How much can be measured -- and how much cannot?

Newbee,
You make a heck of a lot of good points. Don't you think it would be interesting to hear the cross-talk between Fremer and other reviewers and John Atkinson after both have finished their written observations if they sat down together and listened to the equipment being reviewed? It seems to me to be a very logical next step for Stereophile to take with their reviews. A no-brainer, really. I wonder why this is not being done by them?

Newbee and Unsound, I certainly would take no exception to your centering on specs that you find closely associated to your tastes, but I will continue to trust my ears. I have never found any measures other than whether the unit is on or not that are associated with quality music reproduction. Michael Fremer and I certainly are in total agreement about the WAVAC SH-833 monoblock amps. He is the only reviewer in Stereophile or TAS, that I would trust in recommending a component.

At one RMAF, John Atkinson presented a seminar where he had a Boulder amp and an unnamed amp hooked to a THD meter. Under various loads the unnamed amp was horrible and the Boulder exemplary. He went on and on. He had no capability to listen to the two amps. Having heard the Boulder and not liking it, I asked whether he thought the designer of the unnamed amp thought THD was a major concern in design. He was flabbergasted as were most in the audience. I left.

Sabai,

The problem with that is when its all said and done you are still just getting opinions which will lead you to believe that one of three things have occurred; 1) the measurement is inaudible to the most sophisticated ear using the most sophisticated equipment which as to that particular measurement it is meaningless except there it is on the test equipment; 2) that these same folks with the same equipment can hear the the effect of the measurement but thinks it doesn't materially affect the sound they deem important; or 3) that their listening skills or equipment are not up to standard for evaluating equipment, or that they just can't hear it because of their actual hearing limitations. What would a magazine have to gain by pursuing the testing/review you suggest. The finding has to affect the magazine and/or its reviewers negatively.

Interestingly I can think of one internet mag that uses two reviewers on many/all of its review who review the product separately. They publish each review but make no attempt to reconcile any differences which there often are.

Hobby magazines in general rarely publish negative reviews of anything, its just bad for business. As close as they will come is when someone like Adkinson measures spec's and points out deviations from manufacturers spec's or things HE thinks are meaningful for users and lets you draw your own conclusions whether you feel they are relevant, or on a rare occasion a reviewer will parse words in a way that MIGHT alert a potential user that it ain't up to snuff. But the reader has to put on his thinking cap to sort it all out. That is why personal knowledge is so important.

For me, the ears must be the first guide, and are much more important than any spec or measurement. One must listen to many different types of equipment/systems and decide what one's priorities are sonically. Only then can one begin to use measurements and specs to help in a purchasing decision, by learning how and why the equipment types you like sound like they do. At least, this was my approach, since I was/am not very mechanically inclined at all, but I am blessed with very good ears, and as a professional musician I live the "absolute sound" literally almost every day. Very, very often in the world of audio reproduction, the equipment that measures "best" does not actually sound the best. So the actual measurements may not be very important, depending on one's priorities. What is more important, after one has determined one's priorities, is figuring out which measurements/specs are more important to you, and why, based on what you hear/want to hear. Hope this makes sense, I'm tired and probably shouldn't be posting right now. :)

Newbee,
You're absolutely right. You will rarely read a negative review. And if anything negative is said it is usually couched in terms that make it sound not so bad at all, really. Or a matter of personal preference. You really do need to read reviews with your thinking cap on.

Regarding Stereophile reviews, my point is not that we have 2 reviewers commenting on the same aspects of the same products on Stereophile. If this were the case, two differing opinions could easily stand side by side without the need for further explanations.

What we have at Stereophile is 2 reviewers commenting on different aspects of the same products. When you have the latter happening and John Atkinson says "I don't know how he (the reviewer) could have liked the product given my measurements", he is implying that his measurements supersede the ears of his esteemed colleague.

This is a whole other ball game. Under these circumstances, I think it behooves John Atkinson to sit down and have a listen to the component under review with the reviewer whose ears are being called into question. Otherwise readers are left to consider what it all means without any attempt by the magazine to clarify matters.

The choices are:

1. The reviewer must be right since he is the only one of the 2 who actually listened to music on the component.
2. John Atkinson must be right because measurements are more important that the ears of a reviewer.

Leaving readers in limbo to sort out a matter that could have been clarified or reconciled by the 2 people in question getting together (but not doing so) is not the best way to present audio reviews in a widely-read audio magazine for high end consumers. IMO.