I don't want to beat a dead horse but I'm bugged.


I just can't clear my head of this. I don't want to start a measurements vs listening war and I'd appreciate it if you guys don't, but I bought a Rogue Sphinx V3 as some of you may remember and have been enjoying it quite a bit. So, I head over to AVS and read Amir's review and he just rips it apart. But that's OK, measurements are measurements, that is not what bugs me. I learned in the early 70s that distortion numbers, etc, may not be that important to me. Then I read that he didn't even bother listening to the darn thing. That is what really bugs me. If something measures so poorly, wouldn't you want to correlate the measurements with what you hear? Do people still buy gear on measurements alone? I learned that can be a big mistake. I just don't get it, never have. Can anybody provide some insight to why some people are stuck on audio measurements? Help me package that so I can at least understand what they are thinking without dismissing them completely as a bunch of mislead sheep. 

128x128russ69

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

OP,

 

Yes, good observation. I have managed technical people all my life. As one example, programmers… they love to program… so if you are not careful… as soon as they hear what is wanted… they happily roll up their sleeves and start programming, only to later find out they really didn’t fully understand what the requirements were. This is one aspect… doing what he likes to do. Well, many engineers love to measure things and make pretty charts. Amir loves this view into the world of electronics. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t reflect how equipment sounds.

 

Second, I have worked with hundreds of electrical engineers, they tend to think (I’m sorry) they know it all and that the real world conforms to their technical understanding of it. So, they simply refuse to believe the charts do not tell all. Engineers tend to be really stubborn in this.

 

So, add the two together and you get Amir’s site. It sounds logical, the charts are pretty. He is having a great time showing how full of bunk the audio world is. 

 

This is one of the reason that good audio designers are fairly rare.