@mahgister : Hello. I am interested to hear more about what you are describing. In terms of using a room that is shared between “living”, and “listening”, what are your suggestions, or methods to get closer to the music with what you call “embedding”? Actually, maybe this should be another thread. My apologies to the OP. I love Bernie Grundman’s work, and this thread caught my attention, but I have read what Maghister has written in the past and felt compelled to comment. @emailists : Thank you for the link, and thank you for this thread. It is my belief also that measurements tell us relatively little about the value of a component, and its ability to reproduce music naturally.
Mastering legend Bernie Grundman explains why the measurement crowd has it all wrong!
There's a great new interview with Bernie Grundman about the AJA UHQR where he relates that a component that a measures perfectly, but uses a lot of electronics in the signal path to get that result, sounds inferior to electronics that don't even measure flat, but have less in the pathway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGLFTm6jMrY
I recently read one of these "reviews'' where they admit they mostly don't even listen, but just rely on measurements. It was one of the most amateur reviews I had ever read, and now the we have one of the top trusted golden ears (one who actually creates the content) state that measurements don't indicate what something is going to sound like.
I'll take Bernie's perspective over an idiot with an analyzer touting cheap gear that measures well, just to make people feel superior about their (sometimes) midfi gear.