Distortions that the human ear likes. Are there any ?

Room measurements typically exhibit a downward “tilt” from low bass to high treble of 6 up to 15 dB. This is caused by a number of factors including reduced dispersion and greater absorption in the room at high frequencies. Do not attempt to EQ your room measurement completely flat – that will most likely sound overly bright.

This is something all acousticians live by. It isn’t opinion. It’s fact. This is why no auto-eq attempts to implement it. If you look at the Dirac documentations for instance, you'll see this built in.

We are used to seeing close miked, "quasi-anechoic" measurements of speakers and electronics, so we expect speakers to be flat in the room, and god help you if you hear it! :)

Also, this is not new. The B&K speaker curve (which I worship as a god) is what, like 60 years old by now?


Best,
E

OK, here’s the problem with believing anyone who claims audiophiles prefer or like certain types of distortion. Let’s suppose there is a desirable type distortion, or one that some people like, whatever it might be, and I’m not saying there isn’t such a thing or anything like that. The problem is even if there was a “good distortion” it would be drowned in a sea of “bad distortions.” You would be unable to hear the good distortion, it would be much less than the sum of all the bad types of distortion. Hel-loo. So, I’m saying it’s a logical fallacy.

This doesn’t even address noise, which is a different animal than distortion but similar, that also reduces SNR and DR. Signal to (noise + distortion) ratio.

As Shannon Dickson opined in one of his articles in Stereophile back in the late 90s, audiophiles at CES can’t seem to get themselves up out of the noise floor. Take it from me, things haven’t changed much since then. But since audiophiles are generally an adaptable bunch they learn to live with the distortion. The many sources “bad distortion” coming up next, unless somebody beats me to it.

@cd318,
 I agree that there is a certain amount of condensention on the part of some engineers, misguided as it may be.

And, I'd like the ability to hear things as they were performed, as close to an "acoustic" rendition as possible. It would be limited to a small portion of recordings as most studio recordings are, of necessity, required to use some sort of wizardry to accomplish the desired end product. 

As for that authentic sound of yesteryear, in some cases yes, others, no.
After I heard that Nat King Cole CD, going back to the Gold Reissue (both done by Steve Hoffman), it was never the same. 

All the best,
Nonoise

Condensation bad!