All probably true and fair enough. But the heat and light on the forum is not about that stuff. I can't remember the last time anyone said that people shouldn't like the sound of valve amps they should like the sound of .001 THD etc etc.I assess audio kit based on what my auditory system perceives (there's your subjectivism), yet I recognize the many sources of bias that influence perception and do what I can to minimize or eliminate them at the dem stage (there's your objectivism), but I don't get my knickers in a knot that I'm not scientific enough or perhaps too scientific in the way I select kit.
I do think measurements are useful but I don't have any equipment to measure kit, apart from a bathroom scale and tape measure. I can tell you my GRFs are both large and heavy, certainly relative to bookshelf speakers.
For all the ink spilled and keyboards tapped on this subject a hi-fi is just a bit of consumer electronics to reproduce music in the home. Selecting kit is not akin to a crucial double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial to determine the efficacy of a new anti-cancer drug or something. Any my posting about kit I have heard is not akin to a submission to a high impact factor peer-reviewed scientific journal. It's just me relaying my experience, which may be useful to another fishie who's contemplating a purchase.
Minimizing sources of bias come into play for me only during the dem stage and only if I'm concerned that I may pick kit for reasons that have nothing or little to do with sonics. But if I end up with a valvy, distorting, obsolete, high-output impedance, legacy Stingray instead of a state-of-the-art nonfish-shaped Sony receiver with 0.001% THD because I let my eyes trump my ears -- well, so be it.
If I had an enjoyable meal at a restaurant I don't fret that I could have had a nicer meal somewhere else for similar money, or a meal just as good for 15% less. It's sufficient for me that I had a meal I enjoyed at a price I thought was fair. To stretch this stretched analogy a bit further, it's more important to me that I'm eating good food, than worrying whether it could have been prepared a bit better.
Joe
I think most people realize that my opinion on a restaurant is just that -- an opinion -- and any way you look at it yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
The problem is people giving reasons for preferences.All probably true and fair enough. But the heat and light on the forum is not about that stuff. I can't remember the last time anyone said that people shouldn't like the sound of valve amps they should like the sound of .001 THD etc etc.
Some people insist that ST: The Next Generation is superior to ST: TOS, but if I can let that slide surely other less egregiously wrong statements could be overlooked.
I can't remember the last time anyone said that people shouldn't like the sound of valve amps they should like the sound of .001 THD etc etc.
Personally I'm in a bit of a quandary because I believe things like:
- All else being equal active performs better
- All else being equal stand mount performs better
- All else being equal solid state performs better
I agree with both of you. Another way of putting it is that the idea that this hobby is about high fidelity is a sticky one. Many people have pointed out in various different ways that maybe we should let go of that idea and just admit that one goes for one's preferred flavour. But very few people mean it. They just can't help it. [edit I should perhaps add here that what I mean is that one can't let go of the idea that what one likes more must in some technical sense be better]Maybe not valve amps and .001 THD and so on, but there are plenty of people who express clear preferences based on their perception of what's technically superior or inferior: active speakers, electrostatics, standmounts, full-range drivers, class A amps, NOS DACs, vinyl, DSD, 12" arms, idler drives etc etc etc etc.
That was kind of the point of my little OT skit. We may like to think that people will respect other peoples' preferences, but that's just a pious hope. The reality is that people know they're right.
In everyday life we may forbear to ask one another where we go on Sunday mornings, out of some sense of what we call decency. On a hi-fi forum that decency tends to be very short lived.
EDIT: crossed with Darren's post that says pretty much the same thing.
The thing is that pfm will never be Hydrogen Audio II: Electric Boogaloo, and if that's what you're looking for you're in the wrong place.
But I suspect you are here because this is the right place.
Thus, depending on one's temperament one ends up convincing oneself that what is more accurate sounds better to one, or that whatever sounds better to one is more accurate.
Good call. I have gone down a very strange route where I'm quite interested in the technicalities [mainly because of their application to other areas outside hifi] but not massively bothered one way or the other about the hardware I'm using to listen at the moment. I'm more interested in this years proms line up (and a few other festivals besides.) and am currently thinking of recorded music for large part as a way of preparing for concerts.My guiding principle is to seek an often spurious post hoc justification for my choices. It's worked well so far.