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RE: Obviously

...perhaps.

Perhaps you might describe a live musical venue you would use as a reference.

I get that you prefer the subjective approach

I'm an observationalist.

I just wish I had a little better understanding of the mindset behind the decision making process.

Contrary to Tony's assertion that I have a "total disregard for science", I have a healthy appreciation for applying science where the metrics used correlate to that which is being measured. My speakers and bass traps were carefully placed after much experimentation and measuring the FR results. That yielded a very neutral result in the critical bottom octaves, both on paper and audibly. You'll find a third octave plot in my gallery. I precisely set the bias on my amps using measurements proven to yield the best performance. Did that just last week when I retubed. I made initial settings and repeated the process four hours later requiring some changes. Measurements are great when causation and relevancy is established.

On the other hand, I fully appreciate what "science" cannot tell you about an audio component's performance envelope. If you recall, Mike's observation was about dimensionality. Unfortunately, there are no metrics that correlate to the perception of soundstage and imaging. Frequent contributor here and editor of Stereophile John Atkinson is hardly antagonistic towards measuring gear having performed a thorough suite of measurements on literally hundreds of components over the past several decades. Here's his take on that topic found in the closing paragraph of the Ayre KX-R20 review:

"...which means one needs to focus on such higher-order qualities as the presentation of the soundstage and the accuracy of the imaging, neither of which can be measured."

My concern is that the wide range of possible recording and production approaches might be too much to cover with a single amp which has some desirable aspect, beyond gain, only available at a fixed intensity.

What do you mean by "at a fixed intensity"? I will certainly agree that no one amp is perfect at everything, but clearly some amps replicate soundingstaging better than others.

Both he and I use the same criteria: comparing the recorded result to what you hear at the recording itself. While I don't have nearly his depth of experience in that regard, I have participated in recordings by the ASO on Telarc.


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