"Just read your May 2005 As We See It for the first time in many years," John wrote. "Great stuff!"
Could 20 years really have passed since I wrote that piece? Back then, I was in a different career, indulging my hi-fi passion by contributing to Stereophile on the side; now I'm in my seventh year as Stereophile editor. Then I was still a youngish dude; now I am an oldish dude. "Time flies" just doesn't capture it.
Some readers will surely remember that long-ago editorial. It was about a product dubbed the Intelligent Chip, a small piece of—well, something—encased in plastic. I wrote, "This small, plastic-encased device is claimed to permanently improve the sound of CDs. Just place the chip atop your CD player, insert a CD, and press Play. 'The sound of the upgraded disc more closely resembles the sound of the original master recording.'"
How was it supposed to work? "Some have implied that it has something to do with quantum dots," I wrote. "Aligning protons has also been mentioned, along with 'artificial atoms' (possibly another reference to quantum dots) and the rearrangement of 'stray bytes'—unruly ones and zeros, presumably—on the typical CD." (footnote 1)
I recounted a story John Atkinson had told in a newsletter. A few years before, he found himself convinced by Enid Lumley's demonstration of the pizza-box tripod tweak—at first. She put said device on top of a CD player. "When she did the test, I did hear the difference," John told me back then. "On my own, no difference, which I ascribed to Enid's powers of persuasion."
Persuasion powers aside, I've had similar experiences—not with pizza-box tripods but with any number of real system changes at home with my hi-fi. Some changes hold up; some disappear. Others remain audible but ultimately don't matter.
Rereading that old column presented me with an obvious question, one I was not eager to grapple with: How have I changed? How have my views changed over 20 years, 6+ spent as Stereophile editor? I've gotten older and grayer, that's for sure. I've lost some lean flesh, but consistent with the gray hair, I feel I've grown wiser.
If the Intelligent Chip reached me today, I would be no less dismissive. The problem is not that it has no apparent mechanism of action; it's that there is no plausible mechanism of action. For such a thing to make sense, we'd need to involve religion, metaphysics, or the paranormal.
As listeners, we're fallible, all of us. We're vulnerable to the power of suggestion. Hearing is not a function of ears alone but of the ears and the brain working together in complex ways. Anything that changes our perceptive state of mind can alter what we hear or how we hear it. All that means we have to be careful.
That's why some audiophiles believe in rigorous scientific testing—ABX, DBT, and all that. I don't blame them. Such tests can provide assurance, a sense of certainty, which is comforting. Some people are more comfortable with uncertainty than others. I remember well the uncomfortable feeling just after I started reviewing for Stereophile of not being sure. I desperately sought an aspect of the sound that I could latch onto, something I could be certain about. I wanted to turn a subjective review into a math problem. That would make me less vulnerable, less exposed under the critical gaze of readers. In time I learned to trust (but verify) my subjective judgments.
A former hi-fi reviewer once told me that the reason he quit was that hi-fi reviewing is too hard. It can be done well, but to do it well requires too much time and too many resources. He had a point—which is not to say that I entirely agree. One approach is to dedicate as much time and as many resources as possible—which is why Stereophile does the most extensive and rigorous reviews in the industry, with weeks and months of listening plus careful measurements. Still, our reviews can't provide the absolute certainty I once craved. The familiar state for Stereophile reviewers is to be confident but not certain. You might say that finding the right balance—rendering meaningful judgments while acknowledging uncertainty—is the essence of what we do.
Scientific certainty is great, but it's expensive, and some problems—such as the ability of a component to provide musical satisfaction—are, if not intractable, then at least poorly suited to a scientific approach. A scientific approach goes against the experiential nature of listening to music for pleasure.
I'm not going to turn this column into a disquisition on scientific testing. That important topic has been treated at length in these pages (footnote 2). Suffice it to say that a scientific approach is essential whenever we can't afford to be wrong, as in medical research—but the effort to eliminate false positives makes a test less sensitive to real effects.
Whenever occasional errors are tolerable, we can make do with less rigorous proof, including the opinions of experienced listeners. I know of few hi-fi companies that use scientific testing routinely in product development; instead, they use trained, experienced listeners and trust their ears. That's what we do, too.
Among my favorite questions to ask reviewers is "Are you sure?" Can they stand behind their observations confidently? Said reviewer may pause, then answer "yes, I'm sure," or go back and do more listening. I trust our reviewers because I know them to be serious people. I know they have good ears, plus integrity. I think you should trust them, too, but you get to decide that.
How have my views changed in the last 20 years? I've become more attuned to, and more interested in, gray areas. More than I was 20 years ago, I'm skeptical of my own theoretical knowledge, hence my ability to determine what theory excludes. An observation that lacks a ready explanation may nevertheless have an explanation, as long as it doesn't violate logic, as long as it remains plausible that an explanation will arise. If we can avoid what philosopher Daniel Dennett has called "greedy reductionism" (footnote 3), a measured skepticism leaves a lot of room for us to play in.
