I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements

@thespeakerdude 

You argue too much. If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

@clearthinker 

there was never a fraction of the offensive and bogus stuff before they invented the internet

+1, now you know why I am tired of it. Click bait using bogus measurements to drive traffic to your site and SELL more stuff, yep.

I understand specs can be useful and their are confusing specs when rating receivers (all channels driven or not). Beyond that 1 in home audition is what answers every other question a customer might have re: value. 

I am sick of measurements that tell me nothing about how a component will sound in my CHAIN of components, I think the measurement thing is bogus because it is supposed to predict how it will sound in my system. No one can predict that because every room sound will impact performance. I think an in room FR meassurement has some predictive value. EQ is like spitting on a fire, it can only do so much.

@yoyoyaya

Thanks for asking me for a link, here is one I chose for this reply. What you have in audio is a "system" where one variable can impact everything in a chain. Take your $500 DAC which you know rules because it measured great, connect it to your $750 preamp that is "best in class", measured great and what does it sound like? It won’t be the same in my room as it will in my neighbors BECAUSE of the variables of the chain. Here is a link to one variable, the interconnection cable:

Under the handling conditions, a change in the capacitance of the cable due to the signal causes a change in the sound quality.

In essence a simple change in the capacitance of a cable can change the quality of the sound. Now, multiply that times every interconnection in your system and those measurements on the BENCH were hit the fan.

The general public would be better served auditioning it for themselves with 0 expectation bias with a return policy.

@dynamiclinearity

Measurements do give relevant info.

I think specs give relevant info. Beyond that there is 0 measurement that will tell me in advance how a component will sound in my 400 ft NYC studio with the tower speakers that measured well  I crammed them in, compared to the guy in Austin with a 5000 foot house and a dedicated room.

Wait, I just thought of a measurement that is relevant, the FR of the room. Beyond that the measurements stopped being useful once I knew it was the right voltage for my country. I think published specs are enough for anyone to decide if a product warrants an audition.

I don't think it's correct to say they are "bogus". 

I think its fair to see what the specs of a product are. Where "bogus" begins is when you attach judgement. Look at stereophile, they measure stuff all the time but they don't hand out prizes or cancels because of measurements. That's legit, leave it to the customers to decide.

ASR isn't the first or the last to try and cash in on being the gatekeeper to audio. Gene Dellasalla at Audioholics has some great videos but he clearly has  an agenda that he is the snake killer, but he is more venomous than the companies he trashes. 

@yoyoyaya

I like your line of thought, thanks for participating in the discussion. If I take speakers that measure well, and an amp that measures well, and a preamp that measures well, and a streamer that measures well and the whole kit cost $20K, what should I do? Buy?

When I see a reviewer tout a measurement, any measurement, as a YES or NO to that question I stick them in the bogus pile. Sadly someone, who would have otherwise compared and used judgement, jumped in and spent actual cash because he doesn’t have a test bench? No.

Again, no one website is the first to discover the power of click bait, and won’t be the last.

@bigtwin 

Why does it bother you, and many others, when I ask for claims to be proven? 

NP, ask anytime, this is fine.

@willywonka

and many manufacturers are not honest about them.

Which ones, specifically?

There is no standard for this, and power ratings are all over the place.

It is actually much worse, power grids are all over the place. NYC is different than the Catskills power grid, go figure.

Also, speaker sensitivity ratings don’t seem to mean much anymore.

Which speakers and what customer? Are you saying specs, as a general rule, are fake?

I’ve seen claimed ratings by the manufacturer being 8 dB lower when actually measured.

Again its actually much worse, parts are allowed to be with x% of tolerances. If you buy a speaker and 3 parts are "within tolerance" but not the same you have no way of knowing what you got, no matter how the sample measured. Which goes back to auditioning.

Dr David Rich:

Passive components have tolerances. Capacitors and inductors are within 5% or even 10% of the specified value. The speaker’s impedance also varies from sample to sample. Combine all the tolerance changes of each component and the desired frequency response of the speaker has changed by a significant amount. This results in pair matching errors that effect stereo imaging.

