The problem with subjective impressions

[semente]

For me, building or developing a higher fidelity system is a long-term project which results from identifying shortcomings in the different components/equipment and dealing with them.

This requires a combination of observational listening and measurements.

Put a new equipment in the system, listen for a week or two then go back to the original setup for a bit. This will highlight the differences. In my opinion and experience short duration A/B comparisons are mostly worthless.

 

Observational listening is not tasting. To listen critically one must focus on the shortcomings. It's easy to lose track (of sound) and start enjoying a new presentation of your recordings (music).

 

Most commercial reviews are little more than tasting.

[semente]

59 minutes ago, Summit said:

 

How do you identify shortcomings in different components/equipment in an audio system by listening?

 

How are you dealing with the shortcomings that has been identified? like @fas42 .

 

Can you show me a review that you have made?

 

 

When I identify a shortcoming I try to find the cause using available measurements, the little technical knowledge I have, prior listening experience of brands and of topologies. I then shortlist potential replacement equipment worth auditioning using measurements and hope that it/they won't create new problems that I didn't have before.

 

I don't make/write reviews, and I don't read them either. But I find measurements very useful.

 

This review is a lot more informative than most (it's got measurements, comparison with references, description of sonic attributes, panel auditioning)

S100-HiFi+News.pdf

[semente]

Most of us are limited in the scope of "interventions" by our inability to modify/improve equipment. All commercial equipment can be improved (by how much varies depending on several factors).

Most of us unfortunately can only replace a piece of equipment with a different unit.

[semente]

52 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

The affordable microphones that most members are likely to use are NOT capable of accurately measuring the frequency response of speakers, especially in the area above 15KHZ, and this should be left to the experts . Hobbyist measurements are normally a guide ONLY. 

 

Those mics are perfectly adequate for helping with speaker and listening spot positioning, and for EQ purposes but I wouldn't  use them to develop a pair of speakers.

[semente]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

Let's get back on topic for @Summit.

 

The best way I've managed to use subjective listening is when I have a commonality of experience.  As in my friends and I sit and listen to the same system and mutually share what we are hearing as different.  In this way when a friend is describing sound I can pin it easily to a real experience we've had when he is describing something he has heard I haven't.  Now this would be limiting for internet communication purposes.  

 

I think a big problem with descriptions of listening impressions on the internet or modern reviews is laziness.  Certain memes get into people's heads and are all to easy to draw upon more than is warranted.  When I think back to very early reviews at Stereophile and TAS, they went to a lot of trouble to parse their words carefully and describe in great detail.  It could seem to be flowery writing, and if one isn't careful modern reviewers are just too flowery without the proper substance behind their writing.  Early reviews were rather short, very carefully written to be highly descriptive of the important attributes, and I imagine weeks were spent fine tuning the final presentation.  

 

Forum postings by subjectivists I think almost never get done this way.  Too many toss off cliches.  You get the cliche's of there being more there there, a blacker more silent background and more analog like ease.  These are like taking a finely done multi-flavored omelet and pouring a big helping of cheap syrup over it.  Stop it, you are not helping communicate anything. 

 

I also think the difference in gear was greater back then.  That subjective listening impressions do have many pitfalls and is the worst way to do such things.  Imagine a published review where the reviewer said, "well I don't find much that is different than what I normally listen to and any differences are minor in the end of little importance to listening enjoyment."  If differences are really small, then quit going on about them.  

 

I suppose one could ask at least for level matched listening comparisons when doing A/B listening impressions.  One might even ask a more formal detailed description using a MUSHRA format. 

 

Mainly, stop being lazy, craft your descriptions with real precision, and if it isn't much or is hard to describe then say so and quit describing it as if you have to write something.  

 

The words don't even have to be fully formalized to work.  If you tell me stringed instruments had a noticeably steely quality I can sort of get it.  Steel, metal on metal sound, hard, hard edged not rosin-like.  Describe a handful and only a handful of such things and I can recreate a simulacra in my head.  Just be sure you are describing something I won't have to listen to for 6 months to barely hear and agree with you about.  

