Objectively Good Subjective Descriptions (Of Objectively Good Systems)

[Rob_Gordon]

At the end of the day we are all subjectivists. The ultimate purpose of the thing is to enjoy the music and the way to talk about that is subjectively. Scientific measurements are useful in steps towards that end but don't in themselves describe the experience when the system is finally put to use for entertainment.

So I'm with you on the general premise, @Rob_Gordon .


If there is "a proper way" to do that, one correct way, as opposed to, say, many possibly interesting ways, then it would surely be to not notice and not be interested in the system because it got out of your way and allows you to listen to the music. If a really neutral system, that doesn't add, subtract or distort, sounds different then it is surely because you're used to the sound of non-neutral systems. For example when you hear proper bass extension or a system well installed and adjusted to its environment to control room modes, what's different is not hearing the errors you are used to.

So I think perhaps you may have it backwards. What's really useful is to develop a common language of the subjective experience of defective sound, not one for really successful systems.

Ah! In one of the most recent replies, I ended asking if we shouldn't be describing a bad experience! so you got me there!

 

[Rob_Gordon]

Heterophenomenology?

Sure!
Though, classic phenomenology itself (of kantian-husserlian tradition I mean) is precisely that. An objective description of what the subjective is.

 

[Rob_Gordon]

At the end of your post you ask for a checklist... I guess this is related to your SOTA /endgame question....

It's tricky to answer. You can go through a checklist and see if there is anything wrong with the sound, and to what extent.

It is harder to go through a checklist and decide if certain aspects of the sound are exceptional. Not impossible if you have more experience, but harder.

It is very difficult to go through a checklist and decide if each aspect of the sound is the best you've ever heard, (was it the room? The music? or the speaker?) and it's logically impossible to decide that anything is the best you will ever hear.

Of course, you're right.

I suppose the two questions are linked. It was like asking: can we build a "grid", a system of references, sufficiently limpid for anyone to assess any experience. Or even better, that would allow someone to imagine what it is like, to hear a properly set up system?

You've never heard any proper hi-fi system. You read that it shouldn't sound like this, or that it should do that. Then you find yourself at a showroom, and even with zero experience, the language built by the community gives you enough insights so that you can actually tell if this is working the way it should be.

 

[Multicore]

Sure!
Though, classic phenomenology itself (of kantian-husserlian tradition I mean) is precisely that. An objective description of what the subjective is.

That's so subjective (I'd say romantic, even) as to be little use here, imo.

Heterophenomenology is measurement of a subject's or many subjects' phenomenal experience through scientific control of the experiment and rigorous questionnaire to produce a genuinely objective result. Opinion scoring as Toole did with speakers and of telephone systems and audio codecs are examples in our area.

 

[kemmler3D]

Of course, you're right.

I suppose the two questions are linked. It was like asking: can we build a "grid", a system of references, sufficiently limpid for anyone to assess any experience. Or even better, that would allow someone to imagine what it is like, to hear a properly set up system?

You've never heard any proper hi-fi system. You read that it shouldn't sound like this, or that it should do that. Then you find yourself at a showroom, and even with zero experience, the language built by the community gives you enough insights so that you can actually tell if this is working the way it should be.

I think this is sorta kinda possible. But I think it's pretty hard to imagine what clean bass or high dynamic range sounds like if you've never heard it. There are a few things like that. Phase coherence is hard to pick out in listening and it's hard to describe to someone who hasn't heard it.

People talk a lot about live unamplified music as a key reference, but most recorded music doesn't sound like that even on an ideal system.

On the other hand, if you hear a recording on really good IEMs or headphones that are properly EQ'd for your ears, you can probably get a sense of what different recordings are really supposed to sound like at least in terms of frequency response and distortion, and judging the stereo image can be somewhat intuitive. A lot of it depends on having a strong memory of what certain songs sound like.

But this is all kind of like, if you read enough descriptions of what paintings or photographs should look like, can you tell whether a TV set is good based on its reproduction of a painting, having never seen one? Like, maybe. But I think that's doing it the hard way.

 

[Rob_Gordon]

That's so subjective (I'd say romantic, even) as to be little use here, imo.

Heterophenomenology is measurement of a subject's or many subjects' phenomenal experience through scientific control of the experiment and rigorous questionnaire to produce a genuinely objective result. Opinion scoring as Toole did with speakers and of telephone systems and audio codecs are examples in our area.

