Subjectivity......

Hungryhalibut posted:

I think it was a great comment. The thing that amuses me more than most is when somebody says 'I'm an electronic engineer' in order to justify a view that is often distinctly dubious. 

There have been a few instances recently of two or three people having an endless technical debate that is completely incomprehensible to normal folk. It's a bit like top trumps, getting more and more complicated. 

I have very little idea about Hifi speak, most of which seems to me to be complete twaddle. All I look for is if something gets me more involved with the music. Though I do like the inky blackness  of the DR power amps with SL leads - the way music appears from total silence. It's rather beguiling. 

It’s a very interesting and mostly unknown fact that degrees Twaddle (Deg.Tw) is a measure of the strength of a caustic soda solution.

0 Deg.Tw has an SG of 1.00,

50 Deg.Tw has an SG of 1.25,

100 Deg.Tw has an SG of 1.50.

 Twaddle isn’t used much these days, in fact in my experience the only people still using it are the South Americans

 Trust me “I’m a textile engineer” I know all about Twaddle.

Textile engineer eh? That's mightily impressive. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Textile engineer eh? That's mightily impressive. 

I know.

But it does have its downside. My wife makes me do the ironing.

Timmo1341 posted:

There have been some interesting debates recently on 'timing', 'flow', 'depth', 'imaging', 'foot tapping' etc. ad infinitude. Some debates have ended up as Physics Masterclasses, others with participants displaying entrenched, immovable views? I have to confess to being none the wiser after reading many of them. 

My prompt to post was my attendance of a gig last Friday night. The band was Australian Pink Floyd at the Leeds Arena. During the interval my friend and I (in adjacent seats) were discussing the sound. I expressed my opinion that the sound was good, other than the bass player and drummer's kick drum being slightly too loud and forward in the mix. My friend disagreed totally, but felt the hi-hats and other cymbals were almost inaudible. I, on the other hand, heard the cymbals as clearly as on The Pulse, which the band were attempting to recreate.

My point is that we were hearing exactly the same sounds and music, but were obviously processing it in different ways. This may have been down to our receiving equipment (lugholes etc.), or the processor (brain?). There were no other variables at play. With hifi, given the almost infinite number of variables (surroundings, acoustics, power supplies, ancillary equipment etc), is it not almost impossible to explain why what may please and satisfy one listener fails to excite another? I haven't even mentioned the human tendency which is to seek to justify expenditure, and then extol the virtues of what we each own. After all, no one likes to have it demonstrated they may have bought unwisely!!

When I bought my SuperUniti with ProAc D20r, connected by Chord Epic Twin, it was after demoing a Linn equivalent all in one, listening to both played back through various speakers, including Ovator 400s, Spendor D7s and Harbeths, the model of which escapes me. The easiest decisions were Naim not Linn, and the ProAcs by a country mile. I then blind A/B tested NACA5 against Chord Epic, with the Chord winning hands down. Now, it may be that had I taken all this equipment home for months of 'burning in' and comparative listening my choices may have been different. I will never know, and I don't really care! What I do know is the setup I have sounds better to me 18 months on (whether as a result of this mysterious burning in, or simply me learning to appreciate what it offers in terms of musical reproduction - who knows?).

I have returned to my dealer and briefly demo'd what may be my first upgrade when time and funds permit. I admit to having done a fair bit of reading, both on this forum and in the hifi press, which has helped to inform the direction I may eventually take. All I know is that whatever I eventually purchase will be bought on the basis of what I hear, not on what anyone else says.

I enjoy my membership of this forum (most of the time!), and enjoy reading of the experiences of those with more experience than me. As has been said many times, we're free to sift out what we each perceive as chaff. I just wish sometimes it could all be kept a little more grounded and accessible to mere mortals like me!

As one member says often, just some thoughts I felt moved to share. Hope I haven't bored you too much.

Tim

What a wonderfully well balanced thoughtful post  .... it represents us all at this moment in time .. either happy with our systems or actively looking to upgrade for some specific reason .. if it sounds good to you/stay with it .. otherwise work with your dealer on improvements (subjective I know) .. that's what it's all about.  Well done that man.

Coming back to Tim's original post - what fascinated me how two people, sitting next to each other at a gig, heard the same music differently (one was too much bass / kick drum, the other one too little cymbals).

Funny how our brain works. Or is it merely a function what we pay attention to? Perhaps Tim is into drum'n'bass so he hears this first, and his friend works for a cymbal manufacturer and is very focused on those 

As to hi-fi language - it's an amazing leasson in English (English As a Foreign Language) reading some of the descriptions used on this forum.

fatcat posted:

 Trust me “I’m a textile engineer” I know all about Twaddle.

Does that mean you've got cloth ears?      

(So sorry I really just couldn't resist that!   Purely for humour - no insult intended at all  )

On the subject of subjectivity. I am beginning to wonder that objectivity may actually morph into subjectivity depending on how the brain processes the information.

ryder. posted:

On the subject of subjectivity. I am beginning to wonder that objectivity may actually morph into subjectivity depending on how the brain processes the information.

That sounds pretty much the way of everything - were you to include non-brain factors such as variations in view point, intervening distortions and variations in the function of the 'organs of perception'.

