As We See It

As an audiophile, all I need to do is sit back, relax, and be a subjectivist.

I don't need to measure anything, I don't have to design anything, all I have to do is consume the music, dance, and be happy!

Surely, I would not want a pure subjectivist to design or build my gear. I can't imagine a pure subjectivist-designed piece of kit: "This capacitor is pretty, and I don't like the connotation of the word 'resistor' at all. Impedance sounds like it might hold back music, let's got with zero impedance..."

So, thank God for objective measures in construction and design!

All I gotta do is either dig it, or not! Yay! Thank you!

Put me down as someone who realizes it takes "both" flavors to make the hobby work. As Laozi, said, "It takes both yin and yang to make the Tao go round!"

I guess, then, people could start to argue about how rigorously we apply our subjectiveness in an attempt to be subjectively objective, and that's fun and all until someone tries to make a claim that 'has to' apply to all listeners. Then, it becomes a religious argument and saps the joy.

But, then, I consider limoncello to be a "system enhancing solution," so take this all with a drop of yin, or yang, or whatever it is floats your boat.

Music is all about feeling :-) ............

What I like around here is that it's subjective + measurements. I'd like to see more of that everywhere. The issue, for me, is finding out what specific measurements correlate to good sound. "If it measures good and sounds bad, -- it is bad. If it sounds good and measures bad, -- you've measured the wrong thing." So this process, which Stereophile has been better at for longer than anyone else, is in part attempting to find out how measurements correlate to sound quality, which is all by its lonesome a worthy endevor.

Of course, what is considered "Good Sound" is, ultimately, subjective in the very narrow sense of really belonging to only one listener. Lots of folks are looking for a reasonable recreation of "live sound". Different for a headbanger than a Mozartian.

Once I heard the colorations of microphones independent of a mix + master + gear + room , I became aware that you can't really "get there from here". When monitoring a performance for a recording, I'd take the headphones off, walk into the room where the musicians are performing, and enter a different world. And it didn't matter if the microphones were mine or somebody else's, same thing. The best recording engineer I worked with used monitoring gear that would be comfortable for long sessions [if headphones] and not burn your ears off. I remember going to Skywalker, WATTs in place, auditioning a live recording that was recorded/played back via a Panasonic 3700. Took 15 seconds before the engineer/producer decided to replace them with a cozy pair of British Mini-Monitors.

Surviving the session is more important than maximum fidelity.

I don't expect to hear "live sound" from a melange of microphones and black boxes with blinking leds. What I hear now [if I'm listening 'critically'] are a lot of the artifacts of a given recording/playback chain. That's what attempting to make a living as a recording engineer has done to me. I am happier to hear a reasonable rendition of a microphone feed than a nearly plausible representation of "live music". If I want "live music" I play some or get out of the house and hear some. But a lot of attempts at a simulacrum of the real thing make me aware of the attempt, which breaks the spell.

When I'm playing my Martin I don't have to wonder if the sound is real. When I'm listening to music through a Marantz 8b, I hear how the resolution is nearly perfect in the mid-range but loses its grip at frequency extremes. I always hear the deliberate hardness of the sonic presentation of Klipsch speakers [nice dynamics, though], always hear the audible compression of classic acoustic suspension speakers [nice mids and bass, though]. Whenever I listen to an LP these days, I notice how the "gas"---resolution, bass, treble, dynamics---runs out before a side is over. "It's Always Something", like Roseanne Roseannadanna always sez.

On the other hand, the stuff that used to bother me [a lot] about "digital sound" feels like it's fading out. Once 24/192 became the de-facto standard for DACs, things improved "tout suite".

Right now, I'm looking for minimum irritation in music playback. I've got hours & hours of time at work where I'm listening to my personal stereo. This is one aspect of audio that has become considerably less irritating over time. The notion of having access to nearly every record in the world via something you can stick in your pocket or handbag is some kind of a dream. The notion that one of these little devices will be, in the near future, the best sounding of any source components is my dream right now. I can think of many aspects of digital audio that would be best realized in a battery-powered device working off of micro sd memory chips, or whatever the "next thing" in storage is that's gonna be faster, denser and physically closer to the DAC. I'm looking forward to that.

I've been a subscriber before, and there's a good chance I'll be a subscriber again.

I can't imagine auditioning any piece of equipment that isn't quiet enough to fully resolve a CD at low listening levels.

