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

My guess is ASR is the website you love to hate. If it offers nothing useful to you why waste your time there? 

I find plenty of what I consider nonsense on Audiogon, Audiokarma, Steve Hoffmanh, ASR and on down the line. So I take with me what is useful and disregard the rest...

I'm a skeptic of cable risers, crystals and other items that supposedly improve audio, but I don't attack the folks that subscribe those devices. who cares, it's there money, time and impressions and if they want to write about it on some website, so be it.

 

As a student of Mr. Pass, I for one would like to think I have come to have a basic  understanding of the harmonics of distortion and particularly which harmonics are pleasing or possibly in in fact those harmonics which might be intrinsic to the recording. These ASR guys have no clue. When they report distortion ( THD) how often do they report which order harmonics they are referring to and at which frequency.... Peace

ASR sucks..... in the past when I was much younger I took reviews seriously. Made a lot of mistakes along the way. Most important criteria is how does it sound in your system???

@61 falcon - I was kicked off for violating their dogma in less than 12 hours. The warning was that I said that I didn’t know I would be attacked within a minute of my first post concerning differences in cables. I tried it but found out there is no intelligent life among audiophile miscreants (not criminals as they feel that all high end manufactures of audio equipment are).

@td_dayton You are correct, I saw half the video and couldn’t tolerate the cheap/more expensive comparisons being the same. I admit I did not hear his final admonition concerning objective and subjective audiophile extremism.

 

Note there are piles of snake oil items embraced for reasons only known to the embracers of them, and that stuff just wastes people's time...I'm also an experienced pro musician and pro live sound mixer who knows for a fact that my opinion isn't any more important than anyone else's regarding sound (except those who overpay me for my services, and trust me, they do)...I don't care if the Measurement Freaks have a venue to share their opinions as I'm reasonably confident in my own tastes, and skeptical of plenty of others, especially regarding things I've used and know well...Nelson Pass is a genius and everybody should buy his amps, especially the XA-25. Now...do it now...measurements schmeasurements.