Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[Beave]

Because this forum is full of people that believe that charts and graphs show the whole story about the real world performance of a component. They seem to not understand that those measurements are under ideal simulated conditions and not with a real audio chain and real music not sweep tones. Measurements only provides initial guidance of product defects or sonic character. The final test need always to be live not just "on paper". I had encountered many times products that measured great here but their real word performance is unacceptable (). Paul McGowan (I now he is hated here, I am not related to him and don't own any PS Audio product) has said on his videos that he can make products that measure great but sound like sh..t. My experience agrees with him.

I've heard this claim many times, from many posters, but nobody has ever actually given a concrete example of something that measure great but sound like sh..t.

It's an empty claim.

Also, your comments about "real music not sweep tones" tells me you don't understand basic EE principles.

Regarding the amount of amplifiers, I have owned about twice (sometimes up to 4) per year for 24 years and many more tested on stores and participate on a Hifi community here on my city where regularly we borrow and temporary interchange components to test on our homes. We also make meetings where participants bring their latest and greatest and we make auditions. Not controlled tests, nothing like that, just for the good friendship and tip sharing, but you gain great experience about what are the sonic characteristics of the brands and compare real world equipment not measurements on charts.

Repeatedly doing comparisons with poor methodology only leads to faulty conclusions being supported over and over again.

 

[Beave]

Level match? Easy I use a microphone to avoid damaging my ears and set my "recommended volume level" on all my stuff.

Clipping? Not even close to that. Never got over 25 W my room is small.

No need to blind myself to spot real differences like FR, sound stage and sound harshness.

A microphone is not nearly precise enough for level-matching when comparing electronic components.

Clipping? How do you know you *never* got over 25W? Music is dynamic, peaks are very short in duration. Unless you measured, you don't know this.

And as for the "no need to blind myself," I guess in the three days between this claim and your previous posts you didn't read a single thing - or view a single video - suggested to you by others in this thread. It's such a wrong-headed statement that it's laughable.

 

[Bozon]

Of course different amps have a different frequency response. That question is how large the difference is. The frequency response of the NAD and AVM is also within +-0.1dB. And as expected you where going to come up with a tube amp, known for it's extreme terrible output impedance. The exception that proves the rule.

A sweep tone FR response is not real music. Those tones are very easy for the amp as they are clean 1 frequently at a time.

I have little experience with tube amps (only owned 3 so far) you can easily hear tubes specific coloration on the same amp when rolling them. Imagine the differences you can spot between different amplifiers.

 

[Bozon]

I've heard this claim many times, from many posters, but nobody has ever actually given a concrete example of something that measure great but sound like sh..t.

It's an empty claim

Ok I will give you 4 measured here that I owned. (Didn't want to enter there to avoid touching people's sensibility but you asked, you got it).

- Topping DX7s DAC and pre90 preamp: bright, cold, no sound stage

- Kef R series and LS50 speakers. Slooow, boring, sibilant, congested (not bad value speakers overall but nothing to praise)

-Emotiva DAC DC-1: evident coloration, cold sound.

The topping DX7s and the emotiva where SOTA on their years.

You want the opposite case? NAD C658 preamp. It is true that it's THD is far from optimal, its sound is a little laid back, it's measurements are a far cry from what you get from the SOTA Topping pre90. But sounds much better overall. Tested it for two weeks AB both. On the NAD you can "see" the instruments on stage. The pre90 is cold and a "wall of mess" almost like hearing mono instead of stereo.

pre90 vs Benchmark's LA4. The Topping measures better, but sounds like "crap" compared to the LA4, side by side. The LA4 sound stage is deep and wide. Instruments tone spot on, no coloration, no coldness, not warmes, richer. It is perfect (to me) and measures "worse".

There you go. You asked for it.

 

[Beave]

I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. When I wrote "...and sounds like sh..t," I wasn't asking for conclusions from one poster drawn from flawed (sighted, non level-matched, completely non-controlled) listening sessions. Your opinions based on flawed testing are not worth much.

Come back when you can reproduce those findings in controlled testing, or when others share your findings based on *their* controlled testing.

I thought that would be obvious by now, but I guess not. We've led the horse to the water, but we can't make it drink.

 

[DonR]

Ok I will give you 4 measured here that I owned. (Didn't want to enter there to avoid touching people's sensibility but you asked, you got it).

- Topping DX7s DAC and pre90 preamp: bright, cold, no sound stage

- Kef R series and LS50 speakers. Slooow, boring, sibilant, congested (not bad value speakers overall but nothing to praise)

-Emotiva DAC DC-1: evident coloration, cold sound.

The topping DX7s and the emotiva where SOTA on their years.

You want the opposite case? NAD C658 preamp. It is true that it's THD is far from optimal, its sound is a little laid back, it's measurements are a far cry from what you get from the SOTA Topping pre90. But sounds much better overall. Tested it for two weeks AB both. On the NAD you can "see" the instruments on stage. The pre90 is cold and a "wall of mess" almost like hearing mono instead of stereo.

pre90 vs Benchmark's LA4. The Topping measures better, but sounds like "crap" compared to the LA4, side by side. The LA4 sound stage is deep and wide. Instruments tone spot on, no coloration, no coldness, not war mess. It is perfect (to me) and measures "worst".

There you go. You asked for it.

How do you know that these impressions are not just products of your internal biases?

 

[Bozon]

How do you know that these impressions are not just products of your internal biases?

Because when you have tried hundreds of components over the years, you hear live performances you get to know how the test tracks you use sound. Also because you immediately can identify a specific brand/model for its sound defects (or sound signature) and because I take test session with others on my community. Most of the time we agreed on product faults.

 

[Bozon]

I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. When I wrote "...and sounds like sh..t," I wasn't asking for conclusions from one poster drawn from flawed (sighted, non level-matched, completely non-controlled) listening sessions. Your opinions based on flawed testing are not worth much.

Come back when you can reproduce those findings in controlled testing, or when others share your findings based on *their* controlled testing.

I thought that would be obvious by now, but I guess not. We've led the horse to the water, but we can't make it drink.

Well you don't get to dispute the judgement of others that actually owned the products when you haven't even tried that examples for yourself don't you think?

 

[Blockader]

A sweep tone FR response is not real music. Those tones are very easy for the amp as they are clean 1 frequently at a time.

I have little experience with tube amps (only owned 3 so far) you can easily hear tubes specific coloration on the same amp when rolling them. Imagine the differences you can spot between different amplifiers.

Show me an amplifier which measures great with single tones but measures badly with multitone? I haven't seen one, yet. Probably if you look hard enough, you can find one. Good luck with that.

A non linearity is a non linearity. a system which has a large spike of 3rd order distortion for 1khz signal exhibits a non linearity at 3khz. A similar 3khz spike will appear on 50hz, 100, 500hz~~ test signals too, it will appear on multitone measurements or two tone intermodulation tests as well.(if one of the imd products land there of course)

When amplifiers are 'slow', they display a behavior of increasing distortion at higher frequencies. This is observable even with a 1 kHz signal, where the harmonics of 1 kHz extend into the higher frequency range.

In short, assuming an amplifier is a min phase system, a 50/1000hz test signal can show you all the details of the amplifiers distortion behavior. Multitone test measurements are done to test the deviation of the amplifiers from min phase behavior usually. And I haven't seen one amplifier which shows a non expected behavior with multitone tests. this old, *cheap amplifiers perform bad when the music is fast and there are multiple tones* is just nonsense for 99.9% cases. It should just stop but it won't stop because those who make such claims have no idea how amplifiers work.

 

[Beave]

Well you don't get to dispute the judgement of others that actually owned the products when you haven't even tried that examples for yourself don't you think?

I get to question ANY conclusions drawn from faulty methodology, regardless of subject and regardless of my own personal experience or lack thereof.

 

[DonR]

Because when you have tried hundreds of components over the years, you hear live performances you get to know how the test tracks you use sound. Also because you immediately can identify a specific brand/model for its sound defects (or sound signature) and because I take test session with others on my community. Most of the time we agreed on product faults.

Most people who go to church every Sunday for all their lives believe in God. Doesn't make him real. If anything it reinforces your biases. If you want to make a claim in a science-based forum you will need to produce evidence from tests that eliminate bias. Personal anecdotes are as worthless as religious testimonials.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Because when you have tried hundreds of components over the years, you hear live performances you get to know how the test tracks you use sound. Also because you immediately can identify a specific brand/model for its sound defects (or sound signature) and because I take test session with others on my community. Most of the time we agreed on product faults.

