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Audio Science Review = "The better the measurement, the better the sound" philosophy

"Audiophiles are Snobs"  Youtube features an idiot!  He states, with no equivocation,  that $5,000 and $10,000 speakers sound equally good and a $500 and $5,000 integrated amp sound equally good.  He is either deaf or a liar or both! 

There is a site filled with posters like him called Audio Science Review.  If a reasonable person posts, they immediately tear him down, using selected words and/or sentences from the reasonable poster as100% proof that the audiophile is dumb and stupid with his money. They also occasionally state that the high end audio equipment/cable/tweak sellers are criminals who commit fraud on the public.  They often state that if something scientifically measures better, then it sounds better.   They give no credence to unmeasurable sound factors like PRAT and Ambiance.   Some of the posters music choices range from rap to hip hop and anything pop oriented created in the past from 1995.  

Have any of audiogon (or any other reasonable audio forum site) posters encountered this horrible group of miscreants?  

fleschler
russ69's avatar
russ69
3,360 posts
 

We have talked about this before. The fact that he pans some equipment without listening to it is enough for me to discount his opinion.

carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

If their claims matched reality, I’d say "cool, they know how to measure important things". Apparently they don’t know how. A bad review from ASR is a badge of honor.

 

reimarc's avatar
reimarc
54 posts
 

All I can say from personal experience: I have as my preamp a hand-made copy of The Truth by Ed Shilling. It is built like something out of a high school science project, but it sounds absolutely amazing and I just love it: you cannot hear it, as it adds or subtracts absolutely nothing, because the signal path is completely decoupled from the gain stage (by means of a LED/light-sensor circuit);  but what it does is creating amazing dynamics. Needless to say, ASR trashed it so badly that I feel really sorry for Ed. But Ed is just shrugging it off, good man.

oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,462 posts
 

Everything in my system with the exception of my RME adi2 DAC would fail ASR's strict measurement criteria , yet together as a system they sound great .  Explain that please .   

The RME was the darling of ASR for a while and it's not a bad DAC at all.    Compare it to the LAB 12 DAC 1 Reference that replaced it and there's no contest .   The LAB 12 sounds much more lifelike despite it's specs on paper.   Which are 

  • Frequency response: 20Hz to 20 KHz + 0dB/-1dB.
  • THD: lower than 0.15%

Those are the only published specs.   And they aren't that great but it sounds really good so who cares?

The RME impresses with it's "perfect" sound but when you compare it to the LAB 12 you soon realize something is missing , weight , tone , dimension, instrument's position or location in space.

Some may prefer that pristine almost clinical sound of something like the RME or the bigger , meatier sound of something like the LAB 12.  That's the great thing about all this stuff.   It's like ice cream , there is a flavor for everyone 

jeffseight's avatar
jeffseight
574 posts
 

This quote is attributed to John Curl " Measurements are best used to

confirm what is heard by the ear".

 

Dr. I concur. 

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