Herb Reichert

Herb,

Great Article! Michael we should have this up on the top page every couple months to remind people that it's about the musical experience and not the numbers.

We should also remember that just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Sample rates, upsampling, oversampling, higher and higher. Look... If you record today with the best AD converters in the world the max sample rate is 192K and in most cases artist have found that using anything over 88.2K sounds bad to them.

I work with a lot of artists and always ask what they record at and it's surprising how many say 24/88.2K. Nobody told them this, but over time they found that if they use this rate it sounds best and of course it is easily converter to 16/44.1.

The same thing with DAC chips, though they have better specs than most AD chips, the use of excessive sample rates just because you can doesn't mean it will sound better than lower ones.

Take some time to listen and compare.

On a side note if you don't play an instrument, it's never too late to learn. Playing music can really help you with your audio as you really have a true reference for what a note is and how it should sound. A percussionist since 13, I picked up guitar about 12 years ago. Having even a simple $500 acoustic around to pluck on can reform your ideas on your system.

Thanks,
Gordon

The joy you get from walking in a forest is not measured by the number of trees. And I loved what the Leeds Radio guy said in the Stereophile video: the less neurotic you make an activity, the more joy you get out of it!

Herb has eloquently stated what we at AudioStream believe in terms of audio reviewing and our devotion to the overall musical experience. Great to have you here Herb.

Great piece! I'll go a couple of steps further:

First, while I agree that almost everyone can hear subtle differences with a bit of training, I'll also assert that almost everyone can distinguish a great hifi or component from a very good one. It does not require expertise to perceive beauty, it takes an open heart. In the same way that one does not need to be a chef, oenophile or art historian to appreciate great food, great wine, or a beautiful painting; we can easily feel great sounds move us.

Second, obsessive measure can actually suck the joy out of the whole process. I love my hifi not when I'm listening critically, but when I'm just feeling the music. In a great stereo, the measurements only serve to highlight the small weaknesses. Once we start focusing on those small weaknesses...

The relationship between aesthetes and artists famously described by Barnett Newman is not exactly analogous to the relationship between objectivists (of a certain sort) and those more inclined toward to qualitative experience, but, hey, here it is: "Aesthetics is to the artist as ornithology is to the birds." In today's hot-take Internet world, I think it's important to take the constant commenters and the denizens of the forum with a grain of salt. There are a slew of self-proclaimed experts on all sorts of things out there to whom we should feel free to pay no heed. Whether it's music, food, art, Christmas lights - enjoy what you enjoy!

That said, I am grateful there are thoughtful designers of audio equipment out there who are able to keep a foot in each camp.

LOL! When I hear folks summarily dismissing someone's experience without a second thought, I think that either 1) their ideology has fallen in the way of their ontology or 2) their hearing is just not that good or 3) their on some dark, personal vendetta (ie asshole). I no longer feel the need to educate them and seldom the desire to debate the merits either. Life is just too short. We can all walk along without getting in each other's way, but not always in the same direction and certainly not holding hands.

Thank you!

("So why then can't objectivists and subjectivists respect each other?)."
You answered this so well, (indirectly), by saying the "agendae driven" objectivist is simply not engaging in science.

Please tell us what you really think.

Seriously, Great piece.

This is a tantrum, not an argument. At the end, you propose that left-brain Apollonians and right-brain Dionysians walk together. All well and good, except you've just spent your entire article caricaturing and character-assassinating left-brained Apollonians. Rhetorically, it's abusive behavior: beat the living tar out of them and then offer your hand in partnership.

It's quite difficult to engage with the specific points you make, because they're dripping in rigged adjectives and straw-man argumentation. But I will say that the idea that you "try to listen around" your biases reveals the weakness of your argument. If you really believed in the ideas you profess here, then you'd say something to the effect that so-called "bias" is something to be embraced so long as it is disclosed - you'd argue that bias is just a slander for the qualitative "hurricane survivor" listening you do.

But you evidently don't have the courage of your convictions, so you cop out with that pathetic "listen around my bias" hedge. Easier to be pure and forceful when attacking others than when articulating your own position.

It's all very well proclaiming oneself to be a Subjectivionist (is that even a word?), but without objective, scientific investigation, and the technology that derives from it you would not be listening to any recorded music at all.
It is easy to find references that back up a given point of view, but it's equally easy to refute it. As an example Richard Feynman's quote:-

“I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.”

