The Objective, Subjective & Dejected Thread

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Our wine consumption is directly based on what we like and almost in opposite to what wine gurus recommend…

By the way, I tried to find “reviews” of the sound of Disney Hall but nobody wanted to “speak-up”. We heard the Dude conduct Beethoven’s nine ir order over four days ands the 9th sounded so underwhelming! We also heard a double cello concerto that when the cellos played on the higher registries sounded great, but when they wanted the instruments to growl, it was sad.

Only Cameron Carpenter made the hall rattle, like your windows. But that was totally awesome!

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As it should be!

Only the weak-spirited subtend their true preferences to the “wisdom” of others. Especially when they have to pay to participate.

Wine gurus (and I’m a reasonably serious collector myself - about 4,000 bottles laid down) tend to follow similar trends to many reviewers in other fields. More expensive, or rarer, tends to be viewed as better (not always, but often enough it’s unmissable).

Reminds me of the Academy Awards too … better than even chance that any film that the “Academy” lavishes praise on will be something I can’t stand.

Always consider the source … and ideally consider more than one!

Those long-series productions can be so rewarding, it’s a shame that it was acoustically dismal! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

When I was still living in England, I got to attend a full performance of The Ring Cycle, over four days (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday). I ran out of ass before I ran out of gas on that one.

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A very dear friend, retired professor of Neurology at Queen Square, has been going to Bayreuth for decades and travels around the world to listen to it too. But he will never come to LA.

That’s too much for me.

The Dude was great with Deafman. The sound was nice until we got to the 9th. The pastoral one was very sweet, in a good way.

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@cstalgis - As you can tell, I’m sure, I am not an Amir fan. Nor do I have a high opinion of the ASR site. Please don’t interpret this disdain as a personal dislike toward you. That’s not my intent.

Perhaps I take for granted that not everyone may have been paying attention when the big drama happened. If you’re curious, have a plethora of time to read, and want to know what some of us are basing our opinions from, enjoy these links.

Link 1 - Main thread
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4 - Rob Watts (Chord)

I especially like the link 2 response, as Amir had previously accused Jude of only using one connection type for his testing (balanced, which was a lie). Then it was pointed out that Amir only used RCA outs from the Yggy on some (but not all) of his tests, so he backpedals and says “Vast majority of audiophile use unbalanced/RCA interconnects. So that is what I focused on measuring. Re-measuring everything with balanced would have doubled the workload and my experience has been that interest in that interface (for good or bad) is at best lukewarm.” Atomicbob, Torq, and every other experienced measurement taker in the hobby always measures both, often revealing differences in performance as shown in link 3. This apparently is too much work for Amir. Or it is a blatant lie, which was proven in link 3 as well, where it was shown Amir intentionally left out the better performing balanced measurements.

Anyway… draw your own conclusions. I’m done with this topic. Probably shouldn’t have even posted this, but… well, I did.

~fin~

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I have no interest in changing your mind on the matter, just to be clear.

My experience with ASR and measurements based audiophile types has just not jived with me. I concur with what @Torq has been saying so far in regards to this discussion… I prefer enjoying my music and gear, if it measures bad, but I enjoy it, I could care less about the measurements.

Measurements are very useful, I’m not debating that. Also to be clear, but I fall in the camp of this is a subjective hobby, there are too many factors and outliers in gear, people’s anatomy, experience, capabilities…etc for there to be any perfect or correct way to enjoy this hobby.

Example of ASR throwing a fit and not walking back on it is the Monoprice THX 788 DAC/amp combo…many people offered up working units and ASR at the time didn’t take them up on it…I’m unfamiliar if ASR caved and reviewed a working unit or not. That is just one, I have read plenty of back and forth via SBAF, Reddit and Head-Fi…but honestly I don’t frequently go to those sites as they all can be too much at times.

A good poster to follow and has a good reputation that counters ASR with reasonable response is AtomicBob I believe they post on SBAF, and Head-Fi.

Outside of entertainment, or morbid curiosity, I’ve stopped going to ASR, as it just isn’t for me.

I will bow out now, as I don’t think I have anymore value to add to this conversation.