But your message implies some epistemology here (comparing the values of objective/subjective truth and, thus, of the method chosen to seek it), and this is far too ambitious for an internet forum imo.

 

[Rob_Gordon]

I think this is sorta kinda possible. But I think it's pretty hard to imagine what clean bass or high dynamic range sounds like if you've never heard it. There are a few things like that. Phase coherence is hard to pick out in listening and it's hard to describe to someone who hasn't heard it.

Yeah, this is a bit like "Mary's room." We're not gonna solve this here.

People talk a lot about live unamplified music as a key reference, but most recorded music doesn't sound like that even on an ideal system.

that's very interesting, I didn't know.

On the other hand, if you hear a recording on really good IEMs or headphones that are properly EQ'd for your ears, you can probably get a sense of what different recordings are really supposed to sound like at least in terms of frequency response and distortion, and judging the stereo image can be somewhat intuitive. A lot of it depends on having a strong memory of what certain songs sound like.

EQ'd for your ears? How does one determine that?

But this is all kind of like, if you read enough descriptions of what paintings or photographs should look like, can you tell whether a TV set is good based on its reproduction of a painting, having never seen one? Like, maybe. But I think that's doing it the hard way.

Well, it's hard if you want to be exhaustive, but maybe there are key features. For the TV, you could tell someone "ok, so, the image as to be bigger than book. It can get as big as table. The bigger, the better, generally. There has to be colors. If the image is black and white, it's def not SOTA. The blacks should be really black, like absence of light black. You shouldn't see your reflection the image is dark" . I know I'm stating ridiculously stupid things, because it's so much easier with visual stuff but I suppose I was wondering if there were some similarly basic stuff for hifi equipment.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Among subjective descriptions, there is a spectrum from worst to best. I know that not everyone here agrees, but I believe like some of you that the best subjective descriptions are actually useful.

If I were trying to describe what if feels like to swim and I said that substance called water is raspy on the skin, it would be an objectively terrible subjective description (and not just a terrible subjective description, since objectivity can be built through consensus).

Only numbers are absolutely objective. From the moment you use a word, you risk the subjective perspective.

There are tons of audiophile subjective terms that are awful. Clichés that don’t mean anything, or that are just marketing tools. Of course.

But there must also be a proper ways to describe what it feels like to experiment a SOTA system.

I ask, because, as I was posting this thread looking for help, I realized that since I have no means, around me, to experiment high end systems, it’s incredibly hard to assess mine (or my friends’).

Speakers have all sorts of different qualities/capacities that are measurable. How do they translate in the experience?

Do we have a sort of frame/template of « what a SOTA hifi listening experience should feel like » ?

(I know it depends A LOT on recordings. If the source is of poor quality, no system is gonna make up for it. So « all things being equal… ». EDIT : and of course it depends on the room. So "all things, really ALL things being equal..." )

Like, something of a list with box to check, you could take it with you when you go to showrooms and it would guide you through all the demos.

I don't believe in "trust your ears". I think every sense can benefit from training, focused/guided experiences.

It seems a reasonable thing to hope for.

Part of the challenge is reproducibility. No matter how objective I try to be about my subjective reaction, I am dealing with THIS music from THIS source, using THIS amplification into THESE speakers, at THIS volume level in THIS room at THIS temperature and humidity whilst I am in THIS mood or state of alertness, and with THESE old, flawed ears.

All of the above is not reproducible, by anyone else. Including me. I listened to the same piece of music last Friday as I did on Wednesday, but for some reason everything sounded better on Friday...

So the challenge is finding a mechanism for communicating these sensitivities in such a way that they are useful to anyone else...

 

[kemmler3D]

EQ'd for your ears? How does one determine that?

You can do it yourself by using band limited noise (apparently tones are iffy) or by having your ears' response measured with a microphone. The different shape of everyone's head and ears means the effective frequency response of headphones / IEMs isn't exactly the same for any two people. The difference can be really significant in the treble.

. I know I'm stating ridiculously stupid thiI was wondering if there were some similarly basic stuff for hifi equipment.

I think the very basics are easy enough to get across, (can you hear every instrument equally well, can it go loud without losing any clarity, etc.) but I think once you're trying to communicate the difference between good and great speakers it's pretty hard. Even experts may have doubts about a given system unless they know the room they're listening in and they music they're listening to. I think all this stuff can be put into words but I think the person trying to apply it with no listening experience would have an incredibly hard time.

