Master Thread: Are Measurements Everything or Nothing?

[MAB]

Does it "sound good"? Cool. It's like guitars or other instruments: which one is the "best"?

I appreciate, but differ on one thing.

A musical instrument can be interpreted in many ways. For example, I have several B♭ clarinets, I can't tell you which one is 'best'. Mouthpieces and reeds are even more difficult for me to categorize from 'worst' to 'best'.

A reproduction system can be ranked from worst to best in terms of audible parameters.

• Frequency response
• Noise
• Distortion

While we can have good conversations about speaker's frequency response since that is a 3-D soundfield in a room, the rest is quite simple and can be ranked, even if that ranking doesn't take into account thresholds of human hearing.

 

[rdenney]

I appreciate, but differ on one thing.

A musical instrument can be interpreted in many ways. For example, I have several B♭ clarinets, I can't tell you which one is 'best'. Mouthpieces and reeds are even more difficult for me to categorize from 'worst' to 'best'.

A reproduction system can be ranked from worst to best in terms of audible parameters.

• Frequency response
• Noise
• Distortion

While we can have good conversations about speaker's frequency response since that is a 3-D soundfield in a room, the rest is quite simple and can be ranked, even if that ranking doesn't take into account thresholds of human hearing.

Further to your point, ranking musical instruments is ranking the tools of art. Audio playback equipment is not the art--it is the art display device. Any coloration it adds to the art takes the art further from its starting point. In some cases, we may prefer that, but that is a philosophical choice I would not prefer.

I spent part of the Thanksgiving weekend visiting a friend in another city who has a superb collection of tubas. We spent a couple of hours playing several of them--he's trying to narrow down a choice for a particular application. Only one would I say was less "good" than the others--it required too much work and didn't have any special powers that we could discern. The others all had at least one unique special power that would be awesome in some situations (probably not any noticeable extent to anybody but another tuba player, of course). Finding the best one for his specific application isn't a choice of good or less good, but rather a choice of more appropriate or less appropriate. The next day, we did it again for an hour evaluating mouthpieces. We both feel blessed that we can own several instruments so that we can optimize for the fun of it. But all this is on the art side, even though we were making fairly specific technical observations with each other. Would any recording/playback system have been able to make the evaluations we were making? Maybe. But part of the evaluation wasn't just how the instruments sounded, but how they felt. That's part of the art.

There's a reason that Floyd Toole makes a careful distinction between the job of the art creators versus the playback systems we use to experience the art in our homes.

Rick "accurate playback is engineering, not art" Denney

 

[antcollinet]

accurate playback is engineering, not art

That should be engraved on the ASR Page header, and be automatically added to the first post of every thread.

 

[J.M. Noble]

I appreciate, but differ on one thing.

A musical instrument can be interpreted in many ways. For example, I have several B♭ clarinets, I can't tell you which one is 'best'. Mouthpieces and reeds are even more difficult for me to categorize from 'worst' to 'best'.

A reproduction system can be ranked from worst to best in terms of audible parameters.

• Frequency response
• Noise
• Distortion

While we can have good conversations about speaker's frequency response since that is a 3-D soundfield in a room, the rest is quite simple and can be ranked, even if that ranking doesn't take into account thresholds of human hearing.

Interesting discussion. I don't hope to persuade anyone. The tl;dr that follows is mostly me clarifying my own thinking, do with it as you will.

Is +/-0dB from zero to light what "sounds good"? Apparently not, since even our host has a target response that is anything but flat for speakers--to say nothing of the "Harman curve" for headphones that seems to be widely accepted around here. Those are opinions based on preferences expressed by a bunch of people with little or no science to back it up.

Electronics are easier to qualify, but even there the measurements for amplifiers are lacking since few if any tests characterize how they behave when you hit them hard while they drive real-world loads.

