Article: Guest Editorial: Why did audio stop being about audio?

[plissken]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

What I'm saying in simple terms is that your willingness to make confident statements about all kinds of topics makes it difficult for me to determine whether you really are knowledgeable about many of them.

You'll have to be specific

[plissken]

6 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

I would do it - providing that I could somehow switch off my innate instinct to feel pressure/stress when test results matter.

 

So the everything matters mantra doesn't include blind evaluation. That gets put out the door.

[plissken]

6 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

You mentioned seeing problems at level 1 only in one particular situation.  Have any of the devices connected to your networks been extra sensitive to noise?  Or has it just been the typical networking gear you’d find in a typical office or data center?

 

Everything I've deployed, barring config error, or manufacturer defects, has worked. I'm mainly working with HPE and Cisco at the moment. 7000 plus ports to all kinds of devices. Both wired and wireless.

[plissken]

6 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

And there we have the crux of why our sides are so far apart.  
 

I once worked for a company that had a very simple motto:  “we exist to delight our customers”.  At the end of the day that’s all that really mattered. 
 

 

Gwyneth Paltrows Goop company comes to mind. 

6 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

An awful lot of people are going to take the opposite view that UpTone has more than demonstrated their credibility by how willing folks have been to spend their hard-earned dollars on a switch that is very expensive relative to the generic switches on the market.  How a product is received by the target market  is viewed by many as an excellent measure of credibility.

 

Had the EtherRegen flopped with their target market, might you have used that as grounds to challenge their credibility?  If so then it’s only fair that it work both ways.

Gwyneth Paltrows Goop company comes to mind. 

[plissken]

2 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

We are talking past each other because you care only that technical claims can be proven.  I only care that my ears and others whom I trust can confirm the claims that have been made.

 

The plural of anecdotal is not data.

 

Ask almost any 5 year old about Santa.

[joelha]

12 hours ago, esldude said:

How many forum threads on this site (and others) devolve into heated exchanges about whether people actually hear what they say they hear? Without “proof”, listeners are often mocked, insulted and their experiences discredited.

Challenges range from assuming the listener has been influenced by expectation bias (I believe it will sound good, so it does sound good) to faulting his unwillingness to rely on measurements or blind testing.

 

I really dislike this whole start to the opinion piece. 

 

What causes the heated discussion is different people accept different kinds of proof.  I like the truth.  I bet very nearly everyone here does.  But they arrive at it differently.  Some approaches are incompatible with others.  And with many audio matters it is true someone is right and someone is wrong.  No one likes being told they are wrong.  Hard to agree to the truth if incompatible proof is accepted by various groups. 

 

So here is a good example from the same opinion:

Some will say measurements make their case open and shut. But there are too many examples of how measurements fall well short of telling the whole story. There are tube amps with 3% - 5% distortion that sound better to many than amps with far better measurements. Are those products a scam? Vinyl doesn’t measure nearly as well as digital and yet many strongly prefer its sound. Should fans of vinyl be told that turntable, tonearm and cartridge makers are scamming them as well?

 

Are there really tube amps with 3% or more distortion that sound better than great measuring amps?  Yes I would say yes.  However, there are plenty who will dig in and say if it sounds better it is better.  Which can lead to all kinds of disagreements. I'd say it sounds better because of the distortion.  A fundamental problem with being totally subjectivist is believing your preferences in sound always guide you toward fidelity.  So some will then decide distortion isn't telling us all and something else is going on.  And then you get into some who will take advantage of that with all kinds of crazy explanations via which they prey on people's imagination and hearing.  That is where the real truth can clear that up, but some don't want it cleared up as they see it as an attack on themselves.   It isn't an attack to say someone prefers distortion over clean to me.  Yet more often than not it is taken that way.  This is just a tiny single topic with dozens more that have all the same problems.  

 

Now I'll skip over a whole bunch of thinking that I believe most here can fill in on their own if they care to do so. 

