Subjectivist’s rant debunked

[computer-audiophile]

I just went to look for them but they were not where I thought they might be so could be anywhere - I got boxes of drivers all over. I did find an Audax tweeter though

Those you have pictured are not them. this to my recollection is more like them:

Ok, I just remembered that this particular design I showed is from Motorola. It's also the one you see most often and the one that is copied the most. Maybe there are others from Motorola that I'm not aware of, that may be. Anyway, they sound very bright and harsh. They also don't need a crossover, which makes them even easier to use.

 

[MattHooper]

When John Devore posted this rant I knew it would find it's way here at some point

For the record, I understand the eye-rolling many have over lots of what John said. I share that, and also certainly agree with Amir's points that he posted under the video
on youtube.

As for comments like this...

Measurements are the sworn enemy of the subjectivists. They must maintain the line that you can only "trust your ears" when it comes to music reproduction. If this cult can prevail, then DeVore and his ilk can continue to peddle their products to a waiting crowd.

I hope you are not implying that anyone who likes, or buys, a Devore speaker is just some cultish dupe.

As I've mentioned before: I'm an example of an ASR member who doesn't believe in technically implausible snake oil claims, and during a very large speaker search, in which I demoed with my test tracks many well known speaker brands (including Revel, Paradigm, Focal, Kii Audio, Magico, ...you name it), I found Devore's O/96 speakers to stand out with characteristics that I found extremely compelling. They became one of my favourite speakers.

And, in experience discussing the brand with many other audiohiles, I don't see lots of the as cultish dupes either, but rather they ended up with Devore speakers after winnowing them out from hearing many other contenders. The speaker gave them the presentation that they like. Nothing cultish about that.

I don't think anybody who designs speakers would be able to achieve a workable product without using some sort of measurement devices that spit out cold, unyielding numbers. How would one design a crossover without test equipment? I agree with archimago, these people are selective about the testing they approve of and subsequently their whole criticism of test results is intended to legitimize the subjective fairy tale.

Devore uses lots of measurements, as well as loudspeaker design theory, in his designs. However, as I understand him, ultimately if he hits a point where the design choice is between "measures more textbook" vs "the sound I'm actually going for" he will choose the latter. Nothing wrong with that, IMO.

Basically he's designing for a certain type of presentation he likes, and if there was enough people who shared the same goals/taste, then there was an audience/market for his speakers. Turned out that, yes, plenty of audiophiles were looking for a presentation just like John enjoyed, hence the O/96 became by far his best selling speaker. To the degree that I think it helped play a part in the return of wider baffle speakers in to vogue.

It's been my experience that, while certainly a high degree of authentic technical knowledge will help a designer reliably reach his goal, which could include making speakers as neutral as possible, people who have some relevant technical chops, but mixed with some other dubious beliefs, can still end up with a nice sounding product. This was one of my take-aways when reviewing, long ago, the Shun Mook Bella Voce speakers. The Shun Mook guys were notorious for their speaker tuning "mpingo disc" nonsense. And yet, they managed to build a speaker what was one of the most beautiful sounding speakers I'd heard. Even THOUGH it incorporated some of the ideas that may have been nonsense (I think there were mpingo discs inside the cabinet), I think they were nonetheless good enough listeners and had just enough knowledge to actually build a good sounding speaker.

I think John Devore likely knows even more about speaker design than the Shun Mook crew, but even if some of his ideas are unorthodox or even wrong, in the end, he seems to achieve a certain sound that he's going for, and which many audiophiles have found compelling.

 

[Purité Audio]

Or perhaps they have just never heard a decent speaker.
Keith

 

[MattHooper]

Or perhaps they have just never heard a decent speaker.
Keith

Too pat an answer.

I've heard decent speakers. So have others who liked the Devores. One fella had Revels and switched to Devore. Conversely, in the comments under the article referenced in this thread, an audiophile said he'd owned Devore speakers before and while he now uses Kii Audio speakers, he still has nothing negative to say about the Devores he owned.

