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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?  

fleschler
prof
3,480 posts
 

@fleschler

 

@prof Thank you for the lead. I forgot about this head to head speaker comparison. I heard the Joseph’s and the Harbeth 40.1s and Herb’s description is right on target. I prefer the Harbeth sound (possibly because I have over 10,000 opera/classical vocal LPs/CDs and 78s) for voice.

Yes, the Harbeths still haunt me with how well they did voices (I had the Super HL5plus for a while and have heard the whole line).

 

 

Did you decide on the Devore O/96 because it was an amalgam of those two speakers that you previously owned? I only heard Devores (O/93 or O/96) under audio show conditions and while it was pleasant, it didn’t excite me (the room was very wide and I have no recollection of the other equipment). Your description makes me want to hear them again in a better setting. All 3 speakers you own/owned are also moderately priced and as two ways, maintain excellent coherence and imaging.

I didn’t choose the Devores but ended up with Joseph Audio Perspectives instead. I liked the sound of both but the JA speakers fit my room better - they have to flank the sides of a big projection screen and the wider Devores would cause more problems. Plus I usually listen closer than 8 feet and the Devores need at least that IMO to sound right in terms of coherence and tone.

Impressions of the Devore O-series speakers can be all over the map because they are pretty finicky to set up, and finicky about listening distance, toe in etc. They can sound bland or too aggressive if done wrong. Get them right, and they do a superb balance between exciting and smooth.

 

I have under 100 bongo jazz and pop LPs/CDs and 1000+ jazz recordings commonly featuring drums . As my equipment got better, I could also relate to hearing the skins and feeling the snap plus the shimmering of cymbals. Very exciting. I know what you’re feeling.

I still haven’t heard a speaker that did those sounds as convincingly as the Devores. That sense of a bongo skin being hit "right there," not as a recording but real, and with weight and palpability.

My Joseph speakers are more refined and pure sounding, more free of grain, so the rendering of things like cymbals and bells is exquisitely pure and gorgeous. However, the Joseph speakers are like the vast majority of speakers I’ve heard: there is a certain pear shape to the size of the sound. Instruments with bass and lower midrange frequencies sound rich and dense and amazingly large. But as you go up to the higher frequencies things sound tinier and tinier, so now drum cymbals sound very clear and clean, but fairly weightless and much smaller than the real thing. Again this isn’t just a Joseph Audio thing: it’s what I hear with virtually all conventional speakers - as if all those instruments in the treble are being squeezed through those tiny tweeters making for a miniaturized presence.

I found the Devor O/96 does better than most speakers in maintaining a sense of thickness, heft and size from the bottom to the top frequencies, so even drum cymbals and bells seem to have more life-sized weight and presence. That’s one thing that blew me away listening to the drum solo track I often use as a test. The MBL omni speakers (which I’ve owned) also can have a similar quality - drum cymbals sound more like the large resonating discs they are rather than the small bits of bright spots lighting up in a soundstage of most speakers.

 

IMO.

:-)

 

axo1989
105 posts
 

@prof

I found the Devor O/96 does better than most speakers in maintaining a sense of thickness, heft and size from the bottom to the top frequencies, so even drum cymbals and bells seem to have more life-sized weight and presence. That’s one thing that blew me away listening to the drum solo track I often use as a test. The MBL omni speakers (which I’ve owned) also can have a similar quality - drum cymbals sound more like the large resonating discs they are rather than the small bits of bright spots lighting up in a soundstage of most speakers.

That’s an evocative description. Amusing too (given the topic of this thread) that I get a good idea of what you mean even though you are using descriptive verbal language.

I enjoy my speakers and somewhat like your JAs admire their definition and clarity along with the way they present the holographic stereo image. But they do the thing you describe as pear shaped (that’s derogatory in Australian vernacular :-) Perhaps because I often listen to electronic and other synthetic/assembled music  the apparent size of cymbals (for example) didn't occur to me up to now. That certain speakers do it differently is pretty interesting though.

axo1989
105 posts
 

@crymeanaudioriver I thought I was replying to @cd318 so my mistake. I’m not so interested in your aggressive communication style so don’t expect an extended discussion. I’ve given you enough to go on, you can figure out what material interest means and how it may apply in this context perhaps, if you are sufficiently curious. The number and scope of gifts to ASR certainly crosses the usual thresholds for declaration in the regulatory sector that I have experience in. It may or may not give rise to bias, the question discussed in the thread I referred to was transparency. ASR is an informal non-profit public interest advocacy group, so may have no specific legal responsibility (US jurisdiction is not my specialty in any case) but claims somewhat unique circumstances and should follow through (in my view) as a precaution and a matter of ethics. Deflecting via some whataboutism makes no difference to these issues.

prof
3,480 posts
 

@axo1989

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between live and reproduced sound.

