- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
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I'm here because I have a low tolerance for b.s. and a place like this is an oasis for "the sensible audiophile."
I'm an artsy fartsy who has never studied electronics, never tried building a speaker, or amp, or whatever, so I don't have the direct knowledge to make my way through lots of the dubious claims in audio. Mostly I rely on the "sniff test" for audio claims and whatever info I can glean from discussions among people who are in a position to know what they are talking about.
I've always enjoyed philosophy and have a pretty well developed sense of logical coherence, in detecting when arguments and claims are invalid or unsound or unsupported by evidence, and I have a pretty good grasp of how science works and why it works. So those are some of the "skills" I try to apply everywhere and so much in high end audio is, as everyone here knows, bursting with pseudo-science. It's impossible for me not to notice that the claims made by audiophiles for tweaks/cables etc are vetted the same way every other dubious claim is vetted, from astrology to prayer, to psychics, to alternative medicine, new age nostrums, you name it. My brain would snap in two at the sheer inconsistency of calling that stuff out everywhere else, except for my own pet hobby. The fact I am empirically inclined also leads me toward defending and participating in blind testing (when the need or mood strikes).
So I come to a site like this and some others, including AVSforum, Archimago's blog, as a brain-balm, a place where I can read about or discuss audio without my synapses snapping reading poorly reasoned and evidenced ideas about audio.
It's interesting though, that one doesn't simply end up with "everyone is on the same page" even when people are trying to converge on a method that is as objective as possible. There are still disagreements to be found.
My only issue is that I also enjoy and value part of the subjectivist audiophile dialogue: that of talking about and exchanging notes about sound in subjective terms. As I've said before here: the sound coming out of our systems sounds like something. And it's human to want to communicate about what we are experiencing, describing the nature of sound as I would food, or something visual like art, film, whatever. One could stick to a strictly technical discussion if everyone where knowledgeable (and in the mixing theater I may talk to the mixer in terms of eq and frequency ranges). But even a fully technical description doesn't go all the way IMO, because, frequency peaks and dips *sound like something* and produce certain sonic characteristics for certain instruments, and which can change the nature of the sound, and have an effect on the how the music is experienced. So there is an experiential phenomena still left to describe, and I truly enjoy attempting to do so and exchanging notes with others as to "what does this sound like? Are you hearing what I'm hearing?"
The problem is: introduce too much of the subjective talk in a place like this, and it could water down goal of the forum to try to talk in terms of what can be tested, or what is technically plausible/measurable.
But I find that some of the things I really care about tend to be waved away or left off the table in more objectivist forums.
So, I find I have to still inhabit some subjective audio forums to get my fix of talking subjectively about sound - mostly speakers. And when being mired in too much pure subjectivity starts to make me feel unmoored from reality, and when the religious-like subjectivism and wild claims are being lapped up all around me without apparent critical thought, I come running back to forums like this to clear my head.
But, as I seek to have a coherent, defensible position on this hobby that embraces both the objective and subjective aspects, without making B.S. claims while doing so, I find myself defending the objectivist stance in the subjectivist forums, and doing *some* defending of subjectivism in the objectivist forums.
I'm an artsy fartsy who has never studied electronics, never tried building a speaker, or amp, or whatever, so I don't have the direct knowledge to make my way through lots of the dubious claims in audio. Mostly I rely on the "sniff test" for audio claims and whatever info I can glean from discussions among people who are in a position to know what they are talking about.
I've always enjoyed philosophy and have a pretty well developed sense of logical coherence, in detecting when arguments and claims are invalid or unsound or unsupported by evidence, and I have a pretty good grasp of how science works and why it works. So those are some of the "skills" I try to apply everywhere and so much in high end audio is, as everyone here knows, bursting with pseudo-science. It's impossible for me not to notice that the claims made by audiophiles for tweaks/cables etc are vetted the same way every other dubious claim is vetted, from astrology to prayer, to psychics, to alternative medicine, new age nostrums, you name it. My brain would snap in two at the sheer inconsistency of calling that stuff out everywhere else, except for my own pet hobby. The fact I am empirically inclined also leads me toward defending and participating in blind testing (when the need or mood strikes).
So I come to a site like this and some others, including AVSforum, Archimago's blog, as a brain-balm, a place where I can read about or discuss audio without my synapses snapping reading poorly reasoned and evidenced ideas about audio.
It's interesting though, that one doesn't simply end up with "everyone is on the same page" even when people are trying to converge on a method that is as objective as possible. There are still disagreements to be found.
My only issue is that I also enjoy and value part of the subjectivist audiophile dialogue: that of talking about and exchanging notes about sound in subjective terms. As I've said before here: the sound coming out of our systems sounds like something. And it's human to want to communicate about what we are experiencing, describing the nature of sound as I would food, or something visual like art, film, whatever. One could stick to a strictly technical discussion if everyone where knowledgeable (and in the mixing theater I may talk to the mixer in terms of eq and frequency ranges). But even a fully technical description doesn't go all the way IMO, because, frequency peaks and dips *sound like something* and produce certain sonic characteristics for certain instruments, and which can change the nature of the sound, and have an effect on the how the music is experienced. So there is an experiential phenomena still left to describe, and I truly enjoy attempting to do so and exchanging notes with others as to "what does this sound like? Are you hearing what I'm hearing?"
The problem is: introduce too much of the subjective talk in a place like this, and it could water down goal of the forum to try to talk in terms of what can be tested, or what is technically plausible/measurable.
But I find that some of the things I really care about tend to be waved away or left off the table in more objectivist forums.
So, I find I have to still inhabit some subjective audio forums to get my fix of talking subjectively about sound - mostly speakers. And when being mired in too much pure subjectivity starts to make me feel unmoored from reality, and when the religious-like subjectivism and wild claims are being lapped up all around me without apparent critical thought, I come running back to forums like this to clear my head.
But, as I seek to have a coherent, defensible position on this hobby that embraces both the objective and subjective aspects, without making B.S. claims while doing so, I find myself defending the objectivist stance in the subjectivist forums, and doing *some* defending of subjectivism in the objectivist forums.
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