 

[kemmler3D]

Devore uses lots of measurements, as well as loudspeaker design theory, in his designs. However, as I understand him, ultimately if he hits a point where the design choice is between "measures more textbook" vs "the sound I'm actually going for" he will choose the latter. Nothing wrong with that, IMO.

Right! Why can't audio manufacturers be honest about their products not being "hi-fi" per se, but artistically "enhanced" and opinionated, and improved?

I think the real reason is that both audio publications and about half the industry are sustained by a foundational lie, which is that fidelity in audio actually can't be fully measured, only heard. "Experiential data" my ass.

The lie has to be sustained because the industry made a huge error when it inculcated the idea that fidelity was the only and highest ideal for home listening equipment. It's clear that even in this thread, most people actually wouldn't say flat and zero-distortion gear is the one and only valid approach for listening enjoyment. But for some reason the writers and marketers won't leave the idea of "realism" behind.

Advancing the idea that speakers and amps can be a valuable part of an artistic interpretation of music is the only way around it, but they can't admit that it's art and not science. They have to pretend that there's some unknown science that would somehow validate their artistic vision as being higher fidelity in some unknown sense... the opposite of the truth.

So the disgusting and pathetic outcome of this total failure of industry-level marketing - you have delusional or amoral people like DeVore questioning the entire idea of scientific truth so they can sell some wacky speakers, instead of simply standing up for their editorial decisions and offering them on their own merits. And they've raised an entire generation of audiophiles who believe in magic electronics.

 

[Purité Audio]

I can think of several cohorts who endlessly shuffle through essentially the same loudspeaker design, the Audio Note U.K./ Devore/Snell group , Naim devotees sign a covenant which only allows them to use a handful of specific manufacturers , then there is the BBC group, choosing between Harbeth/Spendor/Graham,/Rogers I make light of it but it is quite common.
Keith

 

[Ricardus]

I think the real reason is that both audio publications and about half the industry are sustained by a foundational lie, which is that fidelity in audio actually can't be fully measured, only heard.

And that the latest generation of their products (amps for example) sound better than the previous versions (when the previous version was a high end unit that tested well).

 

[computer-audiophile]

Does anyone still know the Rehdeko speakers? I can remember them very well! Had them in my house to compare.Their sound also had a very polarising effect in the audio scene. Well, I didn't think they were that special, but it would never have occurred to me to insult the manufacturer or even call him a cheat.

Picture from the web.

 

[MattHooper]

I think the real reason is that both audio publications and about half the industry are sustained by a foundational lie, which is that fidelity in audio actually can't be fully measured, only heard. "Experiential data" my ass.

I think that's one component.

Another component is that, generally speaking, it has been thought that many subjectivist audiophiles are indeed going for "low distortion" in an audio system. So in that sense they are in line with many "objectivists." Where the divergence happens, I find, is the difference in what strategies actually fulfill that goal. The subjective approach allows a lot of nonsense ideas to flourish. So it's sort of like how you can have two groups - "naturopaths" and "medical doctors," who have the same goal of "keeping people healthy," but one of them is believing in things like "flushing the body of impurities" is an important way of reaching that goal.

This "purity" approach can be seen in the subjectivist approach. Such audiophiles are seen to want as "pure and unfettered" a path which to them will be a "clean window" to the "original sound" in which the most nuance and realism can be found. This is why you get some obsessions with "simpler = better" signal paths, fewer capacitors in speakers, abandoning use of additional feedback in solid state amps etc...take away gunk that can cause "impurities" between you and the music.

Therefore, even IF a product is something of a distortion generator, the company making the product doesn't want to say "Here's a product that will pleasantly distort the signal for you." It is presented that the technical moves were implemented to increase purity, "remove the veils between you and the music."