I agree that some objective individuals take things to extremes, but it appears that only in audio is the dichotomy between measuring and observing taken so personally.
We have instruments that are capable of measuring any physical phenomenon with a higher degree of accuracy than could possibly be observed, yet it's only with hearing that this is questioned.
What is even more interesting is that it's not our ears that we should be wondering about, but our brains.
There have been many studies that show how easy it is to trick our brains with regards to music, just one simple example here:-
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13355-music-special-five-great-au...
That there are differences between amplifiers, speakers, even Dacs is beyond question, but when expressions like 'night and day' are used to describe the differences between two 1 meter lengths of ethernet cable it is difficult to take the reviewer seriously, especially when it is 'almost' always the much more expensive component that comes out on top, in fact I cannot remember ever seeing a reviewed product that receives a less than glowing report, even if, 'heaven forfend' it measures worse than its peers.
All in all this article demeans the writer more than those who it purports to critisize - for shame!

... "middle school smattering of Newtonian Physics" and, if so, to what level?
Has HR ever heard Huddie Ledbetter (or Lawrence Welk) perform live?
How complex might an audio test signal have to be before HR would deem it to be valid?
By what process would HR go about designing and producing (not simply selecting) the components for a "qualitatively-effective audio playback system?"

So much sass! Does this also mean Herb has begun secretly building amps in his Bed Stuy bunker of the feral kind? If he is, just tell me where the line starts.

"By definition, an 'objectivist' is an experienced, unbiased and unprejudiced observer"

...and conversely, a person who denies phenomena because they don't conform to his pre-existing beliefs is a "fanatic."

Beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned. Bravo Herb!

I find this column and the April 1 serious/not serious video to be pointless. It seems to have no real point other than to be click bait. The present column is not a realistic or fair portrayal of many audiophiles who it seems to be talking about. And dividing us into simplistically defined camps of "subjectivists" and "objectivists" also seems pointless. Many of us are somewhere in the middle. Are subjectivists like Herb going to deny that there are not a lot of audio "snake-oil" based products on the market that make all sorts of claims to improve "SQ"?

I'm not an objectivist, but subjectivists who deny the possibility of expectation bias in their sighted comparisons are fooling themselves and ignoring well based science about how human perception works, including audio perception.

There are also a couple of specific points here I disagree with:
" I remind these dismissers, that, by definition, an 'objectivist' is an experienced, unbiased and unprejudiced observer; and that every editor at Stereophile, Analog Planet, InnerFidelity, and AudioStream fits that description."

I'm sorry, that statement is on its' face untrue and wildly self serving. I enjoy reading reviews and find them helpful, but claiming that professional reviewers are by definition unbiased and unprejudiced is almost laughable. Herb's column by itself proves the opposite. Even the fact that they often know and/or are friendly with the people who's products they are reviewing means they aren't unbiased and unprejudiced. I'm not saying they aren't trying to be fair and unbiased, but the claim itself is clearly not true on its' face.

The Oxford dictionary defines science as, "The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." That definition and the developing practice of science insist: measurements and direct observation are of equal importance—one does not trump the other. (So why then can't objectivists and subjectivists respect each other?).

This quote reveals an absolutely fundamental misunderstanding of science and the scientific method. "Direct observation" in science means you have to also collect data - it doesn't mean observation=looking at or listening to something and leaving it at that.

When Fleming "observed" a petri dish in which the penicillin mold killed bacteria, he and others had to follow up his "observation" with more "observations" and trials to collect objective data about how the penicillin mold worked. The discovery was in 1928, the practical application was in the 1940's.
In addition, in science your observations and claims have to be able to be objectively repeated by others for them to be considered true.
So Herb's conclusion about direct observation and measurement based on a one sentence definition of science from the dictionary is a false conclusion based on a simplistic distortion about how science works.

Individual observations prove nothing in science unless they can be objectively repeated and backed up by data. Without that, they remain at best interesting and unproved observations.

(if the responses here are representaive) how closely objectivists follow columns written by people like Herb. I wonder if these objectivists are as engaged with objectivist reviewers they actually approve of? Are there long discussions somewhere about how much better this component with 0.00001% THD is than that one with 0.0001% THD (both 20Hz-20kHz at 8 ohms)? Is that a significant difference? I wonder if lots of “subjectivists” flood those sites with comments? And if so, are they “engaging” or merely trolling?

This commentary was much needed - thanks for your words.

"Mutual criticism is a most healthy policy, and helps to establish final and definite rules in life - practical, not merely theoretical. We have had enough of theories."
...
"If one criticism is hurtful so is another; so also is every innovation, or even the presentation of some old thing under a new aspect, as both have necessarily to clash with the views of this or another “authority”. I maintain, on the contrary, that criticism is the great benefactor of thought in general; and still more so of those men who never think for themselves but rely in everything upon acknowledged “authorities” and social routine.

