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

[pkane2001]

15 hours ago, tapatrick said:

Sounds great I think I'll head over there. Why is it so different on astronomy forums? less room for 'subjectivity'.. ?

 

It's that to some degree. I joke that amateur astronomers spend most of the clear nights outside, with a telescope, getting little to no sleep. They are exhausted and have no energy to argue and fight on forums during the day  The hobby is extremely technical and more than frequently -- humbling, so folks help each other whenever they can and rely on building a common knowledge and understanding as a community.

 

There are always some strong subjective opinions, and even snake oil, but these are easily found out and rarely tolerated.

 

[tapatrick]

2 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

It's that to some degree. I joke that amateur astronomers spend most of the clear nights outside, with a telescope, getting little to no sleep. They are exhausted and have no energy to argue and fight on forums during the day  The hobby is extremely technical and more than frequently -- humbling, so folks help each other whenever they can and rely on building a common knowledge and understanding as a community.

 

There are always some strong subjective opinions, and even snake oil, but these are easily found out and rarely tolerated.

 

Thanks for the update, food for thought.. without being politically incorrect can you tell what the demographic is ? Cheers

[pkane2001]

9 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

Thanks for the update, food for thought.. without being politically incorrect can you tell what the demographic is ? Cheers

 

Similar demographic to audiophiles. Maybe a bit older on average, age spans from early 20s to mid 80s. Average, without any real data to back this up, I'd say around 60. Predominantly male. World-wide.

[tapatrick]

12 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Similar demographic to audiophiles. Maybe a bit older on average, age spans from early 20s to mid 80s. Average, without any real data to back this up, I'd say around 60. Predominantly male. World-wide.

we get everywhere 😂... cheers

[Samuel T Cogley]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

Interesting, Mr. Cogley, as I haven't spent much time on the Hoffman forum. I feel, though, that your information may support my impression.

 

You report that LS "shilled" for AQ, Black Cat, and Shunyata over at Hoffman. Are you saying that Lee had some sort of secret arrangement/agreement with all of those manufacturers to serve as an online "influencer" for their products? The way it's been continually suggested, with no hard evidence, that he's somehow on the MQA payroll? That he's a professional "shill" with a sizable portfolio of clients? Given the length of the list of products he's allegedly selling his soul for, isn't it (a lot) more likely that these are things he's simply genuinely enthusiastic about?

 

Look. I'm friendly with Lee, having chatted with him at shows for a few years but I don't know what happens in the deeper recesses of his heart and mind—and, of course, neither do you. I feel that you (and Indierock and a few others) have created a narrative that suits your contempt for his position on MQA. What joelha is saying here is that such accusations without real evidence amount to ad hominem and adversely impact the tone and utility of a potentially substantive discussion.

 

You pretty much are required to defend Scoggins now as his new position pretty much demands that you do so.

 

I've met Scoggins myself at some shows, but he didn't know it was me.  In my experience, he is the polar opposite of a consumer advocate.  He seems to take pleasure in seeing consumers misled and manipulated.  Payroll you say?  In my experience, Scoggins' goal is to establish enough of a relationship with manufacturers that he can refer to the principals by their first name.  And he does this ad nauseam.  I like the term "first-name dropper".

 

And please, take your pro-MQA gaslighting somewhere else.  You motives are crystal clear and you're not converting anyone.

 

[dysonapr]

Or maybe it's just the Internet. One of it's principal purposes seems now to be for angry, frustrated, or antisocial individuals to attack others from behind the safety of their keyboard. You will see this in most public-comments fora, irrespective of topic.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, ARQuint said:

I'm sure, unless the narcissist (Hi, Steve!) who started it chooses to shut it down.

Personal attacks from a high horse are still against the rules here. This is your warning. 

[daverich4]

13 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Personal attacks from a high horse are still against the rules here. This is your warning. 

Wow, RT66indierock called Lee Scoggins a liar without so much as a peep out of you but ARQuint called RT66indierock a narcissist and here you are? Biased just a little?

[Samuel T Cogley]

44 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

Wow, RT66indierock called Lee Scoggins a liar without so much as a peep out of you but ARQuint called RT66indierock a narcissist and here you are? Biased just a little?

