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My take on subjective vs. objective

I’ve been thinking about these words lately and feel there is a disconnect with how these words are being used in audio forums and how I would normally use them. I think of subjective statements as statements of value judgement while objective statements are statements of material fact, whether true or false. "The cat is on the mat." That’s an objective statement. "It is good and proper for the cat to be on the mat." That’s a subjective statement. So if an audiophile declares that one cable sounds better than another, that is on its surface a subjective statement - a statement about a preference. But there is an objective statement hidden in it, and that is that the cables do indeed sound different, as measured objectively by the listener’s senses, presumably by their hearing alone. The argument comes in as to whether they can still perceive that difference if they don’t have any other information to work with other than their hearing. Can the ears alone distinguish the sound or is the sound perceived to be different only when other senses are involved? This argument is purely an objective one about what can actually be perceived by the ears alone or what requires other senses to be working in conjunction with the ears in order for the difference to be perceived.

So the people that get labeled "objectivist" are the ones who want to know what can be heard when other sensory data is not available. The ones labeled "subjectivist" are the ones that want to know what they can perceive as sounding different when they are fully informed about what kind of equipment they are listening to. These are both objectivist. One should be called hearing exclusive objectivist while the other is called fully sensory informed objectivist.

A similar situation in the visual would be to compare lengths of things by eye. If a person looks at a piece of dowel sitting on a table, and then looks at another piece of dowel nearby and declares that one dowel is longer than the other, that’s a perceptual measurement they have made by eye - an objective measurement. They could also subjectively declare one length to be better looking than the other. They could then put the dowels side by side to give the eyes a more direct perspective. It may be noticed that they seem identical in length when right next to each other, so they then measure them with a gage that repeatedly and consistently reveals that one dowel will fit into a slot a bit easier than the other, so that indicates that one is slightly longer than the other. But maybe it’s not the one that the observer thought was the longer one. Maybe one dowel weighs more than the other, so this gave the observer a sense that the heavier one must be longer. It’s still all objectivity here. All objectivity requires perception. Tools give us different ways to assist our perceptions and perhaps draw logical conclusions. If the person insists that the heavier one is longer visually even though it fits in the slot easier, they are making an objective statement that it looks longer, not that it actually is longer.

asctim
cdc
1,798 posts
 
cd318

Haha, very true. Have to pick where you will compromise.

Yes, I also always thought headphones were the closest to perfection until some killjoy came along and had to p*!#  in my Wheaties. Something about spatially, binaural not being realistic.

I thought you were going the end your "perfect speaker" description with the listener finding some fault and still being dissatisfied.

And now we find any box speaker is fatally flawed:

Mirage Omnipolar speaker design 2007

  Research proved that in a live musical environment, approximately 30% of what we hear is direct sound while 70% is reflected from walls, ceilings and floors and only reaches our ears a few milliseconds after the direct sound. The human brain uses direct sound for identification and to calculate location, but uses reflected sound to determine musicality and spaciousness, as well as direction. If this reflected sound arrives at our ears with inadequate high frequency content then the reproduced music is identified by the brain as artificial. Ian recognized that a speaker capable of recreating the correct direct to reflected ratio would therefore reproduce sound with far greater realism and faithfulness to the original instrument and environment.

 

It's a head game for sure. I ask myself all the time why do I enjoy my boombox at work? Never even give "sound quality" a thought. But dislike (somewhere between tolerate / listen through the audiophile smog to hate) my home stereo? Is it expectations based on price? Is it that a cheap, but well balanced, system beats an expensive one if something is off? Does the home stereo reveal too much or is interaction with the room a problem?

cd318
2,636 posts
 

@cdc

'Research proved that in a live musical environment, approximately 30% of what we hear is direct sound while 70% is reflected from walls, ceilings and floors and only reaches our ears a few milliseconds after the direct sound.

The human brain uses direct sound for identification and to calculate location, but uses reflected sound to determine musicality and spaciousness, as well as direction.'

 

Definitely something worth knowing.

This probably explains why the venue matters so much at concerts.

I wonder what the ratio is in most domestic arrangements?

I guess a lot must also depend upon the distance you're sat from your loudspeakers. 

 

"I ask myself all the time why do I enjoy my boombox at work? Never even give "sound quality" a thought. But dislike (somewhere between tolerate / listen through the audiophile smog to hate) my home stereo?

Is it expectations based on price?"

 

Yes, I'd say so. It's natural to expect something that costs many many times more to perform considerably better. That's the reason why I usually wait a while before watching highly rated new films or listening to '5 Star' reviewed albums.

Otherwise they're usually a disappointment. They're bound to be.

 

"Is it that a cheap, but well balanced, system beats an expensive one if something is off?"

 

Yes, always. Sometimes you can learn to hear through defects, mainly by focusing on strengths, but sometimes you just can't.

 

"Does the home stereo reveal too much or is interaction with the room a problem?"

 

Well, yes, resolution can be a double edged sword as anyone who's a fan of selfies might tell you. Apparently there are still loudspeakers out there that have the infamous BBC/Gundry dip around the 2kHz mark to deliberately soften the sound a little.

I've never had room problems, probably because I've never had speakers that could go down low enough, but I think it's also undeniable that some rooms are just better (more lively?) than others.

I can remember from my days of amateur radio how most studio microphones would improve the sound of the presenters voice, especially whilst they were sat in a tiny room.

None of them actually sounded like that in real life.

And no one sounds the same outdoors.

cdc
1,798 posts
 
cd318

 

Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions.

rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano
2,666 posts
 

Your post brings up a thought I’ve had for a long time.  Every poster here, of course, has his own view of what’s good or bad sounding. One person may have an extremely advanced system, another a fairly rudimentary one.  Yet, both speak to each other in the same forum as if they’re talking about the same thing.

Apples and oranges.

asctim OP
492 posts
 

@rvpiano

What defines an advanced system? Complexity? Cost? Measurements? Subjective sound quality as perceived by a select set of listeners? I tend to think of an advanced system as one that employs sophisticated techniques, such as more speakers, more drivers, electronic digital crossovers, perhaps a double bass array setup to eliminate lower bass room modes, or at least a distributed bass array of some kind with equalization. It may or may not sound good to everyone but it is certainly advanced in the sense that it couldn’t have been done with older technology. I’m really interested in things like AI upmixing to separate instruments into different channels, or cross talk elimination. I’ve heard crosstalk elimination and for me it’s an absolute improvement - at least on some recordings. The cross talk from a standard stereo configuration is an obvious flaw that gives the same kind of sound flaws always, with any two channel system that doesn’t eliminate it. We learn to hear past it but it’s way better if you don’t have to. Although I think some people have learned to love it and stereo just wouldn’t sound right to them without it. They've got a point that the recordings were mixed and mastered with the inevitable crosstalk in mind, but I've not heard properly implemented crosstalk elimination make anything sound worse to me. I think what happens is the crosstalk sets an upper limit of expectations on what a recording can sound like, which might be why I've found the most compelling recordings with crosstalk elimination to be the ones that weren't mixed at all - just recorded straight as stereo.  I’ve learned to hear past it most of the time. Trying to eliminate it is just too much of an inconvenience.

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