Lexikon Subjektivismus specifications

Category : Lexicon

Subjectivism is a term for an attitude that is often found among audiophiles. This setting attaches greater importance and significance to the subjective auditory impression in the assessment of devices and systems than to objective values obtained by measurement.

It is not surprising that such an attitude causes contradiction. The resulting disputes have been permeating the Hi-fi scene for decades, without any sign that the discussion would decrease in sharpness. The terms for the opposite side of the subjectivists are denoted by different names: rationalists or scientists are common examples. Not infrequently, both sides also use other, rather discrediting terms. These include the designations: gold ear, cable sound listeners for the subjectivists - wood ear, technicians, theorists for the rationalists.

There are a whole series of claims that are repeatedly put forward by the subjectivist side, which meet with sharp contradiction among the rationalists. An incomplete list is:

At the same time, the last argument of the list shows why the discussion cannot be decided once and for all by a suitable scientific investigation. The result of the investigation would have to be accepted by everyone, and there is no reason for hope for this - especially since numerous such investigations have already taken place.

See also:

• Components in the signal path degrade the sound, therefore the number of components must be minimized and their quality maximized.
• Components have their own sound, including the cables. This is often even claimed by components that are not in the signal path, such as Siebelkos, or even power cords.
• Negative feedback is bad for the sound and must be avoided.
• Frequencies above 20kHz have a tonal influence
• Components, including cables, must be "imported" - analogous to a new machine that has to run in.
• Cables have a preferred direction, if they are operated the wrong way around, the sound suffers
• Components and cables are subject to microphony, so they must be laid and mounted in a vibration-damping way (which leads to solutions such as spikes, insulation in devices, cable feet, ...)
• Analog technology sounds better than digital technology, and tubes sound better than transistors.
• Music is far too complex to be able to determine the behavior of a system sufficiently by simple measurement signals (e.g. sine).
• Human hearing is far too complex to be described accurately enough with scientific models.
• Human hearing is superior to any measuring device.
• Blind tests are unsuitable because they cannot resolve the smallest differences. They cause too much stress for the tester to develop his abilities.
• Non-blind hearing tests are informative and more sensitive, a neutral attitude avoids bias and the resulting imaginary differences.
• counterarguments put forward by the scientific side are void, since they contradict the perception.

• Wikipedia article: Audiophiles (in English), Subjectivism
• Douglas Self's Article: Science and Subjectivism in Audio (in English)

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