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Audio is subjective but differences in quality can still be objectively measured. You play the same music through different equipment and have the listener rate

Audio is subjective but differences in quality can still be objectively measured. You play the same music through different equipment and have the listener rate them without knowing what they are. Consistent improvements will show up across different listeners, and differences that come down to personal taste will still show up across different sessions with the same listener. The most telling thing about the audiophile world is how allergic they are to anything that resembles this sort of blind testing.

PretzelFisch 7y ago
Right but, people often match volume/level when testing so things sound different, because +3db tends to sound better to the human ear.
beat 7y ago
Some things are very hard to measure objectively, though, despite being real. (Anything subject to chaos theory, for sure.) I mix records. I use two different sets of monitors for mixing - a pair of Tannoy System 12 DMT monitors (equivalent would cost about $4000; they were very popular in hip-hop studios back in the '90s), and a more modern pair of Focal Alpha 50 powered monitors (about $800/pair new). Both monitors are quality professional gear. In terms of frequency response, they're both quite flat, although the big Tannoys have more bass extension. They don't sound anything alike. I find the Focals much more useful and predictable for the critical listening of mixing. They're also more tiring to listen to for extended periods. They're brutal, especially for transients and the very leading edge of sounds. I don't trust mixing on the Tannoys. But if I want to listen to music, rather than mix, I'll take the Tannoys any day. They treat transients more gently, and make for a much more pleasant, euphonic experience. Internet audiophile wannabes will then tell me I'm hearing distortion. Which is nonsense. Two speakers say the same thing in different ways, and the differences are very, very difficult to measure - but they are nonetheless quite real and plainly audible.
- opencl 7y ago
  What you're talking about absolutely is measurable. There has been tons and tons of research into various aspects of audio reproduction and how to measure different things and to what degree they're audible. Techniques for measuring transient response have been around since the 1940s. Unfortunately most places writing reviews of audio equipment don't bother to go much beyond frequency response and distortion. Audioxpress ran a really nice 2 part article a decade ago describing a bunch of different types of speaker measurements and summarizing some research into how audible each aspect is. https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-which-measurements-matter-part-2 https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-whi... https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-which-measurements-matter-part-1 https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-whi...
  - beat 7y ago
    I did transient response measurement while studying recording in college (onto recording media). But when you start getting into things like frequency-dependent phase response, radiation patterns, reflections... there's a tremendous world of logically audible speaker behaviors that could maybe be measured in isolation, but you get so many of them that you can't assemble a meaningful picture of how a speaker is going to sound. And that's the goal, isn't it? Measurements provide expectations. And that's where the conversation breaks down - the "objective" mind gets so preoccupied with the measurement that they assume what isn't measured cannot exist. The map replaces the territory, and there are no hills because the map is obviously flat.
    - mbell 7y ago
      > But when you start getting into things like frequency-dependent phase response, radiation patterns, reflections... there's a tremendous world of logically audible speaker behaviors that could maybe be measured in isolation, but you get so many of them that you can't assemble a meaningful picture of how a speaker is going to sound. These things aren't particularly difficult to measure, we even have standard plots for them. Polar response, energy time curves, cumulative spectral decay, electrical phase and group delay are all standard measurements for a loudspeaker.

PretzelFisch 7y ago

Right but, people often match volume/level when testing so things sound different, because +3db tends to sound better to the human ear.

beat 7y ago

Some things are very hard to measure objectively, though, despite being real. (Anything subject to chaos theory, for sure.) I mix records. I use two different sets of monitors for mixing - a pair of Tannoy System 12 DMT monitors (equivalent would cost about $4000; they were very popular in hip-hop studios back in the '90s), and a more modern pair of Focal Alpha 50 powered monitors (about $800/pair new). Both monitors are quality professional gear. In terms of frequency response, they're both quite flat, although the big Tannoys have more bass extension. They don't sound anything alike. I find the Focals much more useful and predictable for the critical listening of mixing. They're also more tiring to listen to for extended periods. They're brutal, especially for transients and the very leading edge of sounds. I don't trust mixing on the Tannoys. But if I want to listen to music, rather than mix, I'll take the Tannoys any day. They treat transients more gently, and make for a much more pleasant, euphonic experience. Internet audiophile wannabes will then tell me I'm hearing distortion. Which is nonsense. Two speakers say the same thing in different ways, and the differences are very, very difficult to measure - but they are nonetheless quite real and plainly audible.

opencl 7y ago
What you're talking about absolutely is measurable. There has been tons and tons of research into various aspects of audio reproduction and how to measure different things and to what degree they're audible. Techniques for measuring transient response have been around since the 1940s. Unfortunately most places writing reviews of audio equipment don't bother to go much beyond frequency response and distortion. Audioxpress ran a really nice 2 part article a decade ago describing a bunch of different types of speaker measurements and summarizing some research into how audible each aspect is. https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-which-measurements-matter-part-2 https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-whi... https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-which-measurements-matter-part-1 https://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-whi...
- beat 7y ago
  I did transient response measurement while studying recording in college (onto recording media). But when you start getting into things like frequency-dependent phase response, radiation patterns, reflections... there's a tremendous world of logically audible speaker behaviors that could maybe be measured in isolation, but you get so many of them that you can't assemble a meaningful picture of how a speaker is going to sound. And that's the goal, isn't it? Measurements provide expectations. And that's where the conversation breaks down - the "objective" mind gets so preoccupied with the measurement that they assume what isn't measured cannot exist. The map replaces the territory, and there are no hills because the map is obviously flat.
  - mbell 7y ago
    > But when you start getting into things like frequency-dependent phase response, radiation patterns, reflections... there's a tremendous world of logically audible speaker behaviors that could maybe be measured in isolation, but you get so many of them that you can't assemble a meaningful picture of how a speaker is going to sound. These things aren't particularly difficult to measure, we even have standard plots for them. Polar response, energy time curves, cumulative spectral decay, electrical phase and group delay are all standard measurements for a loudspeaker.