Master Thread: “Objectivism versus Subjectivism” debate and is there a middle ground?

[litemotiv]

Little metal dots on the head shell?
Pyramids on speakers?
Cable towers?
Wood shapes near speakers?
Boxes of dirt with ground wires?

Reminds me of chia pets or pet rocks.
It does provide humor.

It's not limited to audio ofcourse, people spend large amounts of money on stuff like health supplements or homeopathic treatments, which don't have any proven efficacy (sometimes even on the contrary). Humans are easy to fool.

The page below from skepp.be has a cool collection of Bioresonance equipment, they are (often very expensive) devices used to 'scan' and treat people with light and electric pulses for diseases and other anomalies. It's a pretty big market worldwide, there are thousands of practitioners charging 50-100 bucks per session or more.

The site is in Dutch/Flemish, but just browsing through the photos is already quite amusing:

BIORESONANTIE

CLAIMShttp://www.stateheide.nl/?id=2&id2=2Bioresonantie is een zeer subtiele trillingstherapie.Alles op aarde heeft een eigen unieke electro-magnetische frequentie. Een gezond lichaam heeft een veel harmonieuzer trillingspatroon dan een lichaam of weefsel met een aandoening. Door gebruik te...

skepp.be

Example, the Mora (€30K) device (Google Translate):

"The MORA electronically controls the body's information and forms a cybernetic control circuit with the patient's body during treatment. During the course of treatment, the biochemistry, previously affected by the disease, also changes thanks to the altered control signals. This leads to an objective and subjective improvement of the clinical symptoms.

Diagnosis and therapy take place at the fundamental level, which cannot be diagnosed or treated in classical medicine.

This diagnosis and therapy technique is unique: chronic and serious diseases can be diagnosed and treated in a very patient-friendly manner, which was not possible with any other system until now!"

 

[Ingenieur]

Sharing a carefully documented controlled scientific study concluding that even with the most simply miked stereo recording (a single figure eight pair of microphones), not manipulated by a mixing board engineer, that a very large group of listeners could easily discern stereo image vertical height from the recording - so there is more to vertical imaging than simple expectation bias:

http://boson.physics.sc.edu/~kunchur/papers/Stereo-height--Kunchur.pdf

Arrogance at its finest.
So MOST do not believe it, but this ONE test 'settles' it. Lol
It is a function of the recording. If not there, the electronics can't extract it.

Most audio professionals do not believe that elevation can or should be naturally reproduced in two‐channel stereo. The present experimental result settles that debate.

This experiment conclusively proves that a correctly set up two‐channel stereo system can in fact portray not only depth and lateral width (azimuth), but also elevation for appropriately recorded material.

 

[Ingenieur]

Sharing a carefully documented controlled scientific study concluding that even with the most simply miked stereo recording (a single figure eight pair of microphones), not manipulated by a mixing board engineer, that a very large group of listeners could easily discern stereo image vertical height from the recording - so there is more to vertical imaging than simple expectation bias:

http://boson.physics.sc.edu/~kunchur/papers/Stereo-height--Kunchur.pdf

Did you read it?
Sounds rigged.
One test, using a specially recorded test record.
They said the trumpet was higher.
It was intentionally done and exaggerated because it was a TEST RECORD. Like sound moving from speaker to speaker.
And they only heard elevation delta, not width or depth.
Silly
12 pages: 1/2 page of results.
It could simply be since the tweeter was higher, the horn was perceived to be higher.



The recording played was the Buddy Bolden Blues track on the CD (compact disk) “Test Record 1: Depth of Image” by the label Opus 3 released in 1984.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

What!? Reference the post at the bottom.

Do they not realize that instruments can 'see' far more than the human eye?
Spectrometers
Telescopes
Microscopes
Imaging technology
IR imaging

Someone may like a painting of a subject more than a photo of it, but the photo is still more accurate, higher 'fidelity'.

I honestly think it comes down to a lack of knowledge and understanding, so they compensate with impression. They 'hear things', OK, but everybody hears differently, they are not calibrated or a reference standard. If they like it, fine, but that does not mean measurements showing it to be lo-fi or inaccurate are wrong. They question reality. They think electronics are magic, music has hidden signals/parameters (depth, air, soundstage, etc.) and engineering is 'fake science'. The old trope 'everything can't be measured' is mantra.
In the audio realm, if audible, it can be measured.

Case in point: a 50 page thread about power supply fuses started by a new member on his first day, of which 20 pages are his 'contributions'.

