Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[Blumlein 88]

I remember J_J describing a project when he was an undergrad. He had a solid state amp, and a McIntosh tube amp. He had the filaments lighted on the tube amp and an amp switch. He would switch between the SS and tube amp asking if they sounded different. I think he said everyone described the sound as different except one professor who took part. There was never anything connected except the SS amp. The McIntosh wasn't even functional.

Try the video linked in this post by @Killingbeans in another thread. It illustrates how stories and various other factors beyond sound effect entire industries. In this case the music and musician industry.

Where does the tone come from in a guitar amplifier. I would recommend other videos by this same person.

Are tubes more musical?

Noise is not musicality. But it is relevant. Tube experts may comment on soft compression pre-generating harmonic distortion and musicality. With tubes the broadband noise may be perceptible vs low noise preamps and speaker amps. I saw a study of audio tube noise figures. I can't say the study...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[MattHooper]

I remember J_J describing a project when he was an undergrad. He had a solid state amp, and a McIntosh tube amp. He had the filaments lighted on the tube amp and an amp switch. He would switch between the SS and tube amp asking if they sounded different. I think he said everyone described the sound as different except one professor who took part. There was never anything connected except the SS amp. The McIntosh wasn't even functional.

I remember that as well.

An interesting question is how fleeting or durable are such bias effects (or any other audio related bias effects)?

Which brings in all of our own experiences with our systems.

We all have been listening to our equipment for many years under normal sighted conditions:

If we presume that most of us or all of us are experiencing a combination of the real sound and some bias influence in our perception, how durable is our impression of our system?

Speaking for myself, it seems to me my perception of my system has been very durable, for many years. I would for instance give you the same Sonic description Of what I’m hearing through my loudspeakers as I would have years ago. (With the exception of certain changes, I deliberately make sometimes to speaker positioning, room, acoustics, etc.)

Do other people have the experience of their system, changing its sound all the time? (without their making deliberate changes)

For the most part, not the audiophiles, I know.

With a major exception I’ve mentioned before: many audiophiles including myself have had the occasional day where the system just doesn’t seem to sound right. And then for whatever reason it seems fine the following day or whatever. That seems most likely some perceptual change in the listener. But overall those days are rare and otherwise the sound of the system seems very consistent.

And if the sound of the system under sighted conditions seems quite consistent, what would explain that? Is it that sided by effects are that consistent and persistent? or is it better explained by the proposition that we are, generally speaking, doing a pretty good job of perceiving the real sound of the system and since that sound isn’t really changing… that’s why we perceive it has not changing.

Just throwing stuff out there..

(and goddamnit, I wish to hack my iPhone dictation would recognize the word “sighted” and not replace it with “sided.” The amount of going back on spelling errors is just brutal)

 

[dshreter]

The checkerboard illusion is actual a great example of why measurements are not everything… the interpretation of them is though.

Simple measurements would tell you that squares A & B share the same RGB values. That is a fact.

Are A & B actually the same color? Well if this was a photograph of a physical object taken in the real world your intuition is almost certainly correct. If A & B had the same luminosity even though B is in a shadow, square B as a physical object must be a different color than A.

Perceptions are a much easier way to reach this conclusion than using measurements of this environment. If you can control the environment and throw slabs A and B on a scanner, well then measurements would work nicely.

 

[dshreter]

I remember that as well.

An interesting question is how fleeting or durable are such bias effects (or any other audio related bias effects)?

Which brings in all of our own experiences with our systems.

We all have been listening to our equipment for many years under normal sighted conditions:

If we presume that most of us or all of us are experiencing a combination of the real sound and some bias influence in our perception, how durable is our impression of our system?

Speaking for myself, it seems to me my perception of my system has been very durable, for many years. I would for instance give you the same Sonic description Of what I’m hearing through my loudspeakers as I would have years ago. (With the exception of certain changes, I deliberately make sometimes to speaker positioning, room, acoustics, etc.)

Do other people have the experience of their system, changing its sound all the time? (without their making deliberate changes)

For the most part, not the audiophiles, I know.

With a major exception I’ve mentioned before: many audiophiles including myself have had the occasional day where the system just doesn’t seem to sound right. And then for whatever reason it seems fine the following day or whatever. That seems most likely some perceptual change in the listener. But overall those days are rare and otherwise the sound of the system seems very consistent.

