How do you know when a stereo sounds good?

Thanks for the occasion you give me to be clearer...

All our past  systems may sound good to us...At some time and for many people it is enough... And it is OK....

But if we enter in some listening experiments journey, like i had, you  may discover some BASIC facts...

The electrical noise floor of the house is too high...

The vibrations affect greatly your gear....

The passive treatment of the room is very important, and even active mechanical control may be necessary in a dedicated room, i even add a mechanically controlled equalizer made from many Helmholtz resonators...

It is not perfect by all means....

But now i know why my system is "good" because i had a comparison BEFORE and AFTER these embeddings controls installation WITH THE SAME GEAR...

Then thinking that our sound is "good" is not enough now for me generally speaking ... We must know why....Thinking that good gear will do is not enough...Because of  the huge impact  of electrical noise floor problem, vibrations, and acoustic...

My comment "feel free to contradict me" is only to underline my openness to discussion...

There are 3 criterias FOR ME to know if your system is good:

Is the playing microdynamical timbre of any voices and instrument are well defined like a human face ?

Is the sound filling the room, fill the room with good imaging OUT of the speakers ?

Are ALL your albums now revealing the acoustical choices of the recording engineer and his trade-off when recording the album? If all your albums even the less well recorded are interesting now?

If yes you are there....Perhaps not with the best system but you begin to listen music without thinking about the sound or without picking an album  only because it appear well recorded...

is it clearer?

My best and deepest respect....

OK, so please explain how is "because we feel it is good" qualitatively different than "But it is so good i dont give a dam about upgrade"? You seem to be using "good" extremely liberally,

@khughes ,

I probably did not communicate well my intentions w.r.t. measurement, at least to remove all doubt.

The question was posed,

Do you have a suite of measurements that removes all shadow of a doubt that you are getting good sound, sound that you enjoy?

To which I would still answer yes, because the measurements "removes all shadow of a doubt". I am not guessing about whether noise, distortion, and any number of variables I can control are detracting from my potential listening enjoyment (I do worry about some variables I have not found a way to control). I know that objectively, within the variables I can control (and justify the money for), that the sound reproduction I am getting is about as good as I can expect w.r.t. recreating what is on the recording medium. With that as a starting point, I can explore all sorts of different ways I can modify the sound to increase my enjoyment, and I already enjoy it a lot. So yes, I would say I have a suite of measurements that ensures I am getting good sound, but I would need to slightly reword to "and enables me to achieve sound I enjoy". I could not achieve the latter without the former. I may get lucky and stumble on it, but the odds would be much lower.

That's why I make the distinction - measurements can control, they can distinguish, they can provide for reproduciblity and repeatablity of particular setups, identify room modes, etc. They identify the "whys" for an individual, not as a general principle, because individual preferences are not determined (measured by, or identifiable by, are not the same IMO) by objective criteria. This may sound like a quibble, but believe it's fundamental to understanding the issue.

It does not sound like a quibble. It sounds almost exactly what I would write :-)  So let's take some license here, and perhaps illustrate to others why I took my approach. Let's say you love the sound of your system with piece of music X, but Y never sounds right. If you are counting on your amp, speaker, maybe some room interaction, lossy cables, etc. to make X sound right, you will never make Y sound right. With DSP, you can push a button and make X and Y sound "right" or at least as best as possible for you.

Do you have a suite of measurements that removes all shadow of a doubt that you are getting good sound, sound that you enjoy? Definitely no. What sounds good to you may sound terrible to others, therefore if we measure what you believe is fantastic and saw that is good then for others what has been measured is bad. 

@cindyment 

Ah, OK, you said:

"I have a suite of measurements that ensures I am getting good sound, but I would need to slightly reword to "and enables me to achieve sound I enjoy"

That was my point exactly. The measurements do not define your ideal, or preference, for what "good" or "enjoyable" are, they are an objective means to adjust to get that sound, and to get it reliably.  Phrased the other way I think it says it somewhat backwards, and is interpreted by "pure subjectivists" as *only the measurements matter*. See it all the time. When in fact the opposite is true.

I spent a number of years running a metrology lab...I like measurements 😁

@mahgister 

You said:

"But now i know why my system is "good" because i had a comparison BEFORE and AFTER these embeddings controls installation WITH THE SAME GEAR...

Then thinking that our sound is "good" is not enough now for me generally speaking ... We must know why....Thinking that good gear will do is not enough...Because of  the huge impact  of electrical noise floor problem, vibrations, and acoustic..."

OK, I understand what you're saying, and I agree on the importance of maximizing the acoustic environment (although not all cohabitants may agree).  And certainly, unless you are immortal with plenty of time to kill, understanding the underlying principles is absolutely important. But I don't see that as being responsive to the OP's question, as I read it. You appear to be addressing improvement of any given system, versus whether the sound is good and enjoyable as-is, which I take to be the original question.

As you say, you had a system that sounded good to you, so I assume you enjoyed it, if you enjoy music (which I take as a given). It seems to me you are saying more that you were not *satisfied* with the system, even though it sounded good, or at some point you became dissatisfied with it, so you're enjoyment declined. But again, I would say that's a different question.

You appear to be satisfied, once again, and again love your system. I'm at that point as well - I could improve my system, without doubt, but that would come at an expense (not just money) that is higher than it's worth to me.  It's at the point now where I'm far more disappointed with quality of individual recordings than with any "fault" I find in my system performance. 

And to forestall @cindyment, yeah I could likely make many of those poor recordings sound a bit better with DSP, but dynamically squashed recordings are never going to sound wonderful - except in the car!

Enjoy the music...