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?
It's an ironic figure of speech common in the English language. Someone who is referred to as the 'life of the party' is the opposite - they are sour, dour and bring the energy down in any conversation. i.e all the 'I have an EE' curmudgeons found on audio forums just waiting to tell us how all amps sound the same and speakers should only be purchased by looking at their measurement charts. |
Sensitive topic for sure. As someone once said (not sure who?) “Everyone Relax. There has never been a HiFi emergency.” That said I do know someone who had a demo Dan D’Agostino amp catch fire due to a suspected rare component incompatibility. So maybe the quote is not quite true. There is also the time my 180 pound speaker toppled over and almost crushed me. Back on topic. I am firmly in the camp of using ears. But I do agree with Amir’s take on the value of blind tests. I do them whenever possible. Confirmation bias is real. I’ve caught myself being a victim of it, which is why I typically torture myself questioning my perceptions, and the nature of reality, sometimes going to the brink of insanity. Pushing through I have always felt I’ve arrived at a conclusion I believe to be real with every test requiring time and multiple listenings and system tweaks to reach proper conclusions. It’s a LOT of work to get there. Amir actually helped me through his takedown of the Chord M Scaler. I decided not to proceed with this piece in my system not because of his conclusions, but because his review prompted a response from Rob Watt, Chord designer. Rob confirmed Amir’s assertion that the devices jitter was rather high, and that it was due to the component that enabled the degree of upsampling the device offers. He said it didn’t matter with Chord DACs which deal with the jitter. But said he couldn’t speak to other DACs which may not deal with jitter as well. Rob said the M Scaler is not really for use with non-Chord DACs, and I use a non-Chord DAC. Of course the best would have been for me to try one, but I was considering buying used online so that wasn’t an option. I also use an Innuos PhoenixUSB to reduce jitter, so I think the M Scaler would simply re-introduce the jitter removed by the PhoenixUSB. I see no issue with ASR existing; we can chose whether to listen to Amir or not. And even though I disagree with his philosophy, in a roundabout way he helped me.
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