And if the sound of the system under sighted conditions seems quite consistent, what would explain that? Is it that sided by effects are that consistent and persistent? or is it better explained by the proposition that we are, generally speaking, doing a pretty good job of perceiving the real sound of the system and since that sound isn’t really changing… that’s why we perceive it has not changing.

Just throwing stuff out there..

(and goddamnit, I wish to hack my iPhone dictation would recognize the word “sighted” and not replace it with “sided.” The amount of going back on spelling errors is just brutal)

It all depends upon the objective function you are trying to maximize. If you want to maximize the perceived performance of your system, then marijuana or scotch work even better than speaker upgrades.

If your objective function is the selection of components that improves the acoustic performance of a system, then you need to turn to measurements.

 

[MusicMan77]

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/the-absolute-sounds-review-methodology-first-principles/

Interesting article from TAS. Basically they say objective measurements are hard for people to understand and that they aren't really objective at all. I had a few good laughs reading this one.

 

[MattHooper]

It all depends upon the objective function you are trying to maximize. If you want to maximize the perceived performance of your system, then marijuana or scotch work even better than speaker upgrades.

If your objective function is the selection of components that improves the acoustic performance of a system, then you need to turn to measurements.

That’s the spirit!

Although, sorry I can’t help but point out: the rationale for improving your subjective perception of the system seems fairly obvious. But the rationale for improving the the objective performance of your system seems less obvious.

Why improve the objective performance?

(unless of course that improves the perceived subjective performance in sighted listening)

 

[NTK]

...
Therefore, once again: why care about either measurements or the results of blind testing?

Either way of knowing your perception is distorted will not change the outcome of how it “ sounds” to you.

So why not just skip measurements and blind testing and enjoy the illusion as it’s going to happen and you’re real world, listening scenario?
...

A big problem with uncontrolled sighted listening is that the results are highly nonrepeatable and change all the time. That's good if you want to keep yourself on the constant upgrade treadmill.

• Go to an audio show, or a showroom, or someone else's place, and you may hear something that sounds "vastly superior" (could be in some specific aspects, could be overall) to what you have. So you got to have it.
• Brought it home, and let's say you are totally thrilled, initially. But invariably the initial euphoria will wear out, the excitement dies down.
• You read some more "audio press equipment reviews", watch some more YT.
• You go again to an audio show ... and the cycle repeats.

 

[dshreter]

That’s the spirit!

Although, sorry I can’t help but point out: the rationale for improving your subjective perception of the system seems fairly obvious. But the rationale for improving the the objective performance of your system seems less obvious.

Why improve the objective performance?

(unless of course that improves the perceived subjective performance in sighted listening)

I’ll go one further and suggest that the pursuit of objective performance could even interfere with maximizing subjective and sensorial experience.

Enlightenment is appreciation for the music itself, which requires no more than a phone, Spotify, and some headphones.

 

[MattHooper]

I think there may be something to what you are saying. It’s a very common argument.

But I think there are reasons to doubt some of the analysis.

A big problem with uncontrolled sighted listening is that the results are highly nonrepeatable and change all the time.

Do they really change all the time?

If you noticed my reply earlier on this very thread, I was questioning that.

I listened uncontrolled conditions, and yet the sound of my system seems to have remained very constant over many years. I even mentioned that my tube amplifiers which seem to sound more pleasing to me may be simply a bias effect, but the effect has been incredibly consistent for decades.

I’m not really aware of many audiophiles saying that their system is constantly changing its sound (unless they are doing things to change the sound, or think they are doing things to change the sound).

That's good if you want to keep yourself on the constant upgrade treadmill.

• Go to an audio show, or a showroom, or someone else's place, and you may hear something that sounds "vastly superior" (could be in some specific aspects, could be overall) to what you have. So you got to have it.
• Brought it home, and let's say you are totally thrilled, initially. But invariably the initial euphoria will wear out, the excitement dies down.
• You read some more "audio press equipment reviews", watch some more YT.
• You go again to an audio show ... and the cycle repeats.

I know that all sounds very intuitive and logical, and even may seem well evidenced because we know plenty of audiophiles go through lots of gear.

But I don’t think we actually have any firm evidence that audiophiles just using sighted listening, taken as a group not just citing individuals, can’t or don’t get long lasting satisfaction versus people on a forum like this.

I’ve seen quite a number of polls in the subjectivist forums asking about peoples satisfaction with their system or how long they’ve had gear, and I’m often surprised at how many of the members have had their gear for long periods.

