Are you a Subjectivist or an Objectivist?

[Robin L]

Oh no, you insulted Ann Rand. Along with Alan "irrational exuberance" Greenspan.

I blame Irrational Exuberance for most things that head south.

 

[Zensō]

I came to audiophilia from the pro audio world. At first I thought somehow I’d been missing out on all of this amazing gear, then I started to feel confused and suspicious about some of the claims, then I finally realized, “these people are nuts!” Fortunately, I figured this out before flushing my life savings down the toilet.

 

[MattHooper]

Oh no, you insulted Ann Rand. Along with Alan "irrational exuberance" Greenspan.

Ha! Everyone loves insulting Ayn Rand. She's the go-to punching bag in philosophy. If she hadn't come on the scene, I don't know who else everyone would have to kick around

As they say 'words are our slaves, not our masters,' so in communicating you always have to look at what a word has generally come to mean in a particular community. "Subjectivist/Objectivist" are not perfect, but it's pretty easy to understand what they mean in the world of audiophiles, in particular once you've identified the general area of disagreement.

And if you want to change the terms to something "better," we need to make sure the substitute at least does the work of what it is replacing - that is it should capture the gist of the divide. I'm honestly curious as to what other two terms people might suggest for this.

As I mentioned before "Uncontrolled" doesn't capture what is going on in the debate. It's just one feature of one side's method. If it's not an epistemic disagreement between "subjectivist" and "objectivist" on what constitutes the more reliable approach to knowledge about audio gear, what else is it? And if it is the epistemic disagreement, what are two better terms that capture this? I'm all ears, and not claiming there isn't anything better (only that we already have two terms that DO capture the gist even if imperfectly for now).

There is also the aspect that if you are going to propose terms that a community may agree to adopt as descriptive, they should at least roughly be terms each side might accept. There may be an impulse to give "your team's" term a positive shine, and the other team's term something derogatory. So "Atheist" vs "Theist" seem to be acceptable for one such division, where "Atheist" vs "Deluded" isn't (or "Theist" vs "Sinner" isn't either).

 

[Killingbeans]

I'm a sceptic, or at least I try to be one in the realm of audiophilia.

I do my best to evaluate claims about audibility in the light of the understanding I have about physics and electronics, and if I run across a subject I have little or no knowledge about (happens often), I try to do my evaluation on the basis of whatever hard evidence is being presented.

I don't really like the way the terms "objectivism" and "subjectivism" are being used in most discussions about audio, but if I absolutely have to confine myself to one of the prevailing definitions, I should probably be labeled as "objectivist".

I totally get that, in the audio hobby, business is pleasure, and therefore anything goes, as long as people don't feel they've wasted their time and money.

But my personal mission is to get a better understanding of how things actually work and how I can get effective results without getting sidetracked more than absolutely necessary. The conventional way of treating the hobby as a tasting session is not doing me any favors.

 

[raistlin65]

Measurements are almost always the full story.

Love how this poll is using the rhetoric of how subjectivists define objectivism.

 

[dc655321]

Can you put me down as an Evidentialist?
Hope I didn't make up a word. Again...

 

[MattHooper]

It's always tough to capture everything relevant in a definition, or description. Given there clearly IS a disagreement among audiophiles we are trying to identify and capture, how's this for a try?


The subjectivist’s method does not question the reliability of his informal subjective impressions as a way of gaining knowledge about audio gear.

The Objectivist starts with recognizing the unreliability of his informal subjective impressions, and seeks to counter these limitations by appeal to more objective methods of inquiry that can even trump his informal subjective impressions as a way of gaining knowledge about audio gear.

Another way to put it:

SUBJECTIVIST: believes that informal subjective listening impressions are the most reliable guide to evaluating audio equipment. One can “know” how audio equipment performs simply by this method, and subjective impressions rendered this way are more reliable methods of insight than objective measurements, or scientifically designed listening tests.


OBJECTIVIST: believes informal subjective listening impressions in of themselves are neither reliable enough nor sensitive enough to understand how audio gear performs. Therefore the objectivist holds that we can only “KNOW” how equipment performs by appeal to objective measurements, and by correlating measurements to listening tests, especially listening tests using scientific controls for bias.


So: IF this doesn't essentially capture the essence of the two approaches audiophiles so often argue about...what does?

And if it DOES, can someone propose two different terms which capture the difference better than "subjectivist/objectivist" have thus far?

 

[MattHooper]

Can you put me down as an Evidentialist?
Hope I didn't make up a word. Again...

Problem is what constitutes "evidence?" One camp will say informal listening constitutes sufficient evidence for evaluating audio gear, the other will say that is insufficient evidence, and say we need to bring in more objective data, and stricter listening protocols, before we are justified in being confident about our conclusions.

Both sides view themselves as "evidentialists." So that has to be disentangled.

 

[JRS]

I picked hard O, but then to my amusement I found myself wanting to split hairs and place myself between a plain O and an HO. Like it matters.

