Pleasurably better, not measurably better

@curtdr If we have someone singing, there is only one singer. Whether one person is there watching or a thousand, it is still only one singer. And it does not matter what every member of the audience is hearing, and what their ears measure at the audiologist.

Saying that “we all hear differently” does not make it become 1000 singers.

We may prefer it pitch corrected, or tone corrected, and we may like the room to not colour the sound.
If I have 10 people listen to the same track, they all say that is Bob Dylan. I do not get people claiming that it is The Pixies, The Police or some random piano track.

Whatever they are hearing, that track sounds like the same Bob Dylan that they have heard and that they know.

@holmz "And it does not matter what every member of the audience is hearing..."

If you’re a member of the audience, it certainly does! It matters to oneself.

Ultimately, it does not matter what every measurement is telling me, if it doesn’t sound great to me, with my ears, in my room, to my taste.

Like someone earlier in this thread here, I am not here to serve the gear, the gear is here to serve me... so matter how "good" or how "bad" the measurable performance, if it doesn’t serve me pleasurably better, then it has no place in my home. Some "audiophiles" really are more "technophiles;" and technophilia has it’s place, but it ain’t gonna dictate my loving audio preferences.

I’ve heard plenty of speakers that "measure better" but that I do not like as much as certain personal trusty pleasurables, so obviously it would be downright silly to buy the less enjoyable speakers just because they measure better! (unless I’m trying to impress somebody other than myself... or if I’m being masochistic or audio-moralistic and insisting to myself that I should like the less enjoyable speakers, and damnit I’m going to make myself like them better because I "should"... )

Ok - I generally agree that one should get what they like.
But if we want the reproduction to still sound like the singer, then we generally want something that is not distorted to hell n back.

Then again I have heard some speakers with a lot of personality that sounded pretty good.

And I have some tube gear, so I must like some distortion, just like everyone else.
But the gear is not too far over on the spectrum of tubey.

I heard some speaker with the low distortion Purifi drivers, and they were pretty outstanding, so it is not like accuracy and low distortion is bad… 

I heard some speaker with the low distortion Purifi drivers, and they were pretty outstanding, so it is not like accuracy and low distortion is bad… 

No, I'm not saying they are either, but that no oscilloscope or calibrated microphone knows the experience you are trying to have, that you want to have, that makes you feel good.

No, I’m not saying they are either, but that no oscilloscope or calibrated microphone knows the experience you are trying to have, that you want to have, that makes you feel good.

Yeah true.
But most people find certain distortions are grating.
There is decades of research, that I do not want to just ignore.

i suspect that your “Custom sub integrator‘ integrator thread will be using measurements. And my AVR seems to sound better after the microphone is plugged in and it calibrates itself.

Someone, somewhere, figured out that statistically people like it when it corrects for the room. While I would like to think I am different and unique, the sound seems better when it does it all for me.

I do have some settings which have a tilt, or tone control slope… and I can rattle through to choose the one I like best for that show or movie.