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

What’s Best Forum I have for several years joined and enjoyed camaraderie of other audiophiles forums. That site is generally more congenial and well mannered than any other forum site I frequent. Disagreements do not involve character assassination or defamation. (Except with posters experiences with Acoustic Fields company/owner). I prefer hearing about others experiences than reading about the gold standard measurements as Amir prefers. Good for him but Darko uses different measurements and often reveals different answers. Choices and variable methods to conduct experiments occur in measurements. So Amir is not the greatest tester of audio equipment. There are serious drawbacks on measurements themselves. If measurements are the gold standard, then listening in a system in a room is the platinum standard.

Audioshark, Audiokarma and older sites I visited were quite nice and amiable. DIYers also was very informative lacking acrimonious postings. Why is that?

ASR Frgirard Your points are

The willful ignorance of the primacy of speaker-room coupling by taking refuge in the magic of equalization.

the willful ignorance of the primacy of the decay in the bass and the rest of the spectrum.

the spending of thousands of dollars on equipment to listen in rotten rooms, a total lack of rationality here and on AG.

I spent $150K+ building my listening room from the ground up (12" 3000 psi steel reinforced slab, 16" multi-dimensional walls with chambered activated carbon bass trap filters, etc). I use no equalization. I have various room treatments for mid and high frequency absorption, smoothing, diffusion and decay/reverb. In doing so, I do not require state of the art equipment to obtain a very high quality sound reproduction absent state of the art/expensive high end equipment. Putting well designed speakers of moderate price (even $1K) will react superbly in my new room. I’ve built several other sound rooms in prior homes but they were good but not great. Then again, I have heard a few superb large systems in very large untreated rooms at audio shows at high cost ($1m+). The room is generally very important (as it is in my live recordings) but sometimes the equipment can perform well in a wide variety of settings (Von Schweikerts).
 

I personally think the ASR mob are looking to ’justify’ spending much less money to get a hi-end sound.

They lean on ASR for reassurance that a Topping DAC and £500 amplifier is all they need to spend in order to get the very best sound possible.

More than likely most of them do not have deep wallets so perhaps somewhat ’envy’ those that can spend the money to - in reality - get far better sound than measured perfection can really give you.

I do not have a deep wallet to enjoy hi-end at its best - so I could easily been seen as one being suckered into believing that measured sound is the best sound to save money. That would suit me just fine - if only that were true.

Good post chopandchange. You are probably accurate. I also think Amir has fled. He has closed the thread on ASR which was intended as an insulting rebuttal to this thread.
It is a pity he has gone. I was curious as to how he would answer the comment that his testing methodology on the Chord M scaler was faulted. He consigned a whole product to the dustbin based on faulty methodology.

@fleschler 

"None of those changes is massive but, with even average human hearing having a 100 decibel range from the lowest sound we can hear to the loudest sound we can bear without injury, our ears have a single-scale resolution range of 1 to 1 BILLION—far greater than any known test instrument—so even differences that might seem prohibitively small may be clearly audible."

Point 1:  I encourage you to learn enough about audio, science, or math to check the potential validity of what you wrote.  Point 2:  When I have the music turned up loud and I am engrossed in the music, my wife needs to shout to get my attention. I just quickly Googled that normal talking is about 60db. That means I am struggling to hear 60db. Hopefully that means something to you as it relates to what you wrote.

Perhaps it is my background in a science related field, but I find these concepts rather simple to understand, but without that understanding, I could see myself susceptible to believing things that are not true. Couple that with a belief you have nothing to learn and you become susceptible to both external suggestion and internal misdirection.

Good for him but Darko uses different measurements and often reveals different answers. Choices and variable methods to conduct experiments occur in measurements.

I looked through Darko's site. It was obviously not the first time I was there. I failed to find one measurement except in his discussion of bass decay. Are you referring to his ears as measurement devices?

@laoman ,

Regarding Amir’s comments here. Frankly I find them offensive. He has come along with the attitude of "Let me educate you." I do not need him or anyone else to educate me on what I like and dislike. Nor to I need to be lectured that I do not understand the Science. There are many people far more experienced and qualified than Amir of whom I prefer to take note.

Can you tell us these people who are far more experienced and qualified? I am serious, I would appreciate a list.

I don't think Amir is at all lecturing anyone on what they like or don't like. That would be obtuse and Amir does not appear to be obtuse. Do you need to be lectured on the science?  To enjoy music? No.  To continue to contribute in a valuable fashion on audio forums without being incensed by what others have written and misquoting what they have said?  I think for many on this forum, that should be self evident. For many, when they read something on a forum that does not agree with their world view their first inclination is to think, "you are wrong, wrong, wrong". Maybe we all do that. It is the next step that defines you. You can get on that forum and say you are wrong, wrong wrong, and likely be the one that is wrong, or you can open up Google, and start learning. Proving yourself wrong is much less contentious than someone else doing it, and it is ultimately more satisfying.

@chopandchange , your post is nothing but insult attempting to look like high reasoning and deep insight. It is a tired trope and best left inside your head and not put on a forum. I could as easily say that the posters on this forum are incensed with Amir because he has shown, with hard to refute measurements, that you can achieve perfect recreation of an audio signal with a Topping DAC and a £500 amplifier.