Passing Judgement on Audio Quality

I hate to agree with you, but I do lol
And I am party to it to some extent.
Mea culpa

It's one thing to personally like something
Entirely another to declare it 'good' in general without consensus.
The least harmful is hifi

But's it's crept into all realms: politics, philosophies, Faith (or not), science (which is absurd), how others should live, ad nauseam

We have become so self centered we exclude all other input. We KNOW, you don't, WE see the light, you don't.

Back to measurements: if done properly, to some standard, they can't be negated. You can choose whether they mean anything to YOU, but even if you don't, they still mean something regardless. 'Beliefs' do not change that.
They exist without your acknowledgement.

 

Khorns OP thread idea is that arguing about specs is only about a THIRD of the way towards knowing about sound quality.

The other thirds are:
2) You have to do a lot of comparative listening to components to "get" what a good component does right. Forget about specs---you need COMPARITIVE KNOWLEDGE to make decisions and that means LISTENING and comparing stuff...hard work!

and as Agitator so brilliantly put it---
3) You will need a reference room of your own---a sub optimal room is a terrible place to form opinions---and at the end of the day your opinions will be your own guide and you have to make judgements in YOUR ROOM---so get that room RIGHT!

Boy, I couldn't agree with this approach more.
When I started I bought the best pair of headphones I could afford and compared them to my baby steps each step of the way as the room system came together in my new house.
I simply used the phones as a substitute for a "reference system." to get the overall playback response set nice and flat (or as flat as those phones and maybe even a little bit better than them!).

That at least got me started on sorting out the room so I could work there.
Now I have built systems two three and four over at my house (for different rooms) using my main room as the reference instead of headphones.
But either way...specs...then a properly staged room including furniture and acoustics...then listening closely to judge components as needed, all done to personal taste.

Yup.
Those that say there is no system to building a setup are nuts.
THIS is how you DO it for gosh sakes...it isn't rocket science either.
Just hard work and time consuming.

 

My listening is largely emotionally-based with a spoonful of personal aesthetics thrown in if I also want to take a semi-intellectual interest in what I'm listening to. (Emotions and aesthetics are rather different beasts but can often work together.)

To an extent, I can discern between 'bad' speakers, 'good' speakers and 'better' speakers, but those aspects only really matter in listening terms if I like what I hear.

So I might in the end prefer listening to something on the cheapo system attached to my PC (satellites and sub-woofer costing just a few pounds), which successfully touches me emotionally, instead of on a very expensive system if that system is technically excellent but doesn't touch me on the emotional level.

Measuring instruments, however, don't do emotion or aesthetics, so the question is whether or not it's possible to translate from measurements to emotions and aesthetics without using listening as a bridge.

And this is where there is possibly a lack of consensus and a broad spectrum of views. But since there are no absolute rights and wrongs, and provided that we can accept that we are all different, that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Specs tell us how a component was designed, a good start. But from there a long in-house audition is the only way to determine if there'a synergy.

 

Sounds like a typical SHF thread.

 

See, that's the thing. Of course there's no "wrong" or "right" when it comes to what anyone prefers to listen to. But there are audio facts -- lower harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion are more accurate to the signal source. Lower noise will allow more low level detail and microdynamics to come through. More inert lower mechanical resonance speaker cabinets and turntables and tonearms will produce a less colored sound. A speaker that's flat to 30 Hz will produce more bass than a speaker that rolls off after 50 Hz. One might prefer the sound of the equipment with the higher noise, higher distortion, mechanical playback pitch instability, ringing resonances. But we can say for a fact that they're not more accurately reproducing the source, and we can tell the ways and degree to which they are off.

I've never quite understood what people are hearing when they listen for emotional differences as a result of using different audio components.

To me the emotional content of recorded music is entirely to be found in the performances. Whether I'm listening to the recorded performance on my car radio, my little 1" laptop speakers of the on board sound card, or my big hifi, the emotional content of the recording is the same. And my emotional reaction to the performance is the same. Or, it might be different one day or one place vs. the next because my mood is different. But the different audio playback gear doesn't really have an impact on the emotion I hear in the performance, or my emotional reaction to the performance. Audio to me is more like focusing a set of binoculars allowing me to better see or not a far off object, putting the binocs on a tripod or holding them in my hand to better steady the image, etc. Those are akin to the kinds of sonic differences I hear and listen for. But I'm just as likely to be emotionally engaged by the music on any system, I just have a better focused view of the scene and detail with one system vs. another.

 

Well art and food are subjective assessments, unless you are a trained pro at those disciplines (and even so, opinion is still subjective) whereas the optical resolution of a lens is objective (it can be measured and compared quantitatively) -- so these examples are not the same.

I think audio is somewhere in the middle of objective and subjective, but while measurements can be captured to assess some comparability, what we individually hear and assess as "quality" is subjective.

