I still have real problem with the difference/preference thing and trained listeners doing DBT's. I've had no luck in any discipline finding a critic that bats much over 50% when I try it myself. As you know I am more interested in the "cable lifters are better than spending $10,000 to upgrade your speakers" crowd.
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But now accuracy needs its own lexicon or do you mean simply the ability to identify differences reliably? I don't have much interest in someone that can identify Klinehorns at 100% reliability.
Maybe I should ask how does Mr. Olive's work help me (or anyone else) as a consumer, especially if one happens to enjoy a sound that is technically highly colored or "distorted" by conventional measure.
Olive is looking out for you (if you are average) with his trained listeners. He explains how in an interview here (2nd video):
Dr. Sean Olive Interview on Harman Blind Speaker Testing system | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
Basically, he finds that most people prefer accuracy over coloration, at least in most situations. And he is trying to sell product to most people.
For those that have other tastes, I suppose they could use the public version of his training app to learn to quickly identify the technical properties of speakers they prefer:
Harman How to Listen Maybe it could help them make sure they are making the right buying decisions and not choosing hastily something they might not like in the long run.
Dr. Sean Olive Interview on Harman Blind Speaker Testing system | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
Basically, he finds that most people prefer accuracy over coloration, at least in most situations. And he is trying to sell product to most people.
For those that have other tastes, I suppose they could use the public version of his training app to learn to quickly identify the technical properties of speakers they prefer:
Harman How to Listen Maybe it could help them make sure they are making the right buying decisions and not choosing hastily something they might not like in the long run.
Their tastes are perhaps uneducated and oriented by the industry since decades IMHO.
Say you like Seurat more than Munch. If I photograph either with various cameras and ask which "reproduction" is best, then your preference is irrelevant. I could do various tests to show which camera made the best reproduction. Now you could prefer a poor reproduction of the original, but that again says nothing about the accuracy of the reproduction. It only implies that you have bad taste.
Surely it won't since we know (from Olive) that most people don't like those aberrations and hence no one is going to cater to them, or even care what they think. I don't.
The audio comment was rhetorical, but for instance, IMO the current flock of UHD TV's are poor reproductions (at least as the factory setting go) of any original. I would hope the audio industry is doing better.
There are some basics with photography.
There is a profession in France (but i don't know the apellation in english) that is called "chromiste" and his only job is to calibrate the colors in order to be accurate from the photo to the final printing.
It is really hard job... it need a lot of expertise and a very expensive equipement.
Yes it is, color space management is a true art since the real world, phosphors, and ink all have a different color gamut. Producing fine art prints like Aperture Press (not sure they still do) required extra inks in the press and all the sheets of paper were individually hung in a warehouse to acclimate so the halftoning was perfectly aligned.
Hence my comment about the latest crop of TV's. An increased color gamut but all legacy content was not produced for it and it looks like it. To me it's like having all audio devices with built in reverb that you can't quite turn off.
I was very impressed by the very high price of well done art photography (painting photo) so i've investigate.
They must use calibrated lights (intensity, homogeneity, gamut) , and color patterns (iso certified) in order to get rid of all the color deviations of the captures.
The procedures are complex and the final price is extremely high (for a photo)... but the colors are acurately captured !
So you have a chance to see them (partially) on a well calibrated LCD monitor.
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I didn't say that. I agree that the accuracy of the sound reproduction can affect your subjective impression of the source material. But liking the source material does not make the sound system good and visa-versa.
That goes both ways of course and considering the nature of this site I think it can be weighted a little too heavily on the reproduction side at times. As you know my business was the acquisition and processing of the electrical signals and as you have stated in the past for audio (correctly IMO) this is a done job.
I don't pretend to know anything about speakers. OTOH if I met someone who prefered to listen to their collection of Furtwangler's Beethoven transferred from Magnetophon tapes on a 50W NAD amp driving the small Magnepans rather than the M2's my first reaction would not be to tell him he has no taste.
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