2. misc-audio
  3. 182927-125055

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.

nyev
alexatpos
1,172 posts
 

Well, I am very curious to hear any system that was assembled through blind testing of its individual components....

mastering92
870 posts
 

@alexatpos 

One of them probably has an answer to this too...

lol

thespeakerdude
483 posts
 

Uses an OP amp and tons of subtractive distortion limiting - like negative feedback in a circuit. Tons of this, much like dynamic range compression in mastering will limit perceived dynamic range in a track.

 

This is bias likely derived from reading, not knowledge or experience. Your purported expertise is recording? Mixing?  Audiophiles often write about how superior audio recording and mixing used to be, even in the 70's into the 80's. Do you think most mixing consoles used op-amps, or discrete transistors?  

Can you clearly communicate what you think op-amps and negative feedback is doing to the signal, and why this does not show up even in complex distortion measurements?

 

thespeakerdude
483 posts
 

Alright..you can have your cake and eat it too! All I’m saying is....live and let live. Your tone and how you almost bully people into listening to you is rather rude. Hence why virtually every audio forum on the web has labelled you all kinds of silly names.

prof
3,451 posts
 

Your tone and how you almost bully people into listening to you is rather rude. Hence why virtually every audio forum on the web has labelled you all kinds of silly names.

Or...many people are triggered by having their own subjective conclusions challenged.

"How dare Amir tell us what we can and can not hear!"

It's taken personally, so often the response is to go ad hominem on Amir, call him names or dogmatic etc.  When often it is the more "subjective-based" audiophile who is closing his ranks around his beliefs.

Amir has actually responded quite civilly to those engaging him likewise.

And his response was even quite measured to those implying he is dishonest or colluding.

I certainly don't mean to paint anyone as a saint, Amir included.  But there is a lot of assumptions made that I find come from a bias on the "subjective" side, where they see what they think are pushiness from ASR, while turning a blind eye to the type of ad hominem and insults from "their own side."

 

More to discover