"Music-First Audiophile" Manifesto by John Darko

[CapMan]

So your motivation in buying your system is, at bottom: "sounds good to me."

Me thinks @Sal1950's words are being repurposed

 

[Ron Texas]

Exactly. Would you have sought out the more accurate system if you DIDN'T enjoy it more? That would seem irrational or at least very odd.

So your motivation in buying your system is, at bottom: "sounds good to me."

Disagree. The science which has been discussed extensively here is neutral sounding loudspeakers are preferred by a statistically significant portion of listeners. That is in no way the same as it "sounds good to me." It's more like it sounds good because it is good objectively. When enough people get the same result it's no longer about "me".

Like most of your logic, "it sounds good to me" is too vague to be of any use. You are so good at creating semantic nonsense and dismissing anything which makes sense that you should quit your job and run for congress. It's where you would really fit in.

 

[Doodski]

Me thinks @Sal1950's words are being repurposed

I think @MattHooper is not up to his usual operating speed and needs a warmup period to get into the swing of things...LoL.

 

[pseudoid]

... You should start selling pretzels.

I guess I need help to stop scratching my head about this sentence:
*Should the word "should" be replaced by @MattHooper's "ought"?
*Is this pretzel-sentence being sarcastic or just slanderous?
*How do pretzels relate to music or hardware?

 

[Basic Channel]

“Abraham begat Isaac who begat Jacob who begat Booz of Rakab…. who begat Darko”

 

[Ron Texas]

“Abraham begat Isaac who begat Jacob who begat Booz of Rakab…. who begat Darko”

Steve Guttenberg...

 

[MattHooper]

Yea, right.

You literally wrote:

But the better, more accurate the system, the more I enjoy it.

If that was not your main motivation for buying a more accurate system - that YOU enjoy it more - what was? You are avoiding the implications for obvious reasons, Sal ;-)

Disagree. The science which has been discussed extensively here is neutral sounding loudspeakers are preferred by a statistically significant portion of listeners. That is in no way the same as it "sounds good to me." It's more like it sounds good because it is good objectively. When enough people get the same result it's no longer about "me".

No, it's still about subjective preference. You don't add up subjective preferences to get to "objectivity." When a majority of people prefer to own slaves it doesn't make "owning slaves objectively good." If a majority of people prefer X you can say "a majority of people are likely to prefer X" not "X is objectively preferable across the board."

BTW, I'm only referring to "sounds good to me" because that is the phrase Sal has used to denigrate other audiophiles. So I'm just showing how Sal's argument in the end makes no sense even adopting his phrase.

The Toole and HK research added up a whole bunch of "sounds good to me" impressions. They found statistically predictable results, but it WAS about "sounds good to me." Therefore the REASON any INDIVIDUAL would have to rely on those statistics is that it's likelly to predict WHAT SOUNDS GOOD TO ME. Right? Otherwise, how could statistics based on "sounds good" preferences be of any worth to you? Otherwise...who cares if it just sounds good to a bunch of other people?

And in the preference scores, there was not universal preferences - some speakers did better for X, others for Y - there were still variation in preference scores. So what happens if you happen to be in one of the edge cases, the minority, where YOUR preference is different than the majority? What reason would you have for choosing what some majority of other people like over what you like? That's like me being in a room filled with people who love liver and onions and eve though I hate liver and onions "i ought to order it because everyone else likes it?" That doesn't follow at all.

So, the HK speaker scores are simply a helpful set of probabilities - it is more likely you will prefer X speaker over Y. But it doesn't DETERMINE that fact for any individual. And if the reason to choose a speaker is preference-based, then it is valid to choose the speaker you actually prefer, even if it's not in the statistically probable set. It's about being pleased with the sound. This is where you land given the research concerned people's PREFERENCES, and there are variations still as to what individuals PREFER.

You are so good at creating semantic nonsense and dismissing anything which makes sense that you should quit your job and run for congress. It's where you would really fit in.

Cheers!

I think @MattHooper is not up to his usual operating speed and needs a warmup period to get into the swing of things...LoL.

See above. I'd be happy if you would point out the lack of sound reasoning.

 

[Sal1950]

See above. I'd be happy if you would point out the lack of sound reasoning.

Come-on Matt, that was lame.
I'm sure you can give us at least another 20,000 words of your usual BS.

 

[MattHooper]

Come-on Matt, that was lame.
I'm sure you can give us at least another 20,000 words of your usual BS.

Sal: But the better, more accurate the system, the more I enjoy it.


If that was not your main motivation for buying a more accurate system - that YOU enjoy it more - what was?


Your avoidance in answering this question is getting ever more conspicuous. Like an uncomfortable question put to a politician who won't answer. ;-)

 

[Sal1950]

If that was not your main motivation for buying a more accurate system - that YOU enjoy it more - what was?

I'll give you more time, kick back and dream up a whole thesis of BS.

For now I'm going to the pool swimin with the bow-legged women.
Bye

 

[AdamG]

If y’all keep going at each other like this ima thinkin bout a few of ya getten a time out to contemplate music delivery without distractions. You can thank us later.



