objective vs. subjective rabbit hole

@snilf

As somewhat of a philosophy fan myself...

I think your initial post started with a bit of conceptual muddying. Right here:

Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective preference, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices?

The muddiness starts with your referring to subjective "preference" rather than "impression."

The tension between the "subjective" and "objective" in audio, that is the tension that tends to make it look like some people are divided in to different camps - e.g. "subjectivist/objectivist," comes from an epistemic divide.

This epistemic divide is over the question "How do we evaluate the performance of audio gear?"

To generalize, the objectivist takes a more engineering/scientific stance to this type of knowledge. This combines an appeal to measurable characteristics (important insofar as they have been fairly reliably correlated to SUBJECTIVE impressions), with a central acknowledgement of the problem that humans are quite fallible and prone to bias effects. (Hence, listening tests controlling for bias effects become relevant).

So when it comes to our perception, "A seems to sound different/better than B," the objectivist will consider that with respect to the plausibility against what is known in technical terms, and look for technically plausible explanations, and he will hold subjective impressions, his own included, as suspect to the degree that such claims are more technically implausible. (And hence blind testing becomes ever more relevant).

In contrast:

The subjectivist holds his Subjective Impressions as "inviolable." He trusts his senses, his perception, to deliver accurate, reliable results, as the final arbiter of the "truth of the matter." "If I routinely hear a difference between A and B, then there IS a sonic difference between A and B" and if objective evidence doesn’t support this, well so much the worse for that "evidence." It must be wrong because my perception is right.

It’s pretty obvious why this epistemic divide would produce clashes. (Very much like atheists debating against faith-based beliefs).

But the key point here is that it would be clearer and more to the point is that referring fo "subjective preference" doesn’t get at this issue. Because "preference" tends to presume there IS a difference to "prefer." Virtually no "objectivist oriented audiophile" I know object to anyone having different preferences. They are more concerned about claims to KNOWLEDGE based on subjective IMPRESSIONS.

So if a subjectivist says "I preferred AC cable A over AC cable B in my system" the objectivist has no problem with preference, only with an objective claim hidden within, which is that cable A actually DOES sound different from B.

All too often these conversations get confused when subjectivists appeal to "preference" in which they are clearly begging the question that the objectivist actually cares about.

Therefore, your original question would have been more on point to ask something like:

Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective IMPRESSIONS, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices?

(I would hope it’s not necessary to add this caveat, but just in case: The discussion of people being "objectivist" or "subjectivist" is a generalization to clarify the points that tend to come in to tension. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a broad range of attitudes among audiophiles, who can be anywhere on a spectrum between the two epistemic positions. Even a single audiophile may be more "subjectivist" about some of his purchases, more "objectivist" about others...or his attitude may change on a whim from one time to the next).

+10  @prof and well stated.

Thanks, prof (from one to another, apparently) for taking my OP seriously. However, I suppose I buried what I’d meant to be a fairly simple point in too much philosophical baggage, and confused even a careful reader like you. You suggest that my original question was "muddied" by misusing the term "subjective preference" when what I really meant was "subjective impression." Accordingly, you restate my question as really being this: "Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective IMPRESSIONS, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices?"

But no, that is not what I meant to ask. OF COURSE subjective "impressions" are inviolable. As Kant writes, although this insight is more commonly associated with Nietzsche: "In a representation of the senses —as containing no judgments whatsoever—there is also no error." Subjective impressions are just that; they make no claim, by themselves, to being "right" or "better" or, well, to being anything other than what the subject himself or herself experiences. But that is indisputable, and not what I was asking about.

What I’d like to know is how those who deny the validity or value of measurements, of "objective" criteria of some kind, and who (reasonably) appeal to the experience of listening to music on audio equipment in place of looking at graphs and other data, would wish to recommend this or that component, this or that recording or playback technology, or indeed, anything else of an evaluative nature. How, briefly stated, do you mean to persuade me that your "subjective impression" is such that the judgments you make because of it (your "subjective preferences") are judgments I should be persuaded are reasonable, well-informed, and worth taking seriously?

