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 ...