What are we objectivists missing?

It seems to escape people that in acoustic and psycho-acoustic, separating perceptive subjectivity and material objective conditions and measure make no sense at all...

It seems to escape some people that we dont listen to the gear, but to the gear/house/room/ speakers relation... Acoustic material dispositions and concepts being the first and last with psycho-acoustic factors to consider...Not the electronic design...

Incredibly some seems to not understand that and prefer to be charcterized by their obsession with their beloved gear branded name or against it, with a measuring tool and a blind test...

Many dont seems to understand that the only way to learn to listen is studying music and/or acoustic...

Picking 10 amplifiers or 100, and comparing them is ridiculous if someone pretend to know audio because of that...

it is more important to know how to embed the gear mechanically, acoustically and electrically than buying many amplifiers or upgrading......

The relation between subjectivity and objectivity is anyway ALWAYS an ongoing dynamical LEARNING  correlative process...

@erik_squires ...I experience that same (wrote 'sane' 1st, but applicable..*L*) with my omnis' if I'm in a 'surround' situation....HTF is expected, and I like to play with it as I'm able....

It would seem as if that could have a handle one could grip with ongoing digital advances....but the 'trad crowd' will freak over that.... ;)

@djones51

I think the word "impartial" does better work than "objective."

I like what you said here:

Let’s say you’re a restaurant critic. There may be certain foods that you subjectively dislike—ones that are just not to your taste. But when critiquing dishes, you must leave your subjective tastes aside and be objective about what you eat—making objective judgments about things like how it’s cooked and seasoned and how the ingredients work together. Even if you’re served a dish that you subjectively don’t like, it’s your job to objectively assess its quality.

One of the niggling things about scientific experimentation, is that it always involves a selection of which data to pay attention to and how to weight that data. Those aspects of scientific procedure are not written in the "book of nature." Such selection and weighting come back to the purpose of the experiment — what one wants to accomplish. And that's a valuational question. 

One of the great things about science is the corroboration process. No one can get away with the partiality we decry around here because there is a procedure to describe the experiment's objectives, control variables, etc. In other words, to make sure that everyone has aligned what counts as "the" data, valid results, and relevant facts.

Other than these ways of operating, there is nothing more we can do to check our results because we don't have an extra-human access to reality. But this has gotten us to the moon, etc., so there's not much to worry about.

One last point, pertinent to another post. Because listening is about the reception of meaningful sound, the idea that we have machine to measure what we hear misses the point.

Someone could know (and hear) all the words in a poem and yet be quite unskilled in interpreting what it could mean. That's one reason this debate is somewhat wooly and wild -- the "meaning" factor is unaddressed by measurement science.

We hear bass but we listen Beethoven...

But with the help of physical acoustic and psycho-acoustic principles we can learn how to "listen" to acoustic concept in a "musical" way and not only in an acoustical way: timbre, imaging, LEV/ASW ratio, dynamic..

And we can learn how to "hear" Beethoven too in the right acoustic conditions and not only listen to him...

We can distinguish music and sound but we cannot separate them in speech and in music..

The meaning level is not over the physical here but permeate it...

My audio room is my brain and my brain is all along my audio room.. . A chord is internal and an external event like a Klein bottle through my 2 ears...

Many times, measurements in isolation, in the laboratory, miss the multitude of variables at play in the real world.  

For example, measuring a speaker in an anechoic chamber is far from real-world.  People do not actually use speakers in an anechoic chamber.  Speakers interact with the rest of the world, including the quirks of the electronics driving them, the room, and especially the listeners' ears.   Thus, "cabinet resonance" in the real world is not necessarily a bad thing if it interacts well with the total surrounding environment, just like cabinet resonance in an electric guitar is not necessarily a bad thing... Speakers, particularly, are the chief resonators combined with room and individual ear resonances.  To write off a speaker because it "resonates" is overlooking the fact that the universe resonates; it's the overall interaction that matters, the environment matters.  Stereos do not exist in abstract space; in use, they interact with the real world.

Likewise, amplifiers have their quirks, their individuality... and there's laboratory, and there's real-world.  But even in lab, there will be measurable differences, but which measurements translate and how they translate to my ears or yours is an entirely other question.  Plus, we all have subjective preferences as to sound ... ears and minds differ.  

Bringing me to my last point: some have said "your room is the most important component"... but I disagree.  Your EARS combined with your mind and personality is the most important component-team.  Ears matter; case in point, high frequency loss due to simple aging, loud noises, etc. etc.  but even without "loss" we all have different hearing profiles from the get-go, so a "perfectly measured" amplifier for example may sound worse than a "treble skewed" amplifier to my imperfect ears.  Likewise, to my ears, room, speakers, habits, purposes, and preferences, I may prefer a lusher sound profile rather than a "laboratory clinically perfectly neutral" profile.  Then, toss in the fact that mind and personality can be educated, and preferences can change, and purposes can change, and ears can change... laboratory measurements really cannot reflect all these real-world considerations.

It seems to me that (other than ears...) speakers are the most personal no matter how they measure, although measurements may help explain WHY I like one speaker over another - ah, the treble measures bright, nice!  helps compensate for my ear's dip in sensitivity up there -  then amps, and very lastly cables.

Measurements are a start, though, for sure.  But all those electronics still have to interact with your quirky room, and your own ears and mind are the ultimate endpoints.

Finally, there's this: folks: get your ears checked -- some of the most amazing pieces of audio equipment are the very recent, like in the last two years, excellent customizable hearing aids; yep, that's right!  Phonak Audeo Paradise and Widex Moment come to mind; micro-technology at its finest.  Short of laser eye surgery for the ears, they may be the most significant piece of tech you can add to the chain.