Why Do People Come To Computer Audiophile To Display Their Contempt For Audiophiles?

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, AJ Soundfield said:

And as I've said 1000 times, none of those folks know the meaning of that word. Otherwise, there could be no arguments, which is all about objective claims.

A "subjectivist" would not care one whit what the item costs, the purity of materials its made of, how much lower or higher distortion or jitter or whatever electro-acoustic parameter it creates.

The only thing that would matter is that is pleases them more, whether or not is "sounds" different or not, because sound has a dictionary meaning. One does not have to stare at, know about and fondle something for a week or months to determine sound. No "test" is required to determine if one likes the thing or not.

There can be no conflict between true subjectivity and objective facts. Only between those who don't know what they are.

 

This might be an interesting topic for another thread. Personally, I have several reservations about your claims as stated and would want them spelled out in more detail with supporting evidence.

 

But for now, I would be very interested in your reply to Jud's opening question as stated: "Why Do People Come To Computer Audiophile To Display Their Contempt For Audiophiles?"

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I did in this form, but it now appears it was removed. You might not understand it either, given your reservations to my dichotomy explanation.

Yes, it is a loaded question.  My guess is that you can see past that to the concern being raised. But perhaps you would like to suggest a form of the question that would not be fallacious and that you would like to answer? It is my impression that you, along with others, have made a number of recent comments that include humor regarding "audiophiles". 

[christopher3393]

16 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

+100

 

I've spent way too much money on "audiophiles favorites" that are gathering virtual dust on my hard drive. 

 

But that's how digital sound degrades. Play them once in awhile to keep them clean.

[christopher3393]

13 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Now I'm confused. I seem to remember Sandy Alex saying that digital files deteriorate every time they are played.

 

Well, think about it. Every time you use a dust cloth, it wears down the dusted surface just a tiny bit, like water flowing over rocks. It's a trade-off.  

[christopher3393]

12 minutes ago, Daudio said:

 

Atoms vs bits, and Waaaaaaay Off Topic !  Please take it somewhere else.

 

...meant as humor...forgot to add winkie.

22 minutes ago, Daudio said:

the evolving nature of scientific thought, based on multiple views of all kinds of evidence,

 

Reminds me of a small scale experience of what Thomas Kuhn did (attempted) on a grander scale in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a modern classic in history/philosophy of science. More recently it reminds me of Bruno Latour's work. He is considered the founder of a new field called science studies. His early work looks closely at the gradual process of construction that scientific  theories go through. I'm reading  it now:  https://www.academia.edu/5409673/SCIENCE_IN_ACTION_How_to_follow_scientists_and_engineers_through_society

 

[christopher3393]

8 minutes ago, mansr said:

Overgeneralising is definitely common among audiophiles

 

Might this be an overgeneralization? And when you say "audiophile" are you usually including or excluding yourself?

 

 

[christopher3393]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Surely he is too clever to answer a trick question like this.

 

DOH! oh, well...how 'bout those new cat8 cables by Wireworld that keep appearing in the banner at the top of the page. Tempted?

[christopher3393]

7 minutes ago, wgscott said:

When we had the down vote capability, he stalked me and down-voted everything I posted.  

 

Even the Grateful Dead stuff? C'mon. He voted down JERRY?

[christopher3393]

Similar to what happens here sometimes:

 

Quote

On the Internet, a complex grammar has developed around shade, retaining much of the pleasure and humor of its older iterations but with wider-reaching effects. Take the subtweet: a tweet objecting to something someone else has said or done without actually using that person’s name. It’s the digital equivalent of talking trash about someone at a dinner table without ever acknowledging the person’s presence. Another shade-throwing tactic is to annotate a social-media outburst with stage directions like “*sips tea*” or “*side-eye*,” as if to say: “I’ll just sit back and demurely drink this beverage while I watch you act a fool and debase yourself.” Shade may be most delightfully expressed through emoji — crying faces (your predictability and pitiful intelligence make me weep), googly eyes (that assertion was so absurd it exploded my brain), emergency-vehicle sirens (alert: We have a live one here). Emoji are so innocently goofy that they make for the ideal shade delivery system, allowing a person to publicly and blisteringly respond to other people’s commentary without, you know, being blistering about it.

 

from "The Underground Art of the Insult", Anna Holmes

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

OK, so then where are the vast majority of us, realistically and practically speaking?  Making more or less informed judgments about what ought to affect the sound.  Some of us like to inform ourselves with specs and measurements and audio engineering or  audio engineering-related experience; others of us like to inform ourselves with our ears; still others of us like to do both.  I'm in the latter category, full well realizing the potential for my ears to lead me astray.  But I like music through my system, and I bought stuff used (amp, speakers) or just cheap (DAC) so I didn't spend a fortune.  Overall I'm happy, and maybe that's the measurement to be most concerned with

 

So, how we inform ourselves regarding the sound quality of our audio systems is, realistically and practically, finally a matter of... taste?    That is interesting!

