I was mostly talking about DACs and amplifiers, not headphones. Headphones have to deal with more trade-offs: comfort, size, isolation, and the fact that it's r

I was mostly talking about DACs and amplifiers, not headphones. Headphones have to deal with more trade-offs: comfort, size, isolation, and the fact that it's really hard to get them to accurately reproduce sound. Still, so what if current headphones suck at reproducing sounds? That doesn't mean we should ignore quantitative measurements. If the "right" inaccuracies are so subtle-yet-crucial, it's important to quantify them! Then we can evaluate headphones based on how accurately they create those inaccuracies. And I think you're missing the point of the EQ experiment. NwAvGuy wanted to see if there was more to quantifying headphone quality than a frequency response curve. He was right. That just means that objective evaluations of headphone quality will need to include more measurements. That doesn't mean we should disregard measurements and go with subjective impressions. Otherwise, something as mundane as a warm drink can skew the reviewer's opinion.[1] 1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7688315.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7688315.stm