Some folks are passionately against using specs in judging equipment and others, albeit a smaller group IMO, are just a passionate that specs/performance should be measurable. Personally, I'm a military historian and tend to be analytical, so while I can appreciate both sides of the debate, the end result frustrates me. So my main question is in trying to understand the two sides, or rather how do I reconcile these two positions?My feeling is that the proper reconciliation of those two positions is that an understanding and assessment of specs is both useful and necessary in RULING OUT component selections that would be poor matches to either other components in the system (e.g., impedance incompatibilities, gain or level mismatches, etc.) or to the listener's requirements (e.g., peak volume capability, deep bass extension, physical characteristics, etc.). That hopefully allows the potential candidates to be narrowed down to a manageable number, and may allow some expensive mistakes to be avoided.
The list of remaining candidates can then be further narrowed either by listening, or if that is not possible by careful assessment of reviews and user comments (with grains of salt liberally applied).
Best regards,
-- Al