However, if you mean to say that perception is of primary importance and measurements are secondary, then I think you are very wrong. The reason is that the human senses - in hearing and in seeing - can be fooled terribly. see:
In audio, yes, perception has primary importance. I'm very much familiar with sensory illusions, but from my perspective, you have it backwards. Fooling or not fooling the senses, all what matters is how the music makes you
feel.
Why do we bother with audio equipment at all? To enjoy music. Do you enjoy the music? That's all that matters.
The ear is not a measurement microphone, and the brain is not a tape recorder.
Anything related to audio is 50% engineering and "sciencey" stuff, and the remaining 50% is art. That goes for pretty much any engineering based discipline where the final output is "consumed" by our human senses.
If they sound different, then the measurements will show the reasons. If the measurements don't show the reasons, then the measurements were not administered to the necessary degree.
Look, I have an engineering degree and it's very empowering to think and feel one knows all the answers and can condense every phenomena into a few formulas and measurements. I had that phase too about 20-30 years ago. Then the more I learned about audio over the following decades, the less sure I felt about all these things. It's a journey.
Aspects of audio equipment production, design, and measurement are "understood", sure, how electricity "works" is understood, but how the more subtler aspects of amp/DAC/headphones design translate into "enjoyable sound" and various other hard to pin down perceptual phenomena, those aspects are not fully understood.
As one of my professors at uni in our very first lecture on acoustics said: measurements and electrical design are a starting point, not the final word. Sure, we shouldn't design equipment that blows up when you power it up. But beyond that basic engineering criteria, well-measuring equipment sometimes sound terrible, and horrible measuring equipment sometimes sounds awesomes. Your ears are always the final judge.
My friends who design amps and speakers surely use some engineering principles, but after a certain point it's about just trial and error and listening very carefully over long periods of time and training your ears to hear the subtleties. Things that "should be the same" according to the math can sound different in real life.
There is no "attempt" about it. The recording industry uses measurements to record, mix and master. Understanding and controlling the difference in mics, gain riding, compression, panning, and the differences that mastering can accomplish were created and are controlled by measurements.
Yeah, so I've been creating and producing music for over a few decades now as a hobby. You can be 100% sure that recording and mixing engineers don't stare at specs all day when producing music. In fact, probably it's more accurate to say what they do is closer to art than pure engineering. Most guys treat the various processors as black boxes; if it does something interesting to the sound, and they like it, it's good. They go by feel. Sure, you can take a peak at a spectrum analyser or whatever, but 90% of the process is driven by feel, starting from the recording stage. Recording guys usually have a closet full of mics, all interact with various sources in subtly different ways. It's common to try 10-20 mics with a particular singer, searching for a good synergystic combo. The best one is not determined by "measurements" (although the mics response can surely can be measured, but how does that help?), but simply by listening to the recorded sound and letting your feelings dictate what is the "best" mic for that particular job.
Same with micing guitar amps; the "true and tested" way is to move them around until something sounds cool. Sure, certain guys have their favourite techniques and mics, but either they stumbled upon a winning combo by trial and error (and listening), or the technique was passed down to them by some more experienced guy.
There is very, very little "measurement" going on in the actual music production process.
Anyway, there's lots of very engineering focused types here, I know, and my intention is not to "argue" all day about the engineering vs art aspects of audio or convince you. But being laser focused on the engineering aspects is myopic; this is not about creating factory equipment or an EEG machine but about audio reproduction, where the ultimate judge is your human perception, not a spectrum analyser or a computer evaluating the data.
Think of it this way: we can measure all sorts of health metrics of a human, like EEG, hormonal balance to some degree, etc. but you can't derive from those metrics how the individual really feels. The interactions are just too complex.
To the original poster, listen to different equipments if you get a chance, look at measurements too, if you like, and draw your own conclusions. I'm not saying ignore the engineering aspects, that's foolish, but keep an open mind. Like my prof said, don't assume the scientific theories and measurements will tell you the whole picture, experiment. To me, the answer is obvious: yes, there are very noticeable soundstage differences between amps. Surely it's measurable in a very abstract sense, but I don't think the current simplistic Audio Precision analysers metrics using test signals will reveal the truth about how you perceive complex material. The best way is just to listen to over weeks or months to a particular gear. Some aspects are immediately noticeable even to the untrained ear, but subtler aspects might take a long time to notice. By listening, you're effectively retraining your brain and create new neural pathways which simply don't exist in people who haven't developed an intense interest in audio. That's true for any human endeavour, not just audio.
I recommend watching the Wavetheory youtube channel about this "science vs art" debate. The guy is in a unique position given he's an actual trained scientists (unlike most people here) AND he's an audiophile as well.
