[tabness]

so basically i am a "science sucks" "subjectivist" but my conclusions on audio are overwhelmingly "objectivist" lol

I have never really liked science or held it in high esteem. Part of it is simply that I considered it dorky/nerdy as a kid (even though like I enjoyed watched Bill Nye the Science Guy and stuff like that lol). I did pretty good in science classes but I never did want to actually be a scientist, it just wasn't cool. As I grew older and came of age there was also the (real or perceived) clash between a scientific worldview and religious worldview and so I was definitely on the religious worldview tip. This got me super interested in science/philosophy of science briefly in college, and I was taking all the basic physics/chemistry/biology classes and looking deeply into the various scientific realism/anti realism positions. Soon I started asking myself why I am bothering getting into an area I don't really respect in the first place, and got bored of that as well. Plus I graduated and got a job. Basically, depending on the context, I basically am an instrumentalist of sorts or I just go with my boys Beavis and Butthead:



I bring all this up just so it is clear where I'm coming from mindset wise.

So when I got into audio a few years back, I figured the "subjectivist" aspect would be a perfect fit for someone like me right?

However, from the very start of my getting into audio, I have basically come to straight up "objectivist" conclusions, from sighted listening experiences. The transducers are basically the only thing that really matters, and DACs/amps/cables/whatever don't really make much/any difference to the sound when they are properly made to be linear.

To be more precise, it has always seemed to me that the differences I hear in the sound are due to different volumes or a different state of mind or whatever more than the actual device making a different sound. Now I have definitely experienced subjective differences in some cases, but it isn't like the typical experience of improvement people are having

• one of the cheap portable CD players I had sounded decidedly thin and compressed and even a little distorted even with my usually low impedence high sensitivity phones and other players and phones and computers and whatever just sounded normal (it wasn't like the "soundstage improved" or whatever by going up lol)
• the STAX amps generally followed their marketing description and so one of the tube amps had a slight midbass hump and rolled off highs (pretty minor though when compared to different phones)
• one time (and only one time) swapping the cables from my FOCAL Clear to my SONY MDR Z7 made the sound seem initially brighter by a bit but then it sort of went away and never happened again

I never went with a DAC/amp for non electrostatics beyond trying the Chord Mojo (which sounded basically the same as my iPhone dongle or MacBook headphone out just could get louder). I never chased the higher end electrostatic amps (just calculated my power needs and stayed within the cheapest options and they sounded great). I did audition high end DACs and amps with high end speakers early on before having any real experience with DACs/amps/cables, it never seemed to make a difference for the speakers even in a fully treated listening showroom (salesguy even seemed a bit pissed when I told him "can't really tell the difference man" after he set up a bunch of stuff and he wouldn't negotiate on the speaker price after lol)

At this point with my prior experiences being what they were, as well as me knowing a lot more about the science/engineering aspect of audio, I probably go into it thinking the non transducer stuff doesn't really make much difference, so I figure that's priming me to continue to have the same type experiences and reaching the same sort of conclusions. But I still wonder why this happened in the first place when I didn't have that prior experience and didn't know as much about the science/engineering part to influence me in any way.

Maybe it's just that I didn't care enough? After all, many people who aren't into audio are like "whatever" when listening to high end stuff. I also do think even the differences between headphones and speakers aren't too big of a deal and I can enjoy listening to much of what I've owned/own (only a few headphones or speakers I think really sucked enough to actually deter my experience).

• But, seemingly I was and still am very interested in audio though, I've bought a ton of phones to try out, spend time looking stuff up, and even have been the audio science/engineering part. I generally hate my job (product manager in big tech) but liked the brief time I worked on audio and really got into it both on the theoretical and experiential side.

Maybe my ears suck?

• I'm certainly no golden ear, according to testing my general hearing was/is pretty normal (when I really got into this in my late 20s I was still doing pretty well in all the audiometric testing stuff). But, I've have somewhat trained as a listener including a bit for work and so I have a bit more training than the average person.

Maybe it's just me originally thinking high end audio prices were ridiculous and certain gear was dumb? I remember originally reading the review of the FOCAL Utopia in The Verge (had to keep up with tech news for my job) and I scoffed at the idea of four grand for a headphone (I later bought that phone too lol at least I got it for 3 bands "only"). I also remember a few years before getting into audio I looked up best headphone and saw the Sennheiser Orpheus and was sort of put off that it needed an amp (like my headphone usage growing up was mostly with portable players or phones so it was like why would you buy a headphone you can't use on the go).