I went into detail in this thread, citing a Steve Hoffman for poll asking how long people had their gear. And a bunch of the answers are shown in my post:

Audio Note speakers

My experience is generally the opposite. My first impression always sticks. I'm a "tone/timbre" first guy, so voices and instruments I like have to sound "right" to my perception - invoke certain "colors" in my mind - and that is pretty immediately the case or not. If I think "wow that...

www.audiosciencereview.com

My sense of things is that long-term satisfaction has less to do with the type of gear people are buying, or whether one is using sighted listening or a measurement approach; it depends more on the personality of of the individual. Some people can just be satisfied with something longer than other people who may want to play with gear more.
I mean, it’s clear on this form it simply having an engineering mindset and understanding measurements doesn’t negate many people from still enjoying lots of different gear, even doing DIY, collecting gear, even our glorious host spinning enormous amount of time measuring and listening to different gear.

Like I said, many audiophiles are going to find a way to audiophile

And just as the subjectivist will find their way of justifying “ why our approach to buying gear is better” we are going to be prone here to looking for ways to justify “ why our approach to buying gear is better.” That may include making some assumptions about an advantage in getting off the gear fetish road that may or may not hold up under scrutiny.

(not that there’s anything wrong with trying to justify why we buy gear - that’s pretty much what this is all about)

 

[Newman]

Does anyone reading this thread at the moment really not understand the basic reasons to conduct blind listening tests if they want to know what sound waves they prefer?

There seems to be a lot of bad faith argumentation going on. Unless I am overestimating people's ability to grasp the basics.

The underlying premise of the sighted-listening approach to choosing gear (long endorsed and promulgated by TAS, by Stereophile, by every upgrade-focused gear salesman from here to Timbuktoo, and by every premium-priced ladder DAC, tube amp and exotic cable punter since Edison) is that we are all about self-pleasuring. And that we come to music in order to self-pleasure. For those of us who are more into music for a love of music itself, we want to hear the music as-expressed. Not just as-expressed live, but also as-expressed in a recorded production that was vetted in-room as a total musical expression including much nuance and subtlety. We want our gear to not change that. We most certainly don't want our gear to change that in fixed ways that are overlaid onto all the music we experience. If that is the choice, then self-pleasuring be damned, especially considering that proper experimentation has determined that accurate sound reproduction is optimal to pretty much everyone, because it sounds closest to real instruments and music. So it's not like accurate reproduction has even the slightest of problematic aspects, when well mastered. And for bad masters, like Dr Toole says, get a (good) tone control and use it on the odd occasion.

At the root of all the argumentation is a rigid misunderstanding of the realities of the sighted listening effect, being so rigid for reasons unknown...but one could make a list of reasons for us to 'argumentate' over, as if not agreeing on reality is our true passion. However, I am not so unfocused as to engage in such.

cheers

 

[Blumlein 88]

Does anyone reading this thread at the moment really not understand the basic reasons to conduct blind listening tests if they want to know what sound waves they prefer?

I'm like 90% in agreement with you. I do however see some credence to the idea that what we prefer is not always just the sound waves we prefer. Because our day to day experience with music is not "just the sound waves". I am not being argumentative just for argument's sake.

Now I've come around to the idea that making your decisions based upon what works with just the sound waves is the right path. The results are great, cheaper, easier to achieve and plain superior. For someone who is not in that place, they are not going to just be convinced all at once to have feelings and emotions that match that ideas of how this really works. That is not how people work.

I came to believe everything pretty reasonably other than speakers. I've detailed a few days ago how I came to be convinced on that. If someone can be given the knowledge to never go down the path offered by Stereophile and TAS then so much the better. People not around in the early days of those publications don't know the whole subjective community was super niche, oddball, outcasts, about as far from the mainstream as one could get without disappearing. Both published ostensibly 4 times a year and in reality for years more like 2.5 times a year. There was no market for them. If JGH wasn't strangely resilient, and Harry Pearson rich they would never have survived. JGH of course came to believe the path a dead end regretting being linked to the whole subjectivist enterprise.

According to my opinion, it was CD that let them take off. We had gear that was audibly near enough perfect and with CD finally a source that was. Why would this make these oddballs end up ruling the audio world other than at the very low end? Because once everything other than speakers was perfect, your subjectivity is all that could make a difference. They were already in the business of teaching subjectivity. The personalized approach was also non-technical. Just listen with your own two ears and compare with reality. It let everybody in on the game of making judgements about quality. The turgid truth now is everything is so good and so cheap you don't have to make any judgements. But people feel a sense of ownership, and identity when they make judgements.

