Stereophile complains it's readers are too informed.

I think I've mentioned this in a post somewhere in the semi-distant past, but I find Stereophile vastly more informative, entertaining and readable than it was several years previously.  Sure, I use the magazine to glean info about the hobby and to get tips on where to next spend my inexhaustible pile of audio-oriented cash (in case you don't get it I'm just kidding here), but I mostly read the mag because I just enjoy it.  I don't  get huffy when an opinion doesn't go my way. ("Ugh!  Those tuttis are too fruity!")  I enjoy a touch of hyperbole.  It adds energy and verve.  The hobby is a playground for folks like me, i.e., folks who just like music.  I'd rather be spending my money here than playing the tables in Vegas.

To revisit audiokinesis' post for a moment...

"1. Up to this point, the model has been tested in one listening room.
(....and likely with the same equipment parameters, cables, source, etc.)

"2. The model doesn’t include variables that account for nonlinear distortion (and to a lesser extent, perceived spatial attributes).
("....we just listened with the same ears and stuff, took notes, and attempted to make specific judgements on what we perceived."...)

"3. The model is limited to the specific types of loudspeakers in our sample of 70."
(...which would all be considered 'vintage' by now....one would hope such has improved, even if repeated with 70 'specific current versions'....)

...and it's generally accepted that no speaker pair in a different room, driven by 'X' equipment and accoutrement', listened to by different ears coupled to a different wetware bias will Ever sound the same.

All Stereophile publishes is a humble opinion that one pays for....or not.

"Seas is the gold standard..."  For you...perhaps shared by others....or not.

Perfection is a myth.  One can pursue it, but like the gold @ rainbows' end, a dream.  Some feel they've attained it, some just revel in the pursuit.

One hopes you enjoy the music that drives your vehicle, be it 'Toyota' or 'Ferrari'.  Otherwise, this begins another forum that spans pages of chatter proving nothing except persistence to no real end.

I'm done, and out.

Have 'fun'....cheers, J

We are kidding ourselves if we think this forum is mainly fact.  Facts are things that proven or else are universally acknowledge to be true by everyone apart from the mad.  Facts are hard to come by.  This forum is about 90% opinion and 10% fact.  Stereophile contains much the same mix, but their measurements are as factual as it gets.  Long may that last!

Four cheers for John Atkinson.  I have followed him since he started on Hi-Fi News & Record Review here in the UK in the early 1970s.  He improved HFNRR and stood out as an innovator with his feet firmly on the ground.  Stereophile is hugely better for his 30something years leadership.  Jim is finding him a hard act to follow.  Jim's editorial stance is quite a bit different from John's even though he says the mag won't change.

Those who question the benefit of measurements should note John's speaker measurements often confirm artifacts that the reviewer had heard (before he saw the measurements).  But sometimes an appararently glaring fault in a speaker is not noticed at all by the listening reviewer.  And that is not always because the reviewer might adore single-ended triode amps and horn speakers.

One thing which differentiates audio equipment magazine reviews from those reviewers of other cultural products— painting, music, film, dance, etc. — is that audio equipment is only partially an expressive artifact. It is necessarily instrumental to its purpose; in short, it is not trying to communicate something meaningful in the same vein as those other cultural products are.
Because of the above fact, magazines like Stereophile are forever beholden to the churn and hype of products-for-sale. They exist to help companies sell new stuff, and while they have developed standards based on subjective listening experience and engineering know how, they can never abandon their core mission: to celebrate or denigrate somehow, the “consumability” of the new thing for sale.

People say it all the time: namely, that the improvements made in various elements of an audio system are either imaginary or incremental. Given all the equipment which has been produced so far, if there was never any more “progress” and all we could lay our hands on was the existing range of options, surely there would be an adequate number of combinations to keep our quest for the absolute sound alive and well until the sun burns out.

The gist of my point is simply that there’s a major difference about the kind of “criticism” done by audio reviewers from those in other areas (who are *not* just trying to stuff a concert hall or a rodeo with easy marks) trying to interpret and convey the meaning of a new work of art. I make this point explicit here not because I think folks are unaware of it, but because I suspect this aspect is playing a role, somehow, in the ongoing discussion. 

John's speaker measurements often confirm artifacts that the reviewer had heard

No it doesn't. There is no connection between what the reviewer hears and their measurements. The ONLY way to assess a speaker is for me to hear them. Experience has taught me that the reviews are wrong and i am right. i hear artifacts that NO measurements can reveal and few other audiophiles hear. I am supreme.