For what is an “authority” upon any question, after all? No more, really, than a light streaming upon a certain object through one single, more or less wide, chink, and illuminating it from one side only. Such light, besides being the faithful reflector of the personal views of but one man - very often merely that of his special hobby - can never help in the examination of a question or a subject from all its aspects and sides. Thus, the authority appealed to will often prove but of little help, yet the profane, who attempts to present the given question or object under another aspect and in a different light, is forthwith hooted for his great audacity. Does he not attempt to upset solid “authorities”, and fly in the face of respectable and time-honoured routine thought?

Friends and foes! Criticism is the sole salvation from intellectual stagnation. It is the beneficent goad which stimulates to life and action - hence to healthy changes - the heavy ruminants called Routine and Prejudice, in private as in social life. Adverse opinions are like conflicting winds which brush from the quiet surface of a lake the green scum that tends to settle upon still waters. If every clear stream of independent thought, which runs through the field of life outside the old grooves traced by Public Opinion, had to be arrested and to come to a standstill, the results would prove very sad. The streams would no longer feed the common pond called Society, and its waters would become still more stagnant than they are. Result: it is the most orthodox “authorities” of the social pond who would be the first to get sucked down still deeper into its ooze and slime."
...
"For truth, according to an old Belgian proverb, is always the result of conflicting opinions, like the spark that flies out from the shock of two flints struck together."

from "In Defense of Criticism" by Helena P. Blavatsky

http://www.theosophyonline.com/ler.php?id=215

Those of us who were raised in hurricane country know that when the meteorologist warns of a Class 5 hurricane coming, you get out of town. The people who dismiss the judgment of scientists are the ones who end up sitting on their roof waiting to be rescued.

by the articles’ wit and accurate depiction, yet bored by the predictable comments from those who epitomize the characterization. What a species!

We are the smaller group, "us". We have both subjectivists and objectivists, but also many who defy classification. We may disagree on our perspective, but we love to teach and learn, and we communicate civilly, with mutual respect. We don't feel obliged to convince or win. We focus on enjoying music.
The other group, "them", is so large, they have separated themselves into sub-groups, their own "us" and "them", subjectivists and objectivists. Vitriol and ad hominem attacks are their favored forms of discourse. Enjoyment of music seems secondary, although some claim otherwise.
We "us" are not so comfortable with "them" and find it all a shame.

the original title of klee's etching "Zwei Männer, einander in höherer Stellung vermutend, begegnen sich" contains a notion that has been lost in translation (sometimes the same happens in audio when translating sound waves into electrons and back). the german title can also be interpreted that each of the two men thinks that *he himself* is in the higher position (and not only the other). fwiw…

at a company dealing with meteorology and oceanography. It was a fun 10 years and the gig paid for everything I own now - house, car, hifi #1, hifi #2 and hifi #3. And we call them cyclones over here.

In my previous line of work - we measure real data, and we have models. In my ten years over there the company have worked relentlessly and over the years the correlation of measured data vs modeled data are really good (we sort data by percentiles, then plot measured vs modelled). This corelation stat is just one of many reports we have to generate, and that's just QA and QC. And we have to send buoys out every season to constantly update our models.

We measure as many variables as we can, and then use formulas to convert some quantities from one to another. This is so we can cross reference the data and make sure everything 'makes sense'. It also helps when a sensor fail (they almost always do with long deployments). We can still be able to derive data another way using already measured values (at a lost of accuracy and/or precision). And so on.

Give me 2D or 3D raw data, and I can generate a surface wave spectrum. From there I can calculate Hs, Tp, Tm, Tz, ThetaM, ThetaP, etc, etc.

But show me anything in Hifi, and it feels all made up. Ever since I lost my oceanography job I have no interest in debating with the self proclaimed objectivists any more.

One day I hope to listen to BACCH (I think that's what it's called). Hopefully my faith in audio measurements will be restored then.

If you are reading this: if you ever need anything I can help with, let me know!