Chips, however, are still for chumps.
Footnote 2: Also see J. Gordon Holt's 1982 essay on using the ABX comparator for blind tests here.—John Atkinson
Footnote 3: See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greedy_reductionism.
COMMENTS
Excellent editorial Jim. "If the Intelligent Chip reached me today, I would be no less dismissive. The problem is not that it has no apparent mechanism of action; it's that there is no plausible mechanism of action. For such a thing to make sense, we'd need to involve religion, metaphysics, or the paranormal." This is exactly what audiophiles need to hear.
The Recommended Components are always fascinating and, likely the most difficult feature to put together each year. I can read it and always be surprised at what’s included. It’s … not a “summary” of what’s good, so that’s my misunderstanding I suppose.
I say that because most reviews read positively, so really, why wouldn’t anything be recommended? That aspect has been covered extensively, starting with the fact a reviewer has no reason to review something they are not interested in.
More practically, someone somewhere will prefer the gear that lost “a shootout” or suffered that single line from that single paragraph that implied the other gear was unquestionably better.
if you hear it, you hear it.
Basta!
Only your degree of down-to-earth sobriety and rationality determines whether you want to hear it or not. In other words, are you (rationally) convinced in advance that it can't work or are you open to it, do you hope for it, do you want it (to work).
Indeed, scientific tests only want to objectify something that is not objective, the experience and perception of musical emotion.
Didn't we have to use a marker to mark the top of our CDs dark green 20 years ago?
Or now, does the GroundAray by The Chord Company work?
As said, if you hear it, you hear it, then it works, at least in and between your ears, and is that not your yardstick, your reference point?
….and disregards the rest.
My audiophile journey began as a teenager listening to a pair of Dynaco A25's, a Sony receiver, and a Thorens turntable placed high on top of a bookcase. I often laid on the floor of my parent's rumpus room listening to the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Herman's hermits, etc.
Reading J. Gordon Holt and Harry Pearson taught me about gear and listening to music. My gear changed many times over the years and my listening repertoire grew broader and deeper.
Getting hearing aids 10 years ago made me appreciate "sound" again and getting in touch with Michael Green (formerly of "RoomTunes" and "Tuning") got me the rest of the way with my gear.
There are many, MANY, roads to Rome or Audio Nirvana or wherever the heck you are going to...
"Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come following you"
who are now brainwashed by their own skepticism has increased 100 fold in the last 15 years.
If anything can be mistrusted to reduce and to satisfy their own superior position and intellect, it is done and with indignance and disrespect most times.
There is no desire to come to the writing or the writer for a conversation and to explore the 'gray' areas (at least 9 out of 10 times on this website). They are to be wholly ignored to extend their established dogma, however similar or different to the conviction of the writer. "Assume they are lying to you to sell a product..."
It is what I have found over 25 years of reading and posting here.
And everything in this audio hobby is gray areas. Insert a cheap, 1980's DAC into a new system of the highest caliber and experience the full value of 'gray', where only parts and bits make musical sense, drenched in distortion and noise and timing errors. How would a reviewer or writer make sense of that??
With patience, observation and earnest intent. One can do nothing else.
So why assume there is a nefarious agenda with every publication and writer?
Because it's just trivial jealousy- one person writing and one person reading. And all too often the reader is not the authority and without a voice.
They want a conversation with the writer, but they don't come to the table with a handshake first. So they resort to 'greedy reductionism' to validate themselves in relation to the writer. A strange assumptive position to take when respect between writer and reader is almost assumed- especially with liberal, intelligent writers that show a desire for a conversation- scientific or philosophical.
But there are times when prejudices and assumptions are thrown down and a new relationship is forged in mutual respect between writer and reader.
I find it here too. When the open hand is extended time and time again in the spirit of equal discovery, it creates trust and friendships and a conversation is suddenly created. Perspectives are broadened. A writer can also learn a trick from the reader and that writer becomes better at their craft.
... the full value of 'gray'?
You still have in your system since then.
lol... ya burnt. J/k
... referring since back in the 1980s there were relatively few separate DACs, let alone cheap ones.
This is one of the more on-point comments I've seen here.
There is perhaps nothing more moralistic, defensive, and biased than the meter-reader. It's ironic how dabs of interpreted data grant scientific omniscience, and how that omniscience makes everybody else deaf and probably crooked.
Well said, Glotz.
Until you get a better, more objective picture of reality, measurements, physics, and science are the only way to accurately quantify what is actually happening when the sound comes out of those speakers.
Sure, not everything is measurements. But the only thing worse than “meter reading” is one who insists that their subjective experience trumps all that. The effect is to make everything relative, and pretty quickly the .0001% takes over the 99.9999% in the review, and it becomes meaningless.
