Audio Critique

[PeterA]

In reality, the "expertise" in the high-end is mostly measured by the success of the designer/manufacturer/dealer/writer in real audiophile world, not just in the very small WBF audiophile community or internet popularity methods.

I consider myself an amateur audiophile and find the WBF epithet shown under our nicks a funny exercise of administrative power ...

I agree with this Francisco, but I think it can be extended to individuals who have a lot of experience in the hobby with a lot of equipment and can analyze the system and figure out how to improve it and set it up properly for better sound. I include Jim Smith in that category.

What is best is a good one. Sometimes it’s only what is better.

 

[microstrip]

I agree with this Francisco, but I think it can be extended to individuals who have a lot of experience in the hobby with a lot of equipment and can analyze the system and figure out how to improve it and set it up properly for better sound. I include Jim Smith in that category.

This case in included in my post - Jim Smith is a successful audio writer, his book is a success case in the audiophile world - as far as I see in my copy it has been selling and spreading audio knowledge for 15 years.

For those who do not know the book - https://www.stereophile.com/reference/book_review_iget_better_soundi/index.html

 

[PeterA]

This case in included in my post - Jim Smith is a successful audio writer, his book is a success case in the audiophile world - as far as I see in my copy it has been selling and spreading audio knowledge for 15 years.

I missed the writer designation.

 

[the sound of Tao]

The sound of tao & Bonzo

you are trying to judge me (or my TAD system) not my ideas and this is off topic.

I have shared my ideas you can read my posts and if you have any answer to my claims please share here.

Amir I’d suggest I offered a clear outline of what constitutes validity in expertise in anything (including reviewing audio gear). That was the genuine driver in my posting. I believed I was offering a position of potential value to the thread. Especially since the idea of expert and non-expert seemed to be thrown around recklessly.

The vast majority of what I said in my posts specifically related to the nature of what I’d suggest forms expertise and your only takeaway from all that I wrote was that I was criticising your system choice.

In terms of the central ideas here I agree with Ked and read mostly a skimming over and a fairly broad and unoriginal take on a whole range of very familiar ideas and a fundamental recitation of David’s strategies for natural sound. Don’t get me wrong I’ve long appreciated David’s take on achieving a sound that reflects natural instruments. Just none of the zeal seemed novel or offer new or compelling content much beyond David.

Then there is the whole expressed need for reviewers to have a natural system as well as an accurate system… how is a natural system not an accurate system. The balancing duality to natural is actually artificial and admit I tend to think that’s more the point.

With respect a lot of fairly poorly unpacked reciting of all too familiar ground and a shotgun array of pellets full of David’s ideas.

Your position on audio critique is like those guys that have their giant epiphany about the importance of dialling in speakers and harp on endlessly about how they have ‘the truth’… as if none of us hadn’t considered much of that and worked on it for a long time. Sure there’s relevance in these things but it all seems untempered by any other perspective… if you’re not your kind of expert you’re by default a non-expert.

Plenty of enthusiastic preaching to the choir about experts and non experts but not much real new content or any reasoned evidencing to follow through with I’d simply suggest… it’s great your expressing your convictions on assessment techniques. I just don’t see the validation as following through on the assumptions.

 

[Al M.]

if you’re not your kind of expert you’re by default a non-expert.

That sums up a large part of the problem.

There is too much cliquish "my expert is better than your expert" going on, and if it's not "my natural sound", then it's un-natural sound.

 

[bonzo75]

That sums up a large part of the problem.

There is too much cliquish "my expert is better than your expert" going on

The problem I have with this expert issue is that they don't care about the actual expert. The expert is highlighted to justify own path without own effort. Like I follow him, he is God, so I am God II.

Might make more sense to stress test a few "experts" and in the process develop own data points. Or just say I can't put in the effort, I googled and followed somebody, instead of pretending my googling skills and online analysis is great, I found THE guy so now my approach rocks.

 

[the sound of Tao]

That sums up a large part of the problem.

There is too much cliquish "my expert is better than your expert" going on, and if it's not "my natural sound", then it's un-natural sound.

There is a modesty in the position that not all perception or perceptual modalities are the same but that difference doesn’t mean they are therefore by default invalid.

Everything we perceive is being tempered by the variability of individual previous experiences and our resultant expectation, if it weren’t we would be starting every moment like it’s our very first time.

Consolidation through expectation is a part of evolving our models of understanding. We are neither static nor blank canvasses… well not at our age at least

 

[the sound of Tao]

The problem I have with this expert issue is that they don't care about the actual expert. The expert is highlighted to justify own path without own effort. Like I follow him, he is God, so I am God II.

Might make more sense to stress test a few "experts" and in the process develop own data points. Or just say I can't put in the effort, I googled and followed somebody, instead of pretending my googling skills and online analysis is great, I found THE guy so now my approach rocks.

