Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)
About 25 years ago I was inside a large room with an A-frame ceiling and large skylights, during the Perseid Meteor Shower that happens every August. This one time was like no other, for two reasons: 1) There were large, red, fragmenting streaks multiple times a minute with illuminated smoke trails, and 2) I could hear them.
Yes, each meteor produced a sizzling sound, like the sound of a frying pan.
Amazed, I Googled this phenomena and found that many people reported hearing this same sizzling sound associated with meteors streaking across the sky. In response, scientists and astrophysicists said it was all in our heads. That, it was totally impossible. Why? Because of the distance between the meteor and the observer. Physics does not allow sound to travel fast enough to hear the sound at the same time that the meteor streaks across the sky. Case closed.
ASR would have agreed with this sound reasoning based in elementary science.
Fast forward a few decades. The scientists were wrong. Turns out, the sound was caused by radiation emitted by the meteors, traveling at the speed of light, and interacting with metallic objects near the observer, even if the observer is indoors. Producing a sizzling sound. This was actually recorded audibly by researchers along with the recording of the radiation. You can look this up easily and listen to the recordings.
Takeaway - trust your senses! Science doesn’t always measure the right things, in the right ways, to fully explain what we are sensing. Therefore your sensory input comes first. You can try to figure out the science later.
I’m not trying to start an argument or make people upset. Just sharing an experience that reinforces my personal way of thinking. Others of course are free to trust the science over their senses. I know this bothers some but I really couldn’t be bothered by that. The folks at ASR are smart people too.
No, both @invalid . But a listening test, not just sitting there and saying it's different. Repeating what I said before. I can play the exact thing twice and many audiophiles will claim they are different. Audiophiles like to rage against blind testing but it's the only way possible to remove bias. |
@thespeakerdude how would you know if say an amplifier is audibly transparent in a listening tests when listening through speakers or headphones when no headphones or speakers are transparent? |
@thyname If speakerdude actually is atdavid, he has modified his behavior enough to disguise his true identity(s). Behavior modification is subjective. Even he would have great difficult in measuring this modification objectively. LOL. There are shared similarities of those former usernames: - Dislike of audiophiles. - An obsessive need to post on audiophile websites. - A need to demonstrate how smart he is. - Constant examples of how clueless he is about audio. |
I am 100% sure it’s Cin Dyment. Wait until he creates a brand new username here, and posts a bunch of screenshots of my posts. 😂😉🤦♂️, on this very thread.
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If one thing is now predictable in the audiophile world, it's that any discussion of ASR in forums like this will result in reams of misunderstandings, misrepresentations. I mean..just...wow...this thread is like a straw man menagerie! I've been a member of Agon for a long time and still enjoy this place for discussing the subjective aspects of audio. And I'm often defending subjective impressions and reports on ASR. But threads like this remind me of why I'm so glad ASR also exists.
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