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From: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Deliberately designed to measure great AND sound rotten
Message-ID: <8399@uwm.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 90 14:01:28 GMT
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A long while back I remember reading an article that said (roughly) the
following.

        Just because measurements on a piece of equipment show low Total
     Harmonic Distortion or low IM distortion or flat frequency response
     within +/- 0.05 dB, doesn't guarantee it will sound good.  A stunning
     demonstration and Proof of this hypothesis was presented by
     Mr. xxxx [ don't remember name ] at the recent yyyy meeting.

        Mr. xxxx exhibited a small aluminum box which was placed in series
     with the tape loop of a $nn,000 preamplifier.  THD, IM, and frequency
     response were measured with the box in the loop and with the box
     removed from the loop.  The preamp's measurements were identical,
     box-in vs. box-out.  Measurement resolution was 0.01% for distortion,
     +/- 0.05 dB for frequency response.  Then, after the measurements,
     the audience was asked to listen to the preamp, with and without
     the aluminum box.  Everyone agreed that the box's presence
     changed the sound from good to horrible even though the
     measurements predicted identical sound.  So the aluminum box
     "Measured Perfect, Sounded Awful."


Question: if *you* had to present such a demo, what would *you* put
          in the little metal box?

(I _think_ I remember what the article claimed Mr. xxxx put in his box,
but [i] my recollection could be wrong; [ii] netters' ideas for
sound-lousy-measure-great contraptions might prove even more clever.)
-- 
 -- Mark Johnson	
 	MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques M/S 2-02, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
	(408) 524-8308    mark@mips.com  {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark}