[Magick Man]

As far as the Sound Science forum is concerned, subjective impressions are meaningless unless they're accompanied by some sort of objective evidence substantiating them.


But why would you want to talk about your subjective experience on its own in the Sound Science forum except to derail threads and/or generally be disruptive? That's what the DBT-Free Zone forums are for. For people to simply share their subjective experiences.


But the primary function of the Sound Science forum is science. Again, there are other forums for people to share their subjective experiences.
 

I didn't say sharing a subjective experience "on it's own", care to quote me on that? Both are scientifically important when talking about audio.


Subjective listening without objective measurement is blind, objective testing without subjective listening is deaf.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

I didn't say sharing a subjective experience "on it's own", care to quote me on that? Both are scientifically important when talking about audio.
Subjective listening without objective measurement is blind, objective testing without subjective listening is deaf.

You are arguing with a brick wall Magick Man. The objective extremest don't believe in first hand experience as they feel they can't trust themselves (plus they'll use it to bash others opinions and as an excuse to not try different gear). I figure if that is the case then find a new hobby in all honesty.

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

 
Just as some other forums here are DBT-Free Zones, the Sound Science Forum should be a Subjective-Free Zone.
 
se

 
Then it would consist mostly of people with no practical understanding of what they are talking about, discussing things which have, essentially, no practical application to our hobby. When that happens, a handful of people end up, in the manner of religious fanatics, trying to convert and belittle people and the forums as a whole end up trashed, to nobody's benefit.
 
Science is supposed to be for people's benefit, not detriment. It is not an exclusive club for people who only think in a certain way and nor is it flawless. Not only that, its greatest flaw is, as purrin pointed out, how people will take results, in this case measurements, and derive generalised facts from those results that are false. That is totally removed from what science is about!

 

[Anaxilus]

Originally Posted by lee730 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
 
Well, for some it is an actual profession so it makes sense to pay attention to precision and accuracy if that's what matters.  
 
Never a good idea to throw a baby out w/ the bath water no matter who it is.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I didn't say sharing a subjective experience "on it's own", care to quote me on that?

 
Sure:
 
If it's a piece of audio gear, I'm more than happy to discuss its technical merits, but I'm also going to talk about how it sounds.
 
Unless you're going to follow up on that "how it sounds" with some properly controlled listening tests to demonstrate that there's some actual audible difference, then all you're doing is sharing your subjective experience "on its own." I didn't see any such qualifier after your statement so I assumed you weren't intending it to be in the context of any properly controlled listening tests.
 
Quote:

Subjective listening without objective measurement is blind, objective testing without subjective listening is deaf.

 
And until someone demonstrates actual audible differences where measurements otherwise indicate distortions (and I use that term broadly) are below currently known audible thresholds, it's all moot.
 
se

 

[Shike]

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Look carefully at the floors (-40db/-36db on my site vs. -30db with his). He applies 1/3 octave smoothing, which I do not. I also consistently align the left edge of the initial FFT window right before the rise of the impulse response. He doesn't. It's all over the place with his CSD plots - in some cases, the left edge of the initial FFT window is several milliseconds before the rise, which has led to at least a few uninformed readers to be mislead into thinking certain headphones were "slow". 
 
Of course an astute objectivist would have easily noted such things.
 
This is the other side of the coin and what can be dangerous about measurements. The visualizations can be modified, shaped, presented in varying ways.

 
I didn't really talk about the methodology, I just said he has better equipment compared to what you're using last you told me.  His measurements, save having to roughly adjust for a few, provide a decent idea of CSD performance IMO.  I think going past -30dB is tad overkill, but agree a bit more resolution would be nice though not immediately necessary.
 
Either way I think the importance of CSD gets exaggerated by few when most above average headphones decay more than fast enough IME.
 
Sorry to drive this off-topic though, feel free to continue the endless loop of measurements v. sound.

 

[lee730]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee730 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
 
Well, for some it is an actual profession so it makes sense to pay attention to precision and accuracy if that's what matters.  
 
Never a good idea to throw a baby out w/ the bath water no matter who it is.

 
I'm not sure if they appreciate being called "babies" anaxilus .

 

[Magick Man]

Sure:

If it's a piece of audio gear, I'm more than happy to discuss its technical merits, but I'm also going to talk about how it sounds.

Unless you're going to follow up on that "how it sounds" with some properly controlled listening tests to demonstrate that there's some actual audible difference, then all you're doing is sharing your subjective experience "on its own." I didn't see any such qualifier after your statement so I assumed you weren't intending it to be in the context of any properly controlled listening tests.


And until someone demonstrates actual audible differences where measurements otherwise indicate distortions (and I use that term broadly) are below currently known audible thresholds, it's all moot.

se

Nope, sure didn't. I talk about how a piece of gear measures and about how it sounds, that's my modus operandi in the SS forum. From what I've seen, that's generally the way most people are in here. Otherwise, it's all just pointless plots and mathematical mas*****tion.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

You are arguing with a brick wall Magick Man. The objective extremest don't believe in first hand experience as they feel they can't trust themselves (plus they'll use it to bash others opinions and as an excuse to not try different gear). I figure if that is the case then find a new hobby in all honesty.

 
Actually, when it comes to the enjoyment of reproduced music, I'm entirely a subjectivist. It's a purely hedonistic pursuit for me. And I trust myself implicitly as to what sounds better/worse/whatever to me. There's simply no other arbiter for that. But what I don't do is attempt to pass off my subjective experiences as anything other than that. Why? Because I know I'm only human and am keenly aware of the the limitations of subjective human perceptions. And at the end of the day, I simply don't care why something may sound better to me. If something "sounds" better to me because of bias/placebo or maybe just because it looks good, I'm perfectly fine with that because it's the experience that I'm after.
 
The problems arise when some people aren't satisfied with their subjective experiences and feel the need to try and pass them off as more than that and insist that if they subjectively perceive some difference, then there must be some actual audible difference to account for it because somehow, they're immune to the weaknesses known to exist in human subjective perception. It's just ego and vanity taken to far, and when they're challenged to support their claims, which are effectively objective claims, they get all bent out of shape and things go from bad to worse.
 
se

 

[rhythmdevils]

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Either way I think the importance of CSD gets exaggerated by few when most above average headphones decay more than fast enough IME.

 
Subjective nonsense.

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Unless you're going to follow up on that "how it sounds" with some properly controlled listening tests to demonstrate that there's some actual audible difference, then all you're doing is sharing your subjective experience "on its own." I didn't see any such qualifier after your statement so I assumed you weren't intending it to be in the context of any properly controlled listening tests.

 
I've pointed out before that there never have been any rules set regarding the kinds of posts that are allowed in the Sound Science forum. There is a rule about keeping discussion on-topic, however.
 
Maybe we should be strict, however, and the Sound Science forum should also be limited to discussion by people whom have either an appropriate degree relating to electronic engineering or whom have extensive experience designing audio electronics?

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

 
Maybe the Sound Science forum should also be limited to discussion by people whom have either an appropriate degree relating to electronic engineering or whom have extensive experience designing audio electronics?

 
Geez, there'd be like only 2 posts.  >.<  What would you do w/ all that time?  

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

 
Then it would consist mostly of people with no practical understanding of what they are talking about, discussing things which have, essentially, no practical application to our hobby. When that happens, a handful of people end up, in the manner of religious fanatics, trying to convert and belittle people and the forums as a whole end up trashed, to nobody's benefit.
 

 
Then just shut it down as it would then be serving no useful purpose.
 
Quote:

Science is supposed to be for people's benefit, not detriment.

 
Sure. But people making objective claims based solely on their subjective experience is not science and in my opinion has no more place in the Sound Science forum than demanding double blind tests of those simply sharing their subjective experience in the DBT-Free Zone forums.
 
Quote:

Not only that, its greatest flaw is, as purrin pointed out, how people will take results, in this case measurements, and derive generalised facts from those results that are false. That is totally removed from what science is about!

 
Well, science is a process. It's a long discussion where hopefully the wheat ends up separated from the chaff. So I really don't see that as being terribly removed from what science is about.
 
se

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Nope, sure didn't. I talk about how a piece of gear measures and about how it sounds, that's my modus operandi in the SS forum. From what I've seen, that's generally the way most people are in here. Otherwise, it's all just pointless plots and mathematical mas*****tion.

 
Ok. But if you're going to talk about "how it sounds" without substantiating it with any sort of controlled listening tests, then I don't see how it's any less masturbation than the plots and mathematics. At least in the Sound Science forum.
 
se

 

[purrin]

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Either way I think the importance of CSD gets exaggerated by few when most above average headphones decay more than fast enough IME.

 
Quote:

 
Subjective nonsense.

 
...based on a misunderstanding of the application of CSD plots, the primary purpose of which is not to measure decay (although that is a secondary consideration), but to see driver resonances and to a slightly lesser extent, internal enclosure reflections. But of course the astute objectivist would already know this.
 
The driver for me going on the CSD warpath was that I subjectively heard a lot of ringing and resonance issues with many headphones, including those which were considered "above-average" or even "excellent". I developed certain CSD measurement techniques to objectively confirm what I and many others were hearing. I certainly did not want to produce random CSDs of various headphones to let me conclude that they decayed fast enough just by looking at the plots.