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In Reply to: RE: surrogates posted by fstein on November 10, 2015 at 20:40:27
At the outset, I disapprove of the OP's attaching a snide, personal attack in his first post, reminding of the name-calling and taunts heard in the middle school courtyard. We are all serious about this audio endeavor, having spent so much time, effort and money in this, and I would hope that such personal comments be relegated to other audio forums, not here.
Additionally, the use of the medical terms, "surrogate" and "clinical" to raise a decades-old discussion serves no purpose, it seems to me, other than to be a vehicle to voice the poster's personal attack. Adding medical baggage to this discussion makes the discussion more confusing.
Generally, the positions and the differences between the two imprecisely defined "measurement" and "golden-eared" camps are known to those who have followed these discussions. In general, the two camps do not speak the same language.
The measurement side offers an invaluable and essential service in the design, testing and manufacture of audio gear. The consumer side (I dislike the term golden-ear) has to decide, among other things, the choice and the assembly. Unfortunately, the two camps must inhabit the same unhappy audio space.
The language of the measurement camp is clear and precise, and their findings reproducible. From what I have heard and read, the language of the "golden-eared" consumers is the opposite - unclear, imprecise and their "findings" not reproducible. Why is that ? Go to the sound rooms of any number of audiophiles, and you will find that no two audiophile systems are alike, not by a long shot. What does this mean ? It means that audiophiles are matching and mismatching to their hearts' content, seemingly without rhyme or reason.
How do audiophiles defend their choices ? They use the meaningless, by my perspective, phrase "good sound" and say that although a component may measure well, it doesn't "sound good."
My belief is that the measurement camp has done its job in creating their generally accepted audio accounting principles, while the consumer camp bickers even among themselves as to what sounds good. The fact that the compositions of various audio systems run the gamut is testimony to that lack of credibility.
I do not agree with this free-for-all approach. I believe that current audio technology is sufficient to reproduce the natural sound, even if irritatingly poorly. The more I remain in this endeavor, the more I come to the belief that the vast majority of audiophile systems are performing well below what they are capable of, resulting in their piss-poor (apologies), generic performances, leading to that inevitable generic comment, Well, it doesn't sound good to me.
I believe that progressing beyond the basic levels of sound reproduction in an audiophile sound room will necessarily lead to a more precise and with hope a more generally accepted audiophile vocabulary in describing the reproduced sound. I haven't seen or heard it as yet.
Follow Ups:
? snide
?personal? when you are the editor of the major magazine, you are a public figure
cool off
take your meds
All audio engineers use measurements, even those who make tube amps :)
Metrics are very useful tools, but they do not have inherent value. Their value is derived from their ability to guide you to a desirable outcome. That was fstein's point.
It's easy for engineers to chase numbers and easy for consumers to buy based on numbers, but if all this spec chasing isn't resulting in better sound, then it's misguided.
I thought the medical analogy was very apt. LDL and HDL metrics became prominent tools in medicine because of early research that found a correlation with heart disease. I'm far from an expert on this, but I believe that cholesterol testing was originally used just as a risk indicator. But then the LDL receptor hypothesis gained popularity and the profession began to chase numbers. This led to statins. Now that we have accumulated a much larger body of research over a longer time, it's starting to look like the LDL receptor hypothesis should be rejected and statins are only beneficial with certain classes of patients e.g. those who have already suffered a heart attack. The lesson here is that without a full understanding of the underlying mechanisms, chasing numbers can lead you down a wrong path.
Kind of like the story of THD in audio engineering.
It is true that audiophiles have different sounding systems and don't agree on what's best. The explanation for that is simple. There are many different attributes of sound quality and many different kinds of music. It is not a one-dimensional problem. Different audiophiles place different weight on different attributes and use different music to evaluate their choices. Some systems are highly optimized to do one or two things well. Some are optimized for a specific genre of music. And so on. There is no perfect system that will do everything very well for every type of music. And there is no right answer to which is best.
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