Pleasurably better, not measurably better

Everybody’s ears are different...

Yeah… @curtdr But the sound of whatever is playing should be the same.
A measurement sort of puts it all on a common baseline, and removes the ears from the equation.

If someone is curious…

@fleschler the photo is only a bit of a peek in from a window or doorway.
I feel like Chancy Gardner “watching” it.

holmz but if one is listening to music, ears are NEVER removed from the equation. Hence the real real-world artificiality is when one depends solely on laboratory measurements that have cut the ears off.

this (below) mostly covers it:

I’ve not heard Pure Audio speakers in a very long time, and certainly not these models. I am however always skeptical when someone says they switched speakers to hear more. It’s usually hearing something DIFFERENT than they did before. Not saying he’s wrong, but this is a claim I’ve seen a hundred times from a dozen reviewers and IMHO neutrality was not the reason.

^this^
One can have the same exact music playing on the same system, and every time it can have subtle difference in what we perceive and focus on.

It is like a magic trick at a dealer’s shop, when they say listen to the “shimmer of the cymbals,” that is pretty much all we hear.
We are so busy focusing on one hand, that the other hand can literally pull a rabbit out of the hat or thin air.

So it is not so much that we all hear differently, it is more like we all focus differently, and the same person can change they’re focussing on.

At least with measurements we might get to the point where we find that all of the ones with certain squiggles we either like or don’t like.

And we are not likely to be fooling anyone, as the majority of people seem to find a set of gear either sounds good or doesn’t… and they quickly can acclimate to the sound. And that some measurements correlate with good sound.

To say that the ears are all different would be like saying that the feel of a block of ice or a hot stove is different because all people “feel” differently. I sort of doubt it.
Maybe it is possible…
But I would like to know the temperature, of say a bath, before I get in it… then over time I might find I like 95F water better than 50F or 130F.

Lastly; I do not mind know knowing that my gear is technically inferior, and that I still like it.
I am not going to be listening to graph paper… even though I know some people can read sheet music and hear the sound in their head. For them the ears are not even involved… much like Beethoven and other composers can be partially or totally deaf.

When we see high noise values we can pretty much expect to start with a system that will be hissing.
And when we see a spray of harmonics, like the 4th through 10th trailing out to the right, we know it is not count to be smooth and warm, and we know it before the Beethoven even starts playing.

Arguing about the relative level of 2nd and 3rd harmonics is like comparing the bath water preference of 90, 95 and 100F. Or why we have salt and pepper shakers on the table.

Everyone’s tongues are not that different, some people just do not care for too much spice.

@curtdr If we have someone singing, there is only one singer. Whether one person is there watching or a thousand, it is still only one singer. And it does not matter what every member of the audience is hearing, and what their ears measure at the audiologist.

Saying that “we all hear differently” does not make it become 1000 singers.

We may prefer it pitch corrected, or tone corrected, and we may like the room to not colour the sound.
If I have 10 people listen to the same track, they all say that is Bob Dylan. I do not get people claiming that it is The Pixies, The Police or some random piano track.

Whatever they are hearing, that track sounds like the same Bob Dylan that they have heard and that they know.

Ok - I generally agree that one should get what they like.
But if we want the reproduction to still sound like the singer, then we generally want something that is not distorted to hell n back.

Then again I have heard some speakers with a lot of personality that sounded pretty good.

And I have some tube gear, so I must like some distortion, just like everyone else.
But the gear is not too far over on the spectrum of tubey.

I heard some speaker with the low distortion Purifi drivers, and they were pretty outstanding, so it is not like accuracy and low distortion is bad… 

No, I’m not saying they are either, but that no oscilloscope or calibrated microphone knows the experience you are trying to have, that you want to have, that makes you feel good.

Yeah true.
But most people find certain distortions are grating.
There is decades of research, that I do not want to just ignore.

i suspect that your “Custom sub integrator‘ integrator thread will be using measurements. And my AVR seems to sound better after the microphone is plugged in and it calibrates itself.

Someone, somewhere, figured out that statistically people like it when it corrects for the room. While I would like to think I am different and unique, the sound seems better when it does it all for me.

I do have some settings which have a tilt, or tone control slope… and I can rattle through to choose the one I like best for that show or movie.