• I'm thinking this might be a big part of it. I certainly have spent a bunch on audio after those initial feelings and am still willing to spend on stuff (for example I'm thinking of grabbing a KONDO or WAVAC amp lol), but perhaps originally I was primed that this stuff is all a rip off and so I was able to experience any real sound improvements from high end stuff.

I'm a sucker for a select few brands (most of the audio brands don't do nothing for me but some certainly do) and I'm a sucker for a pretty piece of equipment, but the brand/aesthetic things doesn't get the stuff to sound any better for me lol

So anyway, I know of people who never really cared and I know of people who were of a scientific mindset or did blind testing and came to "objectivist" conclusions, but where are the others like me lol?

I don't know how to really feel about this. On the one hand, it's saved me a ton of money. On the other hand, I still feel like I'm missing out on all the cool sounds people are hearing.

 

[KinGensai]

If you are happy with where you are, who cares what methodology you used to get there? Science is, as an extension of natural philosophy, just an externalized heuristic model for understanding actuality. Sometimes humans get lucky and have a knack for aligning their reality to actuality, but too many don't.

If you want to describe or guide others into how to get there, then the language used to transmit that information matters because people need a common ground to work with.

 

[tabness]

I guess I'm fairly happy with where I am, yes (though maybe a small part of me wonders what I might be missing out on even if it is just actually/probably placebo lol)

I got to spend my audio money on the actual transducers rather than what I perceive to be completely unnecessary electronics, and thus was able to snap up a couple of super rare expensive ones (R10 and Omega - they are both great but both aren't worth what they're going for lol). I never went for upgrades in downstream electronic components for the purported sound benefits of it and literally just picked things like amps and players on their aesthetics and brands (and I guess with some of the tube amps I'm looking at, a little bit on their nonlinearities that suit my preferences). Having picked up a bit on the scientific/engineering aspects of audio as well, I can now read measurements and charts and pretty much know what to expect in terms of my subjective listening experience as well, which is a huge help in cutting through the massive amount of noise around audio, and all the products that seem to come out all the time.

Still, I guess the thing I wonder the most about is why exactly I went this particular way in terms of my perceptions? Sure, now, I can't even listen to a DAC or amp and help but think "this thing will make no/little difference in the sound" but when I started on the audio tip, this was also my immediate perception, and I seem to be the last guy in terms of a background to be like this lol

 

[gregorio]

So when I got into audio a few years back, I figured the "subjectivist" aspect would be a perfect fit for someone like me right?

It’s not really the perfect fit for anyone. “Subjectivist” vs “Objectivist” are largely just made-up marketing terms when it comes to audio, designed to fool the gullible/those unwilling or unable to apply logic, in order to sell a wide variety of consumer audio products, many of which are snake oil. If there were such a thing as an “objectivist”, then they would be unable to recognise music (as opposed to just sound/noise) or perceive the Stereo Effect. I have often been called an “objectivist” but as a sound/music engineer probably >90% of the professional decisions I make are subjective and that is one of the main basis on which I’m judged/employed. So, we are all “subjectivists” here, otherwise we wouldn’t actively listen to music or music recordings.

What “subjectivist” seems to mean in the audiophile world is someone who believes their perception represents reality, regardless of whether the actual facts or even basic logic contradicts that belief. So, audiophile “subjectivist“ does not appear to “be a perfect fit for someone like you”, in fact it’s difficult to imagine how you could competently do your job if you were. You’re actually like the rest of us here, an “Objectivist”, IE. We‘re actually subjectivists but we know, understand or accept the actual facts, apply logic/critical thinking, are sceptical of marketing and therefore don’t unquestioningly believe our perceptions are always the arbiter of reality/actuality.

