Test Equipment vs The Ear

Have you ever listened to music with an EE?

Yes, as a matter of fact, my best friend is an EE.
To him, everything sounds the same.
He is perfectly happy with his Adcom electronics and Polk speakers pointing in strange outward directions towards the side walls.

He laughs at my ARC/Pass Labs gear. Total waste of money in his opinion.
He also thinks vinyl is dumb....sigh.

I don't argue anymore, we just do other things together these days, no more listening to music together.

It's funny though how you found issue with that line, but felt no issue with your line:

Discussing measurements with audiophiles is a waste of time.

One line in no more or less foolish than the other.

Just as listening to music with an electrical engineer is a waste of time.

Not if that EE is also an audiophile, as then he could tell you where you could improve your system, with mods to whatever you have if it's not sounding the best.
And you can bet he'd be using the laws of EE and measurements to do those mods if he's worth his salt.

Cheers George

Appeal to Authority Alert! Whoa! That’s two in one day! What are the odds? 🎲 🎲

@williewonka    

I am surprised you are not aware of Soundstage linearity measurements on Speakers.

These show how bad most speakers are. Severely lacking in dynamic range and audibly compressing at 90 DB in most cases.

@shadorne - if you are referring to...

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/test_loudspeakers.htm

I do not believe any of those tests indicates the ability of a speaker to respond to a very dynamic transient signal - such as a drum strike.

They would need to record the transient response i.e. the slew rate and rise time of such transients

It is something the ear can discern very easily and something you can see on an oscilloscope, but to my knowledge (which has its limitations) I do not know of any such measurement reported specifically for speakers at present.

From Wikipedia...

Transient response
.... In loudspeakers, transient response performance is affected by the mass and resonances of drivers and enclosures and by group delay and phase delay introduced by crossover filtering or inadequate time alignment of the loudspeaker’s drivers. Most loudspeakers generate significant amounts of transient distortion, though some designs are less prone to this (e.g. electrostatic loudspeakers, plasma arc tweeters, ribbon tweeters and horn enclosures with multiple entry points).

As for the tests above
- I do appreciate the value of such tests if a person does not have resources (i.e. good audio stores) for audition purposes
- Personally, I have been fortunate in the past to have access to some very good stores that allowed me to audition their very high end products. which has helped me in choosing the components i now own.
..
Mostly, I value the opinions of forum members - but ultimately I trust my ears.

Cheers