Popular Post John Dyson Posted February 23, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted February 23, 2020 For people who aren't tied up in with strong opinons, I see the disagreement between those who tend to be 100% subjective vs. those of us who tend (but not 100%) objective partially described in the following statement: it is mostly related to the fact that SOMETIMES it is difficult to measure certain impairments. I think that people move towards the subjective out of frustration caused by inadequate objective information. (There can probably be a lot of reasons for the incomplete/inadequate objective information.) Some of the problems with objective review might include: the impairments aren't adequately defined/described, sometimes the impairments are difficult to measure, and sometimes even the impairments come from multiple sources that meld together into something wrong with the sound. Example: on the case of TIM, which can really exist (and used to REALLY exist in older designs), we didn't initially 1) understand what caused the impairment, and 2) it can be tricky to measure, esp with techniques used in the '60s/'70s. TIM is a sibling of modulation distortion in gain control devices also, it happens when signals are changing character... It can take a while to understand,define, describe an impariment well enough to quantify it. TIM and siblings can be tricky to measure, and there more than 'one' kind of TIM in the sense it is dependent on lots of variables. This is ONE example that might have discredited 'measurements' in some peoples minds. This doesn't mean that objective measurement can be discredited, in fact when it is applicable, it must be a PRIMARY way of evaluating a design, and eventually the subjective becomes a double check. On the other hand, complex designs can demand certain kinds of testing where there is no appropriate measurement device. Subjective evaluation is needed until (if ever) an objective method is developed. I can give parallels to the situation on my current project -- but I do not want to divert attention from the matter at hand. The bottom line is that objective measurement and evaluation is critical for a design to be created and completed. A pure 'design by sounds good' is only going to work for the most simple design with simple interactions. A 'design by spec' and requirements to meet objective criteria is important for a non-trivial design to be workable. NOTE: design by finding 'sweet spots' and avoiding 'rabbit holes' is NOT the best engineering design method and can sometimes make the best of us into a sucker, wasting lots of time doing tweaking. If the tweaking can be avoided, then tweaking MUST be avoided and it is very worthwhile to sit down and do a real design -- the worst of time wasting chasing rabbits into rabbit holes can be avoided. On conventional circuitry and software, where the specifications, requirements and behavior can be accurately measured, almost pure objective design is best. Secondary subjective review is also important, sometimes specs and measurements miss details that are unforseen. On complex circuitry and software, that is, 'stuff that hasn't been done very often', then subjective review is so important, but objective focus is necessary -- the degrees of freedom and interactions could cause a 'design by sounds good' to become a random walk, falling into rabbit holes all of the time. WIth my mostly objective view, sometimes I must unfortunately depend on my hearing, or accept input from other peoples perception. Very often, the subjective feedback has been helpful in resolving actual bugs that I couldn't measure. Subjective feedback from uncontrolled experiments is notoriously unreliable though -- and must be considered on a statistical basis and not as a measurement with negligible error. Subjective review can become so distorted and become totally emotional. When feedback is too distorted by emotion and/or all of the human foibles that can affect subjective review, then that data source should be ignored. I run into that problem all of time, and must quit depending even on my own senses -- human perception is definitely unreliable, but good information can often be derived. Both subjective and objective review are necessary -- but each has it's limitations. In a way, after a person really considers and truly understands the complexity of their equipment, I cannot imagine why someone would be strongly biased away from objective review. It just doesn't make sense to disparage good objective review of any technical device. Subjective review is important also -- it is the attitude that disparages one or the other -- doesn't make sense. John Bill Brown, andrewinukm, Audiophile Neuroscience and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now