It did help me flesh out my own ambivalence, and I began to wonder if on the one hand the O's wanted things to sound good, whereas the S's wanted the sound to make them feel good--good being a place holder for feeling sad, passionate, bold, energetic, happy, bedazzled, entranced, enchanted, melancholic, nostalgic, etc., that is to say the exact destination may be less important than having music kick oneself out of the default mode of brain reality into an altered state. To compare it with a drug induced strate isn't altogether unfair, but it potentially cheapens the experience, making it something less than wholesome when we are merely doing something all cultures do and have done since the dawn of time, and likely a practice which has significant value to our species survival.

So damn straight I want it to sound good, SINAD numbers off the chart, perfect Harman score, an acoustically near perfect listening room, and the entire history of human musical history just a thumb wheel away all in 24/192 splendor, ane enlivened with good video feeds when available. And here is the part that had me leaning back from the Hard O ideal, and saying but what if all that isn't enough? I want need that PRAT, and an emotional connection to the music that makes me want to sing or to dance or play air instruments or wave my arms furiously at my imaginary orchestra. How does the quality of the sound service that goal?

And I think that really is the crux of the matter--the S men and women do not care so much how that emotional involvement is evoked and whether its even or odd or both types of distortion that help to get those feet moving, that they move is all that matters. You see this with musicians--they can get scads of joy from a frumpy systemin fact, be absolutely delighted by it, whereas the bloated bass and sibilance of the system makes me want to cover my ears and for cover. And while it hasn't happened all that many times, I have heard some fine objectively high scoring systems that for some reason didn't captivate me the way that my somewhat cobbled together systems in the past have done. That's one of the really fun things about the RMAF. In the early days, it was all kinds of cool with some absolute gorgeous sound issuing forth from the most unlikely contrivances. Sort of forces one to hit the reset button when it comes to expectations of high fidelity. And what I wanted to say is where I had those technically excellent, emotionally uninvolving encounters.

And for me that's one of the joys of DIY--it is much easier to tailor a system to one's taste--I like it loud, I like it clean and i simply prefer planars. I also like my bass to be fleshy, and taut (and invariably expensive). I don't care if I can imagine picking out all the string instruments along the inner semicircle of a symphonic orchestra. Just keep the drum kit reasonably proportioned, the vocalists of human proportions, and I'm pretty much good to go.

Certainly nothing I have written here is news. I think that for some individuals there is a certain technical standard that needs to be met before one can fully engage with the music, and that the better the playback the greater the engagement. And at some point it can become so important, that achievement of greater technical merit allows for fuller engagement irrespective of actual improvement. It's almost as if that security of knowing the numbers are great at some point enhances listening pleasure in it's own right. And again who cares? If thats the ticket, punch it.

I believe that some day we will discover the actual ways in which we are wired very differently. I'm with SIY in what may seem like an extreme stance that anything short of highly focused listening where differences in sound can be described clearly with words and correlated with msmts really isn't the subject of any useful discourse. That doesn't negate all the wonderful adjectives that come tumbling off our tongues as we simply notice what is so effing good about even stereo reproduction when done right. Again it's that damn O in me that so wants to enjoy the tunes but is driven to distraction by technical shortcomings, which is why the msmts matter.

I appreciate the post--the past week I have found myself spending more time wondering whether we aren't all missing an opportunity to make some headway. The ABX food fights are predictable, and predictably unfulfilling. But my gut tells me that there are some intangibles out there that aren't being fully captured--at least that's what 50 years of on/off devotion to the art/science/metaphysical aspects of music reproduction.

I was pretty much hooked from the get go; no pusher man needed to encourage my interests. During about ten years of that time I had enough $$ to go a bit off the rails and ended up with 40K of gear that just wasn't consistently pushing my buttons and what led to my eventual discovery of DIY, and knowing the absolute importance of having well behaved transducers in a decent acoustic space.

 

[Rja4000]

It, for sure, varies with subject.

Electronics measurements will probably tell you everything. Or close enough to.

Transducers are a different matter, IMO.
Although a lot has been done to objectify it, most transducers are still too far away from perfect to say there is no audible difference that you couldn't predict with measurements.
Or, maybe, that I can't deduct by reading the measurements. The limiting factor might be me.

 

[dc655321]

Both sides view themselves as "evidentialists."

No. Some people think opinion and fact are interchangeable.

 

[Dogen]

I voted Objectivist. While I respect and enjoy the race for absolute perfection in build and measurements, once something is good enough the be audibly indistinguishable from perfection, I will happily choose based on appearance, ergonomics, pride of ownership, brand heritage, and sentimentality.

The situation is not so simple with speakers and headphones. There are too many variables in room interactions, seating position, use cases and headphone fit. I’m not sure we can define perfection for these products; it’s more individual.

 

[MattHooper]

No. Some people think opinion and fact are interchangeable.

Yes, actually they do. "Subjectivists" really do think their "ears" supply all the "evidence" they need to evaluate audio gear. That's their "evidence."

