Article: Why We Need Audiophiles, The subjective perspective Options

[2tec]

I'm interested in what the HA community thinks about this new Gizmodo article, or blog, about Michael Fremer, an audio reviewer from Stereophile, which clearly goes completely against the grain around here. For instance:

"We play my solid 256kbps VBR MP3 of "Heroes" off my iPod; it sounds like shit. Free of pops and crackles, yes, but completely lifeless, flat in every way. This is the detail that matters: Audiophiles are basically synesthesiacs. They "see" music in three-dimensional visual space. You close your eyes in Fremer's chair, and you can perceive a detailed 3D matrix of sound, with each element occupying its own special space in the air. It's crazy and I've never experienced anything like it." ~ Why we need audiophiles

[Axon]

I think it's abundantly clear that Fremer is all about emotion rather than audio quality in any meaningful sense (that we are concerned about). That vinyl has such noises doesn't matter, because he asserts it evokes emotion that CDs do not.

More generally, many audiophiles believe that audio quality is intrinsically tied to emotional responses. The two concepts are more or less inseperable to them. That such and such component has a terrible frequency response or high distortion may not matter to them, because quite simply, the "sound quality" is still top class. Just look at the emotions it conveys! And look at Fremer's comments on the first CD listening - "it made me feel horrible!". And Atkinson's comments on the emotions experienced with different amps that ABX'd the same.

There's a really subtle logical fallacy at play here, that, truth be told, I first saw popped by Ayn Rand (!). I forget the exact quote, but it was to the effect that, while happiness is a measure of human success, it cannot be optimized as a parameter. That is, making decisions based on how happy they will make you can lead to short-sighted or counterproductive results, because happiness is simply too complex and inscrutable to be reduced down to mere buying decisions. (Anybody who's actually read her crap knows that "optimized" isn't even in her vocabulary IIRC so I'm probably getting something wrong).

Applied here: there are significant gaps in our knowledge of music and emotion; emotion can feed back upon itself in positive feedback loops; all of this is being ignored by audiophiles. While we listen to music for entirely emotional reasons, concluding that equipment should be evaluated on an emotional basis - that is, the best equipment lets the user experience the "best" emotions - presupposes a kind of simplistic "filter" model of emotion, where flaws in the component prevent the full emotion of the music to be experienced by the listener. That presupposition, and that whole notion of evaluating equipment in such a fashion, is illogical.

I think that us ABXers and skeptics are also arguing fallaciously when we decry all high end audio as placebo, and/or highly corrupted by observer bias due to price/shiny knobs/etc. I think audiophiles can toss those sorts of things aside rather easily and it makes us look bad. Really, we don't have a very good scientific understanding of how sighted testing actually works. If we did, we could predict it. And we can't! We can make educated guesses, based on all sorts of sighted factors like cost etc, but nobody's actually argued these correlations with any degree of accuracy whatsoever. The guesses are plausible to us but laughably hypothetical to others.

Rather, the problem here is that the whole notion of trusting some touchy psychiatrist fourty/fiftysomething's emotions when it comes to your music purchase decisions, or even your audio worldview, is batshit crazy - golden ears or not. And that's even before we get to the problem of trusting one's own emotions on the matter. I mean no offense to Mikey on professional grounds, insofar as his "profession" is concerned - he's not crazy, not evil, and not stupid - but he is elitist. I do believe he is grossly disrespectful to how normal people in this country listen to their music, and how they should be listening to their music. And taking him at his word on a great many topics will not save you money and will not make you a happier or better person. It only lets you perceive yourself as of a higher class for entirely specious reasons.

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That said, he is a passionate promoter of music as something that is to be studied with interest and full attention. I think that's really important, really positive, and not elitist. If that requires people to junk their CDs and listen to vinyl on f*cking Regas, I'll shed a few tears, but they will be bittersweet.