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

@prof Do you believe that power cables can exert different sonic sound to a system, or they are not capable of a difference or significant difference.

My enigineer friend’s example of Pangea power cable versus GroverHuffman power cable is based not only on subjective hearing but also knowing the manufacturing process of those cables. The Pangea lacks the current capability and isolation of the GroverHuffman cable. The latter has a triple powdered metal suspended in a glue for the RF/EMI shield encased in a silver shield and then in a faraday cage-like copper shield. It has 2 mil thick, embossed all copper elements in an air core dielectric which he owns a patent on. After trying Furutech, Oyide and several other high end connectors, some Taiwanese all copper connectors were chosen as they did not impart a "brighter" sound for their brass, silver and rhodium connectors. Luckily he found copper connectors which did not get loose over time and had excellent grip. I don’t know if they are OFC or 6N. It was also determined that using these off-brand connectors were cost effective and permitted the cables to be sold at a reasonable price (some Furutech connectors can cost as much as the rest of the cable components or more). Every component of his cables was selected from listening to the results of various materials.

Cut open a Pangea 9 SE Mk II cable and you’ll find Cardas Grade One Copper, OFC copper, and Litz wire copper conductors. Quote-Counter-spiraled conductors offer superior noise rejection, and the triple-shielded design provides high-current noise isolation. The large-diameter 7-AWG construction boasts seven-way multi-gauge geometry optimized for high-current delivery of 50/60 Hz AC power. The solid-blade 24k gold-plated copper AC contacts provide superior electrical contact end quote. The triple-shield is not very sophisticated and the counter spiral, Litz design could or may not be the reason for the poor sound. Regardless, at least I know what the physical differences in the cables are. The difference in sound was extreme with the Pangea ruining a very high end system of nearly $1/2 million.

I was ASR member since November 2018. It was different back then. We absolutely could and did have objectivists-subjectivists discussion threads like this one. Only without name calling. Learned a lot from each other in the process.

Got booted off ASR in fall of 2022. As far as I understood, for arguing with moderator about the degree of Fourier Transform math applicability to some of the gear evaluations Amir routinely does.

Things changed quite a bit in these almost four years. I agree with those characterizing the nowadays ASR moderators attitude as "Scientology", "Vulgar science", or "Popular science".

References to actual formulations and proofs of theorems, or peer-reviewed scientific papers, are no longer accepted as relevant. Only measurements in Amir-prescribed way.

How did it happen? Being somewhat of an ASR old-timer, I believe I have an insight. Back then, there also was a cadre of loud members. Yet we were all equal, with low "like"scores, and could compete on merit of our arguments.

Soon enough, we discovered that spending half a Saturday digging out originally recorded samples, processing them, doing A/B/X, and presenting ASR with raw data, processing protocol, and results, would yield maybe 5 likes.

However, quickly inserting a snide remark, typically at the expense of a new member, especially of a new subjectivist member, proved to be a sure way to score around 10 likes. And so the loud ones jumped on this bandwagon with both feet.

In about two years, one could observe an incredibly smart, experienced, and polite member, with 30+ years of professional experience in the field who would stand at about the same ASR rating as someone with opposing qualities yet really good at derogatory jokes.

Year three appeared to me as a tug-of-war between the two camps. I was usually subscribed to several of the more technical members. In year three they were posting less and less, and then most of them stopped posting. So did I.

Meanwhile, Amir was doing tons and tons of relevant testing, which I appreciated, and I supported him financially. In a way, ASR became by favorite audio consumer reviews paid online magazine, yet I no longer contributed to discussions.

We moved into a larger house this year, and I finally got an opportunity to have three rather different audio systems: for office, living room, and guest room. Some gear reshuffling and purchasing was in order.

Went back to several Web sites and Youtube channels, including ASR. The character of discourse on ASR was quite shocking. Tried to correct certain inaccuracies like I did in year 2020 (naive me!). Got booted out two days later.

As I understand, the loud ones are ruling ASR now. I can't make a blanket statement obviously, because I don't know all of the current moderators and those who reported me to the moderators. Yet things surely changed.

Quick look at the current status of some of the known old days loud members confirmed that they are "Technical Experts" and such now, factually deciding who stays on ASR and who goes. Online "social credit" experiment gone wrong I guess ...

Thank you for your valuable and insightful perspective, and welcome to a place that hopefully, you can feel comfortable posting. 

On an aside, have you recognized any of the "technical experts" posting here who've been running roughshod over the members back at ASR?

All the best,
Nonoise

Now I think I will begin another forum concerning manufacturers supplying measurements and testing.  WHY DON'T THEY?  

Embarrassment?

@fair 

Online "social credit" experiment gone wrong I guess ...

Interesting that it wasn't always that way. I noticed after joining there around Christmas time that new members with a neutral or subjectivist leaning could be criticised in almost any terms. I'm pretty ambidextrous on that divide but was attacked early on for being "nihilist" and "woke". Impressively oxymoronic! Responding didn't work out of course, as moderation is asymmetrical. Two-week ban from the thread. Later on I reported a couple of bigoted posts from a pair of high post count old timers with many 'likes'. Rookie mistake, earned me a two week holiday from the forum. These days, ASR is a self-confessed Nazi bar. Moderator claimed they didn't really want to shut down and erase an innocuous LBGTQ+ artist discussion thread, but couldn't manage the old-timer backlash. I'm sure they could have corrected the drift to intolerance, they just didn't want to hard enough.