Was this aimed at ASR?

[DonH56]

I suppose a bomb could be considered a military accoutrement...

 

[Inner Space]

Also apparently "Hoist with his own petard" is a Hamlet quote - look how cultured they are!

Half cultured and a bit irrelevant - old Hamlet was alluding to how ironic it is that bomb-throwers sometimes blow themselves up by accident. Has ASR accidently blown itself up? Has any of S'phile's antagonists?

 

[Jimbob54]

It's like an IED to breach doors or gates. Also apparently "Hoist with his own petard" is a Hamlet quote - look how cultured they are!

Fucked up by ones own pipe-bomb. Not quite sure who the unfortunate soldier is in the article though. Those that miss out on the joys of kit willfully designed to be non-conformist I suppose.

 

[Jimbob54]

I suppose a bomb could be considered a military accoutrement...

Dont make me look that one up too. Im happy thinking of it as "kit and caboodle"

 

[Jimbob54]

@DonH56 As a massive aside, noticed your Huxley signature quote. Probably an urban legend but I heard that Don Van Vliet AKA Captain Beefheart was once a door to door vacuum salesman. He knocks on AH's door, crappy device in hand. AH opens the door and the Captain proudly announces, "Sir, this sucks!"

 

[LTig]

Actually, I had similar thoughts that Amir‘s site could lead to a world of speakers which all sound the same.
But let‘s face it: Many speakers are poorly designed and claim that they are state of the art. Do we want to pay money for that?

Furthermore, companies can still design speakers with deliberate sound signature - if it is done correctly (e. g. with controlled directivity, low distortion, etc.). They could even promote their sound signature as a feature (more highs for older people ). But at the moment, we see mainly speakers which suffer from serious design flaws producing very different sound signatures depending on the room they play in.

Yep. AFAIR research found out that 83% (86?) of listeners preferred flat on axis FR and smooth dispersion, so I would assume that a working market would supply some 80% of speakers having these features. But looking at measurements done by e.g. SP it seems rather the opposite and most speakers have quite a differing "performance".

I do also disagree that one needs speakers with a special FR for customers who don't fall into the 83% slot. The customer just has to insist that amps and preamps shall be supplied with tone controls.

 

[hardisj]

I think those of you feeling that this was aimed at ASR probably didn't read this...

https://www.soundstagesolo.com/inde...lrOZNpgszqZIoSDKKe42-3IXJ5eYb3pjvcuKc04xqKbdU


Ironically, that was sent to me by a manufacturer who told me that he feels like audio science is reaching "critical mass" (a good thing in his mind).


At any rate, I wouldn't be so narcissistic as to say that ASR is the driving force for that article being written. I'd say the big step forward in people becoming educated is the catalyst. There are other outlets doing their part to provide objective data. Even Stereophile provides data. Makes you wonder what the conversation was like between JA and the author (assuming there was one).

Alternatively, maybe this article was written as more of an experienced 'audiophile' ranting about the crowd that "knows just enough to be dangerous" and assuming that because a speaker doesn't meet a definition they just learned about it must be a terrible speaker. Get off my lawn, and whatnot.

 

[Jimbob54]

I think those of you feeling that this was aimed at ASR probably didn't read this...

https://www.soundstagesolo.com/inde...lrOZNpgszqZIoSDKKe42-3IXJ5eYb3pjvcuKc04xqKbdU


Ironically, that was sent to me by a manufacturer who told me that he feels like audio science is reaching "critical mass" (a good thing in his mind).


At any rate, I wouldn't be so narcissistic as to say that ASR is the driving force for that article being written. I'd say the big step forward in people becoming educated is the catalyst. There are other outlets doing their part to provide objective data. Even Stereophile provides data. Makes you wonder what the conversation was like between JA and the author (assuming there was one).

Alternatively, maybe this article was written as more of an experienced 'audiophile' ranting about the crowd that "knows just enough to be dangerous" and assuming that because a speaker doesn't meet a definition they just learned about it must be a terrible speaker. Get off my lawn, and whatnot.

Bingo!

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Magazine language is so elevated. Hoisted? Petard?

I could feel the article flip a switch somewhere around the fourth paragraph, where the relativism subroutine took over.

Hey, if ole Jim wants to eat his roast chicken medium rare, all anyone can say is "You go, gurl" (right to the hospital).

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Bingo!

Reading that article, all I can say is an "R-squared" of 86% is pretty much a gold standard.

