[John Williamson]

On 29/04/2017 14:14, wrote:
Ron Capik wrote: "I'll give K-Man a tiny bit of credit for having learned
a few things since he started posting here. "

Thanks!



"When Scott and others here say "use your ears" there
are a lot of unstated assumptions that pro and semi-pro
understand with out the need for a detailed /caveat/ list."

Well, we all know about ASSuming, and
one would have to BE one by stating
that documentation and metering are
not important. To them I say: Both
meters and ears matter!

When specifying pro gear, meters and ears are both important as the
limits within which it will work to the spec are important, both for its
intended use and its maximum life, bearing in mind that pro gear tends
to be run much closer to its limits than a home audio setup.

With consumer gear, specifications are generally much wider, and quality
is more variable within a run of stuff off the line, and as long as you
are running within its limits, metering and close attention to
impedances isn't all that important since the dawn of direct coupled
transistor amplifiers, which brought an end to the need to match the
output stage and transformer to the speaker impedances. Even the lower
limit of impedance stated by the maker will have a margin built in, so
in the case under consideration here, the amplifier will survive two
sets of 4 ohm speakers in parallel, subject to a possibility of
instability due to power supply overloading, and thermal problems if the
volume is turned up too high, so causing the output transistors to
exceed their safe dissipation levels.

Hence Scott and others will say of consumer gear "Use your ears, and of
it sounds good, that's okay." When they are setting up a session or
building a studio, repeatability is important, so they use meters and
cheat sheets to document the setup, so that the next session is the same
as the current one. For non critical applications, then "Use your ears"
is a good rule for pro gear and setups as well, as long as the original
specification was done correctly.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.