Explain the difference between the smell of lime and bergamot to someone that's never smelled citrus and you're up for the task.

 

[MattHooper]

Rob, I am of course, very sympathetic to what you were getting out here, which is that ultimately though we can talk about measurements, at the end of the day music through a stereo system “sounds like” something. They create subjective impressions. And we can communicate about those subjective impressions.

Somebody knowledgable about audio equipment could display all sorts of measurements, but if they’re talking to somebody who doesn’t have the same experience of correlating all those measurements to their subjective consequences, that “newbie” is going to ask “ but why do I care about any of these things you’re showing me? What does that SOUND LIKE?”

And this is where you need somebody who can translate the relevance of the measurements into their subjective consequences, and try to convey that in subjective descriptions. This is what for instance Erin of Erin’s Audio Corner has been trying to do, to the great appreciation of all the audiophiles he has been educating.

So, we can point out to everything that's unreliable, that's for sure. But I don't think that rule out the possibility to collectively build a regimen of signs that would help up characterize experiences in ways that are reliable.

Yes, absolutely.

In your statement above, it seems to me the issue tends to come down to what one demands of the description “ reliable.”

If you want reliability on a scientific scale, with a formalized vernacular that when used people almost always understand each other that’s an interesting project. It seems to me in principal possible. But it would depend on the willingness of people who both acknowledge the usefulness of descriptive language but who are also inclined towards scientific formality…. and if this forum is any indication, those two traits are rarely found in the same individual. If you know what I mean.

As I’ve argued before “ less reliable” does not entail “having no usefulness.”

Informal observations translated into unscientific descriptions (note, not “anti-scientific”) is general how we make our way through the world each day for most people.
We are constantly communicating information informally yet successfully.

And in the realm of sound impressions, as I’ve pointed out many times before, if “sounds like” descriptions where wholly unreliable, my work and Post Production sound for filming TV would be impossible, and our success inscrutable. Because we are working by exchanging subjective impressions and descriptions all day long in order to achieve our collective goals. So in a sense we are already forced into a scenario in which we must reliably get results through subjective Sonic description.

Especially given many of the sound effects we are creating can be fantastical.
One client wanted me to create messages from a ghost the sound of something like radio static. We had to nail down more closely what they were looking for as we worked on the sound, and they would use terms like “ less crunchy” “more soft and smooth and ethereal.” Because we share general experiences of the differences between crunchy and soft, I can understand what they mean, and quickly modulate the sound to fulfil their intentions.

A formalized nomenclature would not be practical, nor even necessarily more effective, since many of the sounds we need to come up with maybe new and fantastical… so we are constantly facing novel challenges, which means the very flexibility of subjective language, the ability for us to put together novel, combinations of words and ideas, is actually a feature not a bug!

As it is in lots of other human communication.

Which is just along the line once again that scientific levels of reliability, while often desirable, are clearly not always practical nor necessary. If they were every day life and communication would be impossible.

That obviously doesn’t go all the way to answering your main question you are posing. But I’m curious if there’s anything you would disagree with there.

But there must also be a proper ways to describe what it feels like to experiment a SOTA system.

(presuming you meant to write “experience”)

I guess there’s a few too many undefined elements to that question. And as at least some people already brought up, since the type of recording always plays a role, that can make things pretty messy. A SOTA system producing one recording is going to sound completely different when is reproducing a very different sounding recording of course.

So maybe it’s best to talk about what type of experience it’s POSSIBLE for a SOTA system to produce, which may include reference to other sound systems or perhaps to real sounds.

It could be brief or very in depth.

Briefly, one might say:

A SOTA system can produce a more realistic approximation of a Sonic event.
If you take for instance a small musical group playing acoustically, a singer, somebody playing acoustic guitar, stand up bass, drums, saxophone.
If recorded with the intent of sounding natural and playback through a SOTA system, you will hear those musicians seemingly arrayed in front of you, and essentially the same relative positions they occupied in real life.
On a good stereo system, the Sonic images of those musicians will not sound like they are coming from the loudspeakers at all, but rather they would seem to be placed independently of the loudspeakers, in three-dimensional space. The singer’s voice will sound balanced and natural like a normal human voice (eg without artificial or mechanical qualities, such as overly sharpened sibilants). You will hear detail similar to how you hear detail in those instruments in real life, for instance right down to the sound of the acoustic guitar players nails plucking the strings, but again, not in a way that stands out artificially, but which is simply there and available for you to hear should you decide to focus on that aspect of the sound.

