Port review at WhatHiFi

You obviously haven’t read my original review of the Playbar,and my every mention of the Playbar after that.  But hey, don’t let that stop you from making this forum about attacking posters rather than opinions.

Chill, man... No need to get so defensive.

I mean, he did comment opinions and no poster was actually mentioned. 

It might be relevant to note that I would ask the same questions of a negative review of sound quality of, for example, a Bluesound unit in the media. Because none of these reviews are based on a level matched controlled DBT, and are therefore subject to reviewer bias, that makes these reviews to be subjective opinions of little use to others.

It is interesting to note that we will accept the validity of DBT as a way to weed out bogus claims for Covid vaccines, but deny the validity of the same principles when it comes to mundane home audio sound quality.

No, I won’t chill.  When accused of being a fanboy by a poster whose post history shows they are only here to stir things up, I will respond with facts to the contrary.  

Whatevs 

The Arc unit cannot be objectively tested as being no different than the other model found to be "better".  I don't care one whit about subjective opinions, except when they fly in the face of objective facts.  

I get the objective argument but for a lot of people listening to music is a subjective experience. I can not objectively  prove that my playbar sounds better than my previous basic sound bar but subjectively I’m pretty sure it does.

Different equipment does sound different. To some people it clearly doesn’t matter but some people it does. I’m a Sonos fan but there is just no way that it sounds as good as my Hi-Fi system.

There are just too many subjective reviews of the port that it is not convincing. It is  intended to link to a Hi-Fi but you google Hi-Fi streamer options they will all offer hi res. It doesn’t matter if the hi res doesn’t sound better but it does matter that you simply can’t play a recording on the port. Sonos is great but it is not the best sounding system in the world. S2 has been introduced for a reason. The Port isn’t convincing the Hi-Fi market it is intended for. Room for improvement which I’m sure Sonos is capable of. 

That’s why, if it concerns audio equipment, I always ignore the parts of the review where they review the sound. The used technology, the options available can be classified, the sound not. Look at all the nonsense descriptions the review sites come up with to talk about how it sounds. I only trust how the device sounds to my own ears. If it sounds good, it is good. No matter what any review site has to say.

I have both the Port and the Connect and I like them both.

There is no arguing that with the kind of gross differences in sound that different speakers deliver, a DBT is necessary to prove that these differences heard are not just subjective opinions. What remains subjective there, and validly so, is a preference for one over the other. So, there is no arguing with the first part quoted.

But with almost all of heard sound quality differences down to speaker quality, placement, room acoustics and recording quality, differences in sound delivered by intermediate products is so small, that conclusions can be easily affected by various well known biases; biases that a DBT seeks to eliminate. 

I can’t speak to the Port, but there has always been scepticism about the Connect too in HiFi markets, with not one DBT to back it up.

Agreed. It is a subjective personal experience. I have a connect to existing Aufiolab DAC and thought I would upgrade to port for S2 and because I want best experience when I upgrade to Sennheiser HD800S offer as not convinced by Momentums for focused listening. 
 

However realised Connect is Gen 2 and there does not appear to be any objective or subjective review that supports switching to Port through an external DAC.  I have found both the objective and subjective camps on here helpful in reaching that view which I appreciate.