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

@jtgofish Sadly, I can't even say that ASR does a decent job at covering low budget amplifiers. ASR just does their usual benchmarking and you're lucky if some member does a comparison between an Infineon chip amp and a Texas Instruments chip amp for example. So you'll be even more confused about amps from reading the ASR forums. So intuitively you'll want to buy the latest offerings from SMSL, Topping or Sabaj. Which one is better? Nobody can give you a straight answer. Some of these amps approach 300€. And for that money you could buy a Cambridge Audio AXA25 (new). But ASR does a poor job at covering budget AB amplifiers. So nobody can tell you whether you should buy a cheap AB amp or class D chip amp. You only have a "SINAD" score to compare the amps. 

Yes true.

With ASR they are based on science

Is this the same science that brought us Covid lockdowns and climate change extinction?  On the Internet and mass media, science is whatever those in power say it is.

Start with double blind auditioning of equipment and then find a set of test parameters that explain the auditioning results.  After this, you might have some basis for testing the same class of equipment.

@mattw73


Bravo! Excellent post.

I had to laugh at the irony of the title of this thread. Anyone that spends any time at all at ASR would know that ASR has nothing to say about the "sound" of equipment- they are all about objective performance.

had to laugh at the irony of the title of this thread. Anyone that spends any time at all at ASR would know that ASR has nothing to say about the "sound" of equipment- they are all about objective performance.

This is true to an extent. If a component like a DAC, amplifier,  cable etc.. excluding speakers has  a " sound" then it's not high fidelity or was purpose built.