Pleasurably better, not measurably better

"I'm buying gear that makes me feel good."

 

So presumably is everyone else here, though not necessarily by the same route.

Different strokes for different folks.

@cd318 

The difference is that I am consciously declaring it my primary motivator.  Some make "neutrality" or "accuracy" their declared motivator. 

'At best I can achieve a system that sounds good with a wide variety of source materials.'

And just how do you intend to achieve this without measurements and data?

By ear alone?  Without any data whatsoever?

If you read any of my posts you would know I do not make this argument either.  Rather, I declare that my experience trumps engineering standards.  Take a measurement like THD+N.  The argument has been made by many that below a certain level it is not perceivable. So, for instance, for them 0.0001 and 0.01 distortion perform the same way, yet for the spec chaser 0.0001 is "better."

What if I like 2.8% distortion?  Sure, we can measure it, but the engineering goal of lower is not the same as my personal listening goal of making things that sound good to me. 

Gone through a little bit of this with power cables...at some point it was sounding "too perfect" and the musical presentation was a little sterile,lost its musicality?.So the search has bought me to think that too much of one thing Ofc/occ ?...rhodium/gold...?.

I love the “ Pleasurably Better”! That’s what enjoying music is all about. How we all get there when not actually attending a live performance is what this forum is all about.

Whatever makes you happy is great regardless of how something might measure. There are no units of measure to define pleasure, happiness, relaxation, peace etc. 

I generally grade a component or system of components by how long I want to keep enjoying it. If listening sets in quickly something is wrong, at least for me regardless of the apparent frequency extension, imaging, dynamics etc. until maybe the past 5 or so years, digitally produced sound fell into this category & I couldn’t listen & really enjoy it for more than a song or two. That is no longer the case for me & hi rez streaming w/ a good DAC is really close to good analogue. 
 

That said, while tube amps ( pre or power)generally measure worse than comparably priced solid state, I seem to almost always enjoy them more & sound more like live music. Tubed equipment is probably the prime example of “ Pleasurably Better”.

Kenjit comments represents Audio Science Review philosophy.  I just ended a 27 page, 2100+ comment forum here concerning this very subject.  Unfortunately, the owner and some followers of that site came here to lambast our knowledge and opinions which conflict with his and Kenjit.  

Others continued to assault us with not comprehending our choices without measuring them in a blind ABX test and with high end equipment.  I don't know who does that but not any of my friends or even those $500K to $1 million systems I've heard at their homes.  ASR/Amir claims we are fooling ourselves.  They indicate that cables and tweaks are irrelevant in making music sound better (or worse).

This forum says the opposite-if we enjoy what we are hearing, that's good enough.  I have mostly older equipment (oldest-highly modified SME IV arm from 1989) because I want to spend my time listening to my vast music collection rather than testing equipment.  In in my case, if a cable or tweak upgrade works I keep it, if not I return it-audition only.  

The only upgrade I want will be costly as my system already sounds great and is lower cost high end.  A better imaging/soundstaging/ambiance retrieving speaker than a Legacy Focus.

Oresund Space Collective sounds pleasurable on any system!