Objectivity vs Subjectivity

[mail2sumanth]

its like learning to enjoy a good bread/butter chicken/Wine ie subjective and experiential !! the more you listen, the more your brain learns and sometimes unlearns. I am still on the path and keep learning. but these days far more confident on what I hear than I was say 10 years back.

I agree, I experienced this first hand. Basically you get conditioned to a particular sound color as you keep hearing the same over time.

 

[Enkay78]

See, This is were we differ. Right here!
see how subjective! .

How this statement is subjective?

I am confused. Scientific facts, maths physics are not subjective.

Objective data will be objective. There cannot be a subjective objective data.


So objective parameters will remain objective....otherwise they cannot be called objective.

The sun is a Class G star - objective. It can be called subjectively many things ......but it is a star.

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

ASR is the flaw.

Ignore ASR's useless ramblings and buy what sounds good to your ears. Ignore the post above, clearly an objectivists attempt to push their biased agenda.

i guess we are even here. If you think I have an agenda, I can say the same for you too.bashing objectivity is necessary if you want to sell a bad measuring product. I still don’t say everyone should buy a good measuring product. M only saying measurement has the whole story about sound in it. There is no necessity that you should buy the best measuring product. You can look at it and take what confirms to the signature you have in mind.

 

[spirovious]

A usual practice is to check specs first of new product, then take a demo for final decision. If it doesn't appeals to ear we don't buy and that's the truth to me. We may even like a product which may not be good at figures, but can sound pleasant to ears. That's common way.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

i guess we are even here. If you think I have an agenda, I can say the same for you too.bashing objectivity is necessary if you want to sell a bad measuring product. I still don’t say everyone should buy a good measuring product. M only saying measurement has the whole story about sound in it. There is no necessity that you should buy the best measuring product. You can look at it and take what confirms to the signature you have in mind.

I am not in the AV industry by profession. No horse in this race other than a hobbyist so I have no agenda.By the by what is wrong with a bad measuring product if someone enjoys it? Note here is that "bad" is only in comparison to standards people assume are "correct". My post clearly mentions to buy what sounds good to your ears, hardly an agenda by any stretch. Further one can not ascertain how a speaker will sound simply from measurements, one may have generic comments such as "bright" for excess HF or "boomy" for excess LF but there is so much more to it that that, and also to note here is some may prefer excess bass/HF are they "Wrong?". What about things like rhythm,timing,musicality,instrument separation, realism of voice, emotion of sound,tone, soundstage etc, how does one see all this from measurements, the answer - you can't. I will let others decide if you have an agenda, my opinion is clear. I have quoted your OP for reference. People may read your other posts here to decide for themselves.

Due to audioscsiencereview’s bad reviews on Hegel, naim, regas and so on the resale value on these stuff has taken a huge hit. And day by day more and more people are switching camps/getting educated about what to look for in audio. So, consider getting something which is decent in measurements and sounds good to your ears at the same time to avoid disappointment in few years. Colored sound would give an immediate satisfaction but once you start noticing that amps filter in everything you hear you would want something different. A transparent amp on the other hand would be boring at first, but once you start noticing the differences in different recording styles of different artists without filtering by the amp, you would be forgetting more About the gear. Over the years, I have used lot of hifi targeted amps like atoll, gold note, holfi, creek and several niche brands. Every time when you hear it for the first weeks you will be flattered, then the excitement dies as that particular coloring is intrusive to the music all the time. It used to be easy to flip them when you don’t like it but now if you put any of them on sale,anyone who looks for a used amp who knows how to “google search” would land in the audiosciencereview’s page would be reluctant to buy them regardless of their positive reviews. Nobody wants a product which is bashed by 100s of random guys on internet.

They say end of the day, trust your ears but I would say, trust your ears only after you do your homework. Otherwise the moment you discover some of the flaws, then there is no way back.

Happy listening!

