Nearly all manufacturers do not advertise/exhibit their product measurements? Why?


After my Audio Science Review review forum, it became apparent that nearly the only way one can determine the measurements of an audio product is wait for a review on line or in a publication.  Most equipment is never reviewed or is given a subjective analysis rather than a measurement oriented review.  One would think that manufacturers used tests and measurements to design and construct their products. 

Manufacturers routinely give the performance characteristics of their products as Specifications.  Those are not test measurements.

I searched the Revel speaker site for measurements of any of their speakers and could not find any.  Revels are universally lauded for their exceptional reviewed measurements.  Lack of published manufacturer measurements is true for nearly every speaker manufacturer I've searched for on line, perhaps several hundred.   Same is true for amps, pre-amps, DACs, transports, turntables, well you get the picture.  Do they have something to hide?   I doubt the good quality products have anything to hide but poor quality products do.  

ASR prides itself in providing "true" measurements that will aid in purchase decisions.   Why don't the manufacturers provide these measurements so that reviewers can test if they are truthful or not?

Then there are the cables and tweaks for which I suspect that there are inadequate tests available to measure sonically perceived differences but which objectivists believe don't exist or are "snake oil."  

Well, please chime in if you have some illuminating thoughts on the subject.   

I would have loved to see manufacturers measurements on my equipment and especially those that I rejected.  

fleschler

@mastering92 

What success? 

A failed tech executive at Microsoft, worked at Sony for a while, made no meaningful contributions that stand today. No one from his generation knows who he is or what he does.

Man, that is a meanspirited thing to say.  Are you this way in real life?  Someone disagrees with your audio views and you get personal this way?  

That aside, I am sure there are executives or managers with better credentials and notoriety than me.  I am however, proud of the accomplishments of my teams and my personal contributions to many of them.  Here are some examples:

1. Technologies developed in my team ship in billions of devices a year.  Not millions but billions. Every few weeks I run into specs of a device that has technology from my team in all manner of products and software.

2. Our video technology is mandatory in Blu-ray format and was responsible for advancement of competing standards to catch up to same.  Without our involvement, Blu-ray format would have only supported the ancient but expensive (see below) MPEG-2 video codec.

3. We worked hard to make the cost of your AV products lower.  While royalties for MPEG-2 video codec was $2.50 per device with no cap, we pushed and achieved cost of less than 50 cents with caps for advanced codecs such as H.264.

4. Speaker of H.264 and other ITU/MPEG standards, we chaired the development of them at those organizations.

5. I came to Microsoft as part of an acquisition of our start up where we significantly innovated in delivery of video on the Internet.  We managed to do this by inventing such as schemes as MBR: multibitrate Audio/video.  Every video you watch on the web today uses the same scheme as you see the quality go up and down based on your connection speed.

6. Technologies developed by my team have been recognized by no less than three Emmy awards.  The first two predate the Internet as we know it today but the last one is well documented (for advancements in delivery of video on the Internet).  Here is a picture of me holding the statue: 

7. I created relationships with many enemies of Microsoft.  This included the top CE companies such as Panasonic.  My contact has been the CEO of this company now for many years.

I could go on but it should be clear that your assertion is incorrect.  But sure, maybe in the next post you show us your accomplishments and that of other reviewers covering audio. 

@bolong

If you can’t trust your ears, what makes you think you can trust measurements?

Oh, we trust your ears completely. It is the rest of your body which you include in "sound" evaluation that causes problems. This is the reasons audio research blinds the listener so that we can  get more reliable data.

Alas, such blinding is time and resource consuming so we resort to measurements which are reliable and repeatable. We then interpret the results using psychacoustic research which is entirely based on listening tests.

@bigtwin 

@mastering92  Re Amir and ASR.  I asked Paul at PS Audio to explain how Amir's testing of the PS Audio Power Plant showed the device did nothing at all.  Here's Paul's reply, which I got in only one day.  That's impressive in itself

Hi Eric,

Sure. I get it. Amir misses the point entirely of the Power Plant’s purpose, which is not as a passive power conditioner that cleans the line noise (which is rather unimportant, sonically). Instead, its purpose is to regenerate new power and regulate that power in a dynamic fashion. That act of regulation lowers impedance and is what improves sonically the connected equipment.

It works and is amazing.

I don't miss any point.  Indeed, I addressed every defense Paul put forward in my follow up tests and and videos.  That aside, it is remarkable that he says reduction of noise is not the point of the product.  This is mentioned clearly in the product page:

"With your system powered directly from the output of the P12, you can expect far better micro and macro dynamics, as well as cleaner, lower background noise. "

Everyone buys these things because they think they "reduce noise."  Paul has changed his tune because that was shot down in my testing showing that this generation of regen is not nearly as clean as a proper AC regenerator as it mixes incoming AC with a correction signal.  See this measurement:

And comparison against my proper lab AC regenerator:

As for impedance, I measured that post his argument.  The turth is the other way around.  An in-rush limiter was causing the device to produce less power than AC signal as shown in my amplifier measurements with Powerplant:

Impedance measurements confirmed that Powerplant made things worse, not better:

There was no stone unturned in analysis of this box showing that at best, it does nothing for your audio gear and at worst, you loose some power.  And you pay $6,000 for the priviledge.

So please, please don't run with stuff manufacturers say.  Be skeptical.  Ask him to prove that his device has lower impedance as I have shown above.  Ask him to show performance improvement with audio device outputs, not AC input.

@amir_asr 

So please, please don't run with stuff manufacturers say.

AND don't run off with what reviewers say. Did you post your in room FR yet?

Why measure speakers that aren't going to perform well because of your room? makes no sense IMO.

 

@kota1 ,

What point are you trying to make. You know we are in agreement, that we both feel Amir's room is a bit of a disaster, though the smooth dispersion of the Revels will help.

The speakers are measured with a device that measures totally independent of the room it is in. It is equivalent to putting it in a large and very good anechoic chamber.

What other measurement are you expecting?