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In Reply to: Re: Theory vs. Practice posted by Dave Garretson on May 20, 2006 at 12:38:10:
I definitely agree that beyond a certain point we are talking about incremental improvement, which is why i'm always uncomfortable about hyperbole.*** As to how to reconcile listening tests to measured technical data, this point-counterpoint is well established in the audio press. ***
I think you are thinking of Stereophile. Just because one magazine refuses to correlate/reconcile subjective opinion with objective data doesn't mean that it's the right approach.
My philosophy is that if something measures bad then it's bad regardless of what the ears think. Of course, one has to take into account that eliminating negative feedback for example can result in relatively higher THD and that beyond a certain performance point the numbers are probably meaningless. But large intermodulation distortion and poor channel separation mean exactly what the numbers suggest. Any reviewer who suggests that such a unit sounds good is probably interpreting the distortion euphonically.
This is not surprising, because our ears have been conditioned to think of distortion as "good". Pop/rock music is all about adding distortion to the music. Drums have been deliberately recorded over-saturated on tape since the 80s (and these days the tape "saturation" effect is digitally mimicked). The electric guitar sound is all about distortion. I'm a keyboard player, and if a synth sounds thin, the first thing that most keyboard players do is add a chorus or flange effect.
The funny thing is that, if you take all these distortion effects out of the music, most bands would sound terrible. No wonder audio reviewers often confuse distortion artefacts with good sound. But if you want to build a truly accurate player, you can't ignore bad measurements (because you don't want to add unintentional distortion on top of intentional distortion). Otherwise you will end up with a player like the one I reviewed - the modder thinks it sounds good, but it's actually terrible from every perspective.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Theory vs. Practice - Christine Tham 17:16:10 05/20/06 (3)
- Re: Theory vs. Practice - iza 00:36:02 05/21/06 (2)
- Re: Theory vs. Practice - Christine Tham 00:48:13 05/21/06 (1)
- Re: Theory vs. Practice - iza 02:55:21 05/21/06 (0)
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