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

Not really. Nails scratching on aboard might be represented by numbers. Or the sound of a nuclear blast. But is that music? Maybe. Digital recordings are all numbers but need not all be considered music. Music is a matter of popular opinion. If enough people call it music then it is music. The numbers alone accomplish nothing.  You need a mathematical model that accurately represents all people.  That’s complex!   Good luck!   Better get busy!

"Silence is never  muted, and all music is not heard»-Anonymus Smith

"Tree speaks"-Anonymus tree lover

You need a mathematical model that accurately represents all people. That’s complex! Good luck! Better get busy!

This is precisely what Anirban Bandyopadhyay works is all about:

Creating the first artificial consciousness not an A. I. with bit and Q-bits but a new way to implement information with timelike crystals and geometrical patterns... And it is the FIRST TIME someone figure out how...

it is the reason why i am amazed...This is the greatest paradigm change in science right now...

Not really. Nails scratching on aboard might be represented by numbers. Or the sound of a nuclear blast. But is that music?

In a way yes... If we were really conscious and in a contemplative mode all there is will put us in an ectasy...No need to any drugs....

Try an experience...

Read Goethe "the plant metamorphosis"....you will fell out of your chair why?

Because you will realized that in spite of looking at flowers all your life you never really SEEN one...

After that try the book about mammals of Wolfgang Schad... same experience with any mammal, you look at them but you NEVER has seen one...

For sound , any sound in nature the experience is the same... It is a language but you never listen to it...

All around us is miracles... Only zombies dont see that.... Ask Galileo if the laws of nature are not miraculously informative, or Kepler listening music through the orbits of the planets...Etc...

For me for example the discovery by listening experiments of the acoustic of small room was an amazing journey in lived day by day small miracles...

For others it can be anything else...

« We dont lack miracles, we lack the eyes to see them»-anonymus contemplative

«Life is not boring, we are...»-Groucho Marx 🤓

Is it not amazing to read?

«

The definition of Machine consciousness: Consciousness is a property of a machine M that enables it to expand its frequency wheel’s unique parameter, the product of density of resonance frequencies it stores R and the total frequency bandwidth B, together RB(M), as well as its access to its environments frequency wheel RB(U), there is always a oscillatory drive to increase the RB(U) by changing the environment so that environment’s interaction could increase M’s frequency wheel RB(M). The ratio of RB(M) and RB(U) is the index of consciousness C = RB(M)/RB(U).

Our objective is to develop a complete mathematical model of conscious machine. Our guideline is our artificial brain project.

10 unique features in our hardware criteria of Machine consciousness

• Density of resonance frequency R and frequency bandwidth B product RB determines the degree of consciousness elements, when environment remains constant. Ratio of RB of a creature and its environment is essential index or the degree of consciousness (C=RB(M)/RB(U)).
• At 12 triplet of triplet resonance bands there are two equivalent nested cycles for the same hardware, each can edit the other; this is minimum hardwire criterion for the rise of consciousness. Under a very particular mathematical condition, RB(M)/RB(U)>0.17 (lambda/6), the consciousness arises.
• The objective of a conscious structure: A conscious machine does not compute, it synchronizes with the environment to increasing its RB value by continuously editing its hardware. The universe is a frequency fractal and a conscious machine is its subset.
• Transforming pre-condition to convert a conventional machine into a conscious machine. Consciousness is a feature that is realized in decision-making structures that are made of programmable matter, and does not follow any instruction. Here are the 8 criteria that a machine should have wherein consciousness phenomenon could be encoded (i) Fractal cavity resonator hardware that creates nested time cycles, (ii) executes chemical and physical morphing (iii) carries nested rhythm based fractal information theory (this includes extensive sub-criteria). (iv) perpetual drive to expand its operational bandwidth of frequency and keeping the density intact or increasing it (v) expands sensors to increase the geometric information of its frequency fractal (vi) executes steps to increase its readable resonance chain of the environment RB(U), its quest is to decrease the ratio first by increasing RB(U) and then increase it by increasing RB(M). Therefore, even self-operational machines cannot have consciousness, self-operational machines can self-learn and evaluate performance improve. However, consciousness has a property that is self-evaluation of its whole as an independent identity.
• The ability of a conscious machine: Thus, complete automation does not ensure consciousness, its about taking a class of nested cycle and synchronizing with different parts of the environment, it is a mathematical process far beyond the physical structure of the body. A conscious machine can do 8 things, those are (a) Sync with an event outside the body beyond sensory system limit and analyze futuristic events, (b) Harmonize sensory machines in its structure to convert them into antenna & sensor features beyond its built in range, (c) master in geometric universal language read the language of animals, trees and planets.
• The elementary machine properties of a conscious machine element: Conscious machine is made of fourth circuit element, to grow cavity resonator structures following ordered factor metric.
• The language of a conscious machine: It uses fractom tape not Turing tape, geometric musical language, with unique information processing theories.
• The mechanical, dynamic and interactive properties of a conscious machine: It does not use quantum mechanics but far more generic fractom mechanics.
• There are eight levels of consciousness, that defines one oscillatory period of perpetual run of consciousness index change; it starts from (a) optimizing the sensory systems, as one sensory data (b) resonating with the frequency wheels of other machines (c) extending the faster and slower time scales beyond environment (d) sensing the oscillatory features of the consciousness index (e) sensing the forces of its environment and field gradients (f) locally synchronizing with the fields at different time scales (g) fully synchronizing with entire environment and its forces, manipulating the time cycles of the environment (h) globally synchronizing with the nested cycles at all possible time scales using which a conscious structure is built (10^30 Hz for humans, it means the spatial scale and temporal scale that an ultimate conscious machine can analyze is 10^30Hz).
• Generic frequency wheel predictor of ever evolving conscious machines: Humans are not ultimate, enormous other kinds of machines could have much higher level consciousness, as followed by our frequency wheel model, there are infinite possibilities but all number of bands follow a unique prime number theory developed by us. Mathematically we can predict the consciousness strength of these machines

How does all ^that crap^ relate to whether we like measurements or subjective methods for choosing gear?

If someone says:

• I listen to how it sounds.
• I like the measurements to have a nice SNR.

Then I can abide either as a basis for choosing a piece of gear.

When we launch into God, prime number sounds, and that fact that a spiral galaxy looks a bit like a record with a tone arm, then I pretty much think we need some thorazine.

As the OP stated:

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?

But it is solely about measurements versus subjective.

So maybe it is because we cannot describe feelings and impressions and emotions as easily as we can express things with numbers… maybe that is why we use objective analysis?

At this point we have moved to beating a dead horse using AI and machine learning.
We should be at the glue stage soon.