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

so basically i am a "science sucks" "subjectivist" but my conclusions on audio are overwhelmingly "objectivist" lol

I have never really liked science or held it in high esteem. Part of it is simply that I considered it dorky/nerdy as a kid (even though like I enjoyed watched Bill Nye the Science Guy and stuff like that lol). I did pretty good in science classes but I never did want to actually be a scientist, it just wasn't cool. As I grew older and came of age there was also the (real or perceived) clash between a scientific worldview and religious worldview and so I was definitely on the religious worldview tip. This got me super interested in science/philosophy of science briefly in college, and I was taking all the basic physics/chemistry/biology classes and looking deeply into the various scientific realism/anti realism positions. Soon I started asking myself why I am bothering getting into an area I don't really respect in the first place, and got bored of that as well. Plus I graduated and got a job. Basically, depending on the context, I basically am an instrumentalist of sorts or I just go with my boys Beavis and Butthead:



I bring all this up just so it is clear where I'm coming from mindset wise.

So when I got into audio a few years back, I figured the "subjectivist" aspect would be a perfect fit for someone like me right?

However, from the very start of my getting into audio, I have basically come to straight up "objectivist" conclusions, from sighted listening experiences. The transducers are basically the only thing that really matters, and DACs/amps/cables/whatever don't really make much/any difference to the sound when they are properly made to be linear.

To be more precise, it has always seemed to me that the differences I hear in the sound are due to different volumes or a different state of mind or whatever more than the actual device making a different sound. Now I have definitely experienced subjective differences in some cases, but it isn't like the typical experience of improvement people are having

• one of the cheap portable CD players I had sounded decidedly thin and compressed and even a little distorted even with my usually low impedence high sensitivity phones and other players and phones and computers and whatever just sounded normal (it wasn't like the "soundstage improved" or whatever by going up lol)
• the STAX amps generally followed their marketing description and so one of the tube amps had a slight midbass hump and rolled off highs (pretty minor though when compared to different phones)
• one time (and only one time) swapping the cables from my FOCAL Clear to my SONY MDR Z7 made the sound seem initially brighter by a bit but then it sort of went away and never happened again

I never went with a DAC/amp for non electrostatics beyond trying the Chord Mojo (which sounded basically the same as my iPhone dongle or MacBook headphone out just could get louder). I never chased the higher end electrostatic amps (just calculated my power needs and stayed within the cheapest options and they sounded great). I did audition high end DACs and amps with high end speakers early on before having any real experience with DACs/amps/cables, it never seemed to make a difference for the speakers even in a fully treated listening showroom (salesguy even seemed a bit pissed when I told him "can't really tell the difference man" after he set up a bunch of stuff and he wouldn't negotiate on the speaker price after lol)

At this point with my prior experiences being what they were, as well as me knowing a lot more about the science/engineering aspect of audio, I probably go into it thinking the non transducer stuff doesn't really make much difference, so I figure that's priming me to continue to have the same type experiences and reaching the same sort of conclusions. But I still wonder why this happened in the first place when I didn't have that prior experience and didn't know as much about the science/engineering part to influence me in any way.

Maybe it's just that I didn't care enough? After all, many people who aren't into audio are like "whatever" when listening to high end stuff. I also do think even the differences between headphones and speakers aren't too big of a deal and I can enjoy listening to much of what I've owned/own (only a few headphones or speakers I think really sucked enough to actually deter my experience).

• But, seemingly I was and still am very interested in audio though, I've bought a ton of phones to try out, spend time looking stuff up, and even have been the audio science/engineering part. I generally hate my job (product manager in big tech) but liked the brief time I worked on audio and really got into it both on the theoretical and experiential side.

Maybe my ears suck?

• I'm certainly no golden ear, according to testing my general hearing was/is pretty normal (when I really got into this in my late 20s I was still doing pretty well in all the audiometric testing stuff). But, I've have somewhat trained as a listener including a bit for work and so I have a bit more training than the average person.

Maybe it's just me originally thinking high end audio prices were ridiculous and certain gear was dumb? I remember originally reading the review of the FOCAL Utopia in The Verge (had to keep up with tech news for my job) and I scoffed at the idea of four grand for a headphone (I later bought that phone too lol at least I got it for 3 bands "only"). I also remember a few years before getting into audio I looked up best headphone and saw the Sennheiser Orpheus and was sort of put off that it needed an amp (like my headphone usage growing up was mostly with portable players or phones so it was like why would you buy a headphone you can't use on the go).

• I'm thinking this might be a big part of it. I certainly have spent a bunch on audio after those initial feelings and am still willing to spend on stuff (for example I'm thinking of grabbing a KONDO or WAVAC amp lol), but perhaps originally I was primed that this stuff is all a rip off and so I was able to experience any real sound improvements from high end stuff.