 

Did you miss that @Rt66indierock brought receipts?

[christopher3393]

16 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

How hard did you look?

 

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319438764

 

I stand corrected ( and reminded) and would need to qualify my statement above. This source is an outlier, but nevertheless:

 

On 4/9/2018 at 3:52 PM, christopher3393 said:

 

 

Well, I did a little digging and found a few things, some familiar, some new to me. I do think they are relevant to the discussion, albeit somewhat circuitously at times with lots of labor involved. Here are just 3 examples. There are plenty of others.

 

Kant's Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction

Dennis Schulting

 

 

Here's a review that provides a very good summary: https://virtualcritique.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/robert-watt-on-dennis-schultings-kants-radical-subjectivism/

 

This also raises the interesting issue of "epistemic humility", which one could simply define this way: "If our knowledge of the world is always filtered, interpreted and (in important ways) ‘constructed’ by our a priori faculties then we can never know things as they truly are and we are forced to accept a degree of humility with respect to our ‘scientific’ pronouncements."

 

German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781–1801 

Frederick Beiser

 

 

A review that emphasizes "the struggle against subjectivism": https://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1137&context=eip

 

Aesthetics and subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche

Andrew Bowie

 

 

From the intro: 

"The new focus of philosophy on subjectivity established by Kant accompanies the complex and contradictory changes wrought by ‘modernity’: the rapid expansion of capitalism, the emergence of modern individualism, the growing success of scientific method in manipulating nature for human ends, the decline of traditional, theologically legitimated authorities, and the appearance, together with aesthetics as a branch of philosophy, of ‘aesthetic autonomy’, the idea that works of art entail freely produced rules which do not apply to any other natural object or human product. From being a part of philosophy concerned with the senses, and not necessarily with beauty – the word derives from the Greek ‘aisthánesthai’, ‘perceive sensuously’ – the new subject of ‘aesthetics’ now focuses on the significance of natural beauty and of art. Reflection on aesthetics does not, though, just involve a revival of Plato’s thoughts about beauty as the symbol of the good. The crucial new departure lies in the way aesthetics is connected to the emergence of subjectivity as the central issue in modern philosophy, and this is where the relevance of this topic to contemporary concerns becomes apparent."

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 4/9/2018 at 4:00 PM, Ralf11 said:

Let's get some things straight: 

- space and time are NOT forms of human sensibility

- the mind certainly alters the structure of human experience, but we have other ways to figure out what's happening, has happened, and what will happen

 

I'd ask a couple of my friends with PhDs in philosophy for more of the cant, but they are too busy doing secretarial work...

 

The problem remains: even this use does not support the member's use of this term.

 

Schulting contrasts radical subjectivism with bad subjectivism. According to bad subjectivism, “what we know is true relative merely to our own perspective, because that is just how we are psychologically (or culturally, or epistemologically, etc.) disposed” (pp. 16–17).

 

Bad subjectivism tells us that the only facts we can know are the facts according to our particular psychological/cultural/epistemological framework. We can know, for example, that objects are spatiotemporal according to our framework, but we cannot know that objects are spatiotemporal simpliciter. In other words, we cannot know whether our framework corresponds to reality.

 

By contrast, radical subjectivism tells us that “subjective agency is first constitutive of objectivity, so that there would not even be anything objective, any nature, without the subjective forms of the understanding” (p. 17). It tells us that “objectivity itself is dependent on our forms of cognition, contrary to the ‘bad’, psychological subjectivism […] which says that the categories (and the forms of intuition) are merely our ways of cognising, but do not reach the real objects themselves” (p. 17).

 

Again, sorry for OT.

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 hours ago, ARQuint said:

You report that LS "shilled" for AQ, Black Cat, and Shunyata over at Hoffman.

 

Yes I did.

 

Shunyata

Black Cat

Audioquest

 

If he shilled for the "privilege" of referring to the company principals by their first name, how would that look different to a consumer than shilling for actual money?

 

I got more

 

George Cardas

Caelin Gabriel

Chris Sommovigo

 

I say again, the polar opposite of consumer advocacy.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, daverich4 said:

Wow, RT66indierock called Lee Scoggins a liar without so much as a peep out of you but ARQuint called RT66indierock a narcissist and here you are? Biased just a little?

