I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements

Vendors can’t publish their numbers very well unless there is a standard measurement technique and then people need to know what to do with it. In the 70s and 80s, every amp had to be <.25% THD or nobody would buy it. But there was a lot of lying.

Most people posting here have never worked in a lab. But I’ll tell you it is much less expensive to find a way to improve your measurements than to improve your product.

Publishing a bunch of numbers that the reader doesn’t understand and that don’t really tell you how a component sounds is perfect for the internet age where everyone thinks they can be an expert on everything by reading google.

Jerry

@willywonka

and many manufacturers are not honest about them.

Which ones, specifically?

There is no standard for this, and power ratings are all over the place.

It is actually much worse, power grids are all over the place. NYC is different than the Catskills power grid, go figure.

Also, speaker sensitivity ratings don’t seem to mean much anymore.

Which speakers and what customer? Are you saying specs, as a general rule, are fake?

I’ve seen claimed ratings by the manufacturer being 8 dB lower when actually measured.

Again its actually much worse, parts are allowed to be with x% of tolerances. If you buy a speaker and 3 parts are "within tolerance" but not the same you have no way of knowing what you got, no matter how the sample measured. Which goes back to auditioning.

Dr David Rich:

Passive components have tolerances. Capacitors and inductors are within 5% or even 10% of the specified value. The speaker’s impedance also varies from sample to sample. Combine all the tolerance changes of each component and the desired frequency response of the speaker has changed by a significant amount. This results in pair matching errors that effect stereo imaging.

@carlsbad 

But I’ll tell you it is much less expensive to find a way to improve your measurements than to improve your product.

+10, and that is where the "bogus" begins, thank you for saying it so well.

I have occasionally seen a product(a Technics cartridge!) chosen by a frequency and separation curves and a 1 kHz square wave and my friend who did it was correct. But 99.9 % of the time product selection needs to include careful auditioning. The few times specs can be used directly, at least in my opinion, is when they point to poor performance. I recall a famous 80 watt tube amp that the reviewer liked in spite of the fact he found some instability and it only put out about 2 watts at 290 kHz.

@thyname  Why does it bother you, and many others, when I ask for claims to be proven?  If a manufacturer claims impedance is lower, or the noise floor is lower, or .........., is it too much to ask for the proof?  I have very little interest in ASR reviews for the most part.   I have searched for exactly two, as I was interested in all and any reviews of these two items.  The PS Audio PP was one and a step down transformer bt Equitech was the other.  In both cases ASR APPEARED to show the units failed to provide the claimed benefits.  I asked PS to comment directly on the ASR report.  I've already posted their response.   Your vitriol towards me is unbecoming and uncalled for.