I just think of what Nelson Pass says “This is entertainment”
Yessss, grasshopper
One interesting measure of a whisky is its phenol content, the ppm value, which can be correlated fairly accurately with how smokey it tastes.There is a lot more to malt whisky than smokiness. I like a heavily peated whiskey but the original Octomore, which started the Islay peat wars, had 100 ppm but was otherwise a thin and characterless spirit. It is now up to 309 ppm! A classic heavily peated whisky like Laphroaig has 40 ppm. The Lagavulin 16 is 35 ppm, but I do not really care for it because there is too strong a taste of iodine. The moral is that measurements are interesting and informative but do not tell the whole story. I think this applies equally in audio.
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I’ve been watching this thread for a while. JA at Stereophile has IMO set the standard for objective measurement of everything from phono preamplifiers to loudspeakers for years. He has amassed quite possibly the deepest archive of consistently obtained data across product types and brands that exists anywhere in the world. The ASR community is so narrowly focused it seems to believe ASR and what it is doing is new. Not even close.
The difference between ASR and Stereophile is Stereophile, including JA, has done the audio community a huge favor by publishing both objective measurements AND subjective listening impressions to form an overall opinion of the product. ASR continues to rank components strictly by the numbers, as if that has anything to do with subjective listening satisfaction. Stereophile presents us, the readers, with both the numbers and subjective findings and leaves it up to us to make up our minds.
At one time JA, I believe, stated he would make his huge archive of data available on-line. Not sure whether he ever did but if the ASR types want to wade into data they think only Amir is measuring … there it is.
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Music is a funny thing when people want to continually run faster and consume more in less time. You can run a YouTube video at 2x speed and still consume a great deal from that video. If I tried doing that with my “new arrivals” playlist it’d be impossible to determine if I enjoyed anything on that list. If I gave you a review of the music on that list you’d probably think I was nuts for doing it that way.
That’s kind of how I view ASR. If all you’re doing is measurements you can push a huge amount of gear through “testing”. If all you’re doing is reading measurements you can “evaluate” a huge amount of gear in only a few minutes. It’s a side effect of wanting more in less time and then missing the whole point of the exercise in the first place.
With music there are no shortcuts; it must be consumed in real time. I think that translates to the evaluation of the playback equipment as well. But, maybe I’m just getting old and this post is really my inner voice yelling “get off my lawn (with your measurements)”.
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How about it doesn’t fit AND it’s the ugliest puke green?
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I had an overnight suit made in Hong Kong way back and it lasted about as long as it took to make.
My current favourite suit was made by a local celebrity in Udaipur, India, called Rakesh. Possibly the nicest guy you could meet. My son had some sort of 60s Mod wool overcoat made and he lived in it. We went to his shop, the Gangaur Boutique, and fittings were done at our hotel in Devi-Garh, which was about an hour away. It’s 5 or 6 years ago and as good as new with a lovely paisley silk lining. He said if I ever want another one, just send the measurements, but I’ve not taken the risk.
Here’s Rakesh with one of his more famous customers. He kitted out the whole crew of The Last Marigold Hotel.
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