Subjectivist’s rant debunked

[computer-audiophile]

good vintage speaker (the Dynaco A25)

Funny, I remember. I used to have 4 of them, it was the time of quadrophonics.

 

[Punter]

Measurements are the sworn enemy of the subjectivists. They must maintain the line that you can only "trust your ears" when it comes to music reproduction. If this cult can prevail, then DeVore and his ilk can continue to peddle their products to a waiting crowd. I don't think anybody who designs speakers would be able to achieve a workable product without using some sort of measurement devices that spit out cold, unyielding numbers. How would one design a crossover without test equipment? I agree with archimago, these people are selective about the testing they approve of and subsequently their whole criticism of test results is intended to legitimize the subjective fairy tale.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

I agree with archimago, these people are selective about the testing they approve of

OF course they are. They're hypocrites. They're only selective in regards to audio. They still want the aircraft they ride in to be tested, they want their water tested, they want their air bags tested, and they want their cell phones to work.
They trust x-ray diagnosis, tensile strength of clothes line, mileage ratings on new cars and (ironically) hearing aid tests.

They want, believe in and trust testing procedures all over the place ... except in audio.

Jim

 

[Anton D]

This topic points out one cool thing about the hobby, and one undiscussed thing.

1) With ‘subjectivist’ products, you are getting a product that the designer’s ear thinks represents what the product should do.

These are ‘editorial’ products. Fine, if it fits your own perceptions. Other people may prefer different bespoke lines, or find that designers who use this approach may be focusing on pet characteristics at the expense of better performance in other aspects.

It becomes an issue of taste or style, not a more ‘neutral’ proposition.

This leads to why it might not be a good long term buyer’s strategy….

2) A device ‘voiced’ by a designer, if it does a special thing, will always do that thing. So, be prepared to live with that thing. It might sound best with the same recordings used to voice it, and not be the thing for other recordings.

Once you get used to the idiosyncratic things the speaker does, you will have to see if that produces listening ennui over time.

Maybe that’s one reason some audiophiles get the the ‘new gear bug’ every so often.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This topic points out one cool thing about the hobby, and one undiscussed thing.

1) With ‘subjectivist’ products, you are getting a product that the designer’s ear thinks represents what the product should do.

These are ‘editorial’ products. Fine, if it fits your own perceptions. Other people may prefer different bespoke lines, or find that designers who use this approach may be focusing on pet characteristics at the expense of better performance in other aspects.

It becomes an issue of taste or style, not a more ‘neutral’ proposition.

This leads to why it might not be a good long term buyer’s strategy….

2) A device ‘voiced’ by a designer, if it does a special thing, will always do that thing. So, be prepared to live with that thing. It might sound best with the same recordings used to voice it, and not be the thing for other recordings.

Once you get used to the idiosyncratic things the speaker does, you will have to see if that produces listening ennui over time.

Maybe that’s one reason some audiophiles get the the ‘new gear bug’ every so often.

The big issue with many of these products is they don't do anything actually. The ones that do are pretty broken. Think SET amps for instance. Or no feedback power amps. The great majority have a story which is all you really have.

 

[Anton D]

The big issue with many of these products is they don't do anything actually. The ones that do are pretty broken. Think SET amps for instance. Or no feedback power amps. The great majority have a story which is all you really have.

I boil it down to taste, people may have different sonic palates.

I admit to finding fun in listening and sussing out what different speakers are doing.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I boil it down to taste, people may have different sonic palates.

I admit to finding fun in listening and sussing out what different speakers are doing.

Speaker differences are real, most of the others are not.

 

[raif71]

An example of something more than meets the eye. In this case, no use blind testing for this individual

 

[Count Arthur]

An example of something more than meets the eye. In this case, no use blind testing for this individual

Now lets see her do it when the black and white pieces are mixed together in the same bowl.

 

[Beave]

Archimago's blog is extremely well considered, but I've always found it really hard to read due to the weird colors and small font. I wish he would change the look.

 

[amirm]

An example of something more than meets the eye. In this case, no use blind testing for this individual

First part (chess) seems real and she is doing it by feel. The other parts seem like a cheat/scam the way she is looking at an angle.

 

[raif71]

Now lets see her do it when the black and white pieces are mixed together in the same bowl.

There are in the same bowl, lol

 

[Waxx]

I think speakers are partly subjective taste. I could write a whole essay about that, but Paul Camody did it already and says more or less what i think:

What type of music do you listen to?

