Objectivity vs Subjectivity

And then there would be Amir critiquing FR graphs of Abbey Road by Giles Martin 50th Anniversary or Thick as a Brick by Steven Wilson. Can’t wait to see it !
Not to forget the 6Loons guys, showing off their oh, so pretty listening rooms, all the while gushing eloquent purple prose on how the said reproduced calibrated sound touched the deepest innards of their soul and caused their potted hyacinth to shudder in ecstacy!
 
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Not to forget the 6Loons guys, showing off their oh, so pretty listening rooms, all the while gushing eloquent purple prose on how the said reproduced calibrated sound touched the deepest innards of their soul and caused their potted hyacinth to shudder in ecstacy!
They are post graduates of the university Amir is graduating from … !
 
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So…
We can’t ask the artist what they intended
We don’t have access to the master versions
We have in some cases several versions, mixes, remastered, compressed files of the same piece of music
Older music was recorded with older technology.
Every recording engineer makes his/her own choices while mastering music.
Our equipment imposes it’s own influence on the reproduction
Some of it measures well, others not
Our musical preferences vary widely
The formats we use as sources vary
The sound signature, spl, preferred by us vary widely
Our susceptibility to marketing and snake oil claims vary
Our rooms are different, each has its own acoustic properties
Our hearing ability varies by age, amount of abuse, disease
Our enjoyment of music varies depending on our mood and chemicals imbibed.
We are on page 26 of this discussion with no end in sight
We sometimes agree on the above and at other times disagree. Mostly in an amicable way.

It’s bewildering…
Love it. Million percent agree 👏
 
Engineering exam question:
Q1. Distinguish between objectivist and subjectivist? 10 marks
A1: An objectivist is a person who listen more to his hardware and less to the music.
An subjectivist is a person who listen more to music and less to the hardware.

Exam results - not yet declared. :)-
 
Engineering exam question:
Q1. Distinguish between objectivist and subjectivist? 10 marks
A1: An objectivist is a person who listen more to his hardware and less to the music.
An subjectivist is a person who listen more to music and less to the hardware.

Exam results - not yet declared. :)-
Philosophical question: (as many marks as one chooses)

“Is the unexamined life worth living?”

Result: No answer in sight :)
 
Philosophical question: (as many marks as one chooses)

“Is the unexamined life worth living?”

Result: No answer in sight :)
And, this exam is self evaluated !


Engineering exam question:
Q1. Distinguish between objectivist and subjectivist? 10 marks
A1: An objectivist is a person who listen more to his hardware and less to the music.
An subjectivist is a person who listen more to music and less to the hardware.

Exam results - not yet declared. :)-

The actual question is " Are you happy with what you are doing" and If the answer is yes then you pass yourself
If no then also you pass as long as you choose a path to make it a yes since very often the journey is the happiness.

You only fail when you tell others they are wrong !
 
It took a long time for me to understand the type of sound quality that I enjoyed most and learn to put together a set up to get close to the ideal sound (for me)
It has been a long and sometimes expensive journey with many twists and turns.
Guidance on how to discover our sound and musical (audio quality) preferences are non existent…(I could not find any)
@arj, I agree completely..,paying attention and enjoying the journey is vital.
Also agree with: “ You only fail when you tell others they are wrong !”

I would add: we also fail if we take contrary opinions and judgments of our own journey, choices, methods used, personally” All these means that the other person is on a different path to a different preferred destination (SQ wise)

But the herd generally moves in the same general direction- achieving personal satisfaction and pleasure
 
Perhaps a corollary to this great question would be: is it worth, or even necessary, to examine it too minutely (as we often do on this and similar threads)?
People from different walks of life with different experiences, it’s all good!

Depending on who you are, threads like these could be tedious, entertaining, unnecessary, informative, and so on.

Live and let live! Nothing is worth getting worked up about. A peg and a pickle help resolve most audio issues!
 
Perhaps a corollary to this great question would be: is it worth, or even necessary, to examine it too minutely (as we often do on this and similar threads)?
It depends and if it matters to you. Yes.

In my apartment my friend bought a top model BMW and he informed me. But that doesn't matter much to me. So I told him ok.

Similarly, whatever I do at home tinkling to get my version of perfect sound don't matter to him either. So whatever gives you kick - you should be definitely doing. I call this KF - Kick factor.
 
Maybe its not flogging a dead horse but not letting sleeping dogs lie once in a while :)
 
Perhaps a corollary to this great question would be: is it worth, or even necessary, to examine it too minutely (as we often do on this and similar threads)?

Not this again

The fact that this thread has continued for so long indicates there ARE people who are interested in this discussion.

It’s a group about audio. And people are talking about audio.

