Amir and Blind Testing

I think Amir is excellent and had an ideal methodology. I wouldn’t buy anything that didn’t pass muster with him. ASR is an outstanding site. But, if you like million dollar cables and hyped up rubbish it isn’t the place for you.

Great topic. I too agree it can take a long time to really appreciate & understand what a certain component is doing or how it sounds. Often, once you get used to that new sound, it becomes our new standard & how we think it "should"sound.  It's a strange phenomena. 

That said, comparing speakers in the same system doesn't take very long & to me, usually sound quite different. This can be due to the amp driving them or the room & set up & the synergy between it all & the speakers so it too is not a for certain thing what is creating the differences, but they are usually very clear. 

I think Amir is excellent and had an ideal methodology. I wouldn’t buy anything that didn’t pass muster with him. ASR is an outstanding site. But, if you like million dollar cables and hyped up rubbish it isn’t the place for you.

You opposed here "measuring tool fetichist" against "listening brand name gear fetichist"...

They have the same ignorance in common with the RCA dog listening the pavilion of a gramophone with NO ROOM between his device and his ears...At least the dog trust his ears not a decibel meter or a spectroscope only...

These two groups put acoustic and psycho-acoustic way behind their obsession with the gear in their journey , but it is , unbeknownst to them alike, MAINLY with acoustic treatment and control  we can  reach reach optimal sound/musical experience with a speaker/room ...

Measuring is useful...Listening is useful too and correlating the two in acoustic is mandatory and the only fundamental for explaining sound experience... For sure the most deluded are those who trust more a tool at the END than their own ears...

Acousticians use their EARS to tune a room...Guess why?

The interesting experiments are really hard to do. I can imagine a test involving giving some audiophiles long term daily access to a very highly regarded system in an excellent listening room. The trick would be to change things out and see if they hear it. Change out a real copy of an amp or pre-amp or other component with a shell version that looks identical but has different innards. Have available a form to report if they hear something sounding off or degraded, or improved. They would never be told about the fake components being sneaked in on them. The point isn’t to put them on the spot, but to see if they notice changes when they aren’t expecting them at all. I would distract them with some kind of claim that the test was about medical and mental benefits of high end audio use, or something like that. If it is found that they do notice changes on gear that supposedly measures well enough to be beyond the hearing limits of humans, then we have something interesting to start testing - just what is it that’s different about these components that allows people to hear the difference? If something is found, then that can be tested in future components and our understanding of how to make good sounding equipment will be advanced. Without some testing like this, all the reporting of improved sound without a meaningfully correlated measurement is just anecdotal accounts of subjective experience that give us little to build on. People perceive they are hearing differences I have no doubt. But they don’t know why although they offer conjecture. Perhaps the manufacturers do know why but if so they aren’t sharing information that would be very valuable to science and would dramatically enhance their reputations far beyond the audiophile world. As it stands I don’t see research in high end audio reproduction trickling advancements into other fields. That kind of substance doesn’t seem to be present. It’s always the other way around. Or am I wrong?

I saw the post referenced in this thread and think, as many here, it's a valid point. After all the ears have predictable behavior but not the brain. It has all sorts of biases. I recall listening to a system in a store when the rep changed out the DAC to a different model and yes, the sound did change. In the presentation they used 'night and day' or some other statement. All I could think is that they both sounded pretty bad. Now, that's a harsh opinion, but doesn't negate his interpretation that one sounded better, and good for him, that improvement is meaningful and worth the cost.