An important point here is that, I believe, this is not always just cynical. Many high end companies were started by people who really believed this point of view, and their products reflect that point of view. So it's not always just about dishonesty. I think the term "lies" gets thrown around too liberally (even if it may be more satisfying to couch it that way).

The lie has to be sustained because the industry made a huge error when it inculcated the idea that fidelity was the only and highest ideal for home listening equipment. It's clear that even in this thread, most people actually wouldn't say flat and zero-distortion gear is the one and only valid approach for listening enjoyment. But for some reason the writers and marketers won't leave the idea of "realism" behind.

I'm glad they don't leave "realism" behind, because that's something I'm interested in. I do find that some products get closer to realism, as I hear it, than others. And I like that.

Advancing the idea that speakers and amps can be a valuable part of an artistic interpretation of music is the only way around it, but they can't admit that it's art and not science. They have to pretend that there's some unknown science that would somehow validate their artistic vision as being higher fidelity in some unknown sense... the opposite of the truth.

So the disgusting and pathetic outcome of this total failure of industry-level marketing - you have delusional or amoral people like DeVore questioning the entire idea of scientific truth so they can sell some wacky speakers, instead of simply standing up for their editorial decisions and offering them on their own merits. And they've raised an entire generation of audiophiles who believe in magic electronics.

I'm not sure why you are casting Devore as possibly delusional or amoral, given he has been forthright about his design choices in exactly the way you were demanding. It's a balance. He is not looking to strictly build a "distortion generator" as if distortion is all he seeks. He is keen to minimize distortion in various aspects of his speaker design, and uses measurements along these lines. But he will also make decisions that depart from textbook when it suits his purpose. Basically he's not looking for his speakers to "sound distorted" but rather for his choices to end in a speaker that "sounds natural" to the ear, in the sense that it recreates certain aspects he and some others find believable and compelling in reproduced sound.

As he wrote, in a manufacturer's response concerning his Gibbon X speakers:

Yes, the X is tuned in a similar way to the Silverback, which again puzzles John. He noted in 2006 that the Silverback included a switch that allowed the measurements to conform to a more textbook definition of perfect. Since then I have heard Silverbacks in dozens of systems around the world, and never once was the Measurement position [of this switch] as good as the Direct position. Designing the Gibbons, it was clear that an evolution of this loading was still the path to the degree of realism I was after. This still shows in the measurements, but, as John notes, "to a much lesser degree."

 

[kemmler3D]

And that the latest generation of their products (amps for example) sound better than the previous versions (when the previous version was a high end unit that tested well).

Exactly. I think the fiction of "hearable but not measurable" has to be sustained to maintain the market for high-end amps and other electronics. Unfortunately, this anti-science fantasy spills over into speakers and headphones as well.

The unfortunate consequence of high-end audio being subjugated to facts would be most audio publications going out of business, because most high-end audiophile brands would too. Instead, they symbiotically perpetuate a fictional universe in which physics stops working as soon as the music comes on. Oh well.

 

[kemmler3D]

I'm not sure why you are casting Devore as possibly delusional or amoral,

Mostly because of his rant where he throws out a lot of anti-science as if that were necessary to support a subjective position.

I'm glad they don't leave "realism" behind, because that's something I'm interested in.

It's not that people will suddenly stop valuing realism, either on the listener or manufacturer side, more that they should acknowledge a concept of improving (or "improving" depending on your taste) beyond mere realism. That would create space for subjectively voiced gear where nobody has to complain about consumers or reviewers relying on measurements too much.

Currently we're apparently in a world where measurements are a threat to subjectivism. Subjectivists should never have allowed that to happen. It was a huge blunder.

the company making the product doesn't want to say "Here's a product that will pleasantly distort the signal for you." It is presented that the technical moves were implemented to increase purity, "remove the veils between you and the music."

This is the big mistake. Sometimes people really do enjoy distortion and non-flat voicings. The industry has painted itself into a corner where they profess to believe in more fidelity ("purity", or "realism" or whatever) but they're not delivering that, AND their customers don't actually want that, either! Just check the recent ZMF thread - plenty of enthusiasm for alternate tunings.

