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.
I would never believe anything from you sir nor any one else for that matter. I do not follow blindly like your cult at ASR. @amir_asr
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More ad hominem, appeal to authority, and bandwagon fallacies from a measurementalist. As for the "chasing ferries" remark - you’re getting more and more colorful. Perhaps science is not your calling.
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@amir_asr, thank you for taking the time to provide clear and unvarnished responses to my questions. Much appreciated. From reading through many test results on the ASR website, it appears to me that achieving ultra-low SINAD performance is almost trivial for good line-level electronics, but not so much for power amps. Am I not interpreting the test results correctly, or is this true? If true, is this issue due to the amount of gain required? Thanks again. |
@amir_asr ’I listened to all three and they sounded different from my generic cables. Bad news for fans your camp is that the generic cables sounded better in all these tests’.
Sorry, but these are all great news. First, you have listened something, than, there are differences, and most important, the cheapest cable was the ’best’. Does it mean that we all should buy generic cables? I guess even you would not suggest something like that. As long as there are others cables to try, depending on our will and budget, we might (or not) find something better I have never met anybody who wants to spend more money on something that sounds worse. Why on earth would you claim that I or anybody else should be sorry about that particular result? I know of many such cases, where less expensive products (cables or gear), even from the same brand, sound better than their more expensive, newer or so called ’better’ products As for the ’blind tests’. Believe it or not, I know of few cases whrere with my open eyes I could not tell the difference between two very different products. After I lived and listened them for a while I could, easily, in the context of my system. They were of the same price and I could care less which one I would buy at the end
@prof We are not discussing ethics or moral philosphy. Perception of hi fi is prone to interpretation, Hi fi set up does not have some objective standard that can be measured or set as a goal to achieve. In that regard we may have very different views on how we interpret what we hear. But, dont patronise me by telling me that is all product of my vivid imagination. On the other hand, here is another food for your thought. Event if it is (only imagination), I find it pretty consistent...hard to believe, isnt it? |
*could be wrong.* Because you are human. Well, how do we broach possible differences when one side can't imagine they could be wrong about something? It's basically being faced with dogma, which doesn't help anything.
Again...think of where we'd be if people made the same objections you are making for scientific research. Science has at it's core attempts to control for human bias - from it's experimental methods all the way up to vetting of the results by other parties (often even they are experimentally blinded to reduce known biases). It would be ridiculous for scientists and their subjects to reject any controls for bias "because that would be INSULTING and indicate a patronizing lack of trust." And yet...somehow you think this is the right attitude applied to audio equipment.
Not at all. If it's a bias effect: Biases can be consistent or inconsistent. People are like that. BTW, you wrote to Amir:
And you probably haven't met any audiophile who wants to spend more money on something that sounds NO DIFFERENT than what he/she has, right? (Unless we are talking just aesthetics/ergonomics or whatever). This is where folks like Amir and sites like ASR become so valuable. You can learn about what equipment is LIKELY to make no sonic difference, and see actual rigorous evaluations of gear in support of these ideas. You get "here is the explanation for why an expensive USB cable is unlikely to alter the signal audibly" and then "let's do a test of this with an expensive USB cable" and the results support the argument being made - the results are predictable on the technical arguments made by Amir and others. Tons of audiophiles have been very thankful to Amir for saving them money - this is helping them direct their money away from things that are unlikely to make a difference, to gear that IS likely to make an audible difference. Neither you nor anyone else needs to make the same decisions or pay attention to Amir's tests and technical explanations. But can you see why many audiophiles appreciate his efforts? |