I've been grappling with these questions as an enthusiast and/or professional since the mid-80s. One of the first things I did when I got a PC in the late 80s was to write a speaker design CAE program based on Neville Thiele & Richard Small's AES papers to take the drudgery out of plotting response curves on log/log paper. A few years later I was the proud owner of ATi's LEAP and LMS (this was before the LinearX split) and thought I'd finally be able to perfect the systems I designed--i.e. design and/or adjust everything to get as close to flat measured response as possible. Imagine my disillusionment when the sine sweeps looked good but music playback sounded worse.

Part of the problem is that measurement is difficult: where do you put a single mic in order to get valid results for a human with two ears who is listening to two speakers? Anyone who has moved a mic around in a real world listening environment while measuring a speaker knows what I'm talking about (and I don't mean room modes). With two speakers it's a judgment call about where to take the measurements so the objectivity of the data goes right out the window. Oh, we'll just move the mic around and average the results? Show me the science that supports this solution as a proxy for human perception of sound and I'll get on board. Our host addresses some of the measurable source of this issue when he talks about early reflections and directivity in speaker reports, but the rabbit hole goes deeper.

Then there is the matter of what the goal of the sound reproduction system is: test tones, or music made by other human beings who made judgments about the recording venue, miking, mixing, and mastering based on a multitude of who-knows-what playback devices? What does "fidelity" even mean in that situation? Working as a live sound engineer, I routinely isolate input channels ("solo" on a mixer) in my IEMs for various reasons and I can assure you that for sources that have a lot of acoustic output (horns, electric guitars, drums, etc) the microphone isn't picking up anything like what the source sounds like in the room. Isolation is better in the studio, of course, but they are using the same Shure SM57s on many of the same sources I am. After all those signals go through the audio production sausage factory, I defy anyone to say that a given target curve, flat or otherwise, is "right" for a given recording.

If people actually cared about precision sound they would spend most of their time, effort, and money on room treatment (or construction, with larger budgets). Mediocre speakers and electronics sound stunning in a proper room. But these things are a hassle and they aren't sexy so we see discussions about nonsense like cables and how many angels can dance on the head of a 110 dB SINAD DAC. Don't get me wrong, measurements are important tools if one has the knowledge and experience to gather and interpret the data. But I submit the hard ranking you propose above is a misapplication of the data. "Better" is in the ear of the beholder. But people should also be realistic about what they can actually hear, too. Most of these arguments are between semi-deaf old men, let's be honest.

(And yes you can measure that clarinet to a fare-thee-well. They've done it with Stradivarii violins for decades as part of efforts to replicate the sound. But the real question is why a Strad is the "best"--or why a Selmer Paris clarinet is "better" than a Bundy. It's a judgment call.)

 

[Ken1951]

Further to your point, ranking musical instruments is ranking the tools of art. Audio playback equipment is not the art--it is the art display device. Any coloration it adds to the art takes the art further from its starting point. In some cases, we may prefer that, but that is a philosophical choice I would not prefer.

I spent part of the Thanksgiving weekend visiting a friend in another city who has a superb collection of tubas. We spent a couple of hours playing several of them--he's trying to narrow down a choice for a particular application. Only one would I say was less "good" than the others--it required too much work and didn't have any special powers that we could discern. The others all had at least one unique special power that would be awesome in some situations (probably not any noticeable extent to anybody but another tuba player, of course). Finding the best one for his specific application isn't a choice of good or less good, but rather a choice of more appropriate or less appropriate. The next day, we did it again for an hour evaluating mouthpieces. We both feel blessed that we can own several instruments so that we can optimize for the fun of it. But all this is on the art side, even though we were making fairly specific technical observations with each other. Would any recording/playback system have been able to make the evaluations we were making? Maybe. But part of the evaluation wasn't just how the instruments sounded, but how they felt. That's part of the art.

There's a reason that Floyd Toole makes a careful distinction between the job of the art creators versus the playback systems we use to experience the art in our homes.