I'm a sucker for a select few brands (most of the audio brands don't do nothing for me but some certainly do) and I'm a sucker for a pretty piece of equipment, but the brand/aesthetic things doesn't get the stuff to sound any better for me lol

So anyway, I know of people who never really cared and I know of people who were of a scientific mindset or did blind testing and came to "objectivist" conclusions, but where are the others like me lol?

I don't know how to really feel about this. On the one hand, it's saved me a ton of money. On the other hand, I still feel like I'm missing out on all the cool sounds people are hearing.

I really like your post because I think it gets at the heart of the trouble people have with their relationship with audio gear.

In my opinion, it really comes down to your relationship with what you're listening to. For example, the few people who believe anything hearable can be measured and all electronics are equivalent-sounding have a relationship with audio that they saved money because everything sounds the same, and that they are superior to people who spend more because those people are suckers. So they listen happily in that frame of mind. The rest of the people, who represent the vast majority, who believe that they don't know everything about hearing yet and the masterpiece that evolution created -- our brains and their ability to help us survive by understanding the sounds around us -- use their ears and not meters to evaluate how things sound, which is after all what ultimately matters to them (as you well point out, regardless of what percentage of that experience is what our ears do and what percentage is our brains at work). So what sounds good sounds good, regardless of why. That's something the objectivists can't understand, or more accurately said, don't want to understand, because their enjoyment from listening to music depends on feeling superior to others who may use more expensive equipment.

I personally am not interested in how something measures, I'm interested in how it sounds. That's because I'm a very long-time professional in the music industry who has to make informed decisions about what to do when things sound bad so that clients' investment in recordings can be recuperated through actual sales to real people who listen. And if I can't figure out what's wrong and how to make it sound better, I'd be quickly out of a job. So my hearing (and understanding why music isn't working and what to do about it) are everything to me.

Fortunately it's gone very well and I now have a ton of money. So I now have the luxury of playing with super high-end audiophile audio gear. But I started with no money at all, so I learned how to be exceptionally careful when buying things. A major mistke the "objectivists" make thinking wealthy audiophiles are ignorant slaves to "marketing", when a large part of my financial success has on the contrary depended on assuming a deeply cynical point of view toward marketing. My career has depended on cold, hard "how does it sound and if it sounds bad how do we fix it? decisions". So from the getgo I actively assume that anything any company tells you about their product needs to be assumed false until proven true. And everyone I know who has the money to play in the high-end audiophile pool is extremely sophisticated about how they spend money and would never just trust any company about what they say.

So, probably because of the requirements of my profession, I have a multi-faceted connection to listening to music. On the one hand, I can love and jam on a great groove and melody through little Auratone mono speakers (used in recording studios to get a facsimile "lo-fi" sound representative a representative 'worst' possible listening environment our productions might be heard in) and I can get taken away by the transcendent realism of the echo of a concert hall so clear I can picture its size and shape, or instruments sounding like they're right in front of me and I could reach out and touch them on top-end audio gear. Those are very different listening experiences, but both really fun.

Thus, at the end of the day if something sounds better to you and gives you a better experience, it makes no difference why. That's the huge ironic mistake the objectivists make: they claim if you hear something you like on good gear, you're making a big mistake because what you're hearing is "biases" that you can't escape. Well, if you can't escape them, just enjoy! Because it's that enjoyment that matters, regardless of how it happens. Whatever your financial situation, jam out on whatever you can afford and have a great life.

 

[KinGensai]

@tabness
It sounds to me like you have some sort of story behind why you have this attitude toward the formal practice of science. It seems to be rather deeply seated in your shadow too because it's influence reaches quite far into your life despite what seems to me to be a natural inclination toward skepticism.

As far as subjectivists/objectivists go, this is my first time hearing about such a distinction, so let me try to understand what we're talking about here. As I am conceptualizing this concept, there are two basic dimensions to this: knowledge of the quantifiable facts and interpretation of said facts.

Knowledge can be broken down into two categories: real data and actual data. In this context, real data would be direct sense data, whereas actual data would be the objective measurements independent of any individual observing consciousness. Interpretation would fundamentally be a difference of bias between the Platonic types and Aristotelian types, where one believes in the existence of a "perfection" independent of observable reality and the other believes that everything that exists in the real can be quantified and causally understood in the actual (theoretically, of course).

