We cannot disagree because you do not understand what i spoke about when i spoke about acoustics...
All your post is about the gear pieces measured specs and perception ...And golden ears ...
I spoke about acoustics concepts and the way to understand and control them in a room /system NEVERMIND THE GEAR CHOICES ...
Your are not even wrong ...you missed the point ...
You spoke of "golden ears"; this is an insult used in the objectivist crowd to mock the marketing consumers credulous audiophiles ... I am neither an objectivist nor a subjectivist ...Two wrong perspectives ...
I spoke about ACOUSTICS science ... trained ears in some room because they learned how to control it for a RELATIVE experience in musicality which will not be dependant on marketing conditioning "upgrades" ...
I am not a gear fetichist , even it for sure all gear are not equal... I try to do the best with the only tools we have : embeddings mechanical and electrical controls and especially acoustic science and controls ... The gear choice dont matter because it is relative to your wallet ...But acoustic dont change his laws with the price tags variation and the design qualities , nor electrical and mechanical controls change their laws with the price tag of the gear or when change their measured specs and design qualities ... Acoustics science dont change ...
Most audiophile consumers had never read an acoustic science article and think that acoustics is about panels on a wall ...😁
Dear @mahgister : I agree to disagree with you and I have to tell you that I have first hand experiences witrh the SS electronic design and when José and I was in the live design and choosing active/passive parts first step was reading the part manufacturers whole sheet and under which electrical conditions comes those part specs, second step was to make a measures by our self to mate those specs looking for " zero " tolerance/accurated ( MUSIC is accurate. ) and third step was listen it inside the board and " see " its good or bad relationship through the overall design voicing.
Other that all measurements on the audio item we made " hundreds " of voicing tests in our room/systems and in several other room/systems and the audio item was listened by many other audio/MUSIC friends.
José and I never said: " hey sounds " musical " don’t you think? " but we ask by our self first what we ( each one ) don’t like and why and after that what we like and from here think if we could find out how to improve that " don’t like ".
But what are behind that " voicing "? well it’s a mix of true objectivity along subjectivity where science is behind the objectivity and behind subjectivity full of first hand experiences achieved over our audio life listening to home reproduced MUSIC and live attended to listen MUSIC at near field and at normal position and even in " odd " positions.
Never our target , not even in the paper, was that our unit be " musical " but only that performed with top top quality level in any audio system and bullet proof against " deaf " gentlemans. At the end the target our target is to stay truer to the recording adding and losting almost " nothing " to the audio signal.
I think that from some years now that kind of target is the one in any audio item design and by any designer inside a market price point.
It’s not that if it’s " musical " but if it’s right. I have to say that overall my levels of tolerance at both frequency extremes is really low and no I have not golden ears and I know that as any one else I tolerate THD/IMD at higher levels that what I or we can imagine. Those 2 threads I mentioned confirm this.
Speaking of " golden ears " and several years ago Ortofon decided on porpose to tilt around + 1db-2db the high frequency, so it’s not that Ortofon can’t build a flat frequency cartridge no exist reasons to that tilt:
they made it several tests with its Golden Ear listeners panel with gentlemans that were instrument players, composers, audiophiles, MUSIC lovers, woman/man, etc. The test was to listen ( with different cartridge models ) the same cartridge model that comes with flat frequency and the same model with tilted HF and over the testing time the conclusion was that that Golden Ear ( as a fact 2 panels with different people. ) panel always prefered the cartridge with tilted HF. No one there ( Ortofon ). said nothing of more " musical " / less " musical ".
What you listen at your place it’s musical ? I can say no it’s not, over the years all modifications you did it in your room/system put you here because it’s what you like what it sounds right to you. In may case is exactly like that.
Can I be wrong? yes I can but this is what I learned through my audioMUSIC life.
R.
