It was an okay video, but hardly a mea culpa. IMHO there are other problems they conveniently omitted. Again, IMHO only.
Bottom line is if you like the sound the measurements don’t mean a thing. I build SE tube amps that measure terribly compared to a solid state amp but to my ears they sound fantastic. That is what matters to me. I’ve built to a spec before trying to achieve perfect numbers and have had great results but I like the sound of tubes better. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Or, said a little bit differently, the measurements should serve the human listening experience, not the human listening experience serve the measurements.
"Measurements don't mean a thing"? Glad the rest of the world isn't so flippant ...no doubt you wouldn't care much that an airliner you'd be flying in, the altimeter would have no numbers & merely say "about right", or too close, or too fast... Measurements & numbers are EVERYTHING, the advent of numbers created our civilization, guesswork belongs in the stone-age.
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The Wright Brothers had modern altimeters before starting to learn how to fly?
I ask because we don't know all that much about perception of audio according to experts like Dr. Earl Geddes, who said:
"The bottom line here is that we know so little about how humans perceive the sound quality of an audio system, and in particular the loudspeaker, that one should question almost everything that we think we know about measuring it. From what we have found most of what is being done in this regard is naive. Things like distortion measurements that don’t consider masking, or axial frequency response that does not consider the reverberant field or arrival time issues of group delay. Maybe someday in the future we will be able to quantify perceived sound quality and move audio away from a marketing dominated situation to a data driven one."
http://www.gedlee.com/Papers/Comments on howard.pdf
In this case, I'd use measurement to better understand my own preference and characteristics of parts being used. Simplify future repairs, rebuilds and clarify upgrade path.
If I were a manufacturer of tube amplifiers (and I would love to be very much!) or of any other type of device, I would also proceed this way.
Not only for the reasons you said and - most of all - for curiosity, but also because I believe that rationality must also be satisfied (at least for me it is so), not only the listening final result.
There is such a huge choice of pieces of Audio equipment out there to buy or build, that then it does not seem too difficult at all to find and choose devices/loudspeakers to build or buy that are both well measuring and well sounding, and even beautiful. 🙂
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or at the end of the day it all comes down to what you measure ? fwiu some of the most talented loudspeakers designers have developed original test protocols that are integral part of their know how
For instance when i hear talking about compression during musical peaks i immediately think to some kind of distortion
From what i read the effect of distortion on sound pleasure is not completely understood
However for me a speaker must be right not nice Accurate to the source signal
I would subscribe to the Dr Dunlavy's party Strange that he did not place the big woofers back to back like the AR9
I dont like very much a big woofer close to the ceiling ...
instead he used absorbing felts around the high Hz drivers almost always Another interesting design choice
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Absolutely right. If everyone stuck to "it's not perfect but I like how it sounds" there's no problem. It all breaks down when someone says "I like this more than yours, so it is better than yours" rather then respecting everyone potentially having a different view...
to fly you need lift not an altimeter it's a matter of aerodynamics
Although I have frankly never heard someone say such a thing, I fully agree that who said such a thing must truly be a rough person, or in bad faith.
Agreed.
However to fly, first you need 2 flapping wings.
Just as to listen to music you have first to have your ears, everything else comes later. 😉
Yes that is what i meant Wings provide the needed lift effect
A little story about listen with the ears but it can tell something Many years ago i was at an audio fair in Milan Italy There was a little room with an average quality system playing but packed with men I peeped inside curious and i could see a gorgeous girl showing the system (she was just reading the specs)
When the girl went for lunch the room emptied
My point is that to evaluate seriously a system we have to turn off the other senses Eyesight in particular can distract from the actual sound
So even if it seems a little ridiculous to listen blindfolded can provide important information related only to the perceived sound
Or listen in the complete darkness I did this with HPs and i was impressed But i cannot stand HPs for more than half an hour
The flight analogy is kind of silly. Nobody checks measurements at all if they're going to ride in a plane. So if you're purchasing a pair of speakers the measurements are mildly meaningless without actually listening to the speaker first.
If you're building a speaker, measurements are fairly critical, I have never debated that. But making the statement that they're critical is not implying that measurements are all that matters- listening to the speaker and making tweaks based on what your ears tell you is every bit as critical as measurements.
If you're building a speaker, measurements are fairly critical, I have never debated that. But making the statement that they're critical is not implying that measurements are all that matters- listening to the speaker and making tweaks based on what your ears tell you is every bit as critical as measurements.
Two flapping wings are not just wings - they are also the engine. The engine is more critical than the wings themselves. Provide enough thrust, and you can overcome the fact that the lift is insufficient. 747’s don’t like to stay in the air if they lose power, a glider or small single engine could be safely landed.
Nobody checks the measurements on a plane before they board it because they assume that somebody already did and judged the plane to be safe. Same thing happened in a single ended tube amp. You judge the IV curves of the tube (that somebody else measured) to be linear enough for your purposes. And somebody else painstakingly went though the measurements and calculations to produce a decent output transformer. Any aberrations from “perfect” are at least bounded, and those bounds “guaranteed by design”.
Nobody checks the measurements on a plane before they board it because they assume that somebody already did and judged the plane to be safe. Same thing happened in a single ended tube amp. You judge the IV curves of the tube (that somebody else measured) to be linear enough for your purposes. And somebody else painstakingly went though the measurements and calculations to produce a decent output transformer. Any aberrations from “perfect” are at least bounded, and those bounds “guaranteed by design”.