Hope y’all realize that you are making arguments and traffic to this thread and pushing it up the queue to greater visibility and ultimately sending more hits to Darko’s Vid?

 

[Ron Texas]

Sal: But the better, more accurate the system, the more I enjoy it.


If that was not your main motivation for buying a more accurate system - that YOU enjoy it more - what was?


Your avoidance in answering this question is getting ever more conspicuous. Like an uncomfortable question put to a politician who won't answer. ;-)

He enjoys it because of objective scientific reasons. People enjoy eating because they get hungry. It's not a choice. If you ever tried free diving the first breath when you surface is a rush. It's enjoyed not out of some preference but because we are hard wired to breathe and the physiology of what's called the mammalian diving response. People enjoy sex because evolution made us that way. You are confusing gratification which is wired in to our bodies with that which is an acquired taste. When I enjoy an IPA so bitter than many would spit it out, it's a different kind of enjoyment than the first breath after a free dive. There are clearly vastly different types of enjoyment and you are plugging the wrong ones into your rhetoric.

 

[MattHooper]

I'll give you more time, kick back and dream up a whole thesis of BS.

Ok, seems settled then, you can't (or won't) provide an answer showing my point is wrong. Suit yourself.

For now I'm going to the pool swimin with the bow-legged women.
Bye

Finally something we can agree on!

"Farewell and adieu..."

 

[MattHooper]

He enjoys it because of objective scientific reasons.

This continues to miss the point.

The underlying motivation is clearly "because I enjoy/prefer the sound." The studies about loudspeaker preference ratings and measurements is useful insofar as it allows someone like Sal to "achieve the sound I prefer/enjoy more."

Since that is the underlying motivation, you can't dunk on someone else who achieves the sound THEY prefer. Not when Sal (or you) is using that same ultimate motivation, or are appealing to measurements derived on the basis of 'This Will Likely Sound Good To You."

People enjoy eating because they get hungry. It's not a choice. If you ever tried free diving the first breath when you surface is a rush. It's enjoyed not out of some preference but because we are hard wired to breathe and the physiology of what's called the mammalian diving response. People enjoy sex because evolution made us that way. You are confusing gratification which is wired in to our bodies with that which is an acquired taste. When I enjoy an IPA so bitter than many would spit it out, it's a different kind of enjoyment than the first breath after a free dive. There are clearly vastly different types of enjoyment and you are plugging the wrong ones into your rhetoric.

So...you are aware that preferences are not perfectly uniform?

You and Sal are trying to find an objective basis for your preference, so you can tell other audiophiles IF they deviate from that preference: "You Are Doing It Wrong, your choice is wrong." This will never work, and it will only look like the dogmatism that it is.

 

[Ron Texas]

@MattHooper your reasoning is clearly unreasonable. Your thinking clearly reflects the outlook of a devil's advocate.

 

[MattHooper]

@MattHooper your reasoning is clearly unreasonable. Your thinking clearly reflects the outlook of a devil's advocate.

No it's not only about what others might prefer, my argument also concerns the justifications I have for my own choices in gear, which are not always aimed at The Highest Fidelity. So, like literally everyone else here, I'm an advocate for my own decisions, not the devil's. Well..unless you think I'm The Devil.

Anyway, I think we've gone round on this one enough. Time to get back to Darko. Cheers.

 

[kelesh]

The best thing I ever learned after getting my first Smart TV was, NEVER connect it to the internet.
Keep your TV as close to a straight monitor as you can and use outboard boxes to get content.
Unless there is some major bug in the TV's software that can be fixed with a firmware update, you can
mostly do things in a much better, more controlled way keeping the TV a virgin.
YMMV

Indeed, yet you have no idea how annoying this thing is that I have here. They've really outdone themselves with this new latest generation of TVs. Even if you don't connect, it will bug you to connect/update every single time you power it on.

 

[Sal1950]

Indeed, yet you have no idea how annoying this thing is that I have here. They've really outdone themselves with this new latest generation of TVs. Even if you don't connect, it will bug you to connect/update every single time you power it on.

Oh I can fully understand. The damn OS used to cause my last Sony to go thru a full OS reboot which could take 5 minutes
right in the middle of something I was watching, about once a week or more, etc. That was only one of the PITA issues it caused. It can be much more than annoying..
Best thing I can recommend at this point is to go on the AVS website and find the dedicated thread for the make and model of your TV. There are usually a lot of smart guys with a good understanding of the specialized issues involved for that TV..
Should be a way to kill the nagging connect dialog, clear out all installed app's and fall mostly back to a as-new state, worked for me. I got a new 85" Samsung about 6 months back and never let it connect, I believe when it asked me at set-up, where I told it I didn't have any network connection.
I really do feel for your issues and wish I could be of more detailed help.
Good Luck, Sal

https://www.avsforum.com/

 

[antcollinet]

Well, he's certainly got us talking about him.

Mission accomplished.

 

[MattHooper]

Well, he's certainly got us talking about him.

Mission accomplished.

For all the talk that people here don’t pay attention to these nonsense reviewers, it seems quite a few members still pay attention. I’m always amazed how familiar people on ASR are with YouTube and print reviewers, including those they say aren’t worth paying attention to.