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My response to "Boycott the sub-forum"


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47 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

 

<sigh>

 

Frank, you know full well that if equipment chains exhibit electrical characteristics that are the results of the interaction of the various components, that such electrical characteristics can be measured, and therefore objectivists believe in those "parasitic behaviors" you talk about.


It therefore seems contradictory for you to use this kind of scenario to bash objectivists.

 

The key phrase there is "can be" ... the real world reality is that they are not - because it is, of course, too hard; and there is no sarcasm attached to that. So the exploration which would lead to greater understanding never occurs ...

 

Interesting that the term "bashing objectivists" is used, when the tone of what I said is no worse than that which occurs in half of the objectivists' comments ... on the other side of the fence, they prefer, "instructing subjectivists", 😜

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57 minutes ago, Shimei said:

Good luck fellas in finding the truth ya'll seek to share with others. As for me I believe truth exists and is absolutely beautiful. Like a painter that can look into the sunset and discern the various hues and repeat them upon a canvas into his art. Or even a musician that may hear a melody and pluck a note from out. These things require skill and do not just come naturally to everyone. I imagine both objectivist and subjectivist may find themselves with distorted sight and hearing. Good luck in perceiving what you're hearing and ultimately attempting to convey to others. As a writer do we hate or trust the reader for them to decide? 

 

On that note enjoy,

William

</rant>

 

 

I would just say, that truth is a set of ideas that 'works' in the long term - mankind developed a set of ideas on how machines could fly through the air, and we apply the label Truth to them - because vast numbers of people get to enjoy the benefits of these "ideas", every day.

 

One of my Truths is, that the recording is what it's all about - everything else, no matter how expensive, or flash, is merely a means to an end - to get closer to what actually exists on the tracks. And I call it a Truth because it has served me faithfully for over 3 decades, never let me down, 😉.

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2 hours ago, Albrecht said:

does that necessarily lead to the next step in the objective thought process that comparative listeners are irrational "fools" that objectivists should not be made to suffer?

@Albrecht
Jim,
People in this hobby have a undisputed tendency to act less rational than i.e their SO. I wouldn't call that irrational. 😉
But that does not mean they are fools, and there is no need made to suffer anyone, be it subjectivists or objectivist.
There are unkind people at both camps, and their civility (or the lack thereof) had been much to often a disruptive factor.

From my point of view, it is important to find a common understanding that perceived sq differences related to audio gear during comparative listenings are what they are: sq differences perceived by one person or a group under certain conditions.
Most of them not qualified (the conditions, not the people) to be regarded as "universally valid" in the objective sense (therefore the term controlled environment, afaik). At least from the viewpoints of people, who are regarded as objectivists.

Personally, I wouldn't care about the question of validity if the system sounds extraordinarily good!
If the result makes you and me happy and you are or I am willing to pay the price for it, everthing should be fine.
In my view, these people - enjoying our hobby that way - are blessed, and I have no intention to crash their party (not my personal style). IMHO, it is even even better, if these perceived effects are repeatable for the individuals, and everything is just perfect and acceptable.

There is just no "universal validity" deriving from that experience, like the the follwing one: At a level of 5% humidity you won't find roses growing in the desert. At that point starts the divide and the dispute.
This point may be even more important for some people than the happiness/satisfaction about their perceived sound quality. The core problem of understanding/acceptance starts when the one person/the  people try to create the rule that what they experienced has changed into a proven fact with "universal validity", which in turn could prove problematically, especially in discussions with people who doubt it.

In reverse, for some people it iseems to be more important to insist that their findings create "universal validity" and to have a saying on everything rather than listen to their system and accept different opinions or just keeping calm. That's a recipe for disaster, and imho that has unfortunately proven valid for both poles in our hobby, with a tendency that the objective campers have spoiled the fun of the majority. Often, I'd guess, these forms of disputes are as well perceived as attacks on personal integrity.

For myself, I would be even more interested to share their experience than to challenge them, as I do my listening (tests) as well sighted.  In my case, I try avoid presenting my own findings/perceptions as the gold standard, and I refer to them as perceptions and impressions. I just can't exclude that I can be proved wrong. Though, I try to be honest and prefer the use of systematic approaches.
In order to give people an idea about a product I review, I try to create situations, i.e. describing my personal perception of specific music with the reviewed gear, with which they can connect to (or not). To which extent these findings may correspond with their own perceptions is a questions of theirs. Some findings are obvious, others are more questionable and some are little in their peculiarity. IMHO, if we are descriptive, we should take care, that we do not overstate our importance plus the "universal validity" of our findings.

