Maybe the difference is I look at this more from a Tapers viewpoint; this is how I began many years ago, and am still following my passion for recording all kinds of sounds.
Yes it's true tapers don't use their decks inside a metal box, and neither are they doing I/O signal loops!
I test just like tapers use them.
But for me, the Faraday shield box stays with the program as external noise has no place being added to recordings of deck's self-noise. External noise susceptibility is
a different test done ONLY
after knowing self-noise
reference levels.
My testing ONLY involves analog input-to-recorded file system performance. This means working the test like the deck is used and analyse the resulting recording in a simple audio editor. Nothing wrong with this, and many tapers can do such tests these days themselves.
AND PLEASE, NO technical mumbo-jumbo showing huge (good only for marketing) numbers from inputs
unknown, and invisible signal conditions, and defer weighted numbers for marketing purposes.
Tapers and technical people like myself get
no benefit from pseudo-technical obscurity working against understanding what's going on. We need to know
in input/settings practical terms and definitive spectrum graphics ways to get the best experience from using a particular model of portable deck.
So doing real input testing while recording and then showing
definitive graphics as I've done seems most useful from a tapers viewpoint, and
(most) technical people also appreciate this testing technique for being a most concise way to understanding audio deck performance.
I am
not saying Chris is doing anything wrong,
like he's claiming for me, and he can use whatever methods, graphic displays, and explanation, or lack of as he desires in my book.
I personally find his technical displays impossible to understand in any real taper related terms.
But maybe others better appreciate, getting benefit from his tech posts. I encourage Chris to keep at it as there's always chance he will improve his writing ability with practice so even I can get some benefit.
However, I do object to his statements of what I'm doing is
invalid !!
This seems unnecessarily asking for trouble where there's no technical, moral, or ethical problem with my reviewing methods that I'm aware. And I've been doing this type of testing for over 40 years without complaints.