Hmm this find one you trust business sounds okay if you say it quick enough

Point is though, as the recent thread about Quad’s Peter Walker illustrates
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13291

the people that design Hi Fi components tend to design to a specification and like it or not that means measurement.

The very silly may choose to believe that once the required measured performance is attained the designer and a few trusted ears fine tune these components by ear but if that were in fact true, what was the point of the measuring bit if your going to say that doesn’t sound right with speaker A but is okay with speaker B but not with cable F but not on Wednesday?

Do you see where I’m coming from? You can fine tune by ear but only to a particular set of criteria after that its pointless because the likelihood of anyone buying that product and having exactly the same ancillary components, listening environment and hearing is non existent.

The next problem is of course if you’re a company, how do you instruct your technicians to build a component to “how it sounded last week at Bills place”?
You just can’t can you. You have to build to some specification.

Then of course there is the cost involved. Just how much time can you afford to spend listening to the various equipment permutations? What do you do, take two or maybe three people into a room and listen to music for a few weeks?

Of course the manufacturers say they’ve spent thousands of pounds and listening hours in developing their product. But, when I worked in the avionics industry and they have huge R&D budgets it went more like;
Get what the opposition are making.
Measure that.
Rip it to bits.
See what can be replaced at less cost with improved specification.
Make a prototype.
Make it look pretty for customer (yep, even the military like eye candy)
Get an order.
Get the product out the door as fast as possible coz you know your competitors are doing exactly the same.

There have been a few exaples here on AoS of a product going from conception to a manufactured reality. Anyone get asked to participate in any listening tests?

So the Hi Fi reviewer gets a unit. If you’re lucky they’ll actually listen to it for a couple of hours. What can they say about a product? The simple fact is the differences between one amplifier and another say in a properly set up review are going to be slight. After a couple of reviews you’re kinda stuffed for descriptive stuff which is why the reviewer writes so much crap. They can’t do much else can they coz describing how something sounds is hard just once let alone issue after issue.
They can’t write bad stuff about a product coz the publication just won’t get offered kit to review afterwards.
Most journalists don’t know shit about electronics/acoustics so the cant write technical stuff.
It seems from some of the reviews I’ve read that some of these journalists don’t even know how to plug the stuff in properly.
Above all what needs to be remembered even by those who believe in the Hi Fi fairy is that those in the Hi Fi media have a vested interest in perpetuating all and any myths regarding Hi Fi that can help keep the market ticking over.
Its fact. It’s the way of the world.

Once you’ve accepted the above then might be the time to try your hand at the win £25K in the pick that amp competition. Don’t tell me I’m wrong, prove it to me.