I find it always interesting to learn/reflect on my own confirmation bias, which definitely exists. I.E., for the review in progress, using a product with advanced DSP function, I have tested about 11 configurations to achieve peu a peu acceptable results, even I knew from the settings, that It would/should be possible, I was very much frustrated during the process and more than pleased with the final result. Which gives me some believe/confirmation that I can discern certain audible differences with my ears and approaches. Though, I have made measurements for every step in the process with sighted listening results beforehand.
 

Best, Tom

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1 hour ago, Shimei said:

Kinda ironic subject matter, no? I mean objectivist believe truth exists outside themselves and subjectivist believe no truth exists outside themselves.

Nice writing. I don't ascribe to either camp. The objectivist is ?rationalist and the subjectivist ?empiricist in which case Quine's "The Two Dogma's of Empiricism" applies. 

 

Let me add that the rationalist/empiricist dichotomy is regarding two (old) camps of scientific thought. Here "objectivist" seems to be associated with "scientific" and "subjectivist" with non-scientific ... hmmm

 

To wit, the reason that "1+1 = 2" is because math is useful, and using math allows us to make useful predictions about the world, for example I can get on a plane, and believe that I will arrive in Europe unscathed ;) 

 

The thread regarding which measurements predict good sound is apropo.

 

That said, this is a hobby and ultimately I want the best sound, and no I don't use DBTs to decide which products to purchase ... I use my ears ... that said, I also use rational thought to decide which products not to bother with because life is short and I know that my fiberoptic ethernet cable blocks 100% of common mode noise so why would I bother with an "audiophile" ethernet cable? Now amplifier or speakers ... you can read impressions but ultimately you need to just listen!

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

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12 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

 

You don't think you're overgeneralizing about objectivists here? Even AS's favorite "love to hate, narrow-minded, biased" objectivist, Amir over at ASR, routinely investigates component interactions in his tests. He tests DACs using different inputs; he compares RCA vs XLR inputs and outputs; he tests headphone amps with headphones of different impedances; he tries USB galvanic isolators with multiple DACs; he has "rolled"/swapped op amps in multiple pieces of equipment in order to compare the op amps in more than one "test bed"; he has used different Windows drivers to feed his test signals into equipment when he's gotten strange measurement results; he's added new types of measurements to test or capture certain interactions his members have asked about; he tests for thermal stability; he tests amps at different impedance loads; he opens up equipment to look at grounding, component quality, and possible causes of power supply noise getting into the audio stream; and he's tested multiple pieces of reviewed equipment with each other, for example he's tested a DAC with digital outputs as a USB-optical converter feeding another DAC.

 

Unfortunately, all the examples you present are just extensions of the normal testing regimes. And they only involve at the most two pieces of equipment, each time - no evaluation of a complete system is ever done ... to put into context with "my world", there is only about one item in that list that I have concerned myself with, when I'm trying to optimise.

 

12 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

So I don't see how you can make your claim that objectivists could investigate equipment interactions or electrical "gremlins" but don't holds any water.

 

 

What they could investigate is a complete setup which subjectivists claimed changed significantly when a certain part was altered - until they located what was actually in the signal that the subjectivists could hear.

 

A rather good example is at hand: Chris claims 😁 his rig sounds remarkably better, because an isolation transformer is in the circuit. Therefore, what has changed should be measurable - if it's not, is Chris deluded; or are the wrong things being measured?

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39 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

@Albrecht
Jim,
People in this hobby have a undisputed tendency to act less rational than i.e their SO. I wouldn't call that irrational. 😉
But that does not mean they are fools, and there is no need made to suffer anyone, be it subjectivists or objectivist.
There are unkind people at both camps, and their civility (or the lack thereof) had been much to often a disruptive factor.

From my point of view, it is important to find a common understanding that perceived sq differences related to audio gear during comparative listenings are what they are: sq differences perceived by one person or a group under certain conditions.
Most of them not qualified (the conditions, not the people) to be regarded as "universally valid" in the objective sense (therefore the term controlled environment, afaik). At least from the viewpoints of people, who are regarded as objectivists.

Personally, I wouldn't care about the question of validity if the system sounds extraordinarily good!
If the result makes you and me happy and you are or I am willing to pay the price for it, everthing should be fine.
In my view, these people - enjoying our hobby that way - are blessed, and I have no intention to crash their party (not my personal style). IMHO, it is even even better, if these perceived effects are repeatable for the individuals, and everything is just perfect and acceptable.

