Musicians who are not audio enthusiasts judge loudspeakers on different rationales

Evidence

How do listeners approach the problem of judging sound quality? Most likely the dimensions and criteria of subjective evaluation are traceable to a lifetime accumulation of experiences with live sound, even simple conversation. If we hear things in reproduced sound that do not occur in nature, or that defy some kind of perceptual logic, we seem to be able to identify it. By that standard, the best sounding audio product is the one that exhibits the fewest audible flaws. Perhaps this is how we are able to make such insightful comments about sound quality based on recordings that either had no existence as a “live” performance, or that we have no personal experience with. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 49 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Hi-fi enthusiasts judge sound quality more reliably than untrained musicians do; Trained and untrained listeners mostly rank loudspeakers the same way; Distortion rarely drives subjective ratings of consumer loudspeakers (+3 more)

Related

• Hi-fi enthusiasts judge sound quality more reliably than untrained musicians do (similarity 0.91)
• Listeners judge reproduced sound against accumulated experience of live sound (similarity 0.90)
• Listeners judge loudspeakers equally well on studio-produced popular music (similarity 0.89)
• Musicians judge loudspeakers on different rationales and can be inconsistent raters. (similarity 0.89)
• Trained and untrained listeners mostly rank loudspeakers the same way (similarity 0.87)
• Musicians make poor or unreliable subjective loudspeaker evaluators (similarity 0.87)
• Distortion rarely drives subjective ratings of consumer loudspeakers (similarity 0.87)
• Hi-fi enthusiasts, not musicians, are the most reliable listeners (similarity 0.86)
• Sighted loudspeaker evaluations are contaminated by non-auditory visual and social cues (similarity 0.85)
• Most listeners can recognize audio excellence when comparing loudspeakers side by side. (similarity 0.85)
• Human sound-quality judgments are skewed by expectation biases, not just the sound itself. (similarity 0.85)
• Even professional monitor loudspeakers showed measurable defects in early tests (similarity 0.84)
• Consumer loudspeakers at moderate prices rival professional monitors in sound quality. (similarity 0.84)
• Historically, published loudspeaker specifications were often artistic rather than factual. (similarity 0.83)
• Well-designed loudspeakers are recognized by ordinary customers only under valid comparison conditions (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Distortion rarely drives subjective ratings of consumer loudspeakers #expands (0.72)
• Listeners judge reproduced sound against accumulated experience of live sound #expands (0.72) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 49