Do you trust your ears more than measurements?

A lot of good answers here. I’ve been working with measuring and listening for the last week, listening and noticing what I don’t like, and then trying to understand how to fix it. Measurements help get me in the ballpark. I know what a really bad sounding measurement looks like. What’s harder to tell is what a really good sound measurement looks like compared to a decent sounding measurement. There are a lot of different ways a system can sound good or bad. I'm using horns that can load down to 600Hz with some eq. If I move the crossover  from 600 Hz to 1000 Hz I can get more headroom and dynamics at the price of less natural tonal character because the dispersion isn’t as smooth at the crossover. I also get better imaging in some ways with the higher crossover because the midbass horn gets beamy between 600 and 1000 Hz. The measurements show lower distortion at high volume and better in room clarity at the higher crossover. My ears tell me the tonal quality matters more. I wish I could have it both ways, but the benefit of the higher crossover really shows when I crank it up louder than I usually want to listen.

Great post with which i concur... Thanks...

A lot of good answers here. I've been working with measuring and listening for the last week, listening and noticing what I don't like, and then trying to understand how to fix it. Measurements help get me in the ballpark. I know what a really bad sounding measurement looks like. What's harder to tell is what a really good sound measurement looks like compared to a decent sounding measurement. There are a lot of different ways a system can sound good or bad. If I move my crossover for my tweeters from 600 Hz to 1000 Hz I can get more headroom and dynamics at the price of less natural tonal character because the dispersion isn't as smooth. I also get better imaging in some ways with the higher crossover because it gets beamy between 600 and 1000 Hz. The measurements show lower distortion at high volume and better in room clarity at the higher crossover. My ears tell me the tonal quality matters more.

We may not all agree but there are many ways to approach your system.  Wealth of info here. 

I trust the measurements. At this point, audio is not a mystery to science. It knows how to measure the whole frequency spectrum. It knows what the vast majority of people prefer. And it knows about people's proclivity towards cognitive dissonance. Companies like Harmon Karden have been measuring this for decades and sharing the results.

I want to start out neutral and if my preferences differ from that I can always tweak with a slight tone adjustment. But if the measurements start out all over the place, all the tone adjustment in the world may not be able to fix it. Some people will be outliers. Not so much in audible capabilities but in preferences. And that's fine too.

My approach is to set to flat and adjust to taste.

Room eq 1st, spl 2nd, 3rd for taste.

Best of both whirld's, mho.

Been doing that more or less for over 30 yrs. now.

I suspect it all comes down to how you hear what you do, and how you prefer 'that' to 'be'; which is probably as unique as your fingerprints...

...which is Not to infer that I wouldn't like or enjoy listening to yours, mind you...

I'll just need a few moments to adjust my 'onboard eq'.... ;)

Have a happy Sunday, y'all...