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Topic: Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks (Read 29540 times) previous topic - next topic
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Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #25
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A lot of audiophiles have no problems with the modern scientific method, modern medicine, DBTs in medical and consumer fields, and modern psychoacoustics. They are just not convinced that either such methods and examples apply to audio, or they are insufficient to explain what is being observed. Or they may even believe in it but still be influenced by subjectivism to hedge their bets (and purchases). I sort of fall in the latter category. That's quite different from having a purely subjective/mystical worldview. Perfectly rational people can believe in this, and in fact a lot of scientists/engineers are audio subjectivists, and may even apply it in audio engineering. (cf last month's IEEE Spectrum article about the tubed iPod amp, and a smattering of AES submissions which smell strongly of audiophilia.)


If the fruits of natural science don't apply to audio, then the logical conclusion is that audio is not "of the natural world" -- i.e., it is "supernatural."  This doesn't have to be in the sense of ghosts or UFO's or anything like that, but in the technical sense it means that audio isn't beholden to natural laws.  Someone who believes something like this seems to me to have to at some point along the line either become inconsistent in their beliefs (making them not "perfectly rational"), or they were never "rational" to begin with and have a different sort of worldview/epistemology/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, like mysticism.

Now, of course nobody is absolutely rational in their actions.  But I think there's a difference between doing or believing something out of some sort of spontaneous impulse or instinct (thinking something sounds better at a sighted test), and actually trying to defend that action after the fact as somehow being a part of a rational belief system or theory (you were "sure" that it sounded better, without relying on some sort of objective methods, because of <insert some ad hoc explanation here>).  I think that audio "subjectivists" tend to do the latter.

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More succintly, we're already talking Kuhn, so I don't think we can be talking Randi at the same time.


Randi?  Eh... I was referring to confusion about "objectivism" in the sense of Ayn Rand.  That's what I meant by how "objectivism" is not a good term to use as the discussion moves closer to philosophy.  Sure, "objectivism" in this sense is usually associated with ethical theory, but the proponents of "objectivism" tend to try and justify the theory according to some sort of "objective" world view also (which I think they get completely wrong, but that's beside the point).  At any rate, the fact that this confusion has come up (and that "objectivism" mentioned on one of the sites in that debate I mentioned also later went on to discuss "objectivism" in the Ayn Rand sense) just reinforces my belief that it's not a very good term to use, especially when there have been better ones used for very similar debates in philosophy for quite some time.

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I used to call it "audio objectivism" to try and make a distinction, but I agree that a better term is needed. I just haven't seen one yet. And "subjectivism" is such an applicable term! "Skepticism" doesn't quite cut it, both because that only represents knowledge acquisition without having an existing philosophy or body of knowledge, and because I think skepticism is internally self-consistent within a subjectivist framework.


I still think that it would be more precisely explained in technical philosophical terminology along the lines of metaphysics, but the problem with that is that it tends to obscure the distinction for those unfamiliar with certain ongoing debates.  Not to mention the fact that those terms have their own sets of problems.

"Skepticism" is worse for a number of reasons though, not the least of which being that there many different kinds, and some are quite different from eachother.  I think that Humean scepticism is on the right track in many cases, whereas pyrrhonean skepticism is just about completely wrong.  That's just the tip of the iceberg though.

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What about logical positivism? Much as I disagree with it as a general philosophy, I think it is a good description for what we're aiming towards - strictly materialistic, everything that can't be measured is meaningless, personal preferences exist but are not relevant. It's a rather esoteric term though.
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On and off I joke with my friends that I'm a logical positivist.  I'm not, really, but I do think that on the whole, it got more things right than most competing theories.  I'm not so much in agreement with all of the people who contributed to it as a philosophical theory, particularly earlier efforts, and much of the stuff that involved Wittgenstein.  I think it would be quite interesting if some of the more damning technical problems with the theory could be re-examined and perhaps "fixed" in some way (doubtful).

At any rate, I don't think it's what most people mean by "objectivism" here.  It's too specific.  Besides that, most people probably wouldn't agree with it as you stated it -- it'd require quite a more nuanced explanation (not so much that things unmeasurable are meaningless as things unverifiable, even theoretically, in either an emperical (synthetic) or analytic (a priori) sense).  And in the end, most of the people involved are interested in debating audio -- not philosophy.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #26
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strictly materialistic, everything that can't be measured is meaningless, personal preferences exist but are not relevant. It's a rather esoteric term though.

I think this is worded a bit unclear. If one would take the above quote literarily, then history would already have proven it wrong: i.e. when in the old days people believed that the earth is flat, they were missing the knowledge and tech to prove that it is round. Would you today say, that it is meaningless?