Perception of sound and the human mind is such a subjective thing that you HAVE to apply some sort of metric, or a million words of review are meaningless.
It’s like posting a review of large speakers and saying “yeah, these are large speakers” while refusing to measure their actual dimensions. Theyre just huge, and you’re going to have to take the reviewer’s word for it, despite the fact that it would be easy and much more informative to actually get out the tape measure.
Listener and reviewer Tom Norton refers to the "objective observation". I like that. It works. Given that he's seeking audible realism, this refers to assessing which components and combinations are good at it.
I think you say that this reality may not exist, and that until it does, data must do. Two problems with that. The first is that it's an unfounded opinion and the second is that there is little data-sound correlation.
I find your second paragraph even more of an opinion, and from an even greater distance. Third paragraph denies the very acuity for good experience, which means that seeking it is moot. More subjectivity. And more denial of those who can and do hear and remark, although I assume you'll tell us, from no experience, that they may not.
Which is why they have you, right?
And the last paragraph is an obvious strawman from an even greater distance still.
I ask then, how may we assess sound? By what approved method, if not our own damn ears, would you allow any commentary at all?
“There is little data-sound correlation”? Tell that to JA and the Stereophile staff, who usually find strong data-sound correlation. And as JA recently stated, without the reviewer seeing the measurements first. Because, you see, the measurements don’t lie. But the human ear is SUBJECTIVE.
I guess there must be cases when you can hear full extension to 20hz, even when the measured frequency response curve and manufacturer’s spec indicate a steep rolloff at 60hz.
I’m so done with arguing this solipsistic nonsense.
Bridal magazines have a churn rate of about one year, so it's about 12 months between "how to pick the most beautiful venue that fits your budget" issues.
Sports magazines also have yearly topic churn.
I guess we are currently experiencing the churn cycle for phony tweaks. This calls for an official review of a fuse or coffee table cream.
When it gets to this level of attention to subjective experience of esoterica and unrepeatable minutiae, it just gets in the way of enjoying the music IMHO.
Some things we will never understand. I’m more than okay with that, while still maintaining a healthy skepticism of anything that smacks of snake oil, especially when big $$ are involved.
That said, I consider standardized test measurements to be essential, and JA’s test results that conclude each full review are what set Stereophile apart from the rest.
In fact, I’ll even often skip straight to the measurements section if I’m curious about, say, the bass extension of a loudspeaker under review. It’s a quick, visual way to get a an idea of the speaker’s characteristics and performance in that area without having to search for and read a bunch of subjective listening notes on the topic in the review itself.
I’ll then go back and read the review to get a more subjective, experiential, and fine tuned idea of how those measurements translate into the listening experience. Even if the measurements stink!
If you hear it, you hear it
Basta!
and if you believe that the audio industry is a (and only) honest industry where only people of integrity work, then you believe it!
Basta!
I also believe something, namely that the world is one big temptation where everyone is after everyone's elses money.
But then again, if you put a potato on your speaker and you hear a difference, then you hear a difference.
Basta!
Lots of record reviews. Lots of two paragraph articles from audio shows with a photo.
But now you seem to run fewer equipment reviews on the site. Budget cuts?
Lots of record reviews. Lots of two paragraph articles from audio shows with a photo.But now you seem to run fewer equipment reviews on the site. Budget cuts?
I had a quick look at the past couple of years' issues and the number of full equipment reports is about the same, all of which are reprinted on this website.
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
Part-time Web Monkey
Remember the Magic Eye posters. Some people could never see the 3d image. For others it just popped. It is about how the phenomena reacts with the individual human brain. This is the realm of the placebo and recency bias. The most effective placebo in high end audio is the price tag.
...a Sherwood receiver when he moved into an apartment with his girlfriend.
He figured out a way to play music from his iPhone.
What does that sound like...?
"Scientific certainty is great, but it's expensive, and some problems—such as the ability of a component to provide musical satisfaction—are, if not intractable, then at least poorly suited to a scientific approach."
Ability of a component to provide musical satisfaction isn't an audio "problem" and, actually, has nothing whatsoever to do with the component or with audio. It's a projection of a listener's psychological state onto an inanimate machine doing work -- a piece of audio gear reproducing a signal. And in order for us readers to understand it -- or even care -- we have to realize that a review or article discussing the reviewer's sense of satisfaction has left behind audio and the equipment's performance as topics and entered the realm of reviewer's feeling as the subject matter.
It's like the world of audio, which used to be about audio back when I got interested in it 40 years ago, has become just a way not for middle aged white guys who maybe repress their emotions IRL to let a little of their emotionality out by projecting it on to a machine and then talking about it.
If people want to talk about themselves and their feeling, that's fine. Me, I'm interested in audio, not the feeling of any person on the Stereophile staff. The almost solipsistic, emotional projection that has swallowed a big chunk of the audiophile world in the post-Art Dudley era has left me behind completely.
