@djones51
You need to think a little more.
I’m working on it!
@cd318
Therefore I would argue that no sighted comparison can ever be called objective. Many experiments have also previously suggested as such.
I would argue that sighted comparisons should be called objective, just not necessarily reliable in terms of correlation with other methods of comparison. The sighted comparisons are objective comparisons, as are the unsighted ones. While it is interesting, and I think telling, that the unsighted and sighted perceptions don’t always correlate well, it doesn’t move either of them into the realm of subjectivity. It’s only the part about a person preferring one of their perceptions over another that is subjective.
Once you bring human beings and their impressions into the equation you have lost objectivity and are now lost in the realm of subjectivity bias.
Humans and their impressions must always be involved. That's not the essence of what makes thing subjective. I agree with you though that repeatable and consistent perceptions through a variety of testing means helps us to interpret our perceptions better. Objectivity is not necessarily correctness. And correctness will only be determined by further human perceptions. I've given the example of flying an airplane without visual reference and no instruments before. A person can try to keep a plane flying straight and level by feel alone. They are using their perceptions of motion as an objective method of controlling the airplane to the best of their ability. A radar operator may have a different perception of how the airplane is doing. From their perspective on the radar scope the airplane may appear to be banking hard left and diving toward a mountain. Future perceptions of airplane wreckage on the side of that mountain correlate better with the radar operator's perception than the pilot's.
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@czarivey
When I say "ears alone" I am suggesting that the ears are working and attached to a conscious living person who is using them to listen, but they can’t see or otherwise know what equipment they are listening to.
However, ears can do all kinds of interesting things when not attached to a living brain. They can reflect light, warm up or cool down in response to ambient temperature, be dissolved in acid, decompose or be digested by rats. That's just a short list of all the things ears alone could possibly do. Whether or not they can "do crap", well I think you're right. I don't think they can "do crap." But maybe there's a way they could even do that!
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@edcyn
why is the stuff my wife cooks (she's the cyn in edcyn) so much better than the stuff I attempt?
Maybe she adds love as an ingredient. Or maybe she's just a better cook. You're lucky she'll cook for you!
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@nonoise
Good find! It's one thing to gaze at one's navel, another to be observant while gazing and notice the lint.
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I love the fact that there's good food all over the earth. Go to the moon and I'll bet you can't find anything good to eat there right now.
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Scientists, engineers, designers and manufacturers are all subjectivists and objectivists at the same time. It's not being objective that reliably creates good results, but careful testing of objective claims. Subjective claims can't be tested except subjectively. Does this banana taste good? Let me try it. Yup, I like it. Or at least I liked that bite. If I say that is a good tasting banana, that's a subjective statement, but it implies an objective fact that I like the taste of that banana. If I say I like that banana, that is an objective statement about myself that can be tested. Let me try another bite and see if I still like it. If I say I like this banana's taste more than another banana, that is an objective statement about myself that can be tested with a double blind test. I might be wrong about it. It might be the look of the banana that is affecting my perception of the taste. I'm enjoying one banana more than the other but misunderstanding the reason for my enjoyment. Or maybe not. So called "subjectivists" actually make many objective claims that they don't carefully test. That's not subjectivity.
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@mijostyn
To determine that something is 12" or 18" is still going to require perceptions that have to be interpreted. I don’t think it’s useful to call every interpretation of an instrument readout "subjective." At that point everything becomes subjective. Subjectivity I feel is a word better limited to describing our feelings about what we perceive, if we find it pleasurable, distasteful, intriguing, boring, etc. Saying one dowel looks longer than the other isn’t saying anything about feelings. It’s just a factual perception, which may change when more perceptions become available. Your system sounds accurate to you. No need to add the word "subjectively." If you like the fact that it sounds accurate to you, that says something about your subjective state.
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@cd318
I agree with what you are saying overall but I think calling poorly established objective claims "subjective" is not the best use of that word. It suggests there's just a sliding scale where some facts are more objective and some ore more subjective depending on how well they've been established. So that means anything can be called subjective or objective depending on where you set the threshold for required evidence. David Hume divided things into "is" and "ought." He pointed out that you can never logically derive an "ought" from an "is." An "ought" will always be subjective, and an "is" will always be objective, even if the "is" isn't correct. The nature of the kind of statement is what makes something subjective or objective, not the experimentally established truth of the statement. If someone says their stereo sounds the way a stereo ought to sound, that's a subjective statement and there's no amount of repeatable testing that can make it objective. If someone says they can hear the difference between two cables, that is an objective statement and no amount of testing that proves they really can't will ever make it a subjective statement.
