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

[amirm]

The topic of subjectivity vs objectivity in audio seems to constantly come up in various threads or dedicated threads of the same. So we thought it is best to have one master thread for it so interested people can participate here, and others not seeing it spread everywhere. If you do post about the topic elsewhere, don't be surprised if it either gets moved here or deleted for being out of place.

Note that the use of the term "subjectivism" is as used in audio food fights. It is NOT the proper term in audio research which is controlled listening tests. That topic can be discussed elsewhere.

Happy arguing.

 

[Ingenieur]

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

 

[Ingenieur]

Gear is engineering
Music is art

https://www.harman.com/documents/AudioScience_0.pdf

Audio is science
All of the devices used to capture, store and reproduce musical, theatrical and film performances are designed by engineers who apply the laws of physics as they pertain to the functioning of these devices. Perfection, in this context, is defined as not degrading any part or any aspect of the audio signal: the art itself. Determining how close we are to perfection is ultimately determined subjectively, in carefully-controlled listening tests. However, accurate and comprehensive measurements, interpreted using the ever-expanding ‘rules’ of psychoacoustics, are remarkably accurate predictors of what is and what is not audible and, ultimately, of subjective preferences. This allows us to design better sounding and more cost effective products.

Audio is art
the nuances of tone and inflection of instruments and voices, the emotive effects of sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive, sound effects in movies ... are aspects of art for which there are no scientific or technical measures. Yet, subjectively we have little difficulty describing our reac- tions, positive and negative, when we hear these sounds. Perfectly reproduced, they should sound exactly as they did at the live performance or in the control room where the recording was mixed. Achieving this lofty goal is a considerable challenge, since the final audio component is the listening room, and all rooms are different. The interactions among loudspeakers, listeners and rooms are the focus of continuing scientific investigations

 

[Ingenieur]

This one is 'precious'
He can hear the difference between 2 DAC's with > 95% certainty! rotflmao
This dude is hilarious.
dBA
dBC
dBZ
Peak, average, weighted
???
This says a lot about his 'expertise'


I’ll bet you a DCS Bartok that I can easily pick out between the Topping D90 and say a Chord TT2. If I can’t hit 95% accuracy … you get a Bartok.

But if I do, what will you pay in return?

ASR is full of crap when Amir’s hearing, I mean he don’t even hear (like the period around D90 review), and when he listens, he says 90dB ain’t loud.

We have a problem there. 90 dB is not loud to him? Sony speaker is so bright when many have who owned it and never found it be be remotely bright.

Those facts show there is a real issue with his ears let alone talk about blind test.

 

[watchnerd]

In the audio realm, if audible, it can be measured.

You need to do more drugs.

I can "hear" things, i.e. have psychedelic audio perceptions / hallucinations, and thus are audible to me, that I'm pretty sure don't really exist in the way I hear them and thus can't be measured.

Classic example is the perception of "time slowing down" when on enough cannabis.

Placebo effects can also often be "heard" but not measured.

 

[Ingenieur]

You need to do more drugs.

I can "hear" things, i.e. have psychedelic audio perceptions / hallucinations, and thus are audible to me, that I'm pretty sure don't really exist in the way I hear them and thus can't be measured.

Classic example is the perception of "time slowing down" when on enough cannabis.

Placebo effects can also often be "heard" but not measured.

I do not do drugs.
Perhaps you should quit. Lol

Then you'll stop hearing things not in the signal. After all, that is what we are discussing, the electrical music signal content and it being transducer.
Not mental illness or drug abuse.


But even those can be measured: brain activity can be converted to an electrical signal.

So when high, time slows down.
Does the time on your watch (and everyone else's in town)?

Relativity
Put your hand on a hot stove for a second, seems like an eternity

Talk to a pretty girl for hours, seems like seconds.

 

[watchnerd]

I do not do drugs.
Perhaps you should quit. Lol

Then you'll stop hearing things not in the signal. After all, that is what we are discussing, the electrical music signal content and it being transducer.
Not mental illness or drug abuse.