Reasonable doubt is an excellent thing as the relief valve to overabundant faith. Expertise comes from us testing things so it does makes sense that testing the experts also is completely the go.

 

[Rensselaer]

Mark, I do not think it is so bifurcated. The other day I helped set up a friends system. We did not get through the turntable but we were listening to digital CD player, Lamm SET, and high-efficiency vintage cone box speakers. Not horns, not vinyl.

The sound was incredible and very natural and real sounding. Nothing to do with the two camps you are setting up. Natural sound is not about vinyl and horns. It is an approach to a very particular type of sound that can be achieved in different ways. Like Amir says, it is about proper selection of components and set up in the room.

I have already sold, or am selling, every single LP I own that has had a digital source or processing (including my MoFi one steps) because they sound unreal, unemotional, soul-less on my system.

And don't say that improvements in high-definition digital audio has vastly improved the sound of CDs so that digital sounds like analogue now. See: Tell, S., & Vorlander, M. (2016); Comparison of listener performance in high-resolution audio and standard audio quality, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 64(6), 364-379), in this study "audiophiles" were no better than non-audiophiles in determining which tracks (blind listening test) were CD and which were high-definition, 50:50 guess results by both.

The difference is that people who like and listen to digital can not tell the difference. You listen for the dynamics, the etched digital sound, the stereo separation and zero noise floor and do not experience the discomfort when listening to the same that subjectivists feel.

 

[Al M.]

Reasonable doubt is an excellent thing… it is the relief valve to overabundant faith.

Indeed. It is also obvious to me that even among people, who profess to use unamplified live sound as reference, there is ample disagreement about what constitutes "natural sound" from a system. If you think you find yourself wanting to agree with another person just based on the idea that they have the same reference that you identify with, think twice before you actually do.

It is individual perception that matters, and relying on others' opinions only gets you so far. Better view any expert opinion as just one opinion among others (even though you may judge some opinions to be more informed than others), and test for yourself how it applies to your individual situation and tastes.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Indeed. It is also obvious to me that even among people, who profess to use unamplified live sound as reference, there is ample disagreement about what constitutes "natural sound" from a system. If you think you find yourself wanting to agree with another person just based on the idea that they have the same reference that you identify with, think twice before you actually do.

It is individual perception that matters, and relying on others' opinions only gets you so far. Better view any expert opinion as just one opinion among others (even though you may judge some opinions to be more informed than others), and test for yourself how it applies to your individual situation and tastes.

I do believe this variable perspective wholeheartedly… and if I’m wrong it is hardly life threatening at any rate. At our time of life we should mostly be joyfully revelling in what we are doing. I’m not that desperate to be right all the time any more. Lot of effort and little return… somebody will always out right you in the end.

 

[wil]

My limited experience matched your second paragraph (and continues much the same the more experience I obtain). Regardless of whether or not the OP wishes to discuss objective and subjective perceptions of sound quality in relation to audio critique (at any level), I feel it is essential to divide reviews along such lines in order for same to hold any validity. Example; I used to subscribe to Stereophile. I read with great interest product reviews. I would look at the measurements taken (which I didn't understand but thought they wouldn't be included if not important) and then try to relate those measurements with the outcome/conclusion of the review. What this taught me is that there is no relationship between measurements and sound...I would never be able to predict the sound quality of a product by first studying its' measurements. Only by listening to a device was I able to determine (for myself anyway) the sound quality, making me a subjective audiophile. Measurements, I guess, are for objective audiophiles.

A great deal of debates I have read on these pages seem to me to clearly identify who is an objective audiophile, and who subjective. Objective audiophiles argue the superiority of digital over analogue because of measurements; lower distortion, greater dynamics, better separation, lower noise floor, whereas the subjective audiophiles simply say "it doesn't sound real though". Same analogue played over low-powered SETs and high-sensitivity Horns for the subjectives, high-definition digital through mega-watt transistor amplifiers and low-efficiency speaker arrays for the objectives.

As long as there are two completely different listeners, there must be two completely different methods of reviews (listening vs measurements). Until that is sorted, reviewers will never get it right.

I don’t accept the above stated dichotomy of objective/digital. vs. subjective/analog.

Just another example, imho, of reducing the nuanced and complex to rigid and simplistic categories to fit one’s chosen side.

And why is it so important to reduce something like Audio to sides? — a micro example of a larger cultural problem ( this is not a political statement, btw moderators!)

 

[Al M.]

… somebody will always out right you in the end.

Good one!

 

[Al M.]

I don’t accept the above stated dichotomy of objective/digital. vs. subjective/analog.

Just another example, imho, of reducing the nuanced and complex to rigid and simplistic categories to fit one’s chosen side.

+1

 

[Rensselaer]

I don’t accept the above stated dichotomy of objective/digital. vs. subjective/analog.

Just another example, imho, of reducing the nuanced and complex to rigid and simplistic categories to fit one’s chosen side.

