Why the objectivists will never win!

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#1,062
objectivists may not win, but its not because they are wrong. its because most audiophile`s would rather believe in nonsense claims instead of reading any research on audio reproduction. another issue is that they often have no idea what correct sounds like, after switching from one terrible speaker to another terrible speaker.
there are lots of manufacturers that have produced junk products for many years, and they are still going strong. the magazines etc are letting it happen.
 
#1,065
ulogon said:
Sorry if I'm sincere, but sometimes I struggle to follow you.
You say that the mind plays tricks, and maybe sometimes it's true, but what you describe is a capacity of the mind and in fact you then call it such.
Selective listening is an exceptional skill, and it allows us to continue having a conversation with someone even amidst the general noise, but I don't see how this skill would interfere with listening or an ABX test.
Distraction, tiredness, boredom or the listener's lack of motivation interfere much more, but that's another story.
Not to mention the fact that the fact that the senses work one at a time is ignored and therefore an ABX test should necessarily be done with eyes closed.
I also believe that "in my opinion" is not acceptable when we are talking about science and not general opinions.
I absolutely disagree with the fact that it is "everything" to be classified in the emotional sphere because it is just your opinion and not psychological data.
Furthermore, in my opinion "emotional" does not mean "approximate" nor "illusory" nor "intangible" and I also think that the concreteness of matter and the ethereality of spirit coexist perfectly since they were created for each other in a marriage as perfect as it is still largely mysterious.

It's not nonsense, but perhaps a misunderstanding. ;-)
My talk of "silky highs" was intended to be and is just an example of one of the many possible ways of being able to communicate, not of a necessary jargon to be referred to, far from it.
If the person describing an auditory event can't describe it, well he won't describe it intelligibly, that's what he meant.
Furthermore, it is not nonsense not only because "silky highs" can very well exist and be just so perfectly described, but also because what kind of language has ancient, but also somewhat unknown, apparently, roots. ;-)
It's just another of those things that are freely attributed to audiophiles who at best are defined as "idiots" and who instead denote an ignorance about which you couldn't even give your opinion.
At most one could say "I'll hazard a guess", but not "it's nonsense" given that the description of the aesthetic experience in music is documented.

Adjectives like the following were used even before so-called audiophiles began to become listening "poets" themselves by sound professionals such as audio engineers.

The following is a quoting from the following linked site (referenced to 2004): "A guitar sound, for example, can be “thin” or “full”; a drum must be “singing out,” “wide-open,” “cool,” “not muffling,” “pretty tight,” to have “a little more of a smack.” 😍

You may find that page interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5380758/

When I talked about "beautiful" sound rather than "good" sound I meant that apart from personal preferences which are distortions of reality, when what comes out of your speakers has extended highs and not strident and scratchy, natural mids , sweet and well present without being excessive and the bass is solid, deep and never booming, apart from a realistic sound stage what more could you want?
In short, it was not to be taken literally, but interpreted in a slightly more sagacious manner.

IMO At the end of the day the audio is this: a beautiful reproduction of reality that should satisfy us at least as much as that of a film seen at home from a TVC that is not too huge and not too special (which only serves to give something else compared to to the one that cannot be given) whose scenes resemble everything except the life-size holographic 3D reproduction in your own home.

Audio, on the other hand, seems to be asking the impossible.
I haven't figured out the purpose yet, but there definitely has to be a purpose.
And it's probably not exactly an ethical purpose.

It seems like we keep playing at not understanding each other.

Musical preference is one thing (and I wasn't talking about that, because it obviously pertains to personal culture and taste) while the preference that some objectivists talk about is the one which, like the one above, only serves to create an alibi because if it is established that a beautiful sound (like the one described above) is also a correct sound, sound preferences are just smoke and mirrors because no one likes other shrill and acidic sounds, and long and booming basses.
If it were, it would be an exception (I was about to say "defect") and not "normality", i.e. timbric correctness.




See above.

I had deleted the fact that I had mentioned patents, but it was still in the clipboard.
You didn't mention patents, we agree.

I have never designed an electronic circuit, but I would really like to know how to do it, because my skills are different and I haven't had enough time to do it nor when I could have, but I didn't want to.
Not when I wanted to, but couldn't.

Furthermore, that is not the point because the real point here is that of the guy who wants to buy an amplifier that sounds beautiful (and I didn't say good) certainly making his own choices according to various principles and various priorities (first of all, the price) without having to first take an accelerated course in applied electronics.
Because it wouldn't do anyone any good.



