I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements
My expensive shoes have measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will they fit. My expensive new suit has measurements but it doesn’t matter, all I want to know is will my expensive new shoes match.
The people being misled by measruements aren’t being led my manufacturers, they are being misled by reviewers. Idiotic rankings of digital gear based on measurements outside the range of human hearing. Cancelling entire brands who put out features customers actually want as they sell to humans, not bats. The worst of these websites will rant about their own superior $$$ equipment but mot even one person will ever use speakers in a klippel matchine, they actually put them in a room! The horror. The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.
You need to measure what matters! Are the customers actually happy? Is the warranty honored? Most importantly is their an in home audition period?
I don’t need someone to tell me if I could or should like a product. My room is not a test bench, or a klippel machine. Who cares what the component measures by itself because unless its a clock radio I’ll never use it by itself, I have to interconnect it in a "system" with "high quality" cables, (as in all cables are not the same).
If you want to measure something measure how your personal system of curated components interact with your room. That’s it. The rest of the stuff you could forget because these days if a brand overpromises and under delivers they will be following a formula for losing money, an no company likes that.
@kota1 third party measurements are there to validate manufacturer claims. But lots of people refuse to understand this basic fact. Then you have the issue is when people think their hearing is 100% unbiased and can’t be fooled. Those two combined cause issues since they are opposite of each other.
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@kota1 - thanks for your reply. I think the argument perhaps needs to be separated out into two strands. If your essential argument is that - measurements don't reveal how a component sounds and that the reveal even less how a component will sound in a given system - then by and large, I agree with you. At component level (with some exceptions as set out below ( and for clarity, I mean for example, a CD player and not the individual components in the player) unless measurements reveal gross defects then they say little enough about sound quality and certainly do not describe sound quality in substantive way. The same applies cumulatively at system level. The exceptions to the above are that certain measurements of amplifiers do correlate pretty well with subjective sound quality. For example, SET amps tend to measure pretty similarly in regard to their levels of harmonic distortion and that is subjectively audible. Secondly, there is a reasonable correlation between loudspeaker measurements and aspects of subjective sound quality. But for completeness, I am not arguing that those correlations are in any way comprehensive. Going back to the basic argument, I still feel that it's a leap of logic from there to concluding that measurements are not useful. The progress of science depends on the formulation of hypotheses and repeatably testing and validating. The more engineers and designers measure, the better they can understand the relationship between their design choices and the subjective performance of their designs.
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third party measurements are there to validate manufacturer claims. But lots of people refuse to understand this basic fact. That's what stereophile does but they don't hand out prizes or shame the product. Look at the critics shaming not only products but entire companies because of a measurement that has no bearing on how a product will act in MY chain of products. |
I think the argument perhaps needs to be separated out into two strands. That is a lot of arguing. If your essential argument is that - measurements don’t reveal how a component sounds and that the reveal even less how a component will sound in a given system - then by and large, I agree with you +1 The exceptions to the above are that certain measurements of amplifiers do correlate pretty well with subjective sound quality. I agree that they sell power numbers on receivers with either two channels driven or all channels driven, this is inconsistent. As long as they state which one I wouldn’t say its bogus. I still feel that it’s a leap of logic from there to concluding that measurements are not useful. I am tired of bogus measurements, the publisher of the measurements can be matter of fact, like stereophile or simply foaming at the mouth with anger trying to shame not just the company, but their customers. It isn’t just ASR, audioholics does this too along with goldensound. You can find a product YOU like that didn't measure best in class. The opposite is also true. You have no idea how a group of products will sound when assembled, in various rooms, based on anything, especially bogus measurements.
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