[christopher3393]

2 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Do you manufacturers sell product in the million(s) quantities like highly effective Power Bracelets or are we talking a few thousand educated professional buyers here?

 

Throwing shade again?

[christopher3393]

12 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

 

Throwing shade again?

 

6 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Trying the determine if there is an actual number for appeal to authority

 

Sorry, A.J. My response was meant to be rhetorical, not logical, and to inquire into your intent behind the reference to power bracelets as a comparison to usb related devices.

[christopher3393]

58 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

There is always the question of whether they actually believe, or are just cynical power-hungry opportunists.

 

Perhaps you mean clergy? I know very few cynical power-hungry opportunists working in academic theology. And I have met and worked with many theologians. And I'm trying to be objective here. 

 

Sorry for the OT.

[christopher3393]

25 minutes ago, lucretius said:

COLLINS: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

 

Collins may be an esteemed scientist but seems to be a really bad philosopher.

 

Would anyone take offense if I express the opinion that reading Collins is a waste of time?

[christopher3393]

27 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

Maybe God, at the time of creation, had full knowledge that imperfections in the USB protocol would create future debates about digital cables?

 

Well, I think this is a given. As eternal, as not a being but being itself, God has full awareness of the entire spatio-temporal continuum in a kind of enfolded form, like origami, compressed without losing any significant detail. There should be a name for this...

[christopher3393]

OK, I'll tentatively float this and we'll see if it is simply a gross caricature or if maybe there is some crumb of truth to it. Call it satire if you want.

 

Objectivists often make a point of drawing a sharp divide between beliefs about audio and knowledge of audio. In their view beliefs are more subjective, that is they tell as much (or more) about who holds them as about  audio itself; knowledge, on the contrary, is objective, or at least tends to be always more so, and tells us about what the audio actually is, not about the subjectivity of the audiophile. Now add to this the following: even if beliefs happen sometimes to be in accordance with knowledge, this is an accident and does not make them less subjective. In the eyes of the people inside the network of objectivism, the only way for someone to know about audio is to learn what objectivists have discovered. In other words, people who still hold beliefs about audio are simply unlearned. So there is now an asymmetry between people who hold more or less distorted beliefs about something, and people who know the truth of the matter (or at least how to arrive at that objective truth).  A partition is made between those who have access to the very nature of the phenomena (objectivists) and those who, because they have not learned enough, have access only to distorted views of these phenomena (subjectivists).

 

The tacit objectivist question about “audiophiles” (the word that often substitutes for“subjectivists”) is something like this one: “How is it that there are still people who believe all sorts of absurdities about audio  when it is so easy to learn from us what audio really is?” What is surprising is how people may believe things they could know instead!  It is assumed that people should have gone in one direction, the only reasonable one to take but, unfortunately, they have been led astray by something, and it is this something that needs explanation. The straight line they should have followed is called rational; the bent one that they have unfortunately  taken is said to be irrational (another asymmetry). People should really have understood straight away what the reality is, had outside events not prevented them from doing so. Psychological problems are convenient to use:  passions may blind people to reason, or unconscious motives may distort even the most honest person. What interests us in these appeals to outside forces is simply that they come only when one accepts the objectivist position distinguishing between beliefs and knowledge. Now the picture of the audiophile world becomes bleak: a few minds discover what reality is, while the vast majority of people have irrational ideas or at least are prisoners of many social, cultural and psychological factors that make them stick obstinately to  prejudices.

 

The only redeeming aspect of this picture is that if it were only possible to eliminate all these factors that hold audiophiles  prisoners of their prejudices,they would all, immediately and at no cost, become as sound-minded as the objectivists, grasping the phenomena without further ado. In every one of us there is an objectivist who is asleep, and who will not wake up until social and cultural conditions are pushed aside. Nothing makes the extension of knowledge to every audiophile impossible, it is simply a question of clearing away the distorting beliefs, which becomes the objectivist mission.

[christopher3393]

2 hours ago, plissken said:

 

Objectivists are concerned with confirming results in a way that passes the smell test.

 

The smell test isn't necessarily a bad heuristic device. I understand it as an appeal to common sense. But "sensus communis" itself is open to multiple interpretations and valuations, isn't it? Finally, it is just a heuristic device, fallible, right? Over reliance on it is simply not good objectivity is it?