@carlsbad 

But I’ll tell you it is much less expensive to find a way to improve your measurements than to improve your product.

+10, and that is where the "bogus" begins, thank you for saying it so well.

@kota1 

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.

I don't buy the parts tolerance argument

We just can't tell for sure, best to simply audition what you are buying at home.

most audiophile grade equipment tolerances are very tight with many components within 1%,

Glad to hear that, another reason why measurements are bogus, you don't need to measure for "proof" of the manufacturers claims as most specs are already accurate.

@thespeakerdude

You argue too much. If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

@thespeakerdude

most of our parts are +/- 3%, some +/- 5%, some were specified tighter, and some were specified looser.

What proof do you have?

If I was designing for the potential use of tube amplifiers

No need, just buy one and some speakers then post it in your system with some pics.

I find a topic called, "I Am Tired of Bogus Measurements" without substantiating that measurements are bogus as argumentative

This is what I said in the OP:

The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.

If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

@waytoomuchstuff

KPD baby (the "pre-Alexa/Siri days of a bygone era in audio):

Interesting article on measuring speaker cables, are high priced cables bogus, or not? The bogus websites deny, deny, deny that cables matter, offer them proof and they deny, deny, deny the very "measurements" they claim to embrace.

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a simple experiment to identify the performance of a number of different speaker cables by measuring the “error” introduced into an audio system by each cable, i.e., the voltage drop between the amplifier and the speaker. The signals used are both white noise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise) and music.

The results show that the principal factor determining the error of a cable is its geometry. Cables with very widely spaced conductors have the greatest error, closer-spaced conductor cables have less error, and very closely-spaced, flat conductor cables have the least, or near zero error. [Townshend Audio’s Isolda speaker cable is such a design. – Ed.] The results have been presented both visually and sonically at https://youtu.be/v11hmOE1Vcc.

The experimental method has been described in detail, to enable researchers to repeat the tests in order to verify the conclusions. The results of this experiment may embarrass those cable sound deniers who have hindered the advance of hi-fi for the past 50 years, and hence may allow the quality of high-fidelity sound reproduction to advance.

That paper is brutal.

All papers are brutal, I cited that one as an example. I did an in home audition using their method, it worked! Go figure.

@thespeakerdude 

What, do you think I am going to post bills of material?

If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

@thespeakerdude 

You argue too much. If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

@invalid 

I want to know why some people claim you have to level match when listening to different speaker cables of the same Gauge, but different design.

It is to make the errors of the equipment less audible:

If you ever wondered why so many manufacturers dem their equipment with recordings of a female vocalist with minimal back-up, it's because the errors are less audible than with something like a huge classical orchestra performing complexly scored music with great dynamic and expressive shifts.

.

Here is a study done by Nordost that I replicated in my own system and the reduction in noise is obvious. In this case I bought an after market power cord, a vibration control device, and a QRT power conditioner AFTER an in home audition. If it didn't sound right I could care less about the measurements, in this case the measurements actually confirmed what I was hearing (table on page 4).

So are after market power cords, vibration control devices and power conditioners bogus if they measure well and make the system sound better? Does it win a prize instead? 

https://nordost.com/downloads/NewApproachesToAudioMeasurement.pdf

@thespeakerdude

You argue too much. If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

Look at all the dacs this guy bought and then sold and he explains at the end of the day why he feels the measurements weren’t the whole story:

@westcoastaudiophile

how can be audio devices designed, improved, manufactured, and serviced/fixed at the end without measurements?

Bogus is when someone claims the sound quality of an audio device can be reliably predicted by measurements. When that happens it becomes a race to the bottom of who can replicate a measurement at the lowest possible price and claim superiority=bogus claims. The bogus reviewers and websites are promoting measurement hysteria as a form of click bait.

Is their a universal measurement for sound quality?

@thespeakerdude

This is a very well respected company known for unbiased measurements and product reviews, I am sure you can find a high quality, good measuring speaker quickly HERE, you’re welcome! 