It is true that for testing theories and coming to conclusions, we cannot take into account what cannot be observed/measured - but this doesn't mean that what we dont know yet is meaningless. Actually, if one would take the above quote literarily, then it would suggest that there is no need for aspiration - it would mean that any advancement would be useless because we already know everything which is important.
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #27
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Sure, "objectivism" in this sense is usually associated with ethical theory, but the proponents of "objectivism" tend to try and justify the theory according to some sort of "objective" world view also (which I think they get completely wrong, but that's beside the point). 

Sorry for straying off topic, but were you referring to libertarianism? Just curious...

Excellent thread, btw.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #28
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Sure, "objectivism" in this sense is usually associated with ethical theory, but the proponents of "objectivism" tend to try and justify the theory according to some sort of "objective" world view also (which I think they get completely wrong, but that's beside the point). 

Sorry for straying off topic, but were you referring to libertarianism? Just curious...

Excellent thread, btw.
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[a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivist_philosophy]This[/url] is what I was referring to.  There is some relation between the two, but I wasn't commenting on libertarianism, only objectivism, just for clarification.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #29
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strictly materialistic, everything that can't be measured is meaningless, personal preferences exist but are not relevant. It's a rather esoteric term though.

I think this is worded a bit unclear. If one would take the above quote literarily, then history would already have proven it wrong: i.e. when in the old days people believed that the earth is flat, they were missing the knowledge and tech to prove that it is round. Would you today say, that it is meaningless?

It is true that for testing theories and coming to conclusions, we cannot take into account what cannot be observed/measured - but this doesn't mean that what we dont know yet is meaningless. Actually, if one would take the above quote literarily, then it would suggest that there is no need for aspiration - it would mean that any advancement would be useless because we already know everything which is important.
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This is why I pointed out the distinction of verifiability versus measurability.

You could say the statement "The earth is flat" is meaningful (and false) because it is possible to verify whether in fact it is actually flat or not.

Likewise, unmeasurable variables (that someone has supposed might exist) in an experiment can be said to be meaningful if in fact it is possible (in theory) to verify that they exist by perhaps changing some parameters of the experiment, performing another experiment, etc.

However, in the latter case, if someone were told you that there exist some completely unquantifiable, supernatural, incorporeal, pink elephants that remotely influence some variables in your experiment, you could probably take such a statement as meaningless because how could you possibly verify such a claim?  Meaning, according to logical positivism, is tied to verification in this way -- you will know if a claim is meaningful according to whether or not it is possible (in theory) to verify it.

If there is a real problem here (I mean with this case, there are other well known problems with logical positivism such as negative existentials), it is in knowing for sure whether something is meaningful at any given point in time.  Back when the earth was flat, it might have been held to be impossible to verify whether it was actually flat or not because people could not have imagined the analytical techniques that we have now that can show us this.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #30
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If there is a real problem here (I mean with this case, there are other well known problems with logical positivism such as negative existentials), it is in knowing for sure whether something is meaningful at any given point in time.  Back when the earth was flat, it might have been held to be impossible to verify whether it was actually flat or not because people could not have imagined the analytical techniques that we have now that can show us this.
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Full ACK. I would have explained the same thing with the following words: The asumption is that it is ultimatelly impossible to be perfect and know everything(because the universe is not static). More importantly, mankind currently is aspiring in "layers" - at a given point in time, you have a given amount of knowledge and tech at your disposal - over the course of time, more and more "curtains" are lifted and the amount of things which can be observed/measured increases - but ultimatelly, nothing is for sure. There is no absolute "knowledge", only probabilities - which in turn means, the only way to make decisions and come to conclusions is by only taking those things into account of which you know currently - hypothetically asuming that they are "facts", and building more complex models on them - but with the awareness that nothing is absolutely certain.

People tend to mix up these "hypotetical facts" with "ultimative facts".

But at a given point in time, it doesn't matter that they are hypothetical, because we can only live and think in the world in which we are today, not tomorrow. The only thing to keep in mind is that ultimatelly, we barely know anything at all.

- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #31
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Well, if all these effects cause people to "hear" differences between identical pieces of equipment that are larger than the differences they "hear" between different pieces of equipment, only an idiot would suggest that the equipment differences under test are important, or even significant!

Yet that's what people say when blind testing cables. We've had the thread here recently. "I think X=B because B sounds much better than A..." when in fact X=A.

I think they have different explanations for that sort of thing. Emotional distress, test insensitivity, etc.  When you probe them further about what they mean by "major differences" after burn-in, in the context of sighted listening, they usually qualify their statements by saying that they're talking about the "last 5%" or the "last 1%" of the audio quality, something that most people don't normally notice. Leaving aside the fact that they don't really define what 100% really is, this sort of thinking is perfectly logical to judge aural differences between cables and differences between a single cable thru burn-in.

