The reviewer's reviewing system.

[Groucho]

It never seems to work this way:

"I installed an exemplary amplifier and my system sounded like rubbish. I wonder why? Could there be something wrong with the rest of my system? Or was there something wrong with the way I was using the amplifier*? Could it even be a self-fulfilling expectation that a super-neutral amplifier would sound lean/thin/clinical and I could learn to overcome this? In the process I might realise that what I previously dismissed as mid-fi because of its low cost and good measurements is, in fact, hi-fi..."

Instead the answer is a reflexive "The amp is rubbish. Measurements are meaningless in audio."

*e.g. low input impedance - a problem not because of "impedance matching" so much as insufficiently large AC coupling capacitor at the output of my pre-amp or source, causing low end roll off

 

[Detlof]

dont wory amir its seems total insanity escapes you....for now. if your able to read imbetween the lines of reviews then they can be usefull other wise your wasting your time. measurments can be useful if understood. maybe if the reviewer put the measurments of all the devices being used when reviewing kit we could drill down and find out why the item being reviewed behaved like it did.

really the whole industry reminds me of my very short time in IT. a few understand what they are doing but most are just winging it. copying what others say as they dont understand but still earning a good living lol. if all the products were intergrated it would be ok but they are seperate and offten come from very different thought camps so putting them all together and truely understanding why things sound as they do is well beyond any reviewer i know. its a impossible task though your only left to speculate and then that specuation becomes opinion then once printed then fact. people read it then they think its true then they take it on as thier opinion because then they can come here and feel included and relivent.

you cant hope to know a fact in hifi as there is too much going on. with the electronics the non measurable factors entreq like to talk about then what effect all this has with enviroment both electrical and acoustic plus ear plus brain.. plus the indivisual difference in the way we assimulate complex sounds.

so please when we think we know and start getting excited telling every one they are wrong or lamblast anothers opinions be aware of the above and try and keep some perspective. though it might mean our house of sand will come crashing down in the long run we will be better for it. maybe some threapy will help the transition.

Wellspoken Spaz, but I'd rather be - resistant to any kind of therapy - part of our merry throng, building castles in the sand while the music plays on.

 

[Detlof]

lol
thier are 3 types of audiophile
1. happy nutjobs these are people who know they are nutjobs but embrase it.
2. nutjobs in denile these are people who seem to think they are heathy but really are not(the worse kind of audiophile)
3. nutjob in recovery these people are selfaware and often the most rewarding to talk to but are all too often tempted back too the nuthouse by 1's. they often end up fighting with them selfs.

1. and 3. i tend to like sad to say far too many 2. out there.

I am happy to be in this madhouse, even if the rates are high. My best friends are there.

 

[Detlof]

yea by all means build the castle detlof but just dont move in.. safer in your flimsy tent. at least in that your forced to keep a healthy respect for its fragility. why dont you take the sand out of your entreq boxes and play with that

But Spaz, that is no ordinary sand. These things are filled with holy viking ground.

 

[microstrip]

(...) *e.g. low input impedance - a problem not because of "impedance matching" so much as insufficiently large AC coupling capacitor at the output of my pre-amp or source, causing low end roll off

This happens less than 1% of the time. And curiously it is the mostly referred to example in preamplifiers. And a much more relevant effect - the change in the distortion pattern due to loading the preamplifier, impossible to evaluate unless you know the full gain of the system (amplifier + speaker + room) is ignored by "measurement analysts".

Oh, yes, I am forgetting - according to measurements we should not use preamplifiers.

 

[microstrip]

I am happy to be in this madhouse, even if the rates are high. My best friends are there.

Yes, it is a great madhouse! And yes, fortunately many of my best friends are also there.

 

[Detlof]

yea defo pagin hoo doo. if you shake it then take the top off P.O.F can read your future from the patten. just send him the photo... the more you buy the more acurate his findings will be. like wise if you throw the cables in the air and send pic of how they land the more expensive ones tend to be more enlightning but POF says ignorance is bliss so some times the cheaper ones bring happier results... aww he is such a nice god... sorry man

No he isn't Spaz, he is just a farmer, tending his(fool's)garden..... Eureka... My Poseidons have just arrived :

 

[Robh3606]

whats really amusing and seems to be being overlooked is all of you measurment gurus dont seem able to agree on anything. this is typical your defeating your selfs lol

Hello spaz

I am no guru but that is simply not true. I build speakers as part of the hobby and there have been many times where I have built and tested a crossover and had excellent correlation between my measurements and a friends measurements 3000 miles away. I have taken other peoples measurements and plugged them into LEAP and helped them design their crossovers. Sorry but you simply cannot do that with subjective listening.

Rob

 

[Robh3606]

The successful systems of WBF users and thousands of posts at WBF are a proof that the subjective perspective converges and really works in the high-end. I have not seen any one fully explaining how he successfully used the measurements of his amplifier to chose it. Even when we just debated what are maximal loudness requirements of audiophiles we have shown a lot of disagreement!

Hello micro

Once you decide what your max SPL requirements are it is not at all difficult to determine how much power you need. Just need speaker sensitivity and listening distance after that it's a simple calculation.

Rob

 

[microstrip]

Hello micro

Once you decide what your max SPL requirements are it is not at all difficult to determine how much power you need. Just need speaker sensitivity and listening distance after that it's a simple calculation.

Rob

Rob,

It is always the same type of answer "Once you decide ...". This avoids the critical question. And second it is still rather difficult. The speaker sensitivity is anechoic data. In order to convert it in quantitative useful data you need to know accurately the speaker dispersion and the room reflexion characteristics. All this thinks depend in frequency and psychoacoustics - it is why computer modeling (or large experience... ) is needed to do serious work.

