3D lifelike sound and impeccable measurements - mutually exclusive???

It seems to me that a good soundstage is largely determined by loudspeakers, speaker positioning, and room acoustics.

Don't forget the recording. You can't play back what is not there, but you can create a false but pleasing result. Is it lifelike? No. Does that matter? Also no.

are there components (specifically amps/preamps and integrateds) are out there that combine great measurements and in your mind also have that organic immersive sound that really helps many of us get more emotionally involved in the music or are these qualities mutually exclusive

@clarinetmonster2  No. But which harmonics are dominant in the distortion signature is important. They should be either the 2nd and 3rd or just the 3rd, in sufficient amount (with respect to the higher orders) to mask the presence of the higher ordered harmonics.

They aren't mutually exclusive but I'd say measurements will get you closer than your ears alone. 

They aren’t mutually exclusive but I’d say measurements will get you closer than your ears alone.

It is the reverse... 😁😊



All piece of gear well designed sound good in principle... In reality they differ...For many reasons linked to many factors out of the narrow family of parameters used in the design creation, or linked to forgotten possible parameters,or unpredictible factors and the fact that this piece of gear so well designed it is, will be embed somewhere with something....And anyway any design is the result of a set of choices function of a trade-off....

Which part of your body will decide that this piece of audio gear is usable or good or bad or anything between all these and decide if the trade-off at the source of the designing process is good for you?

Not your brain alone reading schemas, but a brain coupled to your 2 ears in a particular set of acoustic condition called a room....

It is logical because the timing of actual waves event in your room to your ears is necessary for you to make a sound judgement about the resulting potential S.Q. coming from the timing bits coming from the recording process and translated through your dac...

Timing of bits is great but in reality equivalence is not equality, and timing of bits are not equal, even if equivalent, to timing of real events...There is a microphone separing the timing acoustical concrete events of the original lived event and the timing bits from the recording choices at beginning... And now there is a speakers/room/ears separating the timing of bits and the timing of events in the speaker/room and in your brain...

Because with a recording here we have 2 sets of timing concrete events : one recorded in bits in the dac itself, and one not recorded at all; but emerging in your room for your ears from the active room translating the timing bits through the amplifier/speakers in another timing sets of events...

I suppose you play with a dac, but using a turntable will not destroy my argument....



«Numbers on a dial never sing»-Groucho Marx listening to a radio set

«2 timing set of events called bodies must synchronize themselves in the act we call making love, and a piece of gear or the galaxy, nevermind which one, must synchronize and the synchronization is not a completely determined part of the initial timing events»-Anonymus Smith studying scaling design...

«Why not saying that more simply? A range of play between parts and scales»-Harpo Marx

«Are you an astrolog? »-G.Marx

They are not exclusive in fact the best components offer fantastic sound and measurement but they are not the components that the magazines write about but the components that stand the test of time because they are so good and always will be.