I harbor no Ill will towards anyone here or over on ASR in regards to this… I do get irritated/annoyed but get over it rapidly as I know it is not worth my time overly so, outside a couple of posts.

We are all relatively well adjusted kids in adult bodies and can determine, and research for ourselves :grin: the key is not relying on anyone but yourself to come to your own conclusions.

Also whiskey and music are my preference for distortion :wink: currently on a rye and bourbon kick, but still enjoy my scotch or a Green/Yellow Spot of Irish whiskey.

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26

I read lots of product reviews. Sometimes it comes down to making tough choice or sacrificing one feature for another. I rarely buy on specs. I avoid ASRs take on things simply because the amount of skepticism surrounding his work. When I buy new equipment, I try to buy stuff with trial periods whenever possible, because sometimes even good products don’t blend with your system or with the end user. But another great argument for dealing with reputable companies with good return policies.

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Ooh, yes! Synergy is important! Currently my favorite synergy is Airist R2R DAC->Bottlehead crack–>HD800(SDR mod)

I don’t currently have the Airist DAC but I’m looking forward to getting mine greatly! After having time to play with a preview unit.

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Scientific Ideals versus Machiavellian Reality

Here’s my standard essay on the realities of academic science. I spent enough time in that culture to acquire both Ace bandages and little plastic trophies. I moved on largely because the daily reality among scientists is often the greater of evils, and the culture is rather neurotic. Eventually my essay returns to ASR, Amir, subjectivity, and objectivity. The point here is perspective – please, please don’t take an audio hobby website with free reports too seriously! Enjoy life!

Science is corrupt and fallible on many levels.

Personal Ambition and Failings

  1. Ego: “I’m the best in the world,” “I’m the first to do it,” “I’m an expert!,” “I’m THE expert.” Research often turns into p*ssing contests and vicious debates over small findings, small flaws, and tiny differences of opinion. The problem is that the industry is populated by “A” students who’ve never failed and often never taken significant life risks. Okay, you are king of this mud puddle. Here’s a dead leaf as a reward.

  2. Sophistry: Scientists and college teachers are notorious for renaming old concepts, creating complex terms for simple concepts, and otherwise obscuring the true basicness of their work. By far the weirdest examples come from Sociology and Critical Theory (as there’s no “there” there). Sophistry mainly serves to create the impression of superiority and maintain status/job security–it’s also an easy way to exploit impressionable young students and get tuition $$$ or initiate cradle-robber relationships.

  3. Naivete: When one sticks with their first career choice, meets up with a mentor with similar interests, and spends an entire career on a single topic, one tends to lack global perspective. And then the children of such individuals follow in their parent’s footsteps. The wise ones discover this and find their own trails in life. The timid ones preserve the ingrown research culture.

  4. Careerism over quality: Researchers need to pad their resumes/CVs to get hired or promoted, so they constantly game the publication system. They’ll split one idea into several “least publishable units” and create 5 redundant journal articles. They’ll slightly restructure the same work and publish it over and over. They’ll add their names to the work completed by others as the “leader of a research lab.”

Cliques ~~ Junior High Forever

  1. Ingrown Hiring: Departments hire those who think like they do, as “complimentary” to a program or research orientation. This just creates and perpetuates groupthink and anything-but-diversity (except on superficial physical differences).

  2. Peer Review Incest: Researchers must publish to prove their activity and value (see above), but sometimes others don’t care about the work. So, a small group will found a journal or take over a journal and swap “reviews” with their friends. It has the double benefit of making the clique appear to be experts; the clique then controls who can speak at all. Of course, other cliques split off and no one talks to anyone else. See the Sokal Affair (1996) for more information.

  3. Not Invented Here Syndrome: The egos (see above) in top research programs are so huge that good ideas from outside won’t be heard. One of the most notorious examples was the creation of continental drift theory (later plate tectonics), whereby the idea was not accepted in part due to the originator not being a geologist. This also played a role in the development of the Apollo space program in the 1960s.

Ideological Corruption

  1. When funded by a single political/religious group, research tends to look only at topics of interest to that group and to only report findings that support the ideology. It becomes circular busy work and progressively more distorted. This becomes obvious to outsiders, who eventually note that the emperor has no clothes. Read any of the intro sections of journals published in the USSR to understand. Some topics are so politically loaded (e.g., climate change, gender research, etc.) that one must exercise extreme caution about sources.