Tolerance issues between "identical" devices are quite measurable. In the case of some DIY amplifier topologies requiring matched transistor pairs, gross errors in tolerance might even be audible. Similarly, as Pio2001 pointed out when he measured different cable resistance after what amounted to heating it up in his hand, the measured parameters of the same device can change over time.

It's all an issue of magnitude. If your ears tell you there's a difference, and the difference can't be measured by any objective means, then "clearly" your ears are more sensitive than your instruments, and therefore things that are measurable must definitely be audible.

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When they make such a mistake, people on planet HydrogenAudio conclude that they must have imagined the difference, since they've implicitly "heard" a difference between two things that were the same, while failing to "hear" a difference between two things that were different! However, people on planet Audiophile couldn't possibly have been mistaken in this way, and so conclude that they're more gifted at hearing things than other people.
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Yup. This would be a good time to refer to the original two assertions I made in my Head-Fi post:
  • If I do hear a difference, either it is in some sense quantifiable, or else it's placebo.
  • If I do measure a difference, the rationale must make more scientific sense than the placebo effect to explain the audible difference. Otherwise, the placebo effect is the more likely hypothesis (although it is not guaranteed to be the correct one).

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #32
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If the fruits of natural science don't apply to audio, then the logical conclusion is that audio is not "of the natural world" -- i.e., it is "supernatural."  This doesn't have to be in the sense of ghosts or UFO's or anything like that, but in the technical sense it means that audio isn't beholden to natural laws.  Someone who believes something like this seems to me to have to at some point along the line either become inconsistent in their beliefs (making them not "perfectly rational"), or they were never "rational" to begin with and have a different sort of worldview/epistemology/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, like mysticism.

Now, of course nobody is absolutely rational in their actions.  But I think there's a difference between doing or believing something out of some sort of spontaneous impulse or instinct (thinking something sounds better at a sighted test), and actually trying to defend that action after the fact as somehow being a part of a rational belief system or theory (you were "sure" that it sounded better, without relying on some sort of objective methods, because of <insert some ad hoc explanation here>).  I think that audio "subjectivists" tend to do the latter.

I think that audiophiles would prefer to say that current scientific explanations are incomplete and/or inconsistent, and rather than wait for it to catch up (or, heaven forbid, contribute meaningfully to them), they will use their own techniques to establish their own hypotheses. In fact that's the gist of what John Atkinson said in the Atkinson/Krueger debate. This is closely related to the argument that objective testing is mind-numbingly infeasible to perform - N=1000 for ABX tests where alpha=0.05 and beta=0.05, etc. And that is a valid criticism of our viewpoint. It is far short of saying that they are abandoning "the fruits of natural science", although it does means that they'll choose which fruits to pick to make their theory consistent. In fact, they will twist natural science to conform to the theory - look at the butchery they make of transmission line theory, for instance, to justify impedance matching for audio frequencies.

If you want to make generalizations about people based on this, you have to admit that very few people on this earth have any sort of skeptical degree to them, and they would not have the means to argue against pseudoscience or astrology or what not if it were presented to them. They just refuse to believe it to stay in the herd, just as they stay in the audiophile camp to stay in the herd. (And, to be sure, a lot of people are in the HA camp to stay in the herd.)

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More succintly, we're already talking Kuhn, so I don't think we can be talking Randi at the same time.


Randi?  Eh... I was referring to confusion about "objectivism" in the sense of Ayn Rand.  That's what I meant by how "objectivism" is not a good term to use as the discussion moves closer to philosophy.  Sure, "objectivism" in this sense is usually associated with ethical theory, but the proponents of "objectivism" tend to try and justify the theory according to some sort of "objective" world view also (which I think they get completely wrong, but that's beside the point).  At any rate, the fact that this confusion has come up (and that "objectivism" mentioned on one of the sites in that debate I mentioned also later went on to discuss "objectivism" in the Ayn Rand sense) just reinforces my belief that it's not a very good term to use, especially when there have been better ones used for very similar debates in philosophy for quite some time.

Agreed, but I think you didn't quite understand my intent. I was asserting the existence of two conflicting scientific paradigms, while you are asserting a single scientific paradigm and a pseudoscientific "paradigm" that can't be analysed in terms of normal philosophy of science, because well, it's not science to begin with. Ie, a Kuhnian analysis of two competing paradigms vs James Randi fighting off astrologers and psychics.

I fully agree though. We need a new name, and I'm rapidly caring less and less about how esoteric it is. I guess we could just invent a term. I mean, everybody else has done it, why not us?

As long as we don't call ourselves brights. Then I'm liable to smack somebody.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #33
i don't understand... we're not measuring objectively in the philosophical sense; I don't force my ABX results on anyone else. If something is transparent to me, it is transparent. If it is transparent to Guruboolez, it is subjectively transparent for him.

What we DO encourage here is EMPIRICAL subjectivity.

