John Atkinson no longer editor of Stereophile.

So your conclusion is that measurements have no value and should not be taken at all or provided to consumers, reviewers, etc? That 100% of audio equipment should be measured by ear because measurements are worthless and tell us nothing of value?

If not then what is your point?

 

You are putting words in my mouth and sounding overly defensive. And my 'point' was very clearly stated.

Calm down, and try again. There's certainly no need to be all 'jihadi' about this.

And after dealing with the Nords amp Class D zealot guy yesterday, I'm very tired of 'combative' threads.
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Perfectly calm here - what was your point? That is how it read to me. Without further elaboration I will go with what I already stated.

 

As will I.
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Yeah I noticed you were a big part of that..

 

One among many, but yeah, I caught some bullets for sure.
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I think the key is to remain objective and not make it personal - attack the topic and not the person.

Phrases like "sounding overly defensive" or "Calm down, and try again." or " There's certainly no need to be all 'jihadi' about this." are all personal and can create combative responses.

I don't bite on that so it won't go there, just saying.

 

That's exactly what I did in that thread, but the guy chose to attack me personally in response.

Probably played a role in the thread getting deleted too, if I were to guess. That, and how he treated a number of other posters.

Well, the 'overly defensive' comment is fair/accurate, I think you'll agree upon re-reading your first response. Will agree though that my 'jihadi' jibe was a bit mean in response, and I do retract it.

I just think ppl need to calm down and try to be more objective. But, when one's personal shibboleths get questioned at all, the immediate knee-jerk response often tends to win out.

For instance, I never said measurements had no value at all, but you seem to believe or worry that I do. Perhaps my view is, rather, that measurements by themselves are not 'the Hand of God', that's all.
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No worries - perhaps I did put a few words in your mouth - my bad - but I truly did not understand what your point was and was trying to summarize

This thread has been full of one line clever quotes, one or two sentence quips that attempt to make a case that measurements are not needed --- and most of the time provide no context or reasoning to back them up. Just trying to clarify what your point was..... cheers

 

Yeah, agreed, no worries. SHF has been a little 'hot' lately, I'm sure we'd all like to be able to take our helmets off and relax without fear of getting hit by stray shrapnel.

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An idea fundamentally embedded within logical thought and reasoning but seems unbelievably difficult for some to grasp.

 

If it measures bad and sounds good, maybe your hearing isn’t as good as you think

 

I don't entirely disagree with you as I also expect for equipment to measure reasonably good. But many measurements do a pretty lousy job of explaining why one piece of equipment sounds different from other when both have flat frequency response, low noise and low distortion. That is when it becomes time to throw the measurements out the window, because at that point, they reveal next to nothing about subjective sound quality differences.

 

Nelson Pass designed Threshold and the big powerful flawless measuring Solid State behemouths that have gobs of power and low distortion etc.

His now passion is building SS amplifiers that ate LIKE SET amplifiers. Piddly power output, nowhere near as good measuring but sound a helluva lot better.

Measurements can tell you some things but as a school teacher for the last 15 years I can damn well tell you that the smartest kid in a class doesn't necessarily get the best marks.

Any idiot can read a measurement and buy based on that. Been there done that as I was heavy on the measurements circa early 1990s. But rather than use my eyes reading plots and Stereophile I thought...here is a CRAZY idea. Maybe I should listen in a blind level matched session and see what happens. When my beloved awesom measuring stuff was trounced things became clearer.

Which is probably why half the Stereophile review team own tubes...and the other half are tone deaf hacks who should not be in a hobby requiring hearing acuity.

 

If it sounds good, what's the big deal? I'll take the unit that sounds the best to my ears over the unit that measures the best every time. Would you really buy a piece of gear that sounds bad because it measures better?

 

Would you buy a piece of kit based only on measurements?

 

SHF is the least of it. My Facebook feed seems to reflect an actual civil war at the moment ...

 

I've never paid much attention to measurements, whether the sound is colored, etc., blah, blah, blah. It's whether or not I like the way it sounds and whether, or not, I can afford it or want to afford it.

 

Sadly it's the nature of the interesting times we live in at present.

 

That's how I operate, too. I maintain that varying measurements between different components (speaker frequency curves possibly excepted) tell one almost nothing about the musical performance of an item. Of course, at that point, one is firmly in subjective territory; one must, per one's preferences and ears, listen.

(Gee, that was pompous. )

 

And that, my friend, is all that matters. Everything else is just hyperbole.

 

Did I ever say that?

 

No. And, I say good! Sort of makes my point, as to the at least somewht limited utility of measurements for musical enjoyment.

 

Whoa ... just to clarify: do you really believe that people who enjoy a solid-state rig can't hear properly?

 

The Russian trolls' work is never done?...
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