Very good points indeed. Except that, actually, it's quite easy to measure speakers. Professional testing software (Liberty Audio Suite is an industry standard; for Mac users, there's Fuzzmeasure) exists and is used by speaker designers, reviewers, and home-users (like myself). Some honest reviewers, like Robert Greene, will provide measurements and some information about the room -- which is all-important. Change the room, and the measurements go out the window. Mostly. Except for Quads, some line array speakers, and a few others, that always tend to sound linear and like themselves. And, even then...equally linear speakers can have vastly different sounds (dipole, box speaker)But I digress.
Your point is very well taken. We can tell a great deal indeed from the numbers resulting from testing electronic components. The numbers don't lie. This is a nice piece -- I wish more people would do this: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_4/feature-article-blind-test-power-cords-12-2004.html opaqueice;143033 Wrote: > Bringing up Stereophile's methodology is not a good way to convince a > skeptic. They don't do blind testing, they rely on advertising for > income - therefore the default assumption must be that the reviews are > biased. The burden of proof lies on anyone that thinks otherwise. > > It's difficult to measure speakers, since how they sound depends on > where you put them, and because the frequency response is so far from > flat it's not clear what's better and what's worse - it becomes a > matter of personal preference. For other components, however, I think > good, thorough measurements are quite adequate as a basis for choice. > Early CD players are _not_ a counterexample to this - it was a new > technology, and it wasn't immediately obvious what to measure (now we > know it's jitter). That brief period of adjustment is wrongly taken by > the faithful as evidence that measurement is never adequate. > > I'd love to see blind test results compared to measurements of, say, > amplifiers, or better yet interconnects or power cords or speaker > cables. I'm willing to bet a large sum that no one can tell the > difference between wires with the same measured R, L, and C - and yet > gullible audiophiles spend outrageous sums on such things based on > meaningless reviews. -- highdudgeon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ highdudgeon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2195 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28080 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
