I'm tired of audiophile and high fidelity confusion.

[killdozzer]

You are conflating audiophiles & audiophools

No, you're conflating yourself with a smart and free thinking person.

 

[solderdude]

....
I didn't pick my avatar out of the blue.

 

[Jimbob54]

Objectivity in science is an attempt to uncover truths about the natural world by eliminating personal biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(science)

Nope- not a misunderstanding of the core concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, not a misunderstanding of the principles involved. With all due respect the way you phrase some of your assertions just isnt clear full stop. And when someone tries to clarify- you tend to rephrase things again, but dragging in different or modified concepts and assertions. Rather than saying "yes, that is exactly what I mean" . We get it:- so paraphrasing 8 pages i think we are at your position of:

Fidelity = good measurements = objectively good and chosen for that reason (except no, you can objectively know your kit adds distortion but subjectively prefer that in full knowledge)
Audiophile = No concept of measurements or ignores them= subjectively designed or chosen based on ears, reviews etc (again, I doubt this- I think many designers and buyers of less than ideally measuring kit know full well how it measures, just prefer it)

What folks on this site tend not to like is someone who says something is fidelius or superior without measuring or questioning the sales fluff, or because someone else says it is, or praises it, or sticks some zeroes on the price tag- an audiophool if you will.

We all get it, truly.

But then you throw in a statement like this :

"But if the quality is measurable it resides in the objective side."

Which I hate to tell you, means literally nothing. Not just to me , it just cant be parsed. And then you say that the Mola Mola is objectively good (it is) but audiophile simply by virtue of the price tag- which defeats your own argument that something cant be both objective and subjective.

So we hit solderdude's scale of greyness.

 

[killdozzer]

@diegooo1972 It is also interesting to note there is very little if any crossing over. Audiophiles find flat, neutral, uncoloured to be dull and unexciting so none of their gear boasts with accuracy. Not just that, but I am still to find an audiophile who would subscribe to Toole's conclusion on correlation between good measuring equip. and listener's satisfaction.

 

[Jimbob54]

@diegooo1972 It is also interesting to note there is very little if any crossing over. Audiophiles find flat, neutral, uncoloured to be dull and unexciting so none of their gear boasts with accuracy. Not just that, but I am still to find an audiophile who would subscribe to Toole's conclusion on correlation between good measuring equip. and listener's satisfaction.

So youve found a pool of subjects who identify as "audiophile" (whatever that means) , subjected them to blind testing with both coloured and uncoloured equipment and noted their preferences?

Or do you mean you have looked at the glowing comments and praise heaped on equipment you know to be coloured and concluded what you just said?

One of those routes is decidedly not very scientific or objective.

 

[killdozzer]

And another thing, audiophile usually embark on the wrong way. After convincing themselves of hearing huge differences and being disputed by measurements, they start coming up with ways of disprooving measurements. One of my favorite is that what they hear and enjoy and love about their equipment's preformance can't be measured because the measuring equipment lack the abilityis not yet perfect enough (usually it's timbre).

Now, this is silly for numerous reasons, but what I'm most interested in is how do these people imagine we managed to develop the equipment that will react tot imbre when recording, and the equipment that will reproduce the timbre when listening, we just somehow never managed to make equipment to measure it??

I mean, recording equipment must react to whatever it registers in order to record it.

 

[polmuaddib]

I find this made up segregation of audiophiles vs righteous hifi crowd or whatever, a little ridiculous.
If you care about audio quality and actively try to better your equipment, selecting a good source material, You are an audiophile, my friend! If you find the term offensive, it is your problem.
Now it is a whole other thing how you better your audio chain - whether you only trust measurements, or subjective reviews or have secret messages from industry insiders, or you AB equipment and then choose, i don't care...
Science is changing and we are constantly discovering and changing paradigms. Who is to say that in a decade we won't have a new AP with new parametar to measure which might show that we CAN hear different amps and DACs? I know it is unlikely, but just to make a point.
A good scientist doubts everything and dismissis nothing.
To cut it short, I am grey 5.

 

[AndyLu]

And another thing, audiophile usually embark on the wrong way. After convincing themselves of hearing huge differences and being disputed by measurements, they start coming up with ways of disprooving measurements. One of my favorite is that what they hear and enjoy and love about their equipment's preformance can't be measured because the measuring equipment lack the abilityis not yet perfect enough (usually it's timbre).

Now, this is silly for numerous reasons, but what I'm most interested in is how do these people imagine we managed to develop the equipment that will react tot imbre when recording, and the equipment that will reproduce the timbre when listening, we just somehow never managed to make equipment to measure it??

I mean, recording equipment must react to whatever it registers in order to record it.

You make one fundamental mistake: You generalize too much. An audiophile is basically simply someone who is enthousiastic about hi-fi and makes a hobby out of it. Your definition and generalization is purely your own. In reality an audiophile can vary from a very scientific person who likes to measure everyting to an 'audiofool' with only vague terms about black backgrounds. There are also lots of shades of gray between those two.

