In Reply to: RE: Subjectivist Audiophiles ...have, individually and collectively, taken leave of their senses. posted by middleground on May 4, 2012 at 07:07:32:
There is a reason the Subjectivist/Objectivist debate rages on. It has to do with the fact that what we measure is not always what is important to the human ear; IOW we often measure the wrong things.
An example is THD. An amp can have low THD but still not sound good- it might be bright to the human ear even though it measures perfectly flat on the bench. This is due to trace amount of odd-ordered harmonic distortion. The human ear uses these harmonics to figure out how loud a sound is; if they are messed with even slightly it will cause the ear/brain system to interpret the result as louder and harsher. This does not typically show up in the measurements, simply because the industry adheres to some rather decrepit design rules, in the face of studies done in the succeeding decades that suggest how decrepit those rules have become.
As a result we have the debate. After 50 years the fact that amplifier specs do not translate to knowing how the amplifier sounds is quite telling. Audiophiles have in many cases grown tired of what amounts to a useless bit of paper and have begun reliance on their ears. It would all be easily solved if we measured the right things.
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Follow Ups
- Hmm. Perhaps take a look at this. - Ralph 12:54:10 05/04/12 (4)
- RE: Hmm. Perhaps take a look at this. - middleground 13:59:53 05/04/12 (3)
- There are certain human hearing rules - Ralph 14:39:28 05/04/12 (2)
- RE: There are certain human hearing rules - Bromo33333 12:14:26 05/06/12 (1)
- RE: There are certain human hearing rules - Ralph 12:40:27 05/07/12 (0)