Thorsten wrote:

1) It does so in your system context. 2) It does so to your personal prejudices how music reproduction should sound.

There is nothing subjective in music reproduction if a person has original, natural and none-corrupted reference points. If the reference points are civilized then sound reproduction unrelated to “personal prejudices how music reproduction should sound”. Music is subject not Sound. Sound reproduction in contrary is very objective (if proper evaluation methods used).

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

There is nothing subjective in music reproduction if a person has original, natural and none-corrupted reference points.

Thorsten wrote:

Forgive me for saying so, but since Bishop Berkley and David Hume it should be well clear that there is NOTHING WHATSOEVER that is actually objective, at least as long as we are subject to the limitations of matter and the human form of it. There may well be an absolute reality, which exists completely independent from us, but even if it did, it would still look pretty different from where you stand and from where I do. It will probably also sound different, not because one of us has distorted reference points, but because we have a different "listening angle". Of course, we are now deep into philosophy, not audio. I could debate this for a long while, but I'm not really interested, to be honest. These days I go with "take my points or leave them, I'm only supplying as one point view for you use (or not)".

Romy the Cat wrote:

T, it you feel that Sound is subjective then explain it to the thousands fools who compose, conductor and perform music, trying to communicate thier subjective ideas unrig perfectly objective universal language. When you stop to recognize in musicality Form and pay more attention to the Content then you will see that the Content’s depicture has no subjectivism. The subjectivism exists only in the  Form’s depicture…

T. what you said is not contestable but it has nothing to do with the subject under discussion. Defiantly we all perceive musical messages and react to them differently but look deeper.

The possess of “hearing sound” implies receiving sound irritations, reaction to them and making use of this reaction, or creating of consciousness acquaintance with the new sensations. Receiving sound irritations, unless some physical impediments in place (for instance health conditions, psycho-offset and etc), is absolutely similar among all humans. This is what the basic principles of musicality are based upon. The theory of harmony, orchestration the evolution of musical instruments, forms and performing techniques and many-many others things, they all based upon the fact that we humans, as the class, have absolutely identical, almost Pavlovian reaction to the identical sonic irritations. There is no discrepancy and no subjectivism in how he hears sounds. The subjectivism exist only AFTER we register the sounds, compile in into Sound and then out awareness builds up our reaction to the heard. Here is, of course, we all different and way in which we react to Sound would be very deferent and ware upon very many variables. However, our reaction to Sound is musicality that is subjective as I said. Nevertheless, the initial recognition of Sounds and rendering then into Sound has nothing to do with person’s mind, awareness of anything like this - is absolutely objective process. Musically is subjective, Sound (as a derivation of musicality but not as the derivation of the Sounds) it is subjective. Sound is very objective ingredient and if a person has organized mind (people in audio mostly do not have it) and the person has self-awareness to properly deal with own mind and sonic evaluations (much bigger topic) then there is nothing subjective in Sound (do not confuse with the Sounds). Once again: Music (Sound) subjective, not Sounds.

Rgs,
Romy

Romy the Cat wrote:

The theory of harmony, orchestration the evolution of musical instruments, forms and performing techniques and many-many others things, they all based upon the fact that we humans, as the class, have absolutely identical, almost Pavlovian reaction to the identical sonic irritations.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Let pretend that a group of 1000 people have an imaginary ultimate 1000000-bands equalizer, the one that do nothing negative to sound besides juts EQ the amplitude. We take music, EQ if up and down randomly and then let those people to de-EQ it back. Anyone among with those 1000 people who are familiar with the way how life music impacts them will painlessly adjust that EQ and will end up with very much identically final outcome, means their Sounds will be fundamentally the same. Others will set up their own sounds to reflect their or cultural and musical corruptions - they will be somebody whom I call the Morons ™ and I always question what they do in audio.

Thorsten wrote:

While what you present is an admirable thought experiment, I can assure you that the premise you posit: "people who are familiar with the way how life music impacts them will painlessly adjust that EQ and will end up with very much identically final outcome" is absolutely and conclusively untrue. It is even untrue for a more or less ideal head-related recording made from a normal listening position in the hall and played back via excellent Koss or Stax ESL Headphones. Some of the worst offenders in "bending the response" will in fact be people who regulary attend ive music BUT who regulary sit in places very much different from that where the recording was made. In short, your posited premise is untrue, completely and absolutely so, even with what one might term near  ideal recordings. Using the much less ideal recordings made for speaker stereophony and equalised and adjusted to the Conductors, Producers and Mastering Engineers taste all bets are off. Surprisingly conductors often seem to have as often as not no idea what the orchestra and instruments really sound like, even from the podum, judging by the kind of EQ application they often insist(ed) upon (Karajan was often a major offender). So Roman, I think you need to realise that there is no "objective", "rational" or "absolute" truth in reproducing music AT THE MOMENT, there is merely a wide landscape of hugely disparate approaches that converge somewhere in the middle of the playing field, but very few people are in the middle of the playing field, many have indeed wandered off to the extemes where life is more interresting.

There is no "objective", "rational" or "absolute" truth in the initial interpretation of musical content, sonic rendering of this interpretation or understanding of the musical content but it is unquestionably there is an absolute truth in the REPRODUCTION efforts of those rendering. When DG did their “Originals” they did not think a lot and put in the studio the team who by “hearing” brought many different DG recordings to the common denominator of “how it should be”. I believe that they did phenomenal job.

The point is: do not confuse music and reproductions. In audio we juts reproduce Sound and it is not necessary to dive into the jangles of subjectivism. When you sit in orchestra with your musical instrument your job is juts to render scope and there is not subjectivism how you need to so it. Leave the subjectivism to the conductor…

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

In audio we juts reproduce Sound and it is not necessary to dive into the jangles of subjectivism.

Thorsten wrote:

....because where humans are concerned objectivity does not exist

Thorsten wrote:

Not only is it neccesary, but essential. Any attempt of an "objective" evaluation would require cognisance of what is in objective existence. As the only way to evaluate the "objective" reality is by using our senses and by using them to interpret experiments we set up based upon the evidence of our senses we do not have access to any objective reality as such. If you need more, try Bishop Berkley, Hume, Kant, Nietsche for starters (I'll only recommend the light reading on the subject).

Thorsten wrote:

So, we cannot reproduce "just sound" as we have no real clue what sound is.

Rgs,
Romy The caT