Mastering legend Bernie Grundman explains why the measurement crowd has it all wrong!


There's a great new interview with Bernie Grundman about the AJA UHQR where he relates that a component that a measures perfectly, but uses a lot of electronics in the signal path to get that result, sounds inferior to electronics that don't even measure flat, but have less in the pathway.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGLFTm6jMrY

I recently read one of these "reviews'' where they admit they mostly don't even listen, but just rely on measurements.  It was one of the most amateur reviews I had ever read, and now the we have one of the top trusted golden ears (one who actually creates the content) state that measurements don't indicate what something is going to sound like.

I'll take Bernie's perspective over an idiot with an analyzer touting cheap gear that measures well, just to make people feel superior about their (sometimes) midfi gear.

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“ I honestly have no idea what “accuracy of the music” means.

That’s one of the differences between you and Bernie.”

 

what? That he is fluent in gobbledygook and I am not? I guess it’s a job skill for folks working in the audio industry 

“Measurements aren't taken in the real world and the way the equipment is used, it's usually taken in isolation, not the system as a whole with music.”

what measurements are you looking at?

Music is not math or science.  It is art.

Music (art), math and science indeed may intersect, but they are not the same thing. They are all different things (again, it is true, especially math and music, that they often intersect).

If someone wants to listen to music after they've undertaken rigorous scientific and mathematical processes and/or determined they've achieved maximized fidelity by citing measurements on a page (irrespective of how the music actually makes them feel - of course, confirmation bias is always a hazard when one claims their music makes them 'feel better' because they've cited measurements on a page, but that's a whole other ball of wax), that is their prerogative. 

Music is not math or science. It is art.

You are right ...

I will only add more...

Music is mathematics + art, mind+heart = spiritual transformative healing experience and often more than a distraction ...

I discovered recently that it is not so much that music is mathematical but more it is mathematics which is in its core musical and rythmical ...

The heart and the spirit guide us all ...music is the audible manifestation of this guidance ... Mathematic is art  and contemplation of new concepts and new worlds  way more than  mere logic...It is why mathematics in his essence is musical ...

See Alain Connes " the music of shapes" on youtube ...