Agree or disagree with the following statement.

"Statement:

If you have never listened to any particular component, you can't have an opinion on how it sounds."

Disagree. how good something sounds is always an opinion. Some more educated than others. Specs are merely on set of data provided by the maker that one can assess in order to formulate a more educated opinion. Measurements add more detailed information to work with usually if done well, as typically seems to be the case with Stereophile.

I will agree you can't know how any particular case will sound until you hear. No two are exactly the same. Each case includes room and listener in addition to gear. No two will ever be 100% the same. With trained ears focused in on things, all it takes is a fraction of a percent difference to matter.

I disagree with any argument that one cannot have an opinion unless one actually hears. WHat one says about one what hears is an opinion as well. What matters more is the opinions of many over an extended period of time. Then you probably have something you can bank on.

The problem is that the current regime of test and measurements is not based on human hearing/perceptual rules except in some very basic, almost vestigial ways (such as frequency response).

As a result sometimes the specs are counterintuitive; for example ultra low distortion should come off as neutral and good, but often in reality sounds dry and slightly on the bright side.

The idea behind the specs is to know you are buying quality- it should be borne out on the bit of paper. But until that bit of paper is designed to agree with how human perceptual rules work (and mind you, this has nothing to do with taste or preference) the paper can often wind up nearly meaningless.

So as others have wisely pointed out, you simply have to audition it to know if you will be able to live with it. The fact that this has been true for the last 50 years should really speak to how poorly bench specs sit with human hearing rules.

Only an imbecile would buy based solely on specs. Anyone here done that?

Its often not possible to hear something without buying.

When that is the case, as it often is for me, I decide based largely on technical considerations. I try to limit my choices in most cases to better known products with a track record that has a lot of end user review and comments available as well, but in the end it is technical considerations that often determines my choice. By technical considerations I mean more than just specs usually, such as outwardly apparent aspects of design, design methodologies, measurements, and anything else available, including related discussions on this and other sites.

I am a technical person so I feel most assured making the decision based on technical criteria in the end. It does require synthesizing a lot of technical information though and that is not an easy task.

Its worked out pretty well for me. Most things I buy have tended to stick around and get a lot of use more so than ever. This site and the information that can be had here has been a huge help.

Also I would say that the best "specs" on paper seldom win in that alone they are insufficient to determine things conclusively. But in all cases of accurate specs at least, they provide some objective basis for comparison whereas most else is totally subjective. Its the usage of the specs that matters more than which numbers appear "best". I think that is consistent in what Almarg says regarding using specs as a means of determining what is most likely to PERFORM well together. Note that performing well together and sounding good are not the same thing, but I find optimizing performance overall however one chooses to do so always pays dividends towards achieving the best sound possible.