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I don't want to beat a dead horse but I'm bugged.

I just can't clear my head of this. I don't want to start a measurements vs listening war and I'd appreciate it if you guys don't, but I bought a Rogue Sphinx V3 as some of you may remember and have been enjoying it quite a bit. So, I head over to AVS and read Amir's review and he just rips it apart. But that's OK, measurements are measurements, that is not what bugs me. I learned in the early 70s that distortion numbers, etc, may not be that important to me. Then I read that he didn't even bother listening to the darn thing. That is what really bugs me. If something measures so poorly, wouldn't you want to correlate the measurements with what you hear? Do people still buy gear on measurements alone? I learned that can be a big mistake. I just don't get it, never have. Can anybody provide some insight to why some people are stuck on audio measurements? Help me package that so I can at least understand what they are thinking without dismissing them completely as a bunch of mislead sheep. 

russ69
deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

 

Yet, using such tricks skews other performance parameters, that ARE NOT MEASURED as pat of the standard measurement sets, yet still COUNT. We are routinely testing maybe 1-5% of all the parameters that are needed for accurate sound reproduction, and eve those measurements are MASSIVELY FLAWED

 

@realworldaudio , I feel most of what you wrote is made up. I don't think you will be able to clearly articulate what is missing from the measurements and certainly not 95% of the things that are missing. Perhaps this is the issue. This sounds more like outrage mob mentality that reasonsed criticism. I am welcome to be proven wrong.

 

 

@realworldaudio I am still waiting for you to answer the above. You have not provided one missing measurement let alone the 95% missing you claim.  You can do your own Google, I did. When you can list some of that missing 95% of measurements I will indulge your request.

 

barts's avatar
barts
773 posts
 

Many great thoughtful comments above most of which I completely agree with. I will say that I have enjoyed several of the ASR vids.  No, not a fanboy and his overall opinions on sound quality are to be taken with a grain of salt.

I don't care what he is measuring I just find it interesting in the sense of a procedural exercise.  

Regards,

barts

onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,351 posts
 

But isn't there enough gear that measures reasonably well and sounds pretty good that we can move on from poorly measuring equipment regardless of how it sounds?

russ69's avatar
russ69 OP
3,579 posts
 

we can move on from poorly measuring equipment regardless of how it sounds?

Back in the day amps strived for THD of .001. You can achieve that number by adding negative feedback, sometimes lots of negative feedback. But it turns out that amps sound better if negative feedback is reduced or eliminated. Just one example of a measurement that hurts sonic performance. 

deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

Back in the day amps strived for THD of .001. You can achieve that number by adding negative feedback, sometimes lots of negative feedback. But it turns out that amps sound better if negative feedback is reduced or eliminated. Just one example of a measurement that hurts sonic performance. 

 

@atmasphere was kind enough to talk about this in detail in another topic. Paraphrasing, if the distortion is low at high frequency, then the issue you have described is not an issue. It seems many amplifiers have lots of negative feedback and they have low distortion at 20Khz.

I don't think it is back in the day any more. There are lots of amplifiers on Stereophile and ASR that have very low distortion at 20Khz. Lower than this Rogue at almost any frequency.

@onhwy61 people are emotionally attached to their purchases. I work in batteries. Look at how emotional people get in defense of internal combustion.

I had tube amps in the past. They are neither good nor bad. They just are. I have no doubt it was less accurate but I still enjoyed it at the time.

 

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