objective vs. subjective rabbit hole

We never listen to a SINGLE component...

We listen to a chain of events on different scale...

Then the set of measures which can make good design sound good exist yes, i never contested that, but nobody listen to an amplifier disconnected from a room /house/ system and without his own ears biases...

Then .....

The matter under discussion here is the objective/subjective rabbit hole...

It is a rabbit hole when subjectivist and objectivist are alone each one on their side...Not so much when we try to understand why two equal measured design components can be identified different indeed by listening alone, it is then a psycho-acoustic problem not a mere electronical problem...

It can be deceptive illusion yes, or it can be a more subtle perception linked to other factors than the measured design itself , which factors that this well measured design dont encompass or dont control... Than this question is way more complex than your simplistic alternatives yes or no, which is a challenge you tailor made to subjectivist hard core audiophiles here to put them in a corner...But i am not one of them...Neither a measuring zealots negating hearing experiments value .... Measuring the right things is way more complex that usually think anyway but being a scientist you know that already and better than me...

 

I understand that you dont like my observations but they are related to the matter of this thread anyway...

But i agree about my too numerous use of many words and i apologize.... But it is an another matter...

Stop to reduce psycho-acoustic problems to tool design or to amplifier design only... 😁😊

 

My deepest respect for you....In spite of my  annoying posts...

 

More paragraphs. More ignoring the singular issue which is not even in the least bit complex. Either the two equal measuring components can be identified as different through listening alone or not. Stop complicating a ham sandwich. This is not a philosophical question

 

 

Wow. Although I am a philosophy professor, and I have started "philosophical" discussions on this site before, I didn’t intend this one to be. "deludedaudiophile" is not deluded about this: all I was suggesting is that, if a forum like this exists to share informed opinions about the quality of gear (and I think that is its main purpose), then those opinions should be "informed" by more than just personal preference. They should be supported by "objective" "facts." The quotation marks are made necessary because of comments from mahgister (as usual), teo_audio ("the OP asked [for] it"), and several others. If you come here just to vent spleen or enthuse about your enthusiasm, fine; do that. But if you’re going to advocate for some audio technology, whether it be a brand, vinyl vs. digital, tubes vs. solid state, or whatever, I am open minded enough to be convincable. To convince me, however, you will have to make an argument of some kind. That is going to appeal to some set of values we hold in common as rational beings with bodies. These sorts of things are what I meant by "objective."

Of course, the objective is really just what a plurality of subjects agree about, as teo_audio was, I think, trying to say. We don’t experience the world itself, we experience a certain kind of sense input from the world which we process in our brains in a certain way. Different sorts of animals will experience the "same" reality differently. But there are, of course, features of our experiencing mechanism that we all share in common, if we are humans. That's why we all agree that it's "true" that 2+3=5 and that a straight line is the shortest path between two points. That shared reality is what we call "objective." It's really more like subjectively universal.

FWIW, and to placate mahgister, let me quote his beloved Goethe once more (I’m copying this from a previous thread that was deliberately "philosophical"): Goethe: "...it is possible to say that every attentive glance which we cast on the world is an act of thoerizing.... Theorizing is inherent in all human experience, and the highest intellectual achievement...would be to comprehend that everything factual is already theory." Goethe’s Faust ends with these great lines, which also conclude Mahler’s Eighth Symphony: "Alles vergängliche / Ist nur ein Gleichnis." Untranslatable, but basically the same idea expressed in prose in the words I just quoted—so, something like "Everything that passes / Is but a symbol [or parable]."

First, do not confuse my posts with teo-audio...Answer each one of us separetely we are not a GROUP save in your head perhaps...

Second, when Goethe was speaking about "every glance is a theorizing act" remember that he spoke about a totally grounded incarnated act from the onlooker BODY and MIND united not from a theorizing position outside the world...Goethe is an embodied mind philosopher BEFORE this philosophical position exist in science ( he read Spinoza and like it more than Kant)...I only insisted in my post about this embodied mind position of Goethe , which do not negate that every glance is a theorizing act but pointed to his body grounded origin ... It is the meaning of this deep maxim of Goethe : "history of science is science"... This is phenomenology before Husserl...Any theorizing act must be grounded in history and in the body....

 

 

Third if you teach philosophy you know how to read? no?

 

This is my post and this is yours side by side ... I say the samething as you in different words...

my post :

«

The external part of consciousness is our own body, the internal part of our consciouness appear to us or is reflected as the external world through our body....Think about colors and sound sensation and perception and judgement...

Objectivity is not an individual thought experiment "of a monkey in a meat body" but first and last a COLLECTIVE thought experiment...

It is the reason why science need, democray, freedom, and education to replenish itself from individual freedom and creativity...

If not, science will be impossible task...Objectivity is not an "illusion" it is a "meaning" focusing intentionality operated by a consciousness...Behind objectivity there is also an ETHICAL challenge...

Science is in no way reducible to technology...»

 

your post :

We don’t experience the world itself, we experience a certain kind of sense input from the world which we process in our brains in a certain way. Different sorts of animals will experience the "same" reality differently. But there are, of course, features of our experiencing mechanism that we all share in common, if we are humans. That’s why we all agree that it’s "true" that 2+3=5 and that a straight line is the shortest path between two points. That shared reality is what we call "objective." It’s really more like subjectively universal.

My post in no way contradict yours...

Then why attacking me with NO ARGUMENT save amalgamating my post with another poster ? my post is a correction and an answer to teo_audio post, which correction go in the same direction as you... Then why mixing me with teo-audio in your rant?

If you dont like me say i dont like you... But dont twist my argumentation linking it to another poster perspective , it is ridiculous...And dont try to use Goethe against me you will loose the argument...

Be ethical ...

I adress each poster individually and specifically... Try the same...

 

 

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?

Now i will answer to your asking question as OP...in very few words because you dont like my post it seems... 😊😊

Read about psycho-acoustic, and you will discover the middle ground position, the deeper one that you are failing to see and read Henri Bortoft books on Goethe if you want to understand Goethe and his link to the actual deep debates in psycho-acoustic science ...

Explaining it will be too long post to be appreciated here .... 😊😊😊😊

 

In simpler word: you cannot assess and describe a change in sound if you dont know what acoustical cues are and which acoustical factors are at play in the change...Electronical design measures so good they are to give us good basic gear are not enough to give us good sound...We need psycho-acoustic education and a mimimal controls over the system/room/ears related parameters...I called that listenings experiments...They implied objective measures and objective disposition of content in the room and subjective learning training experiments...

Speaking of "colors" without knowing what "timbre" is in psycho-acoustic, being an objectivist or a subjectivist nevermind which one, will not help....

Colors are not something deceptive, or the result of an  unbalanced piece of gear   added to a flat neutral more well  designed other piece of gear,  they are usual perceived phenomena called "timbre" perception in a room...The gear system is there, the more  neutral  possible,  to  acoustically translate the recorded acoustic information from the lived event to your uncontrolled or controlled room...

 

 

all I was suggesting is that, if a forum like this exists to share informed opinions about the quality of gear (and I think that is its main purpose), then those opinions should be "informed" by more than just personal preference. They should be supported by "objective" "facts."

Interesting suggestion @snilf, but the reality of this forum is that folks will post whatever they choose and even if there were an expectation to support subjective opinions with objective facts, those facts would be chosen by the individual posters resulting in debates about the authenticity, validity, and/or applicability of the supporting facts - bringing us right back to where we are now, regardless of philosophical musings.