Sean, we could get you a list of highend amps, give you the specs- I am sure you couldn't answer andy's question. Especially more subjective things like listener fatigue. Look, Eldartford's answer makes perfect sense. Of course Andy and I don't ignore specs. I need to know the impedance of a cartridge or speaker, whether the designer uses negative feedback to cover a crap design (Gives great spec though), what the sensitivity of a speaker is ...
A lot of what you say has merit. It's not as black or white as I have portrayed it... I just know from experience that you hear music, not paper. It may be the bees knees on paper, and sound like crap. A lot of bob carver's products were like that. The specs from the lab were impressive, but in the real world the amps needed more current than a twenty amp residential circuit could provide. Oops! Worked great in the industrial lab though- loved those specs. My previous example of ultrasonic harmonic distortion is a good one as well- you can't test for something if you don't understand the science yet. Clearly hi-fi is not perfect. Perhaps twenty years from now digital amps will reproduce the waveforms perfectly, and my faith in specs will be renewed. In the meantime, as science has proved ultrasonic H.D. has audible effects due to interaction with audible freqs., T.H.D. probably should be renamed total harmonic distortion up to twenty thousand cycles, or T.H.D.U.S.S. (THD using sixties science). How many other sacred cows are flawed? Why is analog experiencing a renaisance? Why do tube amps sound so good? (yes, aside from bass). Clearly Solid State specs better . I maintain the human brain is a thousand fold more complex at processing sound as a PC. The human ear is much more precise than the lab analyzer- partially because it works exactly like the analyzer I use to process my music- my ear!
In conclusion, use specs. to help compare products for final evaluation....but don't try to tell us you can judge two products exclusively on paper.
A lot of what you say has merit. It's not as black or white as I have portrayed it... I just know from experience that you hear music, not paper. It may be the bees knees on paper, and sound like crap. A lot of bob carver's products were like that. The specs from the lab were impressive, but in the real world the amps needed more current than a twenty amp residential circuit could provide. Oops! Worked great in the industrial lab though- loved those specs. My previous example of ultrasonic harmonic distortion is a good one as well- you can't test for something if you don't understand the science yet. Clearly hi-fi is not perfect. Perhaps twenty years from now digital amps will reproduce the waveforms perfectly, and my faith in specs will be renewed. In the meantime, as science has proved ultrasonic H.D. has audible effects due to interaction with audible freqs., T.H.D. probably should be renamed total harmonic distortion up to twenty thousand cycles, or T.H.D.U.S.S. (THD using sixties science). How many other sacred cows are flawed? Why is analog experiencing a renaisance? Why do tube amps sound so good? (yes, aside from bass). Clearly Solid State specs better . I maintain the human brain is a thousand fold more complex at processing sound as a PC. The human ear is much more precise than the lab analyzer- partially because it works exactly like the analyzer I use to process my music- my ear!
In conclusion, use specs. to help compare products for final evaluation....but don't try to tell us you can judge two products exclusively on paper.