7_V said:
How do you know that the equipment that measures 'most accurately' sounds the best? How do you judge it?
You've dragged us into an unnecessary "subjective" debate, you'll notice that the discussion was about CD players where there is a defintion of accurate: are the amplitudes at the analog outputs an analog of the bits encoded on the disc. It doesn't really matter how the player accomplishes this feat. We can measure the exactness of the recreation in terms of frequency response and THD+N. A player with a flatter frequency reponse, lower distortion and lower noise is technically more accurate than one with worse measurements.
Now, there is no mystery to red book CD, we can calculate theoretically its maximum performance. Lo and behold, the measurements that are published in magazine like Sound&Vision show that cheap DVD players are operating at the limit of theoretical perfection in terms of their measured performance.
The truth that you (an LiloLee and Julian) are trying to escape is that products that measure the same sound the same: even when those products come from different companies.
Now, it is clearly possible to build and expensive product that isn't technically accurate, but what's the point? You're paying money for either a tone control or increased noise or increased distortion (or a combination of all three), and these show up in the measurements. Wadia as I have previously pointed out sound different because they have an
incorrect frequency response as can be clearly seen in the measurements (see the stereophile review of the 861.)
I'm saying that if two audio products use the same components (drive units, cable, damping, woodwork, etc.) then similar measurements will generally provide a sufficient indication that both products will sound the same.
What you are trying to get away from is the inescapable conclusion that if two products measure the same, then they sound the same.
I do this for a living, oedipus. Mine is a practical approach to producing the best products that I can. If you could imagine yourself in a similarly real (rather than theoretical) situation, perhaps you wouldn't ask such a 'clever' question.
Floyd Toole, amongst others, also does this for a living and yet he's answered those questions for himself and published the results for others. He isn't shy of 'clever' questions and doesn't hide behind a whole load of subjective mumbo jumbo, and the company he is head of R&D of (Harman) produces a large number of speakers, using test instruments and measurement techniques that are state of the art - and it comes as no surprise that their products are excellent.
I'd also add that people who do R&D in the area of subjective evaluation are aware of a number of limitations of human hearing, which is a far from a perfect "measurement" instrument (and we only scratched the surface of those imperections in the
Ohm's acoustic law
thread.)
7_V said:
Julian is absolutely right when he talks of the millions of years of evolution that ensure that human hearing is by far the best indicator of good hi-fi.
From this it is reasonable to infer that you know little of psycho-acoustics, otherwise you wouldn't be inclined to make this kind of statement, at least not without considerable and lenghty qualification over the problems that using a small sample of listeners can cause.
What continues to amaze me about the Audiophile brigade is just how far into electrical engineering they are prepared to delve and yet nobody seems to pick up a book on psycho-acoustics - a scientific endeavour which has been going for well over 150 years and has mountains of research detailing the limits of human hearing.
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