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My favorite Political Science joke!

My favorite Political Science joke:

Q.: What's the difference between Perception and Reality?

A.: Reality, you can change.

In my more than 35 years of reading Stereophile, I think I can recall one headphone that had measurements published on it, but that could have been actually measurements of some associated effects processor and not earcup measurements. OK: NO headphone measurements!

I cannot recall Stereophile ever publishing measurements on a phono cartridge or turntable made by John Atkinson (with the advent of affordable personal computer vinyl-equipment testing software, MF has begun publishing screenshots of some measurements, but not consistently for all such components, and that is just one writer's doing that for his column and those measurements are not "official" in the sense of speaking for the whole magazine).

I cannot recall "official" measurements on surround-sound processors, but some graphs have appeared in Kal's column.

It is possible to make arguably meaningful measurements of audio cables--AFAIK Stereophile has never done so.

So, I think that the reality is that there is a huge amount of stuff written about in Stereophile that never gets measured and most people don't notice because they have never seen such measurements and so they don't miss them.

You do raise a valid point that the division of the editorial staff between columnists and reviewers can result in episodes of inconsistency, strictly speaking. My approach long has been that when I encounter a piece of gear that I think is worth the trouble, I ask John Atkinson if he can find the time to measure it. This past week he measured Wilson Benesch's second-generation entry-level speaker, the Square One v.2. Items that I was the first to write about that later received extensive follow-ups or even from-scratch full reviews by others have included DAC/HPAs from Benchmark and Grace Design; darTZeel's NHB-108 power amplifier, Bricasti's M1 DAC, and the B-1 and K-1 loudspeakers from Vivid Audio.

In contrast to how I have handled things, I think it is fair to say that Sam Tellig tended not to make his fave raves available for second opinions, a streak that was disrupted when his Class A+ Digital Processor rating for a budget DAC from Musical Fidelity was made provisional and then upon measurement and listening, that rating was downgraded.

I am not bent out of shape at the idea of a Magneplanar loudspeaker's receiving coverage and not full measurements--in just the same way that I don't think that my praise of Audio-Technica's M50 headphones was inherently suspect just because they received a place in the RCL with no other writer having heard them and no measurements made. More than one AA poster has thanked me for that recommendation. If people need measurements on the A-T M50, they are available elsewhere. And panel speakers are sufficiently sui generis that I think that how the speakers are actually set up in one's room is far more important than QUASI-anechoic measurements ever could be.

I hope this helps.

JM
Speaking of course only for myself.

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