The pop-culture use of the word "subjective" usually means something like "unsubstantiated", which means non-quantifiable. "I believe the Yankees can win this season" is a subjectivist view that is non-quantifiable. Conversely, an "objective" view is something that can be proved/disproved. "The earth is flat," for instance. We're not talking about that on HA.org, but i think some passers-by may think we are.

I propose we stop talking about objectivity and start talking about empirical testing instead... less likely to start flamewars. Audio IS subjective by nature, because we all have different hearing apparatus. that doesn't mean science has to go out the window, however.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #34
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It's all an issue of magnitude. If your ears tell you there's a difference, and the difference can't be measured by any objective means, then "clearly" your ears are more sensitive than your instruments, and therefore things that are measurable must definitely be audible.
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Which is complete junk, as has been proven over and over again, both theoretically and practically.

A century of psychoacoustic experiments reveal countless signals that are measurably different, but which sound the same.


I can understand audiophiles scepticism about hearing vs measurement, but they hold this scepticism due to ignorance. Consider CDs at launch: "Perfect sound forever", "flat frequency response 20Hz-20kHz" and "often sounds awful" were all true, but this does not prove that ears are more sensitive than objective data. All it proves is that the marketing people are shouting about some objective data, and hoping no one will notice the rest which reveals the truth!


What really irritates me is the assumption that improvements in audio reproduction come about by throwing science out of the window and following imagined audible differences. If the industry had been driven by these forces and misconceptions for the last century, we'd still by listening to wax cylinders. Some of the most beloved audiophile madness sounds little better!

Cheers,
David.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #35
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What really irritates me is the assumption that improvements in audio reproduction come about by throwing science out of the window and following imagined audible differences.

What equally irritates me is when purveyors of snake oil audio devices use science in clearly mis-representative ways to dupe the gullible audiophile, who can then make the claim of objective empirical evidence to corroborate a subjective claim.

Why not set a double standard by using scientific measurement bordering on fraud to convey the benefits of using a product?

http://www.bedini.com/clarifier.htm

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #36
I think that instead of "audio objectivism", or "empirical subjectivism", the most appropriate word would rather be science. Why use esoteric words ? The methods used by audio objectivist are nothing else than scientific methods.
ABX tests are subjective, because the result of the test is valid for the subject that passed the test and no one else. Frequency response or sonograms are objective. They do not depend on who makes them, but only on the system measured, the "object".
Thus objectivism should be the attitude that consists in judging audio devices without listening to them. Relying only on graphs and numbers. Subjectivism, on the other hand should be the attitude that consists in judging audio quality only with listening tests, and never on graphs. Which, by the way, is exactly what we are doing in this forum !

Back on the topic of scientific argumentation, the main argument for audiophile to backup their claims is that everyone can hear the difference between a common cable and an audiophile one. This is a very strong argument. It is like saying that the sky is blue, because everyone can see it. Fundamentally, there is no difference between the two assumptions.
Both are part of the daily experience of the subject. He can see that the sky is blue as well as he can hear that the cables sound different.
Both are universally accepted by all the technical knowledge that he can access (audiophile magazines, forums, advertisements).
Both are confirmed by the experience of the other people he knows : everyone confirms that the sky is blue and that cables sound different.

Now comes the scientific guy. "Give me a proof that the sky is blue", says he.
-Ha ! Ha !, says the audiophile, wanna have a drink ?
-I'm not joking, says the scientist. There is no formal proof that the sky is blue. Your eyes are playing tricks with you. If you were comparing it to a green sky, you couldn't reliably identify which is which.
-And besides philosophical dissertations, what do you do in real life ? Asks the audiophile.

This is why audiophiles are difficult to convince. One day, I was telling my mother that acupuncture was a parallel medicine, and that there was no proof of its effectiveness, other than through placebo. She answered that I knew nothing, and that every scientist recognized the background of acupuncture, that is was common knowledge !
For audiophile (and I discussed recently the matter of audio cables with a hardcore audiophile), the fact that every cable sounds different is scientifically established, and discussing such an obvious statement is a childish waste of time.

That's why I prefer to attack audio myths through logic.
One of the first arguments was recalled by 2BDecided above : during blind tests, most people pretends to hear differences between the same source presented twice. This is a psychological effect (not placebo, by the way). Since the existence of psychological effects is recognized, they become an alternative explanation to the sound of cables. The fact that people hears a difference is no longer a proof that they sound different, since it can occur even when they sound the same !
Are there proofs in physics knowledge ? For speaker cables, yes (confirmed in ABX), but for interconnect cables, no.
Are there proofs in objective measurments ? No. The distortion is vanishingly small, noise is below the audible threshold, and the frequency response is linear within +/- 0.01 dB

Then we can introduce blind tests, with all the protocol, like in the sticky thread on top of this forum.
Here, we must be aware of two common misconceptions about blind tests.