If the industry could be honest about its ACTUAL value proposition instead of pretending it's something else, it would solve a lot of problems for everybody. Amir still won't recommend their stuff, but they would at least have a valid and COHERENT point of view to fall back on there.

The correct response to Amir not recommending your stuff is actually what Zach's doing - just saying that he acknowledges the research but wants to offer something a bit different. Unfortunately it's a bit of a contentious thread but I don't see a problem with it.

Ultimately a world where everything is well-measured, and there are a lot of options to fit all preferences, would be best. Probably most people prefer accuracy and real fidelity, but clearly it's not all, and that's well and good. The industry should just play it straight instead of playing magic make-believe.

 

[MattHooper]

Mostly because of his rant where he throws out a lot of anti-science as if that were necessary to support a subjective position.

Fair enough. I think John is "wrong" in some of what he believes and ranted about, and maybe you can call that delusional. I think amoral is pushing the inference a bit far.
(Having read him, and seen many of his interviews/videos, I view him as a decent, honest guy).

Ultimately a world where everything is well-measured, and there are a lot of options to fit all preferences, would be best. Probably most people prefer accuracy and real fidelity, but clearly it's not all, and that's well and good. The industry should just play it straight instead of playing magic make-believe.

Putting quibbles aside, I agree. Manufacturers, reviewers, "golden ear" audiophiles all play a part in creating the mess. Clarifying what's going on, as ASR does, is a good goal.

 

[egellings]

Who might build a better ampifier, a profoundly deaf electronics engineer, or a virtuoso violinist with pitch perfect hearing - just a thought.

Chances are that the engineers who design amplifiers do not listen to their creations once measurements are adequately good, so a deaf person making a good amplifier seems very possible to me. If the violinist knows no electrical engineering, then I see the chances of a competent amplifier coming from them to be nearly nonexistent.

 

[kemmler3D]

Fair enough. I think John is "wrong" in some of what he believes and ranted about, and maybe you can call that delusional. I think amoral is pushing the inference a bit far.
(Having read him, and seen many of his interviews/videos, I view him as a decent, honest guy).

If he believes fantasies about what people can and can't hear, then he's merely delusional. If he doesn't believe it but he puts it in a video anyway, he's amoral or immoral, I guess. I don't know what he believes but you've probably correctly judged him as an honest guy.

I guess that just goes to show how strong cognitive bias is. Even (maybe especially?) professionals convince themselves that they hear things that are technically impossible to hear.

 

[pablolie]

That was my point, it's entirely possible that an engineer could produce a good amplifier without ever hearing it, because it has one, measurable, job, to amplify the input signal without changing anything other than the amplitude.

While I agree with the sentiment, in practice good engineers mix-in "intuition" based on knowledge that is a combination of formal training and experience. I probably could design an amp if I re-immersed myself in that stuff, but most likely it'd suck. What I can share is that I work around people that design chips based on 3nm geometry with zillions of gates on those, and trust me - without that magic intuition a lot of stuff would come back dead from the fab. Same is also true in ultra high frequency designs. Of course stuff is modeled with very expensive simulations tools, but those design engineers go... "NNope, we're not putting these two modules this close to each other.." and stuff like that.

That said, in such critical appliications building stuff based on what we can call artesanal principles -which seems common in audio- is a recipe for guaranteed disaster.

 

[pablolie]

Exactly. I think the fiction of "hearable but not measurable" has to be sustained to maintain the market for high-end amps and other electronics. Unfortunately, this anti-science fantasy spills over into speakers and headphones as well.

The unfortunate consequence of high-end audio being subjugated to facts would be most audio publications going out of business, because most high-end audiophile brands would too. Instead, they symbiotically perpetuate a fictional universe in which physics stops working as soon as the music comes on. Oh well.

