There's Too Much Subjectivity in Audio

shack

I think I just continue on with my subjective "seat-of-the-pants" technique that has served me well for nearly 40 years.

PolkThug

shack wrote: »

I think I just continue on with my subjective "seat-of-the-pants" technique that has served me well for nearly 40 years.

That's crazy talk!! How can you enjoy yourself not knowing the percentage deviation from the standard? :D

shack

PolkThug wrote: »

That's crazy talk!! How can you enjoy yourself not knowing the percentage deviation from the standard? :D

That's just how I roll......on the edge!

heiney9

shack wrote: »

I think I just continue on with my subjective "seat-of-the-pants" technique that has served me well for nearly 40 years.

Right On!!!!! Whatever sounds good to you. I don't need measurements to tell me something sounds good. I use measurements to loosley confirm what I hear when a measurement and what I hear have a correlation.

Example: reviewers stated the SDA 1C's had among the lowest bass distortion they had ever measured. Before even reading that comment I felt the 1C's had some of the best bass I had ever heard in terms of extension, linearity, clarity and naturalness. The measurement/comment only reinforced what I was already hearing.

Just one ex. I pulled out of my a$$

F1nut

Just one ex. I pulled out of my a$$

LOL.....

Actually, it was the SDA SRS 1.2's in Stereo Review. "we have never measured a low bass distortion level as low as that of the SRS...we found that the passive radiator response varied only a total of 7dB between 12 and 90Hz."

dorokusai

Circa the 1980's.

bikezappa

heiney9 wrote: »

It won't sound the same (or measure the same) once you get it home in your room with your gear with your music with your ears and your brain processing the information.H9

It doesn't need to sound the same. But you can make a guess/judgement as to how close it sounds to the original.

Way back when AR, Acoustic Research, tested there speakers, amp and turntable by playing recorded music with a live string quartet. They switched the recorded music off and on while the quartet faked playing music. They were comparing live verses recorded music. Many people couldn't tell between the quartet and the speakers.

That's the best test, but nobody does that any more.

heiney9

F1nut wrote: »

LOL.....

Actually, it was the SDA SRS 1.2's in Stereo Review. "we have never measured a low bass distortion level as low as that of the SRS...we found that the passive radiator response varied only a total of 7dB between 12 and 90Hz."

They said the same thing about the 1C's in the 1987 review on www.polksda.com

"Phenominally low.........extraordinarily low......they don't remember ever measuring distortion less than 1% at 25Hz in any other speaker at the time."

Last page left column and center column. .

In fact all the SDA's of the last gen or so had extraordinarily low bass distortion.

heiney9

bikezappa wrote: »

It doesn't need to sound the same. But you can make a guess/judgement as to how close it sounds to the original.

Original what? You then become at the mercy of the recording, and a recording isn't an exact reproduction of the real thing. So do the variations come from the speaker or the recording/playback process?

H9

TroyD

Yashu wrote: »

Standards won't happen simply because manufacturers have too much to hide. How could they convince you to pay their exorborant prices if they measure the same as something a quarter of the price. Why do you think bose does not publish ANY measurements?

I would love SOME standard... a song, a CD, a tone, noise, whatever... but then the makers would actually have to man up and justify their cost.

It's ****, man. Pretty much every speaker maker publishes FR curves and so forth, I mean there is no lack of info out there. It STILL doesn't guarantee ANYTHING.

Even amps, there are tube amps out there that look AWFUL on paper but sound fantastic.

However, thing is, you can't hear a graph on a piece of paper.

BDT

Yashu

If it can be measured it can be heard. Period. How those measurements factor into how we hear the sound is what is up for debate.

TroyD

Are you sure about that? Were that the case, how do you account for the difference in sound in anything from amplifiers to capacitors?

I don't think that everything that is audible is measurable.