I never heard of Gordon Holt or John Atkinson for that matter until recently. I knew what pleased me emotionally at home and what I could listen to for long periods in the office without fatigue. Good reference albums and recordings volume matched have always gotten me where I wanted to go musically.

Surprisingly there was talk at t.h.e. Show about quantifying emotional involvement. Jason may have missed it.

I hope you come to RMAF.

Where are those damn shoes? I took them off and now I can't find them!

I enjoyed this column Jim, and agreed with a bunch of it. I'm always
looking to balance the subjective and objective parts of the hobby.
I think another comment put it well: it's all subjective in the listening! (But...shouldn't be all subjective in the engineering).

As to this:

And speaking of uncertainty: We're not against statistically valid listening tests. We're just more aware than most of the challenges of doing them well and their tendency, as typically performed, toward missing effects that are subtle but real.

I can't help but mention again (I think the last time it was about JA's similar view), that that seems to beg the question. At least if one accepts or understands the justification for controlled (blind/double blind) testing in the first place.

If you take a difference between A and B to be real and audible, but can't detect this in controlled (e.g. blinded) conditions, how would you still decide it is real and audible? By what other method?

If you are ultimately wedded to going with subjective impressions no matter the results of the blind testing - "if blind testing doesn't validate my sighted impressions, then the blind testing was wrong!" - then this doesn't really seem to be having respect for blind testing. It would just obviate blind testing. When this is done it tends to leave the impression one is only paying lip service to the value of the scientific method, not truly being consistent with science.

I'm just trying to understand how you would square this because I very often see people using "I respect science BUT..." to make exceptions for every pet belief under the sun that doesn't hold up to rigorous scrutiny. Subjective experience is very powerful and everyone wants to drop the skeptical bar for their own most cherished experience or beliefs. I know I feel that pull.

(And I'm not arguing that the average audiophile/listener SHOULD start bothering with blind testing. But since you seemed to have raised the subject in your article, along with a particular claim...I'm guessing you don't mind comment on it)

"Plus, as the cliché goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Ok, I apologize for being all picky here, but absence of evidence is evidence of absence. That's the case when the evidence one would expect if X were true is missing. We use this principle all the time.

Claim: there's a pink cat under my chair.

I look under my chair: no cat. Evidence of absence.

Claim: "Your house suffered a catastrophic all consuming fire today while you were at work.

I get home from work, and the home is entirely intact, clean, nothing burnt, no smell of smoke, no evidence of fire. Evidence the fire was absent.

Back to audio: if positive claims are made, positive evidence should be available.

I like the mix you have going at Stereophile!

Cheers!

...my music for me.

Nor anyone else for that matter.

Please take a college level course on research methodology and test design to know why no one uses DBT for audio reviewing.

No one.

And take a course on the physiology of hearing and perception while you are at it...

We have some avid objectivists in our audio club here.

They have helped me solve the greatest mystery in all of Hi Fi: How does an objectivist choose his (it's always a he) Hi Fi gear?

By listening to it!

I know! LOL, right?

Did they double blind their listening and do instantaneous DBT switching prior to purchase? No. Did they buy the speakers with the best measurements? No. Do they eschew vinyl for only 24/96 digital? No. Do they talk about their favorite pressings of beloved LP's? Yes.

If it weren't for the internet, we'd all be subjectivists.

Then again, maybe our club's are phony objectivists and all the real objectivists just stay home, relax, and listen to digital audio on their well-measuring gear knowing there's no better measuring gear, so they would never join an audio club to chat about how audio gear sounds.

For the objectivists here: how did you pick out all your gear?

I read your magazine because of the “narrative listening journals” which I usually find highly interesting and well written, as well as the measurements with J.A.s assessment of them.
Yes, in the end, what matters most is what I hear and how, or if, it moves me; not the engineering behind it (though I find the engineering fascinating). The question always is, will I like what the reviewer likes? Will the sound have the same emotional impact on me that it did for him/her? This is where measurements can be invaluable. Because of the loss of so many brick/mortar stores, it is very difficult to audition and compare equipment these days. J.A.’s measurements, and perhaps most importantly his assessment of what they may mean to the sound produced, are the perfect balance to the subjective review.

Measurements will never guarantee emotional impact, too many variables involved to claim that. They become invaluable to me (again including J.A.’s assessments) in avoiding speakers that I most likely will not like, regardless if the reviewer loved them.