I've been living with an example of this in that, after a period of treatment and eightish months of being unable to eat, I'm wrestling with a bizarrely shifting and defective taste palette.

There are many oddities - an illustrative, and relevant?, example would be the strangely reticent return of sweetness.

I hardly perceive it in sugar, not at all in fruits - a fair amount in honey. I prefer cane sugar in my coffee and I suspect it is the unique flavour that overlies this that reminds me of 'sugar' and, through association, gives me a slight (constructed but welcome) perception of sweetness. Actually, the honey probably works in this way too.

I've been lavished (in separate meals) with baclava, syrup puddings and what would previously have been far too sweet sherries as friends challenge my sugar-deafness. The degree of incomprehension and even doubt that greets an assertion that "No, that doesn't taste sweet" reflects the normal assumption that there is a commonly shared 'real' universe and people experience it in, much, the same way.

The miracle seems to me that we usually do experience things in a regular and consistent enough way to appear to agree. Based on my memory of flavours (which I allow to stand for the common experience) and what I now experience I could not describe a newly experienced flavour in any way which would 'map' onto your experiences. I cannot share my taste-world through words.

I dance about food.

Adam it would be fascinating to see how you respond to the "miracle berry" (Synsepalum dulcificum).

I suspect that it'll have no effect on you right now, suggesting that the sweet receptors are for some reason not functioning, however if that still makes acid taste sweet then it suggests a different mechanism for your loss of taste.  Is it just taste that's affected or does it affect the aroma part of flavour as well?

"objectivity may actually morph into subjectivity"
"commonly shared 'real' universe and people experience it in, much, the same way"

wow - philosophy and HiFi - I can see a doctoral thesis coming out of this  - heavy, man

Here's my twopence worth ...

Objectivity requires evidence; IMO evidence can only be considered as reproducible measurable effects and certainly does not include things like "90% of people in a survey ..." - the latter is purely reflecting current sociological perceptions and prejudices.

... but then objectivity like measuring THD, response curves, s/n ratio , etc does not always map onto perceived audio quality

... so what is the "real universe"?

... well IMO it is both; there is the real measurable universe out there and there is the real perceived univers and they are not always the same;

... although in my mind this is because the objectivity is not measuring the correct parameters.

In Adam's case, his "measuring" equipment is not behaving as it used to and his real universe is thus changed.

I have the same issue since, being blind, the visual real universe is entirely irrelevant to me (like when the wife says you're not going out in those green trousers with that gold lame shirt.

So there is no common real universe and we can only live and interact in the one we each individually perceive but luckily for us there are many individual perceptions that are close to those of others and so we can actually communicate (well sometimes!) in a meaningful manner ... but then, as many others have said, how do you communicate perceived audio qualities in written words ... we need a poetry corner

Going back to the OP, two individuals had different ear/brain perception apparatus, different histories, different likes/dislikes, etc and all this led them to hear different nuances of the actual physical sound waves that were barreling through the air. This is a reflection of all of us listening to our HiFi and why one should never force our own audio perceptions down other people's throats - like Adam, they might not "taste" what you're tasting.

Sorry - mornings are always my little retrospective time and hence these ramblings

... but heck, they're fun

Remember, as I've said before,

... let your ears open your eyes ...

ATB

Allan

Alan you may like to look at 'General Semantics'.

It deals with this very subject: That we interact with our own internal model of the world not with the real world itself.

To understand that gives considerable insight into one's own and other's behaviour, and why apparently inexplicable and irreconcilable differences can occur.

Interesting stuff.

Reading this thread you might be forgiven for thinking most of us disagree on most things when it comes to appreciation of hi fi components and there are some excellent explanations as to why that is entirely plausible. The reality of course is that there is a considerable degree of consensus on here despite the difficulty of putting into words what we hear. For example most of us who have gone up the Naim heiracy of components would agree that a step up the Black Box ladder is generally rewarded with a more satisfying aural experience (that is aural, NOT oral!). There are some notable exceptions though. For example, some prefer the NAC282 to the NAC252 (not me, but I can understand this particular view). A preference for the NAP300 over the NAP500 had also been expressed. But in general most of us would agree the more you spend on Naim gear the more enjoyable the music that emanates from it is with the caveat of 'diminishing returns', what ever that means.

It should also be recognised however that we are not a typical or random sample of those who appreciate music reproduced in the home. Virtually all of us own, or have owned, Naim gear so we are of course a skewed sample with a high percentage of those who appreciate the Naim sound. So there is some 'inbuilt consensus' due to the bias sample we are drawing views from.

I find it rather refreshing when someone sticks his or her head above the parapet and fires a controversial view into the forum. Some get very excited, some get agitated and others take the time to reflect, possibly even going to the lengths trying the same thing the heretic has discovered and seeing if they can reproduce the same magic for themselves. Others (not many it has to be said) will remain steadfast in their opposing view and some will remain rather defensive (usually related to the gear they have chosen to own).

Controversy and disagreement are good in my book. It takes us out of our comfort zones and tempts some of us to break with the status quo (not the appreciation of band you understand) and try something we wouldn't normally consider. A disagreement on here often sparks some very interesting threads bringing in other views and ideas and experiences. Please God, we don't all start agreeing with each other. Now that really would be boring.

Long live controversy and disagreement I say (as long as it is kept polite and respectful of course).