  2. Industry Funded Research: Capitalists do sometimes indeed put profit ahead of facts, and create fluff research to support tobacco, opiates, or other expensive nonsense. Careerist scientists play along to pay their bills, or because they are psychopaths.

The Grand Hamster Wheel

  1. Upon leaving office, President Eisenhower criticized the military-industrial complex for its undue influence on public policy. Big research is doing the same thing today, as the careerist scientists need work, and as NIH and NIMH spend a fortune to keep research labs open. More busy work, more obvious projects, more redundancy – if only you play ball and don’t rock the boat.

  2. Publish or Perish: Many of the factors above combine to demand individual conformity to the publish or perish research culture. The people with active science careers tend to engage in tortured rationalizations saying “It’s a flawed system, but still the best ever developed.” A strange view coming from naive, ego-driven, timid, and corrupt folks, but oh well…it pays their bills.

Now, back to ASR and Amir. He’s a pretty typical example of a real life scientist. There are plenty of obnoxious, sloppy, lazy, vicious, and flawed people working in science. The slick ones don’t let you see their flaws; they hug you as they stab you in the back. Amir is transparent and ultimately harmless.

Yes, he’s lazy and won’t finish some reviews. Yes, he’s inconsistent from review to review. Yes, he throws temper tantrums. Yes, he states subjective opinions as absolute facts. Yes, he invites conflict and steps on toes/hurts feelings all the time.

But, he’s only testing hardware with conventional software on a conventional test rig. His data agrees with other sources between 70% and 99% of the time. I look at his numbers and other numbers when available. I look at his data when someone sent him an oddball product without any published numbers, or when he’s the first to review a product. I totally ignore his subjective listening comments.

I visit ASR because it’s better than what came before…which in many cases was nothing at all. And I have enough experience to know that he’s a pretty typical ‘scientist’ in the real world.

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Speaking of scientists and your funny comments above, my good friend the retired neurologist taught me, and usually said it in his lectures, that if you ignore the literature you will discover new things!

It is funny, but I am not a trained scientist, I am not a doctor, I don’t have formal statistical training, but I am lucky enough to work with the top minds in the world in some specific areas, and they trust my insight and work. They are secure in their knowledge that they are not afraid to discuss issues with me. The ones that start with “but you re not a trained scientist” are the ones that get in trouble quickly…

I can figure out to an extent how much to trust Amir and ASR. (To an extent, it can get technical), I also observed his allergy to Schiit products. Notwithstanding that, I am so happy with the (apparent) neutrality or accuracy of the RME and SMSL. I also think that the upgrade from JBL 307 to EVE cs 207 was a big step when listening in my small office. (I work from home).

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What gets me dejected is that the objectivist vs subjectivist debate in audio hasn’t advanced beyond its current impasse. It reminds me of the debate between western medicine (let’s call it WEM) and complementary and alternative medicine (let’s call it CAM). WEM contends that since CAM largely lacks scientific studies to back up its claims with real measurements it is at best ineffective and at worst harmful, yet WEM practitioners invest relatively little effort in actually trying to scientifically study and falsify or prove CAM’s claims. CAM meanwhile contends that it brings many people positive results and that just because modern science can’t explain the results doesn’t make the any less valid, yet CAM practitioners seem to invest relatively little effort in actually studying their methods in a scientifically rigorous manner.

In audio, the objectivists claim that if you can’t measure it you can’t hear it and the subjectivists claim that measurements can’t capture the full experience of the human ear/brain. Neither side seems particularly interested in trying to fill the vast chasm between them with something methodologically rigorous, other than maybe the double-blind ABX test, which itself may or may not actually be a good way to evaluate the differences between audio signals.

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My favourite analogy to use when it comes to the Subjectivist crowd vs Objectivist crowd is with Hockey. Analytics have taken a huge step forward in hockey but they get a ton of push back from the so-called “200 hockey men”. Basically, the pushback is that if you haven’t played the game of hockey you don’t know anything about it (if you have not heard the headphone you don’t know anything about it). To an extent I agree.