There seems to be a lot of bad faith argumentation going on. Unless I am overestimating people's ability to grasp the basics.

I think you are underestimating people's feelings when their judgements represent something about them vs choosing the appropriate widget just like everyone else.

The underlying premise of the sighted-listening approach to choosing gear (long endorsed and promulgated by TAS, by Stereophile, by every upgrade-focused gear salesman from here to Timbuktoo, and by every premium-priced ladder DAC, tube amp and exotic cable punter since Edison) is that we are all about self-pleasuring. And that we come to music in order to self-pleasure. For those of us who are more into music for a love of music itself, we want to hear the music as-expressed. Not just as-expressed live, but also as-expressed in a recorded production that was vetted in-room as a total musical expression including much nuance and subtlety. We want our gear to not change that. We most certainly don't want our gear to change that in fixed ways that are overlaid onto all the music we experience. If that is the choice, then self-pleasuring be damned, especially considering that proper experimentation has determined that accurate sound reproduction is optimal to pretty much everyone, because it sounds closest to real instruments and music. So it's not like accurate reproduction has even the slightest of problematic aspects, when well mastered. And for bad masters, like Dr Toole says, get a (good) tone control and use it on the odd occasion.

This paragraph is just a variation on loving music vs loving gear. The Alan Parson's quote:"Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment."

Like saying sports car drivers don't use the car to get somewhere, they go somewhere to enjoy driving the car. That doesn't sound all that bad to me.

 

[Mart68]

Do other people have the experience of their system, changing its sound all the time? (without their making deliberate changes)

For the most part, not the audiophiles, I know.

With a major exception I’ve mentioned before: many audiophiles including myself have had the occasional day where the system just doesn’t seem to sound right. And then for whatever reason it seems fine the following day or whatever. That seems most likely some perceptual change in the listener. But overall those days are rare and otherwise the sound of the system seems very consistent.

And if the sound of the system under sighted conditions seems quite consistent, what would explain that? Is it that sided by effects are that consistent and persistent? or is it better explained by the proposition that we are, generally speaking, doing a pretty good job of perceiving the real sound of the system and since that sound isn’t really changing… that’s why we perceive it has not changing.

If this is so, why are forums littered with comments like 'I put the new cable/component in and things were not sounding right at all so I let it burn in for 48 hours and when I came back to listen again the sound had improved considerably.' ?

I've read something similar to the above 3 times in the past 24 hours. Finding a thousand examples would be trivial. Our perception is always changing.

 

[Axo1989]

So take the classic checkerboard illusion:

Due to perceptual heuristics and built-in expectation effects, even though square A and B are exactly the same shade, we strongly and helplessly perceive B as lighter than A.

So how can we find out the truth that it’s an illusion? One way is as you say
“ measurements to the rescue.”

Without changing anything in the illusion itself, you can objectively measure the luminance of each square. And then the objective numbers tell you the squares are exactly the same values and has the same brightness.

But interestingly, what you get with this combination is an intellectual knowledge about the truth the squares are the same brightness, but the very strong perception that they are different remains!

The "illusion" is a contrivance of course. The visual model is tweaked to give precisely the degree of light and shadow that renders the squares the same shade of grey. The evolved purpose of our perception isn't so much to solve these visual puzzles, but to perceive and react to the environment around us. Our perceptions account for light and shade to tell us what a real checkerboard presents to us, and our perception that A is a grey square and B is a white square allows us to play checkers or chess in a real environment (regardless of light sources and shadows). If we take the measurements too seriously here we might lose the game.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Almost the entire canon of philosophy was written before cognitive bias theory was discovered and reliably reproduced.

We also know that human brains regularly rewrite memories with errors, so we cannot trust memory.

 

[polocolo]

Thank you for your answer!

I’ve had a long interest in philosophical subjects, so a bunch of your post resonates with me. A snapshot of my leanings here

Yes, I had read that post already! It's a reason I tagged you!

I have argued that the division between
“ subjectivists” and “ objectivists” as those clashes are typically seen in high-end audio is an epistemological division. The subjectivist approach holds a theory of knowledge whereby the performance of audio gear is most reliably known through informal subjective impressions. The objectivist approach by contrast incorporates scepticism of our informal subjective impressions, and therefore seeks outside objective confirmation and/or or controls for bias effects, as a route to more reliable knowledge.

I believe this epistemic division best characterizes and explains the type of clashes you see among audiophiles.