The music will sound lively and dynamic, conveying the type of small and large dynamic nuances one hears from live performers.

The frequency response will be wide so as to capture the full rich qualities of each instrument, the reproduction of detail will be fine and nuanced so as to convey the subtle, rich harmonics that convey the specific recognizable timbral quality of each instrument.

The sonic images of the performers will be focussed in space to the extent you can identify their locations and orientation in space in the room, though not so focused as to be reduced to artificially small points in space with artificial sounding sharp “edges” to their images. They seem to naturally energize the acoustics around them, in a way we are used to hearing in real life.

Etc.

I mean, it just depends on how detailed we want to be. There’s all sorts of other language that can be brought in to describe the nuances of what we’re going to hear.

And you can also I think bring language to describe recordings that are fully artificial and not meant to sound real or natural. (just like as I mentioned, we do that all the time in my own work).

How close or far away is this getting from what you are intending?

Cheers

 

[MattHooper]

Among subjective descriptions, there is a spectrum from worst to best. I know that not everyone here agrees, but I believe like some of you that the best subjective descriptions are actually useful.

If I were trying to describe what if feels like to swim and I said that substance called water is raspy on the skin, it would be an objectively terrible subjective description (and not just a terrible subjective description, since objectivity can be built through consensus).

Only numbers are absolutely objective. From the moment you use a word, you risk the subjective perspective.

There are tons of audiophile subjective terms that are awful. Clichés that don’t mean anything, or that are just marketing tools. Of course.

But there must also be a proper ways to describe what it feels like to experiment a SOTA system.

I ask, because, as I was posting this thread looking for help, I realized that since I have no means, around me, to experiment high end systems, it’s incredibly hard to assess mine (or my friends’).

Speakers have all sorts of different qualities/capacities that are measurable. How do they translate in the experience?

Do we have a sort of frame/template of « what a SOTA hifi listening experience should feel like » ?

(I know it depends A LOT on recordings. If the source is of poor quality, no system is gonna make up for it. So « all things being equal… ». EDIT : and of course it depends on the room. So "all things, really ALL things being equal..." )

Like, something of a list with box to check, you could take it with you when you go to showrooms and it would guide you through all the demos.

I don't believe in "trust your ears". I think every sense can benefit from training, focused/guided experiences.

Still around ?

 

[Chrispy]

If there were more common ground among humans, perhaps Language is hard already. Audiophile for example, is a person who likes/is a fan of audio reproduction gear primarily, rather than content particularly or any particular expertise (at least by some of the dictionary definitions, but of course the definition IRL varies a lot among audio fans ). I think MaxwellsEQ's post lists a lot of the problem variances outside of that....

ps had some more thoughts and thought I'd left this in draft form so cleaned that up a bit and will come back...

If I were trying to describe what if feels like to swim and I said that substance called water is raspy on the skin, it would be an objectively terrible subjective description (and not just a terrible subjective description, since objectivity can be built through consensus).

Only numbers are absolutely objective. From the moment you use a word, you risk the subjective perspective.

There are tons of audiophile subjective terms that are awful. Clichés that don’t mean anything, or that are just marketing tools. Of course.

But there must also be a proper ways to describe what it feels like to experiment a SOTA system.

I ask, because, as I was posting this thread looking for help, I realized that since I have no means, around me, to experiment high end systems, it’s incredibly hard to assess mine (or my friends’).

Speakers have all sorts of different qualities/capacities that are measurable. How do they translate in the experience?

Do we have a sort of frame/template of « what a SOTA hifi listening experience should feel like » ?

(I know it depends A LOT on recordings. If the source is of poor quality, no system is gonna make up for it. So « all things being equal… ». EDIT : and of course it depends on the room. So "all things, really ALL things being equal..." )

Like, something of a list with box to check, you could take it with you when you go to showrooms and it would guide you through all the demos.

I don't believe in "trust your ears". I think every sense can benefit from training, focused/guided experiences.

 

[Rob_Gordon]

You can do it yourself by using band limited noise (apparently tones are iffy) or by having your ears' response measured with a microphone. The different shape of everyone's head and ears means the effective frequency response of headphones / IEMs isn't exactly the same for any two people. The difference can be really significant in the treble.

