live in and one might have you listening to AM radio and the other one dead silent. In a low RFI environment you can say both are competently designed. They pass signal with little degradation. They work. In a RFI rich environment one could say that the one acting like an antenna is incompetently designed. But can it be said that it is really incompetently designed or competently designed for a limited range of use?
How do I know? I didn't need to test two different cables. I use the same one. First alone in all its generic beauty and one with some ugly foil around it. Lots of AM, little AM. Changed the cable to a well shielded but still not expensive cable, No AM. That is not even in JND territory these are OBVIOUS differences.
Remember when I joked about 100% confidence? Look. You know nothing about me. My degree is in Marketing Management and my specialization was Market Research and Behavioral Science. So what If I dealt with non-audio studies. I've run a whole lot of DBTs (food products), FGDs (real estate) and many other tests including qualitative studies (politics) some for a couple for multinational corporations. What I have never done is forget that the results are estimates. Did I ever say corn syrup and refined sugar tasted exactly the same given a formula? No. I did say that for a significant number of the population they would not be able to tell the difference. That is a far cry from two formulas tasting the same! Outliers did exist all that tells us though is change the formula depending on which sweetener is cheaper at a particular time and the majority of customers will still like it. The number of outliers is too small to make any market impact.
So please quit the condescending "I am a scientist you are not" thing.
On a test bench measuring two different wires, one might get the same measurements. Great. They SHOULD sound the same. I've got absolutely no problem with that. Put the two wires in a different environment however and they could sound different couldn't they. Put them in a RFI polluted environment like the condo I used to live in and one might have you listening to AM radio and the other one dead silent. In a low RFI environment you can say both are competently designed. They pass signal with little degradation. They work. In a RFI rich environment one could say that the one acting like an antenna is incompetently designed. But can it be said that it is really incompetently designed or competently designed for a limited range of use?
How do I know? I didn't need to test two different cables. I use the same one. First alone in all its generic beauty and one with some ugly foil around it. Lots of AM, little AM. Changed the cable to a well shielded but still not expensive cable, No AM. That is not even in JND territory these are OBVIOUS differences.
Remember when I joked about 100% confidence? Look. You know nothing about me. My degree is in Marketing Management and my specialization was Market Research and Behavioral Science. So what If I dealt with non-audio studies. I've run a whole lot of DBTs (food products), FGDs (real estate) and many other tests including qualitative studies (politics) some for a couple for multinational corporations. What I have never done is forget that the results are estimates. Did I ever say corn syrup and refined sugar tasted exactly the same given a formula? No. I did say that for a significant number of the population they would not be able to tell the difference. That is a far cry from two formulas tasting the same! Outliers did exist all that tells us though is change the formula depending on which sweetener is cheaper at a particular time and the majority of customers will still like it. The number of outliers is too small to make any market impact.
So please quit the condescending "I am a scientist you are not" thing.
Well regarding objectivist/measurements/hearing.
Here is a good AES conference presentation from the UK's National Physical Laboratory (set the standard for measurements in the UK and in many ways similar to others such as NIST - used both for their research tools-software in the past for some projects).
Discusses their background to begin with and then from 5min onwards goes into detail objective interests; covers aspects that further modelling is required regarding the ear and behaviour of air/molecules/waves, further work on accoustic optic scanning and interraction for speaker cabinets/drivers,etc.
http://www.aes-media.org/sections/uk/meetings/AESUK_lecture_1205.mp3
Point being this is objective science explaining how developments and understanding are still improving with regards to science studies/testing/measurement and critically modelling in many areas of audio science, it is far from static and has context to a lot of what has been said so far in this thread - IMO of course.
Cheers
Orb
Here is a good AES conference presentation from the UK's National Physical Laboratory (set the standard for measurements in the UK and in many ways similar to others such as NIST - used both for their research tools-software in the past for some projects).
Discusses their background to begin with and then from 5min onwards goes into detail objective interests; covers aspects that further modelling is required regarding the ear and behaviour of air/molecules/waves, further work on accoustic optic scanning and interraction for speaker cabinets/drivers,etc.
http://www.aes-media.org/sections/uk/meetings/AESUK_lecture_1205.mp3
Point being this is objective science explaining how developments and understanding are still improving with regards to science studies/testing/measurement and critically modelling in many areas of audio science, it is far from static and has context to a lot of what has been said so far in this thread - IMO of course.
Cheers
Orb
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I have to say, the 'only a theory' concept should be very squarely put to bed. The fact that any scientific theorem is inherently subject to verification doesn't make it putative. A theory is our best way of defining the scientific evidence at this time. If something better fits that evidence that it replaces previous theoretical model, it does so on the basis of a lot of testing.