 

[arj]

Folks..reminder on forum rules before we go south

HiFiVision.com - Forum Rules

www.hifivision.com

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

I am not in the AV industry by profession. No horse in this race other than a hobbyist so I have no agenda.By the by what is wrong with a bad measuring product if someone enjoys it? Note here is that "bad" is only in comparison to standards people assume are "correct". My post clearly mentions to buy what sounds good to your ears, hardly an agenda by any stretch. Further one can not ascertain how a speaker will sound simply from measurements, one may have generic comments such as "bright" for excess HF or "boomy" for excess LF but there is so much more to it that that, and also to note here is some may prefer excess bass/HF are they "Wrong?". What about things like rhythm,timing,musicality,instrument separation, realism of voice, emotion of sound,tone, soundstage etc, how does one see all this from measurements, the answer - you can't. I will let others decide if you have an agenda, my opinion is clear. I have quoted your OP for reference. People may read your other posts here to decide for themselves.


Happy listening!

I am not in the AV industry by profession. No horse in this race other than a hobbyist so I have no agenda.By the by what is wrong with a bad measuring product if someone enjoys it? Note here is that "bad" is only in comparison to standards people assume are "correct". My post clearly mentions to buy what sounds good to your ears, hardly an agenda by any stretch. Further one can not ascertain how a speaker will sound simply from measurements, one may have generic comments such as "bright" for excess HF or "boomy" for excess LF but there is so much more to it that that, and also to note here is some may prefer excess bass/HF are they "Wrong?". What about things like rhythm,timing,musicality,instrument separation, realism of voice, emotion of sound,tone, soundstage etc, how does one see all this from measurements, the answer - you can't. I will let others decide if you have an agenda, my opinion is clear. I have quoted your OP for reference. People may read your other posts here to decide for themselves.


Happy listening!

It’s difficult to understand if you don’t keep and open mind. All these adjectives some of them are in the mind which will not translate the same way for a second listener- musicality, rhythm.. the others like soundstage imaging separation can be understood from measurement like- freq resp, distortion, directivity, step response. Everything is meaurable. But only thing is need to understand what meantioned in each graph translates to real world sound. There is no secret recipe, if there is it’s still readable

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

It’s difficult to understand if you don’t keep and open mind. All these adjectives some of them are in the mind which will not translate the same way for a second listener- musicality, rhythm.. the others like soundstage imaging separation can be understood from measurement like- freq resp, distortion, directivity, step response. Everything is meaurable. But only thing is need to understand what meantioned in each graph translates to real world sound. There is no secret recipe, if there is it’s still readable

I respectfully disagree. The things I mentioned can not be understood from a graph. I do agree that everyone's preferences on these will vary. We should be careful least we assume we are able to measure everything about sound with our current technology. There may be new developments in the field of sound measurements in the future that may or may not better correlate with subjective impressions. Someone made a good point that most manufacturers can make well measuring products but they choose not to as that does not sell well outside a certain demographic. I understand your points having been interested in objectivity previously but with experience I learned that you can not tell everything from a graph.

I guess we can agree to disagree.

 

[prateekatasniya]

What's being attained by this debate ?

Both subjective and objective are equally important when analysed correctly.

The end

 

[arj]

What's being attained by this debate ?

Both subjective and objective are equally important when analysed correctly.

The end

Actually doubt if any debate in social media forums attins anything other than everyone comes of with a stronger belief in what they believed in the first place

Of course some of the folks coming in with an open mind might come out with a stronger view in one of the directions at the end of it

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

Actually doubt if any debate in social media forums attins anything other than everyone comes of with a stronger belief in what they believed in the first place

Of course some of the folks coming in with an open mind might come out with a stronger view in one of the directions at the end of it

This is true.

Perhaps we should ask, to those reading along, and not directed at anyone in particular.

If there were 2 speakers in their possession and one sounded great to them but measured poorly, and one sounded poor to them but measured well.

If the could keep one. Which would they keep?

Please do keep in mind it is a hypothetical scenario.

