Me either, I have 440 replies to read yet.
Will I manage ?
Hardly.
Group A results announced!
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
Naim NAC A5 tops Group A with Inakustik and Tellurium Q crashing out.
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Hi @SoundsOfMusic ,
Thanks for joining in here (and with the football reference). 
I do agree with you that I may be a little bit ‘nuts’.
I don’t know if you ever looked at the ‘What Audiophile Type Are You?’ thread from 2025 (relevant links to jump in are here and here)?
In that discussion I self-identified as a sub-category of the ‘Measurement Monk’, AKA the ‘Mad Measurement Monk’ - i.e. somebody who believes “cables do make a difference”.
Are you willing to share what Audiophile Type categories with which you align?
PS: I am obviously a Room Treatment Warlock as well - have you ever considered such things?
There is a long running thread on the topic here: Listening Room Reality.
Hi @Innocent_Bystander ,
Thanks for your observation regarding the importance of repeatability. I personally believe that doing the listening judgement this way (for loudspeaker cables) using human listening candidates is not very effective as the time between cable changes is way too long. Furthermore, it becomes prohibitively costly to get anywhere close to results that might be considered to have some statistical significance (whatever those results might be).
That is why I am trying to get repeatability into the acoustic measurements (using a calibrated microphone and REW in the equivalent of a ITU/EBU quality standard listening space).
In undertaking this endeavour (as well as a learning experience for me) there has been extra ROI with specific knowledge gained re the performance (and ‘claimed’ directionality) of Naim NAC A5 - thanks to your questioning the deterioration in L measurement on NAC A5 wrt increasing frequency.
There is still more to come…back to football…
During last week a diligent journalist uncovered the fact that FIFA were aware that a second RED card situation had occurred in matches played for Group B team selection process.
Here is the image obtained by the journalist.
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
Hi All,
In the real world the FIFA World Cup moves on to the semi-finals and then the final.
Here in HiFi world there has been some controversy. Germany (Inakustik) were unhappy with some of the referee decisions in the matches in Group A and have appealed the outcome!
Having checked the data - they (Inakustik) may have a legitimate point - although nobody on the forum spotted the score charts with some weird inconsistencies and double scorings at the time of the matches being posted.
Need to call in the HiFi equivalent of VAR to see if the declared result of Group A still stands.
The full name of the HiFi equivalent of football VAR is the Experimental Assistance Referee - or in short form ‘The EAR’.
NB: This EAR is different and entirely unconnected with the HiFi publication The EAR.
The EAR has asked the Group A matches data be presented, not by ‘teams’, but rather by ‘order of play’. I.e. analysis of ‘preferred sound’ selection by order play position (A, B or C).
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
I didn’t enjoy that video.
I avoided it the first time you posted it and was sad when I watched it and it was just trivial nonsense.
The only tolerably amusing thing to come from that link was IB’s alternative list:
“Brand Groupies (of which dominant here by definition are Naimophiles), Serial Tweakers and their close relations Fad Followers, HiFi Fashionisters, VFM (Value for Money) freaks, Flat Earthers, Gear Collectors, Song Collectors, Accuracy Freak, Nirvana Seeker, Objectivist, Boogie Loving Foot Tapper and, the most perverse of all, Music Lovers.”
I am a music lover, Naim lover, and Boogie Loving Foot Tapper (with primary interest in jazz and blues).
I am not at all a measurement guy when it comes to Hifi or listening to Music, although I am of course aware that it’s crucial to be a measurement guy when it comes to Building amps or dacs or musical instruments.
I got my first Hifi in 1980 when I left school and got a job.
As a punk, a bad drummer, and a bibliophile, I decided to buy a Hifi magazine at WHSmith in Solihull.
I was repelled by the waterfall graphs and pages of technical gubbins that seemed to me at the time to have absolutely nothing to do with the love of Music.
I did pick up a couple of panels from GIK that are behind my listening chair so I’m not against room treatment.
I think it may now be ‘all over’ when it comes to categorising people who like listening to music, and not at all a
game of two halves.