Audio gear to me is much more akin to a car. Looking at cars, there are loads of measurables: horsepower, torque, weight, power-to weight ratio, shifting speed, top speed, acceleration, braking distance, gas mileage -- these numbers should clearly tell a buyer which is "the best".

Until you get behind the wheel and find that you might greatly enjoy one car over another even if your favorite is measurably "inferior" to another. The "feel" of the car, the way it responds to you, the way it connects with your needs or your style of driving... these qualities are subjective and they often drive the decisions of most people.

A Honda CR-V may be a car preferred by many over a Ferrari, even though it loses in every quantitative measure other than fuel efficiency.

 

I have to say, I think the room that people are listening in has an almost incalculable amount to do with the differing opinions and preferences in audio.

I see people's room set up in pix and I see speakers shoved into corners, or set up asymmetrically, I see, often, listening positions with people's head right up against a wall, I see multi purpose rooms with all kinds of stuff in the first reflection areas, I see small square rooms, I see big rectangular rooms with walls of glass windows, or exposed brick or bare floors and ceilings, or openings at all kinds of different spots...it's really all over the place.

These rooms and set ups are going to sound wildly different in term of frequency response -- with boundary and mode related peaks and nulls, in terms of flutter echo that's just going to obliterate soundstage (if you can even manage to get a decent soundstage with some of these asymmetrical set ups, off axis listening positions, and speakers and ears right at the room boundaries), room noise that's going to mask low level detail, uncontrolled decay times that are going to make big tutti dynamic peaks sound congested.

In these differing rooms and set ups, gear preferences is going to likely have a lot to do with seasoning for room and set up effects.

 

I've always liked the "food" analogy to audio gear when it comes to the subjective experience angle. I've spent countless hours talking about both food and audio gear online. The conversations have a lot of parallels, but some very stark differences.

No one has ever asked me to "describe" how I liked the taste of one BBQ rub over another. Not just "well, one is salty and the other is savory." To compare it to the lengths one is asked to compare audio gear online, I'd have to have a way to describe how the BBQ rub engaged my emotions, how it added depth but not as much heat as the label said it might give, and if I describe it differently than another commenter, I'm not assailed by 10 other people who say my sense of taste is broken.

People just accept that we all have very strong preferences and expectations around taste. And saying that one rub, which differs only slightly to another - "totally transformed these ribs!" isn't a call to arms. It's a thing we all clink our glasses to and agree it's not really worth arguing about if it really didn't transform those ribs

But audio gear and listening, which is experienced similarly - mood affects it (just like if I'm really hungry - ANYTHING will be "the best meal ever," or if one is inebriated or otherwise modified...), cost affects it in various ways, our brains play a critical role as does our lived experiences (this slice of cheesecake reminds me of my late grandmother who made something similarly), etc... It's just not 1's and 0's.

And food opinions seem to be perfectly acceptable in those gray areas. There are some stalwarts, some troublemakers who just want to say "NY PIZZA IS GOD AND CHICAGO THIN CRUST IS GARBAGE!!!" but generally they are just viewed as such. But audio nerds, for whatever reason, demand a sacrifice anytime a popular opinion is challenged online, or whenever someone posts AN OPINION without stating it explicitly as such.

It's like the subjective experience of eating a meal is assumed, but the subjective experience of listening to music is taken for granted, especially nowadays when we have gear that measures as invisible, but sounds like nothing as well.

So it's not that food and stereos are different. Of course they are. But the discussions about each offer me some perspective on what's really important in the discussion.

The other issue is our limited vocabulary and ability to "describe" what we hear. Ever get a perfect diagnosis from an automotive service writer based solely on how you mimiced the sound your car is making? Of course not, and we all feel incredibly silly doing it, yet we still try every now and again. Same thing for "describing" how a piece of gear sounds different from another. It's honestly not easy to do and be very specific, and to use examples and phrasing that everyone else can relate to. That's where measurements can become a crutch, but they can also completely overtake the point which is a subjective experience, with objective measurements that may or may not have anything to do with ultimately how something sounds.

 

Actually listening to music is so last century!!

Having read several threads, I obviously conned hundreds of people into buying poorer measuring equipment by mistakenly spending many years of life demonstrating equipment.

I apologise to all those happy customers, you all must be as deluded as me. Don't follow the tunes , read the spec sheet, those impossible to achieve specs in the real world are all you need after all. The seventies, eighties and nineties were all an illusion.

I blame Ivor, 100.0000000000%!

 

A couple of months ago, I had a listening session with a loudspeaker designer and manufacturer. We were listening to his smallest stand-mount, and I played two CD versions of "Blues In The Night" by Frank Sinatra. One was from the 2018 stereo remix of "Only The Lonely" and the other was from the mono MoFi CD of the same album.