 

Other than speakers, and speaker/amp combinations, I don't think subjective impressions have any place anymore unless a device is bent from accurate pretty badly.  Like an SET is bent from accurate.  Okay to like the sound, and okay it is a difference you can usefully describe to someone else if you aren't too lazy to describe it with accurate, precise meaningful words.  

 

If you've heard an early M-L CLS or an original Quad 57, you can describe that in a way that hints how different it is, and what it is like vs a good modern 3 way cone and dome box speaker for those who haven't heard it. Ditto for a Bose 901, Grado SR60 phones, early 1980's Cerwin-Vega, Altec VOT, or Klipsch K-horn.  Not every difference is important, and not every device has enough signature to much care.  But mainly quit being lazy and don't vomit half-assed descriptions.  

 

Beyond that get over your precious self.  Interconnects don't effing matter, unless they are a broken design, and one has to try hard to break them.  If you are hearing really significant differences in IC's, it is a virtual certainty you are being deluded. See my signature for why that isn't an insult.  Learn why it is so, and quit fooling yourself.  

 

I agree with most of what you've written.

 

I'd add that it is important to use recordings that are fit for purpose. A spot mic near a violin can make it sound "steely" falsifying the conclusion.

 

It is also very important to have references of both high performance reproduced sound and live unamplified music.

And to understand that different recording and production methods are responsible for the feeling of "being there" or of "having the musicians in the room", for a soundstage between the speakers or extending to the sides of the speakers, that mechanical and mouth noises result from close-mic'ing, etc.

 

When I started buying magazines in my late teens I expected to be trained in how to listen. It took me almost two decades to realise that reviews were little more than tasting sessions, hardly ever comparative, almost always glowing... And then the cable nonsense started.

 

Bin them all I say.

 

[semente]

5 hours ago, sandyk said:

 I will put it another way.

There is evidence that people can hear the ABSENCE of musical harmonics above 20kHz when they are removed from the recording.

 That's why several Music sites, including Soundkeeper Records  provide Format Comparison pages.

 I get it that people like yourself are more likely to believe High Res is BS, yet there are many members that love their high res LPCM, SACD  and DSD recordings.

 

See also https://www.stereophile.com/content/hi-rez-audio-distinguished-blind-testing

https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html

 

I am convinced that the reason why some people (myself included) are able to distinguish between 44.1 and higher sample rates is not because of the ultrasonic content but because the filtering is operating within the audible range.

 

Try high-passing one of the recordings you've mentioned at 22kHz and reproduce the result at normal listening levels over a NOS DAC and let us know if you can hear anything.

[semente]

21 minutes ago, Summit said:

 

I have also found that I prefer reviewers that use well-known sound quality descriptions and are consistent in their observations and reviews about what they hear. Though it takes time and many reviews to get to know a reviewer and how he/she use those well establish words/terms to describe various sonic alterations, and remember that it is easy to mix those reviewer up. How many reviews does it takes before I will know if I can trust and relate to the reviewers sonic view and wording for describing what he/she has heard subjectively 5, 6, 7 or 10?

 

Would we use recipes with very vague and subjective measures? No, small can sometimes be 5 gram and in another recipe it can be 20 gram.

 

Even if I get to “know” and trust a reviewer so much that I will take their impressions as of any real value at all we still have the problem of gradation.  What I mean and think is a big problem is that we lack ways to describe how big or small one identified sonic alterations really is in one gear VS another gear. What am trying (hard) to explain is that besides that we need universal terms/vocabulary to describe different sonic attributes, like warm, full, transparency, rich, harsh and so on, we also need a way to quantify those difference better. I have read many impressions and reviews and found that that even the best ones use just a few different words/adjectives to quantify the difference.

