Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)

@prof I think we may have very different view on how science works, If something cant be 'scientifically' proven and yet, 'existst' (at least by testimonials of so many) than perhaps 'the scinece' (or better the people who claim that they are 'scientists') should try to find new methods or tools to examine those 'events'.

And, yet, 'your camp' (as A.would say) chooses the easy road by calling those claims as non existant. Imagine if you go to see the doctor about some pain you are experiencing and that he sends (even ig he did some tests) you home and tells you that that is only your imagination. Would you have trust in such 'scienece'?

By the way, the Asr did not invent nothing new. Long before them, there were many people who claimed that wires in general are not important. Than, what about power cables? Even today there are lots of people who claim that is scientifically impossible that they can affect the sound. I belive them. Its just that they do not know. Somebody else obvioulsly does know how to do it. Me, no...but I can recognise what it does in my system...despite or because my very consistent bias

As for the 'audiophiles' who are following Asr...or even others who have different perspective...I would suggest to anyone to follow only his 'taste' and his opinion. It is always nice to hear different thoughts and experiences and sometimes we can use other people advices, but at the end we are making the hi fi system for ourselfs, by our own standars, references, conditions and possibilities.

Finally, it would never cross my mind to login on Asr forum and than try to 'explain' them how I think that they are wrong...unlike some of them do....but, than, it must be becuse 'science' is on their side? Where did I hear something like that before?

@cleeds 

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.

I am not a scientist.  I follow science.  You disdain the profession.  What do you expect to be called? 

And I am not a measurementalist.  I am all about what I can prove, not what I can fantasize that can easily be disproven.  Measurements are repeatable and provide valuable insight.  Why else would you hate them?  You must feel the mist of audio science brushing against your face.

As I keep saying, and evidenced by numerous reviews, I perform far more listening tests than all of you do, combined.  But I do so in ways that are defensible, not catering to marketing claims of companies and acting like their PR agencies as you are.

Really, in just about every post I provide evidence.  Do you just believe in power of words to overcome facts?

@alexatpos 

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?

You should but not because of my listening tests.  Because we as engineers and people who understand how audio products work, and decades of research into what kind of listening test is valid and what is not, point to generic cables performing their function way beyond call of duty.

Think about it.  The cable is most harmless item in your audio gear.  A power cable has bandwidth way, way beyond what it needs to convey mains power.  It has no distortion of its own.  It is as pure as it can get relative to your electronics and transducers.  Yet folks focus on them and spend thousands of dollars on them.  Why?  Simple: they don't know how to perform an unbiased audio listening test.  I showed you how folks testing Pianos do that.  Talent shows routinely use blind testing.  So do people who test foods.  Do they all belong to a cult?  Really?

So no, don't go wasting money on premium cables because you think they sound better.  My testing actually shows in some cases that their cables are actually worse when it comes to noise!  Fortunately we are all too deaf to hear those artifacts but we can prove that company claims are just wrong.

@alexatpos 

@prof I think we may have very different view on how science works, If something cant be 'scientifically' proven and yet, 'existst' (at least by testimonials of so many) than perhaps 'the scinece' (or better the people who claim that they are 'scientists') should try to find new methods or tools to examine those 'events'.

If you say aliens land in your backyard every night, you don't get to claim that we need better radars to detect their arrival.  You need to first prove what you claim to be there, really is.  Science has provided that mechanism for that.  It is called controlled testing where the only variable is sound.  You involve many other factors and senses and then ask that science go and prove based on sound alone, that what you heard is real?  You have to be joking.

There is currently no research going on to validate what you all claim to hear.  None.  Why?  Because you have not provided any evidence of something real.  Do that and science will happily investigate.  Stick to your biased testing and we know why you arrive and wrong conclusions.  We don't need to advance the science any more.  We have known for decades that people say they hear things sighted that vanish when tested blind.  And that is that.

Put more directly, you need to advance your testing methods.  Science is years and years ahead of you.  To the extent you have no use for such science, then science doesn't owe you more work.  It certainly doesn't need to spend money chasing people's imagined effects.

@prof I think we may have very different view on how science works,

That’s quite clear.

If something cant be ’scientifically’ proven and yet, ’existst’ (at least by testimonials of so many) than perhaps ’the scinece’ (or better the people who claim that they are ’scientists’) should try to find new methods or tools to examine those ’events’.

"Testimonials" are often not reliable. That’s why the scientific enterprise arose, why it overcame thousands of years of "he-said-she-said" testimonials to actually hugely improve our understanding (and predictions) of the world.

You can find many "testimonials" for literally every pseudoscience, cult, religious, new age, extreme belief that anyone has ever dreamed up. The whole point of science is to lift reliable evidence out of the morass of competing "testimonies."

You are approaching things backwards in this sense - assuming first that people are "hearing things" and then presuming that true, so science has to "catch up" to what you can hear. Whereas science would say first we need to control for variables like sighted bias to FIRST establish you actually CAN hear these things...when you don’t know what is playing.

And, yet, ’your camp’ (as A.would say) chooses the easy road by calling those claims as non existent.

No it’s not an "easy road." It’s often a very hard won road. You seem to imagine that being skeptical of a claim just comes out of nowhere, like it’s a whim. The reason many are skeptical about, for instance, high end cable claims is based on hundreds of years of electrical theory and practice, and similar lengths of times in which cables have been produced along accepted lines of theory.

There are videophiles for instance who claim to see obvious differences in color saturation, contrast, sharpness etc with "high end" HDMI cables over capable cheap HDMI cables. It’s not just a whim to be skeptical about this. HDMI cables literally do not work like that - they would not have worked as they have worked, if the theory behind them was THAT wrong. And of course, we have no measurable evidence, just the claims of people who are "sure" they see these things. Science doesn’t have to "catch up" to what some videophiles see. First they need to demonstrate in controlled tests, or show measurements, indicating their claim is actually TRUE. THEN you go looking for the explanation.

Same for claims about various types of audio cables.

You want to talk about "taking the easy route?"

How about "I’m just going on what I think I hear, and that’s that. And even if I’m not an expert, what I think I hear trumps any expert argument to the contrary. I don’t have to explain how I hear this. The expert needs to do all the work ’catching up’ to what I claim to hear."

That’s about as "easy" and lazy a route as can be imagined.