So, if measured on a continuum, subjectivists tend toward reliance on sense data to interpret in a platonic way, whereas objectivists rely on actual data to confirm their sense data with the goal of understanding sound in the aristotelian sense.

Does this make sense? I might be missing something.

Edit: I am used to the usage of the term objectivist in the polysci sense, used to describe adherents to Ayn Rand's political philosophy of objectivism, so I feel the need to disambiguate this before going further.

 

[gregorio]

That's because I'm a very long-time professional in the music industry who has to make informed decisions about what to do when things sound bad so that clients' investment in recordings can be recuperated through actual sales to real people who listen.

It is possible to be a professional in the music industry without knowing or even wanting to know what audio recording is or how it works. I’ve known a number of professional musicians like that, who know nothing about recording except how to perform in a live room in front of a mic. However, they wouldn’t then go to a sound science forum and make-up a bunch of false or strawman arguments to defend a nonsense argument!!

G

 

[redrol]

so basically i am a "science sucks" "subjectivist"

good luck with that.. you won't get anywhere meaningful

 

[tabness]

It’s not really the perfect fit for anyone. “Subjectivist” vs “Objectivist” are largely just made-up marketing terms when it comes to audio, designed to fool the gullible/those unwilling or unable to apply logic, in order to sell a wide variety of consumer audio products, many of which are snake oil. If there were such a thing as an “objectivist”, then they would be unable to recognise music (as opposed to just sound/noise) or perceive the Stereo Effect. I have often been called an “objectivist” but as a sound/music engineer probably >90% of the professional decisions I make are subjective and that is one of the main basis on which I’m judged/employed. So, we are all “subjectivists” here, otherwise we wouldn’t actively listen to music or music recordings.

What “subjectivist” seems to mean in the audiophile world is someone who believes their perception represents reality, regardless of whether the actual facts or even basic logic contradicts that belief. So, audiophile “subjectivist“ does not appear to “be a perfect fit for someone like you”, in fact it’s difficult to imagine how you could competently do your job if you were. You’re actually like the rest of us here, an “Objectivist”, IE. We‘re actually subjectivists but we know, understand or accept the actual facts, apply logic/critical thinking, are sceptical of marketing and therefore don’t unquestioningly believe our perceptions are always the arbiter of reality/actuality.

G

For sure on the "objectivist" and "subjectivist" labels in audio (just using them because they are for better or worse what is used in discussions and the weird way in which this forum has sort of been... segregated... for lack of a better term there lol). In fact, I know I can't be a "subjectivist" in one sense of the term orf putting a priority on my personal perceptual experiences, because I am generally (eyen beyond audio), not that with my own perceptual experiences. As a general mindset, I believe there's obviously a lot beyond my perception, and that my perception is not everything.

I also do think you're right, that a main reason I've had the initial experiences I have had with sighted listening are due to some background in marketing and a strong desire not to be hustled and ripped off lol

Some of the audio engineers I worked with and was close to were very much like you (only difference is in what we were working together on we were more interested in voice reproduction for conversations/calling rather than music and had budget targets to hit for cheap mass production so we were deep into developing what is the best sounding efficient non fullband codec and all that and how they fit with the audio hardware), they all had electrical engineering/digital signal processing/acoustic backgrounds and all that of course, but definitely, they needed to rely on their "subjective" listening ability to work efficiently (which I was always impressed by and took some pointers from). Only one guy among them was into HiFi in any sense, but he basically was like me in his approach (even if he probably had a differing worldview). Another was a serious musician but didn't seem to care about audiophila at all.

@tabness
It sounds to me like you have some sort of story behind why you have this attitude toward the formal practice of science. It seems to be rather deeply seated in your shadow too because it's influence reaches quite far into your life despite what seems to me to be a natural inclination toward skepticism.

As far as subjectivists/objectivists go, this is my first time hearing about such a distinction, so let me try to understand what we're talking about here. As I am conceptualizing this concept, there are two basic dimensions to this: knowledge of the quantifiable facts and interpretation of said facts.

Knowledge can be broken down into two categories: real data and actual data. In this context, real data would be direct sense data, whereas actual data would be the objective measurements independent of any individual observing consciousness. Interpretation would fundamentally be a difference of bias between the Platonic types and Aristotelian types, where one believes in the existence of a "perfection" independent of observable reality and the other believes that everything that exists in the real can be quantified and causally understood in the actual (theoretically, of course).