From another forum about ASR:
That's why they need measurements, they have no trained ears...it's like blind people judging colours

Can they see emotion? Sound is there to be heard, for that ears are needed. People who judge audio without listening are like blind people relying on someone else to describe colours.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Did you read it?
Sounds rigged.
One test, using a specially recorded test record.
They said the trumpet was higher.
It was intentionally done and exaggerated because it was a TEST RECORD. Like sound moving from speaker to speaker.
And they only heard elevation delta, not width or depth.
Silly
12 pages: 1/2 page of results.
It could simply be since the tweeter was higher, the horn was perceived to be higher.



The recording played was the Buddy Bolden Blues track on the CD (compact disk) “Test Record 1: Depth of Image” by the label Opus 3 released in 1984.

So they could tell by listening, proves the point perfectly!

 

[Frgirard]

Can they see emotion? Sound is there to be heard, for that ears are needed. People who judge audio without listening are like blind people relying on someone else to describe colours.

For the sound in the measurements I trust.
For the music in my brain I trust.
For the emotions, I check the calendar to verify the good moon phase.

 

[ahofer]

Now I do think for instance triode amps with some speakers can add a sense of space, and 3D soundstaging which isn't in the recording, and yet is perceived as that by the listener. Of course such amps are providing measurably different signals to the speaker terminals. My reason for thinking this is that I have in the past taken amps, gave them a loudspeaker-like load, and tapped the output with an attenuation circuit so it provided unity gain. Fed that into a power amp connected to speakers and listened with and without the power amp under test in the circuit between source and final power amp. A triode inserted sounds rather different than a straight wire connection. It sounds better on some material. Good SS amps you can't hear if they are in circuit or out. Which is why I conclude in this case the better 3D sound is an additive coloration.

Yes, in my Bayesian filter, this is the #2 possibility (#1 being the blind test is made-up).

 

[Ingenieur]

Can they see emotion? Sound is there to be heard, for that ears are needed. People who judge audio without listening are like blind people relying on someone else to describe colours.

lol
People who judge audio equipment by ear is equivalent to waving sticks over a body to detect tumors.

We are talking about electrical signals.
The gear is hardware, moot, meaningless.
Like an unplayed piano.
It's the music that is the art, the emotion, your reaction has no effect on the music or hardware. After it leaves the speaker you have no influence over it.
What you hear does not alter the signal.

 

[Ingenieur]

So they could tell by listening, proves the point perfectly!

As was stated, it is the source, not the gear.
If I tilt my head down, the sound source rises.

 

[ahofer]

Soundstage width can be panned across the eight feet or so of available canvas, whereas depth is theoretically more or less infinite, in that it's mostly amplitude based. I could take a sound at reference level and have it way upfront in the mix, and then back it off, dulling the FR and adding and changing reverb as we go, until it fades into the noise floor, which represents a huge perceived regression. Played on its own, you'll hear it get further and further and further away, until it eventually disappears into the far distance.

Yet on replay, depth is usually perceived as more limited than width - maybe at best half the width dimension in comparison. That's because the perception is curtailed by masking by louder sounds and lack of clarity in the speaker. Those things should be measurable, subject to informed interpretation. But I have never really found a measurement suite that tells us immediately, "Yeah, this speaker should handle depth perception better than that speaker."

The problem here, and I’ll quote Alan Shaw again, is that “‘soundstage’ is a mental construct like ’love’”. There can be no assurance that two people associate the ‘soundstage’ property with the same audible (and/or inaudible) stimuli. As has been suggested upthread, some added colorations can give an added sound of sort-of depth. I’ve experienced something like that with vinyl. Which is all fine. The problem with the term is when it is used to suggest Fidelity. The speakers either recreate the signal accurately or they don’t. If they add something, we are synthesizing a sound experience, not attempting to recreate it. Again, all fine, as long as we don’t lord our preferences over others and cast aspersions on their hearing or well-established science in order to prop up a dying industry infested with charlatans.

 

[Ingenieur]

The more resolving my system got, the less I could tolerate modern recordings Instruments/vocals recorded individually and mixed down into a 'performance'.
Sounds contrived and artificial.
Some music works with that method: Yes, Traffic, Fleetwood Mac. Perhaps because I like it so much tolerate the SQ.

A good recording, late 50's, early 60's jazz. recoded live, as a group, one take, well mic'ed, will give a good impression of space, location, the room.

To each there own. I listen to the music, in a live performance we have visuals, not with hifi, a large part of the presentation is missing. So I don't analyze system accuracy, that was all done before hand, when planning, purchasing, setting up the system. After that, it is about feeling the music. imo beyond a certain point the system is no longer a factor, the individual decides that. For me, light years before $10k power cables that bear no fruit.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

For the sound in the measurements I trust.
For the music in my brain I trust.
For the emotions, I check the calendar to verify the good moon phase.