There is just no "universal validity" deriving from that experience, like the the follwing one: At a level of 5% humidity you won't find roses growing in the desert. At that point starts the divide and the dispute.
This point may be even more important for some people than the happiness/satisfaction about their perceived sound quality. The core problem of understanding/acceptance starts when the one person/the  people try to create the rule that what they experienced has changed into a proven fact with "universal validity", which in turn could prove problematically, especially in discussions with people who doubt it.

In reverse, for some people it iseems to be more important to insist that their findings create "universal validity" and to have a saying on everything rather than listen to their system and accept different opinions or just keeping calm. That's a recipe for disaster, and imho that has unfortunately proven valid for both poles in our hobby, with a tendency that the objective campers have spoiled the fun of the majority. Often, I'd guess, these forms of disputes are as well perceived as attacks on personal integrity.

For myself, I would be even more interested to share their experience than to challenge them, as I do my listening (tests) as well sighted.  In my case, I try avoid presenting my own findings/perceptions as the gold standard, and I refer to them as perceptions and impressions. I just can't exclude that I can be proved wrong. Though, I try to be honest and prefer the use of systematic approaches.
In order to give people an idea about a product I review, I try to create situations, i.e. describing my personal perception of specific music with the reviewed gear, with which they can connect to (or not). To which extent these findings may correspond with their own perceptions is a questions of theirs. Some findings are obvious, others are more questionable and some are little in their peculiarity. IMHO, if we are descriptive, we should take care, that we do not overstate our importance plus the "universal validity" of our findings.

I find it always interesting to learn/reflect on my own confirmation bias, which definitely exists. I.E., for the review in progress, using a product with advanced DSP function, I have tested about 11 configurations to achieve peu a peu acceptable results, even I knew from the settings, that It would/should be possible, I was very much frustrated during the process and more than pleased with the final result. Which gives me some believe/confirmation that I can discern certain audible differences with my ears and approaches. Though, I have made measurements for every step in the process with sighted listening results beforehand.
 

Best, Tom

Hi @DuckToller, Tom,

 

Thank you very much for that thoughtful and well reasoned post. (Some of the things that you've written above are things that I likely overlook in trying to counter arguments: some are things that I've tried to say before, - only not as well).

 

""There is just no "universal validity" deriving from that experience, like the the follwing one: At a level of 5% humidity you won't find roses growing in the desert.""

 

So true. And, - I bet that sometimes with the way I write, and add into that, perhaps some anger at feeling disrespected, - I tend to be way too self-righteous: and too sensitive. And, also, I think, - not too disagree, - on the objective side: there's no right and wrong either in that a Meitner can be a great DAC as part of a great system, - but it can be a bad DAC when hooked up to something else.

 

""I find it always interesting to learn/reflect on my own confirmation bias, which definitely exists.""

 

Something that I do not enough of....

 

One thing that I've said in the past, and something in your post that triggered me, - was I say often that this is an Audiophile website, and that objectivists are going to encounter audiophiles here. (People who care more about evaluating how well the recording is experienced). But that, in of itself, is big mistake on my part. For me, - it's an audiophile website. But this place exists as different things to different people. For others, talking about the intricacies of how MQA unfolds files (may) be what the site is all about...(as an example).


Thanks again for your post, - there's a lot to your post, - gives me, (and I hope others), - quite a lot to think about.

 

Cheers,

 

 

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2 hours ago, tmtomh said:

 

You don't think you're overgeneralizing about objectivists here? Even AS's favorite "love to hate, narrow-minded, biased" objectivist, Amir over at ASR, routinely investigates component interactions in his tests. He tests DACs using different inputs; he compares RCA vs XLR inputs and outputs; he tests headphone amps with headphones of different impedances; he tries USB galvanic isolators with multiple DACs; he has "rolled"/swapped op amps in multiple pieces of equipment in order to compare the op amps in more than one "test bed"; he has used different Windows drivers to feed his test signals into equipment when he's gotten strange measurement results; he's added new types of measurements to test or capture certain interactions his members have asked about; he tests for thermal stability; he tests amps at different impedance loads; he opens up equipment to look at grounding, component quality, and possible causes of power supply noise getting into the audio stream; and he's tested multiple pieces of reviewed equipment with each other, for example he's tested a DAC with digital outputs as a USB-optical converter feeding another DAC.

 

So I don't see how you can make your claim that objectivists could investigate equipment interactions or electrical "gremlins" but don't holds any water.

 

 

 But can you trust listening reports from someone who likes MQA ?  :)

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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