2. misc-audio
  3. 176850-3764

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
deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

Are you any better @sns , insisting on magic because you won't accept your own infallible and easily influenced hearing?  I replied to @realworldaudio's post, objectively, with no idea or care for his qualifications. Some of the things he said are wrong. Some of the things he says seem relevant, and some are likely outside the scope or even capability of any viable test regimen but does not make them irrelevant, just impractical.

rudyb
141 posts
 

Who would consider this a good frequency response?

It’s the Harman curve. Research showed this to be the frequency response for headphones the majority of people like best.

It’s curves like this (there are several variants) that headphone designs nowadays target. Maybe we should do something similar for Amps plus speakers.

Tone control is mostly stripped off of hight end amps, let alone the good old 'loudness' switch. A multiband equalizer is a very nice piece of equipment ... strangely enough seldom used in high end hifi. I wonder why?

Harman curve

 

Ag insider logo xs@2x
woofhaven1992
61 posts
 

I've listened to a lot of amps on a lot of different systems, and I would say that specs are probably less correlated with sound in the case of an amp than they are with virtually any other component on the system.

If someone put a gun to my head and said I had to pick a spec for an amp and make a purchase on that spec alone, I'd want to know its weight. That doesn't tell you a lot about it sound, but it tells you more than just about anything else you could name.

I just bought an amp here on Audiogon, and I couldn't tell you its power rating without googling it.

deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

@rudyb 

You can't compare the frequency response of a headphone to speakers.

sns
3,003 posts
 

This is not magic nor am I trying to insist my reference for sound quality is an objective reference. I am very mindful of my own unique sensory perception, biases, preferences, and I allow others those same considerations. I simply don't understand why some have need to assign some reference sound quality based on present rather primitive measurement regime. Again, this is symptom of inherent authoritarian mindset.

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