I valuate and applause the people who do it the proper way - but the amateurish approaches, cutting ways and making an estimation with 6-10 dB error margin are useless and can be misleading.

 

[microstrip]

Hello spaz

I am no guru but that is simply not true. I build speakers as part of the hobby and there have been many times where I have built and tested a crossover and had excellent correlation between my measurements and a friends measurements 3000 miles away. I have taken other peoples measurements and plugged them into LEAP and helped them design their crossovers. Sorry but you simply cannot do that with subjective listening.

Rob

Rob,

Your post suggests you are an experienced DIY builder and user - not an average consumer. Congratulations, but you do not represent the people and situations we are debating!

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

yes i am sure you can and do but this not the contex of this thread(if it were a thread about using measurments to build speaker xovers then i would not post the above as it would be total nonsense). of course there are acepted universial measurements to aid electronic designe thats obvious else we would be in the trees still. your complaint only serves to enharnce my point. thanks for that

ps if you could spell check my posts that would also be a big help

The thread topic was most interesting imo, and while I didn't offer my own, I have read every post. But I've lost interest now as this thread has once again been hijacked by the measurement crowd.

 

[thedudeabides]

The successful systems of WBF users and thousands of posts at WBF are a proof that the subjective perspective converges and really works in the high-end.

Quite awhile ago, I asked this forum if any members assembled their system using measurements as the sole basis for their choices.

If I recall correctly, one person posted that they did.

 

[rbbert]

The thread topic was most interesting imo, and while I didn't offer my own, I have read every post. But I've lost interest now as this thread has once again been hijacked by the measurement crowd.

I wouldn't say that's completely true. I think they are trying to hijack it, by sheer number and size of posts, but I think they are losing the battle

 

[amirm]

As I have post a few times, I am a big fan of the most popular electronics engineer/blogger, Dave Jones. His last video is a review of a multimeter that retails for $500. You can get decent multi-meters for 1/10 the price so this is the equiv. of high-end audio. It is from top two largest electronic instrument makers and they were going to give him the scoop on the release of the product. Watch how critical he is of the product despite being given this favor and the device being so high-end:

Hopefully you see why I am so critical of high-end audio reviews.

 

[dallasjustice]

Super Ears

Although measurements aren't needed for a reviewer to do his job, subjectivist reviewers often make reference to objective measurements to support their subjective findings. How often have we read stuff like;
-blacker background
-hearing deep into the recording
-low noise
-tighter bass
-deeper bass
-more extended HF
??
Most recently subjective reviewers have acquired skills not even Harman could train them up to hear. Many of the most talented reviewers can now hear the exact digital square wave slope before the 1s and 0s asynchronously hit the DAC's master clock. These super humans can hear the difference between fast square wave rise times and slow square wave rise times. There are some who prefer BOTH fast and slow square wave rise times. The reviewer black arts are truly the most amazing adavance in high end audio. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Michael.

 

[amirm]

The thread topic was most interesting imo, and while I didn't offer my own, I have read every post. But I've lost interest now as this thread has once again been hijacked by the measurement crowd.

Sorry about that. You are right Johnny. Guys, let's focus on the OP from here on.

 

[TBone]

Although measurements aren't needed for a reviewer to do his job, subjectivist reviewers often make reference to objective measurements to support their subjective findings. How often have we read stuff like;
-blacker background
-hearing deep into the recording
-low noise
-tighter bass
-deeper bass
-more extended HF

Most recently subjective reviewers have acquired skills not even Harman could train them up to hear. Many of the most talented reviewers can now hear the exact digital square wave slope before the 1s and 0s asynchronously hit the DAC's master clock. These super humans can hear the difference between fast square wave rise times and slow square wave rise times. There are some who prefer BOTH fast and slow square wave rise times. The reviewer black arts are truly the most amazing adavance in high end audio. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Michael.

and you've just scratched the surface ...

 

[Robh3606]

Rob,

It is always the same type of answer "Once you decide ...". This avoids the critical question. And second it is still rather difficult. The speaker sensitivity is anechoic data. In order to convert it in quantitative useful data you need to know accurately the speaker dispersion and the room reflexion characteristics. All this thinks depend in frequency and psychoacoustics - it is why computer modeling (or large experience... ) is needed to do serious work.

Hello Micro

What is there to decide?? What critical question you want to do HT you need 105db minimum for reference level 115db subs. You want orchestral at row 10 you do what 110db for peaks. You don't need any computer modeling to figure it out. You take the -6db rule used for doubling distance in an open space, convert it to 3db per Toole in his book, and just plug in the numbers. Simple as that.

Why does everything have to made so complicated when it's not.

This is simple stuff you can get out of almost any book on the subject.

http://www.doctorproaudio.com/doctor/calculadores_en.htm

Rob

 

[Robh3606]

yes i am sure you can and do but this not the context of this thread(if it were a thread about using measurements to build speaker x overs then i would not post the above as it would be total nonsense). of course there are accepted universal measurements to aid electronic design that's obvious else we would be in the trees still. your complaint only serves to enhance my point. thanks for that

ps if you could spell check my posts that would also be a big help

Hello spaz

I think it is relevant because I see measurements get bashed all the time by people who simply have no clue about what is possible. From a review standpoint if it doesn't have measurements I won't even read it.


Hello thedudeabides

Quite awhile ago, I asked this forum if any members assembled their system using measurements as the sole basis for their choices.

If I recall correctly, one person posted that they did.

I purchased my Revel Peforma 206's based solely on their measurements. Never heard them till I got them home. They are exactly what the measurements told me they would be. Fine sounding speakers.

Rob