S888Wheel wrote:
At core, it seems to me that there's an unwillingness on the part of
*subjectivists* to acknowledge uncertainty. If subjectivists were
to write, 'SACDs sound great! Don't know if it's the format or the
mastering, though" or "These new cables certainly seem to make a difference!
difference!
I could be wrong, though."

I think you paint subjectivists with a bit of a broad brush here.

When they start acknowledging the possibility of perceptual bias when they
make their endless reports of audible difference, maybe I'll narrow
it down. IME , the number who do is a miniscule fraction of the breed.

They'd almost certainly get *no*
flak from skeptics.

Wouldn't that be nice.

Subjectivists seem simply unwilling to
acknowledge the existence of perceptual error.

Some, certainly. All, certainly not.

Well, there's a reason I didn't write the word *all*.

One could say the same of some
objectivists who seem to feel any comment on the sound of almost any component
besides a speaker isn't just subject to lack of certainty but is certain to be
meaningless. Both sides of this debate seem to have their militant radicals.

Well, let's see, we have speakers, cartridges, digital players, amps, preamps,
and cables. Those are the essence of most 'high end' systems today. Of those,
only speakers and cartridges can be *expected* from physical principles to sound
different given competent design and normal use. And the others *are* expected to
produce 'uncertain' results in sighted tests.


"Objectivists" are unwilling to acknowledge that (sighted)
'hearing is believing' in many cases. But in this case, they
have good scientific backing for it: the mounds of data
confirming the existence of perceptual error.

Uncertain perceptions are not the same as wortless ones. Science does support
the notion that sighted biases can influence one's perceptions. It does not
support the notion, some seem to hold, that such influence renders all sighted
sonic impressions meaningless.

What 'meaning' do they have? The 'impressions' might be accurate; or they might not
be. That's as far as you can get, without some *other* principle or data to support the
comment. Alas, this is true even if *lots* of subjectivists report similar
'impressions', since we can't know how independent the reports are.

As far I know, *I'm* the only one on any forum I've seen who has called such
impressions 'meaningless' btw. And I *always* try to couch my own 'impressions' of
component sound in terms that acknoweldge uncertainty.



--
-S.