Rick "accurate playback is engineering, not art" Denney

Right there with you on this. I haven't played in many a year, but I played for a fair bit of time - sax, mostly tenor. Owned several over the years. My Martin felt and responded different than my old Selmer MK VI which was different than my vintage Conn, and so on. Mouthpieces the same. Selmer metal different than the metal Berg Larsen different than the metal Brilhart different than the Otto Link different than the "plastic" ones. As you say the instruments are for creating. I don't want my audio equipment "creating" - just reproducing as best it can what the musicians and engineers created.

 

[MattHooper]

But not everyone has the same use cases and objectives, and that’s where communication with nontechnical users should focus.

Yup!

Rick “but this is a technical forum” Denney

And therein lies the gulf I spoke of.
Though this forum is as close as I found to bridging the gulf. (Being less strict, than for instance, hydrogen audio).

Rick "accurate playback is engineering, not art" Denney

Absolutely if accuracy is the assumed goal. If not, subjective expression can enter the game.

I might liken it to visiting an artists studio and purchasing one of her paintings she has on display. In the studio you’ve got that perfect record of the art of the artist in terms of the painting, and displayed to the artists own satisfaction.

But when you take that painting home, instead of trying to perfectly re-create how the artist displayed the art, some of your own self expression can come into play. You can place the art against the background wall colour of you’re choosing, under the lighting of your choosing (which influences to the eye how the art appears), and perhaps it is part of your further self expression in that you arrange this painting with some other others on the wall, in which it becomes part of your own interior design scheme etc. You haven’t abandoned the painting, but there is some level of decisions you make that influence the experience of that art. There isn’t a sense a bespoke aspect to the way you are experiencing that art.

Likewise, you can take a recording and instead of obsessing about the strictest accuracy, you can relax and add certain of your own decisions and touches - whether it’s how you arrange your speakers and listening distance and what room reflections you might decide to introduce, or whether it’s colorations in your loudspeaker, or tube amplifier, or your vinyl set up or whatever - and so you introduce a bit more of a “bespoke” sonic experience that reflects some of your own criteria and taste.
That works for plenty of audiophiles as well.

 

[J.M. Noble]

tubas.

As a recovering tubist, I heartily approve of these experiments. Miraphone BBb four-valve battleship, please, unless it's marching in which case I want a convertible corps-style over-the-shoulder horn ... and not one of those prissy two-valve lightweight things they use in DCI, either. I want some torque.

But good ole Floyd misses the point here: an ultra precise rig that renders a string quartet with startling accuracy is probably not the right thing for 90s Miami Bass. The monitoring systems and the producers' resultant playback expectations are radically different between the two genres. This happens in dance music a lot: it doesn't sound right on anything but a proper dance stack PA system because that's what producers mix it for. As a performer, I experience the same thing.

 

[solderdude]

Interesting discussion. I don't hope to persuade anyone. The tl;dr that follows is mostly me clarifying my own thinking, do with it as you will.

Is +/-0dB from zero to light what "sounds good"? Apparently not, since even our host has a target response that is anything but flat for speakers--to say nothing of the "Harman curve" for headphones that seems to be widely accepted around here. Those are opinions based on preferences expressed by a bunch of people with little or no science to back it up.

Opinions are just that and they can differ, just like taste.
Nothing wrong with opinions but measurements aren't opinions, they are either accurate or not.
The evaluation of measurement results can be because the human brain is involved here.

Electronics are easier to qualify, but even there the measurements for amplifiers are lacking since few if any tests characterize how they behave when you hit them hard while they drive real-world loads.

Yep, you can measure everything correctly but not everything is always measured (correctly).

Part of the problem is that measurement is difficult: where do you put a single mic in order to get valid results for a human with two ears who is listening to two speakers? Anyone who has moved a mic around in a real world listening environment while measuring a speaker knows what I'm talking about (and I don't mean room modes). With two speakers it's a judgment call about where to take the measurements so the objectivity of the data goes right out the window. Oh, we'll just move the mic around and average the results? Show me the science that supports this solution as a proxy for human perception of sound and I'll get on board. Our host addresses some of the measurable source of this issue when he talks about early reflections and directivity in speaker reports, but the rabbit hole goes deeper.