 

The last part I dislike in this opinion piece:

 

 

I’m old enough to remember this hobby when people would meet at audio stores to just listen and schmooze. We’ve lost too much of that sense of camaraderie. We may differ on what we like, but we all care about how we experience music.

Whether I’m right or wrong about any of the above, would it hurt to return to the times when people’s disagreements about audio were friendly? Can we stop assailing the reputations of the people who rely on this industry to care for their families and employees? Can we respect the opinions of those who differ with us by not trying to shut them down with ridicule?

 

Though no one is imagine if someone could say, "I remember when we'd sit around the campfire in the evening after a good days hunt.  Have fine meal from the women's gathered food.  We've lost that sense of camaraderie.  I miss those days.   Couldn't we return to those days?  Why do we have to have cars, and houses and grocery stores?  Why can't those city dwellers leave us fine folk alone to live as we please? If our medicine man is okay by us, why do those people have to insist a doctor is better and a medicine man is mostly telling us a story.  We've all experienced what the medicine man does for us. Just respect our opinions. 

 

 

esldude,

 

I just don't think people asking others to accept different kinds of proof is enough for people to get personal with each other. Different kinds of proof just isn't provocative enough.

 

And, as for your last objection, I just don't get it. Any reference to an earlier time is going to bring with it those negative connotations for you? Maybe i misunderstood.

 

Regardless, the last point was my not my primary point so I won't belabor it.

 

Thanks.

 

Joel

[Jud]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Ha! So it's all about you then?  How about what I need to be happy? I need audio manufacturers to really try to improve the SOTA, to innovate in the space that actually makes a real and not imagined difference. Instead, I keep running into new products around better cables, de-crapifiers to de-crapify something that doesn't have any crap, and designer fuses with beeswax. I fondly remember the days when manufacturers really tried to build a better mouse trap. But hey, I guess I'm just an angry and bitter person, like Kennyb said Make Audio Great Again!!!  Ooops! No political agenda intended, sorry...

 

 

I don't see Harman, for example, dropping out of the business. In fact, they're a rather large company. And you know I'm also quite scientifically curious about much that is involved with our hobby. So I don't think a small number of people with ideas that might be silly are going to really bother anyone, except those who want to be bothered.

[Jud]

56 minutes ago, plissken said:

You'll have to be specific

 

Sure. You quoted a truth in advertising law to me in this thread. Are we to take it from this that you feel you know something about law?

[plissken]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Sure. You quoted a truth in advertising law to me in this thread. Are we to take it from this that you feel you know something about law?

 

Only what the FTC site is stipulating:

 

"The FTC looks especially closely at advertising claims that can affect consumers’ health or their pocketbooks – claims about food, over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements, alcohol, and tobacco and on conduct related to high-tech products "

 

I also like listening to Steve Lehto on YouTube for what that's worth 🙂

[Jud]

Just now, plissken said:

 

Only what the FTC site is stipulating:

 

"The FTC looks especially closely at advertising claims that can affect consumers’ health or their pocketbooks – claims about food, over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements, alcohol, and tobacco and on conduct related to high-tech products "

 

I also like listening to Steve Lehto on YouTube for what that's worth 🙂

 

So how many pages has this dragged on now where you avoid saying "I'm not a mindreader so I can't know for a fact they're lying, but I sure as heck will tell you based on my experience and the measurements I've seen that they're wrong"? Why all the twists and turns to avoid that simple distinction, between accusing someone of lying and saying you have good reason to think they are wrong?

 

And if it's simply that you think someone is wrong, why the felt need to say so repeatedly?

[joelha]

11 hours ago, tmtomh said:

@joelha, I appreciate your article - thanks for contributing it!

 

I agree with you on one major point you make; I partially agree and partially disagree on another point; and I respectfully but strongly disagree on two other points.

 

Agree:

• Discussion and debate do often become uncivil, descending into ad hominem attacks and flat-out nastiness. It's disheartening, and unnecessary.

