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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
gregm
3,409 posts
 

@snilf 

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?

Very good question, one that applies just as well to (classical) music reviews, etc, so let me reverse it:

I would be persuaded your judgments are worth taking seriously if I knew you to be consistent, and I knew you to be comparing to a known and shared yardstick (say, live music), and I knew some of your listening traits (are you thorough - are you spontaneous, do you prefer baroque, classic, romantic... combination thereof, do you like to simulate reality in your room or are you after reproducing what's on the medium... etc).

Your judgment will then lead me to extrapolate my own preferences and approximate whether the device (or system, or performance, for that matter) in question is one I might like -- or not... regardless of whether you ultimately liked it; if you are consistent in your judgements and I "know" you, your informed opinion is always valuable whether or not we always agree or disagree.

 

A brief point on measurements: surely no-one disputes that when it comes to speakers, FR measurements, FFT, etc are useful; these easily correlate with what we actually hear. Regards

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

We are the ancestors, the makers of machines, machines that can exist under circumstances we can not. One day they will rule the universe and like billions of species before us we will become extinct. 

deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

@mijostyn - pretty much a given that we will evolve to a human/machine hybrid. I don't see any other way for us to progress.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,193 posts
 

 

We are the ancestors, the makers of machines, machines that can exist under circumstances we can not. One day they will rule the universe and like billions of species before us we will become extinct.

I dont think so....i dont like Yuval Noah Harari philosophy at all...

Humans are spirit not only conscious machine....We are rooted in more than one uinverse...A conscious machine is rooted in only one universe...And A. I. is not rooted at all in a universe but create his own artificial corner in a universe...These distinctions correspond to precise  MATHEMATICAL distinctions  by the way not my impressions...

And evolving in a machine/hybrid cage is not a progress at all...

Even a conscious machine, which is not to be confused with the actual A.I. which is not conscious, even a conscious machine by definition of what is a conscious machine, and i proposed a scientist, the only one on earth that give a definition of a concious machine in another thread, even by this first definition of a conscious machine, we can see WHY this conscious machine will be prisoner and captive in ONE UNIVERSE... Human spirit is not...

I will not explain here save if you want an answer... I dont like to be insulted...i like to discuss...

An A.I. work with bits and Q-bits and statistical mathematical learning... Conscious machine as defined for the first time by Anirban Bandyopadhyay do not.operate like any Turing machine improved by quantum computation..They need another language invented by Anirvan and described by him and his team...This new language reproduce the brain/body/cosmos language... This was even anticipated by a great mathematician the late Charles Muses before Anirban idea in his book about the chronotopology of time...

https://www.amazon.ca/-/fr/Charles-Muses/dp/157898727X

@mijostyn - pretty much a given that we will evolve to a human/machine hybrid. I don’t see any other way for us to progress.

snilf's avatar
snilf OP
213 posts
 

gregm: agreed. I think. The uncertainty concerns what "consistency" would mean here. Am I "thorough"? Yes, I hope so. "Spontaneous"? Sure—at least when I'm not too concerned with being "thorough." Do I prefer baroque, classical, romantic? Yes! But I'll throw in some classic rock, too, and I'm listening to Tool's "Fear Inoculum" a lot these days (mesmerizing played loud on a good system). Do I seek to "simulate reality" in my room, or rather to "reproduce what's on the medium"? Again, it depends. Those on this site who insist on "live performance" as the Original, the thing in itself that needs to be accurately represented, will have trouble convincing me that this is either really possible or even desirable when the original utilized microphones and electric instruments through amplifiers in imperfect noisy spaces. But even concerts of acoustic music cannot really be simulated very closely when the ensemble is large (say, a symphony orchestra) and the venue grand (say, the Musikverein). Solo piano, or cello (my wife plays the former, I the latter): yes, then I want my system to sound like the instruments do in my music room.

All of which is to say, I suppose, that I "agree" with you to the extent that what you really seem to value in someone else's opinion is that it be expressed well. Isn't that the bottom line for any kind of performance, in writing or in notes?

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