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I know there's already been a bunch of discussion about the Stereophile Carver challenge, but as far as I can recall, there hasn't been a link to the article posted. AFAIK, it's not available on the Stereophile site, but it is available on the Carver site linked below.
I really enjoyed reading this article, as it brings up a lot of different issues, both technical and political (in the sense of the "great debate").
From my POV, one of the important issues is the "measurements can't tell everything" claim. I'd say that "it depends on the measurement and the thing being measured". Clearly for something like a loudspeaker, measurements are a big can of worms. Since the output of a loudspeaker isn't just a simple signal, but a field, complexity of loudspeaker measurement is high. But if you consider a power amplifier, measurements are much simpler - though by no means trivial. As far as comparing two amplifiers, the measurements Carver did tell almost everything needed to make the reference and test amplifiers sound the same. That is, applying the same input signal to two different amplifiers with the same dummy load, measuring the difference of their outputs, and adjusting the test amplifier to null the difference is almost all it takes to make them sound the same. High end audio often takes on an air of mysticism, in which it may be stated or strongly implied that the relationship of measurements to perception is forever beyond our grasp. Carver's results provide a nice counterexample to that.
The other thing that came to mind is the contrast between this article and Stereophile as it is now. Consider the following quote:
"But whatever Bob, and others who can match his technical virtuosity, choose to do with the results of this project, I think that the field of high-end audio amplifier manufacture will never be quite the same again. High price and high status will continue to be handmaidens in audio, but the knowledge that high performance and high price need no longer be inseparable cannot help but impair the glamo[u]r of cost-no-object power amps."
I'd characterize this statement as being rather naive, underestimating both the gullibility of some audiophiles and the cleverness of many high end audio marketers. Despite this, it demonstrates that Stereophile at the time was clearly serving the reader first, rather than the industry. Whatever one might think of JGH and his recent rants, he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that would allow a very expensive piece of gear that blew up in test to become "product of the year".
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