1-If blind tests were true, all cables, amplifiers and CD Players would have the same sound, which is absurd, then blind tests are worthless.
-> Wrong. If a blind tests doesn't succeed, it doesn't prove that the device under test doesn't work.

2-Blind tests proves nothing. They are not objective.
-> Wrong. If the protocol used guarantees that if the test is double blind, and succeeds, then the difference heard can't come from any psychological effect, nor from chance (with a confidence as high as we want).

In short, a blind listening test can prove that a subjective audible difference can exist, and it can't prove the opposite.
This is not well known at all among audiophiles, and it is always worth the effort to recall it. Actually, we have there another important problem with words. A blind listening test is actually a comparison during which the listeners don't know the nature of the device under test (brand/model). And audiophiles usually perform them just once, in order to eliminate placebo. However, it doesn't eliminate other psychological effects when there is no mathematical confirmation. In a way, audiophiles are right when they say that blind tests prove nothing. Listening to A and B, and saying "A sounds better" proves nothing. Blind tests can only prove something when they are repeated a given number of times, until p is small enough. I don't know how this protocol is called. I used to say "double blind tests with statistical analysis", in www.homecinema-fr.com, but several people corrected me because the calculation of p has nothing to do with statistics. It is a probability calculation, and no statistical conclusion can be drawn from one test run by one listener, however small is p.

Then, there are the usual refutations about blind tests.

Strangely enough, the strongest, and perfectly valid one, is nearly never used by audiophiles : the fact that when a blind test fails, it doesn't prove that the snake oil device is rubbish, it proves nothing ! I ended up fighting both camps in the discussions following the interconnect cables blind tests. I had to tell audiophiles that they were wrong saying that cables sounded different, because the tests showed that there could be other explanations, and I had to tell that they were wrong also when they says that we (objectivists) pretend to know everything without putting efforts in listening to anything, because our tests, when they fail, actually prove nothing !
In conclusion, we have no scientific proof on either side.

It is necessary to keep in mind, when fighting some snake oil devices, that we are in no case proving that they do not work. We can't. We are just showing that the proofs that they work are wrong, which is a completely different thing.
The main proof that they work is empirical : people can hear it.

When I dealt with interconnect cables, my strategy was to invite audiophiles that can easily hear cables sonic differences to demonstrate it in a controlled blind test. They failed. This fact is not useful at all in itself. There can be many explanations :
-The listening setup was not accurate enough
-The listeners were stressed
-The musical content was not appropriate
-The auditive memory in too short to recognize the cable after 30 seconds
-The cables are not burned in, etc.

This is why I considered essential to give the possibility for the listeners either to give null answers, either to give them an unlimited amount of time to give their answers. Otherwise, they can object that their wrong answers are not caused by a psychological effect, but by the obligation to tell something after a limited time. If this obligation doesn't exist, wrong answers can only be explained by psychological effects (or by an unstable listening setup, but this case would show in the first place that the device under test can't have a reliable effect on the system).

Once it has been shown that psychological effects can reproduce the same heard differences as audiophile devices without invoking unknown physical effects hidden to measurment devices, here are the some objections that we can be facing.

-The system under test / musical samples are not accurate enough to show the differences.
Answer : then why did you hear differences ?

-The auditive memory is too short for any blind test to succeed, even if we get rid of psychological effects.
Answer : then it is impossible for anyone to pretend that two cables can sound different, because the comparison is done after the sound of the first cable is forgotten. If the auditive memory is too short during blind tests, then it is too short during sighted tests too.

-The blind test puts the listener under pressure, causing confusion and psychological effects.
Answer : many blind tests have already succeeded (consider MP3, for example). The listener must be allowed to relax and to have control over the listening setup : volume, duration, placement... He must be allowed to train. It is right that passing a blind listening test is more difficult than to hear a difference once, but one can train himself as much as he wants. The test can be run anytime, even if weeks are necessary to prepare it. There is no fundamental limitation that can completely prevent this training, because there is no difference between a blind test and a sighted test other than the knowledge of the device under test. If the difference is heard in a sighted way, then it can be heard in a blind way.

-Blind tests prove nothing. Even if we succeed, you'll find arguments that will dismiss the success.
Answer : if the tests succeeds, psychological effects can only creep in if the test is not double blind, and chance is controlled by the probability calculations. The whole protocol and the conclusions that will be drawn from the result, according to the number of failures, must be clearly exposed, and everyone must agree on them before the test. If the protocol is accepted by both sides, only audible differences are left to explain the result. Psychological effects or chance are ruled out. However, no test is perfect, and a confirmation by an independant team is always welcome.

Other refutations can be made. It is important to familiarize oneself with the concept of blind listening tests in order to be able to give the most appropriate answer. The way audiophiles argue can be very destabilizating.