Audioholics was bogus in trying to cancel an entire brand in Synergistic Research, here is the lead designers response:

@westcoastaudiophile

measurements are focused on single device compliance and performance, not complete sound system + room integrity.

I find that when my room integrity measures well the sound system is subjectively better to my ears. The thing is you can’t predict this based on how a speaker was measured or an amp was measured. That's why I find people promoting measurements as an avenue to SQ as bogus. I find it has to be curated for each room relying on acoustics, not an anechoic chamber.

Even BEFORE EQ my room integrity is pretty good:

Can you imagine how bogus it would be for me to say  that whomever uses MY speakers will find they are a perfect match for their room and gear and offered my measurements above as "proof". That would be B-O-G-U-S. That is similar to what the measurement hysteria crowd is pushing as a S-C-A-M.

Golden Sound used bogus measurements to try and cancel MQA, then another reviewer responded who wasn't even affilated with MQA. What happened was completely predictable, it sounded "very convincing" to him, bogus measurements and all:

ASR tried cancelling GR Research using bogus measurements so another reviewer showed up to check it out personally. What happened? What do you think:

All of these bogus websites attempt to use click bait and label themselves as the "doorman" guarding the high quality club. When put under scrutiny they just move on to their next target using bogus measurements as "proof". In reality they are simply using measurements to promote their bogus opinions.

@thespeakerdude

Did you take your measurements yet? 

@yoyoyaya

All of the measurements should be considered bogus that are promoting an "angle" or self serving point of view. Obviously a manufacturers measurements can be self serving to promote their product. A reviewers measurements can be used to promote traffic to their site to generate revenue. Both players may have an angle, I call bogus on both.

I auditioned, I liked. Screw the "measurements. I found it interesting that Nordost published an article that confirmed my experience. I had that setup long before Nordost even acquired QRT from the founder. That’s all. I would not recommend buying something because of a measurement, only auditioning.

Interesting how they used a "chain" of devices to generate the results. I didn’t believe them because of their measurements, I believed them because of my in home experience.

Another reason measurements are bogus is reviewers pass judgement without actually using the product. In this example the measurements are kept in context of actual usage:

The AV8805 is a significant engineering achievement, both in the complexity of the design (look at that back panel!) and in its measured performance.

This next reviewer never even used the product as part of a home theater as intended:

Conclusions
Performance here is not awful but clearly could be a lot better as sister group Denon has shown. $5,000 is a ton of money for an AV product so performance needs to be much more optimized than it is. .

Bogus, anyone buying equipment can skip both sets of measurements. One guy likes it, the other guy "meh". You need to audition at home.

@thespeakerdude

I always picked my wines purely on the alcohol content,

That explains it, no wonder why

You argue too much. If you want to at least appear credible post your system and in room FR measurements.

🍷🥤🥃🍻🤤

This device is NOT bogus and is known to give very accurate measurements:

Dr. Sean Olive on why good measurements are so difficult:

What is the most challenging thing about what you do?

"The biggest challenge is designing listening tests that can provide accurate and reliable ratings of sound quality."

Who is doing these measurements and where are they reliably tracking the data? This seems like it might actually be useful.

@clearthinker

From the OP:

The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.

Just posting measurements or specs in the context of a component is fine.

There is no universal measurement for sound quality so using measurements to predict sound quality is COMPLETELY bogus.

@clearthinker

It goes both ways, bogus measurements can be use to cancel a brand or to promote one as well. It depends on what you measure and the context of how the product is used. It doesn't have to be offensive to be bogus.

@yoyoyaya

None of the above.

Some people accurately measure things that are not relevant in the context of the sound quality of a product and has 0 predictive (or bogus) value to a consumer. Then they try and misconstrue the result as being predictive. Ranking products based on SNR that is beyond human hearing is an example of this That is bogus.

Some people will cherry pick measurements to come to a conclusion that was predetermined. Certain websites promote themselves as being the arbiter of what is and what is not snake oil. If a product they deemed useless measures exemplary they will either bury the results or slam the lab that did the testing. Bogus. All of the videos I posted of reviewers being called out by other reviewers or the companies they tried to cancel are examples of this. Measurements that don’t align with the outcome they want are demonized or ignored. They are being bogus with no regard except one, drive traffic to their website.