That's where the Klippel NFS comes in handy .... but the results one sees (the in-room calculations) could be substantially different from someone's actual room.
The results of an NFS are very comparable and consistent which is important for measurements.
Speaker and headphone measurements are indicative at best but even that is valuable.

Then there is the matter of what the goal of the sound reproduction system is: test tones, or music made by other human beings who made judgments about the recording venue, miking, mixing, and mastering based on a multitude of who-knows-what playback devices? What does "fidelity" even mean in that situation? Working as a live sound engineer, I routinely isolate input channels ("solo" on a mixer) in my IEMs for various reasons and I can assure you that for sources that have a lot of acoustic output (horns, electric guitars, drums, etc) the microphone isn't picking up anything like what the source sounds like in the room. Isolation is better in the studio, of course, but they are using the same Shure SM57s on many of the same sources I am. After all those signals go through the audio production sausage factory, I defy anyone to say that a given target curve, flat or otherwise, is "right" for a given recording.

The goal is to reproduce the recorded material as closely as possible .... for those that think 'this is the way' and can end up with fantastic sound quality
There are others that are of the opinion that the goal is maximum enjoyable sound. It ends up in an eternal quest for the best and can end up with fantastic sound (quality)

If people actually cared about precision sound they would spend most of their time, effort, and money on room treatment (or construction, with larger budgets). Mediocre speakers and electronics sound stunning in a proper room. But these things are a hassle and they aren't sexy so we see discussions about nonsense like cables and how many angels can dance on the head of a 110 dB SINAD DAC. Don't get me wrong, measurements are important tools if one has the knowledge and experience to gather and interpret the data. But I submit the hard ranking you propose above is a misapplication of the data. "Better" is in the ear of the beholder. But people should also be realistic about what they can actually hear, too. Most of these arguments are between semi-deaf old men, let's be honest.

Yep... rabbit holes everywhere.
Everyone should take the road they want.
When measurements are your thing ASR is a good resource... when hocus pocus is your thing look elsewhere. There is plenty of that on the web.

(And yes you can measure that clarinet to a fare-thee-well. They've done it with Stradivarii violins for decades as part of efforts to replicate the sound. But the real question is why a Strad is the "best"--or why a Selmer Paris clarinet is "better" than a Bundy. It's a judgment call.)

Sentiment, belief, nostalgia, preference ... all a brain thingy... just like perception is.

 

[dshreter]

You're clearly knowledgeable with a lot of practical experience, but I think you're holding a lot of perspectives with room to be refined with current audio science.

Is +/-0dB from zero to light what "sounds good"? Apparently not, since even our host has a target response that is anything but flat for speakers--to say nothing of the "Harman curve" for headphones that seems to be widely accepted around here.

You're conflating concepts of speaker response, in room response, and headphone response. Anechoic +/- 0db on-axis DOES sound good. The in-room response of such a speaker would not be flat and would have spectral tilt for greater bass response.

Electronics are easier to qualify, but even there the measurements for amplifiers are lacking since few if any tests characterize how they behave when you hit them hard while they drive real-world loads.

No, there is a complete battery of tests that are proven effective for characterizing amplifier performance. The burden of proof is on you to establish that "real-world loads" are different in a way that matter to an electronic system in comparison to the signals used for testing amplifier performance. Time after time it's been demonstrated that the tests we use are discerning.

Part of the problem is that measurement is difficult: where do you put a single mic in order to get valid results for a human with two ears who is listening to two speakers? Anyone who has moved a mic around in a real world listening environment while measuring a speaker knows what I'm talking about (and I don't mean room modes).

This is now a solved problem. Our host uses a Klippel speaker testing system that is able to compute the anechoic response of a speaker in every direction. State of the art testing is not based upon a single location of a single mic.

Then there is the matter of what the goal of the sound reproduction system is: test tones, or music made by other human beings who made judgments about the recording venue, miking, mixing, and mastering based on a multitude of who-knows-what playback devices? What does "fidelity" even mean in that situation?

