What objectivists and subjectivists can learn from each other
- Thread starter Keith_W
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What's this?!?!? An objectivist arguing that most DBT's are flawed and have invalid results?!?!? Given that I conduct DBT's as part of my job, I am quite familiar with what statistical significance means. And I have to agree with you 100% - nearly all DBT's I have seen in audio are too small to produce statistically significant results. It is refreshing to finally meet someone who isn't as blinkered and obstinate as the rest of them. You, sir, are to be congratulated.
Let me put it this way. Whoever who designs a SET amp has to believe that what they hear with their own ears trumps what the amplifier measures on the test bench. Otherwise, they wouldn't design a SET amplifier in the first place. They know full well that it is going to distort, and it is going to distort badly. If that isn't the definition of a subjectivist - what is?
What the designer of an SET amp is aware of are the limitations of the devices and the device has distortion that is easily tolerated by many when used properly.
It is not just measurements but understanding WHAT to measure. SOme distortion is more harmful some distortion isn't bothersome. Designing is understanding the tradeoff and making the comprimises that have the least effect of the sound.
Disingenous argument you are making
Not quite as disengenuous as the one you're making:
I haven't seen any blind testing on CD/DVD players, or DACs. But I have read Meyer and Moran. Pretty interesting stuff, but not at all suprising, given the science at the foundation of digital audio. Can there still be a difference? Sure. But what those many participants heard, or didn't hear, is only shocking if you've never A/B'd hi res and redbook files with your expectations disengated yourself. I assume your Yamaha receiver comment refers to the infamous "Do All Amps Sound the Same?" Stereo Review test/article from more than a decade ago. Another very interesting report. But a thoughtful objectivist, not needing to paint himself as a cartoon whose disagreement is easily dismissed, will understand that those, and any tests that have not been inconsistently repeated (variations on methodology) with consistent results, while interesting, are not reason to believe what you're implying.
Tim
Could be the definition of an engineer who understands his target market as well as he understands the data. Or it could be a guy who truly likes SET's distortions. But he'll still have to take off the subjectivist's hat and put on the one that belongs to the engineer inside of him to get that product to hit anything close to consistent performance from unit to unit. If they were all manufactured and voiced subjectively, by ear, they'd be as variable as the mood of the maker on any given day.
Tim
Right. So you are arguing that the guy who designs the SET amp is an objectivist, but the guy who buys the amp is a subjectivist.
Kind of like the Reverend is an atheist but the parishioners are Christian?
Kind of like the Reverend is an atheist but the parishioners are Christian?
There's also marketing. I'm sure that's the motivation behind high-res audio like DVD-A and SACD (other than multi-channel). They don't sound better than CDs, but corporate is looking for a new revenue stream. So the grunts in engineering gladly comply. Said grunts are still expert engineers, and may in fact be laughing together over lunch.
--Ethan
I'm arguing that no matter how much of a subjectivist he is in his listening preferences, he has to objectively understand how his equipment and the individual components that make up his equipment, are performing, to design and manufacture anything consistent and reliable.
Tim
This would more believable if there were any marketing push whatsoever behind either of these hi-res formats, but actually if anything whatever demand there is for hi-res digital seems to be coming from the audiophile community, and interesting the industry in releasing more appears to be an exercise in futility.
IMHO, one of the reasons that this thread is flawed, and people complain they are not learning from it, is because it started without a proper definition of subjectivist and objectivist. Please read how F.Toole states the problem (but to know one of the possible solutions, you have to read the book "Sound Reproduction")
Audio—sound reproduction—engages both the emotions and the intellect. Understanding the process is challenging because it embraces domains with enormous contrasts: human perceptions in their manifold dimensions and technology with its own system of devices, functions, and performance descriptors. The subjective side is notable for its complexity, flexibility, adaptability, and occasional capriciousness. The technical side is characterized by the near absolute reproducibility of the devices, the stability of their performance over time, and the reliability of their measured parameters. The interface of these two cultures has met with mixed success over the years. Both sides seek excellence in the final subjective experience, but there are fundamental differences in philosophy, metrics, languages, and the economic and emotional attachments to the results.
How can one type exist without the other?
Audio—sound reproduction—engages both the emotions and the intellect. Understanding the process is challenging because it embraces domains with enormous contrasts: human perceptions in their manifold dimensions and technology with its own system of devices, functions, and performance descriptors. The subjective side is notable for its complexity, flexibility, adaptability, and occasional capriciousness. The technical side is characterized by the near absolute reproducibility of the devices, the stability of their performance over time, and the reliability of their measured parameters. The interface of these two cultures has met with mixed success over the years. Both sides seek excellence in the final subjective experience, but there are fundamental differences in philosophy, metrics, languages, and the economic and emotional attachments to the results.
How can one type exist without the other?
Disingenous argument you are making
Do objectivists believe SACD sounds superior to RBCD and MP3? Double blind tests show they are indistinguishable. What about my turntable - was that designed by some guy who thought that digital sounds better than vinyl? And my valve amp - must be some guy who thought that he would try his hand at that even though he goes to bed every night believing that solid state amps are better? Perhaps the Halcro designers actually use a Yamaha receiver at home because they know that double blind tests show that all amps sound the same? SET amplifiers are universally derided by objectivists. Who designs those?
