Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[LevityProject]

Which is fine, as long as you don’t spend too much for poor engineering dressed as ‘musicality’.
Keith

This is so true - there's only so much that can be done to any piece of equipment. If Distortion (which is revealed by good measurements) is too high, it's not going to be possible to adjust the equipment cleanly without fundamentally changing the hardware.

Low distortaion equipment can be manipulated more. What I think measurements provide is a short cut to getting good end results. Listening for tonality takes such a long time, so listening to correct tonality for extended periods instead of incorrect tonality is very helpful

 

[Purité Audio]

I won't spend too much for good engineering which will not sound good for my ears

Sorry but if all amps should sound the same (same room, same speakers etc.) then why so many audio shops says that for example Yamaha is on the bright side and Denon is on the warm side of the sound and I should not use Klipsch with Yamaha?

Because they have never bothered to compare them in a controlled ie unsighted/level matched fashion.
Generally technical knowledge is non existent and that includes, customers/retailers/reviewers/influencers and many non measurement led manufacturers.
Blameless electronics ( as good as anything at any price) are relatively inexpensive.
Keith

 

[LevityProject]

I won't spend too much for good engineering which will not sound good for my ears

Sorry but if all amps should sound the same (same room, same speakers etc.) then why so many audio shops says that for example Yamaha is on the bright side and Denon is on the warm side of the sound and I should not use Klipsch with Yamaha?

that would be giving too much weight to advertising or opinions that aren't derived from a solid base. Without measurements of both the amp unit and the connected speakers, it's impossible to definitively say if the brightness or darkness is coming from the amp itself, or the speakers the amp is driving. All you would have is a guess. For audio science, that's a great start to have some fun and do some learning, but it is not the end point.

 

[Drunkinho]

Because they have never bothered to compare them in a controlled ie unsighted/level matched fashion.

All of them?

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

Audio manufacturers and audio Stores love Coloured equipment. The number of colour combinations they can sell you is endless.

 

[ahofer]

Sorry but if all amps should sound the same (same room, same speakers etc.) then why so many audio shops says that for example Yamaha is on the bright side and Denon is on the warm side of the sound and I should not use Klipsch with Yamaha?

Because it is very much in their interests to keep you on the equipment upgrade treadmill.

 

[Purité Audio]

All of them?

I use the ‘boutique cable’ test, if a retailer sells expensive cable then they are either knowingly a charlatan, or if they really ‘believe’ then they are merely incompetent as they haven’t bothered to compare.
Keith

 

[ahofer]

All of them?

I've often mused about setting up a properly science-based audio dealer. The trouble is that it would be very difficult to stay in business.

Most of the enthusiasts and vendors in the industry have gone to great lengths to ignore the evidence.

Catalogue of blind tests

I thought this thread on Head-Fi was a valiant effort to put together blind tests that have been performed over the years. Given that there have been many more (I'm thinking Archimago's tests, among others), it would be fun to open source a complete list...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Purité Audio]

I've often mused about setting up a properly science-based audio dealer. The trouble is that it would be very difficult to stay in business.

Most of the enthusiasts and vendors in the industry have gone to great lengths to ignore the evidence.

Catalogue of blind tests

I thought this thread on Head-Fi was a valiant effort to put together blind tests that have been performed over the years. Given that there have been many more (I'm thinking Archimago's tests, among others), it would be fun to open source a complete list...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Don’t do it!
Keith

 

[Drunkinho]

I use the ‘boutique cable’ test, if a retailer sells expensive cable then they are either knowingly a charlatan, or if they really ‘believe’ then they are merely incompetent as they haven’t bothered to compare.
Keith

That has nothing to do with comparing two different amps/avrs. So what if some audio retailer/shop and many customers tested Yamaha and Denon on the same speakers, same room, cables etc. using Pure Direct mode and there is a very noticable different in sound? It will not count because it was not measured?

 

[Purité Audio]

If there is a difference in SQ that will be evident in the units measurements .
Components can sound different, properly engineered ones not so much/or at all.
Keith

 

[Blumlein 88]

That has nothing to do with comparing two different amps/avrs. So what if some audio retailer/shop and many customers tested Yamaha and Denon on the same speakers, same room, cables etc. using Pure Direct mode and there is a very noticable different in sound? It will not count because it was not measured?

It needs to be level matched and blind. Otherwise the overwhelming likelihood is some other factors caused one to perceive a different sound when the actual sound waves were not different. You can trust your ears, but not your eyes.

 

[BDWoody]

It will not count because it was not measured?

No, it will be discounted heavily because there were no controls used. Without that pesky element addressed properly, whatever listening impressions are reported can be pretty much ignored.

What part of this are you not understanding, or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

 

[voodooless]

It will not count because it was not measured?

No, it will not count because basic controls were not applied. At the very bare minimum, levels must be matched, using a voltmeter to within about 0.1V, using a single tone (400Hz or so).

Well, what @Blumlein 88 and @DBWoody said

 

[StigErik]

That has nothing to do with comparing two different amps/avrs. So what if some audio retailer/shop and many customers tested Yamaha and Denon on the same speakers, same room, cables etc. using Pure Direct mode and there is a very noticable different in sound? It will not count because it was not measured?

Pure direct mode don’t do much more than turn on a blue LED … and of course bypass room correction. But the signal path remains the same.

 

[JustJones]

So what if some audio retailer/shop and many customers tested Yamaha and Denon on the same speakers, same room, cables etc. using Pure Direct mode and there is a very noticable different in sound? It will not count because it was not measured?

The gold standard of electronic device comparison.

 

[Old_School_Brad]

Pure direct mode don’t do much more than turn on a blue LED … and of course bypass room correction. But the signal path remains the same.

It completely depends on the amplifier's design.

 

[StigErik]

It completely depends on the amplifier's design.

Yes. But this was AVRs, where the signal almost always must go through the DSP anyway. Pure Direct just disables everything in the DSP except for the volume control.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes. But this was AVRs, where the signal almost always must go through the DSP anyway. Pure Direct just disables everything in the DSP except for the volume control.

In Denon and Marantz at least some models turn off video processing. Ironically in my Marantz pre/pro this raises the noise floor like 4 db, and distortion a couple db.

 

[Vacceo]

I won't spend too much for good engineering which will not sound good for my ears

Sorry but if all amps should sound the same (same room, same speakers etc.) then why so many audio shops says that for example Yamaha is on the bright side and Denon is on the warm side of the sound and I should not use Klipsch with Yamaha?

Because audiophilia was born when there first con man met the first fool.