Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

@amir_asr 

"Do you ever seat down and just enjoy your music like a normal human being?"

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What? Of course I do. I am at desk testing gear for good number of hours every day. All of that is spent listening to music. This is good number of hours per day.

I recently came back from Pacific Audio Fest 2023 and not only did a bunch of listening there, I was the only reviewer posting what music was played there. See my trip reports:

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Okay, so I just completed reading all 14 pages of your show report on the ASR forum. Some nice Photos.  I was paying attention to lots of complaints about costs of equipment, or complaints about speaker positioning in the rooms.  A few nice compliments about exhibitors listing components, pricing sheets, and measurements. A few comments such as "sounds decent", or "bright" or "open".  Pretty vague, not descriptive, and no explanation beyond single words at most.  

Honestly - the report so far has no helpful descriptions or details about how things really sounded at the show, with a lack of descriptive detail.  Also noting very limited praise for many systems we are familiar with, particularly with high cost systems. High cost systems can sound good too, yet there is limited reporting.  

Other than some nice photos, reading the 14 pages posted so far was kind of a waste of time for me.  There seems to be a real gap in describing how things sound in a manner folks here on Audiogon can truly appreciate or understand. Perhaps we can ask the question in another way to learn more.  

ASK: 

With your expertise in measurements, can you also share something more about a system that you really like and enjoy?  Then describe how it sounds, and why it sounds great to you? In what ways?

Amir said...."I do too!  There is no question that is what he perceived.  It is just that we don't know if that depended on the actual output of said DACs or other extraneous factors.  Our brain is a wonderful thing when it comes to manufacturing facts.  To make sure that is not happening, we only trust listening tests where only the sound is involved, not the rest of your senses. "

I understand what you are saying but he said that he did not know brand or price and still found a difference, and that's good enough for me.  It seems like you doubted his conclusions due to it not being a perfect blind test.  People find that insulting.  Rightly so.  

I just think that we need to give more credit to the imperfect listening tests that we all do.   I have sat and A/B' d between sources like phono stages and DACs and knowing what they are had no influence on how they sounded.   I wasn't invested either way.  I truly wanted to know how they compared.  Sometimes even forgetting which I had on which input.  Sometimes I wanted the less expensive one to sound better for instance.  And it didn't.

I guess my point is that, yes, we are subject to subjectivity and measurements can keep us a little more sober about that, but generally speaking our ears do a pretty good job, how it sounds to us is all that matters and measurements will not tell us that.  All that can be heard cannot be measured. And what we hear is more important than any measurement.  

In fact measurements are just another way to be fooled.  One might argue that knowing a piece measures well causes more bias than if we knew nothing about the measurements.  So in fact the objectivists may be more subjective and biased and deluded than those that do not know a thing about the measurements.  They think, oh, well, that DAC measured great on ASR so it must sound good.  So it sounds good to them.  

"Honestly - the report so far has no helpful descriptions or details about how things really sounded at the show, with a lack of descriptive detail.  Also noting very limited praise for many systems we are familiar with, particularly with high cost systems. High cost systems can sound good too, yet there is limited reporting.  "

They can.  But I can only report what I heard based on music they played when I was there.  Many people enjoy seeing what was there, and what music was played there.  And a word or two about that experience.  That you find no value in that is fine.  Many of your fellow audiophiles disagree.

As I noted in those threads, at other shows manufacturers would pause and talk about the technology on display.  No company did that so I had nothing to share on that front.

Other than this, I am not a paid reporter as to sit there and take copious notes.  Many non-paid posters who cover every suite as I do just post pictures and nothing else. 

Also keep in mind that these show reports are meant to be timely.  Folks lose interest if you cover them weeks later.  To that end, I spent two entire day and night preparing and posting what you saw as the show was going on.  As it is, I was up until 2 or 3 am posting images, looking up songs, etc.

As to high end system, yes, they can be capable but if system is not optimized for the room -- and scant few were -- then the sound is not going to be that great.  Ditto if they play whatever they want instead of asking what the audience wants to hear.

All in all, a few rooms did stand out and one was Dutch and Dutch.  Stereophile reporter and local reporter Jason, agreed with the same and voted them as the best there was.  So turns out you don't need to spend that much money to get superb sound (although $15K is not cheap).

"I understand what you are saying but he said that he did not know brand or price and still found a difference, and that's good enough for me.  It seems like you doubted his conclusions due to it not being a perfect blind test.  People find that insulting.  Rightly so.  "

What do you mean "rightly so?"  If heaven forbid you get cancer and you go to your doctor and say you are taking megavitamins and it is curing your cancer, you think him telling you that is not evidence of it working, you consider than an insult?  I hope not.  He wants reliable data, not anecdotes.

You say the test was not a "perfect blind."  How do you know how blind it was?  Did he match levels?  Did he repeat it enough times to rule out chance?  A one-time AB test without level matching generates nothing useful.

And comments like this tells me the test was not blind at all: "I can tell you that the Topping I listened to sounded like crap with female voices. So do not tell me like some of your minions post, that all well measuring Dacs sound the same.""

His bias toward cheap/chinese products is showing from a mile away.  In addition to that, we know what he says is hugely improperable.  I have tested the Topping DAC and its distortion and noise is below threshold of hearing.  Against this landscape, he needs to provide far more than an anecdote. 

Again, he could be right but the only way to prove it against a mountain of evidence to the contrary is to at least make a half plan to do a blind test.  Don't do pretend blind tests.  They are of no value.  I cover all of this in a video I did after I got tired of industry people claiming that the tests they do are "blind:"

https://youtu.be/vRG8TaxGcbU

I used measurements today making cookies.