If you've been around a while you'll inevitably run into one of the metrics people use to evaluate hifi gear. Toe Tapping. Does the reproduced music get your toe to tap?
Hard to measure with equipment, easy for listeners to quantify. And heck, it's listeners that really matter. Right?
We understand music connects to our emotional centers in a way few other languages do. Good hifi enhances that connection, poorly designed and voiced kit does the opposite.
Might toe tapping point to a whole different set of metrics for evaluating gear? Metrics that involve connections and relationships little understood by our science, but well known instinctively.
As an engineer I can't wrap my arms around what it takes to improve toe tapping, yet I recognize when my toe engages and I get deep into the music. If a particular component choice moved my toe more, that's a good one to remember.
At the end of the day, it all comes back to our best measurement system in the world.
Our ears and minds.