BDT

bikezappa

heiney9 wrote: »

Original what? You then become at the mercy of the recording, and a recording isn't an exact reproduction of the real thing. So do the variations come from the speaker or the recording/playback process?H9

Correct but it is a start. My other posts on this subject said that you need a good recording engineer and equipment.

Yashu

how do you account for the difference in sound in anything from amplifiers to capacitors?

Uhhh... they measure different. Quite different. Even two capacitors from the same line will measure slightly different. There are some batches that are better than others... some weeks, for instance. Sometimes one factory will produce better parts than another when they are the same part. CPUs are the same way, you can very reliably predict how far a chip can overclock by checking to see what week, what batch, and what factory they are from.

Are all wines the same just because they are from the same company? Some years are better than others. I drank a 2000 Kendall Jackson that tasted better than wines 5-10 times the price, and none of the other vintages since have managed to taste as good (but it didn't stop Kendall Jackson from jacking up their prices).

Tubes are an example of something that we have studied and understand roughly why they sound pleasant to us, but measure worse on paper than SS gear. We should keep digging and trying to learn all we can about our relationship with sound.

Nothing is the same. Quantum mechanics mandates that this is so. There is no way around it. We can measure, and we can continue to increase the accuracy of our measurements. That is the approach we should take. We should be objective about this and try to determine what makes something sound better than something else, however, the fact that no human EAR is the same, means that we can only go so far with this. Measurements will serve as a baseline, and your ears the ultimate test.

Look closer next time you read the literature of the truly high end. It seems the more you pay, the less you know. There is a middle ground, an area where you get the most for your money, which is also the equipment that publishes the most, and the most accurate specs.

I know that there is plenty of equipment better than NAD, for instance... but their specs are backed up by independent testing, and in fact, the real world testing exceeds the manufacturer specs... and so I feel it is worth my support in the company. They are, at least, honest. There is a lot of dishonest hifi out there, and there are also audiophiles that kid themselves with talk about transparency and being closer to the music, but buy consumer hifi instead of pro monitoring gear. I don't kid around... I know what I am getting, I know what I enjoy and if I want the best hifi money can buy I would look towards the pro audio market, like Genelec, but I like the "house sound" of my gear. I may be an objectivist, but I know what I enjoy.

I will tell you this, the landscape of music is only going to get more diverse. No longer is music ONLY what comes from an actual physical instrument and recorded through the air. It is only going to become more complex, more abstract, and with less reference. I have many albums that are this way... they were produced, mixed, mastered entirely in virtual space. We need to be objective and search for what brings music so close to our souls, and the best way to get it there. Machina Dynamica is only the beginning of a new wave (but certainly not the first) that exploits the faith in subjectivism, and the only way to fight back is with knowledge.

But it's your money... and hifi is sortof like a religion. I find many religious people confusing, but I don't order them to stop believing, despite the mounting evidence against a 7000 year old earth, or whatever. It hasn't stopped science, despite their efforts, and it (blind faith) shouldn't stop us from trying to figure this out either.

Systems

Early B. wrote: »

For audiophiles, there should be much less subjectivity in audio. Here's what I mean -- let's assume that the goal of all audiophiles is to create a system that most closely re-creates real music, i.e. real instruments, and natural sounding vocals. So a middle C on a piano will only sound one way in my room. There's no subjectivity about it. We could easily test this sound by rolling in a piano in my den and playing a middle C.

If there's too much subjectivity in audio, then how can one even begin to sort out the thousands of products on the market? One product could never be said to be better than another product, except if it is solely based on individual preferences. And how much value should we place on someone else's opinion, particularly when they have different gear, different room, etc.?

Here's a bold statement: for most of us -- we don't know what real music sounds like in our own rooms, so we have no baseline for determining how our systems should sound.

There are ways to make this hobby less subjective. I say it's time to do that.