Seriously, list it out. Don't be ashamed; no one's judging you. Music is art, and taste in music is completely subjective and is pretty much guaranteed to vary from person to person. Do we all listen to Diana Krall's "Live in Paris" and Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" and the Telarc recording of "The 1812 Overture"? No? Then why do audiophiles spend so much time and money in making those particular recordings sound perfect?

Shouldn't the purpose of investing time and money into fancy sound equipment enhance your enjoyment of your favorite music? Shouldn't it make you feel like you are immersed in your favorite recordings, whether by covering the entire audible spectrum, bringing out details you'd never heard before, or even just by playing the music especially loud? You already love the music, the equipment is just there to get you "closer" to it.

At least, that makes sense to me.

What doesn't make sense to me are audiophiles raving about the "superb dynamics" and "precise imaging" on a recording of some acoustic performance that they pretty much only listen to when auditioning a system because it "really puts a system to the test." What about the music they normally enjoy? What's wrong with that? That's when audiophiles get all grumbly, and complain that modern recordings are s--t and use terrible recording and mastering techniques. Well if that's so, then why do we still like music that's "recorded all wrong"? And who says it's wrong, anyway?

Recorded music is a very modern phenomenon, when you think about it. It's only been around for about 100 years, and the ways we have used it have evolved quickly over that time. And as recording itself evolved, so has our music! In case that wasn't clear, I'll repeat it: our music has changed due to recording.

Originally, sound was recorded straight from the source; you placed all the performers in a room with a microphone and everything was permanent. If a performer made a mistake, you either left it in or the group had to start the song over. This, of course, is an audiophile's utopia. It's as close as one could think of getting to a real, genuine performance.

But even with such primitive recordings, recording engineers started figuring out ways to edit performances. An act as simple as using a razor blade and tape to splice a mistake out of a recording became an art, and even recordings of highly-respected ensembles were using it. Already, at this early stage, a recording was no longer a true performance, but a sort of "super performance," devoid of mistakes.

Then in the 1950's, Les Paul began experimenting with synchronizing tape recording machines to record multiple performances on top of one another. This was the birth of multitrack recording, and this changed everything. Now, performers no longer had to be in the same room, building, or even country as the other performers. One performer could record performances of himself playing every instrument, simulating the sound of a full ensemble. And most importantly to the performers, if one did not like his performance on a song--or a section of a song--he could re-record it without affecting the sound of the other instruments.

Meanwhile during the 20th century, people were listening to less and less classical music, or folk music for that matter. We could speculate all day as to why this happened, however it needs to be noted that since Les Paul's invention, "popular music" was, by and large, recorded using multitracking. In case it isn't obvious at this point, this means that the job of the "conductor" had moved into the hands of the mix engineer. Instead of using hand gestures to cue performers and change dynamic levels as a traditional conductor, he was using faders and "punch-ins." In addition, the mix engineer could completely change the timbre of any and all sounds in the mix using EQ and various outboard gear (compression, chorus, flange, delay, gate, vibrato, ring modulation, pitch-shifting, and so on). And as if that wasn't enough, mix engineers figured out how to simulate the sound of a performance in almost any size room using reverb (first using analog techniques, such as a metal plate, mic'ing the recording in an empty room, and eventually using digital synthesis).

Could we still call these "artificial" productions music? Why not? It still used the normal scales and harmonies and rhythmic subdivisions of music of the past 300 years. What was changing was that the performances were more perfect, the mix engineer was now the conductor, and the performance hall was whatever place the music was being played back, be it a radio in car, a living room hifi, or a jukebox at a bar.

This is music now. As long most of us have been alive, these techniques have been used on pretty much every recording we hear. And seeing that there's still something magical and ephemeral to music that draws us to it, we've adapted to hearing it this way. No, it's not the same as a live performance--and I still believe that the true test of most any musician or group of musicians is whether or not they can pull off something that sounds as good (hopefully better) than their recordings in a live performance. But even though recorded music is not a live performance, I argue that it is a performance in and of itself, just as a movie is not a stage play, but still tells a story using actors, scripts, sets, lighting, direction, and music.

This is where the job of your stereo equipment comes into play. Musicians and recording engineers spend countless hours at a mixing console listening, adjusting, reviewing, and adjusting again in order to get a mix that sounds right to them. So really, if you think about it, our playback equipment would be at its best if it were reproducing the mix they heard in the studio. In reality, however, your equipment can do even more. You can use your equipment to listen to the recordings in ways the performers and engineers never thought of (or wished they'd thought of). And if that makes the music more enjoyable to you, then that's terrific! Music is here to make our lives more enjoyable!

