Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?
It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.
No. I did peruse the site when I was looking for a DAC and he has SO many listed it became a good starting point from which to search/explore. I'm in the camp with some others that he likely spreads at least as much ignorance as knowledge. Often likely more. I don't buy his testing approach. It's not well designed and I don't believe his equipment and its usage is appropriate to the task. But for some things he does provide useful baselines for consideration. |
Amir has posted a presentation explaining speaker measurements.. "Understanding Speaker Measurements" which I found to be pretty much "matter of fact" presentation, without any obvious bias. Twenty three minutes into his presentation he explains his Klippel Near Field Scanner. https://youtu.be/1lW_QcIlZjY?t=1431
Good link. I'd like to think everyone chiming in here has seen that particular video in full. I'm glad Amir put it out because without it, it can be difficult for some of us to make full sense of his reviews. The level of complexity of such reviews was what put me off ASR initially. I'm always willing to learn new things but my rate of learning is no longer what it was once was. As we know, learning is a little different from remembering.
Also, "sounds communicate to the brain far more quickly than sights. Light travels faster than sound, but its pathway to the conscious brain is much slower. “While vision maxes out at 15 to 25 events per second, hearing is based on events that occur thousands of times per second.”
Fascinating stuff. I learned a long time ago that I could understand a lot more about someone by carefully listening to their voice than by looking at them. There is a certain directness about sound and especially the human voice that can speak volumes.
As Amir and the likes of Floyd Toole readily accept, the science of psycho acoustics, just like the study of the human mind, whilst being fairly accomplished, is still far from being a closed book. |
Amir/ASR never changed my mind about anything because my mind is still open to unexpected audio experiences & observations (or as open as I can make it). That's the opposite of the mindset required by devotees of that website. Audio is a big tent, a lifelong journey. Equipment/gear is obviously a big part of it; but maybe the biggest part of it are all my experiences hearing music performed in the real world (those experiences are rocket fuel for audio, at least in my case). So for me, open-ended audio discussions are catnip. I enjoy and participate in them. But discussions on ASR are anything but open-ended. The regulars drank the Kool Aid long ago and punish anyone who hasn't or won't. Kinda like spirituality. While I'm entirely without religion, I can enjoy and participate in respectful discussions of spirituality. But that's a very different experience than being in a cult where one leader's beliefs are spoon fed to me. I'll do the former sometimes, but the latter--never. |
