Stylus-Drag..Fact or Fiction?

"ignore the technology and measurements.

i did......or i do every day."

I never understood this position.  While the sound produced by a component might be the only thing that matters to some people, perception is highly subjective and dependent on many external factors (mood, daily hearing condition, type of music, room acoustics, blood alcohol content, etc.).  It is also personal to the individual and not easily or accurately reproducible or even communicated to others.

To ignore science and technology when designing audio components is wrought with peril, and makes you a hobbyist, not a designer.  Design decisions should be informed by established theory and practice, and the actual sonic results (and measurements) should confirm those choices and correlate with the design theories.  The more connections between the two realms (rules of correspondence), the more certain you can be that the sonic results are accurate and not due to some subjective factor, bias or confusion of the senses.

Measurements are used by manufacturers in their specifications and marketing materials to promote their products as "better" than the competition.  Verification of these measurements prevents mfrs from making outlandish or misleading statements about their products and serves to protect consumers.

I never understood this position.

especially if you take it out of context. and then twist it around.

this is a forum for listeners. my whole point, not the 5-10 percent you lifted, was that we have to listen to what these turntables do without preconceived notions about what we might expect. what does this tt actually do? and then i went on the relate what i heard from each turntable.

obviously i invested significant dollars to enjoy these turntables (supporting guys like you) partly because of my view of their technology and execution. i’m not blind to it. but there is a point where you listen objectively and let the music speak. i’m never going to be someone who has to first agree with and understand the technology and whether it fits what my engineering prof told me. others need this and i say knock yourself out with it.

but for me the technology only interests me only up to a point.

measurements are important. and i do agree there is a relationship with turntable performance between measurements and performance. but no matter the measurements the final arbiter is our ears. i want to know what people heard from their turntable. that is where the proof is.

i was one of the first ones to order the AS-2000 from David Karmeli that you were involved with, but i later changed my mind. i heard his AS-1000 at his home. sure, i appreciated the technical merits of it, but then cleared my mind to hear it on it’s own merits. it was awesome sounding for sure. what was significant to me was the other four turntables David had sitting there that i also heard and how the AS-1000 compared. not the tech.

i have read your posts here with genuine interest; of course at a particular point it goes completely over my head. i appreciate your participation on this thread. and i do care about the technology and especially observe the degrees of apparent execution of various turntables. but mostly i listen and follow my ears.

if you limit your customers to the ones who truly understand and can converse in the technology you work with that would seem to be a bit self destructing. but good luck with it. you might consider being more understanding of those who don't need to know everything.

A couple of corrections:  I no longer sell audio components or make any money from designing them.  This is purely a hobby for me as I'm interested in the technology (for now).

The 5 or 10% of your post I responded to was the only relevant part of your rather declaratory statement;  the rest of your post had little or nothing to do with addressing your bold claim.  I did a direct copy and paste quote, so I'm not sure how I twisted it? 


Your last post does a much better job of explaining your position regarding the proper role of measurements vs listening.  Thanks for clarifying.

It's certainly not my intention to be inconsiderate towards others who may not fully understand the technology, quite to the contrary, my intention is to help educate.  If someone has questions, I'd invite them to ask or to do a google search (it's how I find a great deal of the information I seek).

As a (biological) scientist myself, I think that "what we have here is a failure to communicate", to quote the chain gang boss in "Cool Hand Luke".  Motors and motor controller technology have their own jargon that tends to mystify those who have not been formally educated in the respective disciplines.  (I am reminded of some smart friends of mine who complained they did not understand even the title of one of my published papers, when they took it upon themselves to look it up.)  I sometimes feel as they did, when I read about motors and motor controllers, for example, one or two of your posts on this thread.  Moreover, I can grasp the meanings eventually by googling some of the more obscure terminology, but I tend to forget the fine points, in between discussions such as this.  Therefore, I have to be content with generalities drawn from your posts (Phoenix) and those of a very few others who really understand this stuff.  And then I have to take refuge in my own listening experiences.  Like you said, we each will hear differently.  ML is using state of the art turntables, in my opinion, so it doesn't really matter.  I readily believe his testimony.  By the same token, I really value your posts as a basis for my own further education in this area, Phoenix, and I would not like to see you leave this forum.  Keep stretching our knowledge base, by all means.

Dear @mikelavigne  @phoenixengr :  """  measurements are important. and i do agree there is a relationship with turntable performance between measurements and performance. but no matter the measurements the final arbiter is our ears.  """

yes, that's true but depends the ears of who and I mean the expertise of those " ears ".
Trhough the years your " ears " were exposed to the best of the best audio systems other than your own " dream " system so the validity of your opinions are different of the validity of mines.

In the other side the ears of any one of us were exposed to live events in many different ways that made it that each one of us be biased in different way.
When I attend to live music events ( I do often. ) I like to seat at near field position, not always but around 75% of times and when I seated 5 rows back the experience is really different and if I go 10 rows back even more different.

Maybe that's why for me the attack/transient response is so critical and the reproduction in a home audio system tell me a lot of that system. I remember that you posted/told me that overcthe time your home seat position listening to your system " bit by bit " get closer/near fierld to the speakers and that's a good thing for me but normally people do not listen at nearfield position so are biased in different way and with different sound/music reproduction priorities.

All those is full of sujectivity more than objetivity/measurements. But as you said measurements are important.

A problem with measurements is that are not in precise way measuring what we " listen " to tell us why we are listening what we listening. This is very complicated to do it because in a scientific way/explanation everything we listen can be measured IF we know what and how measure it and till now I don't know any mathematic model that can do that. So we have to trust in our " challenged " ears and that's why the learning ladder of our ears is a very long one with " hundreds " of steps/treads.

In his first post to you Phoenic posted:

""" 
and makes you a hobbyist, not a designer   """

and that's what you posted in your wide explanation about: we are hobbyst/audiophiles and certainly not designers but the technical knowledge levels of gentlemans like Phoenix always are welcomed because is good road for all of us to stay growing-up.

R.