But even those can be measured: brain activity can be converted to an electrical signal.

So when high, time slows down.
Does the time on your watch (and everyone else's in town)?

Relativity
Put your hand on a hot stove for a second, seems like an eternity

Talk to a pretty girl for hours, seems like seconds.

It was illustrative of a point:

Your mind can play tricks on you.

Things can be "audible" that aren't measurable.

Again, no need for drugs per se -- simple placebo effects are enough.

All of your anecdotes above about people hearing DAC differences are explainable using exactly the point I'm making -- your psychoacoustic system is not infallible and is easily tricked.

So, yep, people can hear things that aren't real, thus we have blind testing.

 

[antennaguru]

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

Please outline for me how and what test equipment you would use to objectively measure soundstage depth as well as vertical imaging.

The only way I know of is to measure channel separation, except that measurement doesn't ever seem to correlate very well with sound-staging capability, or imaging at all. Having said this some people have never heard a 3D sound-stage from a stereo system, and don't care about stereo imaging at all. I do care because I attend a lot of live music performances, and I find that the visual cues I am missing during home listening to a recording, compared to being present at a performance live, are pretty well offset by the audibility of a well reproduced 3D sound-stage. It enhances my enjoyment of listening to a recording at home.

I am the first to admit that at live performances of amplified music that the 3D sound-stage I hear live isn't nearly as well defined as what I hear at home, however, the visual cues I see live are more than enough for me to enjoy the live performance. My conclusion there is that generally the sound engineering is better performed for recordings, than it is for live performances. There are exceptions though, such as the live performance I recently went to of Pat Metheny and his group, and where the sounds on the left side of the stage sounded like they came from the left, and the sounds from the right side of the stage sounded like they came from the right, and the sounds from the center of the stage sounded like they came from the center. This was all piped through line array speakers hanging on each side of the stage. I stopped by to see the sound engineer after the show and complemented him on that!

 

[voodooless]

thus we have blind testing.

That’s all one needs, really. Subjectivists are not blind. On the contrary: the major issue is that they are not blind! Our experiences are clouded by our own dilutions. If you want to be objective, you’ll need to remove these.

 

[ZolaIII]

Who ever doesn't use all it can help him to perform a task is a fool. You don't see with a lens but with your eye and lens can help you to see it differently or to correct a problem in your eye sight. I believe we all hear a little differently objectively and brain is most powerful ASP we will ever have. Measurements are very useful but they are not all and any preference should be understood as subjective.

 

[Ingenieur]

Please outline for me how and what test equipment you would use to objectively measure soundstage depth as well as vertical imaging.

The only way I know of is to measure channel separation, except that measurement doesn't ever seem to correlate very well with sound-staging capability, or imaging at all. Having said this some people have never heard a 3D sound-stage from a stereo system, and don't care about stereo imaging at all. I do care because I attend a lot of live music performances, and I find that the visual cues I am missing during home listening to a recording, compared to being present at a performance live, are pretty well offset by the audibility of a well reproduced 3D sound-stage. It enhances my enjoyment of listening to a recording at home.

I am the first to admit that at live performances of amplified music that the 3D sound-stage I hear live isn't nearly as well defined as what I hear at home, however, the visual cues I see live are more than enough for me to enjoy the live performance. My conclusion there is that generally the sound engineering is better performed for recordings, than it is for live performances. There are exceptions though, such as the live performance I recently went to of Pat Metheny and his group, and where the sounds on the left side of the stage sounded like they came from the left, and the sounds from the right side of the stage sounded like they came from the right, and the sounds from the center of the stage sounded like they came from the center. This was all piped through line array speakers hanging on each side of the stage. I stopped by to see the sound engineer after the show and complemented him on that!

It can't be measured. It is not a measurable parameter. It is solely a function of the signal (room, speaker, placement).

If 2 amps measure identically both will convey the impression.

