The Audio Science Review (ASR) approach to reviewing wines.


Imagine doing a wine review as follows - samples of wines are assessed by a reviewer who measures multiple variables including light transmission, specific gravity, residual sugar, salinity, boiling point etc.  These tests are repeated while playing test tones through the samples at different frequencies.

The results are compiled and the winner selected based on those measurements and the reviewer concludes that the other wines can't possibly be as good based on their measured results.  

At no point does the reviewer assess the bouquet of the wine nor taste it.  He relies on the science of measured results and not the decidedly unscientific subjective experience of smell and taste.

That is the ASR approach to audio - drinking Kool Aid, not wine.

toronto416

@samureyex @jrareform 

LOL! ASR s faulted for evaluating equipment based on measurements (which are actually relevant to audio such as frequency response, distortion), and then you adduce measurements that are INaudible (capacitance, resistance, maybe also color?) to support your claim of differences? LOL!!! Can you tell from listening that cable has 10 µOhm/m vs 20 µOhm/m? (no idea about actual values, as they are irrelevant to audibility). 

The real question is, are those different values audible, i.e. human perceptible? ASR makes excellent case that they are not, based on measurements that are RELEVANT to audio. That is why Amir makes frequent reference to threshold of hearing to put measurements into context of human experience.

Yes, Amir uses equipment that can measure differences way below the threshold of hearing, which is good scientific practice. Make sure you can possibly show differences relevant to the question at hand above noise floor of measuring equipment. I use scanning electron microscopy to look at 1–10 µm structures, although light microscopy could theoretically resolve down to 250 nm; in practice less due to diffraction, but that's a different story.

Re burden of proof, of course, nobody HAS to do anything. This is in context of scientific hypothesis testing, and there H0 is always no difference. Without having to show anything, scientifically there is no difference. QED.

ASR provides a helpful ’yardstick’ of objective measurements. In a world where many are either forced or choose to buy components that they cannot audition, I believe ASR provides a valuable service. And even for those of us who have had a chance to audition prospective purchases, when caught betwixt and between two pieces of gear based on our subjective evaluations, again, ASR provides a helpful yardstick. Cheers!

What are the possible aspects of music you can hear?
Frequency
Amplitude
Duration
Accuracy to original signal

These are exceptionally easy to test, the flavor of wine is impossible to test we don't even know exactly how taste or smell actually work. 
Audio is simple to test and duration is the part of physics that mankind is the most adept at, musicality, fluffy descriptions of ambiguous terms only cost you money and show how gullible we are.


 

@donavabdear 

i’ve never thought about it in that way and that’s an interesting perspective. Not sure I completely agree with the conclusion, but certainly an interesting premise

@mdalton Providing consistent measurement for DACS, but the data doesn't seem useful. I or you can't look at the data and say this better measured one will sound better. Which is where I question its usefulness. If I can't predict the sound quality based on the measurement, then what good is the measurement?