I don't see what other world I could ever talk about other than my own, frankly.

Furthermore, to my lay eyes, the much available literature does not yet seem to have been able to create a democratic model of amplifier design.

And very few innovations seem to have been presented, except for the necessary exceptions, while schemes from decades ago are still being used.
Those schemes have their very high dignity otherwise they would not be used, but they are also a measure of the damage that exasperated and unenlightened objectivism brings to the construction of cages.
For fear of damaging their image and above all for fear of being laughed at.
The cage of objectivism is created by the objectivists themselves who, among other things, in some cases completely ignore human physiology.
I have a particular admiration for engineers, of any specialization, not only in electronics, but if wisdom and perseverance in studies are not freed from imagination and creativity, unfortunately they lose part of their importance.
And if one of their discoveries, for example, cannot reach the audience of listeners because the ABX tests do not work by their very nature and no one notices it, then the cage also becomes golden.


I think I've already answered this somewhat.


No.


I think I answered this too, somehow.


Here too you got whistles for flasks.
The price of an amplifier matters!
If a power amp has to cost $400,000 per mono pair to sound "good" which I doubt as much as anything else man-made, then it's not technological progress, it's technological barbarism and we are all experiencing an Audio that is still at Paleolithic.
If you know, what I know.


I didn't say they were the same, you keep taking me literally to no avail.

I said they're built the same way: PCBs, transistors, diodes, and a handful of components and a chassis.

What do you think an amplifier buyer gets, a design philosophy?


Me only?
Are you sure? 🙂

However, I agree, I said exactly the same thing as you about measurements.

Marketing and reproduction quality certainly have something to do with it!
How else do you think anyone would be able to sell a $12,000 preamp?

You cannot escape marketing in any way.
For this reason he should be respected and not ridiculously demonized.
Otherwise it's your that is philosophy.


It's not a flaw just as it's not an advantage, it's simply a fact.

And, again, I wasn't talking about what you played.

Try buying an $800,000 system and then let me know what you think to want coming out of those speakers. 😉

This is what I was talking about, a more than justified expectation in relation to how expensive one has purchased, mine was certainly not an apology for perfection.
Nothing like that at all!


All the above in my opinion and with all due respect, of course. 🙂
Click to expand...
You certainly earn the price for the longest posting so far 😛

Hans
 
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#1,066
davidjt said:
As stated many, many pages back, the reason no-one will win is that it's not a contest.
Click to expand...
sure, but many see it that way. while subjectivists wax lyricly about what they heared, they are refuted and laughed at when measurements are presented or they participate in a blindtest. therefore their ego get a hit, and feel like they should arm themselves even more against the "naysayers". it will never stop.

TwainQuote.jpg
 
#1,070
multitask said:
when measurements are presented
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Example: recently reading the ASR discussion on the modified headphone contour in process at Olive's lab one thing became obvious. The concept of The One True Headphone Contour is nonsense in principle. A major component of our localisation is that the contour - the anatomical frequency response modification to the sound we hear - varies by azimuth significantly between 0 and 90 degrees. That variance provides localisation, we evolved to leverage it. A varying contour is HRTF's value for us.
Imparting one uniform 0 degree HRTF contour on all audio between +-90 degree can only be a coarse approximation. That doesn't stop legions considering themselves objective (the meter shows after all) from chasing what they believe to be technical and measurement confirmed sub 2 dB, sub-octave PEQ 'corrections' delivering the perfect frequency response. Pop on over and see how this conversation goes with open minded, totally detached science focused objectivitsts. For fun toss in alternate contours or tilted DF. Or raise Olive's apparent flat dismissal of the THD+SINAD metric - a core belief - as having much perceptual value beyond the most pathological case. Cognitive dissonance was raised earlier.
Humans do science. Humans debate science. We're not infallible and graphs are sign posts, not shields. Glass houses.
 
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#1,072
headphone measurements and preference is a very recent science compared to speakers. brands have wanted to have a fairly flat response for multiple decades, yet some others still deny it out of simple principle.

here is the speaker the devore guy talked about in the video, he says it has two inputs and that stereophile preferred this. well over -25db around 250hz. no recording ever produced will sound remotely correct.

306dVSfig05.jpg
 
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#1,079
sure, not everything presented as a whitepaper should be taken seriously. but i think the biggest problem in audio is at the opposite end where manufacturers think they are better than common knowledge and are different just because they have wild theories and want to go against the statues quo. customers eats it up and keep them in business by being uninformed.
 
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