@texbychoice 

Many years spent designing and testing complex electronic systems.  Measuring and testing was excruciatingly long and detailed process.  The last hurdle was performance in the intended environment.  Measurements provided a reasonable predictor of performance, but never 100%.  

Much respect, good example of being legit. The bogus measurements that are used to promote a product or promote the person doing the measuring=bogus. 

Measurements are what they are, if the suit is a 38 and I'm a 38 will it fit. Will I like it. who knows. Will my spouse like it? LOL. 

You got to try the suit on, look in the mirror, and ask your wife.

You gotta bring gear home, audition it, and probably ask your wife (LOL on the WAF). There is NO measurement that can predict how a product will pass the hurdles.

@clearthinker 

Sorry I'm not sure what 'cancelling' of brands is.  Is it a Generation Z term for disagreeing or ignoring?

"Cancel culture is the act of canceling a brand, public figure, or company that you disagree with.  When a brand is canceled, support is withdrawn and consumers spend their money with competitors if the brand or company has said something offensive. The brand is canceled through online shaming on social media platforms"

It is very rare that snake oil type products display any measurement changes in use.

I don't see measurements for that many products except MPG for new cars. Generally specs are provided instead.

I am still tired of bogus measurements. If anyone knows how to measure sound quality I’m still waiting.

I posted 3 videos of bogus reviewers being exposed for their bogus measurements.

@texbychoice

A while back discovered an interview with the gentleman that developed the REW software.

REW is good, I find it a valuable software to help get room acoustics right. If you want to see my in room measurements you can check my virtual system. The measurements themselves are legit. I I told someone to buy something or send me a donation just for putting measurements out there it would be bogus.

Essentially, the industry standards regularly referenced by measurement purists were actually vague and open to interpretation by the user.

Not in acoustics, concert halls, theaters, and recoding studios have been very consistent with standards. See THIS LINK.

Those same measurements do not necessarily indicate a sound quality everyone will find acceptable.

+1

We all have different brains, ears, and preferences

I think anatomy is consistent, what we have is different tastes, equipment and listening conditions.

@thespeakerdude 

The important thing in any experiment is to document your process and measurement setup.

You have nothing to document except arguing, why bother? Did you buy those speakers from Consumer Reports yet? Post pics. 🤬

@thespeakerdude

do not address the arguments presented.

This sort of service is better suited for you I think, that will be $5 please 🤣:

@thespeakerdude

If I posted 5 links

It doesn’t matter what you post, you have 0 credibility. You haven’t posted your system, your measurements, and all you do is argue.🤬

I would not be making disparaging remarks

When you don’t have a system and your only provable claim is arguing, this is the  type of remark you can make, STOP. If you want to get some creds post some type of proof. 🤔

The ASA standards

If you ARE a a member of the ASA please post your qualifications, otherwise please STOP this inane babbling already.🤪🤪🤪

@clearthinker

I have to say I have not been impressed with the way this thread has been going for the last page and a bit

OK, fair point.

This may be because OP is not assigning BOGUS its correct meaning.

From the OP

The cancelling of brands, the talking down to the customers, is bogus.

that is to make the largest proportion of posts on a thread that he started

Hmmm, I didn’t know this was a forum rule.

More fool us for responding to what has now become a tirade

You obviously support tyrants who cancel brands by publishing metrics that have 0 relevance to the sound quality of the product. Are you defending these bullies? I can’t believe you would do that on this forum, why?

@clearthinker

You want to support websites or people that publish measurements that have nothing to do with SQ I guess that is up to you. If you want to attack me for calling them out frequently and loudly thats OK. I posted links to support my claims that measurements are bogus. If you like bogus, again, I think that’s up to you.

Now, if you want to make a point about some type of universal measurement regarding how to determine sound quality go for it. You have problems with "clearthinking" if you can’t.