I don’t pretend that my system (or any system) could reproduce all the recorded (acoustic) music as it sounded in front of the microphones (and that isn’t even the goal in most cases for recordings). But I do find it fascinating noticing to what degree reproduced sound can get closer to the real thing or not. It was actually discovering that a good system could reproduce *some* characteristics I love about live sound that got me in to hi-fi.

So I’m constantly checking the difference. For instance I live right near a very popular urban street surrounded by parks and live performances are a constant - small bands on street corners, in parks, in bars etc. So if I come upon, say, a quartet playing jazz, I will close my eyes and take note, asking myself "what does this sound like? What distinguishes it from reproduced sound?"

One of the main things that stick out to me are an effortless clarity, a timbral richness, dynamic life, but especially the sheer size of the sound. A sax or trombone sounds far bigger and richer, with very dense acoustic power. It makes most reproduced versions seem more like miniaturized, spectral toys that I can wave my hands through.

And drums always strike me for having a different balance than in reproduced sound. With closed eyes everything sounds BIG or life-sized, the kick drum is big, the snare is big, the cymbals sound BIG. There is no "pear shape" effect, like the cymbals being squeezed through tiny tweeters.

So it always impresses me whenever I hear a speaker that seems to portray instruments with more realistic size, weight and density, especially in the upper frequencies which is even more rare.

I don’t for a minute mean to suggest the Devore speakers produce drums or anything else with absolute realism. Only that to my ears, in some parameters, they are going a little further in that direction than many speakers I’ve heard.

I don’t demand that my system fool me I’m hearing real sounds. But when it’s a natural sounding recording of acoustic instruments, if a speaker is doing at least some of the things I like about real instruments, it can make "slipping in to the illusion" pleasurable and easier. I approach it like watching a movie. A movie is never going to look totally real (and often shouldn’t), it’s a 2D screen, contrast etc is never fully lifelike. But the reason many productions go to great lengths to "get things right" (sets, clothes, script that are plausible) is that it makes it easier to slip in to the illusion of the story. "Believable" being the goal, which acknowledges the user is willfully entering the illusion, not an impossible goal of "Absolute Realism."

One would expect that reproducing a full symphony orchestra via a pair of average sized floor standing speakers is a pipe dream, and of course it is in any Absolute sense. Yet, I’ve tweaked my system to the degree that I find it tonally convincing, and spatially prodigious, and when I play a good orchestral piece, if I meet the illusion 1/2 way, and just imagine I’m listening to an orchestra from seats further away, then the size seems "right" and life-sized, and the sensation of peering through a hall listening to a real orchestra can be quite thrilling.

 

fleschler OP
2,029 posts
 

As noted, I heard (until Covid), 1000s of live performances from my 100s of recordings, performances to season opera tickets (400-500 live opera alone).  I seek to reproduce the most realistic sound of those venues and my large music collection.  I've only encountered the total immersive experience with Von Schweikert Ultra 9 and 11 speakers in $1+ million system at two shows.  I've heard some rather good systems but none that "do it all" and sound like the mic feed (VS claims it's their reverse mic feed design of the speaker).     

My own main system does get close recorded small combo jazz right where the instruments sound live, like they are in my room playing.  Cymbals could be a little bigger but the drums are real sounding (my speakers are rolled off in the highs with a soft dome lower and ribbon upper tweeters).  My friend's YG Sonja 2.3s sound great but not as realistic, as in the room musicians performing, rather his system sets back musicians a distance.  Pleasant but not realistic.   

It's taken me a lifetime to get sound where I'm at now and the piece de resistance would be a high end full range speaker that does it all. 

It is common now for full range speakers to have a narrow footprint for most homes and your set up requires it.  

Black and white film on a screen often exhibits a shimmering effect which is captivating.  We watch many 30's and 40's films and great movies can be mesmerizing with that effect.  It's not 3D and it's not color but what a great experience. 

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