I think the very basics are easy enough to get across, (can you hear every instrument equally well, can it go loud without losing any clarity, etc.) but I think once you're trying to communicate the difference between good and great speakers it's pretty hard. Even experts may have doubts about a given system unless they know the room they're listening in and they music they're listening to. I think all this stuff can be put into words but I think the person trying to apply it with no listening experience would have an incredibly hard time.

Explain the difference between the smell of lime and bergamot to someone that's never smelled citrus and you're up for the task.

Fair enough! You're probably right.

I was hoping a wide range of interesting "basics", I guess!

 

[Rob_Gordon]

Still around ?

Yes! Thank you so much for your long answer. With the time difference and the beginning of the week (with a pretty big work load), I haven't been able to answer you yet, but I will!

 

[MattHooper]

It seems a reasonable thing to hope for.

Part of the challenge is reproducibility. No matter how objective I try to be about my subjective reaction, I am dealing with THIS music from THIS source, using THIS amplification into THESE speakers, at THIS volume level in THIS room at THIS temperature and humidity whilst I am in THIS mood or state of alertness, and with THESE old, flawed ears.

All of the above is not reproducible, by anyone else. Including me. I listened to the same piece of music last Friday as I did on Wednesday, but for some reason everything sounded better on Friday...

So the challenge is finding a mechanism for communicating these sensitivities in such a way that they are useful to anyone else...

It strikes me that the people who view the project of translating one person’s subjective experience to another as almost insurmountable are perhaps those who don’t do it very often, or who are not confronted with this task as part of their job.

When I’m creating sound effects for a movie or TV show all day long I’m making judgements as to how the sound will be perceived by the audience. And of course I’m using my own subjective impressions to predict the impressions of others as I tweak the sound.

This is largely successful because if it didn’t work - if people’s impressions were so wildly out of sync with mine or with one another - my job wouldn’t be possible.

That carries over to the other part of the job where we have to work together to decide on how we want things to sound, where we are constantly using subjective descriptions to communicate what something seems to sound like to us, what we think it should sound like, and then agreeing that we met the goal in terms of “ how that sounds.”

So my daily experience successfully using just the type of tools and communication that many ASR members deem so unreliable I guess gives me something of a different perspective or view on these questions.

 

[Ruediger]

I was asking for a (rigorous) subjective account of the listening experience. Not for a bunch of objective terms.

I think the lowest lows of subjective reviews is when they have nothing more to say and start talking about the last century pop records they heard. It adds an "don't know" or "boring would never listen to that" to the "OK that's all the facts?".

But can the subjective description of how records sounded be done in a good way? Good demo tracks, tracks that are actually good to check out certain aspects, tracks many people know from different devices. Of course the pros have their repertoire of demo tracks, but that's not identical to what buyers could (better) relate to.

A long time ago we had a joke going around. It was about new PA, concert gear, studio speakers, ... We would play "paid in full" and see how that sounded. The bigger and more powerful things got the better it sounded, that was the point.

 

[Duke]

It strikes me that the people who think translating one person’s subjective experience to another as almost insurmountable are perhaps those who don’t do it very often, or who are not confronted with this task as part of their job.

Bass players do this. They speak a common subjective descriptive language. One bass player can describe how a cab sounds in purely subjective terms (like "growly" or "hifi" or "punchy") and other bass players understand exactly what they mean, no measurements needed. Like one might say, "I hated that cab, it was way too grindy." and another would say, "thanks, that's exactly the tone I'm looking for."

It has been a challenge for me to translate their subjective terminology into target frequency response curves that I can deliberately design for, and I've only been able to do it for a few such terms.

Perhaps there is similar nuance in the descriptions of how guitar cabs sound, but at first glance it appears to me that all guitar cabs have "crushing monster tone".

 

[EERecordist]

Only numbers are absolutely objective. From the moment you use a word, you risk the subjective perspective.

I rely on reference tracks in the optimum listening position, but that is not your subjective terminology question. In particular, I prefer specific string section, double reed, tympani, and piano voicing and dynamics textures. Cymbals is another people listen to. I compare those to listening live, no microphones.

I couldn't put them into words. I'm not saying our audio memory is perfect.

I think Amir is pretty conservative in his subjective listening test descriptions, and he is a trained listener.

 

[Rob_Gordon]

Hey ! Finally, I get the chance to answer.

Rob, I am of course, very sympathetic to what you were getting out here, which is that ultimately though we can talk about measurements, at the end of the day music through a stereo system “sounds like” something. They create subjective impressions. And we can communicate about those subjective impressions.