Trying to generalize all audiophiles to a bunch of fools accomplishes nothing, is far from the truth and not scientific at all.

 

[solderdude]

audiophile usually embark on the wrong way

It is only 'wrong' when they don't strive for exact reproduction (signal fidelity).
This too is also a mirage and opinion by the way, just a different one with different viewpoints but ultmately wanting the same goal (to enjoy music).

IMO audiophools are of their rockers... but so are 'we' in their eyes.

 

[diegooo1972]

Nope not at all. In my path I allow certain alterations to the original signal that remain below audible thresholds. That means devices don't need to be THE best (your HiFi) but need to be good enough to NOT be audible (my HiFi) which obviously is higher in parameters than DIN45500.

What you believe is my path is merely stating things just have to 'sound good'. That is not my path but do not think people taking that path are wrong to do so. My 'path' (good enough is good enough and better is not audibly better) is just as scientific based as just assuming only the lowest achievable is good.
VFM is highest priority on my list as well.

Well this is quite strange. If your signature stay below audible range it just didn't exist for you and you can't hear it. Exactly as the extra Db over audible range in measured equipments that you don't care too much. If you can't measure it and you can't hear it because is below audible range what are you talking about ? Where emerge audible signature then ? What you think it is materially ?

 

[diegooo1972]

Nope- not a misunderstanding of the core concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, not a misunderstanding of the principles involved. With all due respect the way you phrase some of your assertions just isnt clear full stop. And when someone tries to clarify- you tend to rephrase things again, but dragging in different or modified concepts and assertions. Rather than saying "yes, that is exactly what I mean" . We get it:- so paraphrasing 8 pages i think we are at your position of:

Fidelity = good measurements = objectively good and chosen for that reason (except no, you can objectively know your kit adds distortion but subjectively prefer that in full knowledge)
Audiophile = No concept of measurements or ignores them= subjectively designed or chosen based on ears, reviews etc (again, I doubt this- I think many designers and buyers of less than ideally measuring kit know full well how it measures, just prefer it)

What folks on this site tend not to like is someone who says something is fidelius or superior without measuring or questioning the sales fluff, or because someone else says it is, or praises it, or sticks some zeroes on the price tag- an audiophool if you will.

We all get it, truly.

But then you throw in a statement like this :

"But if the quality is measurable it resides in the objective side."

Which I hate to tell you, means literally nothing. Not just to me , it just cant be parsed. And then you say that the Mola Mola is objectively good (it is) but audiophile simply by virtue of the price tag- which defeats your own argument that something cant be both objective and subjective.

So we hit solderdude's scale of greyness.

I said good in 1 or 2 post considering the budget factor. I always refer at that concept as best possible reproduction. Which means in any case best possible measure I can buy with my budget. Don't put in my mouth concept like good, bad, relaxed or warm because this is exactly what I put in subjectivity range and fall outside objective and measurable science facts.

 

[BDWoody]

This is like watching the original Star Trek series, except less entertaining.

The battles between our inner Spock and Kirk lol

 

[solderdude]

Well this is quite strange. If your signature stay below audible range it just didn't exist for you and you can't hear it. Exactly as the extra Db over audible range in measured equipments that you don't care too much. If you can't measure it and you can't hear it because is below audible range what are you talking about ? Where emerge audible signature then ? What you think it is materially ?

I don't understand ANY of your questions.

What signature are you talking about ?
extra Db over audible range ? Do you mean dB ? what extra ? What do you consider audible range ?
If I can't measure it and can't hear it ? Where does this come from. If you can't measure nor hear anything it is either perfect or the device is off.
Emerging of an audible signature ? I don't get this at all.
What I think is materially ? Do you mean what do I think is important ?

To make it clear everything between 'perfect' and 'changed from the original signal but below audible limits in any aspect' is good enough for me.
Reason there is no audible difference at all. Let's call this my binary '0'.
Then there are audible differences (regardless what aspect(s)) and let's call that binary 1.

Then I am for binary '0' and do not believe improvements over inaudible are consequential, fun to have, fun to strive for, desirable but NOT essential.

in'1' I would like to step a bit further (lenient) and don't really mind 'changes', that are not objectionable to me, are not a big issue for me either as long as it sounds good enough for me. I don't strive for that.
This way I can even 'enjoy' music over a half decent BT speaker in a workshop for instance.
That's just me.

I draw the line between my '0' and my '1' where you draw the line at a different amount of 'alterations' and lowest possible is just barely deserving your approval.

Now.. I don't mind is someone else has huge coloration, uses snakeoil and likes it.

 

[diegooo1972]

I don't understand ANY of your questions.

What signature are you talking about ?
extra Db over audible range ? Do you mean dB ? what extra ? What do you consider audible range ?
If I can't measure it and can't hear it ? Where does this come from. If you can't measure nor hear anything it is either perfect or the device is off.
Emerging of an audible signature ? I don't get this at all.
What I think is materially ? Do you mean what do I think is important ?