Always remember that :
-Anyone can prove other people that he can hear a difference, by means of a blind test.
-Blind tests can't directly prove that audiophile devices are rubbish.
-There is no differences between a sighted test and a blind test other than the knowledge of the device under test.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #37
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I think that instead of "audio objectivism", or "empirical subjectivism", the most appropriate word would rather be science. Why use esoteric words ? The methods used by audio objectivist are nothing else than scientific methods.

Good idea. I could live with this term. My only concern is that since "science" is such a common and generic term, it could become loaded and confuse people rather than clearly identify the term. Also, while most scientists are on the non-audiophile side of things, not all of them are, and a lot of engineers are audiophiles. Eg - would you consider the Cheever thesis "science"? Especially since it was published from what I'm guessing is a tier 2 university?

More replies as I find the time to make em.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #38
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Thus objectivism should be the attitude that consists in judging audio devices without listening to them. ... Subjectivism, on the other hand should be the attitude that consists in judging audio quality only with listening tests, and never on graphs.

This is opposite of the meaning Dibrom and I have been using in our discussions, although I can understand why you'd want to define them that way. Yet another reason for all of us to just stay away from those words.

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Now comes the scientific guy. "Give me a proof that the sky is blue", says he.
-Ha ! Ha !, says the audiophile, wanna have a drink ?
-I'm not joking, says the scientist. There is no formal proof that the sky is blue. Your eyes are playing tricks with you. If you were comparing it to a green sky, you couldn't reliably identify which is which.
-And besides philosophical dissertations, what do you do in real life ? Asks the audiophile.

I don't think that is how the discussion would go, at least for the "learned" audiophile. Instead, the audiophile would explain that the different cables are made of different materials, different dielectrics and what not, and each difference means a small change in the signal, which is audible. For example, the difference between a cable made of silver and one made of copper is primarily due to resistance differences, and the silver lends itself a more detailed and brighter presence. This is because an RC lowpass filter exists for every cable, and the lower resistance means that the silver cable's -3db point is higher than that of the copper cable. And he would back all of that up by measurements, and examples of what a lowpass filter does to the sound, and tells you to extrapolate.

From his point of view, it's beyond mere experience and peer evaluation - what he is hearing is backed up by the measurements and the science. This sort of breaks down for things like the Bendini Clarifier, just as it does for acupuncture. But people invent remarkably detailed mechanisms to explain them just the same, and back those up with more experiments and measurements later (in ad hoc fashion).
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That's why I prefer to attack audio myths through logic.

What I'm trying to argue, in the previous paragraph and this thread, is that those audio myths are also backed up by logic, so that while your logic is correct as far as we're concerned, your logic is probably ineffective in convincing people. I don't deny that there are misunderstandings and myths on both sides, as you very nicely point out, but as long as the audiophiles hold their ears as axiomatic, they cannot be reasoned with in the usual sense.

That doesn't mean that a lot of people are influenced by such logic. I was. But I think that the influence of such debates is primarily limited to those whose minds aren't made up yet, and especially those who have not listened to a lot of gear.

That in and of itself brings up a major criticism of my original post. If people can be really convinced through logical discussion of the fallacies of audiophiledom, then all my gawking about it being a self-consistent system that can't be attacked from a scientific/objective viewpoint are for naught. More specifically, any paradigm is going to have its dogmatic zealots as well as its neophytes, and the zealots never do change their minds. Instead, for lack of a more politically sensitive term, they die. And thus they no longer influence the debate.

This is all sort of testable by figuring out just who is being persuaded. Pio2001 and 2Bdecided (and perhaps everybody else): Do you have any sort of anecdotal evidence in your forum travels where your arguments have persuaded people to change their buying patterns, or at least their viewpoints? What I am predicting is that those agree and understand the audiophile explainations are not persuaded, although those who have not made their minds up too much can be. While you are arguing that quite a few people in the audiophile camp who know the theory can be persuaded.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #39
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This is not sound science! Or sound engineering for that matter! Occam would roll in his grave if he saw a state of the art engineering theory such as this, practiced by the most famous people in the industry.

William of Ockham? Hardly an objectivist!

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #40
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Do you have any sort of anecdotal evidence in your forum travels where your arguments have persuaded people to change their buying patterns, or at least their viewpoints? What I am predicting is that those agree and understand the audiophile explainations are not persuaded, although those who have not made their minds up too much can be. While you are arguing that quite a few people in the audiophile camp who know the theory can be persuaded.
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There was no visible thing like this, but it can have happened in a hidden way. Many people were very thankful for the [a href="http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29786006&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=255]blind listening test[/url] about interconnect cables on www.homecinema-fr.com.
I think that one of the effects on that community was that before these tests, "objectivists" (scientists ? blindists ? Proofists ?) were considered as clueless trolls. After the test, there was more background, and skeptic point of views gained a bit of credibility. People who wouldn't have posted may have been encouraged to voice their opinion.

