Measurement Bias

Not I or anyone I know have purchased any piece of equipment based on any kind of measurement.  I'll have to start asking people and see what I find out.  We build components and we do measure the parts quality to match certain parts as we believe and hear differences when we do this, but not all of the parts.

Happy Listening.

One of the reasons this endeavor is so entertaining is that there are no standards for what a stereo system should sound like. It would be impossible to make them. The same speaker in three different rooms is three different sounds. Three different types of speaker in the same room are three different sounds. It is up to every single one of us to tailor our systems to sound the way we want in the room we have available within financial constraints. I personally believe principles are more important than measurements. Some measurements are more important than others, but given the range of issues related to speaker performance in situ, specifications and test measurements reside in the background.

I have said on multiple occasions, what someone says any piece of equipment sounds like means nothing to me because I have no way to interpret this. I only care what I think something, usually a loudspeaker sounds like in my room. When it comes to loudspeakers the specs are virtually meaningless, but the design speaks volumes. In many instances the specs are misleading. 

The important measurements to make are those you can make in your own listening room in regards to amplitude, group delay and dispersion. If you can't hear distortion any measurement is of no significance. If you can't hear noise any noise level is of no significance. 

Both are great, lets scientifically measure them and listen to them. You will end up picking a component that works best for you for any number of reasons. Your bias will be there regardless, for the numbers or for the brand, or for the price, or for the room you auditioned your component in, or for a reviewer, or for word of mouth, or for what you believe sounded better because of an A/B sound comparison which would mostly likely be unreliable (depending on you memory and/or chosen A/B components)... and the list goes on...

These discussions on either side are beyond ridiculous.

One of the reasons this endeavor is so entertaining is that there are no standards for what a stereo system should sound like.

Well, I think THX did a pretty good job for home theater systems in auditoriums which included acoustic requirements and in specifying speaker requirements for homes as well.  We just kind of ignore it all for stereo.

stereophile does it right.  reviewers don’t know the measurements until their review is complete.  keeps them on their toes.  if measurements show a clear flaw that should be relatively easy to hear, and they didn’t hear it, their credibility is shot.  hearing is inherently more biased than measurements, but agree measurements can bias us.  but so can the amt of $ spent.  just on those three factors (there are many others) I would rate them ears, $, measurement in descending order of potential for bias.  the key is what steps we take for each to mitigate the potential for bias.