In reading a few old threads about brand quality and at least one comparing mandolins and beer I just had to chime in with a new thread. I have played mandolins for over 20 years and own a brewery so the issues of inherent quality and subjectivity are very dear to me and I'm always happy to hear others' opinions.
Most of this comes from reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig when I was a teenager. The protagonist went crazy trying to define quality.
While i can't offer a definition or explain it, we all have a subjective idea of what makes a thing better than another similar thing but my opinion is that we often let that guide us more than we should. Of course, I'm a scientist so aiming for objectivity is a passion of mine that is probably more pronounced than the average person.
I believe that quality is inherent in things and it is not decided by the consumer. Rather, there are qualities within things or ideas that are 'better' compared to others. Quality is not 'arrived upon' by lots of people deciding something is good. Just because lots of people like Coke, it doesn't mean Coke is 'good' or 'better than pepsi', it just means a lot of people like it. Coke being good doesn't drive the market to understand that, it is often the other way around. Marketing can certainly blur the quality issue but I digress.
So, there are good beers out there. They are well made, and, if served properly and not out-of-date, will be delicious in terms of the brewer's vision. That you may not like the flavors of that beer and deem it 'bad' doesn't mean it's a bad beer. Who are we to designate what is good or bad? You may not like IPA but just because you don't like IPA X does not mean it is bad. However, that is largely the way beer perception works. In fact, a lot of things probably work that way - the more people that like something often the more popular it gets. This doesn't have to have anything to do with quality.
Same can be said for mandolins. Some sound better than others to other people or have better fit and finish or whatever. Bill played Gibson - that probably helped the perception that they make quality instruments. Or mandolin brand X. Now, that Thile has a killer Loar is probably a strong indication that the mandolin is of high quality, but that scenario is more the exception than the rule.
There are often strong correlations between popularity and quality that have some merit. If coke really sucked or hit at a palate style that was uncommon, it probably would not be sold as often. There are surely elements of quality necessary to be considered 'good'. But these thresholds, i will argue, are often pretty low. Telling the difference between a really great Pilsner and an absolutely exceptional Pilsner requires a lot of training.
And the average consumer doesn't have a lot of training. We may have a lot of experience drinking soft drinks, but we don't usually bring a scientific or technical approach to assessing the quality. We are thirsty, we find a brand we consider of quality, we buy it, we drink it - problem solved. And on top of that, our perceptions of a past experience (like drinking a cold Mt Dew on a hot day) draw upon the general feeling of the experience beyond the inherent properties in the object. My position is to be able to assess quality requires a large commitment to assessment and a standardized approach to reduce subjective biases.
I have 8 years experience as a brewery owner or owner-to-be. During that period i have made concentrated efforts to learn about beer. A large part of my beer drinking experience anymore is as a quality assessor and not a drinker (I know, I took all the fun out of it). It is extremely difficult because you just can't taste that many beers on a daily basis using a standardized tasting approach. After a pint your senses are altered and (more) biases introduced. Anyway, at this point, with my approach and experience, I consider my self fairly advanced in the beer realm. I can generally tell if a beer is well made, deconstruct the recipe and identify ingredient quality and type, and determine whether that beer 'fits' the general conditions that folks have decided (not me) that make a beer 'good'. I may not LIKE the beer, but i can offer a fairly unbiased opinion as to whether it is a good beer. Not many people can do this, and far fewer are really experts at it. There are programs to help develop this skillset and very few people reach the top of those programs. In short, most people aren't really qualified to determine whether a beer is any good or not, they can just tell you whether they like it.
I have recently tried to apply this type of approach to mandolins and it is complicated by things like not being able to get my hands on enough samples and by the changes to my playing and ability through the process. It is much easier to do in a 'tasting' situation where you have many to compare in a single effort, but over time it is quite difficult. Same thing with beer and our palates - they change. I imagine very few people whose last names aren't Thile, Marshall, Stiernberg, etc. are likely to have amassed the skillset and sample size to really assess mandolins either.
But at the end of the day we can all strive to learn these things and I wish more people would. At least I think we should be wiling to admit that we all suffer from biases, opinions, and lack of standardized methods. We all value our own opinions but they are just opinions. For me it is often hard to not let someone with a strong opinion influence my decisions and that only serves to complicate my own tasting adventures. In the beer world there are certain beers everyone considers the greatest, and many of them are - but not all. Same goes with mandolins. And, with beer, some of them suffer with age and can complicate things. Mandolins, too, suffer from inconsistencies. We play a mandolin or drink a beer that was just 'off', maybe age of the beer or setup on the mandolin - and draw the conclusion that that brand is 'not good' which really can't even be assessed given the condition of the sample.
Anyway, i'd enjoy hearing other's ideas about this topic as long as you try to minimize your opinions. i realize what I have written is, in essence, my opinion but I feel like I have made an effort to minimize bias and be observational so i hope to keep my opinion out as much as possible - maybe that's IMpossible?
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