How, that is, is your subjective preference to be defended to another subjective mind without appeal to objective criteria like measurements? You don’t have to defend your "subjective impressions"; they’re yours, they can’t be mine, and they make no evaluative claims. As Nietzsche tweaked the Kantian lesson, "The senses don’t lie at all; it’s what we make of the senses that introduces truth and lies."

But I’m sorry I brought this whole thing up. Someone above sagely remarked that the reason he spends time on this site is to share enthusiasms. I guess I’m just hung up on wanting enthusiasms to be shared with sufficient passion and cogency that I might be persuaded, by reading your post, to share yours. There may not be "objective facts" in the experience of "sound quality" other than those that can be measured, and the consensus is that measurement geekhood is a matter of barking up the wrong tree. Sure, that makes sense to me; if I wanted objective evidence, I would go to the measurement gurus for it. But I would appreciate more articulate expressions of enthusiasm than are usually found here.

@snilf :

Someone above sagely remarked that the reason he spends time on this site is to share enthusiasms. I guess I’m just hung up on wanting enthusiasms to be shared with sufficient passion and cogency

Subjective impressions are just that; they make no claim, by themselves, to being "right" or "better" or, well, to being anything other than what the subject himself or herself experiences.

I hope not, but I think you are clearly missing the point the objective measurement activists make in these audio forums. And militantly so. In their perfect world, no one will be allowed to share any subjective impressions, unless backed by “science”, in other words, by either independently certified by third party panels blind tests, or, measurements. If not, everything is null and void, basically hallucinations.

I am copying below the comment from the master of them all these folks, who is currently posting under a 13th username in Audiogon. This sums it all, their psyche.

I just stated rather clearly that until you either prove beyond reasonable doubt that the claims are really heard, or provide some relevant scientific basis for differences to be heard, then the posts are simply self indulgent.

@snilf

Ah I see.

I was thrown by your talking about the contrast one finds in forums like this between the appeal to the objective vs the subjective, and that you felt you were identifying a "crux" of the matter. My view is that this is not the "crux" of the contrast between the two approaches (it is the epistemic divide I argued for).

However, if I understand your clarification, we are to presume (at least for sake of argument) those subjective preferences that are veridical - that true sonic differences were heard, resulting in the impressions and preferences.

So for instance if we take two speakers that measure quite differently, with audible consequences for their character, then we can imagine a subjective approach vetting the design simply based on one’s subjective impression, vs an objective approach vetting the design on measurements, data etc.

I still think this needs some conceptual clarity. If we are ONLY talking about "preference" then, yeah, so what if you like X. Doesn’t mean I’ll like X. That’s kind of obvious and I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is really the "crux" of any matter here. Preferences differ, we all know that - I don’t think anyone takes mere preference as informative about how gear performs. The exchanges that actually seek to be INFORMATIVE here, including from "subjectivists," are an exchange of subjective IMPRESSIONS and descriptions of gear. So I have to presume we are talking about the more interesting question of whether purely subjective IMPRESSIONS or descriptions - "I liked X speaker because it has THESE characteristics...." can be informative.

Ok, then, as someone with a foot in both worlds I’ll attempt an answer.

I’m an "objectivist" in the epistemic sense I described earlier. I do not take my subjective impressions to be the absolute authority, delivering unvarnished Truth about the performance of audio gear. On the other hand, I sometimes don’t care that much about measurements and prefer ultimately to hear a component (speakers especially) for myself. To be consistent I scale my claims to the evidence I can present. If I think I hear differences between two different speaker designs, the plausibility that I’m actually hearing different sonic characteristics is very high, so my suspicion of my subjective impressions won’t be undercutting.

If I think I hear a difference between, say, a tube amp and a solid state amp, that too is technically plausible...though not as sure (depending on the amp designs) as with the speakers. Hence I scale my confidence (and any claims) downward. If I think I hear a sonic difference between 2 well designed solid state amps, on technical grounds (given how low distortion would be with each amp), I’d scale my confidence level in my impression, and any claims I made based on that impression, well down (fully understanding any skepticism of the claims based soley on my subjective impression).

