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I understand

Posted by Don Till on October 25, 2009 at 19:49:23

In Reply to: RE: Using Live, Unamplified Music As A Reference Standard, Is It A Subjectivist's Or An Objectivist's Approach posted by morricab on October 25, 2009 at 16:55:51:

"But it is better to have SOME guide than to have pure relativism that the "if you like it then it must be good" crowd advocate."

Gotta love it coming from an admitted "no pain no gain"er like yourelf! I've considered trying to take your advice to build systems that sound like heaven with some recordings but like rank dog poop with others but by golly I just can't for the life of me understand why anyone would spend more money on a hifi that's not even going sound as good as a boom box or a car stereo with most of the recordings they own.

But alas the fact is that if a system meets my criteria and I like it, it IS good. No I can't claim the Absolute Sound as my ultimate objective reference but neither should most of those who've embarked on the "live reference" methodology due for the most part of haphazard implementations. Nor can I claim measurements insure me an objective standard but then again I don't have to worry about test errors or mistakes in quantification of measurements screwing up my results either.

Nope all I do is listen to a wide range of recordings, diversity in genre as well as recording styles and qualities leads me down the road to finding "good" audio equipment capable of meeting my requirements. Is this "relativism? Maybe but surely achieving satisfying results with the diversity of genre and style has to mean something beyond pure relativism. And further understanding that bad sound is a function of what has been recorded more often than how it was recorded means something too - it means one actually has stereo that is not messing up our ability to make value judgements.

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