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?
@russ69 Maybe 85%-90% sounds right. There are many lower efficiency, low impedance, high phase angle speakers but so many more are easy to drive (horn loaded, Tannoy's, etc.) with only one set of difficult parameters (e.g. Harbeth's-low efficiency, nominal easy impedances, my Legacys with high efficiency, lower impedances). The Apogees and MBL speakers are anomalies whereas common Maggies just need power). |
I guess it all started with the Infinity Servo Static and then the entire Infinity Quantum reference line...and my little MMGs just didn't like my AES (Cary) Six-Pacs, did weird things, actually buzzed at low volumes? |
I don't know your backstory @cd318 mine is in the sciences. I fully admit I went through the same as you did. I probably spent a small fortune on audio magazines, tried all the tricks, etc. I don't consider it a sign of weakness to admit I was mistaken. Is that why some are so ardent that they will not even challenge their own beliefs. They don't want to admit weakness? Perhaps I could have related to it when I was younger, but today it is very foreign to me. It's a conscious decision to not grow.
Yes it is, but that's what time and life can often do to you. Fortunately or unfortunately, life only lets us go forwards so it's often a question of whether to retreat or grow? Reminds me of that Bob Dylan line he wrote when he was no more than 23 or 24, "He not busy being born is busy dying,".
I’m not a former/converted subjectivist, however, so I don’t have recovery PTSD to contend with or commiserate over.
Glad to hear it. We don't need any more folks becoming disgruntled with the endless review fuelled ladder climbing shenanigans that eventually don't lead to anywhere, do we? I'm sure that sites like ASR can certainly help when it comes to audiophile post traumatic stress disorders. 🙂
Reviews are usually best taken with a pinch of salt. At the weekend I finally got to hear a brand of often well reviewed loudspeakers that feature horn loaded drivers. Just within a few seconds I was surprised at just how excessive their 'smiley EQ curve' presentation was. For me, they were unlistenable, and yet many seem to like that kind of presentation. Including some notable magazine and YouTube reviewers. Tastes are individual, fair enough, but their midrange suckout would surely show up on any frequency measurement chart as a huge problem if you were seeking accuracy. It did leave me wondering a little just how such speakers get so many respectable reviews. On the other hand I also heard some Bayz Audio Courantes Courante speakers which sounded totally different to anything else in the show. Despite, given their price, their terrible looks (a distant grown up version of the Linkwitz LX Mini?) they sounded fabulous. A totally box free and a more life-like presentation than anything else at the show. Unfortunately the demonstrator seemed determined to keep playing the same 6/7 well recorded jazz/ instrumenal tracks all day so we never got to hear just how good they were with anything else.
Even the most diehard of subjectivists must sometimes ask themselves how much accuracy matters to them, surely? Perhaps it's this question of accuracy that this sometimes heated debate is really all about? Extreme subjectivists might not care for it, some others might dispute our existing means of testing it, but the rest of us all do want playback accuracy, don't we? |