Same performance but different recordings inasmuch as they used different mikes and tape machines recording in parallel during the performance. The speaker designer (who designs speakers that I "get" and enjoy listening to) said that the stereo remix was a good recording but that the mono version told a story (which is the real purpose of this song, its arrangement, and its performance).

I enjoy both versions but for different reasons, and I listen to each version differently. I listen for the sound and acoustic setting of the orchestra when listening to the 2018 stereo mix but, like the speaker designer, I am more likely to hear the song and its story when listening to the mono mix.

I've also found that the storytelling and the emotional aspects of that storytelling are better communicated to me as an individual by some speakers more than others, and by some amps more than others, and by some cables more than others etc.

So we have a lot of equipment that sits between the performance and our ears, starting with microphones, and ending with speakers and listening rooms, and it really does make a difference to some ears.

 

This should be engraved on a plaque and hung at the entrance to every listening room. Until the owner of a system actually asks for help, we need to keep our comments to ourselves about other people's setups.

 

Brilliant post. Back in my dinosaur days of retail, as much as the customer allowed, we always positioned the speakers for optimum sound (Linn tune dem) in their room it's amazing what an inch or two speaker movement can do.

 

That’s a fact, pure and simple. Minor speaker adjustment can equal major change in the total listening experience.

 

I recently moved my speakers a few inches closer together, and found greatly increased ooomph and impact, with more substance to mid-range and bass.

 

. . . unless you’re a dealer doing a new setup in someone’s home. Best to tell the customer the exact truth then just as @Randoms posted and as @KT88 and other dealers have suggested in the past in other threads.

 

The laser pointer is both your ears and speakers best friend.

 

A lot of us have 'sub-optimal' rooms with little chance of making them fully optimal, and perhaps that's why we can find some speakers that sound best a metre into the room and other speakers that sound best sat in corners in a room. So, it comes back down to synergy again.

 

When you get right down to it, blind testing is your absolute best tool to use for buying components, placing speakers, and making tweaks.

 

Most of us have sub-optimal rooms and the majority of dem rooms I used in my retail days were not particularly good. However, we did optimise every speaker we had on dem and unless fundamentally forbidden on the installion, did in the customer's home. All of the rooms were capable of revealing what better equipment could do, which is why you paid to have it on demonstration!! It was then down to the customer to decide how good a sound (unfortunately this usually is budget related!) they wanted. Everyone's expectation levels are different.

Many can have speakers either close to the wall, or a meter plus into the room and more importantly, can position them any distance in between, possibly closer, or further apart so the bass is in time and hopefully in tune with the midrange. Whatever equipment people choose, it quickly becomes tiring if if fails this fundamentally important aspect of music.....

 

There was just a lot of back and forth on laser pointers/measurement devices over on the AN thread. So I picked up a Bosch laser measurement device and fine tuned speaker positioning, in the process fixing some issues I didn't know I had like one speaker being an inch higher due to a bulge in the under rug pad. The sum total of all this is a solid improvement subtle for the most part but worthwhile not to mention the peace of mind knowing I've gotten it measurably right.

 

Measurements concern me because of the risk of the placebo effect

 

I've seen many photos of people's Hi-Fi rooms on this forum exactly as you have described.

Interestingly in 15 years of installing systems in customer's houses in the UK, I only encountered rooms like the above twice. Both, and I'll go into more detail of the second one shortly sounded truly awful, whilst all of the others with carpets and generally something to break up the walls gave the opportunity for the system to perform very well.

Amazingly a Hi-Fi shop I worked at managed to build dem rooms with large sliding doors, high roofs and bare brick walls. Yes, you could still hear the differences between the best source and lower quality, but the differences were not as obvious as they could and should be.

When I put my house onto the market, I lived at a friend's house for a few months, taking and installing my whole system. Like every piece of equipment that I had lived with in my house, the system was extremely enjoyable to listen to for hours on end in my house (it's why I bought that house!!) and the improvements as I upgraded both analogue and digital sources, pre-amp and finally went from passive to full active were more than obvious.

In a very similar dimensioned room, with no carpets, floor to ceiling windows down one side and hard walls and a fireplace my system which I previously found it difficult to get away from was truly awful. Without major work I could only make it sound slightly less objectionable. Within three days I had stopped listening to the system completely.

A competent £500 system in my old room would easily have been more enjoyable and musically informative than my formerly stunning sounding Linn active system in that awful room, which @chervokas, was so much like the rooms you described.

I don't know how more bluntly I can describe the destructive nature to music that happened in that room, but as normal conversation was hard work, dynamic full-range music didn't have a chance.

 

Brilliant!!!

TBH, having seen hundreds of bands over the decades, the only measurements I can recall discussing at (and after!) a gig, was the singer's chest size and length, or lack of it in her skirt.

 

Here is something I think speaks exactly to what you are saying

Do You Suffer From Premature Evaluation? - Twittering Machines