@drez & @Danneq I agree the subjective side is important, but I have to side with Anomaly2. Subjective options are much less helpful to the person who started this thread and in answering their original question.
Car magazines for decades have published performance numbers. They buy their own instrumentation, rent the test tracks, and are reasonably methodical in running the tests as fairly as possible to make comparing automotive performance both easy and valid. And outfits like Consumer Reports also try hard to provide comparable test data when possible--like driving all the cars they test on an identical several hundred mile route in similar ways to evaluate the real world gas mileage. Information like this is incredibly useful to a great many people trying to decide what car to buy.
The above is arguably a far better indicator of a cars performance, fuel economy, braking, etc. than a bunch of subjective opinions about those same things. A person can say "my new Honda is a lot quicker than my friend's Chevy". But what does that mean? Has he driven both under similar conditions? Or was he just a passenger in the Chevy? Is one an automatic and the other a manual? In the same way it's really hard to compare casual fuel economy claims. Those who drive aggressively in the city might get half the MPG of others.
Do the test numbers completely describe a car? No they don't. There are lots of other more subjective factors like comfort, convenience, features, looks, colors, the feel of the steering, ride quality, etc.
But several people in this thread have argued, in various ways, the "numbers are useless", and only subjective opinions matter. I completely disagree with that. I maintain subjective reviews for audio gear are often misleading to others and make valid comparisons, at best, very difficult and often impossible. But the right objective data makes comparisons far easier and much more valid.
If a bass-head compares two headphones and raves about the one with exaggerated bass, while slamming the more neutral one, and fails to disclose he likes way more bass than most people, how useful is that review to someone else who doesn't know the person or what either headphone sounds like?
And worse, if Person A describes the sound of his new iPod, and Person B describes the sound of his new Cowon, how is Person C supposed to figure out which one is better for them when their tastes are different than both of the reviewers. And the reviewers tastes are different from each other making comparisons difficult at best? And they may each like different kinds of music, use different EQ options, etc. It quickly turns into total confusion rather than any sort of obvious answers.
I agree if there was some common language we all knew, agreed on, understood, and used properly to describe subjective sound quality it could be a big help. But just look at the wine industry. They've tried to do that and the result is almost laughable. It's not a realistic answer to this problem.
The only way I can see subjective opinions being reasonably valid for the purposes of comparison is if the sample size is sufficiently large, the sample group sufficiently diverse, and every participant listens to the exact same music, at the exact same volume, with all the same settings, and answers the same standardized subjective questions. Then you'd get some statistically meaningful subjective results which could be compared. This, by the way, is essentially how food companies try out new products, soft drinks, etc. But it's obviously impractical for what we're discussing here for any sort of widespread use.
Like I said, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and reasons for buying a particular product. But when they share their opinions on the web, for all to stumble across, they should make it clear it's only ONE PERSON's subjective opinion and not FACT that Product A is better than Product B unless they have some valid objective data to back up the A vs B claim. But that's often not what happens.
This site, and many others, are full of comments and reviews with statements like: "this product has far more low bass extension than that product." And many of those claims can readily be proven wrong using objective methods. So what's wrong with proving them wrong and trying to make choosing products a bit more factual and grounded in reality rather than emotion, hype, psychological bias, and web-viral myth?
