[gr34td3str0y3r]

My best friend are at each other's throats arguing about this. 
We both agree that there is of course some objective science involved in both wine and headphones. If the chemicals don't align correctly you are going to get vinagear, science can tell you this "wine" will taste horrible to just about 100% of everyone. 
Just like headphones, if you make some headphone that have a single range of 5000 hertz to 7000 hertz the math there tells you they are ganna make music sound pretty darn bad. 
 
But of course not everyone likes the HD800s or the maybe even a pair of Stax. 
Subjectivity plays a part in our hobby. 
 
My argument is that subjectivity plays a LARGER role in wine than it does in headphones. 
In blind ABX testing ANYONE off the street can not only tell you the difference between apple ear buds and an pair of HD600s (or whatever is mid to hi-fi) 
 
In blind ABX testing wine EXPERTS consistently FAIL at picking choosing the better wine or the favored wine, or even the same wine twice. 
 
What do you think? 
 
"The preference of wine is more subjective compared the preference of a headphones" 
Agree or disagree? 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

The scientific goal for high fidelity audio is clearer: flat response. Or realistically, as smooth as possible, given no transducer yet has a perfectly flat response like sources and amps (and amps' response can sometimes not be flat given a certain loads). With wine, it's a vague "as long as it's not sour," but as it is any wine exported to certain countries and were exposed to enough heat between bottling and consumption gets sour. Not yet vinegar in terms of acidity level, but enough to suck. And then there's a brackish aftertaste. THis is why over here, a tropical country, a local strawberry wine from the highlands can taste better than a mishandled French wine. Hell, in some tests, even experts tend to choose wine from Australia or South America, and likely not simply because the French wine sucked, but because at some point in t ransit it was too hot. Just the container baking on the road can screw that up. If very expensive wine tastes better, it's highly likely only because it didn't travel via container van/sun oven.

 

[tvnosaint]

An argument that can never be satisfied. taste. ENJOY. Most of my friends in the wine industry listen to iTunes. therefore they are morons. However we do blind tastings all the time and we are all very good at discerning varietal and country, appellation can be an issue (except for our personal favorite varietals) vintages are much trickier now due to science. Some people are sensitive to certain frequencies leading them to dislike certain signatures. I don't like most senns because of the treble but I have no problem with akgs or he560 which are criticized  for treble peaks. I still recognize Senns are good headphones. Same is true of wine. Even if its not in your wheelhouse, if you know wine, you recognize quality.

 

[JK1]

After you drink the wine it is gone. After you listen to the headphones it is still there. If you drink enough wine, you won't realize how bad some headphones sound.

 

[Billheiser]

You can build a headphone by scientific and tested engineering principles, without ever test listening during development, and it can be quite good. (Am not recommending that, but can be done, because you can test frequency response, transient response, square wave response, etc as you build it).
I think wine can't be done that way - it has to be sampled/tasted along the way, even though some objective testing (sugar content, acidity) can be done to help. So, imperfect subjectivity is built in to its making.

 

[SeaWo|f]

Solution :: drink whiskey, and a lot of it. Then these things will stop bothering you.

 

[KewlMunky]

I'm not sure I can argue either side. I think it's rather subjective 

 

[joeq70]

Attaching statements of preference to sensory experiences is always 100 percent subjective, so both sides of this argument lose.