So, if measured on a continuum, subjectivists tend toward reliance on sense data to interpret in a platonic way, whereas objectivists rely on actual data to confirm their sense data with the goal of understanding sound in the aristotelian sense.

Does this make sense? I might be missing something.

Edit: I am used to the usage of the term objectivist in the polysci sense, used to describe adherents to Ayn Rand's political philosophy of objectivism, so I feel the need to disambiguate this before going further.

I think the common way that the "subjectivist" and "objectivist" divide in audio is defined is simply that subjectivists "trust their ears" and objectivists "trust the measurements". In a practical sense, those who are placed in the "objectivist" camp are those who don't really think there are sound differences on things that measure the same/similarily enough in the audible range (and yes this is very different for Ayn Rand "objectivism" lol), and some of those in the "objectivist" camp would chalk up people having subjective experiences where they hear differences between things that measure effectively the same up to various psychological/psychoacoustic phenomena (placebo/confirmation bias/and so on).

For someone like me, while I'm not certainly not committed to a scientific realist worldview (which would mean that past/current/even future theories of audio/acoustics and audio measurements don't (necessarily) reflect any sort of metaphysical reality of how things actually are), effectively, the measurements seem line up to my personal perceptual experiences (so if there are two DACs that both measure flat with low enough distortion, they would sound the same to me).

The story of my "dim" view of science (or to be more precise I should say a scientific realist worldview) is pretty much explained in my first post. In fact, thinking about it, I think that's also why I'm also quick to not double down on when I seemingly hear "differences" in a sense. I just naturally chalk them up to differences in volume or even mood or whatever rather than the gear itself. I don't really hold to any sort of humanist "man is the measure of all things" empiricism in general, I don't seem to put a priority on my own perceptual experiences and I am pretty comfortable with ideas that there is a lot of stuff beyond sense perception (not just in a scientific sense), so I'm not a "subjectivist" in the sense that I do not trust my own ears.

This topic was just me sort of exploring why I never got the usual subjective differences with sameish measuring gear with sighted listening lol

 

[BS5711]

I really like your post because I think it gets at the heart of the trouble people have with their relationship with audio gear.

In my opinion, it really comes down to your relationship with what you're listening to. For example, the few people who believe anything hearable can be measured ………

I was thinking about this the other day following other discussion here.

I agree with your comment about the possibility that not everything we hear can be measured if talking about real world sounds not recordings.

The following is as much a question as a statement because I have no involvement with recording or any part of the music industry.

Pretty much all discussion about sound on Head Fi is in respect of recorded music. That music is recorded on man made equipment that is designed and built in accordance with our current knowledge and technology. If we can only record items A, B and C that make up what we need to faithfully replicate a song how can we possibly hear D within that recording that might be some intangible thing that we don’t yet understand about human hearing ?

It seems to me to be a stretch that not only is there some part of human hearing that we don’t understand but we are also inadvertently recording whatever that property might be on equipment that was designed and built to record what we do understand.

Also, if the recording equipment has captured something that exists in real world sounds but we still don’t understand wouldn’t we then be able to measure it because it has been captured on equipment that we do understand ?

 

[KinGensai]

I think the common way that the "subjectivist" and "objectivist" divide in audio is defined is simply that subjectivists "trust their ears" and objectivists "trust the measurements". In a practical sense, those who are placed in the "objectivist" camp are those who don't really think there are sound differences on things that measure the same/similarily enough in the audible range (and yes this is very different for Ayn Rand "objectivism" lol), and some of those in the "objectivist" camp would chalk up people having subjective experiences where they hear differences between things that measure effectively the same up to various psychological/psychoacoustic phenomena (placebo/confirmation bias/and so on).

I see. This paradigm is rather lacking in nuance, which makes it easier to form tribal battle lines I suppose. Both perspectives here are lacking, I land on the synthesis of these two modalities: Our sense data is too riddled with indelible bias to be completely reliable and reproducible, but objective measurements rely on what is fundamentally a translation of actuality into instrumental reality, thus is as of yet too low resolution to properly measure every phenomenon happening. Too little is understood about just the internal workings of the psyche, let alone what kind of stimuli could elicit what response.

