Bridging the Objective and Subjective Realms

[SoCal Sam]

Cosmo-D managed the rare feat of trolling his own recent thread and getting it closed. Please give him a break and not call him out so this thread will stay open. Anyways, Cosmo-D does shed light on the difficulty of bridging the objective and subjective realms, the meaning and application of both, and ultimately how they are connected. Cosmo-D correctly rejects all other subjective impressions because he cannot directly experience the sound as heard by other people. To take this further, it is possible to be fooled by one's own senses so Cosmo-D takes his proposition to the extreme and rejects his own subjective impressions. This is classic existentialism in which the only truths are internal to one's own mind. Existentialism is flawed in that the ultimate expression is the main weakness. Clearly, people interact with each other and the environment based on perception and what must be an approximation of the truth. Cosmo-D does not indicate if he is able to form a personal preference. If he were able to, then audio gear choice has meaning which is not a nihilistic pursuit. At good ole AK, we have seen countless times enthusiasts making gear choices based on personal preference.

People's opinions can be wrong. This entire stance of subjectivity being the ultimate factor is an intellectual dead-end. It's kind of like nihilism: everything may ultimately be of no consequence, and sound quality ultimately rests with the listener, but it isn't useful. You can make statements that sound subjective ("the amp is bright" or whatever), but ultimately stuff like is based on an objective phenomenon (frequency response). Someone else listening to the same amp could come to the same conclusion. I don't think sound quality is as a subjective thing as you think it is. If subjective impressions were the most important thing, there would be no point in discussing anything with anyone—as they can never perceive things exactly the same way as you. Because people can broadly agree on "subjective" impressions they must be backed by some sort of external reality or phenomenon.

Basically whatever an individual can "hear" is largely unimportant.

 

[Todd Dodds]

Finally, something that makes total sense and nonsense. I'm going to wear my very best audiophile clothes for this, as well as keeping my cogitating pipe nearby.

 

[ehoove]

Thread noted and followed closely. A turn down the wrong road will lead to a dead thread!
Regards.
Jim

 

[musichal]

Socrates preferred tubes while Aristotle was a silicon man, if that helps with the philosophical viewpoint.

 

[Joe Roberts]

The way that subjective and objective realms are linked is that "objectivity" is a cultural construction and hence subjective and contingent, despite the claims for universality made for it.

A truism in social science is "What man believes to be true is true in its consequences."

The socially constructed nature of the worlds we live in is not something we ordinarily reflect upon so it gives us a common ground which we can share in our perceptions and categorizations of experience. it looks and feels and works as if it is "real." There may even be consistent correspondences with empirical realityy, but this isn't a requirement. What is important is that it makes us feel communal and serves as a guide for common action.

There are libraries of academic thought on this question of how humans bridge the gap between individual mind and social interaction. Culture is the gap-filler and it is a subjective enterprise. As a set of shared conceptions, there emerges a context where such orientations become social reality.

Objectivity never really existed. Humans don't work that way. No serious scholars believe in objectivity anymore. it is a historical footnote in intellectual history.

I recommend "empiricism" as a much more realistic and useful substitute term for what most self-described "objectivists" are trying to get down with.

That is a short summary of the last couple hundred years of thought on the topic and pretty much where things stand today, among professional thinkers on these matters.

 

[rickb119]

My first thought;

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

― Robert McCloskey (also quoted by Alan Greenspan)

 

[E-Stat]

One challenge with objective measures is the assumption is that metrics performed on uncorrelated sine waves somehow represents identical results to using dynamically varying structures of complex harmonic waveforms, aka music. As for me, I discovered the virtual irrelevancy of THD when I was a teenager. I had low distortion designs from AR and Crown that lost resolution at the low end of the dynamic scale or exhibited a harsh, closed in response in the upper octaves. Pass.

It's very easy to obtain wonderful static metrics - use boatloads of corrective feedback to whip the device into submission. For me, however, those designs fail to render natural sounding results using observational criteria.

 

[quiet]

I can be objectively receptive to the subjective conclusions of others.
Or I can just be stubborn, hardheaded, ornery, and lonely while learning everything on my own.

