I thought the fine-tuning by listening to music was a mandatory step in the process of making a design
I have never done that and never will. That path leads to chaos. Without noting if changes are making things better or not - objectively - one just wanders in the wilderness of preference blindly following the days biases.
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Are you saying that one can not note changes that one hears and make progress? How is that not objective?
Perhaps those who can't hear, need other tools. I often need the tools. Not everyone does.
For me, there is only two paths possible to move towards the ''best'' sound system:
1. The quest of High-Fidelity. And by Hi-Fi i mean having a tool (the sound system) that can replicate an original source of sound/noise so well, it's ultimately impossible, for a human being, to know if it's the illusion or the real thing.
2. Get statistics on people preferences AND capacities to hear differences.
And the two are not against each other. They can be, in fact, complementary.
Speaking of which, my hypothesis is: The best possible Hi-Fi system would please the vast majority of people.
I might be wrong, but i doubt it.
1. The quest of High-Fidelity. And by Hi-Fi i mean having a tool (the sound system) that can replicate an original source of sound/noise so well, it's ultimately impossible, for a human being, to know if it's the illusion or the real thing.
2. Get statistics on people preferences AND capacities to hear differences.
And the two are not against each other. They can be, in fact, complementary.
Speaking of which, my hypothesis is: The best possible Hi-Fi system would please the vast majority of people.
I might be wrong, but i doubt it.
I think it all depends of the ultimate goal.
A) Do you (we) build a sound system to, ultimately, please the listener
OR
B) Do you (we) build a sound system to, ultimately, achieve technical goals
?
My personal opinion is B) should always be at the service of A).
But, i fully understand why a designer/engineer would discard A) and focus only on B)...
I agree, not cut and dried or black and white. But there are some very strong tendencies.
The obsession with best, Best, BEST! I find puzzling. Maybe it's from a lifetime of advertising brainwashing. There are other ways of looking at the world.
In what way
or may be have some some rose tinted glasses
see past the spin and evaluate whats left
"A very special listening room"? What about listening in a "normal" room? Seriously.
Not just that, I think you've misinterpreted my post, and me. I'm all for real progress through real understanding and real scientific method.
Yet, I can turn up the Bose, kick back, and still be the very same person.
I like the analogy
BUT have you ever sat and listened to music and moved your ears back and forth that changes everything!!
Yes! Totally agree. The pinna has a huge influence on how tone is perceived.
It would have to be a damned good ear canal and pinna 3D print.
Pin your ears back! What a saying.
And my opi8nion is that it is the other way around. A follows B. If you acclimate to a poor system then you come to prefer it, but it is not accurate. If you acclimate to an accurate system you come to prefer it and all others sound degraded, because all others are.
I wish you mentioned this earlier all my data is now meaningless bloody mic in the wrong place.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Who said more data less wank
apolgies for any light hearted humour incurred
You obviously have never done subjective tests and realize how seriously flawed sighted subject opinions are. They can change with the wind, the time of day, the source material, all kinds of factors that have no relevance to the underlying factor of high fidelity.
We had a ten member "golden ears" panel at Ford. I had our psycho-acoustician run a gage capability test on this panel. Of course everyone of them thought that they "know what I hear". Of the ten, only two were capable, and that matches my experience. One can have about a 20% confidence in the subjective assessment of a random individual. Of course we all believe that we are special, that these facts don't apply to us - sorry but they do.
The only thing a test like this will show is what people prefer, not what's more accurate. And different groups of people will pick differently. And lots of people prefer distortion, or bass boost or both, etc etc. So if your marketing to the general population, this is what you want. If your looking for accurate ( wire with gain ) forget it. Ask 10 people to set up a tv so it looks best, you'll get ten different set ups.
Audio Musings by Sean Olive: Part 1- Do Untrained Listeners Prefer the Same Loudspeakers as Trained Listeners?
I don't know if we can call it definitive, but that's a healthy bit of evidence against your opinion.
cddb
Toole/Olive do show that even the general public will trend to the same "preference" as the "experts", it just takes more of them and a longer time. It is critical to note that both groups trend towards accuracy in blind tests. They trend towards expensive otherwise.
PS. I note from above that the Olive evidence is clear and strong and not contradicted by any other scientific studies. So one has to take this as the "Best" (yes Pano I do use that word sometimes) available evidence (unless one wants to be an audiofool, which is their prerogative.)
Toole/Olive do show that even the general public will trend to the same "preference" as the "experts", it just takes more of them and a longer time. It is critical to note that both groups trend towards accuracy in blind tests. They trend towards expensive otherwise.
PS. I note from above that the Olive evidence is clear and strong and not contradicted by any other scientific studies. So one has to take this as the "Best" (yes Pano I do use that word sometimes) available evidence (unless one wants to be an audiofool, which is their prerogative.)
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+1
Another domain with subjective limitations: Wines.
Many blind tests were made and you won't find very often 5$ wine being prefered over 50$ wine*. Or Cellar tracker's 94/100's disliked compared to 86/100's...
Usually, as for anything, if 90% of people say it's excellent, there is good chances you'll like it as well.
*I've seen, however, many times 20$ wines prefered over 40$'s but price is not a reliable guideline anyway. Until a certain point.
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Gedlee, i do understand the ''acclimatation'' thing. However, if one poor acclimated fella is one day facing a really good sound system, the new ''acclimatation'' should be very fast.
When something it's good, it's good.
10 years of Mcdonald's ''acclimatation'' won't make you unable to enjoy a good steak... See what i mean ?
I think the real problem is: we are all eating burgers and we are yet to find Kobe beef steaks
When something it's good, it's good.
10 years of Mcdonald's ''acclimatation'' won't make you unable to enjoy a good steak... See what i mean ?
I think the real problem is: we are all eating burgers and we are yet to find Kobe beef steaks
whats far fetched?
read sean olive and toole research. they came to the same conclusion. accurate speaker are generally preffered.
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