You can measure V (or I)
Or both, but that will not yield power
You need time in the mix
Then you can derive phase, frequency

No hidden signals. The best we can hope for is less distortion of the signal.
It is only 2 dimensions. Magnitude and time at any instant.
No depth, height or width

 

[Frgirard]

When I start to read this thread, I have the illusion to have read "are objectivist blind".
How is possible? I'm not blind.

 

[Ingenieur]

These are people who buy $10,000 power cords. The instructions say to connect it up, but do not run power thru it for 10 days or the sound will be ruined.
Crazy pills
The broken machine does not know it is broken

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[antennaguru]

It can't be measured. It is not a measurable parameter. It is solely a function of the signal (room, speaker, placement).

If 2 amps measure identically both will convey the impression.

You can measure V (or I)
Or both, but that will not yield power
You need time in the mix
Then you can derive phase, frequency

No hidden signals. The best we can hope for is less distortion of the signal.
It is only 2 dimensions. Magnitude and time at any instant.
No depth, height or width

Yet there are indeed differences between different amplifiers when it comes to reproducing these sound-staging parameters over the very same system/room, with the very same listeners, and simply substituting amplifiers - which are supposed to be simple gain devices. So no, I disagree as just an amplifier change can be easily audible. It is also absolutely repeatable and easily identifiable by listeners such that every listener can tell these differences between amplifiers in the same room/speakers. We just can't measure the differences between these same amplifiers on the bench - probably because we don't have or know a convenient way to make such a measurement. Distortion, SINAD, and channel separation don't correlate to the sound-staging that is heard by the listeners.

What we do have are a set of recordings we know well, that over time have helped us repeatedly identify sound-staging differences, by simply listening to them over the associated equipment. We've done it blind with all of the amplifiers lined up on the floor next to each other and a hank of black cloth fabric laid over them. Unfortunately, warm-up time needs to be allowed so instantaneous switching is not possible, but the room is cleared for the connection change to the amplifier. Depth for example, is heard and logged in feet back from the plane of the speakers heard by each listener. Totally repeatable and similar for each listener. The bad news is that the best measuring amplifiers are quite often the worst at this, and other less well measuring amplifiers sometimes present greater depth and more realistic soundstage height...

 

[Ingenieur]

Yet there are indeed differences between different amplifiers when it comes to reproducing these sound-staging parameters over the very same system/room, with the very same listeners, and simply substituting amplifiers - which are supposed to be simple gain devices. So no, I disagree as just an amplifier change can be easily audible. It is also absolutely repeatable and easily identifiable by listeners such that every listener can tell these differences between amplifiers in the same room/speakers. We just can't measure the differences between these same amplifiers on the bench - probably because we don't have or know a convenient way to make such a measurement. Distortion, SINAD, and channel separation don't correlate to the sound-staging that is heard by the listeners.

What we do have are a set of recordings we know well, that over time have helped us repeatedly identify sound-staging differences, by simply listening to them over the associated equipment. We've done it blind with all of the amplifiers lined up on the floor next to each other and a hank of black cloth fabric laid over them. Unfortunately, warm-up time needs to be allowed so instantaneous switching is not possible, but the room is cleared for the connection change to the amplifier. Depth for example, is heard and logged in feet back from the plane of the speakers heard by each listener. Totally repeatable and similar for each listener. The bad news is that the best measuring amplifiers are quite often the worst at this, and other less well measuring amplifiers sometimes present greater depth and more realistic soundstage height...

I respectfully disagree.

Same source, same speakers, same room.
If 2 amps measure the same using SotA instruments, all parameters, BW, slew rate, etc., they will sound identical. One will not have musicality, air, depth, etc., and the other, not.

It would take order of magnitude differences, and it would not be because one amp 'enhances' or possesses the qualities, it would be a consequence of the other distorting or masking what is inherent in the signal.

Room speakers x.0% distortion
Amp 0.0x %.
Not possible to discern.