While I personally support your premise, we also have to consider that not everybody listening to music does so in the same way. There is important stuff like which volume people tend to listen at, where and how close, what their past preferences are that have shaped theeir current inclinations etc. Some of those are very measurable indeed, I agree, but hey, some people simply swap stuff in their listening environment until they are happy with it. Before we had stuff like Dirac, it's basically what we all did. Sure, we checked the manufatcurer specs, and some of us were even aware of stuff like room modes, or that having our SOs decide where they allowed stuff was a teerrible idea for the end results... and in that environment, perhaps some unusual design choices lucked out. I am an 80% objectivist these days, but looks and other aspects matter very much to me, too, so sue me.

I have listened to Devore speakers extensively at a very good friend's place, and for certain genres they really shine. Don't entirely discount that, is all I am saying.

 

[MattHooper]

While I personally support your premise, we also have to consider that not everybody listening to music does so in the same way. There is important stuff like which volume people tend to listen at, where and how close, what their past preferences are that have shaped theeir current inclinations etc. Some of those are very measurable indeed, I agree, but hey, some people simply swap stuff in their listening environment until they are happy with it. Before we had stuff like Dirac, it's basically what we all did. Sure, we checked the manufatcurer specs, and some of us were even aware of stuff like room modes, or that having our SOs decide where they allowed stuff was a teerrible idea for the end results... and in that environment, perhaps some unusual design choices lucked out. I am an 80% objectivist these days, but looks and other aspects matter very much to me, too, so sue me.

I have listened to Devore speakers extensiveely at a very good friend's place, and for certain genres they really shine. Don't entirely discount that, is all I am saying.

Indeed.

I think it's worth remembering that, while certainly we've made some welcome advances in integrating speakers in to rooms, audiophiles and music lovers managed to attain set ups they found thrilling and enjoyable just by the old trial and error method too. It wasn't all misery, despair and failure

 

[kemmler3D]

While I personally support your premise, we also have to consider that not everybody listening to music does so in the same way. There is important stuff like which volume people tend to listen at, where and how close, what their past preferences are that have shaped theeir current inclinations etc. Some of those are very measurable indeed, I agree, but hey, some people simply swap stuff in their listening environment until they are happy with it. Before we had stuff like Dirac, it's basically what we all did. Sure, we checked the manufatcurer specs, and some of us were even aware of stuff like room modes, or that having our SOs decide where they allowed stuff was a teerrible idea for the end results... and in that environment, perhaps some unusual design choices lucked out. I am an 80% objectivist these days, but looks and other aspects matter very much to me, too, so sue me.

I have listened to Devore speakers extensively at a very good friend's place, and for certain genres they really shine. Don't entirely discount that, is all I am saying.

I am sure the Devores sound pretty great in certain situations!

My point is not that objectivism is good, and subjectivism is bad. I'm not even saying tuning by ear is bad, I just think it's a really difficult way to go about it.

My point is that subjectivist manufacturers and reviewers should be honest about what they are and embrace measurements as a way to show the choices they've made and the opinions they have.

You don't need measurements to arrive at a good setup. But it certainly helps.

What would help more: Helping people understand their personal / idiosyncratic likes and dislikes in terms of measurements instead of complaining that people are measuring too much.

Subjectivist reviewers and manufacturers could have gone down that path perhaps 30 or 40 years ago. Instead they chose the dark path, the one that allows for idiotic crap like audiophile ethernet cables and denies science. And the result is we also have apparently otherwise respectable people like DeVore complaining there's just too much science nowadays.

 

[Axo1989]

An important point here is that, I believe, this is not always just cynical. Many high end companies were started by people who really believed this point of view, and their products reflect that point of view. So it's not always just about dishonesty. I think the term "lies" gets thrown around too liberally (even if it may be more satisfying to couch it that way).

Assigning moral (or immoral) purpose to most everything is an unfortunate habit.

