i am not a subjectivist nor an objectivist.....Because this is a confused division by a confusing crowd...
By the way i like prof balanced post above ....
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.
It is very important to not confuse 2 things here:
The engineering aspect of the relation Subjective/objective correlation...
The psycho-acoustic aspect of this correlation...
The fact that some piece of gear, for example an amplifier, can be designed in a very well controlled way, in relation to human perceptive characteristical abilities, has been very well advocated and explained here by atmasphere... He say that all aspect of human perceptive qualitative impressions can be theoretically related to some protocols in the designing process itself, then by a precise set of measures... I dont have any reason to doubt it...He is a very competent designer and he even said that Alas! this optimal set of measures that can be used for a rightful evaluation of a piece of gear is not always there.... I dont doubt that either...
Then if we pick a piece of gear it is useful to consult or buy from a designer who knows what he speak about.... But in most case the customer is in the obligation to pick by listenings because all optimal and possible measures that will guide the choice are not there or even not used...
Then picking a piece of gear is sometimes a listening experiment event because there is no other choice... And anyway those able to interpret the right set of ELECTRCAL measures are not always around...(but keep in mind that electrical measure are not acoustical measures)
Then in this case, attributing a quality to a piece of gear, is explanabable objectively by the designer or by the subjective impression of the customer, and the two can and could be correlated if the customer impression is not an illusion or a deceptive impression...
But all change in audio experience are not a "color" associated to a piece of gear, merely subjectively, or objectively, or by their correlation...
There exist also the psycho-acoustic aspect of the objective/subjective correlation....
When a recording engineer take a PERSPECTIVE on an acoustic musical event, he practise his ART with a set of trade-off choices which will be conveyed by the analog/digital chain of the audio system with the least possible distortion from this CHOSEN informed acoustic perspective....The gear system ONLY convey the chosen information to the speakers/room... there is not a UNIQUE original event, but as many that there is listeners in the Hall or microphones...
What do we have here?
We have a chosen acoustic perspective of a lived event conveyed by the gear, in a digital or in an analog form, but which will be TRANSLATED in another acoustic perspective which is a specific small room with his own acoustic set of conditions...
Then It is not a small change which is subjectively and objectively analysed and interpreted here like the change associated with a piece of gear , but an enormous set of possible acoustic choices and changes which will affect the acoustic translation of the recording event in the room and by the room acoustic complexities...
There is NO REPRODUCTION here, like high fidelity marketing trumpet it, there is an acoustic TRANSLATION....In your room also like for the recording engineer there is a trade -off set of choices which are related to your gear choices and your listening history and acoustic set of controls or the lack of....
Electrical engineering accuracy is not synonym of acoustic accuracy...
Sound transparency is an engineering concept which do not have the same meaning as acoustic transparency... like engineering electrical accuracy is not acoustic accuracy....
Then in this debate promoting blind test, which is only a single tool among all other psycho-acoustic tool to separate impressions in three groups: positive biases, negative biases, and illusion, blind test is not always practical in a single case and is not meaningful anyway in the general case... Why?
Because subjective impression and subjective impression in psycho-acoustic condition must be correlated at the end and not merely separated by a blind test ...
Then all this debate subjective/objective is generally superficial and confuse the engineering concepts of sound with the psycho-acoustical concept and the acoustical concept of sound....
In a word: there is no reproduction of sound at the end but an acoustical translation...
The original lived musical event does not exist ideally to be reproduced, it is an imperfect acoustic perspective chosen by a recording engineer waiting to be translated acoustically in your room...
The recording engineer has his TASTE AND TAKE on the event and you have your own ACOUSTIC TAKE AND TASTE in your small room...
Reducing this translation to a reproduction problem between two pieces of gear, a dac and an amplifier is BESIDE the main problem...
Any piece of gear must be well design so as to be able to reproduce a signal or translate it from analog to digital or vice versa in an accurate engineering way....
But your listenings experiments in your room are acoustical and psycho-acoustical experience....
In conclusion :
Every audiophile must learn OBJECTIVELY by basic acoustic to control his impressions...
Every audio designer must learn psycho-acoustic to understand human SUBJECTIVE impressions and learn the way to control them by his design ....
Confusing these two different perspective is arguing in the wind...And entertaining useless agressive arguments between gear fetichist and electrical measures zealots...