Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

Also just to add to my response

@amir-asr

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Sadly for them and you, it didn’t result in better sound:

Nordost Tyr2 Cable Listening Tests
I fed the output of the Topping D70s into Topping A90 Discrete. The latter then drove my Dan Clark Stealth headphone.

 

This is as transparent of a chain as you can get.

And you know this how? Let me guess…you measured transparency of these components? Or determined how transparent they are by the results of your measurements?

Also, you heard no difference between Nordost and generic cables. Well there are two possible reasons as to why…

1. The said Topping audio chain is not as transparent as you thought it was

2. Your ability to detect differences between components and cables is impaired by either your measurements results based bias or your ears just don’t work as well as convince yourself they do.

To my earlier point…. Your testing is flawed on many levels and like I said in one of my earlier posts, your listening tests are too far from a real life scenarios. No one in their right state of mind would be running Nordost Tyr 2 cables with Topping and that goes for the crowd on both sides of the fence.

@amir_asr As a former pro studio musician, I guess I do not fit the mold. LOL.

Nonetheless, as I stated before, if one has little experience with the sound of the ’real’ live instrument in an un-amplified setting, then I guess relying on someone else’s expectation of what the instrument sounds like, and therefore the measurements that are assigned to this sound, is the choice that is left. IMO, if something sounds good and measures poorly, then the measurement device is off, the same applies if something sounds bad to our ears and the measurements are great...then the measuring device is measuring the wrong thing.

Personally, I trust my ears above all else, regardless of what the measurements may or may not be showing me. Same goes for when i pick an instrument to play, my ears ( and well, my hands also) are the final decider, regardless of other ’expert’ opinions as to the instrument quality ( or lack thereof).YMMV.

1. The said Topping audio chain is not as transparent as you thought it was

2. Your ability to detect differences between components and cables is impaired by either your measurements results based bias or your ears just don’t work as well as convince yourself they do.

Ah...the old "the problem is your gear or your ears" refrain from the Golden Ears.

Really...it's the only response they have, which is why you see it over and over and over and over and.....

I can hear angels singing on the Kinda Blue record.  What, it's not measurable and you can't hear them?  Well, it couldn't be my imagination...so it must be your gear isn't resolving enough or your hearing isn't acute enough.

The cozy, unfalsifiable world of the audiophile...

When I play an acoustic instrument (guitar, for example), I hear it a certain way:  I am holding it, my ears are above and behind the soundboard, vibrations are being transferred to my body, etc.  I am not hearing it as the audience does.  I do have considerable control of what the audience hears, but it is inconvenient and disorienting trying to hear what I sound like through monitors while performing.  I am more relaxed and musically lucid if I don't obsess over what I must be sounding like and just play for my own sensory satisfaction, trusting that my presentation is set up competently.  I am seeking emotional connection, not audio perfection.

Perhaps this could help explain why musicians generally are not audiophiles.  As a musician, I have an adequate hifi.  I have heard more startling and revealing systems, but after the novelty wears off I end up allowing myself to be engaged in the program (lyrics, melody, harmonic content and rhythm).  If the hifi is too good, I find it harder to subject myself to the emotional content and end up just admiring the equipment.

The discussions on ASR are interesting, but the objective testing has little to do with how I select components or listen to music.  What I look for is a general level of excitement in a review, or a suggestion of possible synergy with equipment I already own.  That may provoke me to find out more about a component.  So, yes, ASR has been valuable to me – if not "changing" my mind certainly expanding my mind with new considerations and possibilities.

@prof measurements are important and that’s without a doubt. But alone, the measurements cant tell you how a component will sound or what sonic changes a cable can make.
Testing Nordost Tyr 2 on a Topping DAC driving a Topping amp using headphones won’t tell you much for few reasons - Topping components aren’t high end by any means and listening in headphones, no matter how good they are, can’t give you the full scope of a tested component and can’t reveal changes to imaging and soundstage simply because headphones don’t do soundstage like a pair of high end speakers can set up with right components in the properly treated room. It’s just not the same. And there’s no way around it.
Amir, having a very decent system from what I understand with mega-buck components and speakers, chose to test the cable in much less than ideal configuration. And this is not just with that cable. There are more instances of such listening tests conducted by Amir. If you tell me this isn’t a definition of flawed testing, I don’t know what is.