 

[Racheski]

Half cultured and a bit irrelevant - old Hamlet was alluding to how ironic it is that bomb-throwers sometimes blow themselves up by accident. Has ASR accidently blown itself up? Has any of S'phile's antagonists?

Well in that case, let's take a closer look at this analogy in the article:
"There may be a single best way to roast a chicken, but I'm glad different chefs use different recipes."
I think every time a subjectivist tries to use an analogy to further their argument they end up not making any sense and/or weakening their argument. The equivalent statement for speakers would be:
"There may be a single best way to design a speaker, but I'm glad different manufacturers use different processes."
Huh? Per my understanding, this is what Toole's research supports, that there is a "best" way to design a speaker that the average listener prefers. And I doubt the vast majority of listeners care about the design process of the speaker, unless some design element resulted in a component that was dangerous to a user.

 

[CDMC]

Just saw this posted on the Stereophile website. Can’t help but think the author had a specific target in mind.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/hoisted-your-own-petard

I read it a saying those who believe in objective measurements are lemmings. We provide a service that no other can with our subjective reviews which are honest. If you want to not be a lemming, follow us, otherwise you are just part of the pack.

He of course ignores that no objectivist claims that measurements fully describe a speaker's performance, just that it tells a lot of about how a speaker will sound. He also ignores the recent review of the Totems that measured so horribly, but were touted by the reviewer as good, while he tried not to piss off a major advertiser.

 

[echopraxia]

I like the fact that the world is rich and varied. There is no single path forward but, rather, many paths leading in many directions and ending at many vistas (footnote 4). You may not prefer the view there over another view, or the sonic perspective, but someone does, and if your mind and ears are open, you can enjoy it. Do we want to live in a world where everything sounds the same? I don't.

It's disheartening, then, when speakers (and other components) that so obviously do not aspire to classical behavior continue to be judged by classical standards.

Embracing a diverse range of sonic preferences is healthy. But downplaying the reality of subjective sonic preferences — that almost all subjective preference differences can be satisfied for free, with DSP software — is far from healthy. It’s a dishonesty by omission at best, and scammy/corrupt at worst.

This fact is very uncomfortable and inconvenient to those mediocre or downright bad speaker companies and their shills (like traditinal subjectivist audiophile magazines) that cater to niche tastes in sonic signature, because without some claim to some kind of unmeasurable “magic”, there’s no longer a reason to justify buying their speakers any more: just buy an objectively good speaker, and use DSP to tune it to perfection. as per your individual taste!

There is nothing wrong with catering to a niche sonic preference, but it is obviously deeply wrong to lie (even by omission) like many subjectivists do when they pretend a physically different speaker is required to suit each sonic taste — rather than just applying various tone controls and distortion filters.

Of course, DSP can’t account for all possible preference variations. There almost certainly are some dimensions of preference we currently cannot control just from modifying the scalar audio signal — e.g. horizontal and vertical directivity are good examples. But these dimensions seem few, rarely mentioned in these subjectivist reviews, and also will likely be controllable some day with technological advances (like DSP cardioid speaker designs).

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Embracing a diverse range of sonic preferences is great. Keeping an open mind to advances in the science is great. Discussing that the spinorama may not capture everything we need to judge a speaker (vs other measurements), is healthy.

But here is what’s not healthy: Continuing a system (like Stereophile subjectivist writing) that hides or downplays the reality of subjective sonic preferences — that almost all subjective preference differences can be satisfied for free, with DSP software! This fact is very uncomfortable and inconvenient to those mediocre or downright bad speaker companies and their shills (like traditinal subjectivist audiophile magazines) that cater to niche tastes in sonic signature, because without some claim to some kind of unmeasurable “magic”, there’s no longer a reason to justify buying their speakers any more: just buy an objectively good speaker, and use DSP to tune it as per your individual taste to perfection.

There is nothing wrong with catering to a niche sonic preference, but it is obviously deeply wrong to lie (even by omission) like many subjectivists do when they pretend a physically different speaker is required to suit each sonic taste — rather than just applying various tone controls and distortion filters.

Of course, DSP can’t account for all possible preference variations. There almost certainly are some dimensions of preference we currently cannot control just from modifying the scalar audio signal — e.g. horizontal and vertical directivity are good examples. But these dimensions seem few, rarely mentioned in these subjectivist reviews, and also will likely be controllable some day with technological advances (like DSP cardioid speaker designs).

Yeah, use REW to make your very own Zu 's! Because there is no limit to human perversity!

