But often does not last even a 2 hour race. Different goals.
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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@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. |
@deludedaudiophile I like your addenda. |
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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