If someone is calling himself an "evidentialist" he needs to define what constitutes "evidence," and why the other side should accept this account of "evidence" as well (if he's making an argument for it). And saying "evidence = facts" isn't terribly helpful, as it may just be begging the question and just moving the question on to what constitutes "facts?"

Nothing wrong whatsoever with calling yourself an "evidentialist" so long as the term is defined, and if it is offered as a "better" stance, then the case has to be made without simply making assumptions or begging the question. I think it wouldn't be too hard to do so.

 

[JJB70]

I see it as a false dichotomy since there is no inherent contradiction between objective and subjective, I see both as complementary. I think measurement tells us about equipment performance, and is essential to filter out lies, scammers and dumbness. However it doesn't say anything about build quality, durability, functionality, user interface, industrial design, warranty support etc. And we all have FR preferences etc, if you like a kooky FR or distortion then that's what you like, however in general I think it is far more sensible to design neutral and then let people use EQ to get their preferred colouring. Where I probably differ from some is that I approach the subjective from the other direction from golden eared types. If an amplifier or DAC is audibly transparent then I am not interested in chasing metrics or telling myself something which measures better must sound better. In fact I think chasing metrics is just another form of subjectivism.

 

[Momotaro]

I see it as a false dichotomy since there is no inherent contradiction between objective and subjective, I see both as complementary. I think measurement tells us about equipment performance, and is essential to filter out lies, scammers and dumbness. However it doesn't say anything about build quality, durability, functionality, user interface, industrial design, warranty support etc. And we all have FR preferences etc, if you like a kooky FR or distortion then that's what you like, however in general I think it is far more sensible to design neutral and then let people use EQ to get their preferred colouring. Where I probably differ from some is that I approach the subjective from the other direction from golden eared types. If an amplifier or DAC is audibly transparent then I am not interested in chasing metrics or telling myself something which measures better must sound better. In fact I think chasing metrics is just another form of subjectivism.

I selected 'equal/neutral' for that reason: the approaches are complementary in my experience.

And in practice. I'm interested in lab measurements for equipment selection. But I won't buy a speaker without listening. I'd prefer to listen to an amp too (but really, I want to hear the amp/cable/speaker/room system). I don't feel the need to listen to a DAC [edit to add: but I did consider Kal Rubinson's subjective evaluation]. Otoh I won't set up speakers without measuring. And apply DSP for room correction etc at the source. And ideally, I'll treat the room. That's it for basic equipment: source>DAC>amp>speaker>room.

The last point of the JJB70's post is also interesting: it's not uncommon for different poles of an apparent value binary to converge at the extremes. In the case of audio equipment, once sonic performance is satisfactory (ie "transparent") there is no objective reason to value graph hygiene above aesthetics or haptics. The underlying values in each case are subjective. Assuming that they aren't is one of the points of confusion in the audio objectivist/subjectivist binary.

 

[JiiPee]

I don't care about labels, but here's roughly how I make my purchase decisions:

Phase #1: I go through the available information - especially measurements - regarding possible candidates, and use the information to weed out those that I deem not good enough using my own subjective pass/fail criteria. I don't care what the HIFi gurus / influencers etc... say.

Phase 2#: I listen "the finalists" preferably in my living room. This is not a controlled blind test, but a subjective listening test affected by all the psychological etc. factors.

Phase #3: I make a decision based on my subjective listening experience plus my subjective evaluation of things like build quality, look and user interface.

 

[KSTR]

All depends on the use case for me.

For recreational private listening all that counts is the illusion produced. Music playback systems are illusion systems, and I don't care what the measurements are and I also don't care about a holy untouched signal path and I do actually process the digital input signal heavily in various regards. Everything that makes for a better illusion for me is more correct by definition.

Otherwise, and wearing my engineering hat, I look for best measurements and when those are "good enough" I rely fully on them, not even considering listening tests (big exception: speakers)

In general, +1 for what @JiiPee said above.

 

[solderdude]

I don't care about labels, but here's roughly how I make my purchase decisions:

Phase #1: I go through the available information - especially measurements - regarding possible candidates, and use the information to weed out those that I deem not good enough using my own subjective pass/fail criteria. I don't care what the HIFi gurus / influencers etc... say.

Phase 2#: I listen "the finalists" preferably in my living room. This is not a controlled blind test, but a subjective listening test affected by all the psychological etc. factors.

Phase #3: I make a decision based on my subjective listening experience plus my subjective evaluation of things like build quality, look and user interface.

I suspect this is the modus operandi for most ASR members.
In many cases the 'auditioning at home' is not an option though.

 

[Kevinfc]

Frankly I don’t know why you’d come around here if you weren’t a pretty solid obectivist. There’s not much in the way of flowery language when describing equipment among the faithful . Admittedly, I am a reformed subjectivist, probably the worst kind. I find myself cringing at the mere mention of terms like “soundstage”, “weight“ and “airy”.

 

[Chrispy]

Or a hobby. Audiophilia?

I think audiophilia more as an affliction/disease....