But the main effect of all this work was a slight paradigm shift. Most leaders of that forum now accept as a fact that interconnect cables have a subtle effect on hifi systems, and that "night and day" adjectives should be avoided when reviewing audiophile cables, because they mislead the beginner into thinking that a cable can completely transform his installation.

In the test itself, here's what happened.

Before :
Emmanuel Piat : skeptic, only capacity should affect the sound.
JC07 : interested guy, let's see what will happen
I've heard that Marsupilami aknowledged that cables can sound different.
Patrice : conviced that there a big differences. Ready to accept a failure, but that shouldn't have happened according to him.
Pio2001 : skeptic. No cable should affect the sound, except maybe the 6 meters cheap one with the plastic plugs in the middle.

After :
Emmanuel Piat : very intrigued by the fact that he thought to have heard differences between twice the same cable.
JC07 : could hear the difference neither in sighted way, nor in blind way.
Marsupilami : disturbed by the fact that we could answer "different", when the cables were the same. The test left him troubled. He said that he might give up his expensive cable, and just keep a cheap DIY one instead.
Patrice : rather surprised by the outcome. He accepted that expensive cables were not useful for hifi systems like the one used.
Pio2001 : not surprised at all. I knew that differences would be heard between twice the same cable. I'm relieved that the 5+1 meter cheap cable sounded transparent on a 25,000 € system.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #41
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This is all sort of testable by figuring out just who is being persuaded. Pio2001 and 2Bdecided (and perhaps everybody else): Do you have any sort of anecdotal evidence in your forum travels where your arguments have persuaded people to change their buying patterns, or at least their viewpoints? What I am predicting is that those agree and understand the audiophile explainations are not persuaded, although those who have not made their minds up too much can be. While you are arguing that quite a few people in the audiophile camp who know the theory can be persuaded.

In my experience, both parties seem to be more or less firmly rooted in their respective camps, while the undecided seem to more or less not care. I've never really come across any seriously "converted" subjectivists, although I'm sure they are out there.

Coming from an EE background, and having surrounded myself with technically minded folks since my university days, this has always been somewhat of a polarizing topic. Needless to say, those who haven't embraced objectivity and ABX testing (science) tend to be either stereo sales gurus, their followers (customers), and those who generally immerse themselves in the audio "occult" at considerable expense and without a firm grasp of the underlying technology. I generalize, of course.

In a lot of ways, this sort of posturing has a few parallels in the "creationism versus evolution" debate, with one camp firmly rooted in faith, belief and pseudo-science, and the other camp relying solely on observable evidence and the scientific method.

At this point, I'll shy away from expanding on that particular topic...

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #42
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I've never really come across any seriously "converted" subjectivists, although I'm sure they are out there.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=314930"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Present !

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #43
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I think that instead of "audio objectivism", or "empirical subjectivism", the most appropriate word would rather be science. Why use esoteric words ?


I guess I was just trying to clarify that although the popular notions of objective = scientific and subjective = witchcraft are in fact not correct, and what we are in fact encouraging is empirical subjectivity.

Audiophiles passing by probably get infuriated by our use of the work "objective" around here, and understandably so, because it is being misused.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #44
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Audiophiles passing by probably get infuriated by our use of the work "objective" around here, and understandably so, because it is being misused.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=314934"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


It isn't as cut and dry as this because the term "objective" is rather ambiguous out of a given context.

If you are talking about methodology, "objective" means one thing, but if you are talking about something else (say metaphysics and epistemology), then it can mean something different.

Part of the problem with this thread is that some of us are viewing the nature of the problem quite differently.  Originally the discussion was on a much more general and abstract level than ABX testing and methodology.  Axon brought up a discussion about the comparability of two different systems.  I went on to comment about belief systems in general, the accepted criteria for knowledge, and how this might influence the choice of testing methods employed by the different sides of this debate.  Talking about "objective" versus "subjective" on this level has a different meaning than "objective" versus "subjective" simply at the level of methodology.

You say that we are encouraging empirical subjectivity, but this is only part of the story.  We are encouraging the employment of objective emperical methods in order to quantify subjective perceptual results.  But it goes further than this as well.  There's a sort of unstated unassumption being made on the part of people who feel that such methods are worthwhile because there is in fact something like an objective reality underlying the perceptions (this is why I mentioned realist metaphysics earlier), and that if we can eliminate enough variables (through the use of well understood empirical methods), then we can begin to approximate the way "things really are," undistorted by flawed perception and bias.  Without such an assumption, there's simply no point in ever comparing results.