And the truth is, most of us spend most of our listening time enjoying CDs that are produced, and perhaps even over-produced. So why do so many audiophiles pour so much time and money trying to re-create a particular recording in a concert hall if that's not really the music they listen to the vast majority of the time? If they really love the sound of a particular classical piece, they owe it to themselves to go hear a live ensemble play it; I've yet to hear a recording and sound system that sounded or felt anything like a live wind band or orchestra.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. Even though I am a performing musician, I grew up on recorded music. And yes, it has EQ, and overdubs, and fancy effects, and is nowhere near a "real" performance. But it is still a performance in itself--it is still art--and listening to it can drastically affect my emotions. So if I design a speaker, I will treat its sound as an art also. If you are looking for speakers with razor-flat response and complete absence from distortion, you may want to look elsewhere. Because it's one thing to listen to a speaker (or look at its graphs), stroke your chin and say, "Hmm. That system has really low non-linear distortion." It's another thing altogether to hear a speaker that takes recorded music and plays it in such a way that you grin from ear to ear, and makes you want to jump up out of your chair and say, "That's awesome!"

That isn't to discredit all the necessary knowledge in acoustics, electronics, and algebra one must understand and use to design a loudspeaker. To believe that one could even design a speaker without these scientific and mathematical concepts is very ignorant. (Although I was "ignorant" myself, many years ago, I admit it.)

The science of speaker design is only half the battle, in my opinion; the other half is art. And taste in art is subjective. Since I treat my speaker designs as compositions, I don't expect everyone to like them. I do, however, believe that more people will prefer my designs to something that's textbook perfect because I design with a musical ear. What I mean by that is that I have been playing live music with groups and ensembles of all shapes and genres for 2/3 of my life, and I still do on a weekly basis; so I know what live music sounds like. I also know what sorts of musical sounds people tend to find pleasing and displeasing. That is what matters to me. If a speaker measures perfectly but doesn't sound "right," I believe you'll have a hard time getting people to want to buy, build, or listen to it.

So in the end, I can't hope to win over any scientists and engineers with numbers and graphs; I confident, however that I can give your ears (and maybe your heart) something they will truly enjoy listening to.

“Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part." -Claude Debussy

or, more succinctly: "If it sounds good, it is good." -Duke Ellington

(c) 2009 by Paul Carmody

source: https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/about-me-and-extras/diy-audiomanifesto

But that does not mean science is not important, and measurings speakers is useless, it's very usefull, even to get a subjective good sound. To get there you need to know what you're doing, and measuring is essential in that.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Measurements are the sworn enemy of the subjectivists. They must maintain the line that you can only "trust your ears" when it comes to music reproduction.

Why would anyone have anything against audio measurements? I can't imagine that. Sometimes they are just not enough to fully describe a sound. This is most obvious with loudspeakers.

 

[computer-audiophile]

I think speakers are partly subjective taste

That matches my experience too.

 

[Wicky]

Measurements and theory are scientific tools and therefore subject to error, misinterpretation, or at best, an over simplification or incomplete view of more complex underlying phenomena. They are however by far the best tools we have and certainly more trustworthy than individual subjective impressions without anything else to back them up.
It's important to appreciate though our subjective experience informs 'observations' that are also part of the same toolkit, they are though, simply not to be trusted as of in themselves, just as the rest of the individual components in that toolkit.

 

[computer-audiophile]

I could write a whole essay about that, but Paul Camody did it already and says more or less what i think:

Nice essay, thank you. Especially the quotes at the end sum it up well, imo.

“Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part." - Claude Debussy

or, more succinctly: "If it sounds good, it is good." - Duke Ellington

 

[Mart68]

Nice essay, thank you. Especially the quotes at the end sum it up well, imo.

“Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part." - Claude Debussy

or, more succinctly: "If it sounds good, it is good." - Duke Ellington

But that's just an over simplification.

Fact is the further the speaker strays from accurate, the more recordings will sound wrong or even bad.

This is often mistaken by owners of bad speakers for the speaker being so good it is 'showing poor recordings for what they are.'

Devore's speakers will possibly enhance some recordings but will certainly make a dog's dinner of many.

I notice many people using bad speakers who almost only listen to chamber music and acoustic jazz, and they will tell you that 'most rock and pop music is badly recorded.' No it isn't! It's just that your speakers are rubbish! It's just your choice of music doesn't show them up.

 

[SIY]

First part (chess) seems real and she is doing it by feel. The other parts seem like a cheat/scam the way she is looking at an angle.

It's a tired old fraud. James Randi wrote about several similar frauds, most notoriously that of Suzie Cottrell.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Devore's speakers will possibly enhance some recordings

That is quite possible. I know a few speakers of this type. They can be very attractive, but of course they are not universally applicable.