 

[Chrispy]

Yet there are indeed differences between different amplifiers when it comes to reproducing these sound-staging parameters over the very same system/room, with the very same listeners, and simply substituting amplifiers - which are supposed to be simple gain devices. So no, I disagree as just an amplifier change can be easily audible. It is also absolutely repeatable and easily identifiable by listeners such that every listener can tell these differences between amplifiers in the same room/speakers. We just can't measure the differences between these same amplifiers on the bench - probably because we don't have or know a convenient way to make such a measurement. Distortion, SINAD, and channel separation don't correlate to the sound-staging that is heard by the listeners.

What we do have are a set of recordings we know well, that over time have helped us repeatedly identify sound-staging differences, by simply listening to them over the associated equipment. We've done it blind with all of the amplifiers lined up on the floor next to each other and a hank of black cloth fabric laid over them. Unfortunately, warm-up time needs to be allowed so instantaneous switching is not possible, but the room is cleared for the connection change to the amplifier. Depth for example, is heard and logged in feet back from the plane of the speakers heard by each listener. Totally repeatable and similar for each listener. The bad news is that the best measuring amplifiers are quite often the worst at this, and other less well measuring amplifiers sometimes present greater depth and more realistic soundstage height...

You have something about this just switching out an amp affecting soundstage thing? Some sort of blinded test? Sounds odd. Not my experience in changing amps at least. Simply substituting amps wouldn't address level matching as a basic step either....

 

[ahofer]

Yet there are indeed differences between different amplifiers when it comes to reproducing these sound-staging parameters over the very same system/room, with the very same listeners, and simply substituting amplifiers - which are supposed to be simple gain devices. So no, I disagree as just an amplifier change can be easily audible. It is also absolutely repeatable and easily identifiable by listeners such that every listener can tell these differences between amplifiers in the same room/speakers. We just can't measure the differences between these same amplifiers on the bench - probably because we don't have or know a convenient way to make such a measurement. Distortion, SINAD, and channel separation don't correlate to the sound-staging that is heard by the listeners.

Did I miss a citation to a controlled listening test that supports this point? It would be a first.

What we do have are a set of recordings we know well, that over time have helped us repeatedly identify sound-staging differences, by simply listening to them over the associated equipment. We've done it blind with all of the amplifiers lined up on the floor next to each other and a hank of black cloth fabric laid over them. Unfortunately, warm-up time needs to be allowed so instantaneous switching is not possible, but the room is cleared for the connection change to the amplifier. Depth for example, is heard and logged in feet back from the plane of the speakers heard by each listener. Totally repeatable and similar for each listener. The bad news is that the best measuring amplifiers are quite often the worst at this, and other less well measuring amplifiers sometimes present greater depth and more realistic soundstage height...

Sorry, I’m just not buying this without documentation, unless someone is mistaking tube distortion or impedance mismatch for ”soundstage”.

To quote Alan Shaw, “soundstage is a mental construct, like ’love’”. (https://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup...times-better-than-it-need-be.80270/post-95307)

 

[antennaguru]

For level matching we use an SPL meter on a tripod in the room, and never move it during the session, and match levels using a 1 KHz tone from the same CD source.

Again, those that haven't heard sound-staging differences wouldn't understand what I'm saying, nor care. Feel free to not care, and to not consider sound-staging important.

 

[ahofer]

For level matching we use an SPL meter on a tripod in the room, and never move it during the session, and match levels using a 1 KHz tone from the same CD source.

Again, those that haven't heard sound-staging differences wouldn't understand what I'm saying, nor care. Feel free to not care, and to not consider sound-staging important.

Your amps have terrible superflommery. Those who have not heard superflommery the way I have wouldn’t understand. Feel free to not care about superflommery, which is worth 5 figures in an amplifier to those of us who understand.

What you claim has NEVER been shown before. You should publish.

 

[JP]

For level matching we use an SPL meter on a tripod

Mistake #1.