ACTUAL MUSICAL SOUND VS. MEASUREMENTS

Objective vs Subjective has been around forever.  All credibility is lost when measurements are used to claim a $200 and $2000 piece of gear will undeniably sound the same if the they measure the same.  Not stopping there, any item deemed expensive (typically more than a few hundred dollars) is frequently labeled "snake oil". The next step is to hurl insults at any individual choosing to purchase expensive items.  Finally, the promoter of cheap but well measuring equipment personally spends well into 6 figure land for a system.  Hypocrite with no credibility.

I might have some insight based on my own reactions to my own experience.

As a scientist (I am actually a scientist), I really hate the notion that I can hear the difference between interconnects and speakers cables, and it really PO's me that I can hear the difference with power cables.
There is no objective reason that I accept for power cables to make a difference, yet I can hear it. Cost does not seem to be a contributor, I have a pair of Blue Jeans Cables interconnects that I greatly prefer over a "nice" $500.00 pair, and the pair I am using now cost under $300.00.

Not all people deal well with this type of dissonance, and some of them lash out at others because of it.
I really appreciate the hard work that Alpha Audio has been doing. They are conducting the actual research that Amir at ASR only pretends to do. He is certainly not doing science, I am not sure he even knows what a scientist does.

In my mind, the issue is we just do not know how to measure a signal for its character. My field is like that, 20 years ago we did not have access to the tech to conduct the research I do on a daily basis today.

I suppose some folks really can't hear a difference, but I think most of the hostile ones do, and are angry about it.

So many devices measure great.   Some affordable ones even push the limits of the very equipment used to test them.   Says a lot , but how does it sound????  

If someone wants to put a system together entirely based on specs more power to them.   It could sound great, but probably not as good as a system that was curated on how the individual pieces sound together.    

With only one caveat, I have always let my ears do the talking. That caveat is, does the amplifier has enough umph ( watts and current and stability ) to run the speakers I have at the time. Other than that,  I don’t care.

Measurements matter. Two factors. You usually need to combine them with perceptive listening. Subjective feeds objective and vice versa.

But some measurements matter more than others in the hands of an experienced designer. One who measures and listens. My late friend Murray Zeligman modified cheap Grado cartridges in the 1970s. And he measured AND he listened. I once saw him look at a frequency curve , square wave and separation curve for a cartridge without knowing what it was. I still recall him saying he wanted the cartridge; he knew what it sounded like. It was an EPC 205 MK4 cartridge. We bought them. He was right. And it wasn't just luck. I saw him do similar things.

But this was particular cases. He never claimed he could do it all the time. But he sure was good some of the time.