For someone like me, while I'm not certainly not committed to a scientific realist worldview (which would mean that past/current/even future theories of audio/acoustics and audio measurements don't (necessarily) reflect any sort of metaphysical reality of how things actually are), effectively, the measurements seem line up to my personal perceptual experiences (so if there are two DACs that both measure flat with low enough distortion, they would sound the same to me).

I would be inclined to agree on hypotheses, but theories have to be tested quite rigorously before they are accepted as such, so the theories themselves tend to become entrenched and foundational unless the underlying premise of said theory is shaken.

Intellectually gifted people often fall prey to inflated egos, it's inevitable given their obvious gifts. It's easy to forget given how much science has advanced human understanding of actuality just how much knowledge we know we don't know is out there, let alone the unknowns we can't even conceive of yet. It's unfortunate, but scientific advancement all too often advances one grave at a time. IMO dismissal is not the correct response, investigation is.

I would hope the measurements match up to your experience, that's the sign of a well adjusted psyche and a correct epistemological method.

The story of my "dim" view of science (or to be more precise I should say a scientific realist worldview) is pretty much explained in my first post. In fact, thinking about it, I think that's also why I'm also quick to not double down on when I seemingly hear "differences" in a sense. I just naturally chalk them up to differences in volume or even mood or whatever rather than the gear itself.

You are very clearly a skeptic. I surmise some part of you recognized the divide between science and it's practitioners/adherents and correctly assigned skepticism, perhaps a bit of scorn as well, to the human element of it. I think that explains your seeming contradiction between your attitude and apparent conclusions.

I don't really hold to any sort of humanist "man is the measure of all things" empiricism in general, I don't seem to put a priority on my own perceptual experiences and I am pretty comfortable with ideas that there is a lot of stuff beyond sense perception (not just in a scientific sense), so I'm not a "subjectivist" in the sense that I do not trust my own ears.

This is a bit confusing. You might want to slow down and break those ideas down into more coherent chunks.

Humanism is just a consequence of existing and experiencing all of reality limited to our meatbag bodies. People will interpret that bias as their temperament and other biases inform them.

Wouldn't a subjectivist only trust their ears and disregard measurements as insufficient? Typo?

 

[castleofargh]

Edit: I am used to the usage of the term objectivist in the polysci sense, used to describe adherents to Ayn Rand's political philosophy of objectivism, so I feel the need to disambiguate this before going further.

If I'm going to follow some ideology, it's certainly not that one.
My own conclusion after years of timid investigation on what seems to make me an objectivist(the pejorative use thrown at me anytime I bother someone): I try to quantify things and then dare suggest that 1 is a lot less than 10000. That's it.

The idea that the objectivist purchases what measures best, is valid IMO, but it excludes most (maybe all?) regular posters/readers of this subsection. One of the main ideas we tend to share here is that if the change isn't clearly audible, it's probably not worth the money or bother to get it.


If a subjectivist is someone who listens, I guess I'm that, like everybody else with working ears.
If a subjectivist is someone who believes his subjective experience of the world is the world, then I'm definitely not that. Because I know too much about humans to fall for a modern myth of the audio cavern. My mother is a little like that, though. When she doesn't see me eating (because I'm a thousand km away, like right now), she doesn't believe that I eat every day nonetheless. IDK what she imagines, maybe I stop existing, or maybe I just skip food because only her can feed me? Hard to tell.



@ OP, I'm afraid you might suffer from that same disease I have of considering the magnitude of things in your decision-making. It's probably as simple as that. I think the DAC vs headphone idea is the same. Headphones have highly different everything (frequency response, distortion profiles and amounts, comfort), while DACs, even the relatively bad ones, have higher fidelity and flatter frequency response than any headphone at any price. Knowing that makes it hard for me to believe that swapping DACs is as important for my listening experience as swapping headphones. Impossibly hard.

 

[tabness]

I see. This paradigm is rather lacking in nuance, which makes it easier to form tribal battle lines I suppose. Both perspectives here are lacking, I land on the synthesis of these two modalities: Our sense data is too riddled with indelible bias to be completely reliable and reproducible, but objective measurements rely on what is fundamentally a translation of actuality into instrumental reality, thus is as of yet too low resolution to properly measure every phenomenon happening. Too little is understood about just the internal workings of the psyche, let alone what kind of stimuli could elicit what response.