I agree that this is probably the most intuitive representation of the division. I guess I wanted to say I find it too simplistic. By that, I do not mean that the analysis itself is simplistic but the stands people actually choose.

Once again: what is the goal?

If the goal is: I want to enjoy my music as much as possible, then measurements are (maybe) a help in pre-selecting what gear to try in sighted listening and that's it.

If the goal is: I want to know what gear is the most truthful to the signal, then measurements are everything and that’s it.

There shouldn’t be any debate between subjectivists and objectivists if they don’t have the same goal.
There shouldn’t be any debate between subjectivists since they don’t seek a common truth (but that don’t prevent them from sharing experiences)
There should only be debates about the « how » between objectivists.

What I don’t understand is the complete absence of debate about « existential goals », as in: what do you seek in life and why do you seek it?

Subjectivists come here to mock objectivist because they’re too afraid to think « my experience is my own and it has no value outside of me ». So they want to feel like they’re right.

Objectivists mock subjectivists… because what? Because they feel closer to « truth ».

But who said that’s the most interesting goal? It sometimes feel like the search for solid data and evidence-based knowledge is the only worthy quest… I don’t get it.

Though I find this place to be quite wonderfully populated with very smart people (smarter than I am !) and many balanced views.

I hope I didn't sound to snobby or what. I didn't mean to act superior or something. I confess I am not very comfortable with the "smart/intelligent" categorisation for people. I tend to think ideas/propositions are more or less complex and, more importantly, more or less useful/relevant.

I'm afraid we tend too much to wonder "who is smart? am I smart? smart enough? smarter?". Sometimes like a big competition. But that's an entirely other topic, sorry for disgressing.

Yup. Seems to be any sound epistemology has to incorporate pragmatism, given our lack of omniscience.

One thing: I would want to be careful about signing onto a proposition like
“ measurements aren’t everything” if only because it sounds so similar to the type of bogus arguments subjectivist audiophiles have made against the relevance of measurements.

But I think a properly made argument can sign onto that, which maintains the importance of measurements and doesn’t legitimize mushy, thinking or woo beliefs.

I would just say: the value of anything (experience, measurement, whatever) is always dependent on the goal we set. Almost nothing as a value in itself. What is a good/bad belief? Depends on what you seek.

Yes, most of the time, a good belief is also a sound belief – because science gives us a common language, and that allows us, as a species, to grow. But that doesn't mean it's always the case. Sometimes, the most interesting belief (and I use interesting in a pragmatist tone) does not have to be true. I happen to wonder if hi-fi doesn't provide that specific type of belief.

It's implied by your take on sighted listening. If I have two different experiences (A & B) for a same speaker, whether blinded or sighted, then A & B have two different values. One is more interesting in the perspective of pure data, one is more interesting in the perspective of everyday life.

Should we risk forgetting the everyday life? I don't think so !

Ugh. I’m currently battling a swamp of naïve reductionist arguments on another philosophy oriented forum. Maddening. Especially when deep intuitions are involved.
(Think: free will etc)

You talk about free will: the question of its existence is not unequivocally answered by science… and yet everyone behaves like it is.

What about art? does it have value, other than just « pleasure »? can it not enrich our life? If yes, does it enrich with « data », or with something else?

Is it the something else that we’re pursuing? if yes, what is the role of measurements in that quest?

I’d probably be up for that. Sounds interesting.

Great! Thank you so much!

Having spent many long years in the trenches of philosophical debates, be it on forums, podcasts or wherever, it led me to develop some habits which I can understand can be annoying in a forum like this. I’m used to having people with formidable philosophical chops trying to tear down my arguments and worldview step-by-step to the very core. It can be quite humbling.

That means you really gotta come to those discussions with all your ducks already in a row, in terms of the coherence of your argument and how it fits into any wider worldview. So its just a habit of this point to do a coherency check when somebody (including myself ) makes an argument in any realm, audio or otherwise: to look at the implications of the argument, and how it spreads beyond the current topic at hand, and how well it holds up in the wider context of beliefs and accepted principles. (a bit of a Quinean gut check as it were.) Fairly often people can be arguing in a bubble, thinking they have an obvious truth in the subject at hand, without having double checked the wider implications of their particular argument.

I very much enjoy when somebody can point out when I am making similar errors.

But again, I recognize this can be somewhat annoying sometimes - the stuff of gadflies - on a forum where maybe people just wanna kick back and talk about audio gear, discuss the measurements, etc.

