I agree with you here - and I believe
@Curvature has also agreed with you in the sense that there's no reason for you personally to seek other options or engage in certain test procedures if you are already content. While I am very much a believer in measurements and 100% agree with Curvature's (and many other members') point that our uncontrolled listening impressions can't tell us much of anything reliable about the linearity of a given speaker and how it
compares with other speakers, I also have increasingly come to appreciate a pragmatic approach (and here I think I'm agreeing with some points
@Heinrich is making, above).
I've done my due diligence with measurements and have speakers that I know are solid performers and whose limitations are generally irrelevant to my listening levels and expectations. The room imposes certain issues, most of which are relatively minor and/or addressable with DSP, and one or two of which are more challenging to deal with, but which I don't mind and/or don't really notice in day-to-day listening. There's no point in making myself unhappy by trying to more rigorously test my system's flaws and limitations under artificial listening conditions. If and when I want to seriously consider changing speakers, or if I were to move to a different listening space,
then a rigorous investigation of these room issues and/or current-speaker limitations would be in order.
So in this respect I agree with you 100%.
But this cuts both ways, and that's where I think
@amirm is correct in pushing back against some of your comments earlier in this thread. You've every right to your preferences and enjoyment - but that does
not mean that the research that showed strong correlation between objective speaker performance and listener preference in
controlled blind listening conditions is not valid. It does not mean that research conducted
under the aegis of a nonprofit research organization whose results are now,
at a later date, used for marketing purposes, can be equated with tests specifically designed by a vendor
for the purposes of creating a result that fits with their existing design and marketing objectives. That's just you trying to hand-wave away the real research in order to justify your own choice and preference of speaker.
To be clear, you do
not have to justify your speaker choice to anyone with research or anything else - you like what you like, as we all do. But by the same token, the fact that you like what you like does
not mean that the research is magically invalid or that it did not produce sound evidence for its findings.
Excellent post!
Whenever I bring up the relevance of measurements and blind testing in the other audio forums I tried to also emphasize that, IMO, no audiophile needs to engage with measurements or blind testing if they don’t care to practice the hobby that way. We can all do this however we want.
But as the same goes “People are entitled to their own opinions, but they aren’t entitled to their own facts.”
It is worth countering erroneous or misleading public claims about “ what measurements can’t tell us” or anti-blind testing or
“ only your ears are trustworthy”…. And inserting real information about those things into the audiophile world.
I think the delicate balance between those two viewpoints his to not become too much of an obnoxious White Knight - trying to save others from themselves. (And I don’t always avoid that charge).
That’s why I think ASR is such a valuable place - it’s not invading other audiophile spaces, but has created a space where audiophiles can come if they want to, to learn more about the relevance of measurements in a rigorous approach to understanding the performance of audio gear.
As to your mention of pragmatism:
I have adopted a somewhat similar pragmatism, and it plays out in my choices this way:
When I’m shopping for new speakers and I’ve auditioned loudspeakers that I know measure very well, in terms of what would be highly rated under blind conditions (eg Revel, KEF, Kii Audio), and I’ve also auditioned loudspeakers that measure fairly well, though not as textbook, and I find myself preferring, the latter speakers over the former, I have a decision to make: do I go with the speakers that aren’t producing a really compelling experience when I listen under sighted conditions, knowing that I might select them as superior under blind conditions?
Or do I go with the loudspeaker that I find myself much more struck by, under sighted conditions?
My pragmatism amounts to recognizing I will be listening to the speakers in sighted conditions at home. And I combine that with these facts: I have never once in all my years budged from the perception “ this speaker doesn’t do it for me” to “ wow I was really wrong about that speaker now I think it’s great.”
Likewise, I have virtually never had the experience of auditioning a speaker, and my opinion of that speaker significantly changing once I had it in my room or owned it. In other words, everything I seem to really like about a loudspeaker when I audition it, shows up and remains consistent once I have it at home. (with one very minor exception I can remember). And my perception of the characteristics of a loudspeaker do not change over time. Among many examples: decade after owning my Thiel speakers I would not describe them any differently as when I first got them.
What this means for me is that my listening perceptions under sighted conditions - whether they are a mix of accurately hearing the sound and bias effects - seem to be very persistent.
Therefore, I would consider it too much of a role of the dice to depend on that pattern changing, by purchasing a loudspeaker just because I know it measures better even though I haven’t found it compelling enough in auditions.
Whereas for somebody else, purchasing the loudspeaker they know to measure best would work out perfectly fine. So it makes sense for others to take that route.
It’s like my friend who reviews speakers, I always ask him about a new speaker “ could you live with this?” And he usually says “sure!” Whereas I am so picky about what moves me, I would select almost none of the speakers he has reviewed, to own. In the context of all the speakers, I have heard an extremely rare for me to think “ I would like to own this and listen to it every day.”
So ultimately, it’s a type of pragmatism that reduces to “
Know Thyself.”
Works for me
(and I think ultimately is at the bottom of what works for everybody)
