perkri,
Ok, perfectly fine.
But why begrudge that it may be of interest to someone else who cares? That’s what seems to happen whenever someone starts asking about certain types of evidence around here. We don’t get simply "Well, I personally don’t care about objective verification, but that's fine if you do" but rather we get scorn dumped on us for caring, for even bringing it up, for caring about such evidence and why, and we get insulted and painted as muckrakers. Can we perhaps stop this and understand audiophiles have different interests, criteria and approaches and that’s ok?
Ok, so you have put your scientific curiosity aside. Again, a fine personal choice, but we shouldn’t therefore pretend that those careful empirical methods, and the knowledge built by those methods, have no say in the realm of audio, as if audio is in it’s own epistemic bubble from the rest of empirical reality and pure subjectivity gets us the right answers.
Which is begging the question.
Again...what is the demonstration for this claim? That people believed they heard a difference between such amplifiers? That goes right back to the question of bias and variables. That you don’t care to be careful in that regard doesn’t mean others aren’t justified in noting the problems in such accounts, when trying to understand the facts.
Perhaps that’s because you aren’t terribly concerned with measurements, as your post indicates, and so haven’t been rigorous about correlating the measurements to what you are hearing. Maybe if you got a little more rigorous, you’d find out that X amount of stuffing changed Y measurement correlating to what you hear. So why would I take the word of someone who says "measurements don’t predict this" from someone who doesn’t seem all that interested in measurements or "why it happens?"
The measurements often tell me at least something about the sound of a product, especially speakers, and often enough correlate to what I myself heard in that product. Does it tell me *precisely* in all ways how the speaker sounds? No. But it often does correlate with some relevant characteristics. Same with the Soundstage measurements. (For instance the measurements of the PMC speakers not long ago in Stereophile correlated very well with Kal Rubinson’s impressions of the speaker’s particular lack of warmth, and my own when I listened to that speaker).
It would be absolutely bizarre if measurements could not be correlated to predicting to some degree how something sounds. It would make my job as a sound designer literally impossible. All day long I’m using EQ and effects which have been designed on the knowledge of what to measurably, technically change in a sound file to achieve X type of sound! That goes for "spaciousness" "warmth" " clarity" "dullness" "punch" "soundstaging" "imaging" you name it! We are manipulating it all day long BECAUSE people have correlated these things to measurements, and thus create a great variety of modules and plug-ins that we work with to predictably manipulated sound character.
If I hear something I like, I don’t care what causes it.
Ok, perfectly fine.
But why begrudge that it may be of interest to someone else who cares? That’s what seems to happen whenever someone starts asking about certain types of evidence around here. We don’t get simply "Well, I personally don’t care about objective verification, but that's fine if you do" but rather we get scorn dumped on us for caring, for even bringing it up, for caring about such evidence and why, and we get insulted and painted as muckrakers. Can we perhaps stop this and understand audiophiles have different interests, criteria and approaches and that’s ok?
As I am the beginning, middle, and end of my listening experience, the reason why it works or doesn’t is irrelevant.
Ok, so you have put your scientific curiosity aside. Again, a fine personal choice, but we shouldn’t therefore pretend that those careful empirical methods, and the knowledge built by those methods, have no say in the realm of audio, as if audio is in it’s own epistemic bubble from the rest of empirical reality and pure subjectivity gets us the right answers.
It is not difficult to find two uniquely different amplifiers that have the same measurements, and yet sound vastly different.
Which is begging the question.
Again...what is the demonstration for this claim? That people believed they heard a difference between such amplifiers? That goes right back to the question of bias and variables. That you don’t care to be careful in that regard doesn’t mean others aren’t justified in noting the problems in such accounts, when trying to understand the facts.
There is no measurements that will predict those nuanced effects and if I will like or dislike the sonic effect.
Perhaps that’s because you aren’t terribly concerned with measurements, as your post indicates, and so haven’t been rigorous about correlating the measurements to what you are hearing. Maybe if you got a little more rigorous, you’d find out that X amount of stuffing changed Y measurement correlating to what you hear. So why would I take the word of someone who says "measurements don’t predict this" from someone who doesn’t seem all that interested in measurements or "why it happens?"
Do any of Stereophiles measurements tell you how the gear will sound?
The measurements often tell me at least something about the sound of a product, especially speakers, and often enough correlate to what I myself heard in that product. Does it tell me *precisely* in all ways how the speaker sounds? No. But it often does correlate with some relevant characteristics. Same with the Soundstage measurements. (For instance the measurements of the PMC speakers not long ago in Stereophile correlated very well with Kal Rubinson’s impressions of the speaker’s particular lack of warmth, and my own when I listened to that speaker).
It would be absolutely bizarre if measurements could not be correlated to predicting to some degree how something sounds. It would make my job as a sound designer literally impossible. All day long I’m using EQ and effects which have been designed on the knowledge of what to measurably, technically change in a sound file to achieve X type of sound! That goes for "spaciousness" "warmth" " clarity" "dullness" "punch" "soundstaging" "imaging" you name it! We are manipulating it all day long BECAUSE people have correlated these things to measurements, and thus create a great variety of modules and plug-ins that we work with to predictably manipulated sound character.