Good questions by Mapman a few posts back, IMO, and excellent answers by Larryi, Charles, and Bill (Grannyring).
Regarding the comments about theory vs. practice, as a technically oriented person, and one who also has read a great many posts by the aforesaid three gentlemen over the years, I will say that if I were to perceive a conflict between their experience-based comments and what I understood to be the relevant theory, I would have no hesitation in giving greater weight to their comments than to the theory.
That said, in the case of Larry in particular, and the other gentlemen as well, I have frequently felt amazed over the years at how his invariably well balanced and nuanced posts, which are obviously based on broad experience with exceptionally fine equipment, just about always seem to be technically plausible, and not inconsistent with an understanding of how all of this stuff works. In fact I had left a comment to that effect in his system description thread about a year ago.
Ill add that on occasions when theory and practice seem to be in conflict in audio, my belief is that in general the cause is often not a failure of theory, but rather a failure to accurately recognize its limitations, or in some cases a result of improper application or understanding of theory. One major reason for its limitations being that design decisions, whether at the piece part level, the circuit level, the component level, or the system level, inevitably involve a great many tradeoffs and compromises, and particularly in audio it is often not possible or practical to draw a balance between those tradeoffs in a quantitative manner . That being one reason why, as has often been said, audio is as an art as well as a science.
And all of that is certainly not helped by sales literature, reviews, and other writings that can be found on the Internet which commonly dwell in a non-quantitative manner on the value of an isolated set of design characteristics, without addressing, much less quantitatively assessing, the tradeoffs that may be involved. That being one of the reasons, IMO, that (in Larrys words) design breakthroughs are not always as claimed.
All of which, unfortunately IMO, leads some to totally reject the value of theory and technical understanding, thereby increasing the randomness of assembling or refining a satisfactory system (a point that Mapman for one has often made). The frequent result being that investments of time and money are misdirected.
Just my $.02, and IMO of course. Best regards,
-- Al
Regarding the comments about theory vs. practice, as a technically oriented person, and one who also has read a great many posts by the aforesaid three gentlemen over the years, I will say that if I were to perceive a conflict between their experience-based comments and what I understood to be the relevant theory, I would have no hesitation in giving greater weight to their comments than to the theory.
That said, in the case of Larry in particular, and the other gentlemen as well, I have frequently felt amazed over the years at how his invariably well balanced and nuanced posts, which are obviously based on broad experience with exceptionally fine equipment, just about always seem to be technically plausible, and not inconsistent with an understanding of how all of this stuff works. In fact I had left a comment to that effect in his system description thread about a year ago.
Ill add that on occasions when theory and practice seem to be in conflict in audio, my belief is that in general the cause is often not a failure of theory, but rather a failure to accurately recognize its limitations, or in some cases a result of improper application or understanding of theory. One major reason for its limitations being that design decisions, whether at the piece part level, the circuit level, the component level, or the system level, inevitably involve a great many tradeoffs and compromises, and particularly in audio it is often not possible or practical to draw a balance between those tradeoffs in a quantitative manner . That being one reason why, as has often been said, audio is as an art as well as a science.
And all of that is certainly not helped by sales literature, reviews, and other writings that can be found on the Internet which commonly dwell in a non-quantitative manner on the value of an isolated set of design characteristics, without addressing, much less quantitatively assessing, the tradeoffs that may be involved. That being one of the reasons, IMO, that (in Larrys words) design breakthroughs are not always as claimed.
All of which, unfortunately IMO, leads some to totally reject the value of theory and technical understanding, thereby increasing the randomness of assembling or refining a satisfactory system (a point that Mapman for one has often made). The frequent result being that investments of time and money are misdirected.
Just my $.02, and IMO of course. Best regards,
-- Al