Partially Agree:

• The level of vitriol is no doubt connected to larger trends in our contemporary culture, which are apparent to us all - and so in that sense I agree that the nastiness in audiophile argument can to a degree be linked to other realms of disagreement. But I don't think there's anything unsusual or distinctive about audiophile argument - people get overheated about kinds of things that are just as minor or unimportant in the larger scheme of things as audio.

 

Disagree:

First, I feel your argument contains a very common logical omission: You do not clearly differentiate between fidelity and pleasing sound. You do mention this indirectly in one or two places but your argument does not take the implications of it into account. For example, you mention high-distortion tube amps that sound good, and then ask rhetorically why your "delusion" should be a problem for anyone else. But that's the point: if a tube amp has high distortion, then by definition its fidelity is reduced. I (and I suspect many others who put a lot of stock in measurements) am fine with you preferring the sound of tube amps - if you are fine with not trying to claim that a tube amp actually has higher fidelity by virtue of its euphonic distortion. In other words, I don't think many so-called "objectivists" would claim that you don't really hear a difference with tubes - they would only object to the claim or implication that tube sound is more faithful to the original source. When someone like Herb Reichert waxes poetic over and over (and over) again about such things, it might induce some eye-rolling, but to the extent that people get upset about subjective audiophile-press reviews, it's because that kind of rhapsodic language and hyper-detailed experiential narrative carries with it a strong implication that equipment is reaching new vistas of fidelity when the best evidence we have instead points to varying forms of coloration or "voicing" rather than enhanced fidelity. When reviewers summarize or even quote manufacturers' untested - and sometimes nonsensical - claims about technical innovations literally in the paragraph before they then report listening impressions that appear to bear out those claims, I think that is cause for suspicion and concern.

 

Second, I realize you are using religion more as an analogy than as a literal connection, but I must take issue with how you manage to depict so-called objectivists as both religious in a rigid, intolerant way and also anti-religion/anti-God in a narrow-minded/intolerant way. Subjectivists, by contrast, are depicted as religious in a joyful, open-hearted, testifying-to-the-good-news way. And objectivists, in your narrative, react against this spreading of the Good Word either with religious-style Inquisition, or with Soviet-style anti-religious condemnation. It's a highly self-serving and highly biased narrative. I don't think for a minute that you have written it this way in bad faith - but I do think it reflects a seriously blinkered and partial perspective of this issue on your part.

 

To stick with your religious analogy for a moment, I have no problem with people believing whatever they believe. If your faith gives you joy and fulfillment, that's great. And if you want to speak your truth in that regard, go for it. But if your zeal for that truth leads you to public forums where you feel the need to Spread the Good Word, then you shouldn't be surprised when you run into people with contrary beliefs, and you shouldn't be surprised when you run into some people who very much have a problem with you presenting your personal revelation (explicitly or implicitly) as The Truth. 

 

To be clear, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to spread The Word if you feel so moved - but it does mean that if you want anyone to take your point of view seriously, you need to be very careful about the knee-jerk labeling of disagreement with your perspective as nasty, intolerant, close-minded, or a symptom of the disagreeing parties' emotional problems or insecurities. 

 

And that is indeed a common link between some audio discussion and some religious discussion: Creationism and all manner of religious objections to established scientific theories are pursued through a willful refusal of the difference between faith and science, and through a confusion of the possible with the plausible. The same is true for claims about things like high-end digital interconnects that don't measure any differently or produce measurably different results than lower-cost ones.

 

Finally, while I do lean strongly objectivist, I do agree that measurements tend to be less reliable indicators of sound for types of equipment that, as a class, are capable of less fidelity than other types of equipment. In other words, transducers - speakers and microphones - are the least accurate links in most equipment chains, and I agree that speaker and microphone measurements, while useful, are less useful in gauging sound and helping with final purchasing decisions than measurements can be for, say, DACs, which when properly designed are capable of far higher fidelity at far lower cost.

