In the early days of consumer hifi retailing, we used a measurement that REALLY mattered:
KPD -- "Knobs Per Dollar"
I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements
My expensive shoes have measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will they fit. My expensive new suit has measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will my expensive new shoes match.
The people being misled by measruements aren’t being led my manufacturers, they are being misled by reviewers. Idiotic rankings of digital gear based on measurements outside the range of human hearing. Cancelling entire brands who put out features customers actually want as they sell to humans, not bats. The worst of these websites will rant about their own superior $$$ equipment but mot even one person will ever use speakers in a klippel matchine, they actually put them in a room! The horror. The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.
You need to measure what matters! Are the customers actually happy? Is the warranty honored? Most importantly is their an in home audition period?
I don’t need someone to tell me if I could or should like a product. My room is not a test bench, or a klippel machine. Who cares what the component measures by itself because unless its a clock radio I’ll never use it by itself, I have to interconnect it in a "system" with "high quality" cables, (as in all cables are not the same).
If you want to measure something measure how your personal system of curated components interact with your room. That’s it. The rest of the stuff you could forget because these days if a brand overpromises and under delivers they will be following a formula for losing money, an no company likes that.
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@coda1 A perfect example of what I'm talking about is in the March addition of Stereophile magazine. I know many people here don't respect that magazine, but I do respect John Atkinson's measurements. Just take a look at the measurements he did on one of the tube amplifiers and a pair of speakers in that edition. Also, I don't buy the parts tolerance argument. I'm a retired bench technician (Component level) and most audiophile grade equipment tolerances are very tight with many components within 1%, They are much more consistent than that especially when new! It might explain why a speaker's sensitivity is 1 dB lower or why a tube amps power it is a couple watts low but not when the power out is HALF or less than what is advertised or when speaker sensitivity is almost 8 dB low. |
That could be the result of one being 100% advertiser supported, and the other deriving 0% from advertisements.
I will assume almost no one here has an AES membership? Can you post a summary and comment on the test methodology? The parameters in the testing do not appear at all relevant compared to our audio systems.
Well that would be impossible since every speaker will be different in every different room, but if you understand what is being published from Klippel, and you understand the acoustics of your room you can make some very good conclusions about how that speaker will behave. Horizontal and vertical dispersion plots provide a wealth of information about toe-in, floor and ceiling reflections, side wall reflections, etc. I see most reviewers are providing the standard in-room calculated measurement, as well as the standard early reflections calculations which is a good summary too. Great information on distortion will tell you how load you can play too, or where some stridency may show up in the mid-range, or bass becomes uncontrolled.
@carlsbad, which is the worst issue, the lack of understanding or the does not tell you how it sounds? I think your post was one of the most salient. I am biased towards speakers. I think there is a knowledge gap between what measurements can communicate, especially with the more detailed measurements reviews are now presenting, and audiophiles ability to interpret them accurately.
There is no enforced standard for reporting sensitivity, so different companies will use different methods. On-Axis anechoic. On-Axis anechoic listening window. Typical room response would be the most common. I think most are using Volts, not watts, but I am sure there are some holdouts too further complicating things. Last may be how they interpret the frequency response to arrive at a single number. I remember someone showing that some Klipsch models were >10db higher in literature versus a measurement. Klipsch uses room response.
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I don't buy the parts tolerance argument We just can't tell for sure, best to simply audition what you are buying at home. most audiophile grade equipment tolerances are very tight with many components within 1%, Glad to hear that, another reason why measurements are bogus, you don't need to measure for "proof" of the manufacturers claims as most specs are already accurate.
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