I did not read the answers to this here so my answer is raw from yours. I completely agree. I come from the IT industry and the AV Industry is not that far off and in fact is headed more towards my industry. I have been amazed how theses so much "snake oil" sales in AV. There is a lot of subjectivity especially in peoples genetics (ears) but there’s a lot of crazy things out there. It might be that its pretty advanced stuff in nature (physics, electrical or general engineering). Hearing is subjective, there are people who’s hearing is better or worse out there but even that can be averaged somewhat. You know, I just try to target good bang for the buck AV items. Proven technology that works and will make me happy. People would call my Outlaw amps weak for this or that or Polks crap or something like that. But you know what, it sounds damn nice to my ears and I didn’t bleed buying it.

I find that a lot of it is being called out as BS now-a-days, especially up on AVS. I found the theater design pages packed full of very good info with good science backing it.

treitz3

Due to the recent turn in this thread, allow me to step back in. I have to agree with TroyD......and before I say anything, screw the naysayers. Everything audible is not measurable. IC's,PC's,SC's may all have the same exact characteristics/metals/capacitance yada,yada...but when you place two similar items in the same space [utilized location], the end result is sometimes a slight change when it comes to audio reproduction.

I personally haven't played around with caps and high end internal components or tubes for that matter, but I have no doubt that they also can change an unmeasurable characteristic of the audio reproduction, even if nothing else changes but the sound stage, tonal qualities of an instrument/singer, or location of an instrument. Absolutely no doubt at all.

That said, have you ever had a measured sound stage difference?
Have you ever had a reproduced location of an instrument when the reproduced location changed/moved measured?
Have you ever seen texture in reproduced music measured?

I haven't as of today's date.

hearingimpared

Yashu wrote: »

Uhhh... they measure different. Quite different.

That makes sense but with all due respect and no disrespect intended, everything after that comes into the baffling with **** category. Sometimes I can't get past the first paragraph of your dissertations.

Systems

Ya, I think of people still short change how much the actual environment that your equipment sits in matters. You can put $50000 speakers in my bonus room with crazy walls and it would still sounds like poopoo with all them waves bouncing all over the place in crazy directions.

For example, my new area still needs a lot of sound treatment. I wont spend a lick more on equipment before getting some bass traps and acustic panels in place at the key reflection points (you can get a good app that will actually calculate that stuff for you). But we are all are subject to whats given to us in our various rooms and can only do so much to help based on what you got.

Yashu

That is very true. I talked earlier in the thread about how to objectively approach that very problem. If you playback a recording, or even tones, and then mic them in your "sweet spot" it does not take much at all to do a subtract and hear what your room is doing. If you will do this (like I have, sometimes to exploit for making music of my own), you will understand the power of your room. It factors in far ahead of cables, electronic components, capacitors, ect. Certainly changing these things will change the sound, and yes, if it can be measured it WILL change the sound... but it is almost as if we are subconsciously directed to ignore the room and what it is doing to the waves that reach out ears.

Those of you with microphones and a computer, try this sometime, simply record something you enjoy, I would do this in mono to make it easier to see the effect... then place the two recordings on top of each other in an audio editor like Adobe Audition, and then normalize things and do a subtract. You will then hear "just the room".

I was saying earlier that we could very easily use this type of test for an all manor of things and then try to reverse engineer what makes something sound good... what about it is different from what sounds "bad"?

F1nut

"Phenominally low.........extraordinarily low......they don't remember ever measuring distortion less than 1% at 25Hz in any other speaker at the time."

Cool

Any examples of newer speakers that can measure close to that, Mark?

RuSsMaN

TroyD wrote: »

Are you sure about that? Were that the case, how do you account for the difference in sound in anything from amplifiers to capacitors?

I don't think that everything that is audible is measurable.

BDT

What? You don't live (or listen) in an anehoic chamber?

RuSsMaN

F1nut wrote: »

Cool

Any examples of newer speakers that can measure close to that, Mark?

A few Spendors for one, past and present. More than handful they have had to check the measuring equipment to make sure it was working. The 1/2 (which I owned and sold to forum member pjdami and will always regret ) measured NO distortion, no change at all from the original analog tape recording. I have the Absolute Sound review from the 1/2's around here somewhere.....

