ACTUAL MUSICAL SOUND VS. MEASUREMENTS

Measurements have their place, and I use them to a point. I also use reviews from reviewers I trust, input from a select group of posters here, looks of the speaker, listening at Audio shows (I attend at least 3 a year now), quality of the components used, published specs, listening in friends systems, talking to the manufacturer and/or designer......but in the end, I have to hear the speaker at some point, and that is the final arbiter.

I did buy the Clayton Shaw Caladan speakers sight unseen, when only one review was out, and they were many months away from production. So you can basically say I bought them solely on one review and Clayton's reputation, and the fact that I really liked the speakers he designed at Spatial Audio.

I will look at the impedance curve, on axis response (vertical and horizontal), off axis response (vertical and horizontal), spectral decay, etc. Poor measurements can be an indication of issues that will be present in a listening test.

The funny thing is that most speakers that sound amazing, may not have perfect measurements, but they will not have any major flaws. Some of my favorite speakers of all time (Thiels and vintage Reference Series Infinity) will fall below 2 ohms for short or even longer periods at some frequencies. In that case, I know they will need an amp with high current delivery.

A few years ago I was researching a power conditioner and Google brought me to a detailed online review that was based on all sorts of measurements followed by a detailed explanation of why it could not possibly do what the manufacturer claimed it could do.  I went through the review again because I though I had missed the part of the review that told you what effect it had on the sound of his audio system - but the reviewer skipped that seemingly critical aspect of reviewing that audio component.  I was somewhat perplexed to say the least.  That was my introduction to ASR.

@toronto416 exactly. Some of these reviewers and guys that don’t actually try something in their systems are absolutely nuts to me.  We actually had a power conditioner negatively affect our system but actually help another system in another room.  It just depends. It actually happened at a show and the audiophile junkie did a whole infigo video on it.  

I've been at the hobby for a long time. I am, with a builder, building what we hope will be the finest sounding horn audio system for private listening room pleasure. To me, it's always been a A/Bing of things and yes the measurement world is critical to us. That said, on many occasions the particular part being tested looked great to the computer but a different part which did NOT test as accurately "sounded" to us a lot better. I wouldn't be caught dead without software BUT, we will always trust our ears first; period end stop. Also, I for one, if all I had were my hand held transistor radio from the early sixties, I'd be fine listening to Cousin Brucey and the like as music is the gift and I'd be just fine. How we hear our music should be entirely up to the listener. IMHO

@jettyfat2323 you make a lot of great points. Sometimes the measurements are not ear pleasing.  In a lot of situations.