In the case of something like psychoacoustic audio compression, that doesn't mean we can ever really get hard answers about whether or not something sounds "good," or "bad," or is even imperceptible, but it means that we can begin to uncover trends about what probably sounds "good," or "bad," or is imperceptible, to most people under some certain condition, etc., etc.  This, in turn, leads us to devise certain principles which help to clarify the information we already have and to reapply it in order to uncover more.

This sort of process is used all the time in the various listening tests and discussions around here that lead to refinement and improvement of various codecs and things like that.

So, "objective" isn't necessarily being misused, it simply depends on the context and level of abstraction that you are talking about.  In this thread at least, that has happened on a couple of different levels.

But at any rate, I think the term is too ambiguous and easily misunderstood here and so another should be found.  I don't think "science" is necessarily a good substitute either.

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #45
In the university of Nice, France, Henri Broch calls it "zététique" (it would be zetetics, in English). He has created a community similar to Hydrogenaudio, although not devoted to audio, in a similar way as the James Randi foundation.

From the Zetetic FAQ ( http://www.zetetique.ldh.org/faq.html ) :
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Zetetics comes from the greek word zetein, which means to seek. It was teatched by the greek philosopher Pyrrhon (-365/-275).  Reactualized by Henri Broch, science doctor, theoric biophysics teatcher, it is now teatched in the science university of Nice-Sophia Antipolis.
According to Broch's definition, zetetics is "the art of doubt". The zetetic circle adopted this definition. We no not try, of course, to restore Pyrrhon's philosophy as it is ! Zetetics is synonym of "scientific method" and "critical thinking". It is a contribution to the making of an ability of critical appropriation of human knowledge. Zetetics encourages to think by oneself, with rigor and method, one thousand miles away from dogms, prejudices, and preconceived ideas. It is, quoting biologist Jean Rostand, a "preventive hygien of the judgement".

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #46
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There was no visible thing like this, but it can have happened in a hidden way. Many people were very thankful for the blind listening test about interconnect cables on www.homecinema-fr.com.
I think that one of the effects on that community was that before these tests, "objectivists" (scientists ? blindists ? Proofists ?) were considered as clueless trolls. After the test, there was more background, and skeptic point of views gained a bit of credibility. People who wouldn't have posted may have been encouraged to voice their opinion.

But the main effect of all this work was a slight paradigm shift. Most leaders of that forum now accept as a fact that interconnect cables have a subtle effect on hifi systems, and that "night and day" adjectives should be avoided when reviewing audiophile cables, because they mislead the beginner into thinking that a cable can completely transform his installation.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=314928"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This is some very good evidence. I find it very impressive that while adding the "null" result does not significantly affect the numeric results or significance, it is extremely important pedagogically. I think that this is enough to convince a lot of audiophiles. Simply demonstrating to them that they can't tell apart one thing from the same thing in a blind test is pretty good.

However, a lot of people can still form ad hoc responses - the point has been raised before that perhaps the very knowledge of what device is under test is required to properly perform a comparison. And, of course, people who completely trust their ears will ignore those results completely, and may invent completely new explanations if need be.

So I guess we're both right?  A lot, perhaps a majority, of audiophiles can be persuaded by the properly done blind test and the very satisfactory explanation, but some debates must be made against peoples' very axioms. Which is hard.

Also, Zetetics sounds a lot like Zetatalk. 

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #47
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In the case of something like psychoacoustic audio compression, that doesn't mean we can ever really get hard answers about whether or not something sounds "good," or "bad," or is even imperceptible, but it means that we can begin to uncover trends about what probably sounds "good," or "bad," or is imperceptible, to most people under some certain condition, etc., etc.  This, in turn, leads us to devise certain principles which help to clarify the information we already have and to reapply it in order to uncover more.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=314939"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Good point. I guess though that by comparing results we are assuming that some level of objectivity exists in the results. Consistancy in results (for instance by way of Roberto's listening tests) supports this position, because the quantified subjective results by different individuals tend to match up.

I guess personally I will just try not to use the word "objective" though, to avoid misunderstandings, and stick to words like "quantifiable".

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #48
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I guess personally I will just try not to use the word "objective" though, to avoid misunderstandings, and stick to words like "quantifiable".
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=314996"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Might I propose the words 'falsifiable' and 'verifiable' as in the meanings of the words in the scientific method?

That is, as compared to the "faith based" results of the cable fanatic.  Note, please, that I am not using the term in any sarcastic fashion at all. To me, it really is falsifiable and testable vs. faith-based reasoning.

I probably shouldn't say more, I tend to rant.

(edited to fix tags)
-----
J. D. (jj) Johnston

Why Your Objective Sound Quality Argument Sucks

Reply #49
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Zetetics encourages to think by oneself, with rigor and method, one thousand miles away from dogmas, prejudices, and preconceived ideas.

Surely to place any method outside the categories of dogma and preconceived ideas is a prejudice that rigorous thinking will expunge?