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objective vs. subjective rabbit hole

There are many on this site who advocate, reasonably enough, for pleasing one’s own taste, while there are others who emphasize various aspects of judgment that aspire to be "objective." This dialectic plays out in many ways, but perhaps the most obvious is the difference between appeals to subjective preference, which usually stress the importance of listening, vs. those who insist on measurements, by means of which a supposedly "objective" standard could, at least in principle, serve as arbiter between subjective opinions.

It seems to me, after several years of lurking on and contributing to this forum, that this is an essential crux. Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective preference, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices? Or is there some middle ground here that I’m failing to see?

Let me explain why this seems to me a crux here. Subjective preferences are, finally, incontestable. If I prefer blue, and you prefer green, no one can say either of us is "right." This attitude is generous, humane, democratic—and pointless in the context of the evaluation of purchase alternatives. I can’t have a pain in your tooth, and I can’t hear music the way you do (nor, probably, do I share your taste). Since this forum exists, I presume, as a source of advice from knowledgable and experienced "audiophiles" that less "sophisticated" participants can supposedly benefit from, there must be some kind of "objective" (or at least intersubjective) standard to which informed opinions aspire. But what could possibly serve better as such an "objective standard" than measurements—which, and for good reasons, are widely derided as beside the point by the majority of contributors to this forum?

To put the question succinctly: How can you hope to persuade me of any particular claim to audiophilic excellence without appealing to some "objective" criteria that, because they claim to be "objective," are more than just a subjective preference? What, in short, is the point of reading all these posts if not to come to some sort of conclusion about how to improve one’s system?

128x128snilf
deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

I paid an acoustic engineer to design and setup the acoustics in my room. He took a lot of measurements and made adjustments to finalize the result. It sounded better than anything I had previously. For most music and most of my moods it is great. There are times, though, more my mood than anything, where I use the AV processor and one of the ambience surround modes. It sounds more alive and I enjoy it. Other times it just sounds fake.

My cheap headphones have never rocked. The moderately expensive ones, those rock. I recently purchased some IEMs on a whim that were measured for very very low distortion. If the measurement is accurate, the distortion is not that much higher than Sennheiser's stupidly expensive flagship. I have not heard that one, so I cannot make a comparison, but there is something sublime about the low distortion and perhaps it is the distortion without room reflections, but the proverbial "I am hearing things I never heard before" is happening in spades.

invalid
1,073 posts
 

A room can be measured, but a lot of times it has to still be tweaked afterwards. 

audiorusty
263 posts
 

Measurements are useful as long as you know how they relate to what you like.

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,823 posts
 

Why would anyone pay more money for products that underperform?

audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
1,985 posts
 

In the end, you buy equipment to impress yourself audibly, visually, and viscerally, within your set budget constraints. It is you that ultimately must be happy with the end result of components gathered and interconnected. To base a purchase soley on a measurement is ludicrous. A measurement does not always dictate how something will ultimately sound to one’s ears and in a specific room. You should listen, at all costs, to something before buying, although not easy in today’s world with so few brick and mortar establishments. Tastes, in both equipment, music, room furnishings, differ greatly. It’s good to be you and listen to what you want and through a piece of equipment that is titillating to your own ears. No one else is chewing your food for you.

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