 

Oh, and a P.S. to @The Computer Audiophile and others: As you know, I have repeatedly condemned some members' tendency to play the "you're a shill" card for people they disagree with. However, I do feel strongly that it makes a difference if someone is promoting a product they are making/selling versus just enthusing about a product they have heard or purchased. An individual audiophile is expressing a point of view. An equipment vendor is pursuing a vested interest. They're still owed civility, but IMHO they are not necessarily owed the level of interpersonal deference that an individual is.

tmtomh,

 

If every post on this site were as decent and well thought out at as yours, I would have had no reason to write my article. Thanks for that.

 

As to your first point, the reason I didn't discriminate between fidelity and pleasing sound is because that point wasn't central to the larger point I'm making. I completely understand what you're saying however, even if someone claims higher fidelity for a tube amp, I don't have a problem with someone challenging him. The issue is the way these challenges are being made. Too often they're provocative, involve ridicule and insults.

 

I never compared religion and objectivists. I compared religion to objectivists who are inappropriate.

 

That's the whole point of my article. People are focusing on the word "objectivist" and I want them to focus more on how inappropriate the objectivists can be.

 

That's where my religious analogies come in.

 

Again, thanks for a great and thoughtful post.

 

Joel

[plissken]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

So how many pages has this dragged on now where you avoid saying "I'm not a mindreader so I can't know for a fact they're lying, but I sure as heck will tell you based on my experience and the measurements I've seen that they're wrong"? Why all the twists and turns to avoid that simple distinction, between accusing someone of lying and saying you have good reason to think they are wrong?

 

And if it's simply that you think someone is wrong, why the felt need to say so repeatedly?

 

When they insist they've blocked leakage currents from making it's way to the output of a DAC, but yet they can't show you this..... There's a word I'm looking for that describes this.... Oh yea, it's called a lie. 

[pkane2001]

18 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

I don't see Harman, for example, dropping out of the business. In fact, they're a rather large company. And you know I'm also quite scientifically curious about much that is involved with our hobby. So I don't think a small number of people with ideas that might be silly are going to really bother anyone, except those who want to be bothered.

 

Of course. That post was mostly in jest, Jud. I know for a fact that you are curious and willing to consider real evidence. Would be interesting to see how this site contributors break-down on a subjective vs. objective scale. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100:1  

 

Any AI/data-scientists here that want to do the research?

 

[Jud]

33 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

When they insist they've blocked leakage currents from making it's way to the output of a DAC, but yet they can't show you this..... There's a word I'm looking for that describes this.... Oh yea, it's called a lie. 

 

When audiophiles will buy beeswax "fuses" or "grounding boxes" filled with rocks and sand, if UpTone simply wished to perpetrate a lie, there'd be far less expensive ways for them to do it.

 

I don't think I've seen the claim that a product of theirs will prevent leakage current at the DAC output specifically, though my impression is a few of their products are designed to prevent leakage current from passing through various points in the circuit.

 

Do you have information that there is no leakage current in audio system circuits, or that a power supply operating in the manner of the UpTone LPS power supplies will create or pass leakage current? Or is your point that this doesn't pass built-in Ethernet transformers? Or that it doesn't audibly affect the analog output?

[The Computer Audiophile]

9 hours ago, ARQuint said:

 

It's not supposed to be a backhanded compliment - it's meant to be a regular, standard-issue compliment. It's admirable when you call out ad hominem attacks for what they are.

 

They are not, it seems to me, just an assault on someone's professional worth but an attempt to inflame and provoke. Lavorgna? He's a pretty excitable guy, but Lee S? He's really a gentle and thoughtful person who tried to engage in a serious discussion about the merits of you-know-what, and it took a lot of effort on the part of a dedicated few to get him unhinged enough to emit a bad word. If you'd given the sort of dressing-down to several of the worst bullies at the time that you gave to Plissken here, maybe there could be more discussions that stay useful for longer on any number of controversial subjects. As there are, by the way, on plenty of AS threads.

 

So, by all means, keep up what Cogley and crenca would refer to as "finger-wagging." It's what separates us from the the beasts of the forest.

