But if they don't trust their hearing, and require double blind testing etc, how do they get any joy from listening to music with their gear? Because joy is a subjective experience. So the objectivist approach fundamentally doesn't make sense. They're either listening to gear purely to pat themselves on the back for the amazing measurements, or they are having a subjective experience.
Measurements alone - Your are either lazy or untrained ears or new to audio or can afford only low cost gear and therefore feel victorious if it measures better. AV is meant to be an experience, you can measure aspects of it but not the experience.
Over time this experience makes for trained ears who don't give a f*** what an oscilloscope sees.
You're assuming they're objectivists to enjoy music more and I don't think it's the case and I didn't saw that claim from them yet.
I think they're objectivists because they fear uncertainty and science can give them some of that certainty they need. Amir give them ALL the certainty they dream of.
Unfortunately nowadays people buy things blindly, especially budget stuff that has no enough margins for dealers to carry and at those levels you see the scientology stuff goes rampant. People need that certainty to buy stuff blind and Amir delivers!
@rhythmdevils "They evaluate gear baed on measurements only"
I think you are looking at a very narrow and restricted definition of "objectivists." Maybe the ASR school? Objectivists would have similar definitions of subjectivists. And thus the eternal row goes on between the two camps, with each barely talking about or to each other, but rather to the straw men that match their definitions...
...So many shades, so many things to count in or out, so many biases that it might sometimes be useful to try to find ways around. So much time simply enjoying music, which doesn't need either label.
But every time you compare one thing to another, or ask, "did I really hear that?" you are tending to objectivism.
True objectivism, according to my narrow definition, would be when nothing whatsoever comes between music and ears. Both maths and biases are excluded. Just the music.
That's "the point" of blind listening. Whether it works or not, or when, or how are all other other stories.
And blind listening is just one technique of objectivism, just a tool.
On the surface, objectivism seems to make sense. Why can't I rank audio devices like I can rank display devices? Measures like DeltaE, DR, refresh rate, and gamut all tell us how good a display device is.
Among beginners, there's also the illusion that audio is simpler than video, so one measurement aught to do it, no? Of course when we think like a musician, that sounds dumb. No audio professional responsible for good sound gives a damn about how well an instrument measures. It either sounds good or doesn't.
"cheap" objectivism uses scientism as a crutch to attempt to short-cut experience, taste, and empirical knowledge. Complicated subjective forms of the enjoyment of an art form as a proxy for a simple display of wealth to express social supremacy becomes an easy target for those that believe "everyone is out to ripoff everyone else with snake oil".
People treat sound like it's some abstract concept, but in reality sound itself does not exist outside of perception. Otherwise it's just fluctuating air pressure or voltage. You dont enjoy music by reading waveforms in a daw the same way you dont enjoy gear based on graphs
It's like trying to explain the experience of a fantastic meal by breaking it down to, and measuring, its constituent components. There is a denial that there is any complexity or nuance in ALL the interactions that combine to create the experience. I think it was @dematted that said ASR was like a positivist revival tent. Hilarious. Sad.
I could never approach music that way. This weekend I put together an affordable speaker setup. Visited local dealer and listened to stuff had so much fun. Got great deals, learned things.
It isn't even for me and I've been listing to the setup all night and simply loving it. I don't know how any of it measures. Good times. Love the sound, they will be very happy.
What @nishan99 said. And I feel with them objectivists, actually, seeing how much my experience with my gear can differ based on my mood, circumstances, moon phase or whatever.
As long there is a need to prove to myself that what I paid so much money for is really worth it, “objective facts” can be relieving. Could be, if they had any value alone.
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