Analytics are great in being able to tell you the statistical probability of a player’s ability to remain on the pace they are on, age when players start declining, etc… Same thing with measurements. They are great for letting you know what kind of sound you could be getting in a headphone and if you have to buy blind it is a great way to know if you are probably going to enjoy the headphone or not. There are outliers with both of course (Stellia & HD820 do not have the best measurements but are actually very enjoyable headphones. @Resolve said it best when he said the Stellia absolutely does not reflect it’s measurements).

Where the divide comes in is how both sides present themselves. The issue with this hobby in the online world is that no matter what forum you are visiting, your are going to see plenty of familiar faces. And among those, there are users whose opinions are basically treated as gospel. I won’t name names but most people will know who they are. And generally what happens is that instead of having an interesting discussion around the measurements vs what people are hearing, it turns into a bunch of absolutes. “This headphone is shit because so and so measured it and said so”, “You haven’t heard the headphone (or probably can’t afford it) so your opinion is garbage”. The signal to noise ratio becomes very low as rational discussion flies out the window.

The interesting thing is certain objectivist websites and subjectivist websites wouldn’t get a ton of play if a certain hivemind website did not exist. The front page of that site a year ago was pretty much littered with a Schiit stack and HD6XX posts and about how great the stack was and how everyone loved them. Then a couple of posts came out from Amir and all of a sudden Schiit was awful. Even though people were enjoying their set-ups, they had been told it was awful so it was now awful.

I’ve always maintained that measurements are useful but you should also be careful of the source of those measurements. While everyone likes to shit on Head-fi as a “Paid - For” site there is plenty of motivation on any website, they may just not be as open about it.

Since Tyll has left IF and has been replaced by someone that could have never filled his shoes in the first place (nobody can) and that someone hasn’t appealed to either the objectivist or subjectivist crowd, there are a lot people out there clamouring to fill the hole that Tyll left. The issue is that Tyll was great at listening, taking objective measurements and giving his subjective impressions in the review. And you very much knew if Tyll like the headphones or not and even when producing a negative review he gave his reasons why the headphones were bad in his opinion and then backed it up with measurements. He didn’t give measurements and explain why the measurements made the headphones bad. He was great at saying what he would recommend and wouldn’t recommend without making it an absolute. And I think this is where it gets taken a little to the extreme on both sides by people who want to be the next Tyll.

I think a lot of the discussion (or arguments) can also be because of age / wage gaps. A lot of the subjectivists in this hobby tend to be older in age with money that they can spend on gear. They would like to just buy the gear, sit back and enjoy it without being told that they made a bad purchase. The flip side is a little bit different. The Objectivist crowd also can consist of an older crowd with money as a lot of them are sound engineers, scientists etc… And those are the people that are putting out the measurements and EQ presets. But then you get the sub-genre of Objectivists that consist mainly of college students who don’t quite of the income to get to the summit-fi. And I think that this is the crowd that clashes the most with Subjectivists as they are coming from a very opinionated environment (college classes and campuses) and bringing that mindset to the table when it comes to discussing gear. But not everything needs to be an argument.

This got a lot more ranty and rambly than I intended but I think the point comes across.

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While I appreciate measurements, the biggest gap at the moment for the ‘objectivist’ camp is that there’s no clear way of measuring certain qualities of the experience the way there is for the perception of tonal balance. I think there’s been some progress on sense of soundstage, but it’s still not there yet. And as much as THD is helpful in some respects, there’s a clear sonic trends among headphones with biodynamic drivers and those with beryllium drivers, or planar magnetic drivers, or estats etc. beyond just “low distortion”. Missing these qualities of the experience is why you get these ridiculous conclusions from RTINGS that indicate something like a QC35ii is better than Stax for ‘critical listening’, among many other hilarious results.

I like being able to read a FR graph to get an indicator for what something might sound like, or to potentially identify problem areas for me, but I think relying strictly on measurement gear to form opinions would only be more plausible if we could perfectly measure everything to do with the experience. I know there are people who think that frequency response is the only thing that matters and that this is a perfect data point for sound. But even then - even if we were able to measure FR at the ear drum and get a perfect indication of the sound, it’s not a substitute for actually having that experience.