 

[4-2-7]

Cosmo-D correctly rejects all other subjective impressions because he cannot directly experience the sound as heard by other people.

And thats why one needs to roll up their selves and dig in, nothing will be written out to be a winner on specks alone.

The end result is what we hear at the end of the chain, we change from day to day, our moods change as to what we like and how we hear.

 

[4-2-7]

I can be objectively receptive to the subjective conclusions of others.
Or I can just be stubborn, hardheaded, ornery, and lonely while learning everything on my own.

I think that's perfect advice to Count-D, good post because he's working on the latter.

 

[quiet]

That way takes to long.

 

[Superampman]

This is relative to the nonsense of ABX. Given enough time to analyze the gear, there's no problem perceiving differences. So this simple fact confirms the ability to arrive at consensus.

 

[Powertech]

The problem as I see it with audio is that there can be two opposing camps.
One camp says that all measured criteria are useless and that only their 'golden ears' can tell the difference between cables or amps or whatever.
The other camp says that if you can't measure it it isn't there.

My position is to take the middle ground. Both measurements and listening (comparing) has it's place. If general consensus says a particular loudspeaker sounds 'bright', lets try to find out why and maybe explain it and try to understand it. The knowledge gained might be useful when designing the next pair.

 

[soundmotor]

I'm a solipsist myself and your beliefs about things are such only because I allow them to be that way, for the moment.

 

[darkblue94]

Everybody needs to have something to believe in, right now I believe I'll have another beer.

 

[quiet]

I've got 30 receivers and use them all. Their performance by and large matches what was said about each and everyone of them here on AK. There have been few surprises.
Collective subjectivity can be predictive.
And that's a lot more available and doable than many people trying to make in house lab measurements.
Listen to subjective observations, average the results, throw out the high and low, make the purchase. If you want to purchase.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

This is relative to the nonsense of ABX. Given enough time to analyze the gear, there's no problem perceiving differences. So this simple fact confirms the ability to arrive at consensus.

Except two listeners might not arrive at consensus. One might like the sound and the other not, or one might claim the change has made a difference and the other might claim it doesn't make a difference.

And we know the sense of hearing is a conflation of the sense of sound (ears) plus other senses (sight) and cognition (what you know). That's why major audio manufacturers use blind and double-blind testing during R&D.

That being so, how do you know the difference you perceive is really due to a change in sound and not just due to what you know?

 

[robert_kc]

I’ll share two opinions that I think are relevant:

1. Large-scale orchestral music and opera involve complex sound that has a clear benchmark (i.e., live performance in their intended venue with no electronics involved), and IME large scale classical music cannot be reproduced with 100% accuracy via recordings.
2. All hi-fi equipment is imperfect, and colors the sound to some degree. A few published hi-fi specifications like frequency response, signal/noise ratio, and THD do not capture all qualitative facets of reproducing the complex sound of classical music. Each audiophile must choose the trade-offs that suit him or her, based on their unique sensitivities to sound, their tastes in music, their goals for their hi-fi system, their listening room, their budget, etc.

It is therefore inescapable IMO that subjectivity is introduced when evaluating the quality of reproduced music – at least for the classical music that I love.

 

[JoeESP9]

The T-Shirt I'm wearing at this very moment says, "Science doesn't care what you believe.".

 

[Superampman]

Except two listeners might not arrive at consensus. One might like the sound and the other not, or one might claim the change has made a difference and the other might claim it doesn't make a difference.

And we know the sense of hearing is a conflation of the sense of sound (ears) plus other senses (sight) and cognition (what you know). That's why major audio manufacturers use blind and double-blind testing during R&D.

That being so, how do you know the difference you perceive is really due to a change in sound and not just due to what you know?

My position is borne of observation. I can't produce empirical evidence except the accumulation of incidental agreement over time. When enough people arrive at the same conclusion, it tips the balance in favor of consensus vs pure subjectivity. The fact that a balance appears suggests it's there to be tipped, the side holding subjectivity already having given itself away. It's the one with all the bias in it's many forms. There is no grey area when it comes to this question. Arguments result in semantics and ad hominem.

I wanted to mention this has absolutely nothing to do with preferences where the vast majority of disagreement stems from.