had to laugh at the irony of the title of this thread. Anyone that spends any time at all at ASR would know that ASR has nothing to say about the "sound" of equipment- they are all about objective performance.
This is true to an extent. If a component like a DAC, amplifier, cable etc.. excluding speakers has a " sound" then it’s not high fidelity or was purpose built.
That’s a good point.
The sound of equipment must be the sound of added distortion.
Therefore the measurement of distortion is the yardstick by which products are usually designed and compared.
Less is always better if we want to remain faithful to the original signal.
[If not, then there’s always DSP for those who want to correct perceived equipment/room/recording anomalies or perhaps they might simply prefer a particular type of distortion].
It’s surely no coincidence that when distortion is low that even tube and transistor amps begin to sound indistinguishable.
Ditto for everything else too.
Of course you have to always factor in the limits of human hearing, otherwise we’d be forevermore trying to get down to infinitely zero distortion.
Then there’s the fact that our hearing is more sensitive in the midrange, so distortion is particularly unwanted there.
All of this this suggests that as replay equipment improves there must also be a general historical convergence of the sound that it makes, which is exactly where ASR comes in.
Some products will be assessed as having an exceptionally good measured performance, and some not so exceptional.
And as anyone familiar with the site will know, all of this is usually indicated by the corresponding posture of the residential panther.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/asr-panthers.11541/