 

[wwenze]

Imagine buying a car and it decelerates slightly when u press the pedal to the metal, because it enhances the driving experience.

 

[samsa]

It should pleasing to anyone running or writing for an audio magazine that there's a high degree of consistency in listener preferences. If there were no correlation, then one person's recommendations would be of no use to others. The delicate fiction of a magazine like Stereophile is that their reviewers reported impressions really do offer useful guidance for readers in the market for audio equipment. Else why should anyone subscribe?

Which makes Jim Austin's "diffr'nt strokes for diffr'nt folks" argument a little perplexing.

Dr. Toole's loudspeaker research indicates two things

1. There's a high degree of correlation between listeners preferences.
2. In turn, these preferences are highly correlated with certain measurable speaker characteristics.

It's hard (impossible, really) to throw out #2, without throwing out #1. But then what's the point of publishing reviews?

 

[Inner Space]

... the reality of subjective sonic preferences — that almost all subjective preference differences can be satisfied for free, with DSP software!

So true, and even though I'm very old fashioned and dreading getting to grips with it all, surely the next step will be that the $100 DACs become $49 DACs, and the $100 slot will be filled with DACs with upstream DSP labeled and controlled in intuitive and innovative ways. The scaffolding is already there, in the guitar multi-FX world, and to some extent in smart TVs. Maybe I'll have to join the 21st century at last.

 

[Angsty]

I even have a Stereophile subscription.

I’ve had a subscription for 25 years, more or less. I also contribute to ASR. I see no need to limit the information I intake about audio; I just need to be judicious in what I find to be actionable.

 

[Andreas007]

Yep. AFAIR research found out that 83% (86?) of listeners preferred flat on axis FR and smooth dispersion, so I would assume that a working market would supply some 80% of speakers having these features. But looking at measurements done by e.g. SP it seems rather the opposite and most speakers have quite a differing "performance".

I do also disagree that one needs speakers with a special FR for customers who don't fall into the 83% slot. The customer just has to insist that amps and preamps shall be supplied with tone controls.

Yes, of course. But then there a many who don‘t want to use tone controls. Many users simply want „something that makes music... but not too complicated“. My mother for example.

 

[preload]

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Jim Austin's opinion piece seems pretty fair and accurate to me.

The first 6 paragraphs praise and acknowledge the research that has come out of the Harman group (i.e. Toole/Olive). It's not until paragraph 7 that Austin raises the point that while Harman's target measurement characteristics tend to be preferred by most listeners, by no means do they apply to all listeners.

I agree with this. For instance, Olive's listener preference formula isn't nearly as good as people seem to think it is. If you take the time to read the original work by Harman, you'll quickly discover a few things.

As an example, folks often quote Harman's model as having "86% correlation" as if this should end the conversation. But what does that really mean? For starters, the so-called 0.86 is the Pearson r, which means R-squared is actually only 74%. In plain language, Olive's objective measurement model only explains 74% of the variation observed in listener preferences. This is the model that incorporates things like smoothness, response across a listening window, and slope. Here's what that looks like graphically below (it's from Olive's convention paper).

For a given predicted "score," based on objective measurements, look at how much variation there is in actual listener preferences! For a "5", the range is 3-7, which is a HUGE variation in listener preference. And BTW, it requires a lot of math to even arrive at that predicted preference rating - it's not something you can just "eyeball" from a series of FR curves. So the truth is that conformity to what we all accept to be important loudspeaker characteristics is "good," but not "great" at predicting how much listeners will like it.

Moreover, as some of your know, listener preferences for the amount of bass and treble in reproduced music varies by age, gender, years of listening experience, country of origin, AND musical content!
In a Harman experiment, they gave listeners a pair of headphones, the same pre-selected music tracks, and asked them to adjust bass and treble tone controls to their preference. Here are some representative slides illustrating some of these differences. They're from a Harman slide deck available on listeninc.com.

How can there be a precise "target curve" when people of different age, gender, country, experience, etc. have different FR preferences? There can't. The Harman "target curve" represents the result of all of their listeners combined, BUT it doesn't depict the variation that their listeners exhibited. (A better way to present the target curve would be to include vertical error bars, in my opinion.) People look at a precisely drawn line and assume that it is a precise target. Harman's own research indicates that it is NOT.

Bottom line: Objective measurements are only somewhat predictive of listener preferences, and even within those objective measurements, there is variation in individual preferences that are valid (unless anyone wants to argue that the preferences of a 15-25 year old male with 10 years of experience is the "gold standard," and everyone else's preferences are wrong).