Send in the Clowns

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”

William Bruce Cameron (quoted famously by Albert Einstein)

From personal experience, and accounts of other audio friends, I’ve listened to many of the inexpensive overseas and US made top measuring chip DACS as measured by a well known “scientific” audio forum.
These DACS sound mediocre at best. Nominally gray, flat, electronic sounding. Lack of: color, life, and inner vitality that keeps one from really getting something out of a good listening session. DACS like this are good for cars, desktop PC speakers, etc but can’t compare to the much better musical DACS available.

Basic measurements are an important part of design and basic functional verification but their response to passing musical signals and the relevance of that analog result to “musicality”, simply can’t be quantified. As Nelson Pass said, IIRC, our ears are not microphones, and our brains are not oscilloscopes”.

People perceive things differently and have preferences when it comes to sound.  That’s why there is no perfect speaker (or other piece of equipment).  I was reading some of the studies published on sound on the AES website and it was interesting what people perceived and preferred.  There was not 100% agreement on any one thing.  It brings me back to people trusting their ears.  Watching videos and reading comments it appears some people want validation about what they’re hearing and others want to convince others that what they believe is gospel and heaven help the person that disagrees.  We don’t all have to agree.  If you believe something sounds better because you tried this or switched to that, then it does.  Let’s all enjoy our music and our musical journey.  That’s what this hobby is all about to me.

I like measurements derived from good engineering and science, including user studies that ask critical questions about what groups of listeners perceive as better. By looking deeply at the science and how human hearing appears to operate we can get better reproduction equipment. We certainly want, at first blush, equipment that accurately reproduces the original recording which means we want exceptional fidelity that can be assessed via principled measurements. Now some folks like coloring the reproduced sound to suit their preferences. Luckily, we are in a golden age where DSP can be used to achieved almost any outcome and room treatments can compensate where DSP can’t quite deliver. At least we can measure those outcomes, though!

But I do like this hobby and the musical journey, and especially like that we have great measurement resources that can help us distinguish exceptionally engineered equipment from merely overpriced and underwhelming hype.

If it wasn't a tube amp, then it doesn't matter. It will sound the same as every other amp ever made. Clown.

" It will sound the same as every other amp ever made. Clown."
I am glad you admit that this statement is a clownish one. It has to be satire as this is completely absurd.