Wrong. The bit one doesn't "get away with" is holding a personal preference that contradicts the science, but pretending anyone with a view aligned with the science is purely stating a personal preference. With words like, "please forgive those of us who happen to not share your listening preferences."
So, perhaps you are the one who should be careful, and check before misrepresenting what I do or don't "want". And just a tip: drop the sarcasm. It's never a good look.
There is nothing that contradicts The Science about someone stating his preference that arose from his own comparisons of surround sound vs stereo, what he likes and doesn't like. Symphra made specific claims about what he himself likes and dislikes from his experience of surround vs stereo, and about his own goals and how surround meets or does not meet them.
He was not making a scientific case, nor was he "contradicting" the science in stating his preferences while allowing others may have different preferences.
And note the post you jumped on was Symhpra responding to someone else's PREFERENCE claim (not to a scientific claim). Sal called stereo "boring" and Symphra explained why he felt differently. But...no...gotta pound him with the Sciency Stick for that!
You can make the case from studies (as one may make the case about speaker design), that the ODDS are that more people than not will prefer surround sound to stereo in the specific test conditions of the studies you may have in mind. But what you can't do is extrapolate from those studies that you can
know any particular individual, either me or symphara, actually didn't legitimately prefer the stereo to surround sound in our own experiences and from what we have heard. Even if YOU and many others may have found preference in your experiences of surround sound. Unless you can produce direct studies showing that, to take some of symphra's preference statement, that symphra himsel in fact DOES like voices and instruments popping up behind him in surround sound, and that in fact symphra DOES actually like the sound of "being in the middle of the orchestra" rather than being in front of it. No you haven't such scientific studies of symphra's personal preference.
I'm curious if you can even find Floyd Toole expressing a preference to have, for instance, being sonically in the center of an orchestra as if one were dangling like an overhead mic, rather than a more realistic recreation of what it's typically like to hear an orchestra.
In fact, here is something Toole has written on multichannel vs stereo:
Skillfully used, the combination of digital discrete
multichannel technology, and a competently set up loudspeak-
er/room combination can provide the basis for thrilling sound
experiences whether the objective is realism or pure abstract
artistry. As gratifying as concert hall performances and two-channel stereo have been, we
now have an expanded spatial and directional palette for musical artists to play with and
within. Inevitably, there will be debates about good taste and individual preferences, but this
is art and anything goes."
So please notice Toole himself makes allowances for listener preferences and debate. When symphra says he has not found his experiences with surround music to be compelling, and states HIS PREFERENCES for the location of the orchestra and other sounds in the soundfield, you have no grounds to be waving your Staff Of Scientific Purity at him, as if he'd just made claims that contradict the science. Per Toole's comments above, if symphra listened to a surround track and said "I didn't like the voices and instruments popping up behind me" you have no scientific grounds to tell him "
No, actually YOU DO like that!"
He's quite right that people can and do have different preferences in regards to stereo and surround sound. He wasn't making some case against surround for everyone else.
If you really want to be a voice for The Science...it's best to have a scientific attitude. You'll notice that good scientists are more careful and humble about what claims they can extract from the research.