Would you be The Krautmaster from the Charger forum?
I guess the "break in" period is real
- Thread starter Romeo Wolf
- Start date
I think folks often assume that Amir measures everything that describes a system and therefore defines a system's quality or excellence, which I would say is incorrect. He measures a limited set of variables, and makes conclusions based on those measurements. But what he measures does not capture everything knowable or measurable about a system. His measurements are informative and provide a firm basis for comparison. I would hypothesize that one could reverse engineer a system that excels in each measured variable but still sounds bad. However, his measurements provide a firm objective point of comparison. One could infer or correlate certain qualitative characteristics from the quantitative measurements, but they may not be causative. Same with Erin's speaker measurements. They do explain things, but they do not always capture everything perceived by our organic ear Klippels.
There are many things measurable that the human ear and mind can not sense .,that are published and by which many people will buy. Examples would be THD in an amplifier <.01% or damping factor >100. There are many other things measurable that are not published (except by few manufacturers) such as power compression, phase shift, off-axis response, and the vast majority of the buying public doesn’t even know what things mean other than the misleading half-truth measurements published by manufacturers, just one example in post #52.
An important point was made (inadvertently) in the Bob Carver Challenge(s) by the simple fact that types and amounts of distortion, those pleasant to the ear/mind, added to the sound by tube amplifiers, are not measured nor published, … ANYWHERE. However these (inaccurate) artifacts of an imperfect amplifier are clearly preferred by many and can make the difference.
Another point was made by Roger Russell when extensively testing speaker cables, where a certain higher-capacitance construction of wire “cable” would cause ringing and overshoot in the highest frequencies on some amplifier designs, again inaccurate and measurable, and some listeners would prefer these cables as being more detailed, where they just had more added HF ringing that fooled listeners who would then buy them after a comparison.
Measurements are good. Accurate, complete, and honest measurements that are actually applicable to human hearing and music are better, but only if the buyer understands how they actually apply to human hearing.
The audition however, one with all of the selected equipment together, in the buyer’s environment, is the only way to really know.
The Bryston amplifiers mentioned by an earlier poster certainly could be an example of exposing something in the music that he didn’t like, could be speaker cables that created ringing, could be speakers that have a sibilance that was not exposed by other gear. We could make a list of things that sound bad, are masked by one amplifier, but exposed by a more accurate amplifier, could be the case. Could also be an impedance mismatch with a preamplifier, cables, just something in the chain that has better synergy.
For me it’s proper measurements first, I won’t trust a manufacturer that publishes misleading specs, then audition.
An important point was made (inadvertently) in the Bob Carver Challenge(s) by the simple fact that types and amounts of distortion, those pleasant to the ear/mind, added to the sound by tube amplifiers, are not measured nor published, … ANYWHERE. However these (inaccurate) artifacts of an imperfect amplifier are clearly preferred by many and can make the difference.
Another point was made by Roger Russell when extensively testing speaker cables, where a certain higher-capacitance construction of wire “cable” would cause ringing and overshoot in the highest frequencies on some amplifier designs, again inaccurate and measurable, and some listeners would prefer these cables as being more detailed, where they just had more added HF ringing that fooled listeners who would then buy them after a comparison.
Measurements are good. Accurate, complete, and honest measurements that are actually applicable to human hearing and music are better, but only if the buyer understands how they actually apply to human hearing.
The audition however, one with all of the selected equipment together, in the buyer’s environment, is the only way to really know.
The Bryston amplifiers mentioned by an earlier poster certainly could be an example of exposing something in the music that he didn’t like, could be speaker cables that created ringing, could be speakers that have a sibilance that was not exposed by other gear. We could make a list of things that sound bad, are masked by one amplifier, but exposed by a more accurate amplifier, could be the case. Could also be an impedance mismatch with a preamplifier, cables, just something in the chain that has better synergy.
For me it’s proper measurements first, I won’t trust a manufacturer that publishes misleading specs, then audition.
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