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?

128x128snilf

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.

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...

Some like deludedaudiophile use the concept "accurate" and "noise" in a confused way

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.

 

The method by which scientist can study the way introduction of noise can help non linear detection system is called: stochastic resonance method...

HOW non linear detection ears/brain structured system can use noise in a way an ordinary electrical detection instrument could not?


I had to Google about 10 minutes to form an appropriate response as there were some items I was unsure of.

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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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

‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

 

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