I'm not sure why you are casting Devore as possibly delusional or amoral, given he has been forthright about his design choices in exactly the way you were demanding. It's a balance. He is not looking to strictly build a "distortion generator" as if distortion is all he seeks. He is keen to minimize distortion in various aspects of his speaker design, and uses measurements along these lines. But he will also make decisions that depart from textbook when it suits his purpose. Basically he's not looking for his speakers to "sound distorted" but rather for his choices to end in a speaker that "sounds natural" to the ear, in the sense that it recreates certain aspects he and some others find believable and compelling in reproduced sound.

He didn't strike me as wicked, or even especially delusional, he just went off too far into the weeds my taste in that video. His speaker-making craft is highly developed, but follows the semi-technical artisanal path, and probably isn't my specific ideal. I mean my speakers presumably incorporate a bunch of material-engineering intuitions, so somewhat artisanal in a different way (along the lines @pablolie describes wrt chip designers).

Mostly because of his rant where he throws out a lot of anti-science as if that were necessary to support a subjective position.

It's not that people will suddenly stop valuing realism, either on the listener or manufacturer side, more that they should acknowledge a concept of improving (or "improving" depending on your taste) beyond mere realism. That would create space for subjectively voiced gear where nobody has to complain about consumers or reviewers relying on measurements too much.

Currently we're apparently in a world where measurements are a threat to subjectivism. Subjectivists should never have allowed that to happen. It was a huge blunder.

This is the big mistake. Sometimes people really do enjoy distortion and non-flat voicings. The industry has painted itself into a corner where they profess to believe in more fidelity ("purity", or "realism" or whatever) but they're not delivering that, AND their customers don't actually want that, either! Just check the recent ZMF thread - plenty of enthusiasm for alternate tunings.

If the industry could be honest about its ACTUAL value proposition instead of pretending it's something else, it would solve a lot of problems for everybody. Amir still won't recommend their stuff, but they would at least have a valid and COHERENT point of view to fall back on there.

The correct response to Amir not recommending your stuff is actually what Zach's doing - just saying that he acknowledges the research but wants to offer something a bit different. Unfortunately it's a bit of a contentious thread but I don't see a problem with it.

Ultimately a world where everything is well-measured, and there are a lot of options to fit all preferences, would be best. Probably most people prefer accuracy and real fidelity, but clearly it's not all, and that's well and good. The industry should just play it straight instead of playing magic make-believe.

I think many/most people assemble narratives somewhat compulsively. When we don't understand the mechanics etc we tend to veer off into nonsense. I couldn't agree more that would be better avoided. And doing so doesn't obviate craft/skill or preference, rather we can focus on those things more coherently/effectively.

Recognising what we don't know we don't understand isn't always easy, even if it should be. Archimago's writing on generative AI and GPT was pretty out there, and unintentionally humorous for anyone with better understanding of the workings (as were some ASR threads on those subjects) so it isn't something that even otherwise smart people are always immune to.

 

[kemmler3D]

Essentially, what a designer and manufacturer like this says is, "Well, this thing sucks, but I'm going to sell it anyway. Some buyers are going to say that for certain genres, it really shines. The rest of the people who give me their money can go take a flying leap."

I'm going to be a little more charitable than that.

I think some designers are well aware their designs are colored and not neutral, but they genuinely believe that delivers a superior experience.

Okay! No crimes committed so far.

In my perfect world, they would do a klippel measurement of said colored speaker, and their marketing would say: "The dips here, here and here, and the peaks here contribute to XYZ sound which we feel is the best for ABC, and people who enjoy GHI will really love it."

In reality, they either don't show measurements or they deny the importance of measurements when someone else shows them. To me, that's the crime.

There's nothing wrong with selling a speaker with a wacky response as long as you are honest about it. The way the industry markets this stuff has been dishonest for a long time, they essentially committed to selling the lie that fidelity isn't really fidelity and human ears are more powerful than anything known to science.

They could have just declared "You know, we've reached good fidelity, and we're also going to explore other sounds that we think are better." To me that would have been fine.