And why is it so important to reduce something like Audio to sides? — a micro example of a larger cultural problem ( this is not a political statement, btw moderators!)

I do not wish to reduce it to simplistic categories, only to find an example that, by its very high recurrence of argument rate should make manifest, that there is a real difference in what different experts/reviewers hear/like, what people find pleasing, and using that example makes it much easier for the expert/reviewer to recognise which group one belongs to.

As I have never been able to predict the better sounding of two similarly rated pieces of equipment by studying their measurements first (and I doubt there is anyone who can but will accept the word of any "objectivist" who claims they can), and can only judge performance by my impressions from actual listening, I would call myself (and those like me) subjectivists.

It is not trying to reduce anything other than confusion and arguments. If we can identify a set of characteristics (and the above is only a suggestion as being the most evident to me) and recognise our position in one or the other, we can preface our writing with such and discuss our points with those who perceive the audio world in the same way.

Or we could just defer to the expert opinion of he who has published the greatest numbers of papers/books and keep the arguments coming?

 

[PeterA]

Then there is the whole expressed need for reviewers to have a natural system as well as an accurate system… how is a natural system not an accurate system. The balancing duality to natural is actually artificial and admit I tend to think that’s more the point.

This is it interesting comment Graham. The notion of accuracy deserves its own discussion. I don’t want to get off topic here so might start a different thread. I agree the opposite of natural is artificial, but it’s not that simple when there are different degrees of natural sounding systems. Accuracy seems to be more of an absolute. I want to think about that a little bit more.

 

[Al M.]

As I have never been able to predict the better sounding of two similarly rated pieces of equipment by studying their measurements first (and I doubt there is anyone who can but will accept the word of any "objectivist" who claims they can), and can only judge performance by my impressions from actual listening, I would call myself (and those like me) subjectivists.

Same here. And as a subjectivist I can appreciate both analog (which I enjoy in friends' systems) and digital. In my own system I have digital only, which I thoroughly love and draw immense musical enjoyment from.

So yes, indeed you are reducing things to simplistic categories, as Wil said.

 

[PeterA]

I have already sold, or am selling, every single LP I own that has had a digital source or processing (including my MoFi one steps) because they sound unreal, unemotional, soul-less on my system.

And don't say that improvements in high-definition digital audio has vastly improved the sound of CDs so that digital sounds like analogue now. See: Tell, S., & Vorlander, M. (2016); Comparison of listener performance in high-resolution audio and standard audio quality, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 64(6), 364-379), in this study "audiophiles" were no better than non-audiophiles in determining which tracks (blind listening test) were CD and which were high-definition, 50:50 guess results by both.

The difference is that people who like and listen to digital can not tell the difference. You listen for the dynamics, the etched digital sound, the stereo separation and zero noise floor and do not experience the discomfort when listening to the same that subjectivists feel.

I understand the differences between digital and vinyl and I can usually hear the differences. CD player that we were using in the system the other day is 10-15 years old. Most people would dismiss it. I have made no claims about the latest and greatest digital sounding like vinyl or analog or the real thing. All I said was that we didn’t get around to setting up the turntable so we used his old CD player and that it sounded really good to both of us. It even sounded natural to us. The point is it does not need to be vinyl or horns to sound natural. It just needs to be well selected gear set up properly.

 

[Gregm]

I do not wish to reduce it to simplistic categories,

With you all the way

As I have never been able to predict the better sounding of two similarly rated pieces of equipment by studying their measurements first (and I doubt there is anyone who can but will accept the word of any "objectivist" who claims they can), and can only judge performance by my impressions from actual listening, I would call myself (and those like me) subjectivists.

Exactly!
Most of us here are not religiously / resolutely "ists" ; but, as many measurements don't correlate with what we hear, we end up being "subjectivists".

For the exact same reasons, I would qualify myself a "frustrated objectivist

I find it very frustrating that, when i hear a difference, I do not see it readily depicted in a measurement. This tells me that either ,
a) I am hearing things -- whereby further discussion is moot.
b) I am studying the right measurement

If b), then I cannot believe that in 2023 we cannot measure something that we can readily hear -- to put it simply: gimme a break!

All DACs should send the same, because the best among those circuits measure vanishing low distortion. Regardless of what you hear.
It won't wash, sorry.
In the end, it may be worth resorting to measuring the sonic result, i.e. the sound coming from the loudspeakers; that is what we perceive, is it not?

 

[Al M.]

If b), then I cannot believe that in 2023 we cannot measure something that we can readily hear -- to put it simply: gimme a break!

Audio measurement science is far behind psychoacoustics.

But don't worry, science will always be "behind": The James Webb Space Telescope is only functional since a year, and it opened a brand-new chapter in cosmology science.

2023? Is that a magic number of sorts? In 100 years scientists will laugh about our scientific understanding of the world.

A bit of patience with the acquisition of knowledge is advised.