So I know how to play nice with the "objectivists" (which I often mingle with over on the ASR forum, for example). HOWEVER, I do find that the objectivist approach can start to become too dry, too reductive. Everything comes to us through subjectivity, and much of human interaction involves our attempt at describing "what it’s like," and we are often successful enough in this to arrive at useful intersubjective agreement.

When I listen to music through a sound system the amount of subjective details are so rich, they just aren’t adequately described or conscribed by something like "speaker has 3dB boost at 1k" or whatever. That’s a technical description...but a 3dB boost at 1K "sounds like" something - It changes the subjective experience, the sonic impression, of voices, certain instruments etc. It’s that "sounds like" character I’m interested in, and I love to exchange subjective impressions on "what things sound like."

So I place high value in exchanging notes with other audiophiles regarding our subjective impressions, and on (well written) subjective reviews. (Whereas these are much disparaged as unreliable or simply made up b.s. and imagination, by the "objectivists" on ASR).

Ok, so having said all that: I can’t necessarily tell YOU what YOU will accept as informative from my subjective descriptions. But I can tell you what I can get from careful subjective descriptions.

Over the years I’ve come to note how I respond to certain sonic characteristics - e.g. I seek a sense of "density" in the sonic images, of solid air-moving mass. I seek a sense of "organic warmth" where appropriate - voices sounding like flesh and blood, the wooden instruments having that recognizable woody timbre, reeds sounding "reedy" brass "brassy" as I recall those things. A "disappearing" act for the speaker with expansive soundstaging and precise imaging. A sense of presence and texture - the subtle texture that makes a bongo or bowed instrument sound "right there" rather than something encased in glazed amber, removed from me. Etc.

When I read a subjective review, or read the report of a well-spoken audiophile, and see that they notice and care about some of the same things I do...that they seem to "hear like me, care about what I care about," that makes me sit up and take notice.

And if for THEM the gear is ticking those boxes, that in of itself may be enough to make me feel it’s worth seeking out an audition. My confidence level increases once I’ve heard some products that these audiophiles have described, and found that, yes, the product DID have the salient characteristics I was looking for, as was described in the review. Paying attention like this has led me to some very satisfying gear, including purchases. (E.g. Michael Fremer’s original review of the Conrad Johnson Premier 12 amps I own is so bang on, in terms of describing what I hear, it’s eerie. I was also led to the Audio Physic Virgos early on via his review, which also sounded just as he described).

Another for-instance is having read Art Dudley on the Devore Fidelity O-series speakers. Some of the characteristics he cares about, and described hearing in the Devores matched some of what I was seeking. Several other reviews were consistent with Art’s. When I sought out the Devore speakers they did indeed have JUST the qualities described by Art, qualities I found immensely attractive. (In this case, a rich, full sound, that was also vivid and smooth in upper frequencies with immediacy and texture, along with a sense of dynamic ease an "life energy" to music through those speakers).

Another example for me are the Joseph Audio speakers. They don’t sound like the Devore speakers, but they do other things that I also love. In particular, a combination of clarity and relaxed warmth, a purity of tone that sounds incredibly grain-free, revealing the exactness of instrumental timbre. These exact qualities were described in virtually every Joseph Audio Pulsar (and Perspective) review I could find. The reviewers almost to a one NAILED the sonic descriptions of "how these speakers sound." And in that sense I find the reviews informative and useful.

I used to write reviews a long time ago and the most gratifying aspect was how many people wrote to me that they heard the item under review and that I’d described "exactly what it sounded like" to them. So the fact I have found sonic descriptions from some other audiophiles accurate, and some have found my own descriptions accurate to what they hear, gave me some optimism that purely subjective descriptions could be informative and of some use.

So, speaking to your challenge:  how can I convince you that I might have something informative to tell you simply based on my own subjective impressions and preferences? I think it’s up to you to make that connection. For instance, you could go through some of my thread where I do nutshell impressions of lots of speakers (as well as extensive impressions) and see if they seem to match anything you have heard. If so, you might start to grant some credence to my descriptions of gear you haven’t yet heard.

Here’s my thread: