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Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

I posted.............

elsewhere where George Cardas told me that the predilection for precious metal plating on audiophile ends is bad because the metal galls upon insertion, and that since gold in particular is soft, the affected metal eventually flatten out under pressure. Have you experimented with measuring such an effect?

Figures you mention, particularly in volume changes, are indeed well known, but aren't all the numbers you mention an average? If you take a typical bell curve there will be individuals which fall way out of the specific numbers mentioned. Has any one done research to measure the spread?

The 1.5 dB volume change is the step used in CJ preamps ( I own one), but I often crave for a volume change between steps.

After all, we can say the average human male is say 5' 10" tall, but there are dwarfs and midgets and then we have NBA basketball players.... The spread is quite large, and so can the range of human sensitivities. Do we design for the mediocre or average Joe or do we measure to fit the super sensitive?

Not attempting to put you on the spot or anything, but this is an issue which has dogged me for many years, decades actually. One acquaintance can hear the supersonic pitch used in alarm systems in stores and it drives him crazy (what is it? something like 19kHZ, I can't hear it).

I am sensitive to phase shift although speaker phase shifts are far greater than the numbers you quote. Still I can hear phase in a few seconds, when most of my buddies have to do an AB several times before they can perceive what I hear. Its not always a blessing and can be sometimes a curse.

Still when it comes to something subjective as music is, then perhaps you hit the nail on the head. Of what use are measurements?

I like spicy chili pepper hot foods. My friend's wife absolutely hates it: what to me can be exceedingly bland, she finds fiery hot. Who's to say who is right? At this point it is simply human individuality and no one is correct.

In returning to audio, of what use are measurements? In the same vein, one can prefer seating way back in the balcony of a concert hall and some one else may prefer up front center seats. Same identical performance, but vastly different presentations. Again, there is NO right or wrong, it is simply a preference.

Thus any attempt for me to judge all audio by the simplicity of making measurements of the parameters as we understand them, is essentially useless. You would think if perfect phase, frequency response, and time coherence were the end to all, then all speakers after a certain price point should sound alike. They don't, however, just like you can go to an Italian five star restaurant, or French one, or a Japanese one and each may be equally priced but have vastly different tasting food. A hospital can be antiseptically clean, but I enjoy the pigsty which is my home (Or so the women who have entered term it).

Measurements while a guide, does NOT factor in human subjectivity.

Of course YMMV

Stu


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