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So I see I am not persuasive in my attempt to shift the use of words. People can use "subjective" and "objective" as they see fit. Ultimately words are defined by how people use them, not by how someone like myself feels they should be used. So yes, I see that people use the word "subjective" to mean something determined by direct individual perception without any robust testing controls. The senses can be blended together in a completely uncontrolled manner and whatever perception comes to a person is said to be that person’s subjective perception. It becomes objective, or at least more objective, when some kind of control has been placed that forces a person to discriminate without any kind of knowledge about what they are listening to other than the sound that reaches their ears.
So what do you call it when a person passes a double blind test and prefers one sound over the other? We just call that preference and say that preference is not subjective? That means that subjectivity only involves uncontrolled perceptual issues of external fact, not preference, which seems a bit bizarre to me but I could get used to it.
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@mceljo
I remember reading that Paul Klipsch hired people he called "golden ears" to test his speakers on. These people were typically not audiophiles or musicians or recording engineers, just people who demonstrated an unusual ability to hear things that others couldn’t. Of course they scored great on standardized hearing tests, but they also could do things like properly equalize an intentionally imbalanced signal very quickly with a high degree of accuracy by ear, or detect distortion at unusually low levels.
I like your "open to bias" interpretation of "subjective." It’s hard to be biased about certain facts that are plain to almost everyone, like the number of drivers on a speaker. One of the useful things about science is that it can take something that is open to bias and make it plain through alternate methods of observation. When a person claims they can hear the difference between two devices but only when they know what they are listening to from visual and other sensory input, it’s difficult to prove them wrong. You can trick them by switching components when they don’t know but for whatever reason even when you let them know they’ve been tricked it fails to be compelling evidence to them because when they’ve checked and are sure about what they’re listening to the perception comes back to them. It can be very hard to overcome perceptions, which is why it takes some considerable training to learn to safely fly a small airplane on gyroscopic instruments when there’s zero visibility out the windows. Proprioception doesn’t match what the little gages and dials are showing my eyes.
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@djones51
I would imagine the goal with electronics is to make them consistent enough that DB differentiation is not possible for even those with the best ability to discern. It seems like it could be possible with those kind of devices, unlike speakers that don’t have as tightly defined performance parameters, such as what the dispersion pattern should be.
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@ghdprentice
I'm totally with you about how measured parameters can fail to predict my perception of sonic outputs during sighted listening. My theory is that my hearing perception can be heavily influenced by various factors other than the actual qualities of the sound itself. So far non of my experiences have contradicted this theory, but multiple situations have confirmed it.
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@ghdprentice
You are correct! My ears can be quite sensitive to nuance and the whole of my ears and brain together can be quite discerning at times, for instance hearing distortion that my analyzer software has mistaken for background noise, or detecting a very slight shift in imaging that turns out to be a contact that needs to be cleaned or tightened down.
@dvddesigner
I consider myself a subjectivist that finds measurements useful. Measuring the placement of speakers very carefully can be quite handy as a starting point rather than just trying to eyeball them into position. If it still sounds off and you know the speakers are positioned very accurately and symmetrically, at least you know positioning is not the cause of the problem. Taking a near measurement sweep of one speaker and then the other and comparing them can tell a lot too. It may not reveal what the sweep should look like to sound subjectively best to you, but it's a pretty safe bet they should look very close to the same or the imaging will be off.
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@rvpiano
What defines an advanced system? Complexity? Cost? Measurements? Subjective sound quality as perceived by a select set of listeners? I tend to think of an advanced system as one that employs sophisticated techniques, such as more speakers, more drivers, electronic digital crossovers, perhaps a double bass array setup to eliminate lower bass room modes, or at least a distributed bass array of some kind with equalization. It may or may not sound good to everyone but it is certainly advanced in the sense that it couldn’t have been done with older technology. I’m really interested in things like AI upmixing to separate instruments into different channels, or cross talk elimination. I’ve heard crosstalk elimination and for me it’s an absolute improvement - at least on some recordings. The cross talk from a standard stereo configuration is an obvious flaw that gives the same kind of sound flaws always, with any two channel system that doesn’t eliminate it. We learn to hear past it but it’s way better if you don’t have to. Although I think some people have learned to love it and stereo just wouldn’t sound right to them without it. They've got a point that the recordings were mixed and mastered with the inevitable crosstalk in mind, but I've not heard properly implemented crosstalk elimination make anything sound worse to me. I think what happens is the crosstalk sets an upper limit of expectations on what a recording can sound like, which might be why I've found the most compelling recordings with crosstalk elimination to be the ones that weren't mixed at all - just recorded straight as stereo. I’ve learned to hear past it most of the time. Trying to eliminate it is just too much of an inconvenience.
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