Don’t need to check the calender, just look at the Sky at night. Measurements are useful if they are pertinent, hearing always is! What I hear might not suit you and maybe your kit wouldn’t suit me? Measurements can’t take that into accoun!

 

[tuga]

Soundstage width can be panned across the eight feet or so of available canvas, whereas depth is theoretically more or less infinite, in that it's mostly amplitude based. I could take a sound at reference level and have it way upfront in the mix, and then back it off, dulling the FR and adding and changing reverb as we go, until it fades into the noise floor, which represents a huge perceived regression. Played on its own, you'll hear it get further and further and further away, until it eventually disappears into the far distance.

Yet on replay, depth is usually perceived as more limited than width - maybe at best half the width dimension in comparison. That's because the perception is curtailed by masking by louder sounds and lack of clarity in the speaker. Those things should be measurable, subject to informed interpretation. But I have never really found a measurement suite that tells us immediately, "Yeah, this speaker should handle depth perception better than that speaker."

BBC engineers described the dip in the “presence” region as producing a

No, because of expectation bias.
I don't listen to choose equipment because I don't expect to hear a difference, and I don't.
Subjectivists expect to hear a difference, so they do.
The main difference is that subjectivists' certainty that they can hear differences largely disappear when listening blind, whilst my certainty I can't hear a difference means I don't, whether sighted or blind.

When I have heard differences, there has always been a measurable reason for the difference.

S.

why is your way right and theirs wrong? (Which it isn’t, theirs is right for them and yours for you)

 

[tuga]

The more resolving my system got, the less I could tolerate modern recordings Instruments/vocals recorded individually and mixed down into a 'performance'.
Sounds contrived and artificial.

Did you revert back to less resolution or stop listening to modern recordings which, I presume, were of music that you enjoyed listening to?

 

[tuga]

Your response and analysis trumps mine for 'dumbness'.

A painting and a photograph are both recordings, the art.
Domestic playback systems deal with reproduction and are agnostic to which method is used.
That is why your analogy makes no sense.

The rest of my reply was a response to your patronising moral stance

 

[voodooless]

why is your way right and theirs wrong? (Which it isn’t, theirs is right for them and yours for you)

But it’s not about right or wrong. Anyone should do as they please. It’s bad arguments that I’m opposed to.

That somebody is super happy with his or her R2R DAC with tube output stage is totally fine, but one cannot claim it’s the pinnacle of accurate sound reproduction. It’s just proveably not true.

 

[Ingenieur]

A painting and a photograph are both recordings, the art.
Domestic playback systems deal with reproduction and are agnostic to which method is used.
That is why your analogy makes no sense.

The rest of my reply was a response to your patronising moral stance

Kettle, meet pot
Talk about back handed patronizing self aggrandizing pseudo intellectual babble.
A moral stance is better than none.
Immoral is better?

'Makes no sense' can mean 2 things:
I wasn't clear
You don't understand
I'm going with the latter.

Isn't an lp or CD a 'recording'? Of art?
Both are interpretations of art and are reproductions of something, music, scenery, or in the case of subjectives, their thoughts.

 

[Ingenieur]

Did you revert back to less resolution or stop listening to modern recordings which, I presume, were of music that you enjoyed listening to?

Read the post...again.

Some music works with that method: Yes, Traffic, Fleetwood Mac. Perhaps because I like it so much tolerate the SQ.

 

[Ingenieur]

Don’t need to check the calender, just look at the Sky at night. Measurements are useful if they are pertinent, hearing always is! What I hear might not suit you and maybe your kit wouldn’t suit me? Measurements can’t take that into accoun!

Hearing impressions are about as reliable as eye witness testimony.

Measurements are ALWAYS pertinent, although weighting may differ.

What an individual hears is only useful to them. Measurements are pertinent to all, whether they believe in them or not.

The Earth is not flat
Gravity is a real thing
Even if you don't believe that, jumping out of a window will have the same result as a believer.

Son of Sam heard dogs talking to him.
Mic's heard dogs barking
Which was 'real'?

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Hearing impressions are about as reliable as eye witness testimony.

Measurements are ALWAYS pertinent, although weighting may differ.

What an individual hears is only useful to them. Measurements are pertinent to all, whether they believe in them or not.

The Earth is not flat
Gravity is a real thing
Even if you don't believe that, jumping out of a window will have the same result as a believer.

Son of Sam heard dogs talking to him.
Mic's heard dogs barking
Which was 'real'?

Neither was real! One was imagined and the other was an electronic reproduction of sound. Unamplified sound is real and even that won’t sound the same depending where you sit.