so basically i am a "science sucks" "subjectivist" but my conclusions on audio are overwhelmingly "objectivist" lol
I have never really liked science or held it in high esteem. Part of it is simply that I considered it dorky/nerdy as a kid (even though like I enjoyed watched Bill Nye the Science Guy and stuff like that lol). I did pretty good in science classes but I never did want to actually be a scientist, it just wasn't cool. As I grew older and came of age there was also the (real or perceived) clash between a scientific worldview and religious worldview and so I was definitely on the religious worldview tip. This got me super interested in science/philosophy of science briefly in college, and I was taking all the basic physics/chemistry/biology classes and looking deeply into the various scientific realism/anti realism positions. Soon I started asking myself why I am bothering getting into an area I don't really respect in the first place, and got bored of that as well. Plus I graduated and got a job. Basically, depending on the context, I basically am an instrumentalist of sorts or I just go with my boys Beavis and Butthead:
I bring all this up just so it is clear where I'm coming from mindset wise.
So when I got into audio a few years back, I figured the "subjectivist" aspect would be a perfect fit for someone like me right?
However, from the very start of my getting into audio, I have basically come to straight up "objectivist" conclusions, from sighted listening experiences. The transducers are basically the only thing that really matters, and DACs/amps/cables/whatever don't really make much/any difference to the sound when they are properly made to be linear.
To be more precise, it has always seemed to me that the differences I hear in the sound are due to different volumes or a different state of mind or whatever more than the actual device making a different sound. Now I have definitely experienced subjective differences in some cases, but it isn't like the typical experience of improvement people are having
I never went with a DAC/amp for non electrostatics beyond trying the Chord Mojo (which sounded basically the same as my iPhone dongle or MacBook headphone out just could get louder). I never chased the higher end electrostatic amps (just calculated my power needs and stayed within the cheapest options and they sounded great). I did audition high end DACs and amps with high end speakers early on before having any real experience with DACs/amps/cables, it never seemed to make a difference for the speakers even in a fully treated listening showroom (salesguy even seemed a bit pissed when I told him "can't really tell the difference man" after he set up a bunch of stuff and he wouldn't negotiate on the speaker price after lol)
At this point with my prior experiences being what they were, as well as me knowing a lot more about the science/engineering aspect of audio, I probably go into it thinking the non transducer stuff doesn't really make much difference, so I figure that's priming me to continue to have the same type experiences and reaching the same sort of conclusions. But I still wonder why this happened in the first place when I didn't have that prior experience and didn't know as much about the science/engineering part to influence me in any way.
Maybe it's just that I didn't care enough? After all, many people who aren't into audio are like "whatever" when listening to high end stuff. I also do think even the differences between headphones and speakers aren't too big of a deal and I can enjoy listening to much of what I've owned/own (only a few headphones or speakers I think really sucked enough to actually deter my experience).
So anyway, I know of people who never really cared and I know of people who were of a scientific mindset or did blind testing and came to "objectivist" conclusions, but where are the others like me lol?
I don't know how to really feel about this. On the one hand, it's saved me a ton of money. On the other hand, I still feel like I'm missing out on all the cool sounds people are hearing.
I have never really liked science or held it in high esteem. Part of it is simply that I considered it dorky/nerdy as a kid (even though like I enjoyed watched Bill Nye the Science Guy and stuff like that lol). I did pretty good in science classes but I never did want to actually be a scientist, it just wasn't cool. As I grew older and came of age there was also the (real or perceived) clash between a scientific worldview and religious worldview and so I was definitely on the religious worldview tip. This got me super interested in science/philosophy of science briefly in college, and I was taking all the basic physics/chemistry/biology classes and looking deeply into the various scientific realism/anti realism positions. Soon I started asking myself why I am bothering getting into an area I don't really respect in the first place, and got bored of that as well. Plus I graduated and got a job. Basically, depending on the context, I basically am an instrumentalist of sorts or I just go with my boys Beavis and Butthead:
I bring all this up just so it is clear where I'm coming from mindset wise.
So when I got into audio a few years back, I figured the "subjectivist" aspect would be a perfect fit for someone like me right?
However, from the very start of my getting into audio, I have basically come to straight up "objectivist" conclusions, from sighted listening experiences. The transducers are basically the only thing that really matters, and DACs/amps/cables/whatever don't really make much/any difference to the sound when they are properly made to be linear.
To be more precise, it has always seemed to me that the differences I hear in the sound are due to different volumes or a different state of mind or whatever more than the actual device making a different sound. Now I have definitely experienced subjective differences in some cases, but it isn't like the typical experience of improvement people are having
- one of the cheap portable CD players I had sounded decidedly thin and compressed and even a little distorted even with my usually low impedence high sensitivity phones and other players and phones and computers and whatever just sounded normal (it wasn't like the "soundstage improved" or whatever by going up lol)
- the STAX amps generally followed their marketing description and so one of the tube amps had a slight midbass hump and rolled off highs (pretty minor though when compared to different phones)
- one time (and only one time) swapping the cables from my FOCAL Clear to my SONY MDR Z7 made the sound seem initially brighter by a bit but then it sort of went away and never happened again
I never went with a DAC/amp for non electrostatics beyond trying the Chord Mojo (which sounded basically the same as my iPhone dongle or MacBook headphone out just could get louder). I never chased the higher end electrostatic amps (just calculated my power needs and stayed within the cheapest options and they sounded great). I did audition high end DACs and amps with high end speakers early on before having any real experience with DACs/amps/cables, it never seemed to make a difference for the speakers even in a fully treated listening showroom (salesguy even seemed a bit pissed when I told him "can't really tell the difference man" after he set up a bunch of stuff and he wouldn't negotiate on the speaker price after lol)
At this point with my prior experiences being what they were, as well as me knowing a lot more about the science/engineering aspect of audio, I probably go into it thinking the non transducer stuff doesn't really make much difference, so I figure that's priming me to continue to have the same type experiences and reaching the same sort of conclusions. But I still wonder why this happened in the first place when I didn't have that prior experience and didn't know as much about the science/engineering part to influence me in any way.
Maybe it's just that I didn't care enough? After all, many people who aren't into audio are like "whatever" when listening to high end stuff. I also do think even the differences between headphones and speakers aren't too big of a deal and I can enjoy listening to much of what I've owned/own (only a few headphones or speakers I think really sucked enough to actually deter my experience).
- But, seemingly I was and still am very interested in audio though, I've bought a ton of phones to try out, spend time looking stuff up, and even have been the audio science/engineering part. I generally hate my job (product manager in big tech) but liked the brief time I worked on audio and really got into it both on the theoretical and experiential side.
- I'm certainly no golden ear, according to testing my general hearing was/is pretty normal (when I really got into this in my late 20s I was still doing pretty well in all the audiometric testing stuff). But, I've have somewhat trained as a listener including a bit for work and so I have a bit more training than the average person.
- I'm thinking this might be a big part of it. I certainly have spent a bunch on audio after those initial feelings and am still willing to spend on stuff (for example I'm thinking of grabbing a KONDO or WAVAC amp lol), but perhaps originally I was primed that this stuff is all a rip off and so I was able to experience any real sound improvements from high end stuff.
So anyway, I know of people who never really cared and I know of people who were of a scientific mindset or did blind testing and came to "objectivist" conclusions, but where are the others like me lol?
I don't know how to really feel about this. On the one hand, it's saved me a ton of money. On the other hand, I still feel like I'm missing out on all the cool sounds people are hearing.