Yeah, the objectivist/subjectivist divide is obviously simply an oversimplification, or even as others have alluded to, a marketing thing, and perhaps just straight up pejoratives. As I've sort of talked through on this discussion, it's pretty clear I'm not a "subjectivist" either.

For the rest of the philosophical discussion probably best to take it to PM.

@ OP, I'm afraid you might suffer from that same disease I have of considering the magnitude of things in your decision-making. It's probably as simple as that. I think the DAC vs headphone idea is the same. Headphones have highly different everything (frequency response, distortion profiles and amounts, comfort), while DACs, even the relatively bad ones, have higher fidelity and flatter frequency response than any headphone at any price. Knowing that makes it hard for me to believe that swapping DACs is as important for my listening experience as swapping headphones. Impossibly hard.

For sure a big part of it, even stuff with measurable frequency response deviations sounds pretty much the same. In the most basic case, I use CD players from the late eighties and early nineties, they are mostly linear, but I have seen that some of them have been measured to have clear roll offs at high frequencies, and now in my mid thirties, I can't even hear those frequencies anymore like I could when I was younger. Or to take an amp example, the frequency response differences between the STAX T1/S tube amps only really made a somewhat significant listening difference on my STAX Omega (which got a little too dark on that over the solid state more flat measuring amp)

But going further, even headphones with pretty significant frequency response differences from my preferred target (say something like diffuse fieldish with a slight midrange emphasis) are not just tolerable, but actually generally enjoyable. This is even after I have had some listening training to identify more minor frequency response changes. For some of these phones the differences really only come up to the forefront in direct back to back testing.

Basically as long as it isn't absolutely brutal (think like a super exaggerated Beatsesque bass boost), I can really enjoy the phone, and at that point, the relative value/rip off aspect of "why does this thing cost so many thousands more than a phone that almost gets there for much less cost?" comes up and sticks in my mind. Plus there's the fact that I've straight up preferred tunings of "non flagship" phones and speakers over the "summit fi"/"flagship" stuff from the same brand.

And it certainly isn't just about some measurement improvements, I don't really get some of the new claims of driver technology like the STAX MLER/2/3/8675309 stuff in distortion reduction, because these STAX phones already had such low distortion to begin with (I've never heard them distort themselves, a lower powered amp/driver unit gave out at really high volumes I guess).

I guess I really am primed to hate the "why so expensive? because it sound good" tip lol

 

[KinGensai]

@tabness
tl;dr I think you feel science is fine, it's the people acting a fool you don't like. Best I can do over the internet lol.

Sorry if I started getting in the weeds, talking philosophy is fun. I'm weird or whatever.

If I'm going to follow some ideology, it's certainly not that one.
My own conclusion after years of timid investigation on what seems to make me an objectivist(the pejorative use thrown at me anytime I bother someone): I try to quantify things and then dare suggest that 1 is a lot less than 10000. That's it.

The idea that the objectivist purchases what measures best, is valid IMO, but it excludes most (maybe all?) regular posters/readers of this subsection. One of the main ideas we tend to share here is that if the change isn't clearly audible, it's probably not worth the money or bother to get it.


If a subjectivist is someone who listens, I guess I'm that, like everybody else with working ears.
If a subjectivist is someone who believes his subjective experience of the world is the world, then I'm definitely not that. Because I know too much about humans to fall for a modern myth of the audio cavern. My mother is a little like that, though. When she doesn't see me eating (because I'm a thousand km away, like right now), she doesn't believe that I eat every day nonetheless. IDK what she imagines, maybe I stop existing, or maybe I just skip food because only her can feed me? Hard to tell.

You can count me among those. I'm just trying to scratch my audio itch with some efficiency lol. Plus I find knowing a bit about things I like genuinely fun.

Lol @ mom. Sure strikes a chord with me too.

 

[tabness]

@tabness
tl;dr I think you feel science is fine, it's the people acting a fool you don't like. Best I can do over the internet lol.

Sorry if I started getting in the weeds, talking philosophy is fun. I'm weird or whatever.

No worries and appreciate your posts in helping me tease out things here! You're generally on the mark about how I feel, I go about my work and life more or less as an instrumentalist (sort of like "shut up and calculate" like Feynman). The "science sucks" comment was a bit tongue in cheek (I appreciate that most everyone didn't take it too negatively and I probably would have rephrased it in retrospect to be less... inflammatory I guess... sorry, not my intention).