As a musician also, it’s always a two step process. You cannot try out ALL the guitars or pianos, in the store. That would take far too long.
The specs, and reviews, and nowadays the audio and video examples online, are educational, informative, and entertaining, going a long way to narrow down to a smaller shortlist, the things I want to audition, when I get into the store.
The difference I think is really COST. If I’m spending e.g. $2,000+ on an instrument or a studio speaker/monitor, or a live speaker, no way would I buy it online without a personal demo, in a store or warehouse demo facility.
I am unlikely to ever spend $2,000+ on a hi-fi home speaker, or headphone or IEM. For IEM’s in particular(which with ChiFi, has become a lot easier to binge on and impulse buy cos of their low cost) and possibly headphones, that’s where the reviews and measurements can help. When I’m buying less expensive kit.
I find the squig.link really really helpful in comparing an IEM I already own, with others that I already own, and hear what the differences sound like, and then it’s easy to anticipate what other IEMs which I do not own, may sound like, when I compare them “virtually”. For lower value items, below say $100, especially as there are so many of these products nowadays, the lower the cost , the more models are available, it’s almost impossible to find a store which stocks every single ChiFi lower cost IEM, that one may be interested in. Simply impossible.
And this is where reviewers and measurements, in my experience, really can help provide perspective, of what to expect, compared to what one already owns. I think also the pedigree of the reviewer and the measurements is important. I’d be happy to spend $500 possibly up to $1,000, on a pair of Hi-Fi speakers, purely based on a review with measurements by Erin’s Audio Corner (Youtuber and blogger) or AmirM (Audio Science Review founder), cos for speakers, there is a long tradition of measurements from many sides of the audio journalistic space. As long as I had the Frequency response, dispersion(vertically or horizontally), in room prediction, waterfall and impulse response, I’d be comfortable buying without listening.
In one aspect of the pro audio space, the manufacturers provide measurements, extensive one’s also, for professional use, so we can predict the performance of a speaker configuration, in a hall, or venue, using simulation software, and do a good chunk of the planning, ahead of placing the speakers physically in the room. Typically this is done for the larger events e.g Taylor Swift or Beyonce concerts, and without measurements, it would be impossible to achieve this, cos there is no time, for trial and error, at every new venue, so measurements have their place, and are used extensively to define setups costing millions of dollars for a PA system, either an installed one or a “mobile” one.
If big money spenders can rely on measurements, to plan and choose what to deploy, some of that intelligence should trickle down to the more budget end of things, to assist us with decision making., without having to listen to every item, we are interested in procuring.
So measurements do have a certain value, at the very least to exclude things that are predictably far from ideal, and not worth auditioning. A device that measures well, may still sound not so good, but a device which clearly measures far from the desired target, is unlikely to sound good.
).
