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?
@rudyb +1
Possibly the most reasonable post of this entire thread.
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The high-end market is very strong with more choices than we have ever had. There is a shift away from the brick and mortar business model but online and direct sales are booming! Business is good. |
I don’t understand the rational foundations of the subjectivists here, if there are any. As a disclaimer I admire Amir, ASR, and it’s many knowledgeable contributors. But I also like some components for extra-audio reasons that Amir would justly put on his reject list. The subjectivists here seem to put great stock into human sensory perception, something that philosophers have been questioning for millennia. Sensory perception is highly fallible to say the least. When one puts a pencil in a glass of water it looks bent; we see mirages in the desert; amputees commonly feel the presence of the missing limb, etc., etc., etc. So along came science in an effort to establish deeper insights and establish some degree of objectivity. So knowing that our senses are so misleading how can the audio subjectivists rely solely on their hearing? They also run the risk of encountering something akin to the Roshomon complex whereby a number of individuals have the same experience but interpret it in all different ways. Sometimes the subjectivists seem to be insisting that that pencil is really bent in that glass! Why would anyone reject science when, given the human condition, it’s all we have to attain some form of objectivity? Given that the audio subjectivists are so skeptical of science, why do they so readily believe wild and unsubstantiated claims concocted by manufacturers of all sorts of cables, power conditioners, power supplies, etc.? It appears that they believe in order to understand, thus putting the cart before the horse, which is a questionable methodology. Most of the subjectivists here, like the OP, are pleased with the components they own and that is very good. You like what you hear which is all anyone can ask. So what ASR says about your stereo shouldn’t bother you. If I had some of these systems, all connected with the most expensive and exotic cables, I’d sit back and enjoy the music, and refrain from insulting Amir, ASR, and most of all science.
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rudyb
That confuses the issue. You've just assumed that people ARE hearing real sonic differences between power cords. But that is under dispute for good reason. It's a doubtful proposition based on how power cords/electricity/most audio gear actually works. Most electronic engineers - the ones who are not trying to sell you those products - will explain that. And the few who DO believe inevitably have only anecdotes for the claim. Why does this matter? It matters to anyone who cares about the truth, and who wants to understand how gear actually works. Why in the world wouldn't that be worthwhile? Knowing how things work helps an engineer meet his design goals without unnecessary rabbit holes. Knowing what type of gear or tweak is likely to make a sonic difference helps someone spend their money more wisely. I am VERY happy to have the information being made available by folks like Amir (and others over the years). None of this forces anyone to care. You don't have to avail yourself of such information. No problem. But there are good reasons other people have for wanting to know whether things like power cords actually alter the music signals. And to get to the bottom of such issues, you have to account for common bias effects in the process.
Saying objective data and subjective impressions are entirely different things is like a diabetic saying "Look, the way I may be feeling, tired, peeing a lot etc is one thing. Measurements of blood sugar is another. These are entirely different things!" Well...if you want to remain in ignorance about the correspondence between your measured blood sugar and your symptoms that's up to you. But, no, they are not entirely different things. The correlation between blood sugar measurements and diabetes/subjective symptoms, has been studied. Likewise, there has been plenty of study correlating measurements of sound to their subjective effects for most people. If that weren't the case we wouldn't have stereo, surround sound, audio codecs, reverb and other plug-ins for professional sound etc. And the subjective effects of various measurable parameters in loudspeaker designs have been studied. As have human hearing thresholds in regards to levels of signals or distortions we can hear.
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