Why haven't subjectivists and objectivists met to do a live ABX test?

[ahofer]

I believe that's an unwarranted assumption.

Jim

If I'm being honest, I'm not sure what I'd think. It would be very interesting to discover some new, verifiable measure of audio quality that I could maximize in my system. On the other hand, the current progress in amplifiers (where a purifi amp gives you far more progress on known dimensions than you could ever dream of at the price 30 years ago) is also exciting. Discovery of some actual, audible advantage to the Krell/D'agostino/etc. expensive methods would be a bummer for my wallet and physical comfort. I was pretty happy to rid myself of my Nelson Pass space heater.

 

[Ricardus]

Is there a taste to pure water?

In today's day and age, yes. It's chlorine mixed with arsenic and mercury.

Edit.

Sorry, you said PURE.

 

[ahofer]

In today's day and age, yes. It's chlorine mixed with arsenic and mercury.

Edit.

Sorry, you said PURE.

In my building, where we replaced the water tower recently, there is also the mouth puckering taste of new cedar.

 

[Ricardus]

In my building, where we replaced the water tower recently, there is also the mouth puckering taste of new cedar.

Warm it up and make tea!

 

[notsodeadlizard]

This is always done at the design stage.
The goals may be different, but this is always done, and not by design engineers.

Let's listen to Mr. Baxandall:

Let's listen to Mr. John Linsley-Hood:

And so on, so on...

This is engineering.
Here everything is built on the basis of requirements and compliance with the requirements is checked at each design stage.
Some designers have failures, some have good luck.
That's all.

 

[Spocko]

Most objectivists would love it if most of these amps sounded different and there was more to explore.

I think tube amps would be the perfect example of my point. Warm sounding tube amps sound different, but no objectivist would "love it" because they know that the warmth is the audible artifact of significant harmonic distortion. Regardless, subjectivists prefer this sound and validate that preference by describing it as organic, warm, etc. whereas objectivists just roll their eyes dismissing it as NOT accurate to the source. So if you put both types of amps in an ABX to score tube vs digital, the subjectivist would vote with their heart and personal preference whereas the objectivist can actually "hear" the distortion and would be unable to vote for it, regardless of whether or not they actually "like" it because it changed the source. And this is my point about ABX tests as originally posted - what exactly are you scoring? Subjectivist are scoring what they like and objectivist are scoring based on engineering performance defined by accurate transparency to the source.

 

[ahofer]

And this is my point about ABX tests as originally posted - what exactly are you scoring?

FIrst and foremost whether you can hear any difference at all. Differences between electronics are vastly overstated. We'll never define a universal preference, but we can certainly ferret out the nonsense.

 

[SIY]

I think tube amps would be the perfect example of my point. Warm sounding tube amps sound different, but no objectivist would "love it" because they know that the warmth is the audible artifact of significant harmonic distortion. Regardless, subjectivists prefer this sound and validate that preference by describing it as organic, warm, etc. whereas objectivists just roll their eyes dismissing it as NOT accurate to the source.

This "warm" sound is a common claim. To date, no-one has ever shown it to actually exist. And despite having had lots of tube amps over the years, I can't think of a single one that actually sounded "warm." As an audio rationalist, I would put my money on it being a legend rather than reality.

 

[solderdude]

This is always done at the design stage.
The goals may be different, but this is always done, and not by design engineers.

Let's listen to Mr. Baxandall:

View attachment 290914
View attachment 290915
Let's listen to Mr. John Linsley-Hood:

View attachment 290918

And so on, so on...

This is engineering.
Here everything is built on the basis of requirements and compliance with the requirements is checked at each design stage.
Some designers have failures, some have good luck.
That's all.

This was indeed an issue 50 years ago. These days not so much. Even a $ 0.80 opamp can far exceed what was possible in those days.

 

[notsodeadlizard]

This was indeed an issue 50 years ago. These days not so much. Even a $ 0.80 opamp can far exceed what was possible in those days.

But the engineering process remains the same, if we don’t talk about outright charlatans, or actually "SKD level" assemblers.

 

[solderdude]

That's why 3rd party (proper) testing is important... to check if the darn things were designed properly.

 

[krabapple]

Is there a taste to pure water?

It tastes wet

 

[SuicideSquid]

I think tube amps would be the perfect example of my point. Warm sounding tube amps sound different, but no objectivist would "love it" because they know that the warmth is the audible artifact of significant harmonic distortion. Regardless, subjectivists prefer this sound and validate that preference by describing it as organic, warm, etc. whereas objectivists just roll their eyes dismissing it as NOT accurate to the source. So if you put both types of amps in an ABX to score tube vs digital, the subjectivist would vote with their heart and personal preference whereas the objectivist can actually "hear" the distortion and would be unable to vote for it, regardless of whether or not they actually "like" it because it changed the source. And this is my point about ABX tests as originally posted - what exactly are you scoring? Subjectivist are scoring what they like and objectivist are scoring based on engineering performance defined by accurate transparency to the source.

I don't think this is fair at all.

Anyone who is committed to objectivity should recognize that tube amps (or vinyl records) are objectively inferior, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy these things, or even prefer them in some cases over objectively better-measuring equipment. What a commitment to intellectual honesty and objectivity entails is that you say, "Yes, I recognize this thing is objectively inferior, but I still like it" rather than casting about for some bullshit justification to say it's "better".

