Why do you visit audio forums?

Of course, but the recording and playback isn't.

 

Without music there is no point in it. It is reproducing an art form, not acting a computer printer. The user treats it the same way and with the same faculties as he does listening to live music, which you admit is an art form. So for the customer the whole process is an art form including the choice of equipment as all he want is for it to reproduce that art form. The *ONLY* people who need to treat it as anything other than an art form and pursue objectivist criteria to any degree are the designers, builders and repairers of that equipment, and maybe some of the more technically minded DIYers.

 

Yes some do. Harman were very frank recently about the results they obtained.

Kind of proves the point really that differences can and do emerge during blind tests and all this confusing of the senses and stress stuff is nonsense.

I'd love to witness one of the magazine blind cables tests though.

 

Well put Richard. I can't speak for anyone else but this sums up *exactly* how I feel from a subjectivist's perspective.

 

Actually that's a pretty good description of the ideal hi-fi, after all, what use would a printer be if it added or subtracted from the document you were trying to print?

Also, can a computer printer not print Shakespeare?

 

That assumes a hifi is capturing and reproducing *all* of the signal (or at least the important bits) unlike a printer which does.

As I see it, you're arguing that a hifi captures and reproduces all that can be measured which means it's accurate. The rest of us are arguing you've simply captured what can be measured because what comes out ain't accurate.

Regardless, I'm off to bed (and having visions about that EMI du Pré box set you linked to at PFM)

 

Blind tests in magazines fall into the 'mostly pointless' camp IMO, because those who believe in blind tests disbelieve the results of magazine blind tests. Meanwhile, those who don't think the results are often hopelssly inconsistent.

I have put together and heard many systems over the years. Ones that are assembled at random, often thanks to winning awards or by virtue of super-bargain status are usually the most haphazard sounding; could be good, could sound like a car crash expressed over the length of a song. Then come the 'designed by specification' systems, which usually sound unremittingly flat. Systems assembled by blind panels can also sound flat and undynamic, or they sound like they could strip paint at 30 paces (depending on the blind listening panel), but are rarely even-handed.

Then comes the 'fed a line from the manufacturer/dealer' or the occasional good system from a magazine. These can at least sound coordinated and coherent, but are usually directed toward a bright, 'instant sale' sound with little long-lasting entertainment value. Occasionally, you come across a real star system, assembled with care and attention that sounds remarkable. Even more occasionally, this system is assembled by a dealer/manufacturer/distributor or magazine. You may not like the sound such a system produces, but it is internally consistent, repeatable and directed toward a specific musical goal. There are exceptions of course; even the most internally consistent team can get things wrong and a randomly assembled list of products will - by sheer virtue of randomness - produce a sound that is spectacularly musically coherent.

Of course, this is all dismissed by those who cling to their systems assembled by blind test as so much nonsense, because they're too wrapped up in proving a point to actually feel how the music moves them.

However, blind tests are important, but their utility fades the closer you get to the end user. In this they are like Euro NCAP tests for cars... you want to buy a car that has passed crash-test safety standards, but you don't want to start your test drive of your new car by slamming it into a brick wall at 30mph.

 

No subjectivist or anyone who sells gear is ever going to admit that they need the visual aspect to help identify their gear. To say it stands out in a blind test is akin to saying its sound is somehow skewed or obvious.

Richard doesn't accept that unsighted tests help remove visual bias, that's ok people are allowed to be unremittingly stupid, that's the joy of life.

Frankly i kind of side with him that a short, blind test, with unknown kit in unfamiliar circumstances isn't the way to select gear. Nothing but a long term audition in your own room will do. After all you have to live with the way it looks as well as the way it sounds.

Not sure about anyone else here, but I would only buy something I liked the look of, stuff that does not appeal to me visually wouldn't even get a listen. No matter how good Unison gear (as an example) sounded it would never get past the door at my house.

But once I have a selection of suitable candidates, I would listen to it unsighted to maker a final selection wherever possible.

 

I have never once said that, so that must be some sort of visual bias in reading posts, or is it your stupidity and inability to read. I have said quite clearly it is not important and gets in the way and is a waste of time. As you confirm, visual and ergonomic considerations are very important to the buyer.

 

I'd suggest that you need to find a way to measure these things you claim are not measurable, that would solve the problem.

What are you waiting for? Order the set!

 

That forum exists: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org

In fact Hydrogenaudio is so cold and hard that it does not allow you to opine that your system sounds bright.

:devil:

 

The content is fine but the stalinist style control freakery is definitely not IMO.

 

But that is the way these extreme objectivists function, you need look no further than Basil or Cav posts with Mescalino a close third.

 

But it does tell you how to solve the problem.

 

That's out of my realm as I'm not an engineer nor do I have the gumption to undertake such a thing.

It's very, very tempting to order the set. That's the problem though, I've been spending about fifty bucks every week at the used cd/book store for six months now and my better half is raisng an eye brow. So much for staying on budget;-)

Mmmmm...just remembered, I've gotta birthday coming up in a couple of weeks. Your link to be emailed shortly ;-)

 

No. It tells you that the problem cannot exist under the guidelines laid down by the forum. That's hardly a solution.

If someone finds their system to sound 'bright', telling them they don't have the right to say that without formally testing the assertion is going to end badly. If one of the alpha geeks at HA said that to me face-to-face, I would dine on nerdflesh by sunset.

According to HA, an anechoic chamber would make an ideal listening room and fixing a damaged drive unit on any given loudspeaker requires simply replacing it with a similarly sized one from your local Radio Shack, with no need to take the parameters of the broken drive unit and the new one into consideration.

These statements were taken as uncontested fact on Hydrogenaudio, while those who suggested that you should attempt to ensure the new drive unit had at least similar electrical properties to the broken one were asked to justify their wild claims or risk censure.

So Basil, if one of your Harbeth drive units gets damaged for some reason, are you going to waste your money going back to Harbeth or follow the path of true objectivism and pick up something vaguely similar from Rat Shack?

 

Got any links?

 

Ahem...

.... or the 'welcome message' at H-Fi Subjectivist!

The three you mention haven't to my knowledge demanded that people not post unless they've a dozzen blind ABX tests as 'proof'.

 

Are you still celebrating birthdays? ;-)

If you like Du Pre, I can't see how you could be disapointed, for £17 it is a superb bargain!

Some true gems to be found, including the best set of Beethoven trios I've heard.

 

It is just an expression of intent, show me where extreme objectivists have been removed, 'cos they haven't, even you are tolerated

It is Uglymusics baby now anyway and he just duplicated it across from the old forum, he can remove it if he wants. It was written at the time because it seemed apt and if I had been booted from here for being me and having subjectivist views it would have been proof of my concern. My concern is the way forums treat members, mainly from my experiences at PFM very recent to the time I wrote it.

But in many way it is to correct the superior and arrogant posturing of the likes of the first two mentioned that just stop members and scares them off having opinions as we see in the extreme version of it at that objectivist forum.

Subjectivist mostly want to communicate and talk about what they hear and the pleasure of it, where as the objectivist always wants to stop opinion and discussion and impose a doctrine, it has ruined many a good thread on many forums with their bile and dictation, and then in most case the insult and rudeness appears. They find it impossible to post without ad hominem, if they cannot get immediate agreement with their views then the insults start, "fairy dust" et al, it just goes on and on. Hopefully that statement of intent has kept them away from Subjectivist where you don't see the insults and arguments you see here and at other forums when they pollute them. So for me it is not so much the idea but the personalities that idea seems to attract that is the problem.