Fidelity is fidelity, the amount of deviation relative to a signal. It doesn't care if it's a test tone or music.

 

[J.M. Noble]

You're conflating concepts of speaker response, in room response, and headphone response. Anechoic +/- 0db on-axis DOES sound good. The in-room response of such a speaker would not be flat and would have spectral tilt for greater bass response.

Really? Have you sat in an anechoic chamber and listened to measurably flat speakers? Shifting to measurably flat speakers' response in-room: which room? What do you call "good"? When was your last audiologist report? Do you think your results/opinions are valid for anyone else, and why? I'm not off in the audiophiles' wine-tasting verbiage here, these are all pretty basic questions you're glossing over.

No, there is a complete battery of tests that are proven effective for characterizing amplifier performance. The burden of proof is on you to establish that "real-world loads" are different in a way that matter to an electronic system in comparison to the signals used for testing amplifier performance. Time after time it's been demonstrated that the tests we use are discerning.

The tests exist, but people don't perform them. Steady state measurements aren't the whole story. This is an engineering statement, not audiophoolery.

This is now a solved problem. Our host uses a Klippel speaker testing system that is able to compute the anechoic response of a speaker in every direction. State of the art testing is not based upon a single location of a single mic.

So if I sit a few inches in front of the speaker, I'm good? I run into this problem with young engineers: they focus on parts of the system and are surprised during system integration. The room is part of the playback system. In the lower frequency range it can be the dominant factor. The obvious conclusion is that a non-flat speaker could be the correct choice for a given room.

Fidelity is fidelity, the amount of deviation relative to a signal. It doesn't care if it's a test tone or music.

Fidelity to what? You have a string of bits or metal particles or grooves in vinyl, yes, but did the mastering engineer, to name just one of the usual suspects, have a "flat" system and listening environment? He or she had a reference that is surely different from yours, so treating the recording in front of you as The Delivered Word of God ignores how this stuff was made in the first place.

My senior year English teacher in high school attended a reading by the poet e.e. cummings when she was in college in the late 50s. She related to our class that during the Q&A afterwards, someone asked him what a certain poem meant. His forceful response was to the effect that his opinion didn't matter: it was up to the reader to form their own opinion. His poetry can be objectively analyzed for form, grammar, vocabulary, and such but the worth cannot because that is up to the individual reader.

I'm an engineer who values measurements and who has spent a lot of money to have the means to make them. But those are tools to inform what I'm hearing, nothing more.

Y'all play nice, this was an interesting writing assignment.

 

[Purité Audio]

Are you really an engineer?
Keith

 

[dshreter]

Really? Have you sat in an anechoic chamber and listened to measurably flat speakers? Shifting to measurably flat speakers' response in-room: which room? What do you call "good"? When was your last audiologist report? Do you think your results/opinions are valid for anyone else, and why? I'm not off in the audiophiles' wine-tasting verbiage here, these are all pretty basic questions you're glossing over.

No I haven't, and I wouldn't suggest you do it either. The point of anechoic measurements is to have a common basis for measurement and comparison. Dr. Toole's work on this subject is the best known and you could start reading here with some good links to Toole's work. This is not based upon my preferences, but what research indicates.

Some comments from Floyd Toole about room curve targets, room EQ and more

Room curve targets Every so often it is good to review what we know about room curves, targets, etc. Almost 50 years of double-blind listening tests have shown persuasively that listeners like loudspeakers with flat, smooth, anechoic on-axis and listening-window frequency responses. Those with...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The tests exist, but people don't perform them. Steady state measurements aren't the whole story. This is an engineering statement, not audiophoolery.

Not sure what you mean they don't perform them. Every amplifier test on ASR has a multi-tone test.

So if I sit a few inches in front of the speaker, I'm good?

Seems like you're being intentionally obtuse. I'm talking about a measurement system for characterizing speakers, not designing a listening space.