 

Andy

 

I'm not sure you were around at the beginning of the MQA discussion here, but I was pretty vocal in demanding proof from those who said MQA was a scam. I was called a shill and everything Lee was called. So, I've done what you stated. 

 

Plus, personal responsibility is important to me. I don't care why someone flys off the handle and break the rules. They can claim "he made me do it" all day long. It will fall on deaf ears. 

 

I don't understand the finger wagging bit. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Ha! So it's all about you then?  How about what I need to be happy? I need audio manufacturers to really try to improve the SOTA, to innovate in the space that actually makes a real and not imagined difference. Instead, I keep running into new products around better cables, de-crapifiers to de-crapify something that doesn't have any crap, and designer fuses with beeswax. I fondly remember the days when manufacturers really tried to build a better mouse trap. But hey, I guess I'm just an angry and bitter person, like Kennyb said Make Audio Great Again!!!  Ooops! No political agenda intended, sorry...

 

 

As I've said before, it's almost like you think "real" innovation is inversely proportional to "snake oil." If we have more of one we can't have more of the other. I believe you can get all you want of both.

 

I have no other way to describe the objectivist interjections at every point, other than a crusade to save people, stop others from making money on what they see is wrong, a fear of the anti-science agenda, hatred of those they don't agree with, and other things. 

 

Nothing else explains the repeated unwanted interjections. Not even the objectivists can explain it.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

I don't see Harman, for example, dropping out of the business. In fact, they're a rather large company. And you know I'm also quite scientifically curious about much that is involved with our hobby. So I don't think a small number of people with ideas that might be silly are going to really bother anyone, except those who want to be bothered.

 

Agree 100%. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Of course. That post was mostly in jest, Jud. I know for a fact that you are curious and willing to consider real evidence. Would be interesting to see how this site contributors break-down on a subjective vs. objective scale. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100:1  

 

Any AI/data-scientists here that want to do the research?

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100:1 either. Not sure what that says about anything, but I'd guess it's a fair assumption.

 

Perhaps people enjoying themselves, tinkering, getting involved with a like-minded community, and a live and let listen attitude is beneficial to communication and posting on a site. Who knew. 

[Jud]

47 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Of course. That post was mostly in jest, Jud. I know for a fact that you are curious and willing to consider real evidence. Would be interesting to see how this site contributors break-down on a subjective vs. objective scale. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100:1  

 

Any AI/data-scientists here that want to do the research?

 

 

I'd be happy to chat about audio, music, and (other) matters scientific with you or Dennis all day long, and perhaps someday we'll have the opportunity.

 

Regarding the split, I think objective and subjective is less important than people with whom one can have an informative and entertaining conversation.

[pkane2001]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

As I've said before, it's almost like you think "real" innovation is inversely proportional to "snake oil." If we have more of one we can't have more of the other. I believe you can get all you of both.

 

If the market consistently demands fixes for non-existent problems (USB cables, decrapifiers, linear power supplies, ethernet filters, better sounding fuses, grounding boxes, "improved" DC cables, etc), companies will oblige. As you say the ratio is 100:1 here for subjectivists. The majority that's driving the demand is interested in products solving problems that are mostly imagined rather than seeking real innovation.

 

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I have no other way to describe the objectivist interjections at every point, other than a crusade to save people, stop others from making money on what they see is wrong, a fear of the anti-science agenda, hatred of those they don't agree with, and other things. 

 

I'm curious why you keep bringing this up in response to my posts. If you feel that I'm interfering with too many threads here on AS, I'm perfectly willing to go elsewhere. 

 

[kumakuma]

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100:1 either. Not sure what that says about anything, but I'd guess it's a fair assumption.

 

Probably that fears of this place turning into another Hydrogenaudio Forum are unfounded...

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

If the market consistently demands fixes for non-existent problems (USB cables, decrapifiers, linear power supplies, ethernet filters, better sounding fuses, grounding boxes, "improved" DC cables, etc), companies will oblige. As you say the ratio is 100:1 here for subjectivists. The majority that's driving the demand is interested in products solving problems that are mostly imagined rather than seeking real innovation.

