Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

My point about electrical measures is simple : they are INFORMATION we must take as information, often very useful ...

Amir give us much more information about the design of a component , then we can only thanks him for his " knowledge" ...

My other point is : Information is not knowledge...

In audio as in any field the difference between information and knowledge is simple and explicitly given by the great mathematician of this century : Alexander Grothendieck : " an information may add something to us but did not change us, knowledge change us "... ( in his book " the Key of dreams") 😊

In audio, acoustic knowledge and basic psycho-acoustic experiments change us IMMEDIATELY, because they make us TOUCH and FEEL what is timbre for example or dynamic or transients or immersivenes, sound sources apparent localizations, or the listener envelopment and the sound source ratio etc , by experiments varying acoustic conditions in our room.

These experiences not only add something as a mere information, as information about the design of a component can do, but when put in place in some order transform our hearing being completely and without coming back , we begin to be conscious of new aspect of us in relation to the sound and to the soundfield that we could not even imagine before it ...

This why i said that we must learn how to listen, it is not given by purchasing 20 amplifiers or 30 headphones...It is information we gain by purchasing brand names not knowledge... We can buy information not knowledge... We can buy a book but we cannot buy the understanding experience of the book...

This is why Acoustic is the heart of audio... Not electronic design by itself alone...Anyway revolution in electronic design also often comes from psycho-acoustic principles, facts or discoveries : Smyth realizer or Dr. Choueri BACCH filters among many others... I remember atmasphere explaing here 1 year ago very interestingly how his psycho-acoustic knowledge inspired him for the better design of his tube amplifiers for example...

« Sorry for your theory but my wife’s information is already knowledge»--Groucho Marx 🤓

All debates with no arguments attacking valid information and facts are useless...

General accusation are only mirror reflecting opinionated people...

We need measurements as we need our ears...

But we need to focus less on the gear , their measures or the listening impressions and more about the way to learn how to listen in controlled acoustic conditions ...I dont means blind test here, i spoke about small room acoustic...

Because at the end any audio system must be judged in a specific room...

The optimal room transform a system in a way no upgrade can...

For sure all people cannot embark in acoustic experiments journey... Headphone can be a solution then... Or i recommend Dr. Choueri BACCH filters system...

But the only way to learn how to listen and understand sound is acoustic experiments as the only way to learn how to listen and understand music is playing an instrument...

Perceiving something without the clear concept about what is about to be perceived, hide and distort the phenomenon to be understood... To describe something even to ourself we need concept and the corresponding word...Without it the phenomenon most of the times did not exist or is unoberseved or confusely sensed...

Listening is not then about innate  "taste" except in the marketing litterature...

We are all limited...i was able to design my own acoustic room but i did not play an instrument... 😂

😊

The desire to learn and the orientation of attention can compensate for our limitations for sure...

no.

this is my second time to write this post. dont know why audiogon erased the last one.

no, he hasnt changed my mind about anything.

i appreciate measurements, especially these days, as many companies dont even publish specs. some wont give em when u ask. i appreciate the necessary service that ASR does in takin measurements on this gear.

but measurements...measurements are a good start. id rather have something that sounds and measures great than something that measures like crap and sounds great. measurements aint the end, tho, theyre the beginning of better discernment.

the conversation implicit in the relationship of ASR to the larger audiophile/hifi world is summed up in the conversation between lt valeris and spock in ST VI where valeris speaks on behalf of logic and spock states,"logic, logic, logic...logic is the beginning of wisdom, valeris."

dont delete the post again, ok?

The problem is not Amir, but some of the extremism and opinionated "disciples" so to speak...

It is the samething here with people who think sound is only about their uneducated "tastes" and nothing else......Extremism is on the two sides...

There will be no quarrel at all if people were able to understand basic psycho-acoustic ...

Human hearing is very complex and we cannot say that if it is not measurable by oscilloscope and others electrical tools it does not exist as a perception ...

Spoken sounds and musical sounds are qualities "wholeness" entities extended in a time/timing ten of milliseconds region, the way we perceived them is studied in psycho-acoustic and cannot be analysed in the more simple way we measured electrical thresholds in gear design...

Human perception is primary in acoustic...

Acoustician who designed the architecture of great music hall in the past were doing it as an art and craft using their ears not a mere mechanical mathematical formula...

For sure A.I. could soon replace them...But my point is, so much useful electrical measures of the gear could be, they cannot replaced acoustic and trained ears...

Even those who measure and think they can hear only what they electrically measure from the gear  , as those who claim to perceive gear differences and claiming that one "taste" better by virtue of their "taste"; All those, most of them, never trained their listenings and hearings with acoustic...They then ignore that we cannot perceive some phenomena at the treshold limit of our OWN hearing without creating the conditions for the phenomena to be perceived and manifested first ... Is it illusion or placebo, sometimes yes, sometimes no...The main thing is experimenting by ourself...