If the object of listening to live music is enjoyment, uplift, communion, eargasm ... there’s no reason to change standards when changing the ‘venue’ from live to home electronics. And as there is no reliable measurement for the experience of delights (among which are enumerated some, above) except as filtered through the human being in the throes of eargasm ... of what use to the listener, the music enthusiast is an FFT (etc), at all?

Measurements are useful to the designer, but seem fairly irrelevant once the component finds its final resting place in the listening room of the music lover.

“He who tastes, knows ...”

"Science requires us to have the courage to let our beautiful theories die public deaths at the hands of ugly facts. "

This is from an article from "Slate" about differences between Left and Right in politics. It applies to this thread as regards DBT. BTW, I'd like to see a DBT test, comparing the final track on an LP compared to the same track from its Digital source. In any case, here is an example of a study, Published in Science magazine, where an outside attempt to replicate that study failed to get the same result. Science magazine refused to post the rebuttal of the study they disseminated. I'm sure there's a lesson here to be learned that won't be:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/06/science-replication-conservatives-liberals-reacting-to-threats.html

I had been in dialogue with "ok" and all his comments have disappeared.

Server issues again?

I would like proof that Stereophile is the most high-end audio magazine in the world. IMO, You are in the top 5. I subscribe to other audio mags and I wish Stereophile would adopt some of the other publications features to make it better. For example:
1) A couple of the other magazines have many more pages, many more reviews, and the magazines themselves have a 25% larger format, and 1 of them is $2 cheaper per issue.
2) As for reviews, you claim there is a checklist for a company to have their product reviewed, but last year, Art reviewed a friends product.
3) I still can't get over the Totem review you guys messed up years ago and then tried to make it right by saying Totem's most entry speaker was 1 of their best.
4) You have reviewers that are so biased on certain formats that they will never give an open-minded review of a product outside of their bias.For example, check out this months Letters claiming Fremer hates/dislikes SET amps. In response, Stereophile defended Fremer. The Letter could have gone much further stating Fremer hates anything DIGITAL! I will never read another Fremer review outside of an analog product.
5) A lot of space is wasted per issue. For example: in this months Follow-up, you did 2 follow ups on the Joseph and Revel speakers. You did a very good job on the Revel follow up and appropriate. The Joseph speaker that you did a follow up on was not the same speaker as the original, but the Revel review was. The Joseph speaker had new technology in it so in my mind, this should have been a new review of a new speaker.
6) Reviewers should have good/great audio rooms. A dining room or living room isn't a good room. If the reviewers room is on the small side, then they should review small systems, or components that are designed for their size room.
7) Measurements? Why do we need them? What is the SQ difference if 1 product has .004% distortion and the other .0004%? No other expensive HOBBY magazine that I know of has measurements: auto, photography, audio. Other mags dig into the technology of the product but they don't disect it. In the end, they let their SENSES (eyes, ears, feel) dictate if the product is good, not by a graph or scatter plot.
8) It's almost always unfair to say a component is the BEST you have heard in your system. Why? Because the last time you reviewed a like component, your reference system was probably different that what you have today.For example: if you reviewed a DAC 4 years ago, your system was probably comprised of different components than what you have today. Maybe a few cables were changed or maybe your amps/preamp were changed, or worse, maybe you moved to a place with a better room. To actually state for certain that 'X' component is the best I have heard in my system, your system and listening room must be exactly the same.
9) when will a reviewer produce a negative review? NEVER (except for the Totem fiasco). I'll read a review of a $50k-$100k speaker and there will be parts of the review that are negative, but in the end, it's a glowing review. The reviewer always tilts the review to be positive.
10) Why doesn't Stereophile produce a segment on each of the reviewers listening rooms? Its size, room treatments, dedicated circuits, flooring, wall materials? TAS and HIFI+ have done this for years and it gives the reader insight on why a system sounds the way it does in the review.
11) Stereophile should create a cook off between products: amp vs amp, DAC vs DAC for example. But, the format should be done similar to how the car magazines do it. When say Road & Track compares 3 sports cars, they have 20 different criteria they evaluate and give each criteria a rating. These magazines aren't afraid of giving a car a bad rating either in each category or as a whole, and even if they are comparing the best with the best, somebody will always come in second and third. By the way, these car reviews are not done blind, each car reviewer knows what car they are driving. Same goes for audio. A good reviewer should leave their bias's at home