 

[raghupb]

So in the end.
<snip>

<snip>
The end

Two bubbly optimists
There is no end to this debate unless we all start wearing jumpsuits like in Star Trek.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

I respectfully disagree. The things I mentioned can not be understood from a graph. I do agree that everyone's preferences on these will vary. We should be careful least we assume we are able to measure everything about sound with our current technology. There may be new developments in the field of sound measurements in the future that may or may not better correlate with subjective impressions. Someone made a good point that most manufacturers can make well measuring products but they choose not to as that does not sell well outside a certain demographic. I understand your points having been interested in objectivity previously but with experience I learned that you can not tell everything from a graph.

I guess we can agree to disagree.

Let me try one example here - soundstage varies with rooms and placement. So even in a subjective review when someone says like massive soundstage, it doesn’t mean anything.

But if you look at the directivity pattern for example in Erin’s audio corner website, you can clearly see the pattern of wave and the angles at which each frequency is dispersing.

Human ear can localize objects in space with accuracy only in high frequency region. So if a speakers has very good response in higher freqnecy and has wider dispersion, it would present a wider soundstage. Again now once the wave leaves the speaker depending on the rooms materials, it starts scattering. So, that means now you have the same freqnecy with smaller intensity reaching you a later point of time. What does this mean? It appears like it’s coming from a larger space as in larger space we have the direct sound followed by its reflection(s) differentiated by a time interval. Humans perceive an objects distance in space with its ITD and ILD differences. On a wider dispersion speaker this is always high as reflections contribute lot here.

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

This is true.

Perhaps we should ask, to those reading along, and not directed at anyone in particular.

If there were 2 speakers in their possession and one sounded great to them but measured poorly, and one sounded poor to them but measured well.

If the could keep one. Which would they keep?

Please do keep in mind it is a hypothetical scenario.

Sounding great is personal preference. So definitely there would be both camps again as for me sounding great will not be sounding great for another person. One might enjoy a neutral sound, another might enjoy a colored. So to the second guy the neutral sounding will be “bad”.

Out of the two, the neutral will be accurate, and the second guy if he prefers the colored sound, well that only means he is not looking for accuracy, or he doesn’t know how accurate sound sound like or he doesn’t care if it isn’t accurate. But that doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t accurate.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

Let me try one example here - soundstage varies with rooms and placement. So even in a subjective review when someone says like massive soundstage, it doesn’t mean anything.

But if you look at the directivity pattern for example in Erin’s audio corner website, you can clearly see the pattern of wave and the angles at which each frequency is dispersing.

Human ear can localize objects in space with accuracy only in high frequency region. So if a speakers has very good response in higher freqnecy and has wider dispersion, it would present a wider soundstage. Again now once the wave leaves the speaker depending on the rooms materials, it starts scattering. So, that means now you have the same freqnecy with smaller intensity reaching you a later point of time. What does this mean? It appears like it’s coming from a larger space as in larger space we have the direct sound followed by its reflection(s) differentiated by a time interval. Humans perceive an objects distance in space with its ITD and ILD differences. On a wider dispersion speaker this is always high as reflections contribute lot here.

You are introducing the room as a variable on the topic of subjectively well suitable equipment vs objectively well measuring equipment. Let us keep the room out of it as that is another separate issue that needs its own topic.

To me (and many others) when a review says massive soundstage it is worth considering.

Wide dispersion is wide dispersion, measuring the coverage/directivity it tells you the angle vs frequency response at said angle some people advocate a consistent response across the stated directivity coverage while others advocate a roll off off angle, yes there are higher chances of "big sound" but again this is generic and does not really tell anyone what it sounds like and if they will prefer it unless they listen to it. Some people also advocate minimum reflections (outdoors) while some advocate reflections for subjective preferences.

You did not address any of the others I mentioned though as it is a "complete package" and there is more to soundstage than "width", many people seek accuracy in the positioning of the instruments.

