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?
Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?
It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.
- ...
- 1423 posts total
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... |
@Mahgister "For example in dac... Dac is a mature technology, and we can now afford a very good one at relatively low price..." See, this is where the comment breaks down. You can get a very good measuring one, but it may not sound that good. However ASR minions will argue that all Dacs that measure the same sound the same. Rubbish! ESS based Dacs sound shrill in the mid range. Also what is this "mature technology"? Over the years technology tends to improve. Despite your name, (though the Latin is magister), you are not much of a teacher. If you want more, look at some of Amir’s headphone reviews and then read the following: Then you get people like Matt Hooper, who is actually one of the members of ASR who has less of an attack dog mentality, and who posts under the name "Prof" here, though heaven knows what sort of Prof he is, who post nonsense like "The thing is his critics will never cut him slack." Well "Prof" if you come to erroneous conclusions or use poor methodology why should you get cut slack? |
"See, this is where the comment breaks down. You can get a very good measuring one, but it may not sound that good. " There is a "break down" but not in the way you realize. None of you bother to eliminate sources of bias and errors in your listening tests before claiming you hear this and that. It is trivial to show that two identical audio products will get different subjective impressions even though the sound is identical between them. Until this lesson is learned, you will never know the audio truth and wind up chasing ghosts. Here is a video on that: I also cover the topic of listener training that was mentioned earlier. |
- 1423 posts total