How do you know when a stereo sounds good?

To me it's more of a question of "what am I missing?"  To some a single Bluetooth speaker is all that's required to be pleasing, to others every piece of the system must be analyzed tweaked, treated, compared and modified and it still may never be pleasing enough.  If being an audiophile is your hobby it requires a lot of exposure to a lot of different systems components and experimenting until you are satisfied that the choices you made are providing you with the "experience" you require. It might may be pleasing but still lacking or it may never be pleasing as you continue to obsess for that final 10%.

To be "pleasing" the system is just a vehicle that provides the recorded music you find pleasing.  Your priorities determine if sounds good or not.

Again to me Measurements Smeasurments.  Good sound can't be measured on an enjoyment scale as it's way to personal.  YMMV

roxy54

4,893 posts

11-27-2021 10:14am

With this thread, the OP proves that there is indeed such a thing as a stupid question.

Is it? It seems the core of arguments here and on all other audio groups revolve around what it is that constitutes good sound with people on one side who all but claim subjective observations of sound quality are meaningless. That people who believe stereos that sound good to them, do in fact sound good, are somehow delusional. Question, where are these staunch objectivists defending their position that what subjectively sounds good is not necessarily the most important criteria where sound quality is concerned?

Yours in music,

Ted Denney III

Lead Designer/CEO Synergistic Research Inc.

This question seems to be asked in the same vain as, what is porn? And the answer is just as simple, I know it when I see it, or hear it in this case.

I listen and the music draws me in to stay. 

Question, where are these staunch objectivists defending their position that what subjectively sounds good is not necessarily the most important criteria where sound quality is concerned?

This, together with the previous (unquoted) sentence/s, is an oversimplification to the point of misrepresentation, and amounts to what is known as a straw man argument.

Folk who are not acquainted with this play on words are invited to google straw man. They are kinda "gotcha" arguments should you accept them as being an accurate representation.