With all due respect, this sounds a little bit like the kids in my daughter’s second grade class. 
 

Things aren’t black and white, and people bend rules as far as possible without breaking them. I’d recommend a little less policing with a magnifying glass. 

[KeenObserver]

4 hours ago, ARQuint said:

 

Interesting, Mr. Cogley, as I haven't spent much time on the Hoffman forum. I feel, though, that your information may support my impression.

 

You report that LS "shilled" for AQ, Black Cat, and Shunyata over at Hoffman. Are you saying that Lee had some sort of secret arrangement/agreement with all of those manufacturers to serve as an online "influencer" for their products? The way it's been continually suggested, with no hard evidence, that he's somehow on the MQA payroll? That he's a professional "shill" with a sizable portfolio of clients? Given the length of the list of products he's allegedly selling his soul for, isn't it (a lot) more likely that these are things he's simply genuinely enthusiastic about?

 

Look. I'm friendly with Lee, having chatted with him at shows for a few years but I don't know what happens in the deeper recesses of his heart and mind—and, of course, neither do you. I feel that you (and Indierock and a few others) have created a narrative that suits your contempt for his position on MQA. What joelha is saying here is that such accusations without real evidence amount to ad hominem and adversely impact the tone and utility of a potentially substantive discussion.

 

Lee's detractors maintain that he just kept repeating MQA, Inc doggerel. The case could be made that many of the most aggressive (and often anonymous) Vaporware participants spent a awful lot of time citing Archimago's conclusions, using the same language over and over. This is, of course, the nature of online discourse, as plenty of people have pointed out. The need to get the last word in is why Vaporware is mind-numbingly redundant. All that seems to invigorate it periodically is the occasional opportunity for new insults. It'll reach 1000 pages, I'm sure, unless the narcissist (Hi, Steve!) who started it chooses to shut it down. Which strikes me as unlikely.

 

Andy

 

Archimago carefully researched using scientifically valid methodologies.  He came up with scientifically valid answers.  LS continued spewing MQA talking points, some of which MQA themselves have walked away from.  Members of this forum answered LS's continuous spewing of MQA talking points with scientifically valid counter points.  In your mind members of this forum should have let LS spew his MQA BS unanswered.  You're on the internet.  You're not writing on a highly controlled magazine in which you have to follow the editorial direction.

I understand your current position in regards to LS, but you are not doing your reputation as a "journalist" any good.

[emcdade]

37 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Yes I did.

 

Shunyata

Black Cat

Audioquest

 

If he shilled for the "privilege" of referring to the company principals by their first name, how would that look different to a consumer than shilling for actual money?

 

I got more

 

George Cardas

Caelin Gabriel

Chris Sommovigo

 

I say again, the polar opposite of consumer advocacy.

 

 

[Rt66indierock]

20 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

With all due respect, this sounds a little bit like the kids in my daughter’s second grade class. 
 

Things aren’t black and white, and people bend rules as far as possible without breaking them. I’d recommend a little less policing with a magnifying glass. 

 

This is a little more black and white. HDTracks v 7digital, was filed in June of 2018 and stated their business relationship ended in April of 2018. Any statement that HDTracks MQA streaming service was coming were false after April of 2018. Therefore  Lee's statements in 2019 were lies.

 

Not my problem if people don't have PACER to track federal cases, I do. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

This is a little more black and white. HDTracks v 7digital, was filed in June of 2018 and stated their business relationship ended in April of 2018. Any statement that HDTracks MQA streaming service was coming were false after April of 2018. Therefore  Lee's statements in 2019 were lies.

 

Not my problem if people don't have PACER to track federal cases, I do. 

You're no lawyer and this is no court of law, but suggesting you know Lee was lying is a stretch. 

[crenca]

@joelha,

 

I thought of another angle you or anyone else could take when thinking about this subject riffing off your "these debates are about religion" angle.  Are you familiar with these "C O E X I S T" bumper stickers?:

 

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Yes I did.