Ahah yes, as I was writing this message I thought you would be on board!

Somebody knowledgable about audio equipment could display all sorts of measurements, but if they’re talking to somebody who doesn’t have the same experience of correlating all those measurements to their subjective consequences, that “newbie” is going to ask “ but why do I care about any of these things you’re showing me? What does that SOUND LIKE?”

And this is where you need somebody who can translate the relevance of the measurements into their subjective consequences, and try to convey that in subjective descriptions. This is what for instance Erin of Erin’s Audio Corner has been trying to do, to the great appreciation of all the audiophiles he has been educating.

I don’t like how « binary » it so often is, like it’s either objective/absolute truth or subjective/absolute fiction.

Especially when it comes to music. Objectivity and subjectivity are really intertwined. If every major scale has its relative minor, it means that the same exact notes –the same exact frequencies– will produce very different moods. We can objectively affirm that objectively identical frequencies will produce subjectively different experiences. This is not trivial!

To me this is very similar to the vinyl debate.

Does the vinyl "objectively" sound better? Probably not, yes. Can one individual's experience playing a vinyl at home be a better "sound experience"? Yes, probably. Every parameter should be taken into equation. The whole context is at play, and so the posture with which you approach a listening session is part of it. If the vinyl makes you commit more to the moment, you might hear "more" than if you put a digital source without paying much attention.

It's like the debate over blinded or sighted listening. If you don't listen at home blindfolded then maybe you should play with the visual bias.

I’m also very annoyed at the fact that when people are experts at something, they immediately think it means they also know how to talk about it. It never occurs to them that talking about something is its own skill, and that it demands work to be an expert at that.

I see that with musicians as well, online: they will tell you that they’ve been playing for 40 years, as an argument of authority. Maybe it means you play well, yes. It doesn’t mean you master the art of thinking about music. Words are a matter on their own.

On this forum, a lot of the time, you read posts that conveys words like « objective », « subjective », or « opinion », and clearly, they haven’t spent a lot of time questioning these concepts, their history, their semantic functions… And they get mad when you tell them. They're allowed to let you know what you said was wrong but you can't tell them that their definition of true/false isn't rigorous.

I don’t like to put on my philosopher’s hat, but if we use words, we navigate meanings, and meanings are more a philosophical problem than a engineering one.

A lot of folks want to believe their views are « purely scientific » (but don't know anything about epistemology).

Yes, absolutely.

In your statement above, it seems to me the issue tends to come down to what one demands of the description “ reliable.”

If you want reliability on a scientific scale, with a formalized vernacular that when used people almost always understand each other that’s an interesting project. It seems to me in principal possible. But it would depend on the willingness of people who both acknowledge the usefulness of descriptive language but who are also inclined towards scientific formality…. and if this forum is any indication, those two traits are rarely found in the same individual. If you know what I mean.

I do!

As I’ve argued before “ less reliable” does not entail “having no usefulness.”

Exactly (hence my fatigue with this binary way of looking at it)

Informal observations translated into unscientific descriptions (note, not “anti-scientific”) is general how we make our way through the world each day for most people.
We are constantly communicating information informally yet successfully.

And in the realm of sound impressions, as I’ve pointed out many times before, if “sounds like” descriptions where wholly unreliable, my work and Post Production sound for filming TV would be impossible, and our success inscrutable. Because we are working by exchanging subjective impressions and descriptions all day long in order to achieve our collective goals. So in a sense we are already forced into a scenario in which we must reliably get results through subjective Sonic description.

Especially given many of the sound effects we are creating can be fantastical.
One client wanted me to create messages from a ghost the sound of something like radio static. We had to nail down more closely what they were looking for as we worked on the sound, and they would use terms like “ less crunchy” “more soft and smooth and ethereal.” Because we share general experiences of the differences between crunchy and soft, I can understand what they mean, and quickly modulate the sound to fulfil their intentions.

Ok, this is the core of the issue, and it's very interesting. Because, I can understand the pessimism. As someone who's been in the "art world" (in the broad sense) for 20 years, I have found that misunderstandings between strangers is more the norm than the exception.

Though I fully believe what you're describing and I think what makes it possible is the context of the exchange. I mean, of course, any "meaning" is context dependent, this goes without saying. It's just that your testimony leads me to think that the wider the context, the more difficult the communication is, and, on the contrary, the more specific, the narrower it is, the easier it gets to exchanges ideas/feelings, etc. Having a common goal (like the instance you just convoked), knowing we have to work together towards an understanding is probably key.

