-301 dB isn't into quantum level effects - so for driving say a Stealth at decent volume levels then -301db is about 600 electrons - which is still a scary small number. If you had told me that needing this level of accuracy was subjectively important 10 years ago I would have said you were deluded or insane. No way the ear/brain can be that sensitive. But I can only report what I hear - and I have done a huge number of listening tests (some blind) where at this level one can perceive it. The odd thing is that these things are easy to hear - just look at the previous post about the transparency of Dave against TT2 for example - but the technical difference between Dave and TT2 for small signal accuracy is very small.
We must always be wary of attractively simplistic theories.
The data has primacy. When there is a discrepancy between theory and data we do not throw away the data, we throw away the theory.
Enough people in reasonably well-constructed test scenarios can hear these differences and we have to accept that data exists that we cannot ignore.
For examples, riddle me these:
Why is it that dome breakup in tweeters above eg 30kHz matters when it seems we cannot hear above less than 20kHz? But it does.
Why would we never dream of using unequal cable lengths left and right in a high-end system? But we wouldn't.
Why are all high-end amplifiers that do imaging and sound staging properly constructed with absolute left-right symmetry? But they are.
How can we hear the difference between a Steinway and a Bösendorfer on a transistor radio with a 2" speaker in mono? But we can.
How is it that a pure stereo system of only a left and a right speaker can create a soundscape that not only reaches past the speakers left and right but also up and down, above the head of and even behind the listener. But it can. My main system does this, I have heard it myself.
And there's much more of the same.
Data points that cannot and must not be ignored.
The "ear/brain" is performing analysis that goes far beyond a basic analogy of "microphone/tape recorder" on which a lot of simplistic arguments seem to be based.
The ear/brain when listening is working not just in the here and now but is working with the totality of the sound being heard - past, present, and future expectation - fitting the sound to a vast learned experience of sound starting when laid in a cot as a baby.
There was a time in our evolutionary history that picking out tiny delicate sounds in an ambient was a matter of life or death. Our ear/brain system evolved to meet this challenge.
We still have this power to analyse sound in great detail.