Fidelity to what? You have a string of bits or metal particles or grooves in vinyl, yes, but did the mastering engineer, to name just one of the usual suspects, have a "flat" system and listening environment? He or she had a reference that is surely different from yours, so treating the recording in front of you as The Delivered Word of God ignores how this stuff was made in the first place.

These things are well studied. As mentioned before, you shouldn't conflate neutral response from components with how things behave in a real environment. People understand the difference between those. I also don't think to goal is to hear what the mastering engineer heard. They produce a recording which stands on its own.

 

[J.M. Noble]

Are you really an engineer?
Keith

I'm not selling anything, believe what you want.

 

[J.M. Noble]

... no musicians I know want their live sound engineers to think of themselves as "band leaders" or "directors" (shit, few topics are more contentious in music than the matter of who is leading or directing the band hahahaha).

It's what just about every live sound engineer actually does at rock'n'roll gigs--jazz combos are different, and so are some other genres like hip hop where it's stereo playback plus vox. There are differences, of course, like I have no input on tempo or who takes a solo and when. But if I'm mixing 3 to 5-part harmonies for 6-7 piece bands like I'll be doing this Thursday and Friday nights, I definitely cover the same territory as a guy with a baton with regard to balance and timbre. This is simply how it works. What do you think we're doing with that massive bank of faders all night?

 

[Geert]

But if I'm mixing 3 to 5-part harmonies for 6-7 piece bands like I'll be doing this Thursday and Friday nights, I definitely cover the same territory as a guy with a baton with regard to balance and timbre.

And the guys behind the bar cover the same territory as a guy with a baton with regard to beer and snacks?

 

[oleg87]

Which brings us to a related discussion...

What is the purpose of the measurements? - If it is merely to understand the technical behaviour of that which is being measured, then in this case the multi-tone is perfectly fine, but if the purpose includes a goal of educating people who most likely cannot understand the ramifications of the multitone test... then the measurements need to be chosen and tailored to that goal as well...

Science communicators are often scientists too... but their actual job is different - and this falls squarely into that "communication" domain, albeit with a strong science link.

ya know, I think most people know the ramifications of the measurements, since we sure bang on about it enough. they simply reject the conclusion, because the quirks of human perception make such a convincing case to the contrary.

I'm not sure bridging the gap is realistic, because at some point you need a certain amount of technical expertise/developed intuition to feel confident in what the data you're seeing is telling you. the intellectually incurious can't be saved from spending gobs of money chasing illusions.

 

[Multicore]

1. Measurements are not everything.

True. There are so very many other things.

2. You all never listen.

Huh? Did you say something?

3. I trust my ears, not graphs.

Congrats. I got tinnitus so loud it masks a 65 dB SPL headphone signal.

4. I don't listen to graphs. I listen to music.

Lots of music has been made from graphs. Some of it is quite good. You should give it a go.

5. You all must not listen to music at all.

Depends on the context. At the dentist I'd be happy not to listen to music at all. Similar at the supermarket.

6. Why don't you all buy the best SINAD gear?

Can't afford it :'(

7. I have heard your best SINAD gear and they sound terrible. I don't like any of this Chinese stuff.

No? I love Chinese food.

8. You don't trust your ears. I/we do.

«Доверяйте, но проверяйте», as Ronald Reagan used to say.

9. All these reviewers/youtubers/audophiles say these amps, DACs, etc. sound different and you say they don't. They can't all be wrong.

People say a lot of things, especially on the Internet. So, considering this statistically, I estimate you're probably right.

10. Surely designers have created certain house sound for each equipment which your measurements don't show.

If you like the Surely house sound, enjoy! Personally, I like the Evidently house sound best but can't afford their gear.

11. Your measurements are only at one frequency. You need to also measure X, Y and Z like impulse response, slew rate, etc., etc.

I like a good mathematical tautology too.

12. You guys run a cult here where you only go by measurements and no one is allowed to disagree.

It's a very nice cult once you accept the one true measurement into your heart and agree to not disagree. Join us! You won't regret it.