 

You can't honestly believe yourself on that can you? Do you really think any of the manufacturers fro which you purchase equipment are going to stop engineering efforts toward innovation and start producing as you call them "decrapifiers?" 

 

If yes, then you're motivated by a fear of losing access to "good" components? I searching for motivation to help me understand.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

I'm curious why you keep bringing this up in response to my posts. If you feel that I'm interfering with too many threads here on AS, I'm perfectly willing to go elsewhere. 

 

It isn't you specifically.

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

Probably that fears of this place turning into another Hydrogenaudio Forum are unfounded...

 

Correct, those fears are unfounded. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

17 hours ago, daverich4 said:

Three pages on civility without @Samuel T Cogley weighing in? S’up with that?

 

Civility is so 2016 😎

[mansr]

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

As I've said before, it's almost like you think "real" innovation is inversely proportional to "snake oil." If we have more of one we can't have more of the other. I believe you can get all you want of both.

Think of it as signal to noise ratio. In today's hi-fi market, there is so much noise (snake oil) that it is difficult to find the signal (honest products that simply do what they say for a reasonable price). There's a hi-fi store a couple of blocks from my house. They sell only snake oil interconnects (AudioQuest and such), and the salesmen say silly things about silver. This isn't even a "high end" store. If I need an interconnect, my options are to buy bulk cable and mount connectors myself, or I can take my chances on Amazon with the risk of being scammed in the other direction (cheap crap that falls apart if you look at it the wrong way). Do you find this situation desirable? I do not.

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

You can't honestly believe yourself on that can you? Do you really think any of the manufacturers fro which you purchase equipment are going to stop engineering efforts toward innovation and start producing as you call them "decrapifiers?" 

 

I can honestly say that I believe this wholeheartedly. Innovation has slowed down to a crawl with much junk and unnecessary devices/enhancements being introduced all the time. As Mans said, true innovation is very hard to find in the noise.

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, mansr said:

Think of it as signal to noise ratio. In today's hi-fi market, there is so much noise (snake oil) that it is difficult to find the signal (honest products that simply do what they say for a reasonable price). There's a hi-fi store a couple of blocks from my house. They sell only snake oil interconnects (AudioQuest and such), and the salesmen say silly things about silver. This isn't even a "high end" store. If I need an interconnect, my options are to buy bulk cable and mount connectors myself, or I can take my chances on Amazon with the risk of being scammed in the other direction (cheap crap that falls apart if you look at it the wrong way). Do you find this situation desirable? I do not.

 

The situation is probably different around the world. I Minneapolis I can go to a store to get cables at all price points and at all levels of what yo'd call real engineering to snake oil. This isn't a big city with a burgeoning HiFi market either. 

 

Online "anyone" can get cables you'd consider "good" without much risk. Amazon is one place, but monoprice is also good. 

 

I don' think it's as dire as you purport above. 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I can honestly say that I believe this wholeheartedly. Innovation has slowed down to a crawl with much junk and unnecessary devices/enhancements being introduced all the time. As Mans said, true innovation is very hard to find in the noise.

 

I can respect that if it's what you truly believe. I don't believe there is evidence to support it, but that's OK. 

 

Do you know when innovation in HiFi proceeded at a faster pace?

[Jud]

14 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I can honestly say that I believe this wholeheartedly. Innovation has slowed down to a crawl with much junk and unnecessary devices/enhancements being introduced all the time. As Mans said, true innovation is very hard to find in the noise.

 

Innovation in what area? Harman, the speaker, etc., manufacturer, may be the largest company in audio. Best Buy was selling $79 Pioneer speakers designed by Andrew Jones. I bought a pair for $49 on sale and think they're great. For DACs, amps, and audio files, what attacks on the audible state of the art remain to be made in your opinion? 

 

@mansr may despair of finding adequate cables, but I've had no such difficulty; just bought some nice light flexible Monoprice Ethernet cables from Amazon, recommended here by a “subjectivist.”