And here I was thinking that it is classic rock that is the pinnacle. Oh well it soon won’t matter since both musical genres will be all about dead people. 
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The Golden Age is always in the past.
No, yes, maybe, possibly and depends.
I think that sums up another thread.
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And don’t you forget it. 
Hi Michael,
I see that you have a Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB, just like me.
I’ve had a ton of trouble making streamers work with this device. If you have any experience on how to make this work, I’d love to hear it.
I asked about it in this post.
Thank you 
As usual this sort of debate splits into the two camps. Why not just try two different endpoints and listen for yourself?
Hi Phil, because you can’t trust your ears, and even you are well trainned, it’s hard to set a perfectly well balanced test with matched levels and so on.
That’s why it’s better to trust science and engineers to determine perfectly measurable sound properties. It’s not a matter of taste, like if you prefer a horn or a paper cone tweeter.
Frecuency response, noise, distortion or time errors (as jitter) are perfectly measurable variables that give you a perfect frame to judge sound quality. Again, sound quality, not your sound preference.
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Pablo
We will have to agree to disagree.
Particularly your bit about ‘perfect frame to judge sound quality’. That assumes science knows every parameter that impacts sound quality. I rather doubt it.
And how can the difference between a horn and a paper cone tweeter be down to taste? Surely if they measure the same they sound the same.
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But… they don’t measure the same in every aspect.
If “the science” dies not know every parameter impacting SQ (quite possible), neither do people designing fancy equipment. But at least science does give us tools to compare things properly, even matters of preference.
You doubt is probably based on your senses. I rather doubt that than science.
No manufacturers don’t, which is why they listen to what they’re designing as well as ensuring it measures well.
And many of them say that something can measure well but not sound as good as something that measures less well.
A specific example: Allo had a DAC they sold with two different boards, one that measured better, the other sounded better. I listened to both boards and concurred with Allo’s view. And the old one about valve amps having more distortion than SS but it’s a type of distortion (some) people like is well known.
My view is that measurements and listening both have a place in designing gear. Just relying on one, whichever it is, is flawed.
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Science is about the advancement of knowledge. Which implies there are new things to learn. Anyone who thinks we know all there is to know about the science of sound is being rather…unscientific
The hummingbird flight example is the one I usually quote. Not too long ago the science said that hummingbirds couldn’t fly. The science got better, we understood more. Now we understand how they can fly.
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At which point I shall leave the debate As I said earlier, it isn’t going to change either of our positions
Of course you need to listen, at least to some things (no, you don’t need to listen to power cables). But science says nothing about people liking one sound over the other. It does however say how to properly test whether you really prefer e.g. tube sound, rather than believe that you should prefer it. Which is very much a thing.
Really being picky here. I believe the flying debate was about bees, not hummingbirds. I like to listen to music. I read reviews and glance at the measurements. Love this hobby.