Okay, so I meet your qualifications. Tried lots of components, interchanged them with friends, owned lots of amplifiers. Heard live music, recorded live music. Most of the time everyone agreed within our little groups. Yet the methodology is lacking, and the conclusions don't pass muster. With your experience it is a hard thing to wrap your head around. You are seeing that you aren't convincing anyone here with your experiences. Many of us have been there and done that. We know how it feels, how certain you are, and also how misguided all that really is. You really can do better (I hope) than all the usual cliche things you have mentioned so far. That no one here has experience with much gear, have sub-standard listening, don't compare with music etc. etc. etc.

 

[Chagall]

Imagine the differences you can spot between different amplifiers.

Imagine being the keyword. Do you have any proof? Otherwise you are just wasting time...

 

[Mikig]

Most people who go to church every Sunday for all their lives believe in God. Doesn't make him real. If anything it reinforces your biases. If you want to make a claim in a science-based forum you will need to produce evidence from tests that eliminate bias. Personal anecdotes are as worthless as religious testimonials.

I'm calling time out!!


it seems off topic to me...perhaps it seems a little exaggerated to bring up religion as a term of comparison with the human world of Hi-fi..

I also find these statements of yours inadequate, towards all the people who they want to feel free to add religious experience to their lives, and to their conscience, without having to feel judged by those who are not interested in welcoming this sensitivity...

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[Bozon]

Most people who go to church every Sunday for all their lives believe in God. Doesn't make him real. If anything it reinforces your biases. If you want to make a claim in a science-based forum you will need to produce evidence from tests that eliminate bias. Personal anecdotes are as worthless as religious testimonials.

Absurd comparison. In that case conclusion would be the opposite. Since those people on church haven't seen God and believe and you haven't seen the equipment commented your experience is like going to the church vs actually have been with God that would be like having, tested and hearing the components.

 

[Bozon]

Okay, so I meet your qualifications. Tried lots of components, interchanged them with friends, owned lots of amplifiers. Heard live music, recorded live music. Most of the time everyone agreed within our little groups. Yet the methodology is lacking, and the conclusions don't pass muster. With your experience it is a hard thing to wrap your head around. You are seeing that you aren't convincing anyone here with your experiences. Many of us have been there and done that. We know how it feels, how certain you are, and also how misguided all that really is. You really can do better (I hope) than all the usual cliche things you have mentioned so far. That no one here has experience with much gear, have sub-standard listening, don't compare with music etc. etc. etc.

Ok. As I said before. I don't care that people here that hasn't tested the discussed components don't believe me.

I am an engineer BTW I know science as you, I know method as you. But that is not the point. I haven't disputed the measurements. On the contrary, I strongly support them, but I consider them as incomplete. Why? Because I can clearly spot differences in sound between different components that are not shown on the measurements. So, measurements are incomplete and due lack of proper measurements that can explain those differences, the final test must be the human experience.

 

[Beave]

Ok. As I said before. I don't care that people here that hasn't tested the discussed components don't believe me.

I am an engineer BTW I know science as you, I know method as you. But that is not the point. I haven't disputed the measurements. On the contrary, I strongly support them, but I consider them as incomplete. Why? Because I can clearly spot differences in sound between different components that are not shown on the measurements. So, measurements are incomplete and due lack of proper measurements that can explain those differences, the final test must be the human experience.

PROVE IT.

(And you're obviously not an electrical engineer.)

 

[DonR]

I can clearly spot differences in sound between different components that are not shown on the measurements

That is a claim that requires evidence. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Ok. As I said before. I don't care that people here that hasn't tested the discussed components don't believe me.

I am an engineer BTW I know science as you, I know method as you. But that is not the point. I haven't disputed the measurements. On the contrary, I strongly support them, but I consider them as incomplete. Why? Because I can clearly spot differences in sound between different components that are not shown on the measurements. So, measurements are incomplete and due lack of proper measurements that can explain those differences, the final test must be the human experience.

You have provided no proper listening results. You've provided nothing to make us believe you can hear differences in components using only your ears. You've made criticisms of measurements that are 50 years out of date which are trivially done now. Your posts in this thread indicate you don't know or refuse to engage in the science known about listening/hearing. You can use your human experience as the final test. We highly encourage it. That is testing is improper the way you describe doing it however.