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.
Rather than measures well, let's substitute reliability. Just for this example high reliability equipment works as designed every time and low reliability equipment only works 50% of the time. So wouldn't you want to move on from the equipment that has low reliability yet sounds superb? Why can't you have your cake and eat it too? @charles1dad I would take product A all other things being equal. |
Of course if you substitute the term reliability in place of measurement, that’s a fundamentally different argument. Without question I would choose high reliability compared to low reliability. But that wasn’t the point of this topic thread. Tube audio components are notorious for yielding poorer measurements as opposed to transistor audio components. Yet well made tube components are wildly recognized for their Very long lifespan/years of service with reliability. This is accomplished with their relatively comparative poorer measurements. So even here there is no correlation with test bench measurement and reliability/longevity as it regards tube equipment.
In the example above you would choose product A over product B. That’s fine. My point is those measurement do not ensure superior sound quality nor reliability. So I’m trying to determine where/what is the intrinsic advantage of bestowed by the better measurement numbers. Charles
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Tube parameters change significantly over their life. Put in a new tube it sounds like a different amplifier. It’s not the reliability that I had issue with, it was that I never knew whether my amp was operating at its best. I enjoyed it at the time. Pick what works for you. Superior sound is subjective. What you like someone else may hate. Many roads to the same place. |
