Lol. Yes I know Marantz sound engineers sit around and listen to give input into design decisions. Yes I agree measurements have some importance but they are not the be all and end all. Enjoy your specs whilst I enjoy the listening experience
I would still suggest that you stick around.
At some point you might come to the same conclusion that I have - if a piece of equipment has stellar measurement it WILL sound very, very good. That is, measurement are not of "some" importance - they are of essential importance. You may prefer the sound of that class A 845 tube amp with the mercury vapor rectifier tubes in its power supply, and the low amounts of negative feedback and high harmonic distortion. But if you spend a lot of time going back and forth between that type of thing and an extremely well measuring system, I would not be surprised that you finally decide that the system with more measurable coloration is robbing you of a lot of the music. That is an extreme example, but you get the point.
People around here will scoff at you if you report differences without doing a proper blinded test. That is annoying, but the key point is that we all need to understand how much bias we bring to the table and how capable of self-deception we are. It takes some humility to accept this, but it is worth internalizing this truth. It certainly helps when it comes to understanding the decisions we make about audio, if not in the larger world as well.
I have had some really nice pieces of equipment, both tube and solid state. I used to play "sound engineer" myself with tube amps and very little knowledge - change feedback, caps, tube substitutions, etc... Had a lot of fun and suffered a lot of self-deception. Some things you can really hear, like significant changes in feedback. Some things you kid yourself about - like boutique caps and resistors. The arbiter of quality - absent legitimate testing equipment - was simply whether I "thought" it sounded better or not.
After reading this site for quite awhile I decided to buy some equipment solely based on stellar measurements and compare it to the gear that I already had and very much enjoyed. In the end, after extensive A/B'ing, the best measuring stuff became my main system. It just got out of the way, and much to my surprise, that is how I now prefer things. I no longer think about the audio system. I am far more tuned in to the music, because I am not listening to colorations and wishing they were perhaps a little different. I know that my electronics cannot be improved upon in a meaningfully audible way. Knowing that, I just hear the music and the recording.
This kind of thinking is anathema to the audiophile industry, and at this point, I am glad of that. Amir's measurements are the great leveler. It is nauseating to consider how much nonsense and snake oil has been sold. It doesn't bother me that rich folks are parted from their money. It is all just play for them anyway. It is the poor guy who, in innocent ignorance and believing it to sound better, springs for a $200 power chord, or spends an extra $1000 on an amp or DAC when there are much cheaper alternative that are either as good or better.
This site changed my value system when it comes to audio, both financially and aesthetically. So, back to my suggestion, stick around awhile and enjoy the exchange of ideas and information by the very many well-informed and generous contributors.
So what? That is irrelevant. Amplifiers are built on electricity physics knowledge understood since approx. 200 years ago. There is nothing happening there that is not understood, no magic, no divine intervention or something happening that science has not noticed. Amplifiers are built on principles that are known.