To make it clear everything between 'perfect' and 'changed from the original signal but below audible limits in any aspect' is good enough for me.
Reason there is no audible difference at all. Let's call this my binary '0'.
Then there are audible differences (regardless what aspect(s)) and let's call that binary 1.

Then I am for binary '0' and do not believe improvements over inaudible are consequential, fun to have, fun to strive for, desirable but NOT essential.

in'1' I would like to step a bit further (lenient) and don't really mind 'changes', that are not objectionable to me, are not a big issue for me either as long as it sounds good enough for me. I don't strive for that.
This way I can even 'enjoy' music over a half decent BT speaker in a workshop for instance.
That's just me.

I draw the line between my '0' and my '1' where you draw the line at a different amount of 'alterations' and lowest possible is just barely deserving your approval.

Now.. I don't mind is someone else has huge coloration, uses snakeoil and likes it.

What is signature in term of signals for you ? To me is just distortion of the original signal. Maybe it sound good but it must be only that. FFT work that way. If you feed 1khz sinewave to an amplifier, for example, the harmonics are just differences between the original sinewave you feed to the amp, which has to be a better then what you are going to measure, and the resulting sinewave in amp out that is simply not perfect and generate harmonics. FFT do exactly that. It must be something you can hear or measure or there's nothing there. Like the db you can avoid to consider under -90db distortion in an amplifier. You obviously don't listen harmonics in that low volume. I say 90 just to put a mark. I'd love to have best possible in that case too. Probably useless but I certainly don't want harmonics I can hear generated from an amp. These are signature in audiophiles. Difference from original signal otherwise too flat as they always say. Which is a non sense.

 

[Jimbob54]

I said good in 1 or 2 post considering the budget factor. I always refer at that concept as best possible reproduction. Which means in any case best possible measure I can buy with my budget. Don't put in my mouth concept like good, bad, relaxed or warm because this is exactly what I put in subjectivity range and fall outside objective and measurable science facts.

"Good measurements" are exactly the opposite of subjective. SINAD of 120 is "good" - SINAD of 60 is "not good" . Or you can equate (in distortion terms ) good as "transparent" or "inaudible" . Which is what @solderdude is trying to clarify with you. What do you think Amir bases his conclusions on for electronics- the results of the measurements. They are commonly understood and (with a few exceptions) the measurements being "good" or "class" leading" for the money give it a recommendation . If the measurements are "bad" you will get a headless panther. You really dont like nailing things down, do you?

PS- you just did it again- who mentioned relaxed or warm?

 

[diegooo1972]

"Good measurements" are exactly the opposite of subjective. SINAD of 120 is "good" - SINAD of 60 is "not good" . Or you can equate (in distortion terms ) good as "transparent" or "inaudible" .

Well in that way you can put good and bad in every kind of consideration. I don't really get your point. That's the reason I was using "best possible" in my explanation.

 

[Jimbob54]

Well in that way you can put good and bad in every kind of consideration. I don't really get your point. That's the reason I was using "best possible" in my explanation.

I am still no closer to understanding this : "But if the quality is measurable it resides in the objective side." so in my own simple way I am going to take it as meaning you look for things that objectively measure well for the budget you have.

 

[Killingbeans]

I like to see audio as a grey (gray) area.
had a bit of fun with this.

Got zero points. I'm an extremist!

But I still don't like going on crusades or putting people in boxes. I'd prefer if we just focus on quantising the things that have real impact on the experience of music reproduction, instead of trying to redefine expressions that already have a million different meanings.

 

[Jimbob54]

Got zero points. I'm an extremist!

But I still don't like going on crusades or putting people in boxes. I'd prefer if we just focus on quantising the things that have real impact on the experience of music reproduction, instead of trying to redefine expressions that already have a million different meanings.

Well there is no fun in that! I like kicking holes in those boxes.

 

[solderdude]

What is signature in term of signals for you ?

Signature to me is a tonal balance (linear distortion) thing where the sound is deviating audibly from 'not colored'

To me is just distortion of the original signal.

O.K. -60dB for instance, IMO, has no influence on tonal balance but this is your party. My 'limit' is below -80dB in multitone for normal to loud music listening.

No need to explain FFT nor harmonics nor masking nor the difference between dual tone and music nor audible limits (audible to who and under what circumstances)

These are signature in audiophiles.

Explains your confusion about audiophiles. You mean poor measuring equipement that doesn't necesarilly sounds poor.
I suggest you use another name. Audiophiles are people that enjoy audio as a hobby and can be anything between 100% objectivist and 100% subjectivist. Your definition of audiophiles differs from what it means at ASR. Please use another word.

Difference from original signal otherwise too flat as they always say. Which is a non sense.

These folks (your 'they) consider themselves 'music lovers' or 'audiophiles' but are what I (we ?) call audiophools/audiofools.
There is a clear distinction between an audiophile and audiophool but a vague border. For me the border is claiming snake-oil works.

While nonsensical in many ways it makes sense to them. I don't mind, they should do whatever they want/like as long as they don't claim their 'sound' is closer to 'reality' or 'better'.