The quality of music reproduction has no correlation to the typical audio equipment specifications bandied about. Short of saying that all specifications are nonsense, this statement is very true.

A whole industry has been built on audio specifications. It is a marketing person's dream, since numbers are easy to proclaim and advertise. Specifications have come and gone out of fashion, such as total harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, slew rate, bandwidth, and, now, PMPO (can anyone explain this ubiquitous term!). Sometimes, equipment has been designed to highlight this one specification, often to the detriment of overall sound quality. Can anyone come out and say that, because of this one specification, reproduced music sounds more natural, more true to life!

"Specmanship" is here to stay because it provides easy answers, is easy to comprehend, and makes good copy. But, it gives no indication of how the component is able to reproduce music.

Specifications are based on tests done on equipment measuring one parameter at a time. The test signal is often symmetrical, and semi-static in nature (the typical sine wave). Nothing could be further from the nature of a music signal! Music signals are highly asymmetrical, with a huge dynamic range. Music subjects the equipment on all parameters simultaneously (frequency response, dynamics, slew). How the equipment handles this interaction is not shown by single parameter tests. Maybe, the right tests have not been invented yet!

Be wary of selecting equipment on specifications alone. Specifications are just engineering benchmarks, and have no correlation to reproduced music.

Judging the quality of music reproduction is a subjective affair. The only test instruments available to make that judgement are your own ears! Listen to music, to the human voice, and decide if it sounds natural and true to life.

Listen, and trust your ears!