@prof
"...that comes across as a dogmatic statement "You Can’t Change Our Minds!" Do you really want to seem that inflexible? Isn’t being open minded a two way street? It often seems that people using a purely subjective ("Golden Ear") paradigm will castigate the "objectivist" for not being open to their claims, but will remain stubbornly opposed to being open to the objectivist side."
That’s just it, some people are more than ready to accept opinions ahead of scientific evidence. To them it doesn’t seem to matter whose subjective opinion it is, or whether there are even conflicting subjective opinions, only the ones that they want to read or hear.
You could call it an entirely subjective confirmation bias.
This subjectivist v objectivist debate is one of the oldest in audio but when did it all begin?
Perhaps someone with a good knowledge of audio journalism could help here? Was it something to do with Gordon J Holt and Harry Pearson, the 2 big names of US journalism that I’ve heard of?
I’ve read that in the early days UK reviews were mainly focused around measurements. At some point, like much else, the American influence crossed the Atlantic and the UK magazines quicky followed suit in promoting increasingly subjective reviews.
A situation that has persisted for decades and is only now being challenged by sites such as ASR, Erin’s Music Corner, Archimago’s Musings, Audioholics etc.
The likes of Ethan Winter and late great Peter Aczel made a concerted effort to restore the balance back towards an objective approach but their efforts met with considerable resistance, derision and even personal attacks.
Doesn’t this sound a little familiar now?
Why is this the case?
Dare I suggest it’s a simple matter of vested financial interests?
The subjectivists approach actively encourages consumers to spend, spend, spend ever increasingly large amounts of money on equipment and cabling.
Most of them usually include an ad hoc performance league masquerading as a buyer’s guide that always correlates with increasing prices.
Spend, spend, spend!
This buyers is regularly updated with ’new and better’ products as they become available for purchase and quite callously renders yesteryear’s highly rated products as ’old news’.
Everyone from the manufacturers, the dealers, and the journalists seems to be happy with this state of affairs. Few dare to challenge this unwritten dictat.
Why bite the hand that feeds you?
Everyone, that is, apart from a growing number of consumers who are beginning to ask a few questions and demand a little more proof of these claims.
And this is where the main issue seems to lie.
An increasing demand for evidence based reviews and recommendations will inevitably threaten the livelihood of some of those with vested financial interests.
Some will no doubt adapt and adopt a more science based approach but others will be prepared to fight to the death rather than renounce their views.
Especially when it means a loss of earnings and income.
History has many examples of folks willing to die for their beliefs, usually political or religious, rather than renounce them. However, the pursuit of money is another powerful driving force that also seems to be incredibly difficult to renounce.
Such are the ways of mankind.
