What better means at The Sound Lab

I use the word better carefully, because in this hobby it is usually a weapon. At The Sound Lab it has one definition: more convincing to what live sound sounds like. Period.

I settled on it while moving up through DACs. Different DACs, with different power supplies and different analogue stages, sounded different, and as the implementations got more robust, different also became better. Better against what? Not against the specification sheet, but against real musicians in a real space.

That is also why the vinyl argument never ends for me where the measurements end. Technical accuracy and perceptual realism are two different exams, and a format can pass one and fail the other. The system sets the ceiling for how believable a recording can be, and the medium decides how close you get to it.

The definition protects me from one trap at the very top. When I heard dCS and MSB, they sounded different from each other and still miles beyond anything else in realism. Different is not the same as coloured, and a system that paints its own story is not better, however impressive the paint.

If a component makes the band more believable in my room, it is better. If it only wins on paper, it has won nothing I can hear.