There is an unexplained inconsistency between the measured and perceived quality of audio equipment. The paper analyses the causes of this inconsistency and comes to the conclusion that the theory of feedback is a crude approximation of the actual situation and that testing procedures are flawed. The conclusion is that designing audio equipment needs to be changed significantly in order to close the gap between the measured and perceived quality.
The presentation has been used during a tutorial at the Convention of the Audio Engineering Society in Madrid (Spain) in June 2024.
