The problem with subjective impressions

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5 hours ago, Kimo said:

Subjective impressions may be problematic in that they generally will reflect the listener's subjective impression of what a good system should sound like,  which may not align with your own.....If you do happen to find someone who shares your impressions in general, I believe that their subjective impressions can be quite valuable.  

 

4 hours ago, Archimago said:

On the one hand, the issue with subjectivism is about the language used

 

What I think is more important is the lack of "honesty controls" 

 

The only way the above issue can be addressed is with blind-testing.

 

 

I would say that a (the?) problem is the need for an objective (repeatable) subjectivity.  So IMO Kimo is correct in that an "alignment" of subjective descriptors/language would allow the audiophile consumer to read a review and correlate it with his preferences/expectations.  A standard use of language would be part of this.

 

IMO, some kind of further/advanced objectivity such as "honesty controls" would be nice but are largely unattainable in a niche industry/hobby.  That said, it would be nice if more folks would go this far with the controversial and nonsensical stuff such as voodoo encodings and digital cables...

 

edit:  rigorous "honesty controls" are difficult as they take a valid methodology, real time and more often than not real $money$.  Even in large establish industries/markets such tests/controls are only done on a small subset...

[crenca]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

Many members do not agree with you in this area, and furthermore you are highly unlikely to be ever able to disprove what they report hearing using current measurement techniques.

 

Yes they do disagree, but on what basis?  Radical subjectivism mostly, which is just open ended anything goes free for all.  The sound of digital communications rests on this radical subjectivism and not on what we know about the math and engineering of digital communications.

 

Beyond The Big Crazy however there is a real subjectivism, a real beauty, and a real place for audio to be about audio and not about your or anyone else's inner psychological needs for a free for all "I said it, and you can't disprove it"...

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Rather than let this thread get sidetracked by the Radical Subjectivists, I hope the OP and others will keep it on track.

 

What the OP, Kimo, and Archi and others are pointing to is a rational and realistic subjectivism and a sensible balance between the objective and subjective aspects of audio.

 

It is here that the hobby bears fruit and it is here that Radical Subjectivists of all sorts, rather the aggressive sort or the seeming "innocuous" such as @joelhaderail useful discussion with their insistence on an open-ended anything goes voodoo hobby/industry.

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Keeping it on track, what @kimo gets right is that he starts in the right place:  language

 

A useful subjectivism and review based hobby will have a common language -  words will mean something, and that meaning will be transferable to others:  when you say "transparent" or "warm" others will know what you mean and how it relates to their (subjective) preferences/expectations.

 

A common language would even get us a kind of "honesty control" via a crowd source methodology.  For example, when @Kimo claims he can hear the sound of "metal tweeters" (and thus the materials a transducer has imparts a "sound" to the waveform) others who don't have an expectation around this could report their subjective impressions in a common and repeatable language, and we could then correlate (based on multiple impressions) rather the material of transducers really does impart a "sound" to the waveform.

[crenca]

On 12/30/2019 at 4:16 AM, Summit said:

Interesting and the issue I wished to discuss. Can you elaborate on what you mean by “the need for an objective (repeatable) subjectivity” and how this can be done?

 

 

TLDR answer:  I am not exactly sure

 

I have found folks who do reviews that have an "objective" subjectivity - they use language consistently and they have enough consistency in what they hear to use comparative/descriptive language such that I know what they mean when they say "this transducer is 'warm' but has greater 'detail/transparency' than this other transducer".  @JoshM, @firedog, and to a lesser extent @The Computer Audiophilehere for example are examples of folks I have been able to correlate my experience with and understand what they mean.  Tyll Hertsens of Inner Fidelity (now retired) was part of the way there, but for some reason at times he would deviate (in other words, a handful of his reviews did not seem consistent with the majority to my ears).  There are some folks over at SBAF whom are consistent, and SBAF consciously promotes this consistency and use of language, but then there are some folks over there whom seem to deviate as well.  

 

I have noticed that those who do this, or even just try to do this, are not "radical" subjectivists nor are they "radical" objectivists.  They to a person seem to have a balance and realism when it comes to electronics and engineering (and are able to admit voodoo when they see it), yet are also able to admit that gross measurements such as THD+N is not the sum total of the differences between equipment...