Those who care have spent a lot of time testing the abilities of human perception. All well known. Sadly lunatics and snake oil salesman like to ignore this to peddle their own brand of pseudo-babble.
I think lots of designers take the "I am not to blame" approach. Pretty frustrating to work with people like that when you know that more integrated design considerations result in better systems.
There are certainly some designers who take the "I'm not to blame" approach. Just as many subjectivists take the "oh, you're just not open minded" approach when a scientifically minded person insists that 2+2 = 4 and the subjectivist insists he's perceiving 2+2 = 5.
~Tom
~Tom
What the objectivists do is measure "2", and another "2" and say, therefore the answer must be "4". The subjectivists say, But I can hear "5" ... the answer is that there is a "1" in the equation that the objectivists are completely blind to, that they keep on missing because their thinking doesn't extend beyond the usual considerations ...
Or be fooled by his/her own perception. Illusions exist in all senses, including the auditory. Then add all the cognitive biases and you have a real mess.
It is possible to design controlled experiments that reduce or eliminate this mess. Sadly, the results of such experiments are often only accessible for paying members of AES. The ones I know about that are accessible to the general public are those published by Sean Olive and Harmon Kardon. Sadly, many subjectivists dismiss Olive's findings because they don't agree with the preconceived bias of the subjectivist. That's a common cognitive bias as well...
~Tom
That is exactly what I was leading to.... the true subjectivist would have us discard all psychological experimentation as limited to those participants on that day..... But, as Sy pointed out, subjective data, *properly collected* becomes objective data.
Oooh that must sting!
Cheers Tom!
Oooh that must sting!
Cheers Tom!
Of course he could - which is why one needs to work with long term, repeated over and over again exposure to various qualities of sound. It's the consistency, and the steady building up of an understanding of what one is hearing that leads one to be able to judge just from the listening. Most don't do this, which is why most audio is quite mediocre, it sounds so obviously "hifi", wouldn't fool anyone into thinking they're listening to live sound.
Both objectivists and subjectivists make the same mistake - they're always listening for the "goodness" in the sound. Big mistake ... you need to listen for the "badness" to get to the bottom of things, to fast track to major improvements in what is being achieved.
Sure. When properly collected. That's my point. Few DIY people bother to collect the data properly. Rather, they rely on sighted experiments, small sample sizes, and the sharing of opinion between friends.
I would argue that I listen for both. I have recordings that stress most stereos and, frankly, sound bad. If a stereo can reproduce these recordings with less badness to the sound, I would argue that stereo is better. I also listen for goodness, as in whether the instruments sound natural. You can correlate these experiences with high PSRR, flat THD vs frequency response, flat frequency response, >5 W per channel output power, etc.
I'm basically aiming for sound in = sound out. If you want an effects box, I'm not your guy...
~Tom
Isn't that the same as the wine lover that needs to drink a case or two of wine to be able to render a judgment on quality?
Sounds good to me! 🙂
Listening for naturalness is akin to listening for the absence of badness - if the instrument tones or vocals have an unnatural edge to them, unless it was a clearly intended effect by the sound engineer, then there's your "badness". I'm thinking here of a classic, heavily produced and layered 80's pop production - the vocals are normal, then at one point are strongly processed, and then go back to normal again: if the system is not right then the clear distinction between the normal and processed vocals does not strike one, because it is camouflaged by the heavy layers of instrumental sounds.
Nice try 😉 ... an analogy I like is that I've been drinking ordinary wines for a while, and comparing between them - then one day I visit someone who presents me with a bottle of outstanding wine, literally, almost as good as it gets. All of a sudden I "get" it, I understand what I should be chasing after; I no longer compare OrdinaryA with OrdinaryB with OrdinaryC, I'm looking for hints, echos of that ExtraSpecial - and a wine that may be inferior in some ordinary respects will significantly impress me because it's showing very strong signs of that specialness I once experienced.
Actually, if you get the right team together, 2+2 can equate to the efficiency of 8. I had a team that did that in aircraft work, it really took twice the manpower to takeover and perform similarly.
That's called synergy. I'm curious about how you think this impacts your ability to perceive sound.
~Tom
~Tom
That's why we used to call it High Fidelity, until the profit makers came in and high-jacked the term to become "hifi".
We humans are used to hearing voice. Voice is a very good test of High Fidelity/naturalness/goodness.
I just went through an audition session with a reviewer. This is a store owner that imports lots of CDs from Europe. Like the previous owner that past away, he clearly explains from a music perspective what he perceives to be good and wrong. Although different reviewers have different optinions, once you listen to their description after you listen with them, generally it is possible to consolidate some commonality. Then you get some common perspective among the reviewers and yourself, you know it is something that needs attension. Generally we try to focus on what is wrong. This is when you get into the process of figuring out how to relate the wrong with what you can technically identify. These generally takes lots of effort, much more than trying to build something to spec.
Some people will just say good word, generally these cannot be helpful, although they may make you feel good. You want the ones that can describe flaws, this is when you really start to learn what else you need to do.
I hate that word.
Synergy has been usurped by the charlatan attempting to sell snake-oil to suggestive customers.
Synergy is supposed to mean that the whole is greater than the parts. It does not mean "goodness" is multiplied. Consider instead that flaws in one component hide the flaws in another. Simple example is in frequency response aberrations cancelling out.
If you are producing a musical instrument this is true. If a reviewer likes rock, then a 2dB rise 3-5KHz will have him reporting good kick drum and 'thwak', but if they like classical, a dip in the same region will have them reporting marvellous stage depth and a 5th row perspective.