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. 

chayro

"@amir_asr still waiting to hear about this $100.00 BAC that smokes all other DACs in the $5K range. You are quite the shill. Or is it s schill? "

What the heck is a "BAC?"  If you mean DAC, easy to show.  First up is your expensive DAC: Review and Measurements of PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream DAC ($5999):

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-ps-audio-perfectwave-directstream-dac.9100/

Here is its noise+distortion:

As you see, it ranks way at the bottom in yellow color.

Here is its noise performance alone:

Can't even clear the noise floor of 16 bit CD 40 years after introduction of said format!!!  Multitone test shows heavy rise of distortion in low frequencies:

Reason for that?  Output transformer.  Designer admitted that they cut costs and picked a cheaper transformer resulting in this much increased distortion.  Yes, you pay $6000 for DAC and yet corners had to be cut.

Here are my listening test results (sighted):

"I started the testing with my audiophile, audio-show, test tracks. You know, the very well recorded track with lucious detail and "black backgrounds." I immediately noticed lack of detail in PerfectWave DS DAC. It was as if someone just put a barrier between you and the source. Mind you, it was subtle but it was there. I repeated this a few times and while it was not always there with all music, I could spot it on some tracks.

Next I played some of my bass heaving tracks i use for headphone testing. Here, it was easy to notice that bass impact was softented. But also, highs were exaggerated due to higher distortion. Despite loss of high frequency hearing, I found that accentuation unpleasant. WIth tracks that had lisping issues with female vocals for example, the DS DAC made that a lot worse."

For $100 DAC, I would do you one better with a $99 DAC from Schiit:

Schiit Modi 3+ Review (Stereo DAC)

Here is how it did in noise+distortion:

It nicely lands in the excellent category of blue.  For noise, it nicely clears 18 bits:

Does the same in multitone:

No spitting of distortion in low frequencies as the PS Audio DAC did.

See? Not hard at all.  Give me a bit more budget and I can get you balanced output, nice display, etc.  But if sound you want, the Schiit at $99 is much more performant than the $6000 PS Audio DAC.

There’s a large group of people that think measurements are king. I think Amir is milking that group for $$ , recognition and ego. Maybe he’s Julian Hersch reincarnated! Or he’s simply on the Fox News payroll lololol

WHY DONT YOU ANSWER ON THE MATTER ABOUT HEARING ?

 

I dont neeed gear measurements here... I never doubt that they are USEFUL to know...

What i dont accept is you pretense and claims to debunk hearing experience with these simplistic tools...

Ears brain work in non symmetrcal time domain in a non linear fashion and cannot be explain by Fourier Methods algorythms...

Then YOU CANNOT LAUGH AND PUT ALL AUDIOPHILES LISTENING IN THE SAME TRASH BIN...

do you understand?

You can give your gear measures information yes we  thank you for that ; but you cannot mock human hearing experience with your claims about gear and your tools to measure it...  REAL PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC SCIENCE debunk your claim here...

"ANSWER this physicist who design high end audio as a hobby without ad hominem attack this time..."

Did you not watch the video I provided where I go through every one of his tests and demonstrate why they are all completely wrong?  Here it is again:

Scientific Proof of Measurable Difference in Audio Cables? Paper Review

https://youtu.be/a0p3D_Gv6IY

I go on for 41 minutes breaking down every claim and test in his paper.  Please don't keep demanding that I answer you when I have already done so.

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