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RTings is a useful site if you know how to use it. It’s an awful site if you want their opinion on something.

I feel like I add to the problem with posting measurements, and even despite my disclaimers and explanations, I still feel like people can misuse them because they don’t understand what they mean. I still do it for my sake, but I’ve been seeing a lot of IEM measurements being posted lately on HF and other places using all sorts of various setups. The problem is they are posted without a reference (whether that be a compensation of some sort or a comparison to a known commodity), and that is completely unhelpful since each measurement rig and conditions can vary, especially if you’re using something that’s unique to you – like Dayton IMM-6 for example. Each mic is calibrated differently and what you use to couple it with will vary from user to user. It’s not a standard, yet people post measurements, and then people compare a random measurement with another random measurement using a completely different tool and not really understanding and making random claims.

Anyway, I understand the elite “one shall stand, one shall fall” mentality. I used to do that when I was a stupid ignorant college student with things, but then I joined the real world and out of my bubble and my mind opened up for the good. I also became a “real” engineer and understood that numbers and data are just one set of data points and they can be manipulated however which way you want them to be manipulated. The real-world isn’t black and white. It’s extremely gray.

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The counterpoint to this is that resolution is extremely difficult to compare on the basis of listening tests. I play with EQ to an unhealthy degree and can attest to the fact that even 1-2 dB differences in the frequency response can make a huge difference in apparent detail. So, when someone tells me that one headphone resolves better than another, I approach that with a great deal of skepticism since no two headphones are tuned identically, especially once you take each listener’s individual anatomy into account, so teasing apart the effects of frequency response vs whatever else may be going on seems nearly impossible to me.

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Yeah definitely. I’m not about to suggest that it’s not strongly dependent on FR, just that FR doesn’t tell the whole story. Like, it would be better if the Stellia had a more linear FR (at least for my preferences), but there’s more to it than just the V shape.

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Indeed. One of the most baffling things is how different parts of the frequency response interact because of auditory masking and the like. I literally just a few minutes ago added a narrow bass boost to my DT 1990 EQ at 50Hz and I swear it improved vocal presence and timbre. I would never have guessed that such low frequencies would have had much of an effect on vocals and only stumbled upon this by emulating Sonarworks’ EQ.

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This is a fascinating thread/discussion ands I have enjoyed reading it. Surely whatever a person gets out of the hobby as a whole, be it enjoying the music listening more to the equipment as some do or even simply tinkering and measuring as many do we’re all here to enjoy ourselves.

There do seem many different facets to our hobby and I have listed but a few. Frank and open discussion must be encouraged as well as transparency when discussing objective measurements and fact based data.

I get it people are passionate but as @TylersEclectic hinted to in an earlier post when you get bullied and harried for simply stating a different perspective on something someone has said or done then it passes from I want to participate in to something I won’t waste my time on. There are lots of fanboys in all hobbies and interests and to be honest (sorry I am going to generalise now) I find that many of the worst culprits tend to be young men with too much testosterone and not enough sense. They’ll grow out of it.

I aren’t going to comment on ASR because honestly a lot of the data goes over my head and this part of the hobby just doesn’t interest me that much. Sure an FR graph is fine but all the other stuff regarding sine waves and minuscule tolerances one will never hear anyway is not my bag. But each to their own. All I will say on the matter is that people certainly take their measurements very seriously. In the end though is it really worth falling out over.

In all honesty I would rather listen to my music and polish my gear.:grin:

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Just gone through your links and done some reading. Thanks for these by the way. This made for a fascinating read and much food for thought. I don’t think these guys are on each other’s Christmas card list.

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No, I would say not! That made me laugh.

I can only imagine them gathered around the table at Thanksgiving. Hide the carving knives!

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Sigh. I adjust my resume/credentials based on the audience. Academics indeed won’t speak with those who are not trained or in the club. The real snobs won’t even speak with anyone outside the circle of elite schools. This has resulted in severe blind spots, intellectual weaknesses, and real-world vulnerabilities. It’s is only now being taken seriously after many decades of decay.

He has given positive reviews to a few Schiit products, but that’s a known sore spot.

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