 

Shunyata

Black Cat

Audioquest

 

If he shilled for the "privilege" of referring to the company principals by their first name, how would that look different to a consumer than shilling for actual money?

 

I got more

 

George Cardas

Caelin Gabriel

Chris Sommovigo

 

I say again, the polar opposite of consumer advocacy.

 

 

I don't need to speculate about any motivations, conspiratorial or otherwise, for Lee Scoggins' reporting, and his posts here.

 

When he reported on LH Labs' crowdfunding exploits and other company principals in the industry told him LHL couldn't make things work as they'd promised, Lee's reaction was to write that their statements were due to jealousy over LHL moving to a new way of doing business that would leave the rest of the industry behind.

 

When posting here about MQA's proprietary (and technically inferior, but let's leave that aside for the moment) product and the implications for availability of regular non-proprietary hi res files if MQA took off, his reaction was to write that if MQA made lots of money it would mean the music companies would pay artists more. (If you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn....)

 

So regardless of motivation, his written product is IMO utterly awful from the point of view of a consumer wanting good information to empower better choices.

 

I think going beyond this to impugn motives simply muddies the waters. It's already very clear: If you're an audio consumer, it's in your best interest to ignore what Mr. Scoggins says, or read what he says and act as if the opposite were true.

[4est]

3 minutes ago, crenca said:

@joelha,

 

I thought of another angle you or anyone else could take when thinking about this subject riffing off your "these debates are about religion" angle.  Are you familiar with these "C O E X I S T" bumper stickers?:

 

Where's the MQA logo one has to ask?

[Samuel T Cogley]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

You're no lawyer and this is no court of law, but suggesting you know Lee was lying is a stretch. 

 

Chris, are you suggesting there is an actual distinction between gaslighting and lying?  Aren't they the same thing?

[Rt66indierock]

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

You're no lawyer and this is no court of law, but suggesting you know Lee was lying is a stretch. 

 

Court cases are good sources of facts. Lying is simply making a false statement and Lee made a false statement about HDTracks Streaming. Pretty simple.  Lee and I talked about this at RMAF this year.

[Albrecht]

8 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

Archimago carefully researched using scientifically valid methodologies.  He came up with scientifically valid answers.  LS continued spewing MQA talking points, some of which MQA themselves have walked away from.  Members of this forum answered LS's continuous spewing of MQA talking points with scientifically valid counter points.  In your mind members of this forum should have let LS spew his MQA BS unanswered.  You're on the internet.  You're not writing on a highly controlled magazine in which you have to follow the editorial direction.

I understand your current position in regards to LS, but you are not doing your reputation as a "journalist" any good.

""Archimago carefully researched using scientifically valid methodologies. "

Not true. Archimago practices pseudoscience wherein he derives a conclusion, then sets out to prove that conclusion in advance by limiting the testing, and controlling the outcomes. Further, - he uses junk-ass test subjects and measuring equipment that is insufficient to to create a wide sampling of data that would refute, or (better) support those conclusions.

You cannot use purely objective, (especially cursory measurements), data on only one piece of equipment in a system to make a subjective PREDICTION on how a recording might sound.

 

"not doing your reputation as a "journalist" any good."

 

Who is a journalist? And what is the definition of a "journalist?" I am questioning whether or not you understand that no one who writes for Audiophile Magazines or writes reviews or product announcements for any type of music playback equipment is a "journalist:" but an audio "enthusiast." Think music or film reviewer.

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Chris, are you suggesting there is an actual distinction between gaslighting and lying?  Aren't they the same thing?

I have no idea through what lens you read my comments, but it's not rose colored. 

I suggested nothing of the sort. In this HDtracks example, if Lee had no idea the deal fell through and there was a lawsuit ongoing, the chances that he was lying are slim to none. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Court cases are good sources of facts. Lying is simply making a false statement and Lee made a false statement about HDTracks Streaming. Pretty simple.  Lee and I talked about this at RMAF this year.

I disagree. Lying is not "simply making a false statement." 

[mansr]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

In this HDtracks example, if Lee had no idea the deal fell through and there was a lawsuit ongoing, the chances that he was lying are slim to none.

If Lee had no idea what was going on, he's not nearly as good a friend of the Cheskys as he imagines.