Great discussion. My compliments to Ethan, Jack and Ken. At this point I'd add the following:
So when I see the words true or truth with regards to audio fidelity, the sheer absolutism is something I regard as either cock-eyed optimism at best or at worst the very self delusion you attribute to audiophiles and yes, homeopathic adherents. Regardless of the methods you employed in choosing your equipment or in preparing your listening environment, the bottom line is that in the end you chose a system that works best for you.
This paragraph addresses both aspects of the issues under discussion. In reverse order, preference is, well, preference and no one is suggesting one
should prefer one system over another, at least in the abstract. I know Ethan has repeated this in many of his posts. So, is this then the end of the discussion? If it is, it has many, many consequences, both intended and unintended, for the entire industry, both pro and consumer. Arguably, we might as well shut down this site because all we are discussing here are personal preferences:
“I like blondes.”
“Well I like redheads.”
Great. Is there anything left to discuss?
What IF one is inclined to take this a step further or, sort of peel the layers of this everything is a flavor choice point of view, one to which BTW I do subscribe?
If we go further, then IMO we have to ask if there are personal or professional goals in mind which, the attainment (or the attempt to attain) thereof, help to understand those personal preferences and, sometimes, help people to make more informed and intelligent decisions about their own systems.
It is here that I’m compelled to insert part of Tom Mallin’s excellent post in another thread he started here at WBF regarding the use of EQ:
The problem with this "sounds better to you" approach is that it is not transportable. Not transportable from system to system, listener to listener, track to track, mood to mood, or sometimes not even from moment to moment. Change something--anything--about the system, the set up, the room, or the listener and all your careful choices may go out the window. For some careful listeners who are actually more interested in at least sometimes being able to just listen to music rather than fiddle with adjusting the equalization, this is enough to cause them to give up on trying to apply electronic EQ to their home listening.
Others, seeing this peril, settle on single or very few target equalization curves which they or some trusted expert in their lives have developed and more or less just "set it and forget it." When I use electronic EQ at all, I tend to fall into this category.
Still, the question remains as to how do you know when you are making progress? Some folks think they just know when a music system is more life-like. They claim to have the sound of an orchestra playing in their head. Audio designers Bob Carver (Carver, Sunfire) and Arnie Nudell (Infinity, Genesis) have claimed this about themselves. For such folks, accurate musical reproduction is like some judges talk about pornography: they know it when they see/hear it. My interjection here: what a great line!
Then there are those who just know the way they like their music to sound and they apply equalization of a fairly heavy-handed nature to make sure that most everything they play will have that sonic flavor--say, for example, lots of bass and lots of high frequency "air." There are potentially as many flavors of "sounds good to me" as there are people setting up electronically equalized home audio systems.
Then there are those who want "flat response" from their systems and are willing to live with the unvarnished, naked truth about any program material, even if they have to grit their teeth to bear it. They seek "the truth" about the recording and are willing to listen through any unpleasantness to hear that truth. They also seek maximum differentiation in the sound of various recordings, believing that the more the sound of recordings vary, the more truthful their system must be in reproducing exactly what is on the recording.
Another type of EQ user is the one who wants the sound of music, tonally speaking, to mimic to the greatest possible extent, what one would hear at a live unamplified concert in a good hall. I tend to fall more into this category than any of the others, I think. One way to be able to move your system sound toward such a goal is to attend a lot of such concerts so that you have a decent aural memory of what various instruments really sound like. That's me.
So Ethan’s idea of audio fidelity is, as Jack correctly described, Ethan’s personal preference. But again, if we come to the end of the discussion by concluding that is just might be cock-eyed optimism, then we’re just back to discussing blondes versus brunettes.
I mean, look, we may not be there yet. We may never be there. But for at least some of us, that does not mean we throw the baby out with the bath water.
Some of us are indeed optimists and are hopeful that at all levels, from recording to playback, we can move closer to the ideal. As such, for some of us, our understanding of things audio, our personal preferences, and our purchasing decisions are guided by that ideal and, yes, the scientific method.
One final point I’d interject is the references by both Jack and Ken to Dr. Olive’s research. First, I strongly disagree with Jack’s conclusion about the human ear and brain:
Even Sean has said that final testing on their products are done by a panel trained listeners. His works billion dollar company with perhaps the largest R&D for audio. I think this shows that the human ear and brain can do things a mic and a program can not.
The conclusion does not in any way follow from the premise.
Second, Ken quotes Dr. Olive as follows:
I've posted this, before, and it bears repeating: there is no standard when it comes to music mastering. To quote Sean Olive, commenting on Toole's Circle of Confusion, "Since the playback chain and room through which recordings are monitored are not standardized, the quality of recordings remains highly variable."
Sean concludes "As Toole points out ...., the key in breaking the circle of confusion lies in the hands of the professional audio industry where the art is created. A meaningful standard that defined the quality and calibration of the loudspeaker and room would improve the quality and consistency of recordings. The same standard could then be applied to the playback of the recording in the consumer’s home or automobile".
Until that time, compromise, based upon user preference, is the order of the day, and not some mythical absolute.
If Dr. Olive was participating in this thread, IMO he would agree that everyone is indeed making decisions based on personal preference BUT is there any doubt about which way his personal preferences lie? Is there any doubt about why he and his employer continue to engage in scientific research? Is there any doubt about whether he is ready to succumb to those compromises? These are, of course, rhetorical questions but, if there is any doubt, then for example ask him what he thinks about listening to music with only 2 channels.