[christopher3393]

2 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

If I collect 30 trained listeners, and use a double-blinded test regime, randomizing presentations, and... yad yada yada... then is that an objective or a subjective testing protocol?

 

I would think that would be called "objective". Wouldn't it also be called "rare"?

[christopher3393]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

It's scads better than sighted, biased, evaluation. Gotta start somewhere.

 

I wholeheartedly agree regarding the problems of sighted biased evaluation, but I also believe that long term "just listening" has a role to play in the evaluation of sound quality. This is often completely negated by some here. It is all about finding a practical balance. Science in action doesn't always look like "best practices".

[christopher3393]

47 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Apparently because they are soft targets it's not welcome here. Not sure what kind of position the subjectivists needs to take for debate and dialectic with them to be kosher at CA.

 

How about starting here?

"4. Individually, remember to stay gracious"  ---Archimago, "On Being an Audiophile, Rationality, and Respectability (Thoughts on the Hardware Audiophile Hobby)"

he also writes: "Mature people discuss things calmly."

 

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/05/musings-on-being-audiophile-rationality.html

 

"Debate and dialectic" is something we could discuss, what they are and what are good rules of thumb for practice. I'm curious what you mean by those terms  and how you have learned these practices. It has been my impression that your understading of what is meant by them may be a bit subjectively biased toward your own preferred approach, but I could be wrong.

 

I've practiced debate formally. I'm sure others have here as well. I'm not sure that this type of debate is what we want here. Debate has its place when needed, as does dialectic, which I'd at least like to think that I've studied i(and attempted to practice) in some depth. I would prefer a more conversational approach generally for this forum, but am open to exploration.

[christopher3393]

16 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Right, which have zero scientific basis.

That's why these threads exist and is the true dichotomy. Those who reject science for their views

 

Are you familiar with the term "scientism"?

[christopher3393]

4 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

What Karl Popper used to describe a tendency in the social sciences to slavishly emulate what they (wrongly) perceived as being the aims and methods of the physical sciences.

 

Feynman used the term Cargo Cult Sciences.

 

definitely an accurate use of the word and accusation , although I would not use it as a blanket statement about the social sciences as some do.

 

I was thinking more of the assumption that the scientific method trumps other ways of knowing and that the rational mind mirrors  the world and both operate in ways that would allow us to fully account for reality through scientific method. So it slips into being a metaphysics, which then isn't really natural science any more.

[christopher3393]

16 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Sure, one can get all philosophical about why "I heard it, I said so" trumps all science.

Wait, did I say trump?

 

Yessss, you did!   But seriously, it seems like you've decided to typecast me. I don't think that sighted listening should go unchecked. Measuring is important. Double-blind testing is sometimes very corrective of sighted bias. I'm no engineer, but reading people like Sean Olive and Floyd Toole, and Archimago , as well as reading a number of people here remains a good challenge.

 

I could go on about my own questions regarding how and under what circumstances sighted listening is employed by some manufacturers, most reviewers, and most consumers, when and where it goes wrong, but also ways in which it might actually help. But I'm more interested in the topic of this thread, and more concerned about what I'll just call the quality and character of your rhetoric, not your science. And actually, I'm not sure you are in tune with what some like Archimago recommend for forum posting behavior. I'm also not sure whether "forum behavior guidelines" even matter to you. That concerns me as a member.

[christopher3393]

A. J. Soundfield: Are you up for a little challenge? Since you joined C.A. on June 5th, what percentage of your 306(!) posts could be fairly described as including implicit or explicit criticism of audiophiles? Some humorous, some serious. Some could be called sarcasm, some ridicule, some "snark". You can decide the objective term.

 

Given whatever that result is, how would you explain it? I'm guessing it will be an unusually high percentage. How would you interpret what it means? Because for me, at this point it seems justifiable to conclude that you regularly indicate what could reasonably and fairly be interpreted as contempt for audiophiles. But I can only guess as to whether or not it is contempt, or something that just looks like contempt. Depending on your emotional self-awareness, you are the best person to determine this. Depending on how you answer, this could then lead to the question, since you are so new: "Why have you come to Computer Audiophile to display contempt for audiophiles?" But I'm getting ahead of myself. Post count and analysis first.

 

But I will add that I wonder if your long and deep complaint amounts to accusing audiophiles of not being audio engineers.  (winkie of absolution)

[christopher3393]

9 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Funny, I completed the Phillips Golden Ears Challenge successfully, was never stressed out, quite enjoyed the process and the learning, and came out of it with a better appreciation for this hobby than when I started it.

 

Just goes to show ya, people are different.