Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

People were rude in the other thread about AJs speakers which I think you let go on because you don’t like Soundfield or AJ. You never shut it down until it was too late and everyone was hostile. For the record I don’t have a dog in this fight, as I think that speaker search was suspect and I have a feeling was AJ trying to post his product on your website by some other member.

The first part is obvious, the latter is outright slander. I had no clue who MKR was until he contacted me after reading this https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/1762-the-best-of-florida-international-audio-expo-2023 , like anyone reading the internet could. Which was well into his months long speakers search. Actually I was overwhelmed with interest after that article, which had zero to do with any thread on ASR. I'm a small manufacturer always at maximum capacity, I can't handle more orders or interest like the type from ASR. That's a complete BS insinuation you made, essentially calling MKR a shill. He's a real person, like Duke Lejeune, who has known MKR (his real initials) for decades. I don't advertise and don't need to use shills. Unlike many like yourself, I don't hide behind an online pseudonym. I use my real name/initials/company and exhibit publicly all the time.

You claim I jump in there telling people better measurements = better sound after others say so.  You don't see me saying anything there. 

Exactly! There was a perfect opportunity to clearly state that most of your measurements fall well below audibility thresholds AND, even if they are perceptible, there is no clear evidence one is preferred over another. You do ZERO valid listening tests. Yet you not only "Rank', but routinely "Not recommend" products based solely on measurements with zero listening test correlation.

Of course your house of cards collapses if you preferred a "higher distortion" not recommended DAC over a top ranked SINAD champ one in an administered by someone else listening test. Or hear no difference at all.

You are the exact opposite of someone like Toole. Amusing when folks even in this thread, say they only buy stuff based on your Pied Piper recommendations ;-).

How about an Amir DAC blind test at PAF not run by Amir, with no view of real time analyzers?

Take a look here and listen what this physicist had to say about high end design he created himself...Compare it to the simplistic case of Amir dogma about the measures he use and the idea of what is human hearing impact in audio...And why we must ALL OF US renounce to our hearing history and obey his simplistic protocol of measures as hearing truth...

Measures dont convey all there is to say about an audio system in real acoustic conditions...

There is plenty of articles and videos here...This guy, Dr. Hans R.E. van Maanen, is a real scientist not a cult leader deciding what people will hear and must hear in audio...

There is what he say in an interview about listening tests :

«Many designers look at the figures, based on measurement signals. They do not
use music ?
“Correct, they don’t have ears on their head. No problem but let people who do have ears listen to your product. Hire people with a background in music. Don’t drive me mad with those so-called ‘scientific’ listening tests. Very tiring and very unreliable. I listen to music I know very well and during extensive periods of time. Then you discover things. You won’t find those with short-time AB comparisons. Also, human memory has its limitations.”»

https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/en/reviews

Hans van Maanen design high end audio, amplifiers and speakers...

Read his bio and decide if this scientist is an ignorant as Amir toss it away in no time...

His bio resume :

It seems measuring amplifiers in real dynamic musical input conditions is necessary:

Tone burst response of amplifiers to determine some properties of their
dynamic behaviour

Author: Dr. Hans R.E. van Maanen (Temporal Coherence)
Date of issue: 14 February 2018
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A major issue with amplifiers is their difference in perceived quality, which often does not  relate to the specifications. The question is why? One major aspect, in our view, is the dynamic response of an amplifier. When measurements are made to obtain thespecifications, it is common to use signals with a constant amplitude (e.g. to measure the
frequency response or the distortion figures) or with a gradual change of the amplitude (e.g. to determine the distortion as a function of the output power). However, music is highly dynamic, meaning that the signal strength can vary rapidly. How an amplifier reacts to such rapid changes is hardly, if ever, subject of analysis, but it could be of prime importance for the perceived quality. Note that there is no generally accepted specification for this aspect, even though it is trivial that the behaviour under dynamic conditions is of crucial importance
for the perceived sound, and thus the quality, of the amplifier.
The above mentioned neglect is probably caused by the common misunderstanding that the response of an amplifier is fully determined by its frequency response and its distortion figure. This, however, is incorrect, as has been shown in ref. 1. This would only be the case when the amplifier is a linear and time-independent system. It is neither. So it is necessary to study the behaviour of amplifiers under more realistic conditions. An option for this is to use tone-burst signals as these include a rapid change at the beginning and at the end of the
tone-burst. Although it is, of course, still quite far from the complexity of music, it can reveal undesirable properties of amplifiers.

The rest of the article is there :

https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/images/docs/DynamicResponseAmplifiers.pdf

In a word: human hearing is neither linear nor time-invariant...

Measures based on Fourier linear and time invariant tools cannot be qualified as describing real human hearing impressions nor to predict them...( They are not even enough to capture all amplifiers design essential specs for the human hearings as described by Dr. Hans Van Maanen in an article on fourier conditions on his site )

Then Amir verifying gear specs of brand named and falsifying them "may be" useful, yes or pehaps...

But his attacks on experimented trained listeners impressions as non valid goes too far...

It is one thing to measure and another thing to claim that this set of linear and time invariant measures will predict audio qualitative impression...

I summon 4 physicists to express that on different perspective... Papers are there to be read...

No one can accuse me to insult him doing so...

But i am able to read... And my conclusion is Amir goes to great lenght to disqualify any trained listeners because of his linear and time invariant set of measures which can in no way predict qualitative hearing impressions...

Measures dont convey all there is to say about the qualitative perceptive impressions of an audio system in real acoustic conditions, especially linear and time invariant set of measures because human hearing power is non linear and time dependant...

By the way disqualifying listeners with blind test protocols is preposterous, because the qualitative impressions must be verified by long term listening of trained listeners as musicians, acousticians or experiment audiophiles... Short term memory testing on subtle on selected acoustic factors are not enough at all... Blind tests is almost useless to test components because long term memory and long term listenings are necessary... I conclude that Amir use these blind test protocols to deconsider any serious listenings tests...Then only his set of linear and time dependant measures can be valid and any "subjective" expert listenings contradicting them is eliminated at the start...

But Audio is not based on gear measures or gear impressions, it is based on psycho-acoustic real life long term memory trained listenings experiments and on a set of measures able to capture all aspects of the non linear and time dependant human hearings impressions.. ... As any acoustician knows already or any good amplifier designer ...

By the way in audio as in philosophy, ad hominem attack disqualify anyone from the debate...

Period...