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. 

chayro

I dont understand why people are so polarized... With agressivity...

Amir do a free service that is and will be welcome...Dont kill the messenger...

Some of his disciples did not do the job he did, take is measures as absolute truth about hearing and audio , and quarrel about cables...These i like much less than Amir...

I dont like people who will judge me to be an idiot or a fool because i have faith in my hearing history and the way i will use or not my biases... it is like idiots saying to the patient doctor that he will die anyway because the pill is only sugar, and the placebo effect is not a drug... Do you catch how some stupid people are fool even when they are right ?

Blind test is for industrial marketer and for Amir needs, they are not designed to be used for listener in their acoustic room tuning process or with their gear...It can be fun and i did it with a friend young...But a fun test is not debunking work... Amir will do it and we will thank him for the information it gives us... But we will be free in our living room...Why? Because biases are not only negative door for auditory illusions created by the market; they are also our positive tools and motivation and these biases we must tame them by acoustic experiments, not erase them by looking at numbers or conclusion  from an electrical graph...Acoustician listen a room they dont look electrical graphs..

Audio is simplistic matter only for gear centered mind, audio is in truth very complex psycho-acoustic and acoustic field of research..

 

For me the two side here are fooled by the gear market strategy in the same way : they focus on gear POWER design and dont experiment with acoustic... They buy panels and call it job done... For me it is job not done at all... It is my perspective...

By the way difference between cables are dwarfed by acoustic impact...There is some difference and it was easy to spot by me when i pick two cables long ago to choose from...But this difference they are so small and subtle people never bothered with them in the past... Amir is right about costly cords, it is scam even if there is minuscule differences because it put the focus of people on the gear minutiae and then fool them about acoustic and audio...

Expression of hate in the two side are for me expression of the SAME IGNORANCE... We must learn how to listen and this learning history has nothing to do with what most reviewers do, changing the gear... Nothing... Psycho-acoustic cocepts are not electrical design concepts...

If someone tells me I’ve said something "fallacious," I don’t take that as a put down. They are doing me a service -- helping direct me to what is false. Because I prefer not to believe or claim false things. @amir_asr then goes to explain why it is fallacious. Those who interpret this as a personal attack just prove Amir’s point that some here are not interested in facts. (You don't agree with his argument that it's fallacious? Fine. Then rebut him. But don't take it personally.)

The test of this would be to point out to Amir that he has made a mistake and see if he takes it personally or if he tries to verify it or rebut it -- with facts. Dispassion is the mark of science. If one cannot live up to that virtue, then they are not being scientific.

We’re all after audio quality, right?

Audio quality costs money. Any money one is saved by successful tests and measurements, and borne out in listening, is money which can be directed to the true weak links rather than the false weak links.

That’s how Amir advances the audiophile project.

@painter24 

Thank you for your service in terms of public health, and my condolences on the health issues you face. 

However...this...

I wish I had nothing else to think about other than sitting around measuring bits of hifi, but my sense of public duty, and service to the public under our collective care, for me is part of my belief system, hence where I work.

...seems like a bit of a moralizing dig at Amir.   "sitting around measuring bits of hifi."   A suggestion that his spending time on audio gear is less noble than what your "sense of public duty" compels you to spend your time on.   I don't know if you meant it that way, but that's how it comes across.

If so: that same "dig" could be made about every single person in this forum and in this hobby.  "Don't you have BETTER, more noble ways to spend your time/money than posting on an audio forum, or on the audio/music hobby?"

You find listening to music as your getaway, your way of spending your spare time.  Amir or others enjoy understanding and measuring audio equipment, and sharing that information with others who are interested.  Such is the variety of life.

One can just say "I'm not really interested in spending my time measuring equipment.  It's not something I'm that interested in."

That's pretty much the case for me.  I'll leave that to others more interested and technically inclined than I am do that.

 

 

 

 

@mahgister

I dont understand why people are so polarized... With agressivity...

This is a good point. I saw an old polarizing topic revisited in the news recently. Remember the old meme that was going around with the dress, about whether the dress was white and gold or black and blue? It really got people upset because their perception was obvious to them, and others claiming to see something completely different almost feels like a blatant lie. It’s a challenge to basic reality that’s plainly evident. It feels frustrating. (As for that one, I never took a side because the photo looked odd, like the color and contrast was intentionally ambiguous so I felt like I was being set up.)

I feel some of this frustration with stereo interaural crosstalk screwing up the tone with center panned images. I just went to the Pacific Audiofest and heard a bunch of otherwise very exquisite systems just completely ignoring this problem, with everybody acting like there’s nothing wrong. I hear it so clearly that it’s mind boggling to me. It’s a huge flaw in terms of what I expect from a high end system. How can people put up with this in something that’s had so much effort and expense put in to it to approach perfection?

I think it’s kind of like the dress. They don’t interpret the comb filtering the same way I do, so it comes across completely different perceptually to them, perhaps as a sense of depth, 3D dimensionality. I just move off center when I want to hear the center panned vocals or instrumentals sound better. This works for everybody because now I’m not taking up the "prime" center seats at the show.