If you believe the blind tests - you would be using a $100 DVD player into a Yamaha receiver that you found in a dump, powering the best speakers you could afford to put together. I know at least one person who is doing this.
Who is this strawman being continually set up? (set, geddit??
)When I first saw the thread title, I thought 'what a good topic!', meaning that it would be a discussion on that very matter. You know, have an adult rational chat and find out where we could 'come together' as it were (I'm a softy at heart).
But the tone quickly became apparent in the first few lines. It did not take long for me to be 'welcomed to ignore' which is, I beleive, the correct technical phrase on forums
Ps Keith, I don't use a yamaha receiver......
It is hard to talk to someone who uses definitions completely different to the norm...(all) objectivists use cd, (all) objectivists use ss.
What is particularly ironic when using such personal definitions as this is that those choices of what gear is used by 'objectivists' are based on listening and preference (the very heart of the subjectivist creed), which not only destroys the beginning strawman setup of the thread (that we don't listen), yet is in itself a refutation of the subjectivist position. Still, at least he is biploar on the subject..half and half, a shandy if you will. (A shandy is half beer and half lemonde, a drink).
Anyway, the vinyl having to be designed by subjectivists not onjectivists (cause it's vinly see). Why is it that in my very limnited reading about it, the caliburn seemingly trumpets engineering priciples as it's mark of distinction? Surely that is the hallmark of engineers at work?
It could be argued (if you were an arguing type of person) that IF previously all turntables are designed by subjectivists (it's vinyl see) that by application of 'proper' engineering to the field progress was made.
But I am not an arguing type of person so I will only think that in my head.
Alternatively, all that talk of superior engineering is marketing speak which would be an interesting twist in audio marketing, data and facts instead of fluffy words. Hmm, unless it IS just fluffy words...
Maybe get onto some of the more objective based forums so you can more properly judge the position? (seein as how you are inclined to make broad sweeping statements)
Audio asylum might not quite give you the background you need.
You mean they use measurements on the bench? Why, if as you say they would then go on to ignore them? If they did not use them or ignore them then would that not make them a subjectivist?
If they used measurements, would that not make them an objectivist? If they used measurements, then would that not give them an insight into the working of the design and a means of evaluating whatever measurement/technical issue they were looking at?
This has only come about because of your own peculiar and particular definition of what makes a subjectivist or objectivist. One that no-one else to my knowledge has even conceived much less agrees with.
I msu correct one of the definitions above and one being oput forward by Keith. That subjectivists listen (we don't remember) and 'trust their ears'. Well bluntly put, they don't. When those pesky ears tell them things that are different from the religious beliefs that is.
Do a quick poll on this forum, and guage the percentages of subs (got sick of writing the full words, from now on it is subs and obs) willing to participate on a properly set up dbt. (go some small way to remedying the lack of numbers to reach better and more far reaching conclusions).
Well, I know how much I am willing to wager.
It could be done now, but the "boffins" are not jumping through the hoops sufficiently to put it all together. The trick is to test an audio system as a complete unit: with digital input you have 100% known source; run it through to the speakers, with the highest quality instrumentation mic picking up the direct sound. A/D that, and then run DSP, computer analysis of the output vs. input. This can compensate for all the relatively irrelevant factors, like phase shifts, and give very precise data on what's being lost in the sound.
Yes, the mic and following A/D converter will have some distortion, but this can be calibrated, to be largely taken out of the equation. The biggest headache will be eliminating all the reflection sound in the recording environment, but this should be doable ...
Frank
I think this is where the game lies. Especially from OUR perspective. For all I know there could be someone somewhere who knows which tools (measurements) to use and knows how they apply, but most of us use Fr sweeps, and even then those people would still be a minority in this hobby?
I dabble a bit with time and impulse, but at a rather rudimentary level I'd hazard.
So, as greg pointed out too, you can 'have all the measurements you want' but there is always that final check with the ears (shirley?), which is one of the strawman set up earlier that I dispute (that objectivists don't or have forgotten how to listen).
I re-acquainted myself with this recently. From all my experience with my system as it is set up, I can now go a LONG way just on measurements, still a final check of course, but I know how I like the sound and have a good idea of how it measures when it sounds that way.
I completely changed the layout (how I have it set up is kinda odd and is not the best fit for the room) so I changed it all to how it would 'normally' be set up, adjusted it all to the old familiar measurements...sounded terrible. To me, a new person would not have known the old sound and may have been happy, but the point is that even tho I had the old measurements so to speak I most certainly did not have the old sound. This is where that 'other guy' I was talking about might bave known what measurements to use and be able to explain it. I don't have that knowledge or skill, i still had to rely on my subjective listening and follow that as it is the ultimate arbiter.
Ended back in the old position, bingo all the magic came back and I am now resigned to keeping it in this 'odd' setup.
To rely on measurements solely is as odd and counter productive to not rely on them (or dispute them at least) at all.
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