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

Yup, I've experienced my sighted impressions "dissolving away." It's both a  humbling and amazing experience. I've done it both with cables and testing a burned in amp against an identical model that hadn't been burned in. I can't express how obvious the difference in sound quality seemed to me during the sighted listening, so having the effect completely vanish just because I couldn't see which device I was listening to was like experiencing magic. In the end it taught me how malleable my perception of sound quality is to both conscious and unconscious expectations. My ear transduces the sound and then my brain interprets the resulting signal in the light of other sensory information.

I don't know why, in this day, it is still so controversial @asctim .  It should be obvious to everyone that we use multiple senses all the time. For food, both taste and smell, but we are also influences by site. The visual input you are receiving of your environment influences what you think you are hearing. If there are two sets of speakers in front of you, and one is very large, and one is small, you will assume that a deep bass note is from the large speaker. It could be from either or a sub you don't even see. We intentionally have control groups and placebos in medical research because humans are so influenced by their present environment and condition that it is the only way to collect accurate data. Audio is not any different.

@ghasley , try another thread if the bar is closed in this thread. I like the pivot to cables and immersive audio.

Indifference comes to mind. Most of the discussion on this thread has involved discussing the finer points of a wine no one here wishes to drink.

It's all the sediment clinging to the wine glasses.

@crymeanaudioriver

one minute you are an expert in engineering, one minute you are an expert in accounting. That is quite the skill set.

Bizarre gaslighting. I’ve claimed neither.

If ASR / Amir were to start selling the devices, than [sic] you could claim it was a gift.

Bizarre logic. A gift is received. Subsequent sale has no bearing at all.

As ASR sells nothing, markets nothing, it would be a hard stretch to consider the units sent as "input" to their end product.

Their end product is published testing, a supply of review units could certainly be considered an input. But I didn’t state that, my expertise is legal/regulatory (not accounting) and I said—correctly—material consideration. My recommendation was not that they shouldn't accept review units, but that they operate transparently—declaring gift vs loan and maintaining a register of the former. What they do is their business of course, but how I regard their unusual ethical claims is mine.

So 55 steps down now, 201 to go. Don’t expect me to follow along though, your journey is your own. 😉

@axo1989 , this is just one of many posts where you are trying to put forth that you have technical chops,

The part I asked you to respond to was your statement that my "takeaway" after amplifier listening was contrary to audio (and psycho-acoustic) research. The points I re-iterated were quite sound, but I was interested in your counterpoint (as opposed to your talking points).

But by your own admission, you are just legal/regulatory, and the comment I made w.r.t. to "gift" is tax law, which does not seem to be your forte. I don't think I have seen any other reviewer clearly say whether the reviews were loan, load with discount to buy, etc. so your attack, again, is specious, and given they don't accept advertising, they are already many steps above others from an optics stand point.

Still waiting on those youtube links. I already expected they did not exist or did not say what you claim, but now I am rather more sure.

w.r.t the gift, arguably, the review that Amir provides, assuming the product is technically competent, is of far more value, monetarily, to the company that provides the product, so the concept of "gift" is questionable, not just from an accounting standpoint, but a logic standpoint, and even a dictionary definition standpoint.