When I was a kid, if you wanted to learn real things about audio equipment, you read Audio magazine. That's about the only one I recall that had any depth. I don't say I understood it all, but I appreciated that it existed.
Currently, there is a web full of dubious content that gives me no confidence that I am actually learning anything more-or-less correct. As an example, I cannot sort out whether MQA is good or bad or something in between; but if there were someone whose qualifications I could trust to give a somewhat technical explanation and then render an opinion without piss and vinegar or fawning, then at least I would feel as if the topic were properly aired for educational purposes of readers.
There have been surprising (to me) advancements in the state-of-the-art in the last 5 years, with Class-D amps, measurably transparent DAC's, and dramatically improved headphones. I never saw this coming, and then all of a sudden, it was here. Now, speaker improvements have been spotty and incremental, but that's okay, the ones I've had over the last 10 years have been noticeably better than, say, the B&W 802's I had in 1990-95, which at the time were fairly high-end. And subwoofers have improved dramatically. Still, it would be nice to have a knowledgeable person -- even someone in the industry -- explain why it's so hard to improve on the paper-cone driver and then talk about novel approaches that could yield improvement.
Who can summarize and explain these developments? Who has the time to do it without obvious economic motives to favor a side? What we no longer have is a good resource like Audio magazine in which knowledgeable, qualified people write about state-of-the-art designs and developments. If I recall correctly, Audio had a series of technical articles on digital audio as it rolled out, and it didn't gush, it just explained.
None of this is to fault this site, which has improved the situation by leaps and bounds. But this is a fun hobby if kept in perspective, and it would be nice to continue to learn and follow developments. I am wondering if there is a way to cajole qualified people into posting legitimate articles without naked self-interest. Thus, I don't think having the Meridian people write about MQA is helpful. I don't think non-engineer laypersons (like me) are qualified to write about the issues.
Finally, I don't think that articles with subjective impressions are worth anything beyond whether a product is basically functional and consistent with its measured performance. That is because I find that my own subjective impressions vary day-to-day based on all sorts of factors, and I am acutely aware that my hearing is quite different from others', to say nothing of the room characteristics being so critical. I only look at subjective reviewers' comments for laughs or eye-rolling.
Currently, there is a web full of dubious content that gives me no confidence that I am actually learning anything more-or-less correct. As an example, I cannot sort out whether MQA is good or bad or something in between; but if there were someone whose qualifications I could trust to give a somewhat technical explanation and then render an opinion without piss and vinegar or fawning, then at least I would feel as if the topic were properly aired for educational purposes of readers.
There have been surprising (to me) advancements in the state-of-the-art in the last 5 years, with Class-D amps, measurably transparent DAC's, and dramatically improved headphones. I never saw this coming, and then all of a sudden, it was here. Now, speaker improvements have been spotty and incremental, but that's okay, the ones I've had over the last 10 years have been noticeably better than, say, the B&W 802's I had in 1990-95, which at the time were fairly high-end. And subwoofers have improved dramatically. Still, it would be nice to have a knowledgeable person -- even someone in the industry -- explain why it's so hard to improve on the paper-cone driver and then talk about novel approaches that could yield improvement.
Who can summarize and explain these developments? Who has the time to do it without obvious economic motives to favor a side? What we no longer have is a good resource like Audio magazine in which knowledgeable, qualified people write about state-of-the-art designs and developments. If I recall correctly, Audio had a series of technical articles on digital audio as it rolled out, and it didn't gush, it just explained.
None of this is to fault this site, which has improved the situation by leaps and bounds. But this is a fun hobby if kept in perspective, and it would be nice to continue to learn and follow developments. I am wondering if there is a way to cajole qualified people into posting legitimate articles without naked self-interest. Thus, I don't think having the Meridian people write about MQA is helpful. I don't think non-engineer laypersons (like me) are qualified to write about the issues.
Finally, I don't think that articles with subjective impressions are worth anything beyond whether a product is basically functional and consistent with its measured performance. That is because I find that my own subjective impressions vary day-to-day based on all sorts of factors, and I am acutely aware that my hearing is quite different from others', to say nothing of the room characteristics being so critical. I only look at subjective reviewers' comments for laughs or eye-rolling.
