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.
This post has acquired an interesting and persistent energy. ASR is clearly neither trivial nor unpersuasive or why would so many try to denounce it? I occasionally go to ASR to read their reviews. Their contributors don't appear to be particularly reductionist or dogmatic. If you know what they are using for testing, you can take that as a data point and move on. Their peanut gallery in their comment sections are what you will find anywhere, people who opine based on the review and not anything more. What no site appears to do is true blind listening tests using a standard setup for 2 channel audio, and using self-validating methods (e.g. testing the same system twice to look for variation of the listener's attention and judgment.) |
Well, I notice that you only responded to one of my 3 examples, lol! But with respect to DACs, I think each of the measurements is intended to reflect some specific aspect of sound. Whether you like that quality is of course up to you. But the measurements are intended to, and I think generally do, correlate with a specific quality. For example, a high signal-to-noise ratio means the signal produced by the DAC is high compared to any background noise or interference, which in turn means that the DAC is likely to sound “clean” and retrieve a high level of detail. So the benefit of ASR measurements, which was one of your questions, is that they help informed consumers of the data know which DACs they might prefer if, for example, detail retrieval is one of their listening priorities. Finally, I’ll reiterate that I don’t believe that these measurements tell the whole story about any DAC. Two of my four current DACs measure among the best ever measured by ASR. But my favorite of my 4, while it hasn’t been measured by ASR, would almost certainly not measure as well. And it may well be that my fave is a little less detailed, or has a little more second harmonic distortion, or maybe it just has a little more bloom in the midrange cuz it has a better power supply. I’m not sure, and I’m totally fine with that. I think some of us have a tendency to get way too dogmatic in this hobby. I include some of those at ASR as well as some here at the ‘Gon. Bottom line, I believe ASR has added a lot to the knowledge base for many in our hobby, and I appreciate that. |
What has the better predictive value for the sound of a DAC: SINAD or price? I go with SINAD. Not perfect, but better. Scientifically expressed as higher factor loading in a PCA. Why are expensive DACs generally reported to sound better? Because buyer would otherwise have to admit of having wasted money. Pure psychology. I just bought a Topping D50III ($250) based on ASR assessment. If memory serves me well, it measured SINAD 123 vs. Molamola at 124. So the Topping appears to be good bang for buck, particularly for my little secondary desktop system. As an aside, the D50III gets some recommendations by audiophiles. I compared it to my HoloAudio May L2 ($5K; not in ASR listing) in my main system. Plugged both into Roon server, volume matched, linked the two sources in Roon, plugged both into preamp, so can switch in an instant. Listened to a bunch of different tracks and music styles from EBM (attack/punch) to indie pop (soundstage) to chamber (decay). On some I liked the May better, on some the D50III. Essentially, overly analytical recordings sounded better on the more laid back May, whereas more relaxed recordings sounded better on the D50III. The differences were very subtle, much less than different tubes, headphones, or cartridges. Bad recordings were equally unmasked by both. So a $250 DAC is not clearly worse than a $5K DAC. Price difference: 20x. Shockingly (not) it depends a lot on the recording. ASR serves as a good buyers guide for those of us who rather listen to music than to gear. Not the only one, but a good source. Did I waste $5K on the May? Arguably yes, though the D50III did not exist when I bought the May. Am I replacing the May with another D50III? No. I already have the May and it looks nice, but admittedly does not sound clearly better. I still have to compare the May to the D50 [OG] with SINAD of ~90 Re cables, again, you do not hear capacitance or resistance or inductance, just as lille as you hear color. As pointed out by others here, go start a double blind testing series with listeners, and report your findings. If the EFFECT of cap/ind/rest can be heard in sound waves, that will be most fascinating. A possible EFFECT of cap/ind/rest is frequency response, noise etc. and that is precisely what ASR measures. |
@mdalton I only responded to 1 of your 3 examples because I am very unfamiliar with the other 2. All of the 3 mentioned dacs are exceptionally clean and have exceptional detail retrievals. Which makes no sense because Amir measured the Dave to be very poorly. |