Then again, who looks at specs to buy gear. Most just quote them when it favors a reply to a debate.

Cheers,
Russ

dorokusai

F1nut wrote: »

Cool

Any examples of newer speakers that can measure close to that, Mark?

Of course, open up your internet window.

In the interim, there weren't many PR fans at that time but you can see that coming full circle with new gear.

F1nut

Then again, who looks at specs to buy gear. Most just quote them when it favors a reply to a debate.

So true.

Of course, open up your internet window.

In the interim, there weren't many PR fans at that time but you can see that coming full circle with new gear.

Nah, too easy.

Yeah, amazing how that works.

reeltrouble1

The test the test give me the test.......measured it now I have to hear it.....

that is such a load of crap, not even the deluxe model **** gasket will keep you safe.

I gotta say the bass coming from the Polk SWA-500, CSW-200 combo is really something, however, its just something I heard. Maybe not the easiest thing to install but Polk has a winner with this combination...

RT1

PolkThug

treitz3 wrote: »

and before I say anything, screw the naysayers. Everything audible is not measurable.

What sounds can you hear that a microphone can't? If you listen to recorded music, obviously, microphones were used to record the data. If the music is on media, its measureable.

I will agree that your perceptions can't be measured.

Early B.

Since you guys are keeping this thread alive, let me add one more thing --

Audio component designers measure everything. Every single resistor, capacitor, inductor, etc. is based on a values and tolerances that are measureable. For them it's 99% a scientific process. So you guys can rant and rave all day talking that "measurements don't matter" BS, but this hobby lives or dies by them. We say measurements don't matter because most of us don't know anything about them, so we make innocent remarks like, "the only thing that matters is our ears." Since audio designers use measurements to make gear, then we should want to learn more about those measurements to buy gear.

Look, fellas -- I'm the first guy in line to say measurements don't matter, but I can't deny the obvious. So this thread was all about the possibility of using measurements in a uniformed way to help consumers make more informed decisions, but it turned into an "I'm all ears" love fest.

madmax

Let me loosely quote a phrase I heard at a polk tour: After all the measurements are done it has to be tweaked by ear to make it sound its best. (I say loosely quoted because I don't remember the exact words).
madmax

reeltrouble1

Early B. wrote: »

but it turned into an "I'm all ears" love fest.

well I use more than my ears for that......

I do not mean to say that the specs are not part of it, for me they are indicators. I still say actual empirical data trumps bench testing.

Depends on the mic PT.......a logical assumption though that a high quality mic and cabling was used but I suppose its possible not.....thing is a mic cannot feel it has no emotion, which is for me what I like, the emotional enjoyment of listening to music, when the Amazings dig out some low bass from a track it makes me feel a certain way, how exactly deep on the Hz scale measurement just does not matter to me, for others it does and that is fine.

Tim de Parnivicci from EAR recently stated that humans can sense sound to 45 khz if so then the spec that the gear can deliver that Khz. would be relevent but how well the piece does it I still choose to rely on how it sounds or in the example how it feels when the track is playing.

RT1

heiney9

PT, Simple placement of the mic's and the mixing of all the sources and not to mention the conversion from analog to digital if it's a digital recording which is pretty much the norm today. Then the conversion from digital back to analog, type of mic used, cables used, mixing counsel used, etc, etc.

It's not that cut and dried to just record something and play it back exacty as it sounds.

Measurements and bench testing certainly have their place and are important in the whole process, but our ears and brain processing are the final determinate and we aren't all the same in that area.

It's the same with great food. We can analyze the food all we want and measure the characteristics of a certain dish, but whether we like it or not depends on our subjective evaluation. Certainly we have an idea of what mates well together and what doesn't; same in audio.

In the culinary world there are things that on paper shouldn't taste good, but they do anyways and food is just as subjective as audio.

H9