Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up

[artur9]

This particular post is full of the attitude/stance I dislike that objectivists bring to the discussion.
 
Quote:

  I have to agree with @pdferguson that the collision occurs at the DBT (which I think will get my post deleted for the mere mention of the concept).
 
What I have never understood is why subjectivists aren't more keen on running DBTs than objectivists.  Objectivists think they can measure and compare differences, although many of them would concede to Jason that at the end of the day you have to trust your ears because what we are able to measure just doesn't tell the whole story.  Two devices that measure the same can sound different.  How do we know that? By listening.  And the DBT is ONE way to listen effectively (not the only one).
 
To digress, it surprises me that rational subjectivists (of which there are many) don't accept that expectation bias, brain burn-in, price, mood, percentage of alcohol in the bloodstream, difficulty in reproducing listening conditions and other factors can confound subjective judgment.  Subjectivists depend instead on repeated listening over a period of time to detect or discredit differences that weren't apparent on first listen.This results in buying gear with which they eventually become unsatisfied and creates an endless cycle of upgrade-itis which ends at buying the most expensive system they can afford.  Wouldn't it be simpler to do a blind comparison and if no difference is detected just move on?  Obviously one  doesn't need to do this with every comparison since the differences between two pieces of gear is often very clear (notice I relied on hearing not on measurements).  IMHO subjectivists should be more interested in blind testing than objectivists since it helps sort the wheat from the chaff.  OK, I'll concede that buying and selling gear is in fact a legitimate hobby in and of itself.  I don't want to ruin anybody's fun or rain on their parade.
 
On the other hand I can't understand why objectivists won't let subjectivists listen in peace when they prefer to buy gear that "sounds" good to them.  That is the whole point isn't it?  

 
The objectivist persecution complex "This post will get deleted for the mere mention of the concept".
 
The belief that all "rational subjectivists" don't accept the science around expectation bias etc.  And what's the difference between a rational subjectivist and, I presume, an irrational one?  
 
The assumption that upgrade-itis is due to subjectivists not DBTing things.  I think plenty of objectivists suffer from upgrade-itst as well since one's financial resources, knowledge and desires change over time.
 
The presumption that subjectivists should want the aame thing that objectivists want ("subjectivists should be more interested in blind testing since...").  Different strokes for different folks.
 
But I do agree with the last line.
 
On the other hand, maybe I am overly sensitive to the persecution of the subjectivists.

 

[RRod]

   
The objectivist persecution complex "This post will get deleted for the mere mention of the concept".

 
From the terms of service of this site:
"Discussion of blind testing is only allowed in the Sound Science forum."

 

[sludgeogre]

I really want to discuss measurement system analysis from Lean Six Sigma methodology here, but it would turn into a dissertation. I'm glad that so many in this thread realize that double blind testing in audiophilia is almost always flawed, mainly because the measurement system (the listener's ears) are never characterized, so the data that you generate is totally useless, because the gauge variability of the listener is not known, so the result cannot be determined to be statistically significant.
 
The latest rounds of tests at AVS even used an upsampled 24 bit file to compare to the regular 16 bit file that they upsampled from. Well, duh, no one is going to hear a difference, you didn't add any additional information! They never even state what algorithm they used to upsample. Now let's take this bogus source material and let a bunch of people proclaim they can't hear any differences on the gear that they don't even list, with absolutely no controls on the listener, and no characterization of their hearing and preferences. Gee, what a great test, sigh.
 
I personally love the home theater shootouts they do over at Home Theater Shack because they're a small blend of mostly subjective with a little objectiveness thrown in there. Since you get to hear the thoughts from a bunch of rather articulate guys who can describe what kind of sound they actually like, you can get a lot better idea of how gear might sound to you. 

 

[Ableza]

Applying six sigma concepts to audio??  Ok, time to shoot myself.

 

[GearMe]

No worries...Lean Six Sigma is actually a Rap Group!

 

[RickB]

This may be of interest.
 
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/03/talking-schiit-about-mqa-dsd-at-canjam-socal-2016/

 

[kstuart]

  Different industry, but you get the idea:
 

 
Elsewhere, someone posted something similar
 

 

 

[earnmyturns]

  Applying six sigma concepts to audio??  Ok, time to shoot myself.

Yeah, this discussion is getting exhausting, or maybe I'm putting way too little serious effort into my audio gear decisions Objectivist/subjectivist is to me very baffling. Much of my work over the last 20 years involves building systems that respond usefully to human typed or spoken inputs. We use lots of metrics, but there's a big gap between what we can measure and how the systems perform in the field, because of the long-tailed distributions and constant drift of human behavior. Still, measurements are critical in getting us to the right ballpark. I can't imagine that the situation is different for audio gear. Designers need measurements to avoid egregious mistakes, but once the gear is feeding customer ears, many uncontrollable factors take hold, from expectations to listening conditions to shifts source material mix over time to aging of the listener. Because of this, I get my audio gear by hill-climbing on easily obtainable (if biased and noisy) signals such as reading specs, opinions of trusted friends, checking forums for big disagreements, listening in reasonable but obviously not blinded conditions. The effort I put in depends on how expensive the items I'm considering are: spent a lot more effort on selecting my latest living room speakers than on getting my Bifrost/Asgard 2 office stack. Once I get something that sounds to me better than what I had before, I stop for a while. There's always one part or another that I'm wondering about (these days whether to go Alpha Prime -> Ether C, and whether to upgrade one of my UPnP/DLNA renderers), but it's just a geeky way of spending time -- and money, not a religious crusade.