Of course. We all seek different things in a discussion. Since it's my profession, I'm sure I have adopted habits that can be annoying as well!

 

[polocolo]

It’s likely not. But from a purely practical perspective, I know of no other method that is more successful at explaining and predicting the physical world. Philosophy that doesn’t help improve the method is of no interest to me personally. I’ll stick with Science and Scientific Method, flawed as it is, until there’s something provably better.

There is something mind-boggling in your answer. It basically implies you’re not interested in a pretty big chunk of existence which has little to do with the prediction of the physical world: meaning ; emotions ; art ; love ; ethics…

I suspect your life is often driven by things that are independent of the science’s quest to predict the physical world.

Philosophy is (also) about what matters, what means (and how things come to mean anything). It’s also about why we value this experience more than the other ; about culture ; about what is fair…

Very few people do not care about justice, for instance. If you do, you care about philosophy that is not entirely devoted to support the science method.

(you also seem to forget about the sciences that are not about the physical world)

Has fiction no other value to you than to entertain? can it not enrich our life?

 

[polocolo]

One fun question that can be derived from that is just : why care about the measurements at all?

Why not just evaluate loudspeakers in the actual use case: sighted listening?
If ultimately, your perception is a combination of the sound and whatever other biases you bring or experience, then why appeal to measurements derived from blind listening, which ignores the real world influences you will be experiencing? Just purchase the loudspeakers that please your perception in sighted listening, because you’ll never get “ past” that perception (to the thing as it is), so your sighted perception IS the reality of how you will perceive the sound.

I think a fairly reasonable case can be made for purchasing gear along those lines, insofar as one advisedly allows the role of bias.

Yes. This is the whole affair, isn't it? Once you know there are biased, once you know you wouldn't hear the same things in different contexts, once you know marketing is a scam... what else is there to say?

It's pretty much like alternative medicine, isn't it? Yes, there are charlatans. And yes the science doesn't support X or Y therapy. But as long as you know all that... if it does make you feel better, isn't it the only thing that really matters?

Our experiences are influenced by any number of factors, and it can be reasonable to take advantage of that fact.

exactly! why not ruse with our biased brain to make the best experience possible? I'm nietzschean in that regard: I'd rather have a "false" experience that makes my life fascinating than a flat and boring one. If only because any experience is, by definition, false in one way or another!

At least for somebody comfortable with that.

On the other hand, as I’ve defended many times, it is also entirely reasonable for somebody to conclude that appealing to certain measurable criteria is the way to go.
I’ve argued for the relevance of data from blind listening studies in guiding a purchase.
And for neutrality and high Fidelity in gear.

Different approaches can suit the different personalities, proclivities, and goals of different individuals.

Yes, I think that sums it up and I don't understand how anyone could disagree with that.

 

[polocolo]

Yes, it shouldn't, but I keep in mind that many (my guess is more) participate here from an engineering background than a scientific one. Generalising of course (some do both, or neither) but I'll argue that scientists formulate hypotheses about the universe, then conduct experiments to falsify them (or not) while engineers learn complex rule-sets, than apply them to solve practical problems. When less aware participants here invoke (title case incoming) "The Science" they often mean "The Rules". Which is my take on why our irascible friend often comes across as a scold.

Yes, you are very right. And that makes it even more frustrating.

 

[pkane]

There is something mind-boggling in your answer. It basically implies you’re not interested in a pretty big chunk of existence which has little to do with the prediction of the physical world: meaning ; emotions ; art ; love ; ethics…

I suspect your life is often driven by things that are independent of the science’s quest to predict the physical world.

Philosophy is (also) about what matters, what means (and how things come to mean anything). It’s also about why we value this experience more than the other ; about culture ; about what is fair…

Very few people do not care about justice, for instance. If you do, you care about philosophy that is not entirely devoted to support the science method.

(you also seem to forget about the sciences that are not about the physical world)

Has fiction no other value to you than to entertain? can it not enrich our life?

I think you’ve read a lot more into my answer than was intended. We are discussing audio equipment here, not life in general. That was the context. Physical world confined to music reproduction equipment.

 

[voodooless]

But as long as you know all that... if it does make you feel better, isn't it the only thing that really matters?

The problem is, with audio, most people don’t know, don’t even believe you when you tell them!

Does it matter if some company scams you out of $ 10000 of your life savings for a DAC just so you can feel better in your ignorance? I’m sure there are other ways to also feel better, and not spend that money.