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

Per usual you not pick the one thing I didn’t mean literally. I didn’t mean brick and mortar in the sense you sell speakers out of a store front I meant more it’s a physical service and product you sell. Still I’m dubious you’ve never made money off it. You did buy your own admission say that you sell speakers from traffic you get on your website.

There is no "per usual" here.  You are taking shots at my reputation with reckless abandon.  Reason is obvious: you are projecting. That if you were in my shoes you would put making money ahead of serving a community with high ethics.  Makes sense.  Many people are hungry for money that way and let that cloud their judgements. 

But I am the exception.  I have been fortunate enough to have had a successful career and the rewards I seek through this work are not monetary.  When walking around Pacific Audio Fest a week ago, I could believe the number of people who a) recognized me and b) said how helpful my work has been in the way it has opened their eye to truth in audio.  They have saved money and getting better performance to boot.

If I wanted to make money from my activities, I could flip a couple of switches and easily bring in $100K in revenue without even trying.  ASR forum has 2+ million visitors a month which is three times more than stereophile.com!  ASR youtube channel has 40K subscribers.  I am choosing to not go there to keep the type of accusations you are making at bay.  It doesn't work when someone has a different agenda though so here we are.

And no, I did not say "I sell speakers from traffic of ASR."  I said in a handful of occasions, people have come to us to buy some speakers.  The few dollars there are a drop in the bucket of what Madrona makes.  And frankly, it is business that my team rather not have.  The opportunity cost of handling sales of a speaker is quite high for us.  They do it because I ask them.

@amir_asr I’ve lost count at this point how many times you’ve avoided answering me. Last time I will ask. Why did you close down the thread for the top 5 if you don’t care about money? A thread you torpedoed. It was going fine until you said you “hate” clickbait titles which is a laughable label. 

I have answered you multiple times. The thread was open long past the time I said it was a clickbait.  As to it being laughable, all of a sudden you don't care about people making money from their videos.  As long as you think you can score a point in an argument, all is well now.  So think what you want.  I am not here to keep answering people who don't want to listen.

Amir you are completely lost...😊

Discussing with you enlightened me a lot ... I must thank you for that sincerely...

But you dont understand the relation between psycho-acoustic of human hearing and amplifier design nor the relation with music...If i can see that myself being in no way a specialist in this audio matter anybody reading a true scientist as Hans Van Maanen will see it in an hour.. I posts many articles and even an hour video of him...

If you dare to listen the video and read the papers of Hans Van Maanen , he will explain it better than me...

We dont listen sine wave function in real life...

Well, if you did, you think your system will refuse to play it? It doesn’t know the difference between that sine wave or music, right? So if it screws up sine wave, it reasons that it also screws up music.

The system will not react the same to sine wave or to a variable dynamic strong burst of music sorry...You forgot that you implicitly supposed that the tools you use with the Fourier method as background for hearing theory are truthful to human hearings but tthis is FALSE and they are not truthful to human hearings ... Hans Van Maanen dont design amplifier the way you measure them he explain way... Study it if you look for truth... But if you read it your ASR is dead as it was with the measurements you used as SCRIPTURES absolute truth... If i can understand it in one hour anybody can... Any ASR member reading Hans Van Maanen will be lost for you...

But the most important is that the tool you use to measure a design are not appropriate to the human hearings pasycho-acoustic basic science and not even appropriate to amplifier design...

You must listen and read Hans Van Maanen... He is not a clown if you read his bio and what he do....

his explanations are so clear anybody can read it , even you... You are lost in tour technology... This physicist will explain it to you or to anybody of ASR reading my post if he dare to read Van Maanen... I am no more surprized now about the reason why you did not comment about this extraordinary experiments by Oppenhein and Magnasco...

i learned a lot researching about your post and methods and why uour are completely wrong...

i will not repeat Hans Van Maanen... anybody reading him and what you claim will debunk you easily if he was well versed in audio.... I dont think you will read my "verbose" arguments,... You have a blind spot easy to identify:

Electronic audio components mus be designed for human EARS not for the measuring tools practice... WHY ? Because your tools and the way you use it put you the head down and the feet over for PRECISE PSYCHO_ACOUSTIC FACT you dont rexcognize, because recognizing them will destruct your ASR site...you act as a sellers not as a scientist... You did not responded to psycho-acoustics arguments and you cannot see the link with amplifier design and the FLAWS related to your fourier tools and linear time dependant measure in a domain , where non linearities and time dependant RULE....

Hans Van Maanen explain it, and i ask to anybody to read him...

He designed speakers and amplifiers and is a succesful physicist in field related to acoustic mathemahically... You cannot dismiss it as a clown sorry... I am not a scientist but i can read and undertand text...and i am not afraid of equations..

 

A distortion do not exist if we dont have a reference point to begin with , from which the distortion will be described as a negative pertrubation or as a positive addition, the DIFFERENCE will depend if you use a linear time independant tool as your first and last gesture OR the non linear time dependant ears/brain as your first and last gesture ... Alas! you live in a techno babble where psycho-acoustic facts about human hearings means LESS FOR YOU than the results of your measuring tools... They are these tools USELESS to determine what is GOOD SOUND...I am sure you are desinterested and not motivated by money thyough, but by your ideology...

Thanks to you i understand that better now...

@amir_asr 

"Ultimately we don't know how a recording is supposed to sound like."

Such an unprepossessing sentence and yet one that threatens to undermine the entire audiophile industry.

It is the reality unfortunately.  Take video production.  It has strict standard for luma and chroma (black and white and color information).  Content is created using that standard.  So as long as you calibrate your display to the same, you get the identical colors as was seen by people who reproduced the content. This has enabled displays to become incredibly accurate in the last few years.

In sharp contrast, no one knows the tonality of anything produced in creation of music.  That brightness in music may be part of it, your may bey our speaker.  You don't know.  Dr. Toole calls it circle of confusion. I call it "broken architecture."  Here is a survey Genelec did of their customers in high end production suites (for film sound):

See the incredible variations?  And this is with Genelec speakers where each unit is measured and fully calibrated to neutral when manufactured.  

There is some hope here.  As long as we all rally around neutral speakers, then we can reduce the level of confusion and lack of consistency.  This is slowly happening as even low cost speakers are striving for this now.  Sadly, many high-end speakers go their own way with at times abominable tonality.

@amir_asr Humor me and show me where you answered why you took down the thread? Simply because it’s a YouTube video and you don’t let creators benefit from ASR traffic?

Why is this one allowed then?

And this one

Annnnd this one

How are all of these allowed but that one is not? Just look at how many likes someone defending Erin got compared to yours. Even your own users don’t agree with you on this one. Your feelings got hurt and you took it out on the thread. How objective of you!

I couldn’t care less how much money you make, and I have no interest in running an audio website so no I think me projecting is way off base.

but the most important is that the tool you use to measure a design are not appropriate to the human hearings pasycho-acoustic basic science and not even appropriate to amplifier design...

That is not what we do with the tool.  The tool gives you data.  A human interprets it against psychoacoustics research which is based on listening.

And what is the alternative?  Not measuring?  Then how do you know your listening tests are accurate?  Just because you say so?  I can get 10 audiophiles and get 10 different answers as to the impressions of a speaker.  One guy likes Wilson and the other Magico.  How do you know who is right?  Answer is that you don't.  You are relying on ad-hoc evaluations devoid of the very science you mention. 

This is all demonstrated and fully documented in peer review research.  So nothing I am telling you is my opinion.