I wonder, from a circ/traffic POV, is Stereophile kind of doubling down on this sort of gobbledygook working? Maybe it is, I mean, here I am commenting instead of doing what I normally do, just skim through these "think" pieces and the reviews and skip to the measurements.
Had to "thumbs up" this comment.
I agree. For the most part, other than when the reviewer talks about concrete descriptions of the product, a purely subjective review about supposedly perceived sound quality is:
"... a projection of a listener's psychological state onto an inanimate machine doing work -- a piece of audio gear reproducing a signal."
Nothing wrong with a reviewer describing whether they liked a product or whether the sound checked off their list of preferred characteristics, and idiosyncratic preferences. That could make for entertaining reading; no too much different from an opinion piece about a new album or new movie for personal enjoyment I suppose.
However, if the audiophile is interested in high-fidelity, then there really is no substitute for objectivity, measurements, and blinded listening tests especially for such esoteric and bizarre products as the "Intelligent Chip"!
[LOL, check out the Positive Feedback review from 2005 - the Chip can be bought to upgrade either 16 CDs for $16 or 30 CDs for $40 - somehow it keeps score. Do we seriously need to waste our time on this fraud? Can educated adults not just call out the nakedness of this scam and demand that the company provides evidence first before the claims should be given any attention!?]
While there are of course many good, fair dealing companies in the audiophile space, let's not be naïve as if there are also not many companies clearly out to make a buck with snake oil. Whole product lines (eg. expensive cables) take advantage of insecure audiophiles susceptible to mere claims with no evidence! If the real science behind the Intelligent Chip is basically understood as the placebo effect demonstrated on the fMRI, why do we need to send money to this "Golden Sound" company to make a profit when money should really be spent to award companies with real R&D that make devices that actually "work"?
So what's there to lose with the pendulum swinging back to a more educated, objective perspective of the engineered hardware hobby? At least we don't have to waste time or money on Intelligent Chips, and hopefully enjoy more music and spend more time on other things that interest us.
Metrophilia is a disease that is as bad as pure subjectivism.
_
We have wild and weird rationalization on both sides of the tightrope...
"I need higher fidelity to enjoy music at a higher level." Oh, please. That's like saying you can only finish the job into Manolo Blahniks and not Liz Claiborne shoes.
Or, this stuff...
"...there really is no substitute for objectivity, measurements, and blinded listening tests..."
Yeah, why don't you go do that, champ.
This hobby is optional, it's a frivolity, it's for pleasure, it's not a death march to some empirical truth or some weird guy-flex to pretend spending more makes you or the music better.
I can see Archimago's disdain for some idiot saying 300,000 dollars in interconnects elevates musical enjoyment, and I understand Glotz mentioning that there is a component of connoisseurship in the hobby beyond plugging our stuff into oscilloscopes to 'objectively prove' we like a piece of gear; but, folks, these are toys and there is no need for these weird camps that waste so much of their members' time lobbing aphorisms at each other.
Rant concluded.
If I spent thousands of dollars on cables, you'd better believe I would hear a difference.
...if they get something for "free"?
"Delight"?
Any audio component can provide Musical satisfaction. A long time ago I had a little transistor radio (remember those) that I carried around to listen to rock and roll music on an AM radio station.. I had to hold it against my ear in order to even hear it. I listened to the early Beatles on it. It provided musical satisfaction.I loved it.
Enjoyment of music has nothing to do with "sound quality". Nothing to do with components. It's a subjective emotional experience. I did become an audiophile and bought audiophile components. But I came to realize that they are just toys. Cool looking overpriced toys. My car has the standard stereo system that it came with. But I get at least as much enjoyment from it as I ever did from any "high end" home system. Probably more. I like expensive toys as much as the next guy.But they have nothing to do with the enjoyment of music.
Hearing more of the music through a high-end audio system does allow listeners to appreciate more music, whether through improved soundstaging, imaging, or a more-accurate frequency response; hence leading to more intrinsic enjoyment.
A purposeful, 'warm'-ed up frequency response in any system can and do lead to more enjoyment, if the listener is after that pleasure-inducing presentation. Accuracy can mean 'closer to the instrument played', and hence more harmonics that are pleasing to the ear (if the music is pleasing to begin with). These elements of music and its intrinsic pleasurable aspects are generally reduced with a lesser system, like a car stereo, but not always.
Also, to assume that all manufacturers develop products to be purely accurate (and not catered to warmth, smoothness or a relaxing presentation) is folly. Many products are an intentional blend of both.
When I was young I would have loved to drive a cool car like a Ferrari, now when I am older I do not think so anymore, frankly I would be a shamed driving one today.
Same thing with hifi, now I like stuff that do not scream in my face like almost all hi end stuff do today
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