“For a long time there has been faith in the technical community that eventually some objective analysis would reconcile critical listener’s subjective experience with laboratory measurement. Perhaps this will occur, but in the meantime, audiophiles largely reject bench specifications as an indicator of audio quality. This is appropriate. Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. We should no more let numbers define audio quality than we would let chemical analysis be the arbiter of fine wines. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment.”
From Nelson Pass’ article on Class A.
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Great review on the P15…affirming what the majority of us
already knew and have experienced with our regenerators.
Thanks brian…
Objective vs. Subjective isn’t something ASR created. It’s very, very old (like many have said).
Here is an old Steve Hoffman forums rule that acknowledges these POVs. It was recently resurrected by Steve (I think it was made sticky by Steve Hoffman, that is):
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/a-note-about-abx-dbt-blind-testing-and-the-sh-forums.278682/
My gosh. This thread has more activity than the MQA thread on the Roon forum in 2020. When I saw 120 updates on this one thread this morning I thought maybe PSA was launching a new sale on the P12. 
I was lucky enough to get mine on the sale 2 years ago.
You apparently missed the discussion of cleaning up noise on the incoming AC in the video posted by PS Audio, as well as:
and
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Perfectly stated. And, IMO, strikes the right balance regarding the respective roles of listening to and measuring equipment for design and evaluation purposes.
In a conversation I had with Nelson Pass, he said that he designs to achieve a basic spec and then voices the amp with no regard at that point for what his voicing preference do to the specs.
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Very true. However, to put measurements in context, when I lived in Sweden the State Liquor Company rated all wines on their level of sweetness, acidity, astringency and fruitiness. This certainly didn’t enable you to identify a fine wine, but with a little bit of experience you could select a wine which was a fair match for a particular dish based on the category scores. I suspect audio measurements can similarly aid, but not determine, choice of equipment.
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I would hate that. I like my method better.
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How does 19.99 from Majestic sound? I’m thinking 75cl x 50% = 37.5cl left for tomorrow.
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Helpful tidbits from the SHMF “Reminder Post”:
Yet we still agree on the following: We’ve both watched folks who would normally get along great - who share a lot of common musical tastes and opinions - people who even agreed about political and religious topics(!!) - shred each other to little bitty pieces over the Objectivist/Subjectivist Double Blind Testing debate. It can go on and on for hundreds of posts, and the only thing it all accomplishes is to annoy and alienate the people who are not at the polar extremes, while reinforcing the opinions of those who are at the polar extremes.
and,
But we won’t be continuing such scenarios here. To some people, the “Subjectivism vs. Objectivism” debate is almost a religion, and you know where we stand on that. Some people may find our lack of interest to continue what can easily be found elsewhere boring, but we find having amicable discussions refreshing, and the real reason that we were drawn to Steve’s site in the first place.
Well said.
[PS: @brian.fitterman, the subject, excerpted post was from 2012 and it was essentially a reminder to behave and adhere to a policy originally established in 2003!]
[PSS: What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
– King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:9)]
Thanks very much for that. A big problem at ASR for the reviews I’ve read is that the vast majority of the participators have no experience of the product, but it doesn’t stop them having forthright opinions.
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Sounds OK to me, bearing in mind that I gave up drinking wine 35 years ago 
I think you are using an unnecessarily high level of precision, however!
Yup, me too. It’s why the Grand Poobah’s of wine education at UC Davis coined the term “Organoleptic evaluation of wine” aka, taste the damn stuff!
Many US wineries and importers put little bar-chart labels on the back of some wines—Rieslings and Gewürztraminers in particular, that let you know where the wine is on a sugar level scale of dry to very sweet. That is such a failure, a farce too, since they don’t also tell you what the acid data are—pH and total acid in particular. A wine can have a lot of sugar but be perfectly balanced by lots of acid.
Drink on fellas!
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If I care about sugar, acid, or even alcohol data of every wine it ruins my enjoyment, and it does not tell me anything about how good the wine will taste. That is what I think about ASR’s measurements; it does not tell me anything about how audio equipment will sound.
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dchang05…you hit nail squarely on the head!!! 
Best wishes
You could say it’s even older. I studied philosophy at CU-Boulder and by the end of my first class on day #1, I was asked to explain the difference between Rationalism and Empiricism….
Exactly! I drink, enjoy, remember, and drink some more. Rinse and repeat!
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I think it went back to Plato and Socrates. There is the excellent play Life of Galileo that contrasted the Rationalism of the Catholic Church with the empiricism of his using a telescope to observe the planetary motions of Jupiter. Galileo gave in to Rationalism, although they had to torture him first, followed by house arrest and a religious minder. Maybe we could arrange to torture some ASR types by making them listen some of these electronics before opining.
Why would they LISTEN to how something sounds? LOL
What’s next for them? Actually tasting food to know how it tastes?
Test driving a vehicle to know how it drives?
Seeing a house in person before buying?
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