Which is just along the line once again that scientific levels of reliability, while often desirable, are clearly not always practical nor necessary. If they were every day life and communication would be impossible.

That obviously doesn’t go all the way to answering your main question you are posing. But I’m curious if there’s anything you would disagree with there.

Absolutely not, I fully agree. The fact that you can be friends with someone and learn a decade later that they're colorblind shows how much communication can work smoothly even when you clearly don't see the same thing!

(presuming you meant to write “experience”)

it was indeed, what I meant!

I guess there’s a few too many undefined elements to that question. And as at least some people already brought up, since the type of recording always plays a role, that can make things pretty messy. A SOTA system producing one recording is going to sound completely different when is reproducing a very different sounding recording of course.

So maybe it’s best to talk about what type of experience it’s POSSIBLE for a SOTA system to produce, which may include reference to other sound systems or perhaps to real sounds.

Yes, that seems more reasonable indeed.

It could be brief or very in depth.

Briefly, one might say:

A SOTA system can produce a more realistic approximation of a Sonic event.
If you take for instance a small musical group playing acoustically, a singer, somebody playing acoustic guitar, stand up bass, drums, saxophone.
If recorded with the intent of sounding natural and playback through a SOTA system, you will hear those musicians seemingly arrayed in front of you, and essentially the same relative positions they occupied in real life.
On a good stereo system, the Sonic images of those musicians will not sound like they are coming from the loudspeakers at all, but rather they would seem to be placed independently of the loudspeakers, in three-dimensional space. The singer’s voice will sound balanced and natural like a normal human voice (eg without artificial or mechanical qualities, such as overly sharpened sibilants). You will hear detail similar to how you hear detail in those instruments in real life, for instance right down to the sound of the acoustic guitar players nails plucking the strings, but again, not in a way that stands out artificially, but which is simply there and available for you to hear should you decide to focus on that aspect of the sound.

The music will sound lively and dynamic, conveying the type of small and large dynamic nuances one hears from live performers.

The frequency response will be wide so as to capture the full rich qualities of each instrument, the reproduction of detail will be fine and nuanced so as to convey the subtle, rich harmonics that convey the specific recognizable timbral quality of each instrument.

The sonic images of the performers will be focussed in space to the extent you can identify their locations and orientation in space in the room, though not so focused as to be reduced to artificially small points in space with artificial sounding sharp “edges” to their images. They seem to naturally energize the acoustics around them, in a way we are used to hearing in real life.

Etc.

I mean, it just depends on how detailed we want to be. There’s all sorts of other language that can be brought in to describe the nuances of what we’re going to hear.

And you can also I think bring language to describe recordings that are fully artificial and not meant to sound real or natural. (just like as I mentioned, we do that all the time in my own work).

How close or far away is this getting from what you are intending?

Very close indeed. This is a simple/clear description of what one could expect from a good system. Thus, this is pretty much EXACTLY what I was asking/what I had in mind when I started this thread. I guess there's nothing surprising that you're the one to provide it. Thank you very much!

Facing the dreaded opposition "either it's real or it's in your head", I tend to think that sometimes, "it's real because it's in your head". It's not always pertinent to discard cultural bias. Because we can actually objectively account for its effects. If n% of people believe this speaker sound better (when they see it), it does not mean it would have been their favorite if they tried it blind, but it means that, overall, the experience appears richer to them. And that is something to take into account. Culture/values/beliefs will be part of the experience whether you like it or not. So either you fight it (and will lose) or maybe you can play with it.

 

[Rob_Gordon]

Bass players do this. They speak a common subjective descriptive language. One bass player can describe how a cab sounds in purely subjective terms (like "growly" or "hifi" or "punchy") and other bass players understand exactly what they mean, no measurements needed. Like one might say, "I hated that cab, it was way too grindy." and another would say, "thanks, that's exactly the tone I'm looking for."

It has been a challenge for me to translate their subjective terminology into target frequency response curves that I can deliberately design for, and I've only been able to do it for a few such terms.

Perhaps there is similar nuance in the descriptions of how guitar cabs sound, but at first glance it appears to me that all guitar cabs have "crushing monster tone".

Yes, exactly. I think a common culture makes it possible.
It's the same with guitar, indeed, though some of that culture is also rooted in myths!