No problem. I’m not mad or upset.
Having just re-read some of the posts, I don't mind repeating some of the stuff one more time, but let's start using your own words in your questioning so far:
I just don’t get why anyone would be concerned with a measurement that isn’t audible.
It should be simple to understands why. Until you measure, you don't know for sure about audibility that you may perceive, do you? Based on what you said yourself, that they could be "bias" involved in listening tests.
If it is audible, then it should be easy to hear in a simple blind test, yet when you bring that up, the same people want to come up with a bunch of reasons why it can’t be done “correctly” and wouldn’t be valid, yada yada.
Who said it "can't be done "correctly". If there is even one, please link, or quote. I have read people, may be me included, that it could not be done easily (but not impossible) at home, and that's why for reference, I mentioned those done by Harman's people such as Dr. Olive and Dr. Toole before more than once. They typically referred to the need of such tests for speakers, that I think most people would agree it is usually easier to hear differences between speakers, than electronic devices such as dacs and amplifiers.
Example:
An ongoing controversy within the high-end audio community is the efficacy of blind versus sighted audio product listening tests. In a blind...
seanolive.blogspot.com
It’s like my analogy of the car’s one wheel that “measures” slightly out of round, and is more out of round than the other three wheels by X %, yet no one can actually feel any vibration or indication that it’s more out of round than other wheels, so why does the “measurement” even matter?
Circular logic! How can you say no one can actually feel any vibration or indication, without either measuring the wheel and/or test driving them? By the time you know whether you can feel it or not, you have already done your testing, then if you cannot feel anything, you can decide on whether measurement matter. Some experts may say (and yes I have read about those opinions, that are based on science) that even if you cannot feel the vibration, it may do harm to the car over time, and that's even just in terms of the tires being slightly unbalanced, let alone out of round wheels.
Anyway, I don't believe we need to use analogy in cars, food etc., to avoid getting into even more complicated arguments and circular logic being used that are irrelevant to the topic being discussed. So I won't response to analogies (including the computer monitor one) any more, sorry...
I didn’t say don’t measure. I said listen first, make notes of what you hear, and then measure. This way the objective measurements don’t bias your subjective listening. Then explain how what you heard correlates to what you measured. If you didn’t actually hear an issue that involved a “poor” measurement, just say the issue wasn’t audible. Simple.
So in your post above, you have actually answered your own question (bold black italic), before you even ask (red italic)!!
Sorry, but that didn’t answer my question. It’s a very simple question. If a “poor” measurement is not audible, to you or a random group of average people with average hearing, how is it “marginal”?
You keep saying it didn't answer your question when it actually did, just in more comprehensive ways instead of a one liner that isn't needed because you did that yourself already. That is, you answered your own simple question with your own simple answer.
May be it is time you also answer some questions:
Back to the X3800H example, let's say your power requirement based on your speakers, room, listening habit, is about 100 W into 4 ohms.
Denon does not provide any power output spec into 4 ohm resistive load, let alone real speaker loads that could be highly reactive.
So you listen to it and thought it sounded fine, but:
1) How would you know if the AVR would still sound good to you if sometimes you may want to listen to levels 10 dB higher?
2) To deal with 1), let's say you do know because when you crank the volume up even 6 clicks you started to hear distortions occasionally, in that case, wouldn't you consider the AVR may just be marginally adequate for your use, if you do like to crank things up a few notches? Or you would consider getting the A1H instead, that might allow you to go 10 dB higher without perceiving distortions?
3) How do you know if another AVR at price within your budget would sound better, enough for you to choose it over the X3800H?
4) To deal with 3) above, let's assume you went head and order a Anthem MRX740, thinking that you may like it better, based on reading on AVS forum that it sound much more "musical" than Denon AVRs, how are you going to compare the two? Using 2 channel music, Atmos movies, HDMI, analog inputs, without or without room correction? Set them up in ways that you can do an AB comparison quickly enough, sighted, single blind or double blind?
Above are just a few examples for why some people do not think it is easy to choose well spec'ed, feature rich AVRs based on listening tests. Again, no one that I know of on this thread has said (okay I might have missed a post or 2) that it is impossible to do it that way, but I think many of us who trust measurements, verified manufacturer's specs etc., is a good alternative.
Either you/they hear it or you don’t.
And if you don’t hear it, why is it even an issue?
That's over simplification. It is not black and white, or 1s and 0s.. As you alluded to, there are "you" and "they", but even in the case of "you", so you don't hear it, but are you sure? You said it yourself, you wanted to see measurements, in case of "bias" or I misunderstood what you were trying to say?
What if you find that you "don't" hear it but you are not really sure? Have you tried some of those online test, such as the followings:
www.klippel.de
Ran into this interesting listening test by Klippel with regards to how much distortion you can hear. This is the link: http://www.klippel.de/listeningtest/lt/ Just casually wanting to see the test, I went with the defaults and for some reason, the levels were exceptionally low. I had to set...
www.audiosciencereview.com
If you haven't yet, I would suggest you do try some of those tests, and tell me if it is always easy to say yes I hear it, or no I don't hear it. For a lot of us, there is a point you feel that yes or no, but at other points it could be a little unclear, that I referred to as marginal case when I felt I could hear a difference but not really sure and I would have to think about whether to spend more on something that I am not sure if it makes a difference but it may.
Enough said, so to summarize, if you insist on asking the seemingly simple question that you have asked many time, then a simple answer to that simple question, you have provide the answer already, and I would repeat the following quote, that contains the "simple" answer.
I didn’t say don’t measure. I said listen first, make notes of what you hear, and then measure. This way the objective measurements don’t bias your subjective listening. Then explain how what you heard correlates to what you measured. If you didn’t actually hear an issue that involved a “poor” measurement, just say the issue wasn’t audible. Simple.
And, regardless of whether you can in fact take the black and while approach, that is, either you hear it or you don't, there are others who aren't like that. So okay, for you, if you are like that, they why even bother reading measurements, if you didn't hear an issue? Yet you said you would still measure, only that you would listen first, and then measure, and in that order I fully agree with you.
