The point is that even measurers ultimately rely on hearing to justify their choices - however important measurements may be to them, it still comes right back down to ‘hearing’ for the most intelligent measurers.
Good post thanks...
This remark of yours is very important...
This is the baron de Münchhausen fallacy...
A dial cannot read itself he need a human interpreter, but the human interpreter could be voluntarily or by birth deaf for example, he will not be able then to interpret with his ear some sound parameter measurements, BUT he could work with them in creating a speaker very well designed, like a robot, but he will never listen to it...Then we need dials, we need someone with a brain to read the dials, and we need ALSO someone with a brain containing a listening history linked to 2 ears to INTERPRET the dials and not only use them....Any good designer ultimate control test for sure is listening his own design...
I verified not long ago that most people dont have a clue about acoustic, even very educated one.... Why?
Because acoustic is not only equations or dials readings, something we apply without thinking much, doing only mechanical calculus, acoustic must be ALSO a personal experience with our own ears to make sense of our own audiophile experience....Intuitive acoustic experience in his own room is a personal experience so limited it is, very important, to figure out the deepest acoustical problems...
My Helmholtz mechanical equalizer gives me that experience directly, with what is at the foundation of musical or speech experience: the first wavefronts timing perception by each ear and the way the brain analyse and synthetize the physical waves in " time" in a specific room...
My greatest personal discovery, well known in acoustic, not well known among audeiophiles or even audio specialist, is that the room is NOT a passive sets of walls waiting for the waves to bounce on them... The room is already a delicately balanced distribution of pressures zones field where the wavefronts for each ear are "sculpted" in a way by damping or enhancing acoustical content, but also by the Helmholtz resonators, my pipes and tubes, specifically located, who act on some definite frequencies and their harmonics...All that finely tuned for a specific unique pair of ears, yours...
The different timing events in the audio chain that must be related and translated into one another at the END of the chain are in your room....
There is a timing of bits in a recording session by the recording engineer...
There is the timing of waves coming to the microphone from the theater or from the studio where is recorded the original event with all the trade-off implicated by the choices of mic and location...And this timing for the mic is very different than the first wavefronts different timings coming to each ear of each listeners in the original event...
The timing of your speakers drivers so to speak is another important timing...
There is another set of timing events in your own room coming from each speakers to your ears the first wavefront of sound picked by the right timing of the waves crossing the different pressure zones of the room created by the sound itself and all the content of the room...
None of these 5 timing events reduce to one another at all....
The most important one the only one which is at the end and which can be act upon by the audiophile is the timing in his room.... This is the reason why acoustical settings is so important, dac or speakers or recordings so better they could be, will be reduced to a mediocre experience if the room is not adressed...
My second discovery is a mechanical equalizer did not have the same limitations than an electronic equalizer....And it cost nothing to create one....
My best to you....
