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Re: Perhaps You're Right

> If you were an objectivist, then had severe brain damage from an
> accident, then I suppose this sort of scenario *could* have occured.
> Otherwise, you were always a subjectivist. You just didn't know it.

I have always had problems with audiophiles using the terms "objectivist" and "subjectivist" because people who consider their subjective experiences of sound are not in conflict in any way whatsoever with those that consider what is going on objectively. There would have to be something pretty weird about the world if this was not the case.

The conflict seems to arise for two reasons: "subjectivists" have incorrect beliefs about what is going on objectively and lack the simple intelligence to recognise what is subjective and what is objective and "objectivists" often appear to want the sound impinging on the ear to be the reality rather than what is perceived.

TG54 describes himself as previously being an "objectivist" and by this I suspect he means that he took published figures about objective performance and projected all sorts of attributes onto them that they did not possess concerning how nice his hi-fi would sound. Now if there are to be "objectivist audiophiles" this seems a pretty accurate description to me since the focus of interest is objective data and he must hold audiophile beliefs (i.e. scientifically invalid beliefs) in order to do his projections. Reasonable?

The real distinction, as ever, is between those that hold incorrect beliefs about what is going on and those that are better informed about what has been established. This is not subjective versus objective (no conflict) but ignorant versus educated/informed (conflict at least while the educated remain engaged which usually isn't for long - see Wikipedia for example).

Do you consider yourself to be an "objective audiophile" or a "non-audiophile"? If the former, what meaning do you attach to the terms audiophile and objective?



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