 

We use such subjective wordings as the DAC A had a clearly more harsh upper minds or the amp had more grunt and better low bass punch. How much is more or clearly more? I mean compared to what reference, and are we only comparing to other DACs or the final sound? I would like to know how small/big the difference is in reality as well.

 

To me it doesn’t matter which quantifying adjective we use they are always very vague and subjective. It can help if they compare the reviewed gear to another similar audio gear, but it is uncommon that the reviewer also tell how big the SQ difference is in the grand scheme of things. Can the much more transparent DAC for example be describes as 2 or 4, if the gradation could be everything from 0-10 (0=no difference 10= night and day difference)?

 

Yes the gradation is subjective and not truly objective, but with them we would at least know how big/small the sonic difference the reviewer think they have and doesn’t need to guess about that. Today it is possible to write a very long review where every word has to be interpret, and often in a context which is not well known if you haven’t read many other reviews by the same author and you also know how the rest of his gear in his reference audio system sound like.   

 

TL; DR Good reviewer that use well-known sound quality descriptions consistently and that compare the SQ characteristics to other well-known gear, and that at least are trying to be objective about how big/small the impact is in their audio chain (preferably by gradate the influence they have).  

 

Unless one's looking for a very particular sonic signature (say a vintage-sounding, extremely coloured presentation - the typical AD selection) I can't see how a sonic appraisal as it's currently performed by magazine reviewers can help.

Shortcomings are almost always glossed over, deeply buried between the lines, or the reviewer actually enjoys the resulting perceptual effects in which case a downside surprisingly becomes an asset.

 

The quest for hi-fi is a personal journey. In my opinion we need to equip ourselves with as many "tools" as possible and keep focusing in things that matter. I really dislike this cliché but there really aren't any free lunches...

[semente]

What about this? (DAC specs)

 

• Critical electronic components are thermally stabilized for consistently accurate conversion
• Automatic calibration internally adjusts to aging components, maintaining unit performance over time

[semente]

26 minutes ago, mansr said:

 

Disagreed. Long-term changes (e.g. electrolytic caps drying out) won't be undone by any duration of operation.

 

But apparently one DAC manufacturer has designed an in-built system which compensates for component ageing:

 

http://www.lavryengineering.com/wiki/index.php/LavryGold_DA924

[semente]

I've wasted too much money in this hobby, partly thanks to subjective magazine reviews, hype and shilling.

And I'm not a flavour-of-the-month kind of guy who swaps gear because he has an itch, nor have an interest for cables.

I genuinely try to identify the problems and the causes, and to upgrade.

I was happy with my homeland system but a move abroad forced me to sell my speakers and rip my CDs. I am a wanderer now, 3 different homes in 5 years. I've since bought three pairs of used speakers, two used DACs and two new Pi DACs. I've had to downsize the speakers but have been struggling to live with that.

 

Now the time as come to stop buying stuff...

[semente]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I hate to sound like a pusher of products and more buying, but a headphone based system could be perfect for your lifestyle. 

 

Not at all, thanks for the suggestion.

I have actually bought a pair of NADs before Christmas, but I never enjoyed listening with headphones and these aren't going to change that.

May end up buying a pair of all-in-ones like the D&Ds or something similar.

[semente]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I was just thinking about this a bit more. Perhaps the reason so many of us like to upgrade or make changes is because of the power of music. We want something more and are willing to try things, sometimes non-sensical things, to get there. And, the journey can be fun. 

 

I know it sounds a bit like chasing the dragon, but this is completely voluntary and enjoyable for so may of us. 

 

I think that there's a bit of both: the quest for better sound and the crave for purchasing or replacing stuff. Shopping is addictive. Many people with depression become compulsive shoppers.

[semente]

2 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

When Tidal was brimming with UMG audibly watermarked files (seems some/many have been replaced with MQA), people listening with headphones seemed much more likely to notice than those listening with speakers.  To me, that's a ringing endorsement of headphone listening.

 

You have to enjoy it.

 

For it's a weird, unnatural listening experience and not particularly comfortable.