 

[rdenney]

As a recovering tubist, I heartily approve of these experiments. Miraphone BBb four-valve battleship, please, unless it's marching in which case I want a convertible corps-style over-the-shoulder horn ... and not one of those prissy two-valve lightweight things they use in DCI, either. I want some torque.

But good ole Floyd misses the point here: an ultra precise rig that renders a string quartet with startling accuracy is probably not the right thing for 90s Miami Bass. The monitoring systems and the producers' resultant playback expectations are radically different between the two genres. This happens in dance music a lot: it doesn't sound right on anything but a proper dance stack PA system because that's what producers mix it for. As a performer, I experience the same thing.

I can't identify the tubas we played--I don't want to expose my friend and some instruments unusual enough to narrow it down. My own Hirsbrunner 193 is one of only three in North America, for example. Let me just say I played a tuba that is even more rare and special in the Bb world than a 193. It was awesome, but not appropriate for the target use case (give it Prokofiev or Shostakovich, however, and stand back).

There's nothing about a string quartet that needs more precision than for a 90's Miami Bass, and any system that has the horsepower for the bass will certainly not need to lose the high-frequency response needed for the quartet.

Do you really want it to sound like a dance-hall PA system in your relatively small living room? I have done my share of hauling A7's. I think a good sub or two will do more for the bass than you think in a residential space, and still be completely accurate for acoustic chamber music.

Rick "linearity" Denney

 

[kyuu]

But good ole Floyd misses the point here: an ultra precise rig that renders a string quartet with startling accuracy is probably not the right thing for 90s Miami Bass. The monitoring systems and the producers' resultant playback expectations are radically different between the two genres. This happens in dance music a lot: it doesn't sound right on anything but a proper dance stack PA system because that's what producers mix it for. As a performer, I experience the same thing.

That's absolutely not true IME. A good system is a good system. My system sounds great whether it's classical (or more usually soundtracks for me), solo piano, or bass-heavy electronic music, all of which I listen to regularly. I also play piano and played saxophone for most of my childhood, so I'd qualify myself as a musician.

 

[dlaloum]

That should be engraved on the ASR Page header, and be automatically added to the first post of every thread.

It could be argued, that ever since DJ'ing moved from cueing dance music, to an art form itself ("scratching" etc..) - it has become progressively more acceptable to use others Art as fodder in the creation of ones own art. (all the way through to the current tendency for AI to freely sample and use other peoples work!)

It was pretty universally clear in clubs, associations and publications relating to audio / HiFi (high fidelity !) - that the endeavour was to accurately reproduce the original art form in our listening space...

In the 1980's (roughly as "scratching" was just kicking off) - we started to see more subjectivists enter the conversation, in articles primarily (as that was the main form of shared communication, the internet/web wasn't really around yet)... introducing ideas such as "euphonic distortion" - now we have (some) people selecting components so they can make their own artform....

The era of the rose tinted spectacles arrived...

For the rest of us, we did our best with our imperfect spectacles but we tried to keep them as transparent/neutral as possible... but the rose tinted spectacle brigade had arrived and was growing. They proposed that (much like scratching, or AI's scraping of the web) the original Art was not the be all and end all, but that it was up to the listener to create their own art form in their listening space which pleased them.

And so, today, we have the "HiFi"ists, and the "Rose Spectacle" ists - with some shading between them, but not all that much!

Ultimately, a RoseSpectacle ist is unlikely to really care about measurements - other than in a utilitarian "can I use these two components together" sense - the only purpose of the components is to provide a pleasing shade of pink to what is played through the system... The measurements are academic, and of not major concern. (they may look at Harmonic distortion measurements and seek out components which have higher even, and lower odd harmonics... where a HiFi-ist would seek lower THD overall...)

A HiFi-ist is more likely to lose himself down the SINAD rabithole, chasing OCD driven perfection.... but us likely to be using objective measurements to endeavour to eliminate any colour shading that is distortion the art being reproduced, in an effort to more closely approach the "original intent".

Both might use measurements - and use them differently to differing ends!!