 

[slefty]

Actually, one of the courses I took in college (1970s) was "Scientific Observational Analysis" where we had to learn to develop "trained observational skills". The head of our department (a renowned figure in our field) stressed to us that "if you can see it, hear it, smell it or otherwise sense it, it is likely real. If you can't measure it, you need to develop the method of analysis and measurement." He also stressed the reality of not getting funded to research something if there wasn't a financial end to it, explaining why so many things simply don't get serious study. It was an enlightening ten week course where we had to come to understand biases, how to work with them and understand their impact on our observations, as well as understanding what was needed to trust our observations and when to question them.

 

[riverlethe]

Even Peter Aczel upgraded from a Benchmark DAC1 to a DAC2. The difference is he didn't claim it "sounded" better. ABX shows that it's virtually impossible to hear THD under 0.1% under the most favorable conditions. Of course there's more to it than sound quality - features, build quality, look and feel, customer support, etc. I don't think any "objectivist" would deny that.

 

[earnmyturns]

Even Peter Aczel upgraded from a Benchmark DAC1 to a DAC2. The difference is he didn't claim it "sounded" better. ABX shows that it's virtually impossible to hear THD under 0.1% under the most favorable conditions. Of course there's more to it than sound quality - features, build quality, look and feel, customer support, etc. I don't think any "objectivist" would deny that.

I'm always puzzled when someone uses a single average (in this case THD) to summarize a complex transducer. The particular average chosen embodies assumptions about what's discernible that bias mathematical and measurement convenience over the (still poorly understood) subtleties of human perception. I learned this many times over when I worked on speech processing at Bell Labs next to scientists and engineers developing perceptual audio coding (what eventually became AAC). Actually, perceptual audio coding teaches us lessons two ways: on the one hand, perceptual masking effects allow surprisingly large mangling of the signal without discernible effects; on the other, some changes can be surprisingly discernible, at least to trained listeners. Which teaches that human hearing and its higher-level cortical components are way more complex and variable than any small set of averages (THD, bit rates, whatever).

 

[jimmers]

Even Peter Aczel upgraded from a Benchmark DAC1 to a DAC2. ...

I presume you are not referring to the British Computer Scientist

 
this I guy, I guess (?)
 
http://audiophilereview.com/audiophile-news/on-peter-aczels-retirement.html

 

[DougD]

  2016, Chapter 5:
The Subjectivist/Objectivist Synthesis
 
Color me stupid, but I’m going to wade right into the subjectivist vs objectivist debate, and see if both groups can find a happy place.
 
...<< snip snip >>
 
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know where this is going to end. 
 
<< snip snip >>

 
Not stupid, but certainly Brave.
 
Ended up pretty well, IMO. Whether one is (or leans) Subjectivist, or is (or leans Objectivist), it really is helpful to have some personal understanding of how those underlying attitudes filter your own "data intake" and influence your decision-making. 
 
There's a ton of different gear out there in the market. Mostly made made by people who think they're offering something that's an improvement, in some useful way, to the alternatives. And various people buy those various pieces of gear, making choices for various/complex reasons that none of us can fully understand. What's needed to tone down the Subjectivist vs Objectivist battles is a recognition that somebody else making a decision to buy some gear different than your favorite d'jour is in no way is a challenge to the rationality of the decision you made .. which was made in a very personal context of your ears, your knowledge, your preferences, your budget, your other gear, (possibly) your spousal acceptance factor, etc. (Kinda combining comments by kstuart and ableza there.) 
 
And as many have said, Be Happy, Listen to Tunes. That's really what it's all about.
 
I never take offense if someone is listening to the Tokyo String Quartet playing Beethoven's Quartet no. 2 in G major, while I myself am nodding my head to Billy Idol cranked up pretty loud. Does anybody? There's no "I love this so you must love it too" dynamic that goes on it the music recommendation forums. It's "I think this is great and you might like it too." The same level of tolerance for personal choices and decision processes regarding equipment choices as we have for musical choices would be a positive thing.
 
 
[edit: fixed typo]

 

[slefty]

I think a lot of people are missing the point. I may be wrong, but what I read in Jason's last chapter was it isn't either/or, but rather a serious mix of both. You can't push the limits and create better products without objective design and testing along with subjective analysis and understanding. There really shouldn't be any argument about it.

Another quick story form my college days. As part of a test of observational analysis. we had a blind taste testing on coffee. Over 90 % of subjects thought "sample A" tasted better than "sample B" therefore statistically significant. Of course the coffee came from the same pot, the difference being A was in a bone china cup, while B was in a ceramic mug. The difference in flavor was real (any food science people here) being caused by the different thickness of the sides of the cups, therefore changing the way the flavor and aroma interacted in the taster's nose and mouth. Sample C was introduced, being universally described as inferior to A or B. Same coffee again (same temp, we were careful) but in a Styrofoam cup, which actually altered the flavor of the coffee (verified by then pouring it into a bone china cup and still testing as inferior to sample A).

In other words, you really have to understand what you are testing and what the results mean. They often aren't what you initially expect.

When someone (even Peter Aczel) says in a DBX test they couldn't tell a difference. it still doesn't tell me a difference doesn't exist. Just that their test resulted in a failure to detect. Too many other factors involved. Plus, Aczel's biases would mean that he would seriously expect not to hear a difference, and may be inclined to ignore any small differences he did hear as "insignificant."

 

[riverlethe]

I presume you are not referring to the British Computer Scientist :rolleyes:

this I guy, I guess (?)

http://audiophilereview.com/audiophile-news/on-peter-aczels-retirement.html

That's the one. Congrats on finding the smarmiest and most disingenuous obituary I've ever read.