Sounded great is personal preference. So definitely there would be both camps again as for me sounding great will not be sounding great for another person. One might enjoy a neutral sound, another might enjoy a colored. So to the second guy the neutral sounding will be “bad”.

Out of the two, the neutral will be accurate, and the second guy if he prefers the colored sound, well that only means he is not looking for accuracy, or he doesn’t know how accurate sound sound like or he doesn’t care if it isn’t accurate. But that doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t accurate.

I think you may have missed the point.

 

[insane79]

They never said every denon is better. Only x3600 and x3700. Hope you didnt had one of these. Older higher end models from denons measure worse. Even the 4700 is slightly worse than 3700 in SNR but in a audible way. Honestly I was never convinced about the measurements earlier but as I went deeper, it gave me lot of convincing answers. But the key is they focus on accurate sound reproduction. So to them, everything that messes with accuracy is bad. Subjectively it would be nice, like some people like wearing sunglasses to see the world through a filter. But even if we don’t need accuracy if we know what is the pattern of what to look for for our coloration, we don’t need to listen to that before getting it home.

Again the problem with measuring with ears has lot of things under play. M not saying that what you are hearing is wrong. But the variables are your hearing ability, ability to focus when we do a critical listening, your specific rooms acoustics, your speakers connected to them, your sound preference all play a role in the better sound to you.

I think i had the Denon x3400, anyways you are right my friend & i am wrong. For some reason i love poorly measured stuff

Out of this debate, stay safe.

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Two bubbly optimists
There is no end to this debate unless we all start wearing jumpsuits like in Star Trek.
Cheers,
Raghu

You are introducing the room as a variable on the topic of subjectively well suitable equipment vs objectively well measuring equipment. Let us keep the room out of it as that is another separate issue that needs its own topic.

To me (and many others) when a review says massive soundstage it is worth considering.

Wide dispersion is wide dispersion, measuring the coverage/directivity it tells you the angle vs frequency response at said angle some people advocate a consistent response across the stated directivity coverage while others advocate a roll off off angle, yes there are higher chances of "big sound" but again this is generic and does not really tell anyone what it sounds like and if they will prefer it unless they listen to it. Some people also advocate minimum reflections (outdoors) while some advocate reflections for subjective preferences.

You did not address any of the others I mentioned though as it is a "complete package" and there is more to soundstage than "width", many people seek accuracy in the positioning of the instruments.



I think you may have missed the point.

sorry I gave up.

I think i had the Denon x3400, anyways you are right my friend & i am wrong. For some reason i love poorly measured stuff

Out of this debate, stay safe.

Isn’t that bad.

 

[Enkay78]

Alright folks, time to close this debate.

Audiophile and subjectivists listen to their gadgets, money and ego.

Objectivist listens to transparent audio reproduction.

Debate over.
Like or dont like it.
Take your own time to come out of the rabbit hole.

It's better not to waste time......let's share our favourite songs instead.

To each its own.

 

[raghupb]

<snip>
Audiophile and subjectivists listen to their gadgets, money and ego.

Objectivist listens to transparent audio reproduction.
<snip>

The listening happens on my objectively debatable, subjectively likeable gadgets that I have spent money on to satisfy my ego.
There I ended the debate for you

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Alright folks, time to close this debate.

Audiophile and subjectivists listen to their gadgets, money and ego.

Objectivist listens to transparent audio reproduction.

Debate over.
Like or dont like it.
Take your own time to come out of the rabbit hole.

It's better not to waste time......let's share our favourite songs instead.

Isn’t that bad.

Where did you look for it’s measurements ? I did a google search and it didn’t lead anywhere meaningful. There is one from sound and vision but they have only at certain frequencies. My assumption is denon had the same amp section for 3 series generations that they all should sound the same. Even between 3700 and 3600 there is only 1 db difference in SNR, and that both are already in the Region where you cannot distinguish between this change. I assume at least most 3 series measures the same. I can be wrong though.