The goal of an engineer in the studio should be to take the objectively-better measuring gear, regardless of his or her personal preference. But if you're building a home audio system, the goal is to build something you enjoy listening to. If you compare a Class D amplifier with essentially zero noise or distortion at normal listening levels to a tube amp in a properly-conducted blind test and you prefer the tube amp, by all means take the tube amp. Who cares if it measure objectively worse, as long as you're not fooling yourself into wasting thousands of dollars and making dishonest arguments about how they're actually better because of some secret magic that can't be measured, rather than just recognizing that you enjoy the artifacts and imperfections introduced by tubes or records or whatever.

 

[MoreWatts]

@TimF said: "Is there a taste to pure water?"

It tastes wet

It tastes refreshing. Just like a low-distortion, noise-free audio system sounds.

Especially after years off muddling with the background hiss and noise of vinyl, cassettes and tubes, not to mention their other inconveniences. How do these formats even exist anymore? As an old man now, I might be less impacted, but can't the youths hear all this noise? I sure did in my teens to 30s. Since when has 'doin' what my dad did' become cool?

True objectivists are the music lovers, which is what this hobby is ultimately about, remember? We want everything to measure flat, so we can plug it in, optimize it, and then use the heck out of it until it wears out, and then replace as needed. Anytime spent messing with my system is time spent without music playing, usually, so set and forget is the ultimate goal. Why would I want to constantly analyze and worry about my system, when I could search for some new music online.

 

[fpitas]

I don't think this is fair at all.

Anyone who is committed to objectivity should recognize that tube amps (or vinyl records) are objectively inferior, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy these things, or even prefer them in some cases over objectively better-measuring equipment. What a commitment to intellectual honesty and objectivity entails is that you say, "Yes, I recognize this thing is objectively inferior, but I still like it" rather than casting about for some bullshit justification to say it's "better".

The goal of an engineer in the studio should be to take the objectively-better measuring gear, regardless of his or her personal preference. But if you're building a home audio system, the goal is to build something you enjoy listening to. If you compare a Class D amplifier with essentially zero noise or distortion at normal listening levels to a tube amp in a properly-conducted blind test and you prefer the tube amp, by all means take the tube amp. Who cares if it measure objectively worse, as long as you're not fooling yourself into wasting thousands of dollars and making dishonest arguments about how they're actually better because of some secret magic that can't be measured, rather than just recognizing that you enjoy the artifacts and imperfections introduced by tubes or records or whatever.

I more or less agree, with the caveat that, as SIY said above, the whole "tube sound" thing may be more in the mind than in the actual hardware. Either way, if they like it, well it's their money.

 

[rsoffer]

I think tube amps would be the perfect example of my point. Warm sounding tube amps sound different, but no objectivist would "love it" because they know that the warmth is the audible artifact of significant harmonic distortion. Regardless, subjectivists prefer this sound and validate that preference by describing it as organic, warm, etc. whereas objectivists just roll their eyes dismissing it as NOT accurate to the source. So if you put both types of amps in an ABX to score tube vs digital, the subjectivist would vote with their heart and personal preference whereas the objectivist can actually "hear" the distortion and would be unable to vote for it, regardless of whether or not they actually "like" it because it changed the source. And this is my point about ABX tests as originally posted - what exactly are you scoring? Subjectivist are scoring what they like and objectivist are scoring based on engineering performance defined by accurate transparency to the source.

Where did you get that objectivists don't like or desire tube amps?

Tube amps are a perfect example of where both camps agree there are audible differences that are (keyword) appreciable. What makes someone an objectivist is that they trust the measurements to show when said differences are there or not. The subjectivists believe there is something magical outside the measurements, and so a $5000 solid state amp sounds better than a $200 solid state amp even though they both measure audibly transparent.

Edit: I just wanted to add that they trust the measurements because there's been no compelling reason not to. If it was shown through proper A/B testing that someone can differentiate these amps, we will accept that and search for what that is.

 

[Spkrdctr]

You have to define what it is you are testing for. If it is for your personal preference than that is the goal, which sounds better to you in a blind test. If it is to see what capacitor, resistors, op amps and other bits and parts sound like, than you have to do a major engineering level test and have Amir help you out. The reason the testing has become so hard to do is if your testing electronic parts, you find that a lot of parts are all made to a spec that our ears can't hear any difference between. Do caps, resistors and op amps all have their own sound? Good Luck. They might possibly on a scope that you have cranked up to where you can see electrons running around, but after it hits a speaker? Nope. No speaker can reproduce miniscule variations that are seen on a scope. Then you get to your ear/brain function. So, in the end it is much easier to do a "what do you prefer, this amp or that amp" test. Amir has written on how to do it. But in reality, we all know that 85% of the people who claim to do blind tests in fact do sighted tests. Many because they do not even know how to do a blind test properly. They think they do.

 

[Spkrdctr]

The subjectivists believe there is something magical outside the measurements, and so a $5000 solid state amp sounds better than a $200 solid state amp even though they both measure audibly transparent.

Once you get into the magical realm with voodoo science and mystical properties you are into an area of science that has no science. Just sayin.

 

[rsoffer]

Once you get into the magical realm with voodoo science and mystical properties you are into an area of science that has no science. Just sayin.

Yeah I mean this is really what it boils down to. The subjectivist straw man is that objectivists are all about chasing SINAD numbers and not musical enjoyment. That the chase is for "sterile" sound or whatever. That's not really what it is about. No one here actually cares if Topping's new amp measures 0.01% better than the last amp. We only care if the product does *NOT* measure well, in which case now we can make an educated decision to accept this "flavor" of distortion or not.

 

[SIY]

Tube amps are a perfect example of where both camps agree there are audible differences that are (keyword) appreciable.

I absolutely do NOT agree. Nor is there any evidence to back up the contention.