Lars Risbo (CTO of Purifi and co-founder) gave the keynote address at the Audio Engineering Society’s 160th Convention reception on May 29, 2026: “Unreasonable Audio Innovation”.
He addresses the tribalism between the Subjectivist and Objectivist camps in the hi-fi community and argues that audio should be treated as engineering rather than purely art or rigid science:
The subjectivists tribe: audio is art, measurements are irrelevant, no explanation is too absurd provided it avoids actual data. You already know the reviewer quote.
The objectivists tribe: standard metrics are sufficient, double-blind testing is the only admissible evidence, and almost nothing is audible. And yet — paradoxically — they spend enormous effort optimising the same short list of metrics: THD, IMD, noise floor. Decade after decade. Regardless of whether those metrics capture what the ear is actually sensitive to.
…
What bothers me about both tribes is not that they disagree. It’s that neither is curious. Both have found a way to stop the inquiry and call it a conclusion.
Here’s the outline of his talk:
- Opening
- Two Tribes
- The Ear, Time, And The Missing Dimension
- Engineering, And The Hysteresis Story
- Floyd Toole — A Giant, And What Happened To His Caveats
- Surrogate Markers, Ancel Keys, And The Real Endpoint
- What Is At Stake
- Call To Action — Klippel, Millikan, And What Good Looks Like
It’s a good read (10 min) and thought provoking.