The difficulty is that the word 'theory' has come to represent something close to 'educated guess' in the public domain, and victim to a heck of a lot of abuse as a result.
Unfortunately for those of us still passionate about getting the best from our music through superior audio firepower, the overarching scientific model doesn't offer much wiggle room. There is the possibility that the findings high-end audiophiles get are more robust than the naysayers claim, and that we'll have the science to back that up from auditory neuroscience, but that's the audio equivalent of shouting "where's my hoverboard?"
Thing is, we don't know. It could be that audiophiles are outliers, or have trained themselves to be the SONAR operators of music. Or it might just be we are all engaged in some kind of elaborate science fiction plot. It's whether that science fiction is Star Trek predicting cell-phones and iPads, or a 1950s B-movie about radioactive monsters from the year 5000. The best I can say is 'I think I'm on the right track', even if that track is a long way beyond what we are scientifically capable of hearing, under the existing scientific model. But ultimately 'I think I'm on the right track' is all anyone can say.
And please, please don't ask for 'proof', either way. Proof is for mathematics and whiskey bottles. The best we get is 'strong correlation'. And given audio is at best an applied science ('science in the service of art' again), even 'strong correlation' is a bit of a reach.
The difficulty is that the word 'theory' has come to represent something close to 'educated guess' in the public domain, and victim to a heck of a lot of abuse as a result.
Unfortunately for those of us still passionate about getting the best from our music through superior audio firepower, the overarching scientific model doesn't offer much wiggle room. There is the possibility that the findings high-end audiophiles get are more robust than the naysayers claim, and that we'll have the science to back that up from auditory neuroscience, but that's the audio equivalent of shouting "where's my hoverboard?"
Thing is, we don't know. It could be that audiophiles are outliers, or have trained themselves to be the SONAR operators of music. Or it might just be we are all engaged in some kind of elaborate science fiction plot. It's whether that science fiction is Star Trek predicting cell-phones and iPads, or a 1950s B-movie about radioactive monsters from the year 5000. The best I can say is 'I think I'm on the right track', even if that track is a long way beyond what we are scientifically capable of hearing, under the existing scientific model. But ultimately 'I think I'm on the right track' is all anyone can say.
And please, please don't ask for 'proof', either way. Proof is for mathematics and whiskey bottles. The best we get is 'strong correlation'. And given audio is at best an applied science ('science in the service of art' again), even 'strong correlation' is a bit of a reach.
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You said it better than I did Alan. Facts (measured) may not change but Theories can. When one treats his explanation (theory) as an incontrovertible description (law) THAT is what bugs me.
Not quite the reaction I expected to what I said, but OK.
Personally, I think both sides of the debate could do with a bit of a reality check. The subjective side should remember that not everything is audible. The objective side forgets that in the world of buying things, human nature will tend to trump even the most ineluctable brute fact if it contradicts prima facie findings.
Just to put some real-world information on this thread from an EE & well respected DAC designer, John Westlake. His little snippet from his experience & the measurements that follow are hopefully enlightening to the question about "classical audio measurements"
This answer was given in response to a poster who said (and reflects the opinion of many on audio forums, I imagine), "?However, if THD is say 0.001%, then it really doesn't matter how it's constituted since it will all be inaudible."
This answer was given in response to a poster who said (and reflects the opinion of many on audio forums, I imagine), "?However, if THD is say 0.001%, then it really doesn't matter how it's constituted since it will all be inaudible."
Of course the same poster responded to JohnW's post with the classic "Just because you can measure it, doesn't mean you can hear it and that's the fundamental mistake many make."
Although one can easily agree with this statement because it is an easy to understand sound-bite, much like "competently designed" - when further analysed this answer leads to the further question, "so state what measurements are/are not audible" or for the second sound-bite "define competently designed"
Although one can easily agree with this statement because it is an easy to understand sound-bite, much like "competently designed" - when further analysed this answer leads to the further question, "so state what measurements are/are not audible" or for the second sound-bite "define competently designed"
^^ I know I've been harping about the effects of odd ordered harmonic distortion for a long time. If that THD figure contained a significant percentage of odd orders (the kind of thing that contributes to brightness and harshness) then that "small" change would have been easily audible.
Instead of describing the harmonic structure of the distortion, I wish we could just say "I prefer/don't like an amp with flattened peaks", or "I prefer/don't like an amp with crossover distortion" because, presumably, that is what we're talking about - a transfer function that is nonlinear and gives rise to harmonics (on a single note, only, otherwise it's IMD). A description of the transfer function would be much more direct.
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