Anton

I’m a Theoretical Particle Physicist, Taoist, jazz guitar player, photographer, and (mostly) on the objectivist side.
Given that I feel quite disturbed to be (possibly) included among the “pathologically self-centered people”. More: I’m quite disturbed in reading those quotations about Einstein, Heisenberg and Feynman. The vision of the World of a Physicist is more holistic (here comes the Taoism) that you can imagine.
If I trust more the measures than the listening tests, it’s because measures are repeatable and then falsifiable, so (as Popper could say) leading to a better level of “truth”. Listening tests (after a certain level) are not.
Stated that, let me say that I can accept some of the points of the subjectivist. Everyone can remember the period when quality of an amplifier was defined by the number of zeros in is THD. Then came Matti Otala (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/24d7/59e0fe3a6e1b1335ad6214d70c974ea445...) and the measures of TIM. The rest is history.
Having learned the lesson, I can admit that listening tests can help to improve the measurement protocols. On the other side I’m completely disappointed when someone speaks “night and day” when the effect is (perhaps) only second order, and the repeatability of the listening test is a lot concerned.
It was funny to read discussions about the audibility of the kind of ethernet cable on streamed music. Me, since I’m using Wi-Fi, I asked if they could suggest some snake oil vaporizer that could help the propagation of the electromagnetic waves in aether (that do not exists, but nobody noticed that) …
So, I don’t deny completely the validity of the listening tests, but … there is a limit!
Thanks

So glad Herb joined the Stereophile group several years ago, has been so great reading his work, almost feel like I am there. As an Art History major (one of my many majors) I so enjoy the iconography in the Klee drawing that Herb has included to make his point. Good stuff!

It has been written on many forums that Michael Lavorgna has been released from Audiostream. Is an official announcement coming soon?

Will there be a new editor? Will Audiostream continue?

funny, you start your mocking of everyone who doesn't believe in super-human golden bat-hearing, the differences in sound between 18K and 24K gold-cables, placed on 1000$ ceramic isolators, by talking about the ONE thing everybody agrees on does NOT all sound the same, ie is "transparent" : Transducers - and you know what +
they ALL measure more or less horrible, ie what you hear is 100% reflected in the measurements .

...and engaging article and comments I’ve read on this site. Shame powers that be would seem to attempt to discourage the opinions of anyone.

It's funny how this profession, which is mostly men who are middle aged or older, leans toward "I know what I hear." How many have had their hearing tested? I have, and there are frequencies where it is deficient. I wouldn't suggest that, for really detailed listening, that my hearing is representative of anyone else's.

The dismissive tone of this article is nothing new; it's just dressed up with a few ten-dollar words and the names of a few philosophers.

"When I report that DAC A is boring and annoying and turns my Lead Belly into Lawrence Welk—while, in comparison, DAC B is exciting and makes Lead Belly jump down turn around and sound time-machine real, I believe my statements about the quality of my DAC experience are more useful truths than jitter numbers or THD specs. I believe sensory awareness, mindful reasonably unbiased observation, and careful data-collection, are powerful scientific tools."

Except that the acuity of your hearing varies over time, notably in your perception of volume. If you listen to music long enough, your hearing will dampen what you hear. And if you happen to be listening with a glass of wine or a beer, your hearing will also alter.

Your subjective opinion of the second or third thing will be affected by your opinion of the first thing, and notably affected but what you think you are going to hear, or what you really, subconsciously want to hear. And this, of course, assumes you're listening blind; if you know what you're listening to, then all bets are off. Subjectivity of sensory experiences are grossly filtered by a wide range of observers' paradoxes, and this gets more complex over time as your senses alter in the detail of their perception. So that magical cable that sounds so good? It might just be your subconscious. This is why measurements are important.

Since 4th of Apr. this website has not been updated; something going wrong?

It's subjective, and as is becoming more apparent every day in our brave new double-speak world, humans have a limitless capacity to deceive themselves.

Rumor has it that Rafe Arnott will be joining Audiostream and Innerfidelity. If true this is good news, you will not find a better reviewer and more honest individual than Rafe. I have dealt and communicated with him personally over the last few years and consider him a gentleman and true to his word. Again if true then welcome aboard Rafe, I am very excited for the future of Audiostream.

Regardless of the niche, genre, topic - there will be folks that will use some sort of silly (though often not at first glance) arguments to make them look like they're better, "in the know", elite.
It makes me laugh. My father is almost 80, he's half deaf, he listens to music on the radio and enjoys it to the fullest, even though I'm sure these "scientists" would argue he shouldn't be heaving fun..
Joseph

I’ve been comparing two DACs, trying to decide which one to keep. They sound very alike such that I am not sure I could identify them in a blind A-B test. Except for one thing: When I play music I love, with one DAC my feet are moving to the music and my arms are flailing about as if I am Leonard Bernstein. With the other DAC, I just sit and hear the music. Can John Atkinson tell me with measurements why this happens?