Is it really necessary to come in and post comments that put down people who find this topic interesting? Basically, you are telling people that they shouldn’t discuss this topic because you don’t find it meritorious. Think about how that comes across.

The title makes it very clear what the topic is - if it doesn’t interest you, don’t read it. Why come in only to pass comments like this?
 
Artist intended - what he heard at his desk while mixing. It’s done at a controlled studio environment where the devices used adheres to a minimum standard of flat frequency response at his listening position.

If you can recreate that environment at your home it’s possible to hear wheat they heard there at the studio.

If you get a flat frequency at the listening spot in your room (no matter how you acheive it- dsp / room treatment ..) you essentially can set up a benchmark here similar to the artists desk.

Playing back on this setup would be identification to what he heard at the studio. Larger the deviation of this response means you are distorting the recording. But it isn’t essentially a bad thing if it pleases your ear.
Totally get where you are coming from. I was exactly here about 2 decades back. From an academic point of view this is a very valid point of view. However from a practical point of view, there are far too many variables which makes the home listener's job way more adventurous. This is very much like the digital vs analogue discussion.

-Studio acoustics vs homes
-Home listener's preferences vs what the artist / studio engineer thought sounded right with the distribution master
-Tonal quality of loudspeakers which cannot be measured
-Driver cone materials
-Enclosure design and materials
-Cone vs ribbons vs panels
-What loudspeaker, amp combination entertains you the most in your specific home environment. Some of the home systems can make your jaw drop !
-What kind of system work with majority of your music collection? This is very important. Even if you try various studio gear combinations, they all sound different. Many seasoned studio engineers have preferences for studio gear especially loudspeakers even though they all measure almost the same.

Your advice will not work for majority of home listeners. So, this discussion is just an academic one. But respect your point of view.

PS - My post is purely from the point of view / belief that a music system's only function is entertainment. It needs to appeal to the senses and provide entertainment for the senses with majority of a person's music. Most high quality home gear use good measurement as a baseline during the initial phases of design and development and then use subjective means to go higher and maybe even purposefully deviate a bit to achieve subjective levels of performance to achieve this end. This is a well known and accepted practice. So this is not even a discussion between Objectivists and Subjectivists. This thread should be renamed " Can mainstream measurement criteria fully and accurately measure all parameters that contribute to a high performance and fully entertaining audio product across the entire spectrum of discerning listeners ? ". The so called subjectivists are pretty much looking at this discussion from this point of view. In case you were wondering what the heck is going on :)....Last Saturday, I listened to Tannoys, KLH Model 5, Graham audio in the same room with a lot of my music. Graham audio and Tannoy has studio lineage but they both sound very different. I can clearly see why one type of listener will like one over the other. What measurement can predict that ? That is the kind of thinking we have. Bunch of nuts that way. But that is the fun with this beautiful thing called music. Cheers !
 
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Not this again
Please go ahead and discuss it. I'm not trying to stop you or anyone. I'm no one to do that! All I was suggesting was that we are perhaps examining the issue in too minute a detail. But it's only a suggestion. And you may take it or ignore it.
 
Please go ahead and discuss it. I'm not trying to stop you or anyone. I'm no one to do that! All I was suggesting was that we are perhaps examining the issue in too minute a detail. But it's only a suggestion. And you may take it or ignore it.

I dont disagree with you - it certainly is something everyone is getting into in too much detail (myself included - which is why i am extracting myself from it for the most part). It’s just that these gratuitous suggestions dont really serve any purpose - people discussing audio stuff in excessive detail and repeating the same things over and over again is NOT a problem.

I know i replied to your post specifically, but this is aimed at everyone who is coming here and making posts along these lines: if this topic doesn’t interest you, feel free to ignore the thread and leave the discussion to those who do want to participate.
 
I dont disagree with you - it certainly is something everyone is getting into in too much detail (myself included - which is why i am extracting myself from it for the most part). It’s just that these gratuitous suggestions dont really serve any purpose - people discussing audio stuff in excessive detail and repeating the same things over and over again is NOT a problem.

I know i replied to your post specifically, but this is aimed at everyone who is coming here and making posts along these lines: if this topic doesn’t interest you, feel free to ignore the thread and leave the discussion to those who do want to participate.
Sorry if I came across as sounding gratuitous. That's not my intention. I'm as serious a participant in this thread as the next person, and I say what I feel is right without trying to control the narrative, or act as the gatekeeper of who can/cannot participate. It's an open forum. You can speak your mind, and I can speak mine. I just say my part without trying to drive away people who may have said something I don't agree with from this thread. Why the onus on you to try and drive away members (like you've done a number of times on this thread)? We're participating because the topic DOES interest us.
 
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