Audio Science Review = "The better the measurement, the better the sound" philosophy

My preference for a reviewer is J. Gordon Holt.  The equipment he found to be musically pleasing is still musically pleasing.   I have noted that it was not Amir who wrote scathing opinions about my equipment and myself but the followers of Amir.

@mitch2 I agree.   Who knows if and when there will be test equipment for currently untestable aspects of sound?   For now, there are those parameters which can be and those which cannot be tested for.  Hence, listening (with various people having divergent preferences) is required to evaluate in a subjective manner the sound reproduction which is most pleasant to least pleasant.   

@djones51 ASR doesn't offer anything of value to us audiophiles. I've been there, done that, I've bought a 250$ DAC with pristine measurements thinking it would be all I'll ever need. I'm poor, you see, so it's easy to fall for ASR 's claims. "Yaaay I got a great deal and you guys are all morons"

Unfortunately, those claims are utter BS in the real world for anyone who has EARS and actually LISTENS to their equipment. So, I'd rather see ASR as a disservice to the audiophile community, on top of being full with obnoxious (let's call a cat a cat) members.

@djones51 I will add, regarding the subject of cables (and other "accessories") that constantly placing those in the "snake oil" and "ripoffs" section is also a huge disservice to newbies or to those who try to keep the costs manageable. Like I said earlier, I'm poor, and I try to buy the best components I can afford (based on SUBJECTIVE reviews and actual experience from owners, not based on measurements) then I try to extract the best from them. I have drawers full of cables, great value cables, and it's true I've got some kind of a fetish for those. 

I can easily describe the sound character of each one of them, and I could easily - if that's what I wanted - change the tonality / PRAT / global presentation of the system just by changing the cable loom. And it's still much cheaper than changing the components. 

I also love "fancy fuses" and isolation footers.

Let's take my last component purchase: Audiolab 6000CDT transport. A great component at very much entry level price. Adding a good power cord (the best you can afford), a 30$ fuse, trying various decoupling footers, and putting some weight on top (I use heavy stainless steel and rubber door stoppers, 8$ each) elevates this entry level transport into something that performs MUCH better. According to Amir and its followers, what I did with that transport is all BS and snake oil, and the sad part is, some guy who reads that might just take the easy way and believe everything he reads there, and on the long run will end up being disappointed (if he actually listens, that is) with his purchase... while it would be so easy and cost effective to take it to the next level (or three levels up!) 

Constantly reducing Audio to a specs sheet or measurement graphs is not only very limited, it is also depriving people of a lot of fun and personal experimentations that would let them enjoy their system a great deal more. 

@mitch2 ASR is a big deal. Your self-centered approach of "take the advice you want" just applies to you, and only you. 

Call me crazy, but the Pink Panther score is EVERYTHING. To a potential buyer, anything less than a Panther swinging a golf club is synonym with garbage, trash, horse manure, baby vomit...

Because buyers want to spend their hard-earned cash on the best value proposition, and be re-assured that they have. ASR is the authority with a science aesthetic. You can remove all critical thought and subjective preferences out of your mind, because ASR did the work for you. You can call this an authoritarian dictatorship, but to the clueless buyer with limited time/money this is a direct message from the angels in the sky. "Buy this and you will be happy".  

ASR has the advantage of using sciency graphs and very little words. This is what people want. They don't want to think, but they want to feel smart. 

An Audiogon member wouldn't really fall for it. But jump to other forums such as DealLabs and you'll immediately read "ASR is a good source for buying advice". I am paraphrasing.

Moreover, imagine selling/recommending gear to a random person. That random person will immediately consult ASR and if the gear doesn't get Amir's approval the deal is off (or you could lose all credibility for recommendations). It's that bad.  

@rolox +1

@kokakolia : I think I understand what you were trying to convey, get your “drift “, but I am not really sure:

ASR is a big deal.

ASR has the advantage of using sciency graphs and very little words. This is what people want.

Some stuff I used to read over the years at ASR is mind boggling. Say on a DAC, comparing (read: measuring) a $12,500 DAC vs. a $300 DAC. They measure pretty much the same, good. Any difference in measurements is simply way beyond human hearing (many of the measurements say the same thing, beyond human hearing threshold). So both are in the list with the same score and “points”. However, who in the right mind would buy the expensive DAC on that list, when the same quality DAC (read: measured quality) can be purchased at a fraction of that price? They proceed to say, yes, some people like to buy “bling